I give it up—morals won't do for me; To make you laugh I must play tragedy. One hope remains: hearing the maid was ill, A _doctor_ comes this night to show his skill. To cheer her heart, and give your muscles motion, He in _five draughts_ prepared, presents a potion: A kind of magic charm—for be assured, If you will _swallow it_, the maid is cured: But desperate the doctor, and her case is, If you reject the dose, and make wry faces! This truth he boasts, will boast it while he lives, No _poisonous drugs_ are mixed with what he gives; Should he succeed, you'll give him his degree; If not, within he will receive no fee! The college _you_, must his pretensions back, Pronounce him _regular_, or dub him _quack_. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. MEN. SIR CHARLES MARLOW. YOUNG MARLOW (HIS SON). HARDCASTLE. HASTINGS. TONY LUMPKIN. DIGGORY. WOMEN. MRS. HARDCASTLE. MISS HARDCASTLE. MISS NEVILLE. MAID. LANDLORD, SERVANTS, &c. &c. [Illustration: MRS. HARDCASTLE.—_"You shan't go."—p. 326_. ] ACT I. SCENE.—_A scene in an old-fashioned house._ _Enter_ MRS. HARDCASTLE _and_ MR. HARDCASTLE. MRS. HARD. I vow, Mr. Hardcastle, you're very particular. Is there a creature in the whole country, but ourselves, that does not take a trip to town now and then to rub off the rust a little? There's the two Miss Hoggs, and our neighbour Mrs. Grisby, go to take a month's polishing every winter. HARD. Ay, and bring back vanity and affectation to last them the whole year. I wonder why London cannot keep its own fools at home. In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stage-coach. Its fopperies come down, not only as inside passengers, but in the very basket. MRS. HARD. Ay, _your_ times were fine times, indeed; you have been telling us of _them_ for many a long year. Here we live in an old rambling mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn, but that we never see company. Our best visitors are old Mrs. Oddfish, the curate's wife, and little Cripplegate, the lame dancing-master; and all our entertainment, your old stories of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough. I hate such old-fashioned trumpery. HARD. And I love it. I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; and, I believe, Dorothy (_taking her hand_), you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife. MRS. HARD. Lord, Mr. Hardcastle, you're for ever at your Dorothys, and your old wives. You may be a Darby, but I'll be no Joan, I promise you. I'm not so old as you'd make me, by more than one good year. Add twenty to twenty, and make money of that. HARD. Let me see; twenty added to twenty, makes just fifty and seven. MRS. HARD. It's false, Mr. Hardcastle: I was but twenty when I was brought to bed of Tony, that I had by Mr. Lumpkin, my first husband; and he's not come to years of discretion yet.