_Flip._ 'Tis splenetick indeed. But when once you open your basset table, I hope that will put him out of your head. _Clar._ Alas, _Flippanta_, I begin to grow weary even of the thoughts of that too. _Flip._ How so? _Clar._ Why, I have thought on't a day and a night already, and four and twenty hours, thou know'st, is enough to make one weary of any thing. _Flip._ Now by my conscience, you have more woman in you than all your sex together: you never know what you would have. _Clar._ Thou mistakest the thing quite. I always know what I lack, but I am never pleas'd with what I have. The want of a thing is perplexing enough, but the possession of it is intolerable. _Flip._ Well, I don't know what you are made of, but other women would think themselves blest in your case; handsome, witty, lov'd by every body, and of so happy a composure, to care a fig for nobody. You have no one passion, but that of your pleasures, and you have in me a servant devoted to all your desires, let them be as extravagant as they will: yet all this is nothing; you can still be out of humour. _Clar._ Alas, I have but too much cause. _Flip._ Why, what have you to complain of? _Clar._ Alas, I have more subjects for spleen than one: is it not a most horrible thing that I should be but a scrivener's wife?--Come,----don't flatter me, don't you think nature design'd me for something _plus elevé_? _Flip._ Nay, that's certain; but on the other side, methinks, you ought to be in some measure content, since you live like a woman of quality, tho' you are none. _Clar._ O fy! the very quintessence of it is wanting. _Flip._ What's that? _Clar._ Why, I dare abuse nobody: I'm afraid to affront people, tho' I don't like their faces; or to ruin their reputations, tho' they pique me to it, by taking ever so much pains to preserve 'em: I dare not raise a lye of a man, tho' he neglects to make love to me; nor report a woman to be a fool, tho' she's handsomer than I am. In short, I dare not so much as bid my footman kick the people out of doors, tho' they come to ask me for what I owe them. _Flip._ All this is very hard indeed. _Clar._ Ah, _Flippanta_, the perquisites of quality are of an unspeakable value. _Flip._ They are of some use, I must confess; but we must not expect to have every thing. You have wit and beauty, and a fool to your husband: come come, madam, that's a good portion for one. _Clar._ Alas, what signifies beauty and wit, when one dares neither jilt the men nor abuse the women? 'Tis a sad thing, _Flippanta_, when wit's confin'd, 'tis worse than the rising of the lights; I have been sometimes almost choak'd with scandal, and durst not cough it up for want of being a countess. _Flip._ Poor lady!