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 prepar’d, presents a potion: A kind of magic charm--for be assur’d, If you will swallow it, the maid is cur’d: 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 in 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 PERSONAE. MEN. SIR CHARLES MARLOW Mr. Gardner. YOUNG MARLOW (His Son) Mr. Lee Lewes. HARDCASTLE Mr. Shuter. HASTINGS Mr. Dubellamy. TONY LUMPKIN Mr. Quick. DIGGORY Mr. Saunders. WOMEN. MRS. HARDCASTLE Mrs. Green. MISS HARDCASTLE Mrs. Bulkley. MISS NEVILLE Mrs. Kniveton. MAID Miss Williams. LANDLORD, SERVANTS, Etc. Etc. ACT THE FIRST. SCENE--A Chamber in an old-fashioned House. Enter MRS. HARDCASTLE and MR. HARDCASTLE. MRS. HARDCASTLE. 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. Grigsby, go to take a month’s polishing every winter. HARDCASTLE. 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. HARDCASTLE. 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 rumbling 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. HARDCASTLE. 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.