_Sir Chas._ Are your expectations answered? _Mrs. Sul._ No. _Count Bel._ A clear case! a clear case! _Sir Chas._ What are the bars to your mutual contentment? _Mrs. Sul._ In the first place, I can't drink ale with him. _Squire Sul._ Nor can I drink tea with her. _Mrs. Sul._ I can't hunt with you. _Squire Sul._ Nor can I dance with you. _Mrs. Sul._ I hate cocking and racing. _Squire Sul._ And I abhor ombre and piquet. _Mrs. Sul._ Your silence is intolerable. _Squire Sul._ Your prating is worse. _Mrs. Sul._ Have we not been a perpetual offence to each other? a gnawing vulture at the heart? _Squire Sul._ A frightful goblin to the sight? _Mrs. Sul._ A porcupine to the feeling? _Squire Sul._ Perpetual wormwood to the taste? _Mrs. Sul._ Is there on earth a thing we could agree in? _Squire Sul._ Yes--to part. _Mrs. Sul._ With all my heart. _Squire Sul._ Your hand. _Mrs. Sul._ Here. _Squire Sul._ These hands joined us, these shall part us.--Away! _Mrs. Sul._ North. _Squire Sul._ South. _Mrs. Sul._ East. _Squire Sul._ West--far as the poles asunder. _Count Bel._ Begar, the ceremony be vera pretty!' Farquhar is fuller of allusions to contemporary events and humours than any of the other dramatists, and these are sometimes very happy; as when a promising scheme is said to be in danger of 'going souse into the water, like the Eddystone lighthouse,' or when an alarm is given by shouting, 'Thieves! thieves! murder! _popery!_' Another peculiarity of all these dramatists, but especially Farquhar, is the constant use in serious passages of a broken blank verse, which continually seems upon the point of becoming regular ten-syllabled iambic, but never maintains this elevation for any considerable space. The extremely powerful scene between the two Fainalls, in Congreve's _Love for Love_, for example, which borders closely upon tragedy, is all but regular blank verse, which, if perfectly finished, would be much better than the verse of _The Mourning Bride_. It is difficult to determine whether this was intentional or accidental. Possibly the exigencies of the performers had something to do with it. It is by no means unlikely that prose, as well as verse, was then declaimed with more attention to rhythm than is now the custom. In estimating the merits of these dramas it must never be forgotten, as a point in their favour, that they were written for the stage, and that success in the closet was quite a secondary consideration with the authors; on the other hand, that they had the advantage of being produced when the histrionic art of England was probably at its zenith.