'I spied a wrinkled hag, with age grown double, Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself; Her eyes with scalding rheum were galled and red; Cold palsy shook her head, her hands seemed withered, And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapt The tattered remnant of an old striped hanging, Which served to keep her carcase from the cold; So there was nothing of a piece about her; Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patched With different coloured rags, black, red, white, yellow, And seemed to speak variety of wretchedness.' There are also delightful touches of poetry: 'Oh, thou art tender all: Gentle and kind as sympathizing nature! When a sad story has been told, I've seen Thy little breasts, with soft compassion swelled, Shove up and down and heave like dying birds.' The opening speech of act iv., sc. 2, also reveals a feeling for nature unusual in Restoration poetry, and may be taken to symbolize Otway's regrets for the country. The items of the description are in no way conventional, and would not have occurred to one without experience of rural life: 'Wished morning's come! And now upon the plains And distant mountains, where they feed their flocks, The happy shepherds leave their homely huts, And with their pipes proclaim the new-born day. The lusty swain comes with his well-filled scrip Of healthful viands, which, when hunger calls, With much content and appetite he eats, To follow in the fields his daily toil, And dress the grateful glebe that yields him fruits. The beasts that under the warm hedges slept, And weathered out the cold bleak night, are up, And looking towards the neighbouring pastures, raise Their voice, and bid their fellow-brutes good-morrow. The cheerful birds, too, on the tops of trees Assemble all in quires, and with their notes Salute and welcome up the rising sun. There's no condition here so cursed as mine.'