Comedy plays; English drama -- 18th century; London (England) -- Drama; Man-woman relationships -- Drama; Married people -- Drama
_Court._ I was informed a few days since, that my cousins Fallow were
come to town, and desired earnestly to see me at their lodgings in
Warwick-Court, Holborn. Away drove I, painting them all the way as so
many Hebes. They came from the farthest part of Northumberland, had
never been in town, and in course were made up of rusticity, innocence,
and beauty.
_Sav._ Well!
_Court._ After waiting thirty minutes, during which there was a violent
bustle, in bounced five fallow damsels, four of them maypoles;--the
fifth, Nature, by way of variety, had bent in the Æsop style.--But
they all opened at once, like hounds on a fresh scent:--"Oh, cousin
Courtall!--How do you do, cousin Courtall! Lord, cousin, I am glad you
are come! We want you to go with us to the Park, and the Plays, and the
Opera, and Almack's, and all the fine places!"----The devil, thought I,
my dears, may attend you, for I am sure I won't.--However, I heroically
stayed an hour with them, and discovered, the virgins were all come to
town with the hopes of leaving it--Wives:--their heads full of
Knight-Baronights, Fops, and adventures.
_Sav._ Well, how did you get off?
_Court._ Oh, pleaded a million engagements.----However, conscience
twitched me; so I breakfasted with them this morning, and afterwards
'squired them to the gardens here, as the most private place in town;
and then took a sorrowful leave, complaining of my hard, hard fortune,
that obliged me to set off immediately for Dorsetshire, ha! ha! ha!
_Sav._ I congratulate your escape!--Courtall at Almack's, with five
aukward country cousins! ha! ha! ha!--Why, your existence, as a Man of
Gallantry, could never have survived it.
_Court._ Death, and fire! had they come to town, like the rustics of
the last age, to see Paul's, the Lions, and the Wax-work--at their
service;--but the cousins of our days come up Ladies--and, with the
knowledge they glean from magazines and pocket-books, Fine Ladies;
laugh at the bashfulness of their grandmothers, and boldly demand their
_entrées_ in the first circles.
_Sav._ Where can this fellow be!--Come, give me some news--I have been
at war with woodcocks and partridges these two months, and am a stranger
to all that has passed out of their region.
_Court._ Oh! enough for three Gazettes. The Ladies are going to petition
for a bill, that, during the war, every man may be allowed Two Wives.
_Sav._ 'Tis impossible they should succeed, for the majority of both
Houses know what it is to have one.
_Court._ Gallantry was black-ball'd at the _Coterie_ last Thursday, and
Prudence and Chastity voted in.
_Sav._ Ay, that may hold 'till the Camps break up.--But have ye no
elopements? no divorces?
_Court._ Divorces are absolutely out, and the Commons-Doctors starving;
so they are publishing trials of _Crim. Con._ with all the separate
evidences at large; which they find has always a wonderful effect on
their trade, actions tumbling in upon them afterwards, like mackarel at
Gravesend.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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