It shews, in the highest degree, the power of circumstances and example to pervert the understanding, the imagination, and even the senses. The manner in which the character of the gay, wild, free-hearted, but not altogether profligate or unfeeling Sir Harry Wildair is played off against the designing, vindictive, imperious, uncontroulable, and unreasonable humours of Lurewell, in the scene where she tries to convince him of his wife’s infidelity, while he stops his ears to her pretended proofs, is not surpassed in modern comedy. I shall give it here:— ‘_Wildair._ Now, dear madam, I have secur’d my brother, you have dispos’d of the colonel, and we’ll rail at love till we ha’n’t a word more to say. _Lurewell._ Ay, Sir Harry. Please to sit a little, Sir. You must know I’m in a strange humour of asking you some questions. How did you like your lady, pray, Sir? _Wild._ Like her! Ha, ha, ha. So very well, faith, that for her very sake I’m in love with every woman I meet. _Lure._ And did matrimony please you extremely? _Wild._ So very much, that if polygamy were allow’d, I would have a new wife every day. _Lure._ Oh, Sir Harry! this is raillery. But your serious thoughts upon the matter, pray. _Wild._ Why, then, Madam, to give you my true sentiments of wedlock: I had a lady that I married by chance, she was virtuous by chance, and I lov’d her by great chance. Nature gave her beauty, education an air; and fortune threw a young fellow of five-and-twenty in her lap. I courted her all day, lov’d her all night; she was my mistress one day, and my wife another: I found in one the variety of a thousand, and the very confinement of marriage gave me the pleasure of change. _Lure._ And she was very virtuous. _Wild._ Look ye, Madam, you know she was beautiful. She had good nature about her mouth, the smile of beauty in her cheeks, sparkling wit in her forehead, and sprightly love in her eyes. _Lure._ Pshaw! I knew her very well; the woman was well enough. But you don’t answer my question, Sir. _Wild._ So, Madam, as I told you before, she was young and beautiful, I was rich and vigorous; my estate gave a lustre to my love, and a swing to our enjoyment; round, like the ring that made us one, our golden pleasures circled without end. _Lure._ Golden pleasures! Golden fiddlesticks. What d’ye tell me of your canting stuff? Was she virtuous, I say? _Wild._ Ready to burst with envy; but I will torment thee a little. [_Aside._] So, Madam, I powder’d to please her, she dress’d to engage me; we toy’d away the morning in amorous nonsense, loll’d away the evening in the Park or the playhouse, and all the night—hem! _Lure._ Look ye, Sir, answer my question, or I shall take it ill.