I here and there o’erheard a Coxcomb cry, [Looking about. Ah, Rot it--’tis a Woman’s Comedy, One, who because she lately chanc’d to please us, With her damn’d Stuff, will never cease to teeze us. What has poor Woman done, that she must be Debar’d from Sense, and sacred Poetry? Why in this Age has Heaven allow’d you more, And Women less of Wit than heretofore? We once were fam’d in story, and could write Equal to Men; cou’d govern, nay, cou’d fight. We still have passive Valour, and can show, } Wou’d Custom give us leave, the active too, } Since we no Provocations want from you. } For who but we cou’d your dull Fopperies bear, Your saucy Love, and your brisk Nonsense hear; Indure your worse than womanish Affectation, Which renders you the Nusance of the Nation; Scorn’d even by all the Misses of the Town, A Jest to Vizard Mask, the _Pit-Buffoon_; A Glass by which the admiring Country Fool May learn to dress himself _en Ridicule:_ Both striving who shall most ingenious grow In Leudness, Foppery, Nonsense, Noise and Show. And yet to these fine things we must submit Our Reason, Arms, our Laurels, and our Wit. Because we do not laugh at you, when leud, And scorn and cudgel ye when you are rude. That we have nobler Souls than you, we prove, By how much more we’re sensible of Love; Quickest in finding all the subtlest ways To make your Joys, why not to make you Plays? We best can find your Foibles, know our own, } And Jilts and Cuckolds now best please the Town; } Your way of Writing’s out of fashion grown. } Method, and Rule--you only understand; Pursue that way of Fooling, and be damn’d. Your learned Cant of Action, Time and Place, Must all give way to the unlabour’d Farce. To all the Men of Wit we will subscribe: But for your half Wits, you unthinking Tribe, We’ll let you see, whate’er besides we do, How artfully we copy some of you: And if you’re drawn to th’ Life, pray tell me then, Why Women should not write as well as Men. * * * * * * * * * NOTES: Sir Patient Fancy NOTES ON THE TEXT. +To the Reader+ p. 7, l. 1 _To the Reader._ Only in 4to 1678. +Dramatis Personæ+ p. 10 _Dramatis Personæ._ I have added ‘_Abel_ (_Bartholmew_), Clerk to _Sir Patient Fancy_; _Brunswick_, a friend to _Lodwick Knowell_; _Antic_, Waiting-woman to _Lucretia_; Nurse; Guests.’ In former editions the physicians are grouped together as ‘Five Doctors’, and The Lady _Knowell_ is mistakenly termed ‘Mother to _Lodwick_ and _Isabella_’, which I have corrected to ‘and _Lucretia_’. I have noted the confusion of ‘Abel’ and ‘Bartholmew’ in the introduction, pp. 5-6. +ACT I: Scene i+ p. 11, l. 2 I have added ‘in Lady Knowell’s House.’ p. 13, l. 14 _Foibles._ 4to 1678 ‘feables’. p. 14, l. 17 _apamibominous ... podas._ 4to 1678 ‘apamibominus ... Podis’.