Now we have open'd our lock, and set to view all our men display'd in our three hours after marriage, I shall proceed to the women, which are but two pointed at in the drama, whatever may occur in the body of the play, which I shall refer to the last article of my discourse. (_do not I my friend talk like your chaplain in the country! on the day between saturday and monday_)? Mrs. Townley, the heroine of our play, I am inform'd, does not suit the character of Fossile's real wife in the least; for tis said they cannot slander that poor woman with any other failing, than that thing so much out of fashion call'd virtue; which seems as ridiculous as if a woman of quality should come to court to a ball on a birth day, with a black-bever high-crown-hat on: But they say another eminent physician's wife sat for that picture; and the painters have done her justice in all but the catastrophe; for the poor man has her still, nor feels he yet any pain in the forehead; therefore shall be nameless, for I think it hard, a man's head should be laden, for the lightness of his wife's heels. Phoebe Clinket; I am a little griev'd to say, reflects a little on a lady of your acquaintance, the Countess of W----sea, who is so much affected with that itch of versifying, that she has implements for writing, in every room in her house that she frequents. You and I know, Gay has many obligations to that lady, therefore, out of justice and good manners ought to have spar'd her. But poets provok'd, are as bad as hornets; they care not who they sting! and I think the motto to the thistle, (the arms of North-Britain) _Nemo me impune lacessit_, given by James V. of Scotland, is not an improper one for a poet--That unlucky lady was heard to say,--_Gays trivia show'd he was more proper to walk before a chair, than to ride in one_. This sarcasm was the cause, why the poor Countess is thrust among such a pack of motley figures on the stage. As Hamlet says by the players; "You had better have a poets good word, than a bad epitaph after your death." I must confess a poor revenge upon a woman; and a revenge of this kind on any of the soft sex, is below the dignity of man. I am of the poets opinion, who says-- "Too noble for revenge! which still we find The weakest frailty of a feeble mind; Ungenerous passion! and for man too base-- Thus my friend have I finish'd my 2d article, and proceed to the THIRD and last, which shall be to consider the play, and remark every passage that borders on any other in the dramatic way, but not with the ill-natur'd design of a critick. The very first scene of the play, puts me in mind of the first entrance of Morose, with his epicæne in Ben Johnson's silent woman; and several other scenes in this _Three Hours after Marriage_, convinces me the authors had that celebrated comedy often in view. But Fossile in his first speech where he says--