Poets, like cudgelled bullies, never do At first or second blow submit to you; But will provoke you still, and ne'er have done, Till you are weary first with laying on. The late so baffled scribbler of this day, Though he stands trembling, bids me boldly say, What we before most plays are used to do, For poets out of fear first draw on you; In a fierce prologue the still pit defy, And, ere you speak, like Castril[71] give the lie. But though our Bayes's battles oft I've fought, And with bruised knuckles their dear conquests bought; Nay, never yet feared odds upon the stage, In prologue dare not hector with the age; But would take quarter from your saving hands, Though Bayes within all yielding countermands, Says, you confederate wits no quarter give, Therefore his play shan't ask your leave to live. Well, let the vain rash fop, by huffing so, Think to obtain the better terms of you; But we, the actors, humbly will submit, Now, and at any time, to a full pit; Nay, often we anticipate your rage, And murder poets for you on our stage: We set no guards upon our tiring-room, But when with dying colours there you come, We patiently, you see, give up to you Our poets, virgins, nay, our matrons too. _DRAMATIS PERSONÆ._ Mr. HORNER. Mr. HARCOURT. Mr. DORILANT. Mr. PINCHWIFE. Mr. SPARKISH. Sir JASPER FIDGET. A Boy. A Quack. Waiters, Servants, and Attendants. Mrs. MARGERY PINCHWIFE. ALITHEA, Sister of PINCHWIFE. Lady FIDGET. Mrs. DAINTY FIDGET, Sister of Sir JASPER. Mrs. SQUEAMISH. Old Lady SQUEAMISH. LUCY, ALITHEA'S Maid. SCENE--LONDON. _THE COUNTRY WIFE._ ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I.--HORNER'S _Lodging._ _Enter_ HORNER, _and_ Quack _following him at a distance._ _Horn._ [_Aside._] A quack is as fit for a pimp, as a midwife for a bawd; they are still but in their way, both helpers of nature.--[_Aloud._] Well, my dear doctor, hast thou done what I desired? _Quack._ I have undone you for ever with the women, and reported you throughout the whole town as bad as an eunuch, with as much trouble as if I had made you one in earnest. _Horn._ But have you told all the midwives you know, the orange wenches at the playhouses, the city husbands, and old fumbling keepers of this end of the town? for they'll be the readiest to report it. _Quack._ I have told all the chambermaids, waiting-women, tire-women, and old women of my acquaintance; nay, and whispered it as a secret to 'em, and to the whisperers of Whitehall; so that you need not doubt 'twill spread, and you will be as odious to the handsome young women, as-- _Horn._ As the small-pox. Well-- _Quack._ And to the married women of this end of the town, as-- _Horn._ As the great one; nay, as their own husbands. _Quack._ And to the city dames, as aniseed Robin, of filthy and contemptible memory; and they will frighten their children with your name, especially their females.