_Free._ I must confess I should; for I think most of our quarrels to the world are just such as we have to a handsome woman; only because we cannot enjoy her as we would do. _Man._ Nay, if thou art a plain dealer too, give me thy hand; for now I'll say, I am thy friend indeed; and for your two sakes, though I have been so lately deceived in friends of both sexes,-- I will believe there are now in the world Good-natured friends, who are not prostitutes, And handsome women worthy to be friends; Yet, for my sake, let no one e'er confide In tears, or oaths, in love, or friend untried. [_Exeunt._ EPILOGUE. SPOKEN BY THE WIDOW BLACKACRE. To you the judges learned in stage-laws, Our poet now, by me, submits his cause; For with young judges, such as most of you, The men by women best their business do: And, truth on't is, if you did not sit here, To keep for us a term throughout the year, We could not live by'r tongues; nay, but for you, Our chamber-practice would be little too. And 'tis not only the stage-practiser Who by your meeting gets her living here: For as in Hall of Westminster Sleek sempstress vents amidst the courts her ware; So, while we bawl, and you in judgment sit, The visor-mask sells linen too i' th' pit O, many of your friends, besides us here, Do live by putting off their several ware. Here's daily done the great affairs o' th' nation Let love and us then ne'er have long-vacation. But hold; like other pleaders I have done Not my poor client's business, but my own. Spare me a word then now for him. First know, Squires of the long robe, he does humbly show, He has a just right in abusing you, Because he is a Brother-Templar too: For at the bar you rally one another; Nay, fool and knave, is swallowed from a brother: If not the poet here, the Templar spare, And maul him when you catch him at the bar. From you, our common modish censurers, Your favour, not your judgment, 'tis he fears: Of all love begs you then to rail, find fault; For plays, like women, by the world are thought, When you speak kindly of 'em, very naught. NOTES. [1] _Correspondence between Pope and Wycherley_: Letter 26. See also Letter 15. [2] I ought to have remembered that this maxim is Rochefoucauld's. It may stand, however, as an instance of the untrustworthiness of Wycherley's memory. See p. xxxvi. [3] _Letters on several Occasions_; published by John Dennis: London, 1696. [4] _Letters on several Occasions_: p. 57. [5] _An Essay against Pride and Ambition_, in the Posthumous Works. [6] Spence's _Anecdotes_. [7] From Macaulay's Essay on _The Comic Dramatists of the Restoration._ [8] Daniel Wycherley, Esq., of Clive or Cleve, in Shropshire, about seven miles north of Shrewsbury.--ED. [9] The dates assigned by Macaulay to the first representations of Wycherley's plays are in every case incorrect. See the Introduction to each play.--ED.