_A Gallery in Lady Bountifuls House_.
_Enter Mrs. Sullen and Dorinda, meeting_.
_Dor_. Morrow, my dear sister; are you for church this
morning?
_Mrs. Sul_. Anywhere to pray; for Heaven alone can
help me. But I think, Dorinda, there's no form of
prayer in the liturgy against bad husbands:
_Dor_. But there's a form of law in Doctors-Common
and I swear, sister Sullen, rather than see you this
continually discontented, I would advise you
apply to that: for besides the part that I bear
your vexatious broils, as being sister to the husband
and friend to the wife, your example gives me such
an impression of matrimony, that I shall be apt
condemn my person to a long vacation all its life
But supposing, madam, that you brought it to
case of separation, what can you urge against your
husband? My brother is, first, the most constant
man alive.
_Mrs. Sul_. The most constant husband, I grant ye.
_Dor_. He never sleeps from you.
_Mrs. Sul_. No, he always sleeps with me. {20}
_Dor_. He allows you a maintenance suitable to your
quality.
_Mrs. Sul_. A maintenance! do you take me, madam, for
an hospital child, that I must sit down, and bless
my benefactors for meat, drink, and clothes? As
I take it, madam, I brought your brother ten
thousand pounds, out of which I might expect some
pretty things, called pleasures.
_Dor_. You share in all the pleasures that the country
affords. {30}
_Mrs. Sul_. Country pleasures! racks and torments!
Dost think, child, that my limbs were made for
leaping of ditches, and clambering over stiles? or
that my parents, wisely foreseeing my future
happiness in country pleasures, had early instructed
me in rural accomplishments of drinking fat ale,
playing at whisk, and smoking tobacco with my
husband? or of spreading of plasters, brewing of
diet-drinks, and stilling rosemary-water, with the
good old gentlewoman my mother-in-law? {40}
_Dor_. I'm sorry, madam, that it is not more in our
power to divert you; I could wish, indeed, that our
entertainments were a little more polite, or your
taste a little less refined. But, pray, madam, how
came the poets and philosophers, that laboured so
much in hunting after pleasure, to place it at last in
a country life? {47}
_Mrs. Sul_. Because they wanted money, child, to find
out the pleasures of the town. Did you ever see a
poet or philosopher worth ten thousand pounds?
if you can show me such a man, I 'll lay you fifty
pounds you'll find him somewhere within the
weekly bills. Not that I disapprove rural pleasures,
as the poets have painted them; in their landscape,
every Phillis has her Corydon, every murmuring
stream, and every flowery mead, gives fresh alarms
to love. Besides, you'll find, that their couples
were never married:--but yonder I see my Corydon,
and a sweet swain it is, Heaven knows!
Come, Dorinda, don't be angry, he's my husband,
and your brother; and, between both, is he not a
sad brute? {62}
_Dor_. I have nothing to say to your part of him, you 're
the best judge.
_Mrs. Sul_. O sister, sister! if ever you marry, beware of
a sullen, silent sot, one that's always musing, but
never thinks. There's some diversion in a talking
blockhead; and since a woman must wear chains,
I would have the pleasure of hearing 'em rattle a
little. Now you shall see, but take this by the way.
He came home this morning at his usual hour of
four, wakened me out of a sweet dream of something
else, by tumbling over the tea-table, which he
broke all to pieces; after his man and he had
rolled about the room, like sick passengers in a
storm, he comes flounce into bed, dead as a salmon
into a fishmonger's basket; his feet cold as ice, his
breath hot as a furnace, and his hands and his face
as greasy as his flannel night-cap. O matrimony!
He tosses up the clothes with a barbarous swing
over his shoulders, disorders the whole economy of
my bed, leaves me half naked, and my whole night's
comfort is the tuneable serenade of that wakeful
nightingale, his nose! Oh, the pleasure of counting
the melancholy clock by a snoring husband! But
now, sister, you shall see how handsomely, being a
well-bred man, he will beg my pardon. {87}
_Enter Squire Sullen_.
_Squire Sul_. My head aches consumedly.
_Mrs. Sul_. Will you be pleased, my dear, to drink tea
with us this morning? it may do your head good.
_Squire Sul_. No.
_Dor_. Coffee, brother?
_Squire Sul_. Psha!
_Mrs. Sul_. Will you please to dress, and go to church
with me? the air may help you.
_Squire Sul_. Scrub! [_Calls_.
_Enter Scrub_.
_Scrub_. Sir!
_Squire Sul_. What day o' th' week is this?
_Scrub_. Sunday, an't please your worship. {99}
_Squire Sul_. Sunday! bring me a dram; and d'ye hear,
set out the venison-pasty, and a tankard of strong
beer upon the hall-table, I 'll go to breakfast
[_Going_.
_Dor_. Stay, stay, brother, you shan't get off so; you
were very naught last night, and must make your
wife reparation; come, come, brother, won't you
ask pardon?
_Squire Sul_. For what?
_Dor_. For being drunk last night.
_Squire Sul_. I can afford it, can't I? {109}
_Mrs. Sul_. But I can't, sir.
_Squire Sul_. Then you may let it alone.
_Mrs. Sul_. But I must tell you, sir, that this is not to be
borne.
_Squire Sul_. I 'm glad on't.
_Mrs. Sul_. What is the reason, sir, that you use me thus
inhumanly?
_Squire Sul_. Scrub!
_Scrub_. Sir! {118}
_Squire Sul_. Get things ready to shave my head. [_Exit_.
_Mrs. Sul_. Have a care of coming near his temples,
Scrub, for fear you meet something there that may
turn the edge of your razor.--[_Exit Scrub_.] Inveterate
stupidity I did you ever know so hard, so
obstinate a spleen as his? O sister, sister! I shall
never ha' good of the beast till I get him to town;
London, dear London, is the place for managing
and breaking a husband.
_Dor_. And has not a husband the same opportunities
there for humbling a wife? {129}
_Mrs. Sul_. No, no, child, 'tis a standing maxim in
conjugal discipline, that when a man would enslave his
wife, he hurries her into the country; and when
a lady would be arbitrary with her husband, she
wheedles her booby up to town. A man dare not play
the tyrant in London, because there are so many
examples to encourage the subject to rebel. O
Dorinda! Dorinda! a fine woman may do anything
in London: o' my conscience, she may raise an
army of forty thousand men. {139}
_Dor_. I fancy, sister, you have a mind to be trying your
power that way here in Lichfield; you have drawn
the French count to your colours already.
_Mrs. Sul_. The French are a people that can't live
without their gallantries.
_Dor_. And some English that I know, sister, are not
averse to such amusements.
_Mrs. Sul_. Well, sister, since the truth must out, it may
do as well now as hereafter; I think, one way to
rouse my lethargic, sottish husband, is to give him
a rival: security begets negligence in all people,
and men must be alarmed to make 'em alert-in their
duty. Women are like pictures, of no value in the
hands of a fool, till he hears men of sense bid high
for the purchase.
_Dor_. This might do, sister, if my brother's understanding
were to be convinced into a passion for you; but,
I fancy, there's a natural aversion on his side; and
I fancy, sister, that you don't come much behind
him, if you dealt fairly. {159}
_Mrs. Sul_. I own it, we are united contradictions, fire
and water: but I could be contented, with a great
many other wives, to humour the censorious mob,
and give the world an appearance of living well with
my husband, could I bring him but to dissemble a
little kindness to keep me in countenance.
_Dor_. But how do you know, sister, but that, instead of
rousing your husband by this artifice to a counterfeit
kindness, he should awake in a real fury?
_Mrs. Sul_. Let him: if I can't entice him to the one, I
would provoke him to the other. {170}
_Dor_. But how must I behave myself between ye?
_Mrs. Sul_. You must assist me.
_Dor_. What, against my own brother?
_Mrs. Sul_. He's but half a brother, and I 'm your entire
friend. If I go a step beyond the bounds of honour,
leave me; till then, I expect you should go along with
me in everything; while I trust my honour in your
hands, you may trust your brother's in mine. The
count is to dine here to-day.
_Dor_. 'Tis a strange thing, sister, that I can't like that
man. {181}
_Mrs. Sul_. You like nothing; your time is not come;
Love and Death have their fatalities, and strike home
one time or other: you 'll pay for all one day, I
warrant ye. But come, my lady's tea is ready, and
'tis almost church time. [_Exeunt_.