Clos. Is it a thing so impossible, Madam, that a Man of Mr. Wilding’s Parts and Person should get a City-Heiress? Such a bonne Mien, and such a pleasant Wit!
L. Gal. Hold thy fluent Tattle, thou hast Tongue
Enough to talk an Oyster-Woman deaf:
I say it cannot be.
—What means the panting of my troubled Heart!
Oh, my presaging Fears! shou’d what she says prove true,
How wretched and how lost a thing am I! [Aside.
Clos. Your Honour may say your Pleasure; but I hope
I have not liv’d to these Years to be impertinent—No,
Madam, I am none of those that run up and down the
Town a Story-hunting, and a Lye-catching, and—
L. Gal. Eternal Rattle, peace—
Mrs. Charlot Gett-all go away with Wilding!
A Man of Wilding’s extravagant Life
Get a Fortune in the City!
Thou mightst as well have told me, a Holder-forth were married to a Nun:
There are not two such Contraries in Nature,
’.is flam, ‘tis foolery, ‘tis most impossible.
Clos. I beg your Ladyship’s Pardon, if my Discourse offend you; but all the World knows Mrs. Clacket to be a person—
L. Gal. Who is a most devout Baud, a precise Procurer;
A Saint in the Spirit, and Whore in the Flesh;
A Doer of the Devil’s Work in God’s Name.
Is she your Informer? nay, then the Lye’s undoubted—
I say once more, adone with your idle Tittle-Tattle,
—And to divert me, bid Betty sing the Song which Wilding made
To his last Mistress; we may judge by that,
What little Haunts, and what low Game he follows.
This is not like the Description of a rich Citizen’s Daughter
and Heir, but some common Hackney of the Suburbs.
Clos. I have heard him often swear she was a Gentlewoman, and liv’d with her Friends.
L. Gal. Like enough, there are many of these Gentlewomen who live with their Friends, as rank Prostitutes, as errant Jilts, as those who make open profession of the Trade—almost as mercenary—But come, the Song.
[Enter Betty.