Lau. Not in your Silvianetta! my Love has a nice Appetite,
And must be fed with high uncommon Delicates.
I have a Mistress, Sir, of Quality;
Fair, as Imagination paints young Angels;
Wanton and gay, as was the first Corinna,
That charm’d our best of Poets;
Young as the Spring, and chearful as the Birds
That welcome in the Day;
Witty, as Fancy makes the Revelling Gods,
And equally as bounteous when she blesses.
Gal. Ah, for a fine young Whore with all these Charms! but that same Quality allays the Joy: there’s such a damn’d ado with the Obligation, that half the Pleasure’s lost in Ceremony. —Here for a thousand Crowns I reign alone, Revel all day in Love without controul. —But come to our business, I have given order for Musick, Dark Lanthorns, and Pistols.
[This while Fil., stands studying.
Fil. Death, if it shou’d not be Marcella now! [Pausing aside.
Gal. Prithee no more considering,—resolve, and let’s about it.
Fil. I wou’d not tempt my Heart again! for Love,
What e’er it may be in another’s Breast,
In mine ‘twill turn to a religious Fire;
And so to burn for her, a common Mistress,
Wou’d be an Infamy below her Practice.
Gal. Oh, if that be all, doubt not, Harry, but an Hour’s Conversation with Euphemia will convert it to as leud a flame, as a Man wou’d wish.
Lau. What a coil’s here about a Curtezan! what ado to persuade a Man to a Blessing all Rome is languishing for in vain!—Come, Sir, we must deal with him, as Physicians do with peevish Children, force him to take what will cure him.
Fil. And like those damn’d Physicians, kill me for want of method: no, I know my own Distemper best, and your Applications will make me mad.
Gal. Pox on’t, that one cannot love a Woman like a Man, but one must love like an Ass.