Tra. You are right, and I'll follow;
'Tis high time for a "Sic me servavit Apollo."[620]
And yet we shall have the whole crew on our kibes,[621]
Blues, dandies, and dowagers, and second-hand scribes,
All flocking to moisten their exquisite throttles
With a glass of Madeira[622] at Lady Bluebottle's.160
[Exit Tracy.
ECLOGUE THE SECOND.
An Apartment in the House of Lady Bluebottle.—A Table prepared.
Sir Richard Bluebottle solus.
Was there ever a man who was married so sorry?
Like a fool, I must needs do the thing in a hurry.
My life is reversed, and my quiet destroyed;
My days, which once passed in so gentle a void,
Must now, every hour of the twelve, be employed;
The twelve, do I say?—of the whole twenty-four,
Is there one which I dare call my own any more?
What with driving and visiting, dancing and dining,
What with learning, and teaching, and scribbling, and shining,
In science and art, I'll be cursed if I know10
Myself from my wife; for although we are two,
Yet she somehow contrives that all things shall be done
In a style which proclaims us eternally one.
But the thing of all things which distresses me more
Than the bills of the week (though they trouble me sore)
Is the numerous, humorous, backbiting crew
Of scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, black, and blue,
Who are brought to my house as an inn, to my cost—
For the bill here, it seems, is defrayed by the host—
No pleasure! no leisure! no thought for my pains,20
But to hear a vile jargon which addles my brains;
A smatter and chatter, gleaned out of reviews,
By the rag, tag, and bobtail, of those they call "Blues;"
A rabble who know not——But soft, here they come!
Would to God I were deaf! as I'm not, I'll be dumb.
Enter Lady Bluebottle, Miss Lilac, , MR. Botherby, Inkel, Tracy, Miss Mazarine, and others, with Scamp the Lecturer, etc., etc.
Lady Blueb.
Ah! Sir Richard, good morning: I've brought you some friends.
Sir Rich. (bows, and afterwards aside).
If friends, they're the first.
Lady Blueb. But the luncheon attends.
I pray ye be seated, "sans cérémonie."
Mr. Scamp, you're fatigued; take your chair there, next me.
[They all sit.
Sir Rich. (aside). If he does, his fatigue is to come.