Hollo! Marforio! (goes to the door).
Enter Marforio.
Mar: Here my Fellow Labourer!
Pas: Have you prepared for general Search?
Mar: I have— but let me once more entreat you to alter your design. do not behave with your usual Sacasm and boldness upon your first appearance. Strive to gain the favour of the Public by Morality and Panegyrick— not by undaunted Satyr—
Pas: Marforio, We are come to England to make Our Fortune by Our parts, And you Advise to begin with Morality and Flattery. You might as well Advise a Soldier to make his Fortune by Cowardice. No Sir, he, who wou’d gain the Esteem of a Brave, a wise, and a free people, must lash their Vices, and laugh at their Folies.
Mar: Well, if you must be Satyrical, confine Your Satyr to the City.
Pas: No, I’ll begin at the Source. the Bourgoie is but the Ape of the Courtier; Correct the one, the other Mends of Course. I will Scour the whole Circle of this metropolis[A]; not a tilted Sharpor, or a fair Libertine, but I will Gibbet in Effigie. Birth Privilege or Quality shall not be a Sanction to the ignominious Practices of the one, nor shall Fashion or Beauty be a Skreen for the Folly or Indecency of the other. Tho’ they elude the Laws of Westminster, they shall not escape the Lash of Parnassus. Here we have no Inquisition, no Bastile, no Rasp House, to dread. So without a Single hesitation more of Doubt or fear, let us at once plunge into Action.— Go you & take a Set of proper Officers with you and, by a Warrant from Appollo, Search every disorderly House in Town. Routs, drums, and Assemblies, particularly the den.
Mar: It shall be done. (Exit Marforio)
Pas: O thou, who first explored and dar’d to laugh at Public Folly; Sweet facetious Lucian, Father of Gibes and laughing Ridicule Inspire thy Votary, teach me this Night to draw a Striking Likeness in which the free born Britons may behold their Beauties and Deformities as perfectly as the Inquisitive Eye does its own Image in the faithful Mirror!