Lady Froth. My Lord Froth is as fine a gentleman and as much a man of quality! Ah, nothing at all of the common air!... I think I may say he wants nothing but a blue ribbon and a star to make him shine, the very phosphorus of our hemisphere. Do you understand those two hard words?... Being derived from the Greek I thought you might have escaped the etymology.
Her ladyship is also an author and has written an heroic poem on her connubial bliss. She communicates this fact to Brisk, the foolish critic.
Lady Froth. Did my lord tell you? yes, I vow, and the subject is my lord's love to me. And what do you think I call it? I dare swear you won't guess—'The Syllabub'; ha! ha! ha!
Brisk. Because my lord's title's Froth, egad; ha! ha! ha! deuce take me, very à propos and surprising, ha! ha! ha!
Lady Froth. He! ay, is not it?—And then I call my lord Spumoso, and myself—what d' ye think I call myself?
Brisk. Lactilla, maybe;—'gad I can not tell.
Lady Froth. Biddy, that's all, just my own name.
Lady Froth was certainly not without a competent critical apparatus for writing poetry since she declares herself familiar with Bossu, Rapin, Dacier upon Aristotle, and Horace. The wittiest portion of the play is based on Molière's scene where the lady critics praise the foolish poet. In Congreve the foolish poet is a woman and the critic a man, but the comic situation is essentially the same.
Lady Froth. Then you think that episode between Susan, the dairy-maid, and our coachman, is not amiss; you know I may suppose the dairy in town as well as in the country.