Bayes. Why, because it's new, and that's it I aim at. I despise your Jonson and Beaumont, that borrowed all they writ from nature: I am for fetching it purely out of my own fancy, I.
Smith. But what think you of Sir John Suckling?
Bayes. By gad, I am a better poet than he.
Smith. Well, sir, but pray why all this whispering?
Bayes. Why, sir (besides that it is new, as I told you before), because they are supposed to be politicians, and matters of state ought not to be divulg'd.
Smith. But then, sir, why——
Bayes. Sir, if you'll but respite your curiosity till the end of the fifth act, you'll find it a piece of patience not ill recompensed. [Goes to the door.
Johns. How dost thou like this, Frank? Is it not just as I told thee?
Smith. Why, I never did before this see anything in nature, and all that (as Mr. Bayes says) so foolish, but I could give some guess at what moved the fop to do it; but this, I confess, does go beyond my reach.
Johns. It is all alike; Mr. Wintershull[12] has informed me of this play already. And I'll tell thee, Frank, thou shalt not see one scene here worth one farthing, or like anything thou canst imagine has ever been the practice of the world. And then, when he comes to what he calls good language, it is, as I told thee, very fantastical, most abominably dull, and not one word to the purpose.