t deuce take me, I can't hit of her name
neither. Paints, d'ye say? Why, she lays it on with a trowel. Then she
has a great beard that bristles through it, and makes her look as if she
were plastered with lime and hair, let me perish.

LADY FROTH. Oh, you made a song upon her, Mr. Brisk.

BRISK. He! egad, so I did. My lord can sing it.

CYNT. O good, my lord, let's hear it.

BRISK. 'Tis not a song neither, it's a sort of an epigram, or rather an
epigrammatic sonnet; I don't know what to call it, but it's satire. Sing
it, my lord.

LORD FROTH sings.

Ancient Phyllis has young graces,
'Tis a strange thing, but a true one;
Shall I tell you how?
She herself makes her own faces,
And each morning wears a new one;
Where's the wonder now?

BRISK. Short, but there's salt in't; my way of writing, egad.

SCENE XI.

[_To them_] FOOTMAN.

LADY FROTH. How now?

FOOT. Your ladyship's chair is come.

LADY FROTH. Is nurse and the child in it?

FOOT. Yes, madam.

LADY FROTH. O the dear creature! Let's go see it.

LORD FROTH. I swear, my dear, you'll spoil that child, with sending it
to and again so often; this is the seventh time the chair has gone for
her to-day.

LADY FROTH. O law! I swear it's but the sixth--and I haven't seen her
these two hours. The poor creature--I swear, my lord, you don't love
poor little Sapho. Come, my dear Cynthia, Mr. Brisk, we'll go see Sapho,
though my lord won't.

CYNT. I'll wait upon your ladyship.

BRISK. Pray, madam, how old is Lady Sapho?

LADY FROTH. Three-quarters, but I swear she has a world of wit, and can
sing a tune already. My lord, won't you go? Won't you? What! not to
see Saph? Pray, my lord, come see little Saph. I knew you could not
stay.

SCENE XII.

CYNTHIA _alone_.

CYNT. 'Tis not so hard to counterfeit joy in the depth of affliction, as
to dissemble mirth in company of fools. Why should I call 'em fools? The
world thinks better of 'em; for these have quality and education, wit and
fine conversation, are received and admired by the world. If not, they
like and admire themselves. And why is not that true wisdom? for 'tis
happiness: and for ought I know, we have misapplied the name all this
while, and mistaken the thing: since

If happiness in self-content is placed,
The wise are wretched, and fools only bless'd.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

MELLEFONT _and_ CYNTHIA.

CYNT. I hea