A, wife to Fondlewife--Mrs. Barry
SYLVIA, Vainlove's forsaken mistress--Mrs. Bowman
LUCY, her maid--Mrs. Leigh
BETTY.
BOY and FOOTMEN.

SCENE: London.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

SCENE: _The Street_.

BELLMOUR _and_ VAINLOVE _meeting_.

BELL. Vainlove, and abroad so early! Good-morrow; I thought a
contemplative lover could no more have parted with his bed in a morning
than he could have slept in't.

VAIN. Bellmour, good-morrow. Why, truth on't is, these early sallies
are not usual to me; but business, as you see, sir--[_Showing Letters_.]
And business must be followed, or be lost.

BELL. Business! And so must time, my friend, be close pursued, or lost.
Business is the rub of life, perverts our aim, casts off the bias, and
leaves us wide and short of the intended mark.

VAIN. Pleasure, I guess you mean.

BELL. Ay; what else has meaning?

VAIN. Oh, the wise will tell you--

BELL. More than they believe--or understand.

VAIN. How, how, Ned! A wise man say more than he understands?

BELL. Ay, ay! Wisdom's nothing but a pretending to know and believe
more than we really do. You read of but one wise man, and all that he
knew was, that he knew nothing. Come, come, leave business to idlers and
wisdom to fools; they have need of 'em. Wit be my faculty, and pleasure
my occupation; and let Father Time shake his glass. Let low and earthly
souls grovel till they have worked themselves six foot deep into a grave.
Business is not my element--I roll in a higher orb, and dwell--

VAIN. In castles i' th' air of thy own building. That's thy element,
Ned. Well, as high a flier as you are, I have a lure may make you stoop.
[_Flings a Letter_.]

BELL. I, marry, sir, I have a hawk's eye at a woman's hand. There's
more elegancy in the false spelling of this superscription [_takes up the
Letter_] than in all Cicero. Let me see.--How now!--Dear _perfidious
Vainlove_. [_Reads_.]

VAIN. Hold, hold, 'slife, that's the wrong.

BELL. Nay, let's see the name--Sylvia!--how canst thou be ungrateful to
that creature? She's extremely pretty, and loves thee entirely--I have
heard her breathe such raptures about thee--

VAIN. Ay, or anybody that she's about--

BELL. No, faith, Frank, you wrong her; she has been just to you.

VAIN. That's pleasant, by my troth, from thee, who hast had her.

BELL. Never--her affections. 'Tis true, by heaven: she owned it to my
face; and, blushing like the virgin m