will settle all;
And, ah, I've too much cause to wish his coming. (_Exit._

[Changes:

_Harper_
For the offenses of a few, whose vices
Reflect dishonor on the rest!--For, Heaven
So help me, as I'm wholly innocent
_Colman 1768_
Because of the offences of a few,
Whose faults reflect dishonour on the rest!
--For, heav'n so help me, as I'm innocent]

ACT THE THIRD.

SCENE I.

_Enter PAMPHILUS and PARMENO._

PAM. Never did man experience greater ills,
More miseries in love than I.--Distraction!
Was it for this I held my life so dear?
For this was I so anxious to return?
Better, much better were it to have liv'd
In any place, than come to this again!
To feel and know myself a wretch!--For when
Mischance befalls us, all the interval
Between its happening, and our knowledge of it,
May be esteem'd clear gain.

PAR. But as it is,
You'll sooner be deliver'd from your troubles:
For had you not return'd, the breach between them
Had been made wider. But now, Pamphilus,
Both will, I doubt not, reverence your presence.
You'll know the whole, make up their difference,
And reconcile them to each other.--These
Are all mere trifles, which you think so grievous.

PAM. Ah, why will you attempt to comfort me?
Was ever such a wretch?--Before I married,
My heart, you know, was wedded to another.
--But I'll not dwell upon that misery,
Which may he easily conceiv'd: and yet
I had not courage to refuse the match
My father forc'd upon me.--Scarcely wean'd
From my old love, my lim'd soul scarcely freed
From Bacchis, and devoted to my wife,
Than, lo, a new calamity arises,
Threatening to tear me from Philumena.
For either I shall find my mother faulty,
Or else my wife: In either case unhappy.
For duty, Parmeno, obliges me
To bear with all the failings of a mother:
And then I am so bounden to my wife,
Who, calm as patience, bore the wrongs I did her,
Nor ever murmur'd a complaint.--But sure
'Twas somewhat very serious, Parmeno,
That could occasion such a lasting quarrel.

PAR. Rather some trifle, if you knew the truth.
The greatest quarrels do not always rise
From deepest injuries. We often see
That what would never move another's spleen
Renders the choleric your worst of foes.
Observe how lightly children squabble.--Why?
Because they're govern'd by a feeble mind.
Women, like children, too, are impotent,
And weak of soul. A single word, perhaps,
Has kindled all this enmity betwe