-

_Mel._ Then, we will never make visits together, nor see a play, but
always apart; you shall be every day at the king's levee, and I at the
queen's; and we will never meet, but in the drawing-room.

_Phil._ Madam, the new prince is just passed by the end of the walk.

_Mel._ The new prince, sayest thou? Adieu, dear servant; I have not
made my court to him these two long hours. O, it is the sweetest
prince! so _obligeant_, _charmant_, _ravissant_, that--Well, I'll make
haste to kiss his hands, and then make half a score visits more, and
be with you again in a twinkling. [_Exit running, with_ PHIL.

_Pala._ [_solus._] Now heaven, of thy mercy, bless me from this
tongue! it may keep the field against a whole army of lawyers, and
that in their own language, French gibberish. It is true, in the
day-time, it is tolerable, when a man has field room to run from it;
but to be shut up in a bed with her, like two cocks in a pit, humanity
cannot support it. I must kiss all night in my own defence, and hold
her down, like a boy at cuffs, and give her the rising blow every time
she begins to speak.

_Enter_ RHODOPHIL.

But here comes Rhodophil. It is pretty odd that my mistress should so
much resemble his: The same newsmonger, the same passionate lover of a
court, the same--But, Basta, since I must marry her. I'll say nothing,
because he shall not laugh at my misfortune.

_Rho._ Well, Palamede, how go the affairs of love? You have seen your
mistress?

_Pala._ I have so.

_Rho._ And how, and how? has the old Cupid, your father, chosen well
for you? is he a good woodman?

_Pala._ She's much handsomer than I could have imagined: In short, I
love her, and will marry her.

_Rho._ Then you are quite off from your other mistress?

_Pala._ You are mistaken; I intend to love them both, as a reasonable
man ought to do: For, since all women have their faults and
imperfections, it is fit that one of them should help out the other.

_Rho._ This were a blessed doctrine, indeed, if our wives would hear
it; but they are their own enemies: If they would suffer us but now
and then to make excursions, the benefit of our variety would be
theirs; instead of one continued, lazy, tired love, they would, in
their turns, have twenty vigorous, fresh, and active lovers.

_Pala._ And I would ask any of them, whether a poor narrow brook, half
dry the best part of the year, and running ever one way, be to be
compared to a lusty str