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Will's Coffee-house, April 28.

This evening we were entertained with "The Old Bachelor,"[152] a comedy
of deserved reputation. In the character which gives name to the play,
there is excellently represented the reluctance of a battered debauchee
to come into the trammels of order and decency: he neither languishes
nor burns, but frets for love. The gentlemen of more regular behaviour
are drawn with much spirit and wit, and the drama introduced by the
dialogue of the first scene with uncommon, yet natural conversation. The
part of Fondlewife is a lively image of the unseasonable fondness of age
and impotence. But instead of such agreeable works as these, the town
has this half age been tormented with insects called "easy writers,"
whose abilities Mr. Wycherley one day described excellently well in one
word: "That," said he, "among these fellows is called easy writing,
which any one may easily write." Such jaunty scribblers are so justly
laughed at for their sonnets on Phillis and Chloris, and fantastical
descriptions in them, that an ingenious kinsman of mine,[153] of the
family of the Staffs, Mr. Humphrey Wagstaff by name, has, to avoid their
strain, run into a way perfectly new, and described things exactly as
they happen: he never forms fields, or nymphs, or groves, where they are
not, but makes the incidents just as they really appear. For an example
of it; I stole out of his manuscript the following lines: they are a
Description of the Morning, but of the morning in town; nay, of the
morning at this end of the town, where my kinsman at present lodges.

Now hardly here and there an hackney coach
Appearing, showed the ruddy morn's approach.
Now Betty from her master's bed had flown,
And softly stole to discompose her own.
The slipshod 'prentice from his master's door,
Had pared the street, and sprinkled round the floor.
Now Moll had whirled her mop with dext'rous airs,
Prepared to scrub the entry and the stairs.
The youth with broomy stumps began to trace
The kennel edge, where wheels had worn the place.
The smallcoal-man was heard with cadence deep,
Till drowned in shriller notes of chimney-sweep.
Duns at his lordship's gate began to meet;
And Brickdust Moll had screamed through half a street;
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out at nights to steal for fees.
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands;