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e Men of their unjust Reflections on so many Judges of Wit and Decencys. When it happens that I challenge any one, to point me out the least Expression of what some have made their Discourse, they cry, _That Mr_. Leigh _opens his Night Gown, when he comes into the Bride-chamber_; if he do, which is a Jest of his own making, and which I never saw, I hope he has his Cloaths on underneath? And if so, where is the Indecency? I have seen in that admirable Play of _Oedipus_, the Gown open'd wide, and the Man shown, in his Drawers and Waist coat, and never thought it an Offence before. Another crys, _Why we know not what they mean, when the Man takes a Woman off the Stage, and another is thereby cuckolded_; is that any more than you see in the most Celebrated of your Plays? as the _City Politicks_, the _Lady Mayoress_, and the _Old Lawyers Wife_, who goes with a Man she never saw before, and comes out again the joyfull'st Woman alive, for having made her Husband a Cuckold with such Dexterity, and yet I see nothing unnatural nor obscene: 'tis proper for the Characters. So in that lucky Play of the _London Cuckolds_, not to recite Particulars. And in that good Comedy of _Sir Courtly Nice_, the _Taylor to the young Lady_--in the fam'd Sir _Fopling Dorimont and Bellinda_, see the very Words--in _Valentinian_, see the Scene between the _Court Bawds_. And _Valentinian_ all loose and ruffld a Moment after the Rape, and all this you see without Scandal, and a thousand others The _Moor of Venice_ in many places. The _Maids Tragedy_--see the Scene of undressing the Bride, and between the _King_ and _Amintor_, and after between the _King_ and _Evadne_--All these I Name as some of the best Plays I know; If I should repeat the Words exprest in these Scenes I mention, I might justly be charg'd with course ill Manners, and very little Modesty, and yet they so naturally fall into the places they are designed for, and so are proper for the Business, that there is not the least Fault to be found with them; though I say those things in any of mine wou'd damn the whole Peice, and alarm the Town. Had I a Day or two's time, as I have scarce so many Hours to write this in (the Play, being all printed off and the Press waiting,) I would sum up all your Beloved Plays, and all the Things in them that are past with such Silence by; because written by Men: such Masculine Strokes in me, must not be allow'd. I must conclude those Women (if there be any such)
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