The Country Wife was written, according to its author’s own statement, about the year 1671 or 1672. Its production upon the stage was subsequent to that of The Gentleman Dancing-Master, to which allus...

Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse Compositum illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper: Nec veniam antiquis, sed honorem et praemia posci.1 Horat....

Mr. Horner. Mr. Harcourt. Mr. Dorilant. Mr. Pinchwife. Mr. Sparkish. Sir Jasper Fidget. A Boy. A Quack. Waiters, Servants, and Attendants. Mrs. Margery Pinchwife. Alithea, Sister of Pinchwife. Lady Fi...

Spoken by Mr. Hart.2 Poets, like cudgelled bullies, never do At first or second blow submit to you; But will provoke you still, and ne’er have done, Till you are weary first with laying on. The late s...

Horner’s lodging. Horner: Enter Horner, and Quack following him at a distance. Horner: Aside. A quack is as fit for a pimp, as a midwife for a bawd; they are still but in their way, both helpers of na...

Horner’s lodging. Horner: Enter Horner, and Quack following him at a distance. Horner: Aside. A quack is as fit for a pimp, as a midwife for a bawd; they are still but in their way, both helpers of na...

A room in Pinchwife’s house. Mrs. Margery Pinchwife: Mrs. Margery Pinchwife and Alithea. Pinchwife peeping behind at the door. Mrs. Pinchwife: Pray, sister, where are the best fields and woods to walk...

A room in Pinchwife’s house. Mrs. Margery Pinchwife: Mrs. Margery Pinchwife and Alithea. Pinchwife peeping behind at the door. Mrs. Pinchwife: Pray, sister, where are the best fields and woods to walk...

A room in Pinchwife’s house. Alithea: Enter Alithea and Mrs. Pinchwife. Alithea: Sister, what ails you? you are grown melancholy. Mrs. Pinchwife: Would it not make anyone melancholy to see you go ever...

A room in Pinchwife’s house. Alithea: Enter Alithea and Mrs. Pinchwife. Alithea: Sister, what ails you? you are grown melancholy. Mrs. Pinchwife: Would it not make anyone melancholy to see you go ever...

The New Exchange. Horner: Enter Horner, Harcourt, and Dorilant. Dorilant: Engaged to women, and not sup with us! Horner: Ay, a pox on ’em all! Harcourt: You were much a more reasonable man in the morn...

Pinchwife’s house in the morning. Alithea: Enter Alithea dressed in new clothes, and Lucy. Lucy: Well⁠—madam, now have I dressed you, and set you out with so many ornaments, and spent upon you ounces ...

Pinchwife’s house in the morning. Alithea: Enter Alithea dressed in new clothes, and Lucy. Lucy: Well⁠—madam, now have I dressed you, and set you out with so many ornaments, and spent upon you ounces ...

A bedchamber in Pinchwife’s house. Pinchwife: Pinchwife and Mrs. Pinchwife discovered. Pinchwife: Come, tell me, I say. Mrs. Pinchwife: Lord! han’t I told it a hundred times over? Pinchwife: Aside. I ...

Horner’s lodging Horner: Enter Horner and Quack. Quack: Well, sir, how fadges10 the new design? have you not the luck of all your brother projectors, to deceive only yourself at last? Horner: No, good...

A room in Pinchwife’s house. Mrs. Pinchwife: Mrs. Pinchwife alone, leaning on her elbow.⁠—A table, pen, ink and paper. Mrs. Pinchwife: Well, ’tis e’en so, I have got the London disease they call love;...

Pinchwife’s House. Pinchwife: Enter Pinchwife and Mrs. Pinchwife. A table and candle. Pinchwife: Come, take the pen and make an end of the letter, just as you intended; if you are false in a tittle, I...

Pinchwife’s House. Pinchwife: Enter Pinchwife and Mrs. Pinchwife. A table and candle. Pinchwife: Come, take the pen and make an end of the letter, just as you intended; if you are false in a tittle, I...

Horner’s Lodging. Horner: Horner and Quack. Quack: What, all alone? not so much as one of your cuckolds here, nor one of their wives! They use to take their turns with you, as if they were to watch yo...

The Piazza of Covent Garden. Sparkish: Enter Sparkish with a letter in his hand, Pinchwife following. Sparkish: But who would have thought a woman could have been false to me? By the world, I could no...

Horner’s Lodging. A table, banquet, and bottles. Horner: Enter Horner, Lady Fidget, Mrs. Dainty Fidget, and Mrs. Squeamish. Horner: A pox! they are come too soon⁠—before I have sent back my new mistre...

Spoken by Mrs. Knep.17 Now you the vigorous, who daily here O’er vizard-mask in public domineer, And what you’d do to her, if in place where; Nay, have the confidence to cry, “Come out!” Yet when she ...

I am out of patience when anything is blamed, not because it is thought coarsely and inelegantly composed, but because it is new: when for the ancients not indulgence, but honour and rewards are deman...