The Old Bachelor | Page 8

that's all thou
art fit for now.
HEART. Good Mr. Young-Fellow, you're mistaken; as able as

yourself, and as nimble, too, though I mayn't have so much mercury in
my limbs; 'tis true, indeed, I don't force appetite, but wait the natural
call of my lust, and think it time enough to be lewd after I have had the
temptation.
BELL. Time enough, ay, too soon, I should rather have expected, from
a person of your gravity.
HEART. Yet it is oftentimes too late with some of you young,
termagant, flashy sinners--you have all the guilt of the intention, and
none of the pleasure of the practice--'tis true you are so eager in pursuit
of the temptation, that you save the devil the trouble of leading you into
it. Nor is it out of discretion that you don't swallow that very hook
yourselves have baited, but you are cloyed with the preparative, and
what you mean for a whet, turns the edge of your puny stomachs. Your
love is like your courage, which you show for the first year or two upon
all
occasions; till in a little time, being disabled or disarmed, you
abate of your vigour; and that daring blade which was so often drawn,
is bound to the peace for ever after.
BELL. Thou art an old fornicator of a singular good principle indeed,
and art for encouraging youth, that they may be as wicked as thou art at
thy years.
HEART. I am for having everybody be what they pretend to be: a
whoremaster be a whoremaster, and not like Vainlove, kiss a lap-dog
with passion, when it would disgust him from the lady's own lips.

BELL. That only happens sometimes, where the dog has the sweeter
breath, for the more cleanly conveyance. But, George, you must not
quarrel with little gallantries of this nature: women are often won by
'em. Who would refuse to kiss a lap-dog, if it were preliminary to the
lips of his lady?
SHARP. Or omit playing with her fan, and cooling her if she were hot,
when it might entitle him to the office of warming her when she should
be cold?
BELL. What is it to read a play in a rainy day? Though you should be
now and then interrupted in a witty scene, and she perhaps preserve her
laughter, till the jest were over; even that may be borne with,
considering the reward in prospect.
HEART. I confess you that are women's asses bear greater burdens: are
forced to undergo dressing, dancing, singing, sighing, whining,
rhyming, flattering, lying, grinning, cringing, and the drudgery of
loving to boot.
BELL. O brute, the drudgery of loving!
HEART. Ay! Why, to come to love through all these incumbrances is
like coming to an estate overcharged with debts, which, by the time you
have paid, yields no further profit than what the bare tillage and
manuring of the land will produce at the expense of your own sweat.
BELL. Prithee, how dost thou love?
SHARP. He! He hates the sex.
HEART. So I hate physic too--yet I may love to take it for my health.
BELL. Well come off, George, if at any time you should be taken
straying.
SHARP. He has need of such an excuse, considering the present state
of his body.

HEART. How d'ye mean?
SHARP. Why, if whoring be purging, as you call it, then, I may say,
marriage is entering into a course of physic.
BELL. How, George! Does the wind blow there?
HEART. It will as soon blow north and by south--marry, quotha! I
hope in heaven I have a greater portion of grace, and I think I have
baited too many of those traps to be caught in one myself.
BELL. Who the devil would have thee? unless 'twere an oysterwoman
to propagate young fry for Billingsgate--thy talent will never
recommend thee to anything of better quality.
HEART. My talent is chiefly that of speaking truth, which I don't
expect should ever recommend me to people of quality. I thank heaven
I have very honestly purchased the hatred of all the great families in
town.
SHARP. And you in return of spleen hate them. But could you hope to
be received into the alliance of a noble family -
HEART. No; I hope I shall never merit that affliction, to be punished
with a wife of birth, be a stag of the first head and bear my horns aloft,
like one of the supporters of my wife's coat. S'death I would not be a
Cuckold to e'er an illustrious whore in England.
BELL. What, not to make your family, man and provide for your
children?
SHARP. For her children, you mean.
HEART. Ay, there you've nicked it. There's the devil upon devil. Oh,
the pride and joy of