"_Mrs. Joyner._ You must send for something to entertain her with. ... Upon my life a groat! What will this purchase? _Gripe._ Two black pots of ale and a cake, at the cellar--Come, the wine has arsenic in't.... _Mrs. J._ A treat of a groat! I will not wag. _G._ Why don't you go? Here, take more money, and fetch what you will; take here, half-a-crown. _Mrs. J._ What will half-a-crown do? _G._ Take a crown then, an angel, a piece;--begone! _Mrs. J._ A treat only will not serve my turn; I must buy the poor wretch there some toys. _G._ What toys? what? speak quickly. _Mrs. J._ Pendants, necklaces, fans, ribbons, points, laces, stockings, gloves.... _G._ But here, take half a piece for the other things. _Mrs. J._ Half a piece!-- _G._ Prithee, begone!--take t'other piece then--two pieces--three pieces--five! here; 'tis all I have. _Mrs. J._ I must have the broad-seal ring too, or I stir not."[267]
She goes away at last, having extorted all, and Lucy plays the innocent, seems to think that Gripe is à dancing-master, and asks for a lesson. What scenes, what double meanings! At last she calls out, her mother, Mrs. Crossbite, breaks open the door, and enters with men placed there beforehand; Gripe is caught in the trap; they threaten to call in the constable, they swindle him out of five hundred pounds.
Need I recount the plot of the "Country Wife"? It is useless to wish to skim the subject only; we sink deeper and deeper. Horner, a gentleman returned from France, spreads the report that he is no longer able to trouble the peace of husbands. You may imagine what becomes of such a subject in Wycherley's hands, and he draws from it all that it contains. Women converse about Horner's condition, even before him; they suffer themselves to be undeceived, and boast of it. Three of them come to him and feast, drink, sing such songs! The excess of orgie triumphs, adjudges itself the crown, displays itself in maxims. "Our virtue," says one of them, "is like the statesman's religion, the Quaker's word, the gamester's oath, and the great man's honor; but to cheat those that trust us."[268] In the last scene, the suspicions which had been aroused, are set at rest by a new declaration of Horner. All the marriages are polluted, and the carnival ends by a dance of deceived husbands. To crown all, Horner recommends his example to the public, and the actress who comes on to recite the epilogue, completes the shamefulness of the piece, by warning gallants that they must look what they are doing; for that if they can deceive men, "we women--there's no cozening us."[269]