INTRODUCTION lix ���"'Tis but setting up Timber Posts round about the City, and then fixing a pair of Bellows on every one of 'em to blow the clouds away." Mrs. Love wit has made an exact collection of all the plays that ever came out, and she has devised a limbeck where all the quintessence of wit that is in them is to be extracted and sold by drops to the poets of this age. Catchat is teaching a flea to sing by note and expects soon to have the little creature ready for the opera. Sir Maurice Meanwell embodies the protest against these learned ladies. �Lady M. How now, Sir Maurice, is the merry God Dancing a Jigg within the inclosure of your Brains ? You forget yourself strangely, methinks. �Sir Maur. 'Tis to you, Sister, I speak, what a Devil have you to do with Jingling and Poetry. (To Catchat.) �Catch. Lord, Sister, what a strange compound your Husband is of Vulgar and clownish atoms ? �Sir Maur. A pretty thing indeed, to see those long spectacles of yours, set on the top of my house, for you to peep, and tell how many Hackney Coaches are going in the Moon. �Lovew. Oh the illiterate Brute ! thus to affront a telescope. [Aside.] �Sir Maur. I am no Scholar, not I, and I thank my Stars for it, but with your leave, so much common sense has taught me, that all the Study and Philosophy of a wife, should be to please her Hus- band, instruct her Children, have a Vigilant Eye over Domestick Affairs, keep a good order in her Family, and stand as a Living Pattern of Virtue, and Discretion to all about her. �Lady M. Sir Maurice like another Solon, is now setting up for a lawgiver, Poor Soul ! �Sir Maur. The Women of Old did not read so much, but lived better; Housewifery was all the Knowledge they aspired to ; now- adays Wives must Write forsooth, and pretend to Wit, with a Pox. �Catch. 'Tis the partial, and foolish Opinion of Men, Brother, and not our Fault has made it ridiculous nowadays; for a Woman to pretend to Wit, she was born to it, and can shew it well enough, when occasion serves. �Vanbrugh's JEsop (1697) gives us Hortentia, "the wise ��� �
