Written by R. SHERIDAN, Esq.
Spoken by MRS MATTOCKS
YE wedded critics, who have mark’d our tale,
How say you? Does our plot in nature fail?
May we not boast that many a modern wife
Would lose her own, to save a husband’s life?
Would gladly die — O monstrous and ill-bred,
There’s not a husband here but shakes his head!
But you, my gall’ry friends — Come, what say you?
Your wives are with you — shake their noddles too.
Above there — hey, lads — You’ll not treat us so —
You side with us? — They grin, and grumble No!
Yet hold — tho’ these plain folks traduce their doxies,
Sure we have Eleanoras in the boxes?
Inhuman beaux! why that ill-natur’d sneer?
What, then you think there’s no such idiot here?
There are, no doubt, tho’ rare to find I know,
Who could lose husbands, yet survive the blow;
Two years a wife — view Lesbia sobbing, crying,
Her chair is waiting — but my lord is dying;
Preparing for the worst! she tells her maid,
To countermand her points and new brocade;
For O! if I should lose the best of men,
Heav’n knows when I shall see the club again.
“So, Lappet, should he die while I am out,
You’ll send for me to lady Basto’s rout;
The doctor said he might hold out till three,
But I han’t spirits for the Coterie!”
Now change the scene — place madam in the fever,
My lord for comfort at the Scavoir Vivre;
His valet enters — shakes his meagre head,
“Chapeau — what news?”— “Ah,! Sir, me lady dead.”
“The deuce!— ’tis sudden, faith — but four days sick!
Well, seven’s the main — (poor Kate) — eleven’s a nick.”
But hence reflections on a senseless train,
Who, lost to real joy, should feel no pain;
‘Mongst Britain’s daughters still can Hymen’s light
Reveal the love which charm’d your hearts to-night,
Shew beauteous martyrs — who would each prefer
To die for him who long has liv’d for her;
Domestic heroines — who, with fondent care,
Outsmile a husband’s grief — or claim a share;
Search where the rankling evils most abound,
And heal with cherub-lips the poison’d wound.
Nay, such bright virtues in a royal mind
Were not alone to Edward’s days confin’d,
Still, still, they beam around Britannia’s throne,
And grace an Eleanora of our own.