Horner: Nay, madam, rather than they shall prejudice your honour, I’ll prejudice theirs; and, to serve you, I’ll lie with ‘em all, make the secret their own, and then they’ll keep it. I am a Machiavel in love, madam.

Lady Fidget: Oh, no, sir, not that way.

Horner: Nay, the devil take me, if censorious women are to be silenced any other way.

For, impartially speaking, the French are as much better critics than the English, as they are worse poets. Thus we generally allow that they better understand the management of a war than our islanders; but we know we are superior to them in the day of battle. They value themselves on their generals, we on our soldiers. But this is not the proper place to decide that question, if they make it one.

Horner: Doctor, there are quacks in love as well as physic, who get but the fewer and worse patients for their boasting; a good name is seldom got by giving it one’s self; and women, no more than honour, are compassed by bragging. Come, come, Doctor, the wisest lawyer never discovers the merits of his cause till the trial; the wealthiest man conceals his riches, and the cunning gamester his play. Shy huspands and keepers, like old rooks, are not to be cheated by a new unpractised trick: false friendship will pass now no more than false dice upon ‘em; no, not in the city.