Air IV.--Why is your faithful Slave disdained? &c.
If Love the Virgin's Heart invade,
How, like a Moth, the simple Maid
Still plays about the Flame!
If soon she be not made a Wife,
Her Honour's sing'd, and then for Life
She's--what I dare not name.
PEACHUM. Look ye, Wife. A handsome Wench in our way of Business is as
profitable as at the Bar of a Temple Coffee-House, who looks upon it as
her livelihood to grant every Liberty but one. You see I would not indulge
the Girl as far as prudently we can. In anything, but Marriage! After that,
my Dear, how shall we be safe? Are we not then in her Husband's Power? For
a Husband hath the absolute Power over all a Wife's Secrets but her own. If
the Girl had the Discretion of a Court-Lady, who can have a Dozen young
Fellows at her Ear without complying with one, I should not matter it; but
Polly is Tinder, and a Spark will at once set her on a Flame. Married! If
the Wench does not know her own Profit, sure she knows her own Pleasure
better than to make herself a Property! My Daughter to me should be, like a
Court-Lady to a Minister of State, a Key to the whole Gang. Married! If the
Affair is not already done, I'll terrify her from it, by the Example of our
Neighbours.
MRS. PEACHUM. May-hap, my Dear, you may injure the Girl. She loves to
imitate the fine Ladies, and she may only allow the Captain liberties in
the view of Interest.
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