PLAYER. All this we must do, to comply with the Taste of the Town.
BEGGAR. Through the whole Piece you may observe such a Similitude of
Manners in high and low Life, that it is difficult to determine whether (in
the fashionable Vices) the fine Gentlemen imitate the Gentlemen of the Road,
or the Gentlemen of the Road, the fine Gentlemen.----Had the Play remain'd,
as I at first intended, it would have carried a most excellent Moral.
'Twould have shown that the lower sort of People have their Vices in a
degree as well as the Rich: And that they are punish'd for them.
Scene 17.
To them, MACHEATH with RABBLE, &c.
MACHEATH. So, it seems, I am not left to my Choice, but must have a Wife
at last.----Look ye, my Dears, we will have no Controversy now. Let us give
this Day to Mirth, and I an sure she who thinks herself my Wife will testify
her Joy by a Dance.
ALL. Come, a Dance----a Dance.
MACHEATH. Ladies, I hope you will give me leave to present a Partner to
each of you. And (if I may without Offence) for this time, I take Polly for
mine.----And for Life, you Slut,----for we were really marry'd.----As for
the rest.----But at present keep your own Secret.
A DANCE.
Air LXIX.--Lumps of Pudding, &c.
Thus I stand like the Turk, with his Doxies around;
From all Sides their Glances his Passion confound;
For Black, Brown, and Fair, his Inconstancy burns,
And different Beauties subdue him by turns:
Each calls forth her Charms, to provoke his Desires;
Though willing to all, with but one he retires.
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