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SCENE I] THE OLD BACHELOR 77
Fond. Ha, how's that! Stay, stay, did you have word say
you, with his wife? with Comfort herself?
Bar. I did; and Comfort will send Tribulation hither as
soon as ever he comes home.—I could have brought young
Mr. Prig to have kept my mistress company in the mean
time; but you say—
Fond. How, how, say, varlet? I say let him not come
near my doors; I say he is a wanton young Levite, 8 and
pampereth himself up with dainties, that he may look
lovely in the eyes of women.—Sincerely I am afraid he
hath already defiled the tabernacle of our sister Comfort;
while her good husband is deluded by his godly appearance.
T say, that even lust doth sparkle in his eyes, and glow upon
his cheeks, and that I would as soon trust my wife with a
lord's high-fed chaplain.
Bar. Sir, the hour draws nigh, and nothing will be done
there till you come.
Fond. And nothing can be done here till I go, so that I'll
tarry, d'ye see.
Bar. And run the hazard to lose your affair, sir?
Fond. Good lack, good lack!—I protest 'tis a very sufficient
vexation, for a man to have a handsome wife.
Bar. Never, sir, but when the man is an insufficient
husband. 'Tis then, indeed, like the vanity of taking a fine
bouse, and yet be forced to let lodgings to help pay the
rent.
Fond. I profess a very apt comparison, varlet. Go and bid
my Cocky come out to me. I will give her some instructions,
I will reason with her, before I go. \Exit BARNABY.] And, in
the mean time, I will reason with myself.—Tell me, Isaac,
whv art thee jealous? whv art thee distrustful of the wife
of thv bosom ? —because she is youn^ and vigorous, and I
am old and impotent. Then, why didst thee marry, Isaac ?
—because she was beautiful and tempting, and because I
was obstinate and doting, so that my inclination was, and
is still, greater than my power. And will not that which
trmntrd thee, also tempt others, who will tempt her, Isaac?
—I fenr it much. But does not thy wife love thee, nay, dote
"The nickname then in vopuc for a domestic chaplain. "A young Levite—such
was the phrase then in USE—might he had for his board, a small Barrel, and icn
pounds a year, and might not only perform his own professional functions,
mipht not only he always rearly in fine weather for howls and in rainy weather
for shovel board, but might also save the expense of. a gardener or of a
groom."—Macanlay, Hist, of England, chap iii.