The devil of a wife, or, A comical transformation as it is acted by Their Majesties servants at the Queens theatre in Dorset Garden.

THE PREFACE.

TO THE Grave, Learned, Judicious, and De∣liberate.

THE Modern Age, and present Representations, unknown to the Antiquated Limits, which in all bounds of Prevalent Atonements, supersede the Equinoctials of Illuminary Spirits, are not in the least captivated with the Decorum of Dress, fortunate and succeeding Action, exhausted Master of Volatory arrided Flashness, that now is not in self, De Re Imaginaria neque supposita de futura, Neither can their pro∣found Precepts, who were known and ador'd as Patri∣archs in Natures primitive Sanguinity with collatoral Adherents, with the noise of what was heretofore deliver'd, inculcate Predominancy to the Right Line of Monarchical and Episcopal Adherences. Therefore if in greater and more evident Points the Lawyer can no more be without

his Fee, than the Lord Chancellour his Mace, or a Poet without Errors, (my self alone exempted) why shou'd the Iudgment of a Man that is partially byass'd against the Banditti, rule the Authour's opinion in his own Hemisphere, and discuss at large the Virtues of Jobson's Wife, with∣out the Management of Hobbs his Leviathan? Why shou'd Shakespear, Johnson, Beaumont, Fletcher, that are no way Adequate to the profound Intellects of my pre∣sent Atonement, be rank'd above the Laborious, tho' dull States-man.

—Sed Vastum Vastior Ipse, Sustulit Aegydes, &c.

Ov. Metam.

Those several Malignant Assertions offer'd, a large and a compendious Resolution ought to be maturely re∣sponded, especially, when the Eclypse of Matrimony is subterranially trod down. As to the main Notion of Po∣lygamy absconded under a Cirtoot of Imagination, We take it thus. Alexander was Great and Victorious in his Mediterranean Engagements of Hospitality. To the con∣trary Julian the Apostate recites his own Benevolencies in semi Octavo of Traditional Vsury: Which plainly de∣notes the first Egression and the last Denotation. So that if we come to Modern Affairs, you will find that the Masq'd Middle Gallery, being by Command Superiour, brought bare-fac'd to the Prae-existent Spark's construction; more amuses the Sun-shine Planet of his Scarlet Coat, than the beat of an Irish Drum to an East Indie Interlo∣per.

For what says Terence (Paucis te Volo,) which manifestly denotes the condescending temper of the Male, and the diving Aspect of the Female. Now if after so long a Concupiscential Appetite the Novelty of Weeding is to be adjudg'd Ceremonious, I leave to my Lord Chief Justice his Tipstaff to examine, and make all even be∣tween the Pope and my Lord Archhishop of Canterbury.