As Played at Tunbridge Wells, April 3, 1750  
"I am thinking if some little, filching, inquisitive poet should get my story, and represent it to the stage, what those ladies who are never precise but at a play would say of me now,—that I were a confident, coming piece, I warrant, and they would damn the poor poet for libelling the sex."
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
DUKE OF ORMSKIRK.
 
COLONEL DENSTROUDE, }
SIR GRESLEY CARNE, } Gentlemen of the town.
MR. BABINGTON-HERLE, }
 
VANRINGHAM, a play-actor and a Jacobite emissary.
 
MR. LANGTON, secretary to Ormskirk.
 
MISS ALLONBY, an heiress, loves Captain Audaine.
 
LOTTRUM, maid to Miss Allonby.
 
BENYON, MINCHIN, and OTHER SERVANTS to Ormskirk.
SCENE
 
Tunbridge Wells, shifting from Ormskirk's lodgings at the Mitre to
Vanringham's apartments in the Three Gudgeons.
ACTORS ALL
 
PROEM.—To Explain Why the Heroine of This Comedy Must Wear Her Best
 
I quit pilfering from the writings of Francis Audaine, since in the happenings which now concern us he plays but a subsidiary part. The Captain had an utter faith in decorum, and therefore it was, as he records, an earth-staggering shock when the following day, on the Pantiles, in full sight of the best company at the Wells, Captain Audaine was apprehended. He met disaster like an old acquaintance, and hummed a scrap of song—"O, gin I were a bonny b............