Sparkish Character Analysis

Horner: A pox upon ’em, and all that force nature, and would be still what she forbids ’em! Affectation is her greatest monster.

Harcourt: Most men are the contraries to that they would seem. Your bully, you see, is a coward with a long sword; the little, humbly fawning physician with his ebony cane is he that destroys men.

Harcourt: Truly, madam, I never was an enemy to marriage till now, because marriage was never an enemy to me before.

Alithea: But why, sir, is marriage an enemy to you now? Because it robs you of your friend here? For you look upon a friend married as one gone into a monastery, that is dead to the world.

Horner: No, a foolish rival and a jealous husband assist their rival's designs; for they are sure to make their women hate them, which is the first step to their love for another man.

Harcourt: But I cannot come near his mistress but in his company.

Horner: Still the better for you, for fools are most easily cheated when they themselves are accessories; and he is to be bubbled of his mistress, as of his money, the common mistress, by keeping him company.

Harcourt: I see all women are like these of the Exchange, who, to enhance the price of their commodities, report to their fond customers offers which were never made ’em.

Horner: Ay women are as apt to tell before the intrigue as men after it, and so show themselves the vainer sex.

Gad, I go to a play as to a country treat; I carry my own wine to one, and my own wit to t’other, or else I’m sure I should not be merry at either. And the reason why we are so often louder than the players is because we think we speak more wit, and so become the poet’s rivals in his audience. For to tell you the truth, we hate the silly rogues; nay so much that we find fault even with their bawdy upon the stage, whilst we talk nothing else in the pit as loud.

So we are hard put to’t, when we make our rival our procurer; but neither she nor her brother would let me come near her now. When all’s done, a rival is the best cloak to steal to a mistress under, without suspicion; and when we have once got to her as we desire, we throw him off like other cloaks.

The woman that marries to love better will be as much mistaken as the wencher that marries to live better. No. madam, marrying to increase love is like gaming to become rich; alas, you only lose what little stock you had before … But what a devil is this honor? ’Tis sure a disease in the head, like the megrim, or falling sickness, that always hurries people away to do themselves mischief. Men lose their lives by it; women what’s dearer to ’em, their love, the life of life.

But Harry, what, have I a rival in my wife already? But with all my heart, lord he may be of use to me hereafter! For though my hunger is now my sauce, and I can fall on heartily without, but the time will come when a rival will be as good sauce for a married man to a wife as an orange to veal.

Sparkish: Lord, how shy you are of your wife! But let me tell you, brother, we men of wit have amongst us a saying that cuckolding, like the smallpox, comes with a fear, and you may keep your wife as much as you will out of danger of infection, but if her constitution incline her to't, she'll have it sooner or later, by the world, say they.

Pinchwife: What a thing is a cuckold, that every fool can make him ridiculous! – Well sir – but let me advise you, now you are come to be concerned, because you suspect the danger, not to neglect the means to prevent it, especially when the greatest share of the malady will light upon your own head, for

Hows’e’er the kind wife’s belly comes to swell
The husband breeds for her, and first is ill.

Horner: A pox upon ’em, and all that force nature, and would be still what she forbids ’em! Affectation is her greatest monster.

Harcourt: Most men are the contraries to that they would seem. Your bully, you see, is a coward with a long sword; the little, humbly fawning physician with his ebony cane is he that destroys men.

Harcourt: Truly, madam, I never was an enemy to marriage till now, because marriage was never an enemy to me before.

Alithea: But why, sir, is marriage an enemy to you now? Because it robs you of your friend here? For you look upon a friend married as one gone into a monastery, that is dead to the world.

Horner: No, a foolish rival and a jealous husband assist their rival's designs; for they are sure to make their women hate them, which is the first step to their love for another man.

Harcourt: But I cannot come near his mistress but in his company.

Horner: Still the better for you, for fools are most easily cheated when they themselves are accessories; and he is to be bubbled of his mistress, as of his money, the common mistress, by keeping him company.

Harcourt: I see all women are like these of the Exchange, who, to enhance the price of their commodities, report to their fond customers offers which were never made ’em.

Horner: Ay women are as apt to tell before the intrigue as men after it, and so show themselves the vainer sex.

Gad, I go to a play as to a country treat; I carry my own wine to one, and my own wit to t’other, or else I’m sure I should not be merry at either. And the reason why we are so often louder than the players is because we think we speak more wit, and so become the poet’s rivals in his audience. For to tell you the truth, we hate the silly rogues; nay so much that we find fault even with their bawdy upon the stage, whilst we talk nothing else in the pit as loud.

So we are hard put to’t, when we make our rival our procurer; but neither she nor her brother would let me come near her now. When all’s done, a rival is the best cloak to steal to a mistress under, without suspicion; and when we have once got to her as we desire, we throw him off like other cloaks.

The woman that marries to love better will be as much mistaken as the wencher that marries to live better. No. madam, marrying to increase love is like gaming to become rich; alas, you only lose what little stock you had before … But what a devil is this honor? ’Tis sure a disease in the head, like the megrim, or falling sickness, that always hurries people away to do themselves mischief. Men lose their lives by it; women what’s dearer to ’em, their love, the life of life.

But Harry, what, have I a rival in my wife already? But with all my heart, lord he may be of use to me hereafter! For though my hunger is now my sauce, and I can fall on heartily without, but the time will come when a rival will be as good sauce for a married man to a wife as an orange to veal.

Sparkish: Lord, how shy you are of your wife! But let me tell you, brother, we men of wit have amongst us a saying that cuckolding, like the smallpox, comes with a fear, and you may keep your wife as much as you will out of danger of infection, but if her constitution incline her to't, she'll have it sooner or later, by the world, say they.

Pinchwife: What a thing is a cuckold, that every fool can make him ridiculous! – Well sir – but let me advise you, now you are come to be concerned, because you suspect the danger, not to neglect the means to prevent it, especially when the greatest share of the malady will light upon your own head, for

Hows’e’er the kind wife’s belly comes to swell
The husband breeds for her, and first is ill.