But e’en your follies and debauches change
  With such a whirl, the poets of our age
  Are tired, and cannot score them on the stage;
  Unless each vice in short-hand they indict,
  Even as notch’d prentices whole sermons write[1]. 
  The heavy Hollanders no vices know,
  But what they used a hundred years ago;
  Like honest plants, where they were stuck, they grow. 
  They cheat, but still from cheating sires they come;
  They drink, but they were christened first in mum. 
  Their patrimonial sloth the Spaniards keep,
  And Philip first taught Philip how to sleep. 
  The French and we still change; but here’s the curse,
  They change for better, and we change for worse;
  They take up our old trade of conquering,
  And we are taking theirs, to dance and sing: 
  Our fathers did, for change, to France repair,
  And they, for change, will try our English air;
  As children, when they throw one toy away,
  Strait a more foolish gewgaw comes in play: 
  So we, grown penitent, on serious thinking,
  Leave whoring, and devoutly fall to drinking. 
  Scowering the watch grows out-of-fashion wit: 
  Now we set up for tilting in the pit,
  Where ’tis agreed by bullies chicken-hearted,
  To fright the ladies first, and then be parted. 
  A fair attempt has twice or thrice been made,
  To hire night murderers, and make death a trade[2]. 
  When murder’s out, what vice can we advance? 
  Unless the new-found poisoning trick of France: 
  And, when their art of rats-bane we have got,
  By way of thanks, we’ll send them o’er our plot.

Footnotes
1.  It was anciently a part of the apprentice’s duty, not only to carry
   the family bible to church, but to take notes of the sermon for the
   edification of his master or mistress.

2.  Alluding apparently to the assassination of Thomas Thynne, esq. in
   Pall-Mall, by the hired bravoes of count Coningsmark.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

TORRISMOND, Son of SANCHO, the deposed King, believing
himself Son of RAYMOND. 
BERTRAN, a Prince of the blood.
ALPHONSO, a general Officer, Brother to RAYMOND. 
LORENZO, his Son.
RAYMOND, a Nobleman, supposed Father of TORRISMOND. 
PEDRO, an Officer.
GOMEZ, an old Usurer.
DOMINICK, the Spanish Friar.

LEONORA, Queen of Arragon.
TERESA, Woman to LEONORA. 
ELVIRA, Wife to GOMEZ.

THE

SPANISH FRIAR: 

OR THE

DOUBLE DISCOVERY.

ACT I.—­SCENE I.

ALPHONSO and PEDRO meet, with Soldiers on each Side, Drums, &c.

Alph. Stand:  give the word.

Ped. The queen of Arragon.

Alph. Pedro?—­how goes the night?