Planters, Indians, Negroes, men, women, and children.

SCENE, Surinam, a colony in the West-Indies, at the times of the action of this Tragedy in the possession of the English.

OROONOKO.

ACTI. SCENE I.

Enter WELLDON following LUCY.

Lucy.

WHAT will this come to? What can it end in? you have persuaded me to leave dear England, and dearer London, the place of the world most worthy living in, to follow you a husband hunting into America: I thought husbands grew in these plantations.

Well. Why so they do, as thick as oranges ripening one under another. Week after week they drop into some woman's mouth: 'tis but a little patience, spreading your apron in expectation, and one of 'em will fall into your lap at last.

Luc. Ay, so you say, indeed. Well. But you have left dear London, you say: pray what have you left in London that was very to you, that had not left you before?

dear

Luc. Speak for yourself, sister.

The

Well. Nay, I'll keep you in countenance. young fellows, you know, the dearest part of the town, and without whom London had been a wilderness to you and me, had forsaken us a great while.

Luc. Forsaken us? I don't know that ever they had

Well. Forsaken us the worst way, child; that is, did not think us worth having; they neglected us, no longer designed upon us, they were tired of us. Women in London are like the rich silks, they are out of fashion a great while before they wear out

Luc. The devil take the fashion, I say.

Well. You may tumble them over and over at their first coming up, and never disparage their price; but they fall upon wearing immediately, lower and lower in their value, till they come to the broker at last.

"Luc. Aye, aye, that's the merchant they deal "with. The men would have us at their own scan"dalous rates; their plenty makes them wanton, and ❝ in a little time, I suppose, they won't know what "they would have of the women themselves.

“Well. Oh, yes, they know what they would have. "They would have a woman give the town a pattern "of her person and beauty, and not stay in it so long "to have the whole piece worn out. They would "have the good face only discovered, and not the

folly that commonly goes along with it. They say there is a vast stock of beauty in the nation, but a "great part of it lies in unprofitable hands; there.

"fore, for the good of the public, they would have 66 a draught made once a quarter, send the decaying "beauties for breeders into the country, to, make

room for new faces to appear, to countenance the "pleasures of the town.

"Luc. 'Tis very hard, the men must be young as "long as they live, and poor women be thought de"caying and unfit for the town at one and twenty. "I'm sure we were not seven years in London.

"Well. Not half the time taken notice of, sister. "The two or three last years we could make nothing “of it, even in a vizard-mask; not in a vizard"mask, that has cheated many a man into an old ac"quaintance. Our faces began to be as familiar to "the men of intrigue as their duns, and as much "avoided. We durst not appear in public places, " and were almost grudged a gallery in the churches: even there they had their jests upon us, and cry'd, "she's in the right on't, good gentlewoman, since no man considers her body, she does very well indeed "to take care of her soul.

"Luc. Such unmannerly fellows there will always

"be.

"Well. Then you may remember we were reduced "to the last necessity, the necessity of making silly "visits to our civil acquaintance, to bring us into "tolerable company. Nay, the young inns of court "beans, of but one term's standing in the fashion, "who knew nobody, but as they were shewn them by "the orange woman, had nick names for us: how