Garrick's Prologue to “A School for Scandal”

A School for Scandal! tell me, I beseech you,

Needs there a school this modish art to teach you?

No need of lessons now, the knowing think;

We might as well be taught to eat and drink.

Caused by a dearth of scandal, should the vapours

Distress our fair ones—let them read the papers;

Their powerful mixtures such disorders hit;

Crave what you will—there's quantum sufficit.

—David Garrick, Prologue to Thomas Brinsley Sheridan's “A School for Scandal” (1777) (h/t: Barnett Rubin)