morning Isabella in a private interview
rejects her pseudo-suitor with scorn and contumely, whereat Knowell, who
has of intent been listening, reveals to her that it is his friend
Wittmore and no real lover who is seemingly courting her, and with his
help, whilst Sir Patient is occupied with a consultation of doctors
(amongst whom Sir Credulous appears disguised as a learned member of the
faculty), Isabella and Knowell are securely married. Lady Knowell, who
has feigned a liking for Leander, generously gives him to Lucretia, Sir
Patient's attention being still engrossed by the physicians who assemble
in great force. Soon after, at Leander's instigation, in order to test
his wife, Sir Patient feigns to be dead of a sudden apoplexy, and for a
few moments, whilst others are present, Lucia laments him with many
plaints and tears, but immediately changes when she is left alone with
Wittmore. The lovers' plans, however, are overheard by the husband, who
promptly confronts his wife with her duplicity. Amazed and confounded
indeed, he forgives Leander and his daughter for marrying contrary to
his former wishes; and when Lucia coolly announces her intention to play
the hypocrite and puritan no more, but simply to enjoy herself with the
moneys he has settled on her without let or proviso, he humorously
declares he will for his part also drop the prig and canter, and turn
town gallant and spark.

SOURCE.

In spite of Mrs. Behn's placid assertion in her address 'To the Reader'
that she has only taken 'but a very bare hint' from a foreign source,
_Le Malade Imaginaire_, the critics who cried out that _Sir Patient
Fancy_ 'was made out of at least four French plays' are patently right.
Sir Patient is, of course, Argan throughout and in detail; moreover, in
the scene where the old alderman feigns death, there is very copious and
obvious borrowing from Act III of _Le Malade Imaginaire_. Some of the
doctors' lingo also comes from the third and final interlude of
Moliere's comedy, whilst the idea of the medical consultation is
pilfered from _L'Amour Medecin_, Act II, ii. Sir Credulous Easy is
Monsieur de Porceaugnac, but his first entrance is taken wholesale from
Brome's _The Damoiselle; or, The New Ordinary_ (8vo, 1653), Act II, i,
where Amphilus and Trebasco discourse exactly as do Curry and his
master. The pedantic Lady Knowell is a mixture of Philaminte and Belise
from _Les Femmes Savantes_. The circumstance in Act IV, ii, wh