patience to know, if there be a letter from Langwood, and "what he says.

FRAM. I shall never be able to afford you the least information, upon that subject, my Lord.

Lo. Eust. Surely, I do not understand you. You said you had secured the letters-Have you not read them?

Fram. You have a right, and none but you, to ak me such a question. My weak compliance with your first propofal relative to these letters, warrants your thinking so meanly of me. But know, my lord, that though my personal affection for you, joined to my unhappy circumstances, Biay have betrayed me to actions unworthy of myself, I never can forget, that there is a barrier fixed before the extreme of baseness, which honour will not let me pass.

LD. Ęust. You will give me leave to tell you, Mr. Frampton, that where I lead, I think

you

need not halt. FRAM. You will pardon me, my lord; the consciousness af another man's errors, can never be a justification for our own; and poor, indeed, must that wretch be, who can be satisfied with the negative merit of not being the worst man he knows.

LD. EUst. If this discourse were uttered in a conventicle, it might have its effect; by setting the congregation to sleep. FRAM. It is rather meant to rouse, than lull

your

lord, fhip.

LD. Eust. No matter what it is meant for ; give me the letters, Mr. Frampton.

Fram. Yet excuse me. I could as soon think of arming a madman's hand, against my own life, as suffer you to be guilty of a crime that will, for ever, wound your

LD. Eust. I shall not come to you to heal the wound: your medicines are too rough and coarse for me.

FRAM. The soft poison of flattery might, perhaps, please : you better."

LD.Eust. Your conscience may, probably, have as much need of palliatives, as mine, Mr. Frampton, as I am pretty well convinced, that your course of life has not been more regular than my own.

FRAM. With true contrition, my lord, I confess part of your farcasm to be just. Pleafure was the object of my purfuit, and pleasure I obtained, at the expence both of health and fortune ; but yet, my lord, I broke not in upon the peace of others ; the laws of hospitality I never violated ; nor did I ever seek to injure, or seduce; the wife or daughter... of my friend.

LD. Eust. I care not what you did; give me the letters.

Fram. I have no right to keep, and therefore shall furrender them, though with the utmost reluctance; but, by our former friendship, I intreat you not to open them.

LD. Eust. That you have forfeited.

Fram. Since it is not in my power to prevent your committing an error, which you ought, for ever, to repent of, I will not be a witness of it. There are the letters.

LD. Eust. You may, perhaps, have cause to repent your present conduct, Mr. Frampton, as much as I do our past attachment.

FRAM. Rather than hold your friendship upon such terms, I resign it for ever. Farewel, my lord. .

Re-enter FRAMPTON. FRAM. Ill-treated as I have been, my lord, I find it impoflible to leave you furrounded by difficulties. Lo. Eust. That sentiment should have operated sooner,

Mr.

Mr. Frampton. Recollection is seldom of use to our friends, though it may sometimes be serviceable to ourselves.

Fram. Take advantage of your own expresiion, my lord, and recollect yourself. Born and educated as I have been, a gentleman, how have you injured both yourself and me, by admitting and uniting in the fame confidence, your rafcally servant.

LD. Eust. The exigency of my situation is a fufficient excuse to myself, and ought to have been so to the man who called himself my friend.

FRAM. Have a care, my lord, of uttering the least doubt upon that subject; for could I think you once mean enough to fufpect the fincerity of my attachment to you, it muft vanith at that instant.

Lo. Eust. The proofs of your regard have been rather
painful of late, Mr. Frampton..
Fram. When I see

my
friend
upon

the

verge of a preci. pice, is that a time for compliment? Shall I not rudely rush forward, and drag him from it ? Just in that state you are at present, and I will strive to save you. Virtue may languish in a noble heart, and fuffer her rival, vice, to ufurp her power, but baseness must not enter, or the Aies for ever. who has forfeited his own efteem, thinks all the world has the same consciousness, and therefore is what he deserves to be, a wretch.

LD. Eust. Oh, Frampton! you have lodged a dagger in my heart. FRAM. No, my dear Euftace, I have saved

you
from your own reproaches, by preventing your being guilty
of a meanness, which you could never have forgiven yourself.

LD. Eust. Can you forgive me, and be still my friend?
Fram. As firmly as I have ever been, my lord.

But

The man

from one,

But let us at present, haften to get rid of the mean bufiness we are engaged in, and forward the letters we have no right to detain.

SCHOOL FOR RAKES,

CHAP. IX.

DUKE AND LORD.

Duke. Now, my co-mates, and brothers in exile,

Duke.
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril, than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The season's difference; as the icy phang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till. I shrink with cold, I smile, and say, .
This is no flattery ; these are counsellors,
That feelingly perfuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity, -
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head :
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, bocks in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

-Come, shall we go, and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should, in their own confines, with forked heads.
Have their round haunches gor’d.

LORD. Indeed, my Lord,

The

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;
And in that kind swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banished you.
To day my Lord of Amiens, and myself,
Did steal behind him, as he lay along
Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;
To the which place a poor fequeftered fag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish ; and, indeed, my Lord,
The wretched animal heav'd forth such

groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathren coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nole
In piteous chafe; and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy of Jaques,
Stood on th' extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

Duke. But what said Jaques ?
Did he not moralize this spectacle?

LORD. O yes, into a thousand fimilies;
First, for his weeping in the needless stream ;
Poor Deer, quoth he, thou mak’lt a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much. Then being alone;
Left and abandon's of his velvet friends;
'Tis right, quộth he, thus misery doth part
The flux of company.

Anon a careless herd,
Fall of the pasture, jumps along by him,
And never stays to greet him: Ay, quoth Jaques,
Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens,
?Tis just the fashion; wherefore do you

look

Upon