Sneerwell, I must wish you a good morning: I'm not very well. [Exit Maria, L. MRS. C. O dear! she changes colour very much. LADY S. Do, Mrs. Candour, follow her she may want your assistance.

MRS. C. That I will, with all my soul, ma'am.-Poor dear girl, who knows what her situation may be!

[Exit Mrs. Candour, L.

LADY S. 'Twas nothing but that she could not bear to hear Charles reflected on, notwithstanding their diffe

rence.

SIR B. The young lady's penchant is obvious.

CRAB. But Benjamin, you must not give up the pursuit for that follow her, and put her into good humour. Repeat her some of your own verses. Come, I'll assist you.

SIR B. [Crosses to Surface.] Mr. Surface, I did not mean to hurt you; but depend on't your brother is utterly undone. [Crosses, L. CRAB. [Crosses to Surface.] O lud, aye! undoue as ever man was.--Can't raise a guinea! [Crosses, L. SIR B. [Crosses to Surface.] And every thing sold, I'm told, that was moveable.

[Crosses, L.

CRAB. [Crosses, c.] I have seen one that was at his house. Not a thing left but some empty bottles that were overlooked, and the family pictures, which I believe are framed in the wainscots[Crosses, L. SIR B. [Crosses, c.] And I'm very sorry, also, to hear some bad stories against him. [Going, L. GRAB. Oh! he has done many mean things, that's certain. SIR B. But, however, as he is your brother-

CRAB. We'll tell

[Going, L.

you all another opportunity. [Exeunt Crabtree and Sir Benjamin, L. LADY S. Ha! ha! 'tis very hard for them to leave a subject they have not quite run down.

JOSEPH S. And I believe the abuse was no more acceptable to your ladyship than Maria.

LADY S. I doubt her affections are further engaged than we imagine. But the family are to be here this evening,

I'll

so you may as well dine where you are, and we shall have an opportunity of observing farther; in the meantime, go and plot mischief, and you shall study sentiment.

SCENE II.-Sir Peter's House.

Enter SIR PETER, L.

[Exeunt, R.

SIR P. When an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he to expect? 'Tis now six months since Lady Teazle made me the happiest of men—and I have been the most miserable dog ever since. We tift a little going to church, and came to a quarrel before the bells had done ringing. I was more than once nearly choked with gall during the honeymoon, and had lost all comfort in life before my friends had done wishing me joy. Yet I chose with caution-a girl bred wholly in the country, who never knew luxury beyond one silk gown, nor dissipation above the annual gala of a race ball. Yet she now plays her part in all the extravagant fopperies of fashion and the town, with as ready a grace as if she had never seen a bush or a grass-plot out of Grosvenor Square! I am sneered at by all my acquaintance; and paragraphed in the newspapers. She dissipates my fortune, and contradicts all my humours; yet, the worst of it is, I doubt I love her, or I should never bear all this. However, I'll never be weak enough to own it.

Enter ROWLEY, r.

ROWLEY. O! Sir Peter, your servant how is it with you, sir?

SIR P. (L.) Very bad, master Rowley, very bad I meet with nothing but crosses and vexations.

ROWLEY. (R.) What can have happened since yesterday? SIR P. A good question to a married man!

ROWLEY. Nay, I'm sure, SIR Peter, your lady cannot be the cause of your uneasiness.

SIR P. Why, has any body told you she was dead?

ROWLEY. Come, come, Sir Peter, you love her, notwithstanding your tempers don't exactly agree.

SIR P. But the fault is entirely hers, master Rowley. I am, myself, the sweetest tempered man alive, and hate a teazing temper and so I tell her a hundred times a day. ROWLEY. Indeed!

SIR. P. Ay! and what is very extraordinary, in all our disputes she is always in the wrong! But Lady Sneerwell, and the set she meets at her house, encourage the perverseness of her disposition. Then, to complete my vexation, Maria, my ward, whom I ought to have the power of a father over, is determined to turn rebel too, and absolutely refuses the man whom I have long resolved on for her husband; meaning, I suppose, to bestow herself on his profligate brother.

ROWLEY. You know, sir, I have always taken the liberty to differ with you on the subject of these two young gentlemen. I only wish you may not be deceived in your opinion ef the elder. For Charles, my life on't! he will retrieve his errors yet. Their worthy father, once my honoured master, was, at his years, nearly as wild a spark; yet, when he died, he did not leave a more benevolent heart to lament his loss.

SIR P. You are wrong, Master Rowley. On their father's death, you know; I acted as a kind of guardian to them both, till their uncle Sir Oliver's eastern lberality gave them an early independence: of course, no person could have more opportunities of judging of their hearts, and I was never mistaken in my life. Joseph is indeed a model for the young men of the age. He is a man of sentiment, and acts up to the sentiments he professes; but for the other, take my word for't, if he had any grain of virtue by descent, he has dissipated it with the rest of his inheritance. Ah! my old friend, Sir Oliver, will be deeply mortified when he finds how part of his bounty has been misapplied.

ROWLEY. I am sorry to find you so violent against the young man, because this may be the most critical period of his fortune. I came hither with news that will surprise you.

SIR P. What! let me hear.

ROWLEY. Sir Oliver is arrived, and at this moment in town.

SIR P. How! you astonish me! I thought you did not expect him this month.

ROWLEY. I did not, but his passage has been remarkably quick.

SIR P. Egad, I shall rejoice to see my old friend. 'Tis sixteen years since we met.-We have had many a day together but does he still enjoin us not to inform his nephews of his arrival?

:

ROWLEY. Most strictly. He means, before it is known, to make some trial of their dispositions.

SIR P. Ah! there needs no art to discover their merits -however, he shall have his way: but, pray, does he know I am married?

ROWLEY. Yes, and will soon wish you joy.

SIR P. What, as we drink health to a friend in a consumption. Ah! Oliver will laugh at me. We used to rail at matrimony together: but he has been steady to his text. Well, he must be at my house, though!—I'll instantly give orders for his reception. But, master Rowley, don't drop a word that Lady Teazle and I ever disagree.

ROWLEY. By no means.

SIR P. For I should never be able to stand Noll's jokes ; so I'd have him think, Lord forgive me! that we are a very happy couple.

ROWLEY. I understand you:-but then you must be very careful not to differ while he is in the house with you.

SIR P. Egad, and so we must-and that's impossible. Ah! master Rowley, when an old bachelor marries a young wife, he deserves-no-the crime carries its punishment along with it.

[Exeunt Rowley, R. Sir Peter, L.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-Sir Peter's House

Enter LADY TEAZLE AND SIR PETER, L.

SIR P. Lady Teazle, Lady Teazle, I'll not bear it! LADY T. (R.) Sir Peter, Peter, you may bear it or not as you please; but I ought to have my own way in every thing; and what's more, I will too. What, though I was educated in the conntry, I know very well that women of fashion in London are accountable to nobody after they are married.

SIR. P. (L.) Very well, ma'am, very well;- -so a husband is to have no influence, no authority?

LADY T. Authority! No, to be sure :—if you wanted authority over me, you should have adopted me, and not married me I am sure you were old enough.

SIR P. Old enough!-ay-there it is. Well, well, Lady Teazle, though my life may be made unhappy by your temper, I'll not be ruined by your extravagance.

LADY T. My extravagance! I'm sure I'm not more extravagant than a woman of fashion ought to be.

SIR P. No, no, madam, you shall throw away no more sums on such unmeaning luxury. 'Slife! to spend as much to furnish your dressing-room with flowers in winter as would suffice to turn the Pantheon into a green-house, and give a fête champêtre at Christmas.

LADY E. Lord, Sir Peter, am I to blame, because flowers are dear in cold weather? You should find fault with the climate, and not with me. For my part, I'm sure, wish it was spring all the year round, and that roses grew under our feet!

SIR P. Oons! madam-if you had been born to this, shouldn't wonder at your talking thus; but you forget what your situation was when I married you.

LADY †. No; no, I don't; 'twas a very disagreeable one, or 1 should never have married you.

SIR P. Yes, yes, madam, you were then in somewhat a humbler style :-the daughter of a plain country squire.