but warm your bed, and tuck you up, and set the candle and your tobacco-box, and now and then rub the soles of your feet?-O Lord, I!--

Ang. Yes, I saw you together, through the keyhole of the closet, one night, like Saul and the witch of Endor, turning the sieve and sheers, and pricking your thumbs, to write poor innocent servants' names in blood, about a little nutmeggrater, which she had forgot in the caudle-cup.-Nay, I know something worse, if I would speak of it!

Fore. I defy you, hussy; but I'll remember this. I'll be revenged on you, cockatrice; I'll hamper you--You have your fortune in your own hands-but I'll find a way to make your lover, your prodigal spendthrift gallant, Valentine, pay for all, I will.

Ang. Will you? I care not; but all shall out then.

Fore. I will have patience, since it is the will of the stars I should be thus tormented-this is the effect of the malicious conjunctions and oppositions in the third house of my nativity; there the curse of kindred was foretold. But I will have my doors locked up--I'll punish you; not a man shall enter my house.

| fit to receive him; I shall scarce recover myself before the hour be past. Go, nurse; tell sir Sampson, I'm ready to wait on him. Nurse. Yes, sir.

[Erit NURSE. Fore. Well-why, if I was born to be a cuckold, there's no more to be said!—He is here already.

Enter SIR SAMPSON LEGEND with a paper.

Sir Sam. Nor no more to be done, old boy; that is plain---here it is, I have it in my hand, old Ptolemy; I'll make the ungracious prodigal know who begat him; I will, old Nostrodamus. What! I warrant, my son thought nothing belonged to a father, but forgiveness and affection; no authority, no correction, no arbitrary power -nothing to be done, but for him to offend, and me to pardon! I warrant you, if he danced till doomsday, he thought I was to pay the piper. Well, but here it is under black and white, sig natum, sigillatum, and deliberatum-that, as soon as my son Benjamin is arrived, he is to make over to him his right of inheritance. Where's my daughter that is to be--ha! old Merlin? Body of me, I'm so glad I'm revenged on this undutiful rogue!

:

Sir Sam. Haste! ay, ay, haste enough; my son Ben will be in town to-night--I have ordered my lawyer to draw up writings of settlement and jointure--all shall be done to-night. No matter for the time; prithee, brother Foresight, leave superstition. Pox o' the time; there's no time but the time present; there's no more to be said of what's past; and all that is to come will happen. If the sun shine by day, and the stars by night-why, we shall know one another's faces without the help of a candle; and that's all the

Ang. Ha, ha, ha!

Enter Servant.

Fore. How, how, sir Sampon? that all! Give me leave to contradict you, and tell you, you are ignorant.

Sir Sam. I tell you, I am wise and sapiens dominabitur astris; there's Latin for you to prove it, and an argument to confound your ephemeris. Ignorant!-I tell you, I have travelled, old Fercu; and know the globe. I have seen the antipodes, where the sun rises at mid-night, and sets at noonday.

Fore. But I tell you, I have travelled, and travelled in the celestial spheres; know the signs and the planets, and their houses; can judge of motions direct and retrograde, of sextiles, quadrates, trines and oppositions, fiery trigons, and aquatical trigons; know whether life shall be long or short, happy or unhappy; whether diseases are curable or incurable; if journies shall

be prosperous, undertakings successful, or goods stolen recovered: I know--

Sir Sam. I know the length of the emperor of China's foot; have kissed the Great Mogul's slipper; and rid a hunting upon an elephant with the cham of Tartary. Body o' me, I have made a cuckold of a king; and the present majesty of Bantam is the issue of these loins.

Fore. I know when travellers lie or speak truth, when they don't know it themselves.

Sir Sam. I have known an astrologer made a cuckold in the twinkling of a star; and seen a conjuror, that could not keep the devil out of his wife's circle.

Fore. What, does he twit me with my wife, too? I must be better informed of this. [Aside.] Do you mean my wife, sir Sampson? Though you made a cuckold of the king of Bantam, yet, by the body of the sun--

Sir Sam. By the horns of the moon, you would say, brother Capricorn.

Fore. Capricorn in your teeth, thou modern Mandeville! Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude! Take back your paper of inheritance; send your son to sea again. I'll wed my daughter to an Egyptian mummy, ere she shall incorporate with a contemner of sciences, and a defamer of virtue. Sir Sam. Body o' me, I have gone too far-I must not provoke honest Albumazar.--An Egyptian mummy is an illustrious creature, my trusty hieroglyphic; and may have significations of futurity about him. Odsbud, I would my son were an Egyptian mummy for thy sake. What, thou art not angry for a jest, my good Haly?—I reverence the sun, moon, and stars, with all my heart. What! I'll make thee a present of a mummy. Now, I think on't, body o' me, I have a shoulder of an Egyptian king, that I purloined from one of the pyramids, powdered with hiero glyphics; thou shalt have it brought home to thy house, and make an entertainment for all the Philomaths, and students in physic and astrology, in and about London.

Fore. But what do you know of my wife, sir Sampson?

Sir Sam. Thy wife is a constellation of virtues; she is the moon, and thou art the man in the moon; nay, she is more illustrious than the moon; for she has her chastity, without her incontinency: 'sbud, I was but in jest.

Enter JEREMY,

Sir Sam. How now? who sent for you, ha? what would you have?

Fore. Nay, if you were but in jest!-Who's that fellow? I don't like his physiognomy.

Sir Sam. [To JEREMY.] My son, sir? what son, sir? my son Benjamin, ha!

Jer. No, sir; Mr Valentine, my master;-it is the first time he has been abroad, since his confinement, and he comes to pay his duty to you.

Sir Sam. Well, sir.

Enter VALENTINE,

Jer. He is here, sir.
Val. Your blessing, sir!

Sir Sam. You've had it already, sir; I think I sent it you to-day in a bill of four thousand pounds. A great deal of money, brother Foresight!

Fore. Ay, indeed, sir Sampson, a great deal of money for a young man; I wonder what he can do with it!

Sir Sam. Body o' me, so do I. Hark ye, Va lentine, if there be too much, refund the superfluity; dost hear, boy?

Val. Superfluity, sir! it will scarce pay my debts. I hope you will have more indulgence, than to oblige me to those hard conditions, which my necessity signed to.

Sir Sam. Sir! how! I beseech you, what were you pleased to intimate, concerning indulgence? Val. Why, sir, that you would not go to the extremity of the conditions, but release me at least from some part.

ha?

Sir Sam. O, sir, I understand you that's all,

Val. Yes, sir, all that I presume to ask-But what you, out of fatherly fondness, will be pleased to add, will be doubly welcome.

Sir Sam. No doubt of it, sweet sir; but your filial piety and my fatherly fondness would fit like two tallies-Here's a rogue, brother Foresight, makes a bargain under hand and seal in the morning, and would be released from it in the afternoon: here's a rogue, dog; here's conscience and honesty! This is your wit now, this is the morality of your wit! You are a wit, and have been a beau, and may be a-Why, sirrah, is it not here under hand and seal?deny it?

Val. Sir, I don't deny it.

Can you

Sir Sam. Sirrah, you'll be hanged; I shall live to see you go up Holborn-hill--Has he not a rogue's face? Speak, brother; you understand physiognomy; a hanging look to me--of all my boys the most unlike me. He has a damned Tyburn face, without the benefit of the clergy.

Fore. Hum!-truly, I don't care to discourage a young man he has a violent death in his face; but I hope no danger of hanging.

Val. Sir, is this usage for your son ?---For that old weather-headed fool, I know how to laugh at him; but you, sir

Sir Sam. You, sir! and you, sir !---Why, who are you, sir?

Val. Your son, sir.

Val. I would have an excuse for your barbarity and unnatural usage.

Sir Sam. Excuse?-Impudence! Why, sirrah, mayn't I do what I please? are not you my slave? did not I beget you? and might not I have chosen whether I would have begot you or no? Oons, who are you? whence came you? what brought you into the world? how came you here, sir? here, to stand here, upon those two legs, and look erect with that audacious face, hah? Answer me that. Did you come volunteer into the world? or did I, with the lawful authority of a parent, press you to the service?

a

Val. I know no more why I came, than you do why you called me. But here I am; and if you don't mean to provide for me, I desire you would leave me as you found me.

Sir Sam. With all my heart. Come, uncase, strip, and go naked out of the world as you came into it.

Val. My clothes are soon put off-but you must also divest me of my reason, thought, passions, inclinations, affections, appetites, senses, and the huge train of attendants, that you begot along with me.

Sir Sam. Body o'me, what a many-headed monster have I propagated!

Jer. Yes, I have a reasonable good ear, sir, as to jiggs, and country dances, and the like; I don't much matter your solos or sonatas; they give me the spleen.

Sir Sam. The spleen? ha, ha, ha! a pox confound you!-Solos or sonatas? Oons, whose son are you? how were you engendered, muckworm? Jer. I am, by my father, the son of a chairman; my mother sold oysters in winter, and cucumbers in summer and I came up stairs into the world; for I was born in a cellar.

:

Fore. By your looks you shall go up stairs out of the world too, friend.

Sir Sam. And if this rogue were anatomized now, and dissected, he has his vessels of digestion and concoction, and so forth, large enough for the inside of a cardinal; this son of a cucumber!-These things are unaccountable and unreasonable.-Body o'me, why was I not a bear, that my cubs might have lived upon sucking their paws? Nature has been provident only to bears and spiders: the one has its nutriment in its own hands; and the other spins its habitation out of its own entrails.

Val. Fortune was provident enough to supply all the necessities of my nature, if I had my right inheritance.

Odsheart, live by your wits you were always fond of the wits.-Now let's see if you have wit enough to keep yourself. Your brother will be in town to-night, or to-morrow morning; then look you perform covenants, and so your friend and servant.-Come, brother Foresight.

to.

[Exeunt SIR SAMPSON and FORESIGHT. Jer. I told you what your visit would come

Val. 'Tis as much as I expected-I did not come to see him: I came to see Angelica; but since she was gone abroad, it was easily turned another way, and at least looked well on my side. What's here? Mrs Foresight and Mrs Frail! They are earnest-I'll avoid them.-Come this way, and go and inquire when Angelica will re[Exeunt.

turn.

Enter MRS FORESIGHT and MRS FRAIL. Mrs Frail. What have you to do to watch me? 'Slife, I'll do what I please.

Mrs Fore. You will?

Mrs Frail. Yes, marry, will I. A great piece of business to go to Covent-garden, to take a turn in a hackney-coach with one's friend!

Mrs Fore. Nay, two or three turns, I'll take my oath.

Mrs Frail. Well, what if I took twenty! I warrant, if you had been there, it had only been innocent recreation! Lord, where's the comfort

Mrs Fore. But can't you converse at home? I own it, I think there's no happines like conversing with an agreeable man; I don't quarrel at that, nor I don't think but your conversation was very innocent. But the place is public; and to be seen with a man in a hackney-coach, is scandalous. What if any body else should have seen you alight, as I did? How can any body be happy, while they are in perpetual fear of being seen and censured? Besides, it would not only reflect upon you, sister, but on me.

Mrs Frail. Pooh, here's a clutter! Why should it reflect upon you? I don't doubt but you have thought yourself happy in a hackney-coach before now! If I had gone to Knightsbridge, or to Chelsea, or to Spring-garden, or to Barn-elms, with a man alone-something might have been said.

Mrs Fore. Why, was I ever in any of those places? What do you mean, sister?

Mrs Frail. Was I? What do you mean? Mrs Fore. You have been at a worse place. Mrs Frail. I at a worse place, and with a man?

Mrs Fore. I suppose you would not go alone to the World's-end.

Mrs Frail. The World's-end! What, do you mean to banter me?

Mrs Fore. Poor innocent! you don't know that there is a place called the World's-end? I'll swear, you can keep your countenance purely ; you'd make an admirable player!

Mrs Frail. I'll swear you have a great deal of confidence, and, in my mind, too much for the stage.

Mrs Fore. Very well, that will appear who has most. You never were at the World's-end? Mrs Frail. No.

Mrs Fore. You deny it positively to my face? Mrs Frail. Your face! what's your face? Mrs Fore. No matter for that; it's as good a face as yours.

Mrs Frail. Not by a dozen years wearing. But I do deny it positively to your face, then.

Mrs Fore. I'll allow you now to find fault with my face; for I'll swear your impudence has put me out of countenance. But look you here now, -where did you lose this gold bodkin? Oh, sister, sister!

Mrs Frail. My bodkin!

Mrs Fore. Nay, 'tis yours; look at it.

Mrs Frail. Well, if you go that, where did you find this bodkin?-Oh, sister, sister! sister every way!

Mrs Fore. O, devil on't! that I could not discover, without betraying myself! [Aside. Mrs Frail. I have heard gentlemen say, sister, that one should take great care, when one makes a thrust in fencing, not to lay open one's self.

Mrs Fore. It is very true, sister. Well, since all's out, and, as you say, since we are both

Mrs Frail. With all my heart. Well, give me your hand, in token of sisterly secrecy and affection.

Mrs Fore. Here it is, with all my heart.

Mrs Frail. Well, as an earnest of friendship and confidence, I'll acquaint you with a design that I have. I'm afraid the world have observed us more than we have observed one another. You have a rich husband, and are provided for: I am at a loss, and have no great stock either of fortune or reputation, and therefore must look sharply about me. Sir Sampson has a son, that is expected to-night; and, by the account I have heard of his education, can be no conjurer. The estate, you know, is to be made over to him. Now, if I could wheedle him, sister, ha? you understand me?

Mrs Fore. I do; and will help you, to the utmost of iny power. And I can tell you one thing that falls out luckily enough; my awkward daughter-in-law, who, you know, is designed to be his wife, is grown fond of Mr Tattle; now, if we can improve that, and make her have an aversion for the booby, it may go a great way towards his liking you. Here they come together; and let us contrive some way or other to leave them together.

Enter TATTLE and MISS PRUE.

Miss Prue. Mother, mother, mother! look you here?

Mrs Fore. Fie, fie, miss, how you bawl! Besides, I have told you, you must not call me mother.

Miss Prue. What must I call you, then? are you not my father's wife?

Mrs Fore. Madam; you must say madam. By my soul, I shall fancy myself old indeed, to have this great girl call me mother. Well, but, miss, what are you so overjoyed at?

Miss Prue. Look you here, madam, then, what Mr Tattle has given me. Look you here, cousin ; here's a snuff-box; nay, there's snuff in't-here, will you have any? Oh good! how sweet it is! Mr Tattle is all over sweet; his peruke is sweet, and his gloves are sweet, and his handkerchief is sweet, pure sweet, sweeter than roses-smell him, mother-madam, I mean. He gave me this ring, for a kiss.

Tatt. O fie, miss! you must not kiss, and tell. Miss Prue. Yes; I may tell my mother-and he says he'll give me something to make me smell so. Oh, pray, lend me your handkerchief. Smell, cousin; he says, he'll give me something, that will make my smocks smell this way. Is not it pure? It's better than lavender, mun. I'm resolved I won't let nurse put any more lavender among my smocks-ha, cousin?

Mrs Frail. Fie, miss! amongst your linen you must say; you must never say smock.

Miss Prue. Why, it is not bawdy, is it, cousin? Tatt. Oh, madam! you are too severe upon miss you must not find fault with her pretty simplicity; it becomes her strangely. Pretty miss, don't let them persuade you out of your innocency!

Mrs Fore. Oh, demn you, toad! I wish you don't persuade her out of her innocency!

Tatt. Who I, madam? O Lord, how can your ladyship have such a thought? sure you don't know me!

Mrs Frail. Ah, devil, sly devil! He's as close, sister, as a confessor. He thinks we don't observe him.

Mrs Fore. A cunning cur! how soon he could find out a fresh harmless creature-and left us, sister, presently.

Tatt. Upon reputation

Mrs Frail. They're all so, sister, these men; they are as fond of it, as of being first in the fashion, or of seeing a new play the first day. I warrant it would break Mr Tattle's heart, to think that any body else should be before-hand with him!

Tatt. Oh, Lord! I swear I would not for the world

Mrs Frail. O, hang you; who'll believe you? You'll be hanged before you'd confess—we know you-she's very pretty! Lord, what pure red and white! she looks so wholesome; ne'er stir, I don't know, but I fancy if I were a man—

Miss Prue. How you love to jeer one, cousin. Mrs Fore. Hark'ee, sister-by my soul, the girl is spoiled already-d'ye think she'll ever endure a great lubberly tarpawlin? Gad, I warrant you she won't let him come near her, after Mr Tattle.

Mrs Frail. On my soul, I'm afraid not-eh! filthy creature, that smells all of pitch and tar! Devil take you, you confounded toad-why did you see her before she was married?

Mrs Fore. Nay, why did we let him? My husband will hang us; he'll think we brought them acquainted.

Mrs Frail. Come, faith, let us be gone; if my brother Foresight should find us with them, he'd think so, sure enough.

Mrs Fore. So he would; but then the leaving them together is as bad; and he's such a sly devil, he'll never miss an opportunity.

Mrs Frail. I don't care; I won't be seen in it. Mrs Fore. Well, if you should, Mr Tattle, you'll have a world to answer for: remember, I wash my hands of it; I'm thoroughly innocent.

[Exeunt MRS FRAIL and MRS FORESIGHT. Miss Prue. What makes them go away, Mr Tattle?—What do they mean, do you know? Tatt. Yes, my dear--I think I can guess-but hang me if I know the reason of it.

Miss Prue. Come, must not we go, too?

Tatt. No, no; they don't mean that. Miss Prue. No! what then? What shall you and I do together?

Tatt. I must make love to you, pretty miss; will you let me make love to you? Miss Prue. Yes, if you please.

Tatt. Frank, egad, at least. What a pox does Mrs Foresight mean by this civility? Is it to make a fool of me? or does she leave us together out of good morality, and do as she would be done by? Egad, I'll understand it so. [Aside. Miss Prue. Well, and how will you make love me?---Come, I long to have you begin. Must I make love, too? You must tell me how.

to

Tatt. You must let me speak, miss; you must not speak first. I must ask you questions, and you must answer.

Miss Prue. What, is it like the catechism?— Come, then, ask me.

Tatt. D'ye think you can love me?

Miss Prue. Yes.

Tatt. Pooh, pox, you must not say yes already. I shan't care a farthing for you, then, in a twinkling.

Miss Prue. What must I say then?

Tatt. Why, you must say, no; or, believe not; or, you can't tell.

Miss Prue. Why, must I tell a lie, then?

Tatt. Yes, if you'd be well-bred. All wellbred persons lie-Besides, you are a woman;— you must never speak what you think: your words must contradict your thoughts; but your actions may contradict your words. So, when I ask you, if you can love me, you must say, no; but you must love me, ton. If I tell you you are handsome, you must deny it, and say, I flatter you. But you must think yourself more charming than I speak you-and like me for the beauty which I say you have, as much as if I had it myself. If I ask you to kiss me, you must be angry; but you must not refuse me. If I ask you for more, you must be more angry, but more complying; and as soon as ever I make you say, you'll cry out, you must be sure to hold your tongue.

Miss Prue. O Lord, I swear this is pure!-I like it better than our old-fashioned country way of speaking one's mind. And must not you lie, too? Tatt. Hum!-Yes; but you must believe I speak truth.

Miss Prue. O Gemini ! Well, I always had a great mind to tell lies-but they frighted me, and said it was a sin.

Tatt. Well, my pretty creature, will you make me happy by giving me a kiss?

Miss Prue. No, indeed; I'm angry at you! [Runs and kisses him. Tatt. Hold, hold, that's pretty well—but you should not have given me, but have suffered me to have taken it.

Miss Prue. Well, we'll do't again. Tatt. With all my heart-Now, then, my little angel! [Kisses her.