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SCENE L-The Market-Place-Drum beats any man; for you must know, gentlemen, that I

the Grenadier's March.

Enter SERJEANT KITE, followed by THOMAS
APPLETREE, COSTAR PEARMAIN, and the Mob.

KITE, making a speech.

am a man of honour besides, I don't beat up for common soldiers; no, I list only grenadiers; grenadiers, gentlemen-Pray, gentlemen, observe this cap--this is the cap of honour; it dubs a man a gentleman in the drawing of a trigger; and he, that has the good fortune to be born six foot high, was born to be a great man-Sir, will you give me leave to try this cap upon your

Cos. Is there no harm in't? won't the cap list me?

Ir any gentlemen, soldiers, or others, have a mind to serve his majesty, and pull down the French king; if any 'prentices have severe mas-head. ters, any children have undutiful parents, if any servants have too little wages, or any husband too much wife, let them repair to the noble Serjeant Kite, at the sign of The Raven, in this good town of Shrewsbury, and they shall receive present relief and entertainment-Gentlemen, I don't beat my drums here to insnare or inveigle

Kite. No, no; no more than I can-Come, let me see how it becomes you.

Cos. Are you sure there be no conjuration i it? no gunpowder-plot upon me?

Kite. No, no, friend; don't fear, mar

Cos. My mind misgives me plaguily-Let me see it-[Going to put it on.] It smells woundily of sweat and brimstone. Smell, Tummas. Tho. Ay, wauns does it.

Cos. Pray, serjeant, what writing is this upor the face of it?

Kite. The crown, or the bed of honour. Cos. Pray now, what may be that same bed of honour?

left London-an hundred and twenty miles in: thirty hours is pretty smart riding, but nothing to the fatigue of recruiting.

Enter KITE.

Kite. Welcome to Shrewsbury, noble captain! from the banks of the Danube to the Severn side, noble captain, you're welcome!

Plume. A very elegant reception, indeed, Mr Kite. Oh! a mighty large bed! bigger by half Kite. I find you are fairly entered into your than the great bed at Ware-ten thousand peo-recruiting strain-Pray, what success? ple may lie in it together, and never feel one another.

Cos. My wife and I would do well to lie in't, for we don't care for feeling one another-But do folk sleep sound in this same bed of honour? Kite. Sound! ay, so sound that they never wake.

Cos. Wauns! I wish again that my wife lay there.

Kite. Say you so! then I find, brother— Cos. Brother! hold there, friend; I am no kindred to you that I know of yet-Look yc, serjeant, no coaxing, no wheedling, d'ye see if I have a mind to list, why so-if not, why 'tis not so-therefore, take your cap and your brothership back again, for I am not disposed at this present writing-No coaxing, no brothering me, faith!

Kite. I coax! I wheedle! I'm above it, sir: I have served twenty campaigns――but, sir, you talk well, and I must own that you are a man, every inch of you; a pretty, young, sprightly fellow!-I love a fellow with a spirit; but I scorn to coax; 'tis base; though, I must say, that never in my life have I seen a man better built. How firm and strong he treads! he steps like a castle! but I scorn to wheedle any man-Come, honest lad! will you take share of a pot?

Cos. Nay, for that matter, I'll spend my penny with the best he that wears a head; that is, begging your pardon, sir, and in a fair way.

Kite. Give me your hand, then; and now, gentlemen, I have no more to say but thishere's a purse of gold, and there is a tub of humming ale at my quarters-'tis the king's money, and the king's drink-he's a generous king, and loves his subjects-I hope, gentlemen, you won't refuse the king's health?

All Mob. No, no, no.

Kite. Huzza, then! huzza for the king, and the honour of Shropshire!

All Mob. Huzza!

Kite. Beat drum.

Kite. I've been here a week, and I've recruited five.

Plume. Five! pray what are they? Kite. I have listed the strong man of Kent, the king of the gipsies, a Scotch pedlar, a scoundrel attorney, and a Welch parson.

Plume. An attorney! wert thou mad? list a lawyer! discharge him, discharge him, this minute!

Kite. Why, sir?

Plume. Because I will have nobody in my
company that can write; a fellow that can write
can draw petitions-I say, this minute discharge
| him!

Kite. And what shall I do with the parson?
Plume. Can he write?

Kite. Hum! he plays rarely upon the fiddle. Plume. Keep him, by all means-But how stands the country affected? were the people pleased with the news of my coming to town?

Kite. Sir, the mob are so pleased with your honour, and the justices and better sort of people are so delighted with me, that we shall soon your business-But, sir, you have got a recruit here, that you little think of. Plume. Who?

do

Kite. One that you beat up for the last time you were in the country. You remember your old friend Molly at The Castle?

Plume. She's not with child, I hope?
Kite. She was brought to-bed yesterday.
Plume. Kite, you must father the child.
Kite. And so her friends will oblige me to
marry the mother?

Plume. If they should, we'll take her with us; she can wash, you know, and make a bed upon occasion.

Kite. Aye, or unmake it upon occasion. But your honour knows that I am married already. Plume. To how many?

Kite. I can't tell readily-I have set them down here upon the back of the _muster-roll.[Draws it out.] Let me see-Imprimis, Mrs

[Exeunt shouting, drum beating a grena- Shely Snikereyes; she sells potatoes upon Or

dier's march.

Enter PLUME in a riding habit. Plume. By the grenadier's march, that should be my drum, and by that shout it should beat with success-Let me see-four o'clock-[Looking on his watch.] At ten yesterday morning I

mond Key in Dublin-Peggy Guzzle, the brandy woman at the Horse-Guards at WhitehallDolly Waggon, the carrier's daughter at HullMademoiselle Van Bottomflat at the Buss-then Jenny Oakum, the ship-carpenter's widow at Portsmouth; but I don't reckon upon her, for she was married at the same time to two lieu

tenants of marines, and a man of war's boatsswain.

Plume. A full company-you have named five -come, make them half-a-dozen-Kite, is the child a boy or girl?

Kite. A chopping boy.

Plume. Then set the mother down in your list, and the boy in mine; enter him a grenadier by the name of Francis Kite, absent upon furlowI'll allow you a man's pay for his subsistence; and, now, go comfort the wench in the straw. Kite. I shall, sir.

Plume. But, hold—have you made any use of your German doctor's habit since you arrived?

Kite. Yes, yes, sir; and my fame's all about the country for the most faithful fortune-teller, that ever told a lie-I was obliged to let my landlord into the secret, for the convenience of keeping it so; but he is an honest feilow, and will be faithful to any roguery that is trusted to him. This device, sir, will get you men and me money, which I think is all we want at presentBut yonder comes your friend, Mr WorthyHas your honour any further commands?

Plume. None at present. [Exit KITE.] 'Tis, indeed, the picture of Worthy, but the life's departed.

Enter WORTHY.

What, arms across, Worthy! methinks you should hold them open when a friend's so near-The man has got the vapours in his ears, I believe. I must expel this melancholy spirit.

Spleen, the worst of fiends below, Fly, I conjure thee, by this magic blow! [Slaps WORTHY on the shoulder. Wor. Plume! my dear captain! welcome. Safe and sound returned!

Wor. For whom?

Plume. For a regiment-but for a woman! 'Sdeath! I have been constant to fifteen at a time, but never melancholy for one: and can the love of one bring you into this condition? Pray, who is this wonderful Helen?

Wor. A Helen, indeed! not to be won under ten years siege; as great a beauty, and as great a jilt.

Plume. A jilt! pho! is she as great a whore ? Wor. No, no.

Plume. 'Tis ten thousand pities! But who is she? do I know her?

War. Very well.

Plume. That's impossible-I know no woman that will hold out a ten years siege.

War. What think you of Melinda? Plume. Melinda! why she began to capitulate this time twelvemonth, and offered to surrender upon honourable terms: and I advised you to propose a settlement of five hundred pounds ayear to her, before I went last abroad.

Wor. I did, and she hearkened to it, desiring only one week to consider when, beyond her hopes, the town was relieved, and I forced to turn my siege into a blockade.

Plume. Explain, explain.

Wor. My lady Richly, her aunt in Flintshire, dies, and leaves her, at this critical time, twenty thousand pounds.

Plume. Oh, the devil! what a delicate woman was there spoiled! But, by the rules of war, now- -Worthy, blockade was foolish-After such a convoy of provisions was entered the place, you could have no thought of reducing it by famine; you should have redoubled your attacks, taken the town by storm, or have died upon the breach.

Plume. I escaped safe from Germany, and Wor. I did make one general assault, but was sound, I hope, from London: you see I have lost so vigorously repulsed, that, despairing of ever neither leg, arm, nor nose. Then for my inside, gaining her for a mistress, I have altered my 'tis neither troubled with sympathies nor antipa- conduct, given my addresses the obsequious and thies; and I have an excellent stomach for roast-distant turn, and court her now for a wife. beef.

SO.

Plume. So; as you grew obsequious, she grew

Wor. Thou art a happy fellow: once I was haughty, and, because you approached her like a goddess, she used you like a dog.

Plume. What ails thee, man? no inundations nor earthquakes in Wales, I hope? Has your father rose from the dead, and reassumed his

estate?

Wor. No.

Plume. Then you are married, surely?
Wor. No.

Plume. Then you are mad, or turning quaker? Wor. Come, I must out with it-Your once gay roving friend is dwindled into an obsequious, thoughtful, romantic, constant coxcomb.

Plume. And, pray, what is all this for?
Wor. For a woman.

Plume. Shake hands, brother. If thou go to that, behold me as obsequious, as thoughtful, and as constant a coxcomb as your worship.

Wor. Exactly.

Plume. Tis the way of them all-Come, Worthy; your obsequious and distant airs will never bring you together; you must not think to surmount her pride by your humility. Would you bring her to better thoughts of you, she must be reduced to a meaner opinion of herself. Let me see-Suppose we lampooned all the pretty women in town, and left her out? or, what if we made a ball, and forgot to invite her, with one or two of the ugliest?

Wor. These would be mortifications, I must confess; but we live in such a precise, dull place, that we can have no balls, no lampoons,

no

Plume. What! no bastards! and so many re

cruiting officers in town! I thought 'twas a max im among them to leave as many recruits in the country as they carried out.

Wor. Nobody doubts your good-will, noble captain, in serving your country with your best blood; witness our friend Molly at The Castle; there have been tears in town about that business, captain.

Plume. I hope Sylvia has not heard of it. Wor. Oh, sir, you have thought of her? I began to fancy you had forgot poor Sylvia. Plume. Your affairs had quite put mine out of my head. 'Tis true, Sylvia and I had once agreed to go to bed together, could we have adjusted preliminaries; but she would have the wedding before consummation, and I was for consummation before the wedding: we could not agree. Wor. But do you intend to marry upon no other conditions?

Plume. Your pardon, sir, I'll marry upon no condition at all-If I should, I am resolved never to bind myself down to a woman for my whole life, till I know whether I shall like her company for half an hour. Suppose I married a woman that wanted a leg-such a thing might be, unless I examined the goods before-handIf people would but try one another's constitutions before they engaged, it would prevent all these elopements, divorces, and the devil knows what.

Wor. Nay, for that matter, the town did not stick to say that

Plume. I hate country towns for that reasonIf your town has a dishonourable thought of Sylvia, it deserves to be burnt to the ground-I love Sylvia, I admire her frank generous dispositionthere's something in that girl more than womanher sex is but a foil to her-the ingratitude, dissimulation, envy, pride, avarice, and vanity, of her sister females, do but set off their contraries in her. In short, were I once a general, I would marry her.

Kite. Your worship very well may-for I have got both a wife and a child in half an hour-But, as I was saying-you sent me to comfort Mrs Molly-my wife, I mean-but what d'ye think, sir? she was better comforted before I came. Plume. As how?

Kite. Why, sir, a footman, in a blue livery, had brought her ten guineas to buy her baby

clothes.

Plume. Who, in the name of wonder, could send them?

Kite. Nay, sir, I must whisper that—Mrs Sylvia.

Plume. Sylvia! generous creature!

Wor. Sylvia! impossible!

Kite. Here are the guineas, sir-I took the gold as part of my wife's portion. Nay, farther, sir, she sent word the child should be taken all imaginable care of, and that she intended to stand godmother. The same footman, as I was coming to you with this news, called after me, and told me, that his lady would speak with me—I went, and, upon hearing that you were come to town, she gave me half-a-guinea for the news, and ordered me to tell you, that Justice Balance, her father, who is just come out of the country, would be glad to see you.

Plume. There's a girl for you, Worthy!-Is there anything of woman in this? no, 'tis noble, generous, manly friendship. Shew me another woman, that would lose an inch of her prerogative that way, without tears, fits, and reproaches. The common jealousy of her sex, which is nothing but their avarice of pleasure, she despises, and can part with the lover, though she dies for the man-Come, Worthy—where's the best wine? for there I'll quarter.

Wor. Horton has a fresh pipe of choice Barcelona, which I would not let him pierce before, because I reserved it for your welcome to town.

Plume. Let's away, then-Mr Kite, go to the lady with my humble service, and tell her, I shall only refresh a little, and wait upon her.

Wor. Hold, Kite!-have you seen the other

Wor. Faith, you have reason-for, were you but a corporal, she would marry you-But my Melinda coquettes it with every fellow she sees-recruiting captain? I'll lay fifty pounds she makes love to you.

Plume. I'll lay you a hundred, that I return it, if she does. Look'e, Worthy, I'll win her, and give her to vou afterwards!

Wor. If you win her, you shall wear her, faith. I would not value the conquest, without the credit of the victory.

Enter KITE.

Kite. Captain, captain! a word in your ear. Plume. You may speak out; here are none but friends.

Kite. You know, sir, that you sent me to comfort the good woman in the straw, Mrs Mollymy wife, Mr Worthy.

Wor. O ho! very well! I wish you joy, Mr Kite.

Kite. No, sir; I'd have you to know I don't keep such company,

Plume. Another! who is he?

Wor. My rival, in the first place, and the most unaccountable fellow-but I'll tell you more as we go. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-An apartment.

MELINDA and SYLVIA meeting.

Mel. Welcome to town, cousin Sylvia! [Salute.] I envied you your retreat in the country; for Shrewsbury, methinks, and all your heads of shires, are the most irregular places for living. Here, we have smoke, scandal, affectation, and pretension; in short, every thing to give the

spleen and nothing to divert it then the air is intolerable.

Syl. Oh, madam! I have heard the town commended for its air.

Mel. But you don't consider, Sylvia, how long I have lived in it; for I can assure you, that, to a lady, the least nice in her constitution, no air can be good above half a year. Change of air I take to be the most agreeable of any variety in life. Syl. As you say, cousin Melinda, there are several sorts of airs.

Mel. Psha! I talk only of the air we breathe, or, more properly, of that we tastc-Have not you, Sylvia, found a vast difference in the taste of airs?

Syl. Pray, cousin, are not the vapours a sort of air? Taste air! you might as well tell me I may feed upon air! but prithee, my dear Melinda, don't put on such an air to me. Your education and mine were just the same; and I remember the time when we never troubled our heads about air, but when the sharp air from the Welch mountains made our fingers ache in a cold morning at the boarding-school.

Mel. Our education, cousin, was the same, but our temperaments had nothing alike; you have the constitution of an horse.

Syl. So far as to be troubled neither with spleen, cholic, nor vapours. I need no salts for my stomach, no hartshorn for my head, nor wash for my complexion; I can gallop all the morning after the hunting-horn, and all the evening after a fiddle. In short, I can do every thing with my father, but drink and shoot flying; and I am sure I can do every thing my mother could, were I put to the trial.

Mel. You are in a fair way of being put to't; for I am told your captain is come to town.

Syl. Ay, Melinda, he is come; and I'll take care he shan't go without a companion.

Mel. You are certainly mad, cousin.

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amours. But, now I think on't, how stands your affair with Mr Worthy?

Mel. He's my aversion.
Syl. Vapours!

Mel. What do you say, madam?
Syl. I say that you

should not use that honest fellow so inhumanly: he's a gentleman of parts and fortune; and, besides that, he's my Plume's friend; and, by all that's sacred, if you don't use him better, I shall expect satisfaction.

Mel. Satisfaction! you begin to fancy yourself in breeches in good earnest-But, to be plain with you, I like Worthy the worse for being so intimate with your captain; for I take him to be a loose, idle, unmannerly coxcomb.

Syl. Oh, madam! you never saw him, perhaps, since you were mistress of twenty thousand pounds: you only knew him, when you were capitulating with Worthy for a settlement, which, perhaps, might encourage him to be a little loose and unmannerly with you.

Mel. What do you mean, madam! Syl. My meaning needs no interpretation, madam.

Mel. Better it had, madam; for methinks you are too plain.

I

Syl. Psha! what care I for his thoughts? II should not like a man with confined thoughts; it shews a narrowness of soul. In short, Melinda, I think a petticoat a mighty simple thing, and I am heartily tired of my sex.

Mel. That is, you are tired of an appendix to our sex, that you can't so handsomely get rid of in petticoats as if you were in breeches. O' my conscience, Sylvia, hadst thou 'been' a man, thou hadst been the greatest rake in Christendom!

Syl. I should have endeavoured to know the world, which a man can never do thoroughly, without half a hundred friendships, and as many

Syl. If you mean the plainness of my person, think your ladyship's as plain as me to the full. Mel. Were I sure of that, I would be glad to take up with a rakchelly officer, as you do. Syl. Again! look'e, madam; you are in your own house.

Mel. And if you had kept in yours, I should have excused you.

Syl. Don't be troubled, madam; I sha'nt desire to have my visit returned.

Mel. The sooner, therefore, you make an end of this, the better.

Syl. I am easily persuaded to follow my inclinations; and so, madam, your humble servant. [Exit.

Mel. Saucy thing!

Enter Lucy.

Lucy. What's the matter, madam? Mel. Did not you see the proud nothing, how she swell'd upon the arrival of her fellow?

Lucy. Her fellow has not been long enough arrived to occasion any great swelling, madam; don't believe she has seen him yet.

Mel. Nor sha'nt, if I can help it-Let me see I have it-bring me pen and ink-Hold, I'll go write in my closet.

Lucy. An answer to this letter, I hope, madam? [Presents a letter.

Mel. Who sent it?
Lucy. Your captain, madam.

Mel. He's a fool, and I'm tir'd of him: send it back, unopened.

Lucy. The messenger's gone, madam.

Mel. Then how should I send an answer? Call him back immediately, while I go write. [Exeunt.

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