a better reason which you gave to Mr Tattle; for his impertinence forced you to acknowledge a kindness for Valentine, which you denied to all his sufferings and my solicitations. So I'll leave him to make use of the discovery, and your ladyship to the free confession of your inclinations. Ang. Oh Heavens! you won't leave me alone with a madman? Scand. No, madam; I only leave a madman to his remedy. [Exit. Val. Madam, you need not be very much afraid, for I fancy I begin to come to myself. Ang. Ay, but if I don't fit you, I'll be hanged. [Aside. Val. You see what disguises love makes us put on. Gods have been in counterfeited shapes for the same reason; and the divine part of me, my mind, has worn this masque of madness, and this motly livery, only as the slave of love, and menial creature of your beauty. Ang. Mercy on me, how he talks!-Poor Valentine! to be as absolutely and substantially mad, as any freeholder in Bedlam. Nay, he's as mad as any projector, fanatic, chemist, lover, or poet, in Europe. Vul. Sirrah, you lie; I'm not mad. Ang. Ha, ha, ha! you see he denies it. Jer. O Lord, madam! did you ever know any madman mad enough to own it? Val. Sot, can't you apprehend? Ang. Why, he talked very sensibly just now. Jer. Yes, madam; he has intervals: but you see he begins to look wild again now. Val. Why, you thick-skulled rascal, I tell you the farce is done, and I'll be mad no longer. [Beats him. Ang. Ha, ha, ha! is he mad or no, Jeremy? Jer. Partly, I think-for he does not know his own mind two hours. I'm sure I left him just now in the humour to be mad and I think I have not found him very quiet at the present. [One knocks.] Who's there? Val. Go see, you sot. I'm very glad that I can move your mirth, though not your compassion. Val. Nay, faith, now let us understand one Ang. I did not think you had apprehension another, hypocrisy apart. The comedy draws enough to be exceptious: but madmen shew towards an end; and let us think of leaving themselves most by over-pretending to a sound acting, and be ourselves; and, since you have understanding, as drunken men do by over-acting loved me, you must own, I have at length deserv-sobriety. I was half inclining to believe you, ed you should confess it. till I accidentally touched upon your tender part. But now you have restored me to my former opinion and compassion. Ang. [Sighs.] I would I had loved you!-for, Heaven knows, I pity you; and, could I have foreseen the bad effects, I would have striven; but that's too late! Jer. Sir, your father has sent to know if you are any better yet.—Will you please to be mad, sir, or how? Val. What bad effects? what's too late? My seeming madness has deceived my father, and Val. Stupidity! you know the penalty of all procured me time to think of means to reconcile I'm worth must pay for the confession of my me to him, and preserve the right of my inheri-senses.-I'm mad, and will be mad, to every tance to his estate; which otherwise, by articles, I body but this lady. must this morning have resigned. And this I had informed you of to-day, but you were gone before I knew you had been here. Ang. How! I thought your love of me had caused this transport in your soul, which, it seems, you only counterfeited for mercenary ends and sordid interest. Val. Nay, now you do me wrong; for, if any interest was considered, it was yours; since I thought I wanted more than love to make me worthy of you. Ang. Then you thought me mercenary-But how am I deluded, by this interval of sense, to reason with a madman? Val. Oh, 'tis barbarous to misunderstand me longer. Enter JEREMY. Ang, Oh, here's a reasonable creature!-sure he will not have the impudence to persevere! -Come, Jeremy, acknowledge your trick, and confess your master's madness counterfeit. Jer. Counterfeit, madam! I'll maintain him Jer. So ;-just the very back-side of truth. But lying is a figure in speech, that interlards the greatest part of my conversation.-Madam, your ladyship's woman. Enter JENNY, Ang. Well, have you been there?——Come hither. Jenny. Yes, madam! sir Sampson will wait upon you presently. [Aside to ANGELICA. Val. You are not leaving me in this uncertainty? Ang. Would any thing but a madman complain of uncertainty? Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life, Security is an insipid thing; and the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase. Never let us know one another better; for the pleasure of a masquerade is done, when we come to shew our faces. But I'll tell you two things before I leave you; I am not the fool you take me for; and you are mad, and don't know it. [Exeunt ANGELICA and JENNY. Val. From a riddle you can expect nothing | but a riddle. There's my instruction, and the inoral of my lesson. Jer. What, is the lady gone again, sir? I hope you understood one another before she went? Val. Understood! she is harder to be understood than a piece of Egyptian antiquity, or an Irish manuscript; you may pore till you spoil your eyes, and not improve your knowledge. Jer. I have heard them say, sir, they read hard Hebrew books backwards. May be you begin to read at the wrong end. Val. They say so of a witch's prayer; and dreams and Dutch almanacks are to be understood by contraries. Yet, while she does not seem to hate me, I will pursue her, and know her, if it be possible, in spite of the opinion of my satirical friend, who says That women are like tricks by slight of hand; Which, to admire, we should not understand. [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I-A room in FORESIGHT's house. Enter ANGELICA and JENNY. Ang. WHERE is sir Sampson? did you not tell me he would be here before me? Jenny. He's at the great glass in the diningroom, madam, setting his cravat and wig. Ang. How! I'm glad on't. If he has a mind I should like him, it's a sign he likes me; and that's more than half my design. Jenny. I hear him, madam. Ang. Leave me; and, d'ye hear, if Valentine should come, or send, I'm not to be spoken with. [Erit JENNY. Enter SIR SAMPSON. Sir Sam. I have not been honoured with the commands of a fair lady a great while. Odd, madam, you have revived me-not since I was five and thirty. Ang. Why, you have no great reason to complain, sir Sampson; that's not long ago. Sir Sam. Zooks, but it is, madam, a very great while; to a man that admires a fine woman as much as I do. son. Ang. You're an absolute courtier, sir Samp Sir Sam. Not at all, madam. Od's-bud, you wrong me: I am not so old, neither, to be a bare courtier, only a man of words. Odd, I have warm blood about me yet, and can serve a lady any way. Come, come, let me tell you, you women think a man old too soon; faith and troth you do. Come, don't despise fifty; Odd, fifty, in a hale constitution, is no such contemptible age! Ang. Fifty a contemptible age! not at all: a very fashionable age, I think-I assure you, I know very considerable beaux, that set a good face upon fifty. Fifty! I have seen fifty in a side-box, by candle-light, out-blossom five-andtwenty. Sir Sam. Outsides, outsides! a pize take them, mere outsides. Hang your side-box beaux; no, I'm none of those, none of your forced trees, that pretend to blossom in the fall, and bud when they should bring forth fruit. I am of a longlived race, and inherit vigour. None of my ancestors married till fifty; yet they begot sons and daughters till fourscore. I am of your patriarchs, I, a branch of one of your antediluvian families, follows that the flood could not wash away. Well, madam, what are your commands? Has any young rogue affronted you, and shall I cut his throat? or―― Ang. No, sir Sampson, I have no quarrel upon my hands I have more occasion for your conduct, than your courage, at this time. To tell you the truth, I'm weary of living single, and want a husband. Sir Sam. Od's-bud, and it is pity you should! Odd, would she would like me! then I should hamper my young rogues: odd, would she would! faith and troth, she's devilish handsome! [Aside.]-Madam, you deserve a good husband; and 'twere pity you should be thrown away upon any of these young idle rogues about the town. Odd, there's ne'er a young fellow worth hanging-that is, a very young fellowPize on them, they never think beforehand of any thing-and if they commit matrimony, 'tis as they commit murder; out of a frolic; and are ready to hang themselves, or to be hanged by the law, the next morning. Odso, have a care, madam. Ang. Therefore, I ask your advice, sir Sampson. I have fortune enough to make any man easy that I can like; if there were such a thing as a young agreeable man, with a reasonable stock of good-nature and sense-for I would neither have an absolute wit, nor a fool. Sir Sam. Odd, you are hard to please, madam: to find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task. But, faith and troth, you speak very discreetly. I hate a wit; I had a son that was spoilt among them; a good, hopeful lad, till he learnt to be a wit-and might have risen in the state. of his money, and now his poverty has run him But, a pox on't, his wit ran him out out of his wits. Ang. Sir Sampson, as your friend, I must tell you, you are very much abused in that matterhe's no more mad than you are. Sir Sam. How, madam! would I could prove it! Ang. I can tell you how that may be done but it is a thing that would make me appear to be too much concerned in your affairs. Sir Sam. Odsbud, I believe she likes me[Aside.]-Ah, madam, all my affairs are scarce worthy to be laid at your feet; and I wish, madam, they were in a better posture, that I might make a more becoming offer to a lady of your incomparable beauty and merit. If I had Peru in one hand, and Mexico in t'other, and the eastern empire under my feet, it would make me only a more. glorious victim, to be offered at the shrine of your beauty. Ang. Bless me, sir Sampson, what's the matter? Sir Sam. Odd, madam, I love you-and if you would take my advice in a husband Ang. Hold, hold, sir Sampson! I asked your advice for a husband, and you are giving me your consent. I was, indeed, thinking to propose something like it in jest, to satisfy you about Valentine for if a match were seemingly carried on between you and me, it would oblige him to throw off his disguise of madness, in apprchension of losing me; for, you know, he has long pretended a passion for me. Sir Sam. Gadzooks, a most ingenious contrivance-if we were to go through with it! but why must the match only be seemingly carried on? Odd, let it be a real contract. Ang. O fie, sir Sampson, what would the world say? Sir Sam. Say? They would say you were a wise woman, and I a happy man. Odd, madam, I'll love you as long as I live; and leave you a good jointure when I die. Ang. Aye, but that is not in your power, sir Sampson; for when Valentine confesses himself in his senses, he must make over his inheritance to his younger brother. man, and I'll make it appear-Odd, you're devilish handsome. Faith and troth, you're very handsome; and I'm very young, and very lusty. Ods-. bud, hussy, you know how to choose! and so do I. Odd, I think we are very well met. Give me your hand; odd, let me kiss it; 'tis as warm and as soft-as what?-odd, as t'other hand!-give me t'other hand; and I'll mumble them, and kiss them, till they melt in my mouth. Ang. Hold, sir Sampson-you're profuse of your vigour before your time. You'll spend your estate before you come to it. Sir Sam. No, no; only give you a rent-roll of my possessions-ah, baggage! I warrant you for a little Sampson. Odd, Sampson is a very good name for an able fellow. Your Sampsons were stroug dogs from the beginning. Ang. Have a care, and don't overact your part. If you remember, Sampson, the strongest of the name, pulled an old house over his head at last. Sir Sam. Say you so, hussy? Come, let's go, then; odd, I long to be pulling, too. Come away. -Odso, here's somebody coming. [Exeunt. Enter TATTLE and JEREMY. Tatt. Is not that she, gone out just now? Jer. Aye, sir, she's just going to the place of appointment. Ah, sir, if you are not very faithful and close in this business, you'll certainly be the death of a person, that has a most extraordinary passion for your honour's service. Tatt. Ave, who's that? Jer. Even my unworthy self, sir. Sir, I have had an appetite to be fed with your commands a great while-and now, sir, my former master having much troubled the fountain of his understanding, it is a very plausible occasion for me to quench my thirst at the spring of your bounty. I thought I could not recommend myself better to you, sir, than by the delivery of a great beauty and fortune into your arms, whom I have heard you sigh for. Sir Sam. Odd, you're cunning, a wary baggage! Faith and troth, I like you the better. But, I warrant you, I have a proviso in the obligation in favour of myself. Body o' me, I have a trick to turn the settlement upon the issue-male of our two bodies begotten. Ödsbud, let us find chil-tory in my head—I have been at Cambridge. dren, and I'll find an estate! Tatt. I'll make thy fortune; say no more.— Thou art a pretty fellow, and canst carry a message to a lady, in a pretty soft kind of phrase, and with a good persuading accent. Ang. Will you? well, do you find the estate, and leave the other to me. Sir Sam. O rogue! but I'll trust you. And will you consent? Is it match, then? Ang. Let me consult my lawyer concerning this obligation; and, if I find what you propose practicable, I'll give you my answer. Sir Sam. With all my heart. Come in with me, and I'll lend you the bond. You shall consult your lawyer, and I'll consult a parson. Odzooks, I'm a young man; Odzooks, I'm a young Jer. Sir, I have the seeds of rhetoric and ora Tatt. Aye; 'tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an university; but the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman. I hope you are secret in your nature, private, close, ha? Jer. O sir, for that, sir, 'tis my chief talent; I'm as secret as the head of Nilus. Tatt. Aye? who's he, though? a privy coun sellor? Jer. O ignorance!-[Aside.]-A cunning Egyptian, sir, that with his arms could over-run the country, yet nobody could ever find out his head-quarters. Tatt. Close dog! a good whoremaster, I warrant him! The time draws nigh, Jeremy. Angelica will be veiled like a nun; and I must be hooded like a friar; ha, Jeremy? Jer. Aye, sir, hooded like a hawk, to seize at first sight upon the quarry. It is the whim of my master's madness to be so dressed; and she is so in love with him, she'll comply with any thing to please him. Poor lady! I'm sure she'll have reason to pray for me, when she finds what a happy change she has made, between a madman and so accomplished a gentleman. Tatt. Aye, faith, so she will, Jeremy: you're a good friend to her, poor creature! I swear I do it hardly so much in consideration of myself, as compassion to her. no; to marry is to be a child again, and play with the same rattle always: O fie, marrying is a paw thing! Miss Prue. Well, but don't you love me as well as you did last night, then? Tatt. No, no, child; you would not have me? Miss Prue. No? Yes, but I would though. Tatt. Pshaw, but I tell you, you would not. You forget you are a woman, and don't know your own mind. Miss Prue. But here's my father, and he knows my mind. Enter FORESIGHT. Fore. O, Mr Tattle, your servant; you are a close man; but, methinks, your love to my Jer. 'Tis an act of charity, sir, to save a fine daughter was a secret I might have been trusted woman with thirty thousand pounds from throw-with-or had you a mind to try if I could dising herself away. Tatt. So 'tis, faith! I might have saved several others in my time; but, egad, I could never find in my heart to marry any body before. Jer. Well, sir, I'll go and tell her my master's coming; and meet you in half a quarter of an hour, with your disguise, at your own lodgings. You must talk a little madly;-she won't distinguish the tone of your voice. Tatt. No, no, let me alone for a counterfeit. I'll be ready for you. [Exit JEREMY. Enter Miss PRUE. Miss Prue. O, Mr Tattle, are you here? I'm glad I have found you. I have been looking up and down for you like any thing, till I'm as tired as any thing in the world. Tatt. O pox! how shall I get rid of this foolish girl? [Aside. Miss Prue. O, I have pure news, I can tell you; pure news!—I must not marry the seaman now-My father says so. Why, won't you be my husband? You say you love me! and you won't be my husband. And I know you may be my husband now, if you please. Tatt. O fie, miss! who told you so, child? Miss Prue. Why, my father-I told him that you loved me. Tutt. O fie, miss! why did you do so! and who told you so, child? Miss Prue. Who? Why, you did; did not you? Tatt. O pox! that was yesterday, miss; that was a great while ago, child. I have been asleep since; slept a whole night, and did not so much as dream of the matter. Miss Prue. Pshaw! O, but I dreamt that it was so though. Tatt. Ay, but your father will tell you that dreams come by contraries, child.. O fie! what, we must not love one another now. Pshaw, that would be a foolish thing, indeed! Fie, fie! you're a woman now, and must think of a new man every morning, and forget him every night. No, cover it by my art?-Hum, ha! I think there is something in your physiognomy, that has a resemblance of her; and the girl is like me. Tatt. And so you would infer, that you and I are alike? What does the old prig mean? I'll banter him, and laugh at him, and leave him. Aside.] I fancy you have a wrong notion of faces. Fore. How? what? a wrong notion! how so? Tatt. In the way of art, I have some taking features. not obvious to vulgar eyes, that are indication of a sudden turn of good fortune, in the lottery of wives; and promise a great beauty and great fortune reserved alone for me, by a private intrigue of destiny, kept secret from the piercing eye of perspicuity, from all astrologers, and the stars themselves. Fore. How? I will make it appear, that what you say is impossible. sir. Tatt. Sir, I beg your pardon, I am in hasteFore. For what? Tatt. To be married, sir-married. Fore. Ay, but pray, take me along with you, Tatt. No, sir; it is to be done privately-I never make confidents. Fore. Well; but my consent, I mean--You won't marry my daughter without my consent? Tatt. Who, I, sir? I am an absolute stranger to you and your daughter, sir. Fore. Hey-day! What time of the moon is this? : Tutt. Very true, sir; and desire to continue so. I have no more love for your daughter, than I have likeness of you: and I have a secret in my heart, which you would be glad to know, and shan't know and yet you shall know it too, and be sorry for it afterwards. I'd have you know, sir, that I am as-knowing as the stars, and as secret as the night. And I'm going to be married just now, yet, did not know of it half an hour ago; and the lady stays for me, and does not know of it yet. There's a mystery for you! I know you love to untie difficulties. Or, if you can't solve this; stay here a quarter of an hour, | Leghorn, and back again, before you shall guess and I'll come and explain it to you. at the matter, and do nothing else. Mess, you may take in all the points of the compass, and not hit the right. [Exit. Miss Prue. O, father! why will you let him go? Won't you make him to be my husband? Fore. Mercy on us! what do these lunacies portend? Alas! he's mad, child, stark wild. Miss Prue. What, and must not I have e'er a husband, then? What, must I go to bed to nurse again, and be a child as long as she's an old woman? Indeed, but I won't. For, now my mind is set upon a man, I will have a man some way or other. Fore. O fearful! I think the girl's influenced, too. Hussy, you shall have a rod. Miss Prue. A fiddle of a rod! I'll have a husband; and, if you won't get me one, I'll get one for myself. I'll marry our Robin the butler; he says he loves me: and he's a handsome man, and shall be my husband: I warrant he'll be my husband, and thank me, too; for he told me so. Enter SCANDAL, MRS FORESIGHT, and NURSE. Fore. Did he so? I'll dispatch him for it presently. Rogue! Oh, nurse, come hither. Nurse. What is your worship's pleasure? Fore. Here, take your young mistress, and lock her up presently, till farther orders from me. Not a word, hussy-Do what I bid you. No reply away. And bid Robin make ready to give an account of his plate and linen, dy'e hear? Begone, when I bid you. [Exeunt NURSE and MISS PRUE. Mrs Fore. What's the matter, husband? Fore. 'Tis not convenient to tell you nowMr Scandal, Heaven keep us all in our senses! I fear there is a contagious frenzy abroad. How does Valentine? Scand. O, I hope he will do well again. I have a message from him to your niece Angelica. Fore. I think she has not returned since she went abroad with sir Sampson. Nurse, why are you not gone? Enter BEN. Here's Mr Benjamin; he can tell us if his father be come home. Ben. Who? Father? Ay, he's come home with a vengeance. Mrs Fore. Why, what's the matter? Fore. Mercy on us! I was afraid of this.. Ben. And there's a handsome young woman; she, as they say, brother Val went mad for, she's mad, too, I think. Fore. O, my poor niece! my poor niece! is she gone, too? Well, I shall run inad next. Mrs Fore. Well, but how mad? how d'ye mean? Ben. Nay, I'll give you leave to guess--I'll undertake to make a voyage to Antigua-No, I mayn't say so, neither but I'll sail as far as Mrs Fore. Sir Sampson and Angelica? Impossible! Ben. That may be-but I'm sure it is as I tell you. Scand. 'Sdeath, it is a jest. I can't believe it. Ben. Look you, friend; it is nothing to me, whether d'ye see; they are married, or just going to be believe it or no. What I say is true, married, I know not which. you Fore. Well, but they are not mad, that is, not lunatic? Ben. I don't know what you may call madness- —but she's mad for a husband, and he's hornmad, I think, or they'd never make a match together. Here they come. Enter SIR SAMPSON, ANGELICA, and BUCKRAM. Sir Sam. Where is this old soothsayer? this uncle of mine elect?-Aha! old Foresight! uncle Foresight! wish me joy, uncle Foresight, double joy, both as uncle and astrologer: here's a conjunction that was not foretold in all your Ephemeres! The brightest star in the blue firmament-is shot from above, in a jelly of love, and so forth; and I'm lord. of the ascendant. Odd, you're an old fellow, Foresight-uncle, I mean; a very old fellow, uncle Foresight, and yet you shall live to dance at my wedding; faith and troth you shall. Odd, we'll have the music of the spheres for thee, old Lilly, that we will; and thou shalt lead up a dance in via lactea. Fore. I'm thunder-struck! You are not married to my niece? Sir Sam. Not absolutely married, uncle; but very near it; within a kiss of the matter, as you [Kisses ANGELICA. Ang. 'Tis very true, indeed, uncle; I hope you'll be my father, and give me. see. Sir Sam. That he shall, or I'll burn his globes. Body o'ne, he shall be thy father: I'll make him thy father, and thou shalt make me a father, and I'll make thee a mother; and we'll beget sons and daughters enough to put the weekly bills out of countenance. Scand. Death and hell! Where's Valentine? [Exit. Mrs Fore. This is so surprising- |