yet there are some set out in their true colours, both men and women. I can shew you pride, 'folly, affectation, wantonness, inconstancy, covetousness, dissimulation, malice, and ignorance, all in one piece. Then I can shew you lying, foppery, vanity, cowardice, bragging, "lechery, impotence," and ugliness, in another piece; and yet one of these is a celebrated beauty, and t'other a professed beau. I have paintings too, some pleasant enough.

Mrs. F. Come, let's hear them.

Scand. Why, I have a beau in bagnio, cupping for a complexion, and sweating for a shape.

Mrs. F. So!

Scand. Then I have a lady burning brandy in a cellar with a hackney-coachman.

Mrs. F. O devil! Well, but that story is not true. Scand. I have some hieroglyphicks too. I have a lawyer, with a hundred hands, too heads, and but one face; a divine, with two faces, and one head ; and I have a soldier, with his brains in his belly, and his heart where his head should be.

Mrs. F. And no head:

Scand. No head.

1

Mrs. F. Pooh, this is all invention. Have a poet?

you never

Scand. Yes, I have a poet, weighing words, and selling praise for praise; and a critic picking his pocket. "I have another large piece too, repre"senting a school; where there are huge-propor "tioned critics, with long wigs, laced coats, Steinkirk

"cravats, and terrible faces; with catcalls in their "hands, and horn-books about their necks." I have many more of this kind, very well painted, as you shall see.

Mrs. F. Well, I'll come, if it be but to disprove you.

Enter JEREMY.

Jer. Sir, here's the steward again from your father. Val. I'll come to him.-Will you give me leave? I'll wait on you again presently.

Mrs. F. No, I'll be gone. Come, who squires me to the Exchange? I must call on my sister Foresight there.

Scand. I will: I have a mind to your sister.

Mrs. F. Civil!

Tatt. I will; because I have a tendre for your ladyship.

Mrs. F. That's somewhat the better reason, to my opinion.

Scand. Well, if Tattle entertains you, I have the better opportunity to engage your sister.

Val. Tell Angelica, I am about making hard conditions, to come abroad, and be at liberty to see her.

Scand. I'll give an account of you and your proceedings. If indiscretion be a sign of love, you are the most a lover of any body that I know. You fancy that parting with your estate will help you to your mistress-In my mind, he is a thoughtless adventurer,

D

Who hopes to purchase wealth by selling land;
Or win a mistress with a losing hand.

ACT II. SCENE I.

[Exeunt.

A Room in FORESIGHT'S House.

Enter FORESIGHT

and Servant.

Foresight.

HEY-DAY! What are all the women of my family abroad? Is not my wife come home? nor my sister? nor my daughter!

Serv. No, sir.

For. Mercy on us! what can be the meaning of it? Sure the moon is in all her fortitudes! Is my niece Angelica at home?

Serv. Yes, sir.

For. I believe you lie, sir.

Serv. Sir?

For. I say, you lie, sir. It is impossible that any thing should be as I would have it; for I was born, sir, when the crab was ascending; and all my affairs backward.

go

Serv. I can't tell indeed, sir.

For. No, I know you can't sir. But I can tell, and foretell, sir.

Enter NURSE.

For. Nurse, where's your young mistress?

Nurse. Wee'st heart! I know not, they're none of them come home yet. Poor child, I warrant she's fond of seeing the town!-Marry, pray Heaven they have given her any dinner!- -Good lack-a.day,

ha, ha, ha! O strange; I'll vow and swear now, ha, ha, ha! marry, and did you ever see the like! For. Why, how now, what's the matter?

Nurse. Pray Heaven send your worship good luck! marry, and amen, with all my heart! for you have put on one stocking with the wrong side outward.

omens.

For. Ha, how? Faith and troth, I'm glad of it; and so I have; that may be good luck in troth; in troth it may, very good luck : nay I have had some I got out of bed backwards too this morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too. But then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel ; bad omens those! Some bad, some good; our lives are checquered: mirth and sorrow, want and plenty, night and day, make up our time.-But, in troth, I am pleased at my stocking-very well pleased at my stocking!-Oh, here's my niece!Sirrah, go tell Sir Sampson Legend I'll wait on him if he's at leisure.-'Tis now three o'clock, a very good hour for business; Mercury governs this hour. [Exit Servant.

Enter ANGELICA.

Ang. Is it not a good hour for pleasure too, uncle ? Pray lend me your coach; mine's out of order. For. What, would you be gadding too? Sure all

females are mad to-day.-It is of evil portent, and bodes mischief to the master of a family.-I remember an old prophecy, written by Messahalah the Arabian, and thus translated by a reverend Buck inghamshire bard:

When housewives all the house forsake,
And leave good men to brew and bake,
Withouten guile, then be it said,
That house doth stand upon its head;
And when the head is set in ground,
No mar'l, if it be fruitful found.

Fruitful, the head fruitful: that bodes horns; the fruit of the head is horns; Dear niece, stay at home -for by the head of the house is meant the husband; the prophecy needs no explanation.

Ang. Well, but I can neither make you a cuckold, uncle, by going abroad; nor secure you from being one, by staying at home.

For. Yes, yes; while there's one woman left, the prophecy is not in full force.

Ang. But my inclinations are in force. I have a mind to go abroad; and if you won't lend me your coach, I'll take a hackney, or a chair; and leave you to erect a scheme, and find who's in conjunction with your wife. Why don't you keep her at home, if you're jealous of her when she's abroad? You know my aunt is a little retrograde (as you call it) in her nature. Uncle, I'm afraid you are not lord of the ascendant! ha, ha, ha!