must it be when we serve an object of merit, of admiration? Ind. Well, the more you argue against it, the more I shall admire the generosity. Bevil. Nay, then, madam, 'tis time to fly, after a declaration that my opinion strengthens my adversary's argument. I had best hasten to my appointment with Mr. Myrtle, and be gone while we are friends, and-before things are brought to an extremity. [Exit carelessly. Re-enter ISABELLA. Isa. Well, madam, what think you of him now, pray? Ind. I protest I begin to fear he is wholly disinterested in what he does for me. On my heart, he has no other view but the pleasure of doing it, and has neither good nor bad designs upon me. Isa. Ah! dear niece, don't be in fear of both; I'll warrant you, you will know time enough that he is not indifferent. Ind. You please me when you tell me so; for if he has any wishes towards me, I know he will not pursue them but with honour. Isa. I wish I were as confident of one as t'other. I saw the respectful downcast of his eye when you catched him gazing at you during the music. Ŏh! the undissembled, guilty look. Ind. But did you observe anything, really? I thought he looked most charmingly graceful. How engaging is modesty in a man, when one knows there is a great mind within. Isa. Ah! niece, some men's modesty serves their wickedness, as hypocrisy gains the respect due to piety. But I will own to you there is one hopeful symptom, if there could be such a thing as a disinterested lover; but till-till-till SCENE I-Sealand's House. Enter TOM, meeting PHILLIS. Tom. Well, Phillis! What! with a face as if you had never seen me before? What a work have I to do now! She has seen some new visitant at their house, whose airs she has catched, and is resolved to practise them upon me. Numberless are the changes she'll dance through before she'll answer this plain question, videlicet, Have you delivered my master's letter to your lady? Nay, I know her too well to ask an account of it in an ordinary way I'll be in my airs as well as she. (Aside.) Well, madam, as unhappy as you are at present pleased to make me, I would not in the general be any other than what I am; I would not be a bit wiser, a bit richer, a bit taller, a bit shorter, than I am at this instant. (Looks stedfastly at her.) Phil. Did ever anybody doubt, Master Thomas, but that you were extremely satisfied with your sweet self? Tom. I am indeed. The thing I have least reason to be satisfied with, is my fortune, and I am glad of my poverty; perhaps, if I were rich, I should overlook the finest woman in the world, that wants nothing but riches to be thought so. Phil. How prettily was that said! But I'll have a great deal more before I'll say one word.(Aside.) Tom. I should, perhaps, have been stupidly above her, had I not been her equal; and by not being her equal, never had an opportunity of being her slave. I am my master's servant for hire, I am my mistress's from choice; would she but approve my passion! Phil. I think it is the first time I ever heard you speak of it with any sense of anguish, if you really do suffer any. [have seen! Tom. Ah! Phillis, can you doubt after what you Phil. I know not what I have seen, nor what I have heard; but since I am at leisure, you may tell me when you fell in love with me, how you fell in love with me, and what you have suffered, or are ready to suffer, for me. Tom. Oh! the unmerciful jade, when I'm in haste about my master's letter; but I must go through it. (Aside.) Ah! too well I remember when, and how, and on what occasion, I was first surprised. It was on the first of April, one thonsand seven hundred and fifteen, I came into Mr. Sealand's service. I was then a hobble-de-boy, and you a pretty, little, tight giri, a favourite handmaid of the housekeeper. At that time we neither of us knew what was in us. I remember I was ordered to get out of the window, one par of stairs, to rub the sashes clean; the person employed on the inner side was your charming self, whom I had never seen before. Phil. I think I remember the silly accident. What made ye, you oaf, ready to fall down int the street? your Tom. You know not, I warrant you; you could not guess what surprised me; you took no de light when you immediately grew wanton in conquest, and put your lips close and breathed upon the glass; and when my lips approached, you rubbed a dirty cloth against my face, and hid your beauteous form; when I again drew near, you spit and rubbed, and smiled at my undoing. Phil. What silly thoughts you men have! Tom. We were Pyramus and Thisbe; but ten times harder was my fate: Pyramus could peep only through a wall; I saw her, saw my Thisbe in all her beauty; but as much kept from her as i a hundred walls were between; for there was more there was her will against me. Would she bui relent!-Oh, Phillis, Phillis! shorten my torment and declare you pity me. Phil. I believe it's very sufferable; the pain i not so exquisite but that you may bear it a little longer. Tom. Oh! my charming Phillis! if all depended on my fair one's will, I could with glory suffer but, dearest creature, consider our miserable state. Phil. How! miserable? Tom. We are miserable to be in love, and under the command of others than those we love. With that generous passion in the heart to be sent to and fro on errands, called, checked, and rated, for the meanest trifles. Oh! Phillis, you don't know how many china cups and glasses my passion for you has made me break: you have broken my fortune as well as my heart. Phil. Well, Mr. Thomas, I cannot but own to you that I believe your master writes, and you speak the best of any men in the world. Never was a woman so well pleased with a letter as my young lady was with his, and this is an answer to it. (Gives him a letter.) Tom. This was well done, my dearest. Consi der, we must strike out some pretty livelihood for ourselves by closing their affairs: it will be nothing for them to give us a little being of our own, some small tenement, out of their large possessions. Whatever they give us, it will be more than what they keep for themselves: one acre with Phillis would be worth a whole county without ber. Phil. Oh! could I but believe you. Tom. If not the utterance, believe the touch, of my lips. (Kisses her.) Phil. There's no contradicting you. How close!! you argue, Tom. Tom. And will closer in due time; but I must hasten with this letter, to hasten towards the possession of you then, Phillis, consider how I must be revenged (look to it) of all your skittishness, shy looks, and, at best, but coy compliances. Phil. Oh! Tom, you grow wanton and sensual, as my lady calls it: I must not endure it. Oh, foh! you are a man, an odious, filthy, male creature; you should behave, if you had a right sense, or were a man of sense, like Mr. Cimberton, with distance and indifference; and not rush on one as if you were seizing a prey. But, hush! the ladies are coming. Good Tom, don't kiss me above once, and be gone. Lard! we have been fooling and toying, and not considered the main business of our masters and mistresses. Tom. Why their business is to be fooling and toying as soon as the parchments are ready. Phil. Well remembered-Parchments. My lady, to my knowledge, is preparing writings between her coxcomb cousin, Cimberton, and my mistress; though my master has an eye to the parchments already prepared between your master, Mr. Bevil, and my mistress; and I believe my mistress herself has signed and sealed, in her heart, to Mr. Myrtle. Did I not bid you kiss me but once and begone? but I know you won't be satisfied. Tom. No, you smooth creature! how should I? (Kisses her hand.) Phil. Well, since you are so humble, or so cool, as to ravish my hand only, I'll take my leave of you like a great lady, and you a man of quality. (They salute formally.) Tom. Plague of all this state. (Offers to kiss her more closely.) ish fool. Enter LUCINDA. Phil. No, pr'ythee, Tom, mind your business. Oh! here is my young mistress. (Tom taps her neck behind, and kisses his fingers.) Go, ye liquor[Exit Tom. Luc. Who was that you were hurrying away? Phil. One that I had no mind to part with. Luc. Why did you turn him away, then? Phil. For your ladyship's service, to carry your ladyship's letter to his master. I could hardly get the rogue away. tress. Luc. Why, has he so little love for his master? Phil. No, but he has so much love for his mis[do you suffer that? Luc. But I thought I heard him kiss you: why Phil. Why, madam, we vulgar take it to be a sign of love. We servants, we poor people, that have nothing but our persons to bestow or treat for, squeeze with our hands, and seal with our lips, to ratify vows and promises. [such earnest down? Luc. But can't you trust one another without Phil. We don't think it safe, any more than you gentry, to come together without deeds executed. Luc. Thou art a pert merry hussy. Phil. I wish, madam, your lover and you were as merry as Tom and your servant are. Luc. You grow impertinent. Phil. I have done, madam; and I won't ask you what you intend to do with Mr. Myrtle; what your father will do with Mr. Bevil; nor what you all, especially my lady, mean by admitting Mr. Cimberton as particularly here as if he were married to you already; nay, you are married actually as far Luc. How's that? [as people of quality are. Phil. You have different beds in the same house. Luc. Psha! I have a very great value for Mr. Bevil, but have absolutely put an end to his tensions in the letter I gave you for him. Phil. Then Mr. Myrtle though she may have been where her lover was a thousand times, should not have made observations enough to know him from another man when she sees him in a third place. Phil. That's more than the severity of a nun; for not to see when one may is hardly possible; not to see when one can't is very easy; at this rate, madam, there are a great many whom you have not seen, who Luc. Mamma says, the first time you see your husband should be at that instant he is made so. When your father, with the help of the minister, gives you to him, then you are to see him, then you are to observe and take notice of him, because then you are to obey him. Phil. But does not my lady remember you are to love as well as to obey? Luc. To love is a passion, 'tis a desire; and we must have no desires. Oh! I cannot endure the reflection. With what insensibility on my part, with what more than patience, have I been exposed and offered to some awkward booby or other in every county of Great Britain! Phil. Indeed, madam, I wonder I never heard you speak of it before with this indignation. Luc. Every corner of the land has presented me with a wealthy coxcomb: as fast as one treaty has goue off, another has come on, till my name and person have been the tittle-tattle of the whole town. Phil. But, madam, all these vexations will end very soon in one for all: Mr. Cimberton is your mother's kinsman, and three hundred years an older gentleman than any lover you ever had; for which reason, with that of his prodigious large estate, she is resolved on him, and has sent to consult the lawyers accordingly; nay, has, whether you know it or no, been in treaty with Sir Geoffry; who, to join in the settlement, has accepted of a sum to do it, and is every moment expected in town for that purpose. Luc. How do you get all this intelligence? Phil. By an art I have, I thank my stars, beyond all the waiting-maids in Great Britain; the art of listening, madam, for your ladyship's service. Luc. I shall soon know as much as you do. Leave me, leave me, Phillis; begone; here, here, I'll turn you out. My mother says I must not converse with my servants, though I must converse with no one else. [Exit Phil.] Here he comes with my mother; it's much if he looks at me; or, if he does, takes no more notice of me than of any other moveables in the room. Enter MRS. SEALAND and CIMBERTON. Mrs. S. How do I admire this noble, this learned taste of your's, and the worthy regard you have to our own ancient and honourable house, in consulting a means to keep the blood as pure and as regularly descended as may be. Cim. Why, really, madam, the young women of this age are treated with discourses of such a tendency, and their imaginations so bewildered in flesh and blood, that a man of reason can't talk to be understood: they have no ideas of happiness but what are more gross than the gratification of hunger and thirst. Luc. With how much reflection he is a coxcomb! (Aside.) Cim. And in truth, madam, I have considered it as a most brutal custom, that persons of the first character in the world should go as ordinarily, and with as little shame to bed, as to dinner with one another. They proceed to the propagation of the species as openly as to the preservation of the indipre-vidual. [have no shame, I'm sure. (Aside.) Luc. She that willingly goes to bed to thee must Mrs. S. Oh, cousin Cimberton! cousin Cimberton! how abstracted, how refined is your sense of things! but, indeed, it is too true; there is nothing so ordinary as to say, in the best governed families, my master and lady are gone to bed; one does not know but it might have been said of one's self. Luc. He had my parents' leave to apply to me, and by that he has won me and my affections; who is to have this body of mine without them, it seems, is nothing to me: my mother says 'tis indecent for me to let my thoughts stray about the person of my husband; nay, she says, a maid rigidly virtuous, Cim. Lycurgus, madam, instituted otherwise : among the Lacedemonians the whole female world was pregnant, but none but the mothers themselves knew by whom; their meetings were secret, and the amorous congress always by stealth; and no such professed doings between the sexes as are tolerated among us, under the audacious word, marriage. Mrs. S. Oh! had I lived in those days, and been a matron of Sparta, one might, with less indecency, have had ten children, according to that modest institution, than one under the confusion of our modern barefaced manner. Luc. And yet, poor woman, she has gone through the whole ceremony, and here I stand å melancholy proof of it. (Aside.) Mrs. S. We will talk then of business. That girl, walking about the room there, is to be your wife; she has, I confess, no ideas, no sentiments, that speak her born of a thinking mother. young woman's beauty and constitution will demand provision for a tenth child at least. Mrs. S. But I have given directions for the marriage settlements, and Sir Geoffry Cimberton's counsel is to meet our's here at this hour concerning his joining in the deed; which, when executed, makes you capable of settling what is due to Lucinda's fortune. Herself, as I told you, I say nothing of. Cim. No, no, no; indeed, madain, it is not usual; and I must depend upon my own reflection and philosophy not to overstock my family. Mrs.S. I cannot help her, cousin Cimberton; but she is, for aught I see, as well as the daughter of any Cim. That is very true, madam. [body else. Enter a Servant, who whispers Mrs. Sealand. Mrs. S. The lawyers are come, and now we are to hear what they have resolved as to the point whether it is necessary that Sir Geoffry should join Cim. I have observed her; her lively look, free in the settlement, as being what they call in the reair, and disengaged countenance, speak her very-mainder. But, good cousin, you must have patience Luc. Very what? with them. These lawyers, I am told, are of a dif ferent kind; one is what they call a chamber-comsel, the other a pleader: the conveyancer is slow from an imperfection in his speech, and, therefore, shunned the bar, but extremely passionate, and inpatient of contradiction: the other is as warm as he, but has a tongue so voluble, and a heat so conceited, he will suffer nobody to speak but himself. Cim. You mean old Sergeant Target and Counsellor Bramble: I have heard of them. Mrs. S. The same. Shew in the gentlemen. [Exit Servant. Re-enter a Servant, introducing MYRTLE and TOM, disguised as Bramble and Target. Gentlemen, this is the party concerned, Mr. Cimberton; and I hope you have considered of the matter. [way. Cim. If you please, madam, to set her a little that Mrs. S. Lucinda, say nothing to him, you are not a match for him; when you are married you may speak to such a husband when you're spoken to; but I am disposing of you above yourself every way. Cim. Madam, you cannot but observe the inconveniences I expose myself to, in hopes that your ladyship will be the consort of my better part. As for the young woman, she is rather an impediment than a help to a man of letters and speculation. Madam, there is no reflection, no philosophy, can at all times subdue the sensitive life, but the animal shall sometimes carry away the man. Ha! ay, the vermilion of her lips. Luc. Pray don't talk of me thus. Cim. The pretty enough pant of her bosom. Luc. Intolerable! Cim. High health. Luc. The grave, easy impudence of him! Luc. Stupid coxcomb! Cim. I say, madam, her impatience, while we are looking at her, throws out all attractions: her arms, her neck-what a spring in her step! Luc. Don't you run me over thus, you strange, unaccountable Cim. What an elasticity in her veins and arteries. Cim. The speaking invitation of her shape, the gathering of herself up, and the indignation you see in the pretty little thing! Now I am considering her, on this occasion, but as one that is to be pregnant; and pregnant undoubtedly she will be yearly: I fear I sha'n't for many years have discretion enough to give her one fallow season. Luc. Monster! there's no bearing it. The hideous sot! There's no enduring it; to be thus surveyed like a steed at sale! Cim. At sale! she's very illiterate; but she's very well limbed, too. Turn her in, I see what she is. Mrs. S. Go, you creature, I am ashamed of you. [Exit Lucinda, in a rage. Cim. No harm done. You know, madam, the better sort of people, as I observed to you, treat by their lawyers of weddings; (adjusts himself at the glass) and the woman in the bargain, like the mansion-house in the sale of the estate, is thrown in; and what that is, whether good or bad, is not at all considered. Mrs. S. I grant it; and, therefore, make no demand for her youth and beauty, and every other accomplishment, as the common world think them, because she is not polite. Cim. Madam, I marry to have an heir to my esate, and not to beget a colony or a plantation. This Tom. Yes, madam, we have agreed that it must be by indent-dent-dent-dent Myr. Yes, madam, Mr. Sergeant and myself have agreed, as he is pleased to inform you, that it must be an indenture tripartite, and tripartite let it be; for Sir Geoffry must needs be a party. Old Cimberton, in the year one thousand six hundred and nineteen, says, in that ancient roll in Mr. Sergeant's hands, as recourse thereto being had, will more at large appear. [pears that Tom. Yes, and by the deeds in your hands it ap Myr. Mr. Sergeant, I beg of you to make no inferences upon what is in our custody, but speak to the titles in your own deeds. I shall not shew that deed till my client is in town. Cim. You know best your own methods. Mrs. S. The single question is, whether the entail is such, that Sir Geoffry is necessary in this affair? Myr. Yes, as to the lordship of the Tretriplet, but not as to the messuage of Grimgribber. Tom. I say that Gr-gr-, that Gr—gr, Grimgrib ber, Grimgribber is in us; that is to say, the remain. der thereof, as well as that of Tr-Tr-triplet. Myr. You go upon the deed of Sir Ralph, made in the middle of the last century, precedent to that in which old Cimberton made over the remainder, and made it pass to the heirs general, by which your client comes in ; and I question whether the remainder even of Tretriplet is in him; but we are willing to wave that, and give him a valuable consideration. But we shall not purchase what is in us for ever, as Grimgribber is, at the rate as we guard against the contingent of Mr. Cimberton having no son. Then we know Sir Geoffry is the first of the collateral male line in this family, yet Tom. Sir, Gr-gr-ber is Myr. I apprehend you very well, and your argument might be of force, and we would be inclined to hear that in all its parts; but, sir, I see very plainly what you are going into; I tell you, it is as probable a contingent that Sir Geoffry may die before Mr. Cimberton, as that he may outlive him. Tom. Sir, we are not ripe for that yet, but I must | say 1 1 Myr. Sir, I allow you the whole extent of that argument; but that will go no further than as to the claimants under old Cimberton. I am of opinion, that, according to the instructions of Sir Ralph, he could not dock the entail, and then create a new estate for the heirs in general. [Gr-gr-ber Tom. Sir, I have no patience to be told that, when Myr. I will allow it you, Mr. Sergeant; but there must be the words, heirs for ever, to make such an estate as you pretend. Cim. I must be impartial, though you are counsel for my side of the question. Were it not that you are so good as to allow him what he has not said, I should think it very hard you should answer him without hearing him. But, gentlemen, I believe you have both considered this matter, and are firm in your different opinions: 'twere better, therefore, you proceed according to the particular sense of each of you, and give your thoughts distinctly in writing. And, do you see, sirs? pray let me have a copy of what you say in English. Myr. Why, what is all we have been saying? In English! Oh! but I forgot myself; you're a wit. But, however, to please you, sir, you shall have it in as plain terms as the law will admit of. Cim. But I would have it, sir, without delay. Myr. That sir, the law will not admit of. The courts are sitting at Westminster, and I am this moment obliged to be at every one of them, and 'twould be wrong if I should not be in the Hall to attend one of them at least; the rest would take it ill else; therefore, I must leave what I have said to Mr. Sergeant's consideration, and I will digest his arguments on my part, and you shall hear from me again, sir. [Exit. Tom. Agreed, agreed. [little abruptly. Cim. Mr. Bramble is very quick. He parted a Tom. He could not bear my argument; I pinched him to the quick about that Gr-gr-ber. Mrs. S. I saw that, for he durst not so much as hear you. I shall send to you, Mr. Sergeant, as soon as Sir Geoffry comes to town, and then, I hope, all may be adjusted. Tom. I shall be at my chambers, at my usual hours. [Exit. Cim. Madam, if you please, I'll now attend you to the tea-table, where I shall hear from your ladyship reason and good sense after all this law and gibberish. Mrs. S. Tis a wonderful thing, sir, that men of their profession do not study to talk the substance of what they have to say in the language of the rest of the world; sure, they'd find their account in it. Cim. They might, perhaps, madam, with people of your good sense; but with the generality 'twould never do the vulgar would have no respect for truth and knowledge if they were exposed to naked view. Truth is too simple, of all art bereav'd; [Exeunt. ACT IV. SCENE I.-Bevil's Lodgings. Enter BEVIL, with a letter in his hand, followed by TOM. Tom. Upon my life, sir, I know nothing of the matter; I never opened my lips to Mr. Myrtle about anything of your honour's letter to madam Lucinda. Bevil. What's the fool in such a fright for? I don't suppose you did. What I would know is, whether Mr. Myrtle shewed any suspicion, or asked you any questions, to lead you to say casually that you bad carried any such letter for me this morning? Tom. Why, sir, if he did ask me any questions, how could I help it? that, he might have thought there was something more in my going now than at another time. Bevil. Very well. The fellow's caution, I find, has given him this jealousy. (Aside.) Did he ask you no other questions? Tom. Yes, sir; now I remember, as we came away in the hackney-coach from Mr. Sealand's; "Tom," says he, "as I came in to your master this morning, he bade you go for an answer to a letter he had sent; pray, did you bring him any?" says he. "Ah!" says I, sir, your honour is pleased to joke with me; you have a mind to know whether I can keep a secret or no." [told him you had one. Bevil. And so, by shewing him you could, you Tom. Sir-(Confused.) Bevil. What mean actions does jealousy make a man stoop to! how poorly has he used art with a servant to make him betray his master! (Aside.) Well, and when did he give you this letter for me? Tom. Sir, he writ it before he pulled off his lawyer's gown, at his own chambers. Bevil. Very well; and what did he say when you brought him my answer to it? Tom. He looked a little out of humour, sir, and said it was very well. [Wait without. Bevil. I knew he would be grave upon't. (Aside.) Tom. Hum! 'gad, I don't like this: I am afraid we are in the wrong box here. (Aside.) [Exit. Bevil. I put on a serenity while my fellow was present, but I have never been more thoroughly disturbed. This hot man, to write me a challenge on supposed artificial dealing, when I professed myself his friend! I can live contented without glory, but I cannot suffer shame. What's to be done? But, first, let me consider Lucinda's letter again." (Reads.) "Sir,-I hope it is consistent with the laws a woman ought to impose upon herself, to acknowledge that your manner of declining a treaty of marriage in our family, and desiring the refusal may come from me, has something more engaging in it than the courtship of him who I fear will fall to my lot, except your friend exerts himself for our common safety and happiness. I have reasons for desiring Mr. Myrtle may not know of this letter till hereafter; and am your most obliged humble servant, LUCINDA SEALAND." Well, but the postscript: "I won't, upon second thoughts, hide anything from you: but my reason for concealing this is, that Mr. Myrtle has a jealousy in his temper, which gives me some terrors; but my esteem for him inclines me to hope that only an ill effect which sometimes accompanies a tender love, and what may be cured by a careful and unblameable conduct." Thus has this lady made me her friend and confidant, and put herself in a kind under my protection. I cannot tell him immediately the purport of her letter, except I could cure him of the violent and untractable passion of jealousy, and to serve him and her, by disobeying her in the article of secrecy, more than I should by complying with her directions. But, then, this duelling, which custom has imposed upon every man who would live with reputation and honour in the world, how must I preserve myself from imputations there? he'll, forsooth, call it, or think it, fear, if I explain without fighting. But his letter; I'll read it again. (Reads.) “Sir,— You have used me basely, in corresponding and carrying on a treaty where you told me you were indifferent. I have changed my sword since I saw you; which advertisement I thought proper to send you against the next meeting between you and the injured CHARLES MYRTLE." Re-enter TOM. Tom. Mr. Myrtle, sir: would your honour please Bevil. I don't say you could, oaf! I am not ques-to see him? tioning you, but him. What did he say to you? Tom. Why, sir, when I came to his chambers, to be dressed for the lawyer's part your honour was pleased to put me apon, he asked me if I had been to Mr. Sealand's this morning? So I told him, sir, I often went thither; because, sir, if I had not said Bevil. Why, you stupid creature, let Mr. Myrtle wait at my lodgings! Shew him up. [Exit Tom.] Well, I am resolved upon my carriage to him; he is in love, and in every circumstance of life a little distrustful, which I must allow for. But here he is. [Re-enter TOM, with MYRTLE.] Sir, I am extreme ly obliged to you for this honour. But, sir, you, with your very discerning face, leave the room. [Exit Tom.] Well, Mr. Myrtle, your commands with me? Myr. The time, the place, our long acquaintance, and many other circumstances which affect me on this occasion, oblige me, without further ceremony or conference, to desire you would not only, as you already have, acknowledge the receipt of my letter, but also comply with the request in it. I must have further notice taken of my message than these half lines. I have your's. I shall be at home. Bevil. Sir, I own I have received a letter from you in a very unsual style; but, as I design everything in this matter shall be your own action, your own seeking, I shall understand nothing but what you are pleased to confirm face to face; and I have already forgot the contents of your epistle. Myr. This cool manner is very agreeable to the abuse you have already made of my simplicity and frankness, and, I see, your moderation tends to your own advantage and not mine; to your own safety, not consideration of your friend. Bevil. My own safety, Mr. Myrtle ? Myr. Your own safety, Mr. Bevil. Bevil. Look you, Mr. Myrtle, there's no disguising that I understand what you would be at: but, sir, you know I have often dared to disapprove of the decisions a tyrant custom has introduced to the breach of all laws, both divine and human. Myr. Mr. Bevil, Mr. Bevil! it would be a good first principle, in those who have so tender a conscience that way, to have as much abhorrence of Bevil. As what? [doing injuries as Myr. As fear of answering for them. Bevil. As fear of answering for them? But that apprehension is just or blameable according to the object of that fear. I have often told you in confidence of heart, I abhorred the daring to offend the Author of life, and rushing into his presence. I say, by the very same act, to commit the crime against him, and immediately to urge on to his tribunal. Myr. Mr. Bevil, I must tell you this coolness, this gravity, this shew of conscience, shall never cheat me of my mistress. You have, indeed, the best excuse for life, the hopes of possessing Lucinda; but, consider, sir, I have as much reason to be weary of it, if I am to lose her; and my first attempt to recover her shall be to let her see the dauntless man who is to be her guardian and protector. Bevil. Sir, shew me but the least glimpse of argument that I am authorized, by my own hand, to vindicate any lawless insult of this nature, and I will shew thee to chastise thee hardly deserves the name of courage. Slight, inconsiderate man! There is, Mr. Myrtle, no such terror in quick anger; and you shall, you know not why, be cool, as you have, you know not why, been warm. Myr. Is the woman one loves so little an occasion of anger? You, perhaps, who know not what it is to love, who have your ready, your commodious, your foreign trinket, for your loose hours, and, from your fortune, your specious outward carriage, and other lucky circumstances, as easy a way to the possession of a woman of honour, you know nothing of what it is to be alarmed, to be distracted with anxiety and terror of losing more than life. Your marriage, happy man! goes on like common business; and, in the interim, you have your rambling captive, your Indian princess; for your soft moments of dalliance, your convenient, your ready Indiana. Bevil. You have touched me beyond the patience of a man, and I'm excusable in the guard of innocence, or from the infirmity of human nature, which can bear no more, to accept your invitation and observe your letter. Sir, I'll attend you. Tom. Sir-master-Mr. Myrtle-friends-gentlemen, what d'ye mean? I am but a servant, orBevil. Call a coach. [Exit Tom. A long pause; they walk sullenly by each other.] Shall I, though provoked to the uttermost, recover myself at the entrance of a third person, and that my servant too, and not have respect enough to all I have ever been receiving from infancy, the obligation to the best of fathers, to an unhappy virgin, too, whose life depends on mine? (Aside. Shuts the door.) I have, thank heaven! had time to recollect myself; and shall not, for fear of what such a rash man as you think of me, keep longer unexplained the false appearances under which your infirmity of temper makes you suffer, when, perhaps, too much regard to a false point of honour makes me prolong that suffering. Myr. I am sure Mr. Bevil cannot doubt but I had rather have satisfaction from his innocence than his sword. Bevil. Why, then, would you ask it first that way? Myr. Consider, you kept your temper yoursel no longer than till I spoke to the disadvantage her you loved. Bevil. True. But let me tell you, I have saved you from the most exquisite distress, even though you had succeeded in the dispute. I know you se well, that, I am sure, to have found this letter about a man you had killed would have been worse than death to yourself. Read it. When he is thoroughly mortified, and shame has got the better of jealousy, he will deserve to be assisted towards obtaining Lucinda. (Aside.) Myr. With what a superiority has he turned the injury on me as the aggressor! I begin to fear I have been too far transported. Is not that saying too much? I shall relapse. But I find, (on the postscript)-With what face can I see my benefactor, my advocate, whom I have treated like a betrayer! (Aside.) Oh! Bevil, with what words shall IBevil. There needs none; to convince is much Myr. But can you- [more than to conquer. Bevil. You have overpaid the inquietude you gave me in the change I see in you towards me. Alas! what machines are we! thy face is altered to that of another man, to that of my companion, my friend. Myr. That I could be such a precipitate wretch! Bevil. Pray, no more. Myr. Let me reflect how many friends have died by the hands of friends for want of temper; and you must give me leave to say, again and again, bow much I am beholden to that superior spirit you have subdued me with. What had become of one of us, or, perhaps, both, had you been as weak as I was, and as incapable of reason? Bevil. I congratulate to us both the escape from ourselves, and hope the memory of it will make us dearer friends than ever. Myr. Dear Bevil! your friendly conduct has convinced me that there is nothing manly but what is conducted by reason, and agreeably to the practise of virtue and justice; and yet, how many have been sacrificed to that idol, the unreasonable opinion men! Nay, they are so ridiculous in it, that they often use their swords against each other with dissembled anger and real fear. Betray'd by honour, and compell'd by shame, Enter SIR JOHN BEVIL and SEALAND, Sir J. Give me leave, however, Mr. Sealand, as we are upon a treaty for uniting our families, to mention only the business of an ancient house. Genealogy and descent are to be of some consideration in an affair of this sort. Seal. Genealogy and descent! Sir John, value yourself as you please upon your ancient house, am to talk freely of everything you are pleased to |