I always love to think the best. By the by, I hope 'tis ailing, yet will outlive the robuster characters of a not true that your brother is absolutely ruined? hundred prudes. Joseph S. I am afraid his circumstances are very bad indeed, ma'am. Mrs C. Ah! I heard so-but you must tell him to keep up his spirits; everybody almost is in the same way-Lord Spindle, Sir Thomas Splint, and Mr Nickit -all up, I hear, within this week; so, if Charles is undone, he'll find half his acquaintance ruined too; and that, you know, is a consolation. Joseph S. Doubtless, ma'am-a very great one. Enter SERVANT. Serv. Mr Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite. [Exit Servant. Lady S. So, Maria, you see your lover pursues you; positively you shan't escape. Enter CRABTREE and SIR BENJAMIN BACKBITE. Crabtree. Lady Sneerwell, I kiss your hand. Mrs Candour, I don't believe you are acquainted with my nephew, Sir Benjamin Backbite? Egad! ma'am, he has a pretty wit, and is a pretty poet too; isn't he, Lady Sneerwell? Sir Benjamin. O fie, uncle! Crab. Nay, egad, it's true; I back him at a rebus or a charade against the best rhymer in the kingdom. Has your ladyship heard the epigram he wrote last week on Lady Frizzle's feather catching fire? Do, Benjamin, repeat it, or the charade you made last night extempore at Mrs Drowzie's conversazione. Come now; your first is the name of a fish, your second, a great naval commander, and Sir B. Uncle, now-prithee Crab. I faith, ma'am, 'twould surprise you to hear how ready he is at these things. Lady S. I wonder, Sir Benjamin, you never publish anything. Sir B. To say truth, ma'am, 'tis very vulgar to print; and as my little productions are mostly satires and lampoons on particular people, I find they circulate more by giving copies in confidence to the friends of the parties. However, I have some love elegies, which, when favoured with this lady's smiles, I mean to give the public. Crab. 'Fore heaven, ma'am, they'll immortalise you! You will be handed down to posterity, like Petrarch's Laura, or Waller's Sacharissa. Sir B. Yes, madam, I think you will like them, when you shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall murmur through a meadow of margin. 'Fore gad, they will be the most elegant things of their kind! Crab. But, ladies, that's true-have you heard the news? Mrs C. What, sir, do you mean the report of Crab. No, ma'am, that's not it-Miss Nicely is going to be married to her own footman. Mrs C. Impossible! Crab. Ask Sir Benjamin. Sir B. 'Tis very true, ma'am; everything is fixed, and the wedding liveries bespoke. Crab. Yes; and they do say there were very pressing reasons for it. Lady S. Why, I have heard something of this before. Mrs C. It can't be; and I wonder any one should believe such a story of so prudent a lady as Miss Nicely. Sir B. O lud! ma'am, that's the very reason 'twas believed at once. She has always been so cautious and so reserved, that everybody was sure there was some reason for it at bottom. Mrs C. Why, to be sure, a tale of scandal is as fatal to the credit of a prudent lady of her stamp as a fever is generally to those of the strongest constitutions. But there is a sort of puny sickly reputation that is always Sir B. True, madam, there are valetudinarians in reputation as well as constitution; who, being conscious of their weak part, avoid the least breath of air, and supply their want of stamina by care and circumspection. Mrs C. Well, but this may be all a mistake. You know, Sir Benjamin, very trifling circumstances often give rise to the most injurious tales. Crab. That they do, I'll be sworn, ma'am. O lud! Mr Surface, pray, is it true that your uncle, Sir Oliver, is coming home? Joseph S. Not that I know of, indeed, sir. Crab. He has been in the East Indies a long time. You can scarcely remember him, I believe? Sad comfort whenever he returns, to hear how your brother has gone on. Joseph S. Charles has been imprudent, sir, to be sure; but I hope no busy people have already prejudiced Sir Oliver against him. He may reform. Sir B. To be sure he may; for my part, I never believed him to be so utterly void of principle as people say; and though he has lost all his friends, I am told nobody is better spoken of by the Jews. Crab. That's true, egad, nephew. If the Old Jewry was a ward, I believe Charles would be an alderman: no man more popular there! I hear he pays as many annuities as the Irish tontine; and that, whenever he is sick, they have prayers for the recovery of his health in all the synagogues. Sir B. Yet no man lives in greater splendour. They tell me, when he entertains his friends, he will sit down to dinner with a dozen of his own securities; have a score of tradesmen waiting in the antechamber, and an officer behind every guest's chair. Joseph S. This may be entertainment to you, gentlemen; but you pay very little regard to the feelings of a brother. Maria. Their malice is intolerable. Lady Sneerwell, I must wish you a good-morning: I'm not very well. [Exit Maria. Mrs C. O dear! she changes colour very much. Lady S. Do, Mrs Candour, follow her she may want your assistance. Mrs C. That I will, with all my soul, ma'am. Poor dear girl, who knows what her situation may be ! [Exit Mrs Candour. Lady S. Twas nothing but that she could not bear to hear Charles reflected on, notwithstanding their difference. Sir B. The young lady's penchant is obvious. Crab. But, Benjamin, you must not give up the pursuit for that: follow her, and put her into goodhumour. Repeat her some of your own verses. Come, I'll assist you. Sir B. Mr Surface, I did not mean to hurt you; but, depend on 't, your brother is utterly undone. Crab. O lud, ay! undone as ever man was. Can't raise a guinea! Sir B. And everything sold, I'm told, that was movable. Crab. I have seen one that was at his house. Not a thing left but some empty bottles that were overlooked, and the family pictures, which I believe are framed in the wainscots. Sir B. And I'm very sorry, also, to hear some bad stories against him. Crab. Oh! he has done many mean things, that's certain. Sir B. But, however, as he is your brotherCrab. We'll tell you all another opportunity. [Exeunt Crabtree and Sir Benjamin. Lady S. Ha, ha! 'tis very hard for them to leave a subject they have not quite run down. Joseph S. And I believe the abuse was no more acceptable to your ladyship than Maria. Lady S. I doubt her affections are further engaged than we imagine. But the family are to be here this evening, so you may as well dine where you are, and we shall have an opportunity of observing further; in the meantime, I'll go and plot mischief, and you shall study sentiment. [Exeunt. In 1780, MRS COWLEY (1743-1809), produced her lively comedy, The Belle's Stratagem, which is still popular on the stage. Mrs Cowley wrote other dramatic pieces, but they have sunk into neglect. She was also the authoress of some poetical worksThe Scottish Village, The Siege of Acre, &c. Her works were collected in 1813, and published in three volumes. GEORGE COLMAN, THE YOUNGER. The most able and successful comic dramatist of his day was GEORGE COLMAN, the younger, who was born on the 21st of October 1762. The son seems to have fixed his literary taste and inclinations; for though his father intended him for the bar, and entered him of Lincoln's Inn, the drama engrossed his attention. In 1784, he contracted a thoughtless marriage with a Miss Catherine Morris, with whom he eloped to Gretna Green, and next and no Turk. His father becoming incapacitated year brought out a second musical comedy, Turk from attacks of paralysis, the younger Colman undertook the management of the theatre in Haymarket, and was thus fairly united to the stage and the drama. Various pieces proceeded from his pen: Inkle and Yarico, a musical opera, brought out with success in 1787; Ways and Means, a comedy, 1788; The Battle of Hexham, 1789; The Surrender of Calais, 1791; The Mountaineers, 1793; The Iron Chest-founded on Godwin's novel of Caleb Williams-1796; The Heir at Law, 1797; Blue Beard a mere piece of scenic display and music-1798; The Review, or the Wags of Windsor, an excellent farce, 1798; The Poor Gentleman, a comedy, 1802; Love Laughs at Locksmiths, a farce, 1803; Gay Deceivers, a farce, 1804; John Bull, a comedy, 1805; Who Wants a Guinea? 1805; We Fly by Night, a farce, 1806; The Africans, a play, 1808; X. Y. Z., a farce, 1810; The Law of Java, a musical drama, 1822, &c. No modern dramatist has added so many stock-pieces to the theatre as Colman, or imparted so much genuine mirth and humour to all playgoers. His society was also much courted; he was a favourite with George IV., and, in conjunction with Sheridan, was wont to set the royal table in a roar. His gaiety, however, was not always allied to prudence, and theatrical property is a very precarious possession. As a manager, Colman got entangled in lawsuits, and was forced to reside in the King's Bench. The king stepped forward to relieve him, by appointing him to the situation of licenser and examiner of plays, an office worth from £300 to £400 a year. In this situation Colman incurred the enmity of several dramatic authors by the rigour with which he scrutinised their productions. His own plays are far from being strictly correct or moral, but not an oath or double-entendre was suffered to escape his expurgatorial pen as licenser, and he was peculiarly keen-scented in detecting all political allusions. Besides his numerous plays, Colman wrote some poetical travesties and pieces of levity, of the author of the Jealous Wife and Clandestine published under the title of My Nightgown and Marriage, Colman had a hereditary attachment to Slippers (1797), which were afterwards republished the drama. He was educated at Westminster (1802) with additions, and named Broad Grins; School, and afterwards entered of Christ's Church also Poetical Vagaries, Vagaries Vindicated, and College, Oxford; but his idleness and dissipation Eccentricities for Edinburgh. In these, delicacy and at the university led his father to withdraw him decorum are often sacrificed to broad mirth and from Oxford, and banish him to Aberdeen. Here humour. The last work of the lively author was he was distinguished for his eccentric dress and memoirs of his own early life and times, entitled folly, but he also applied himself to his classical Random Records, and published in 1880. He died and other studies. At Aberdeen he published a in London on the 26th October 1886. The comedies poem on Charles James Fox, entitled The Man of of Colman abound in witty and ludicrous delineathe People, and wrote a musical farce, The Female tions of character, interspersed with bursts of tenDramatist, which his father brought out at the Hay-derness and feeling, somewhat in the style of Sterne, market Theatre, but it was condemned. A second dramatic attempt, entitled Two to One, brought out in 1784, enjoyed considerable success. This George Colman, the younger. • Colman added 'the younger' to his name after the condemnation of his play, The Iron Chest. Lest my father's memory,' he says, may be injured by mistakes, and in the confusion of after-time the translator of Terence, and the author of the Jealous Wife, should be supposed guilty of The Iron Chest, I shall, were I to reach the patriarchal longevity of Methuselah, continue (in all my dramatic publications) to subscribe myself George Colman, the younger.' whom, indeed, he has closely copied in his Poor Gentleman. Sir Walter Scott has praised his John Bull as by far the best effort of our late comic drama. "The scenes of broad humour are executed in the best possible taste; and the whimsical, yet native characters, reflect the manners of real life. The sentimental parts, although one of them includes a finely wrought-up scene of paternal distress, partake of the falsetto of German pathos. But the piece is both humorous and affecting; and we readily excuse its obvious imperfections in consideration of its exciting our laughter and our tears.' The My pupil ! Enter DICK DOWLAS. whimsical character of Ollapod in the Poor Gentleman is one of Colman's most original and laughable conceptions; Pangloss, in the Heir at Law, is also an excellent satirical portrait of a pedant-proud Dick. [Speaking while entering.] Well, where is the of being an LL.D., and, moreover, an A. double S. man that wants-oh! you are he, I suppose-and his Irishmen, Yorkshiremen, and country Pang. I am the man, young gentleman! Homo sum.' rustics-all admirably performed at the time-are-Terence-Hem! Sir, the person who now presumes highly entertaining, though overcharged portraits. to address you is Peter Pangloss; to whose name, in A tendency to farce is indeed the besetting sin of the college of Aberdeen, is subjoined LL.D., signifying Colman's comedies; and in his more serious plays, Doctor of Laws; to which has been recently added the there is a curious mixture of prose and verse, high- distinction of A. double S.-the Roman initials for a toned sentiment and low humour. Their effect on Fellow of the Society of Arts. the stage is, however, irresistible. We have quoted Joanna Baillie's description of Jane de Montfort as a portrait of Mrs Siddons; and Colman's Octavian in The Mountaineers is an equally faithful likeness of John Kemble: Lovely as day he was-but envious clouds Would charm the towering eagle in her flight, [Scene from the Heir at Law.'] [Daniel Dowlas, an old Gosport shopkeeper, from the supposed less of the son of Lord Duberly, succeeds to the peerage and an estate worth £15,000 per annum. He engages Dr Pangloss a poor pedant just created by the Society of Arts Artium A Room in the Blue Boar Inn. Pangloss. Let the chariot turn about. Dr Pangloss in a lord's chariot! Curru portatur eodem.'-Juvenal -Hem! Waiter! Waiter. Sir. Pang. Have you any gentleman here who arrived this morning? Waiter. There's one in the house now, sir. Pang. Is he juvenile? Waiter. No, sir; he's Derbyshire. Dick. Sir, I am your most obedient, Richard Dowlas; to whose name, in his tailor's bill, is subjoined DR., signifying Debtor; to which are added L.S.D.-the Roman initials for pounds, shillings, and pence. Pang. Ha! this youth was doubtless designed by destiny to move in the circles of fashion; for he's dipt in debt, and makes a merit of telling it. [Aside. Dick. But what are your commands with me, doctor? Pang. I have the honour, young gentleman, of being deputed an ambassador to you from your father. Dick. Then you have the honour to be ambassador of as good-natured an old fellow as ever sold a ha'porth of cheese in a chandler's shop. Pang. Pardon me, if, on the subject of your father's cheese, I advise you to be as mute as a mouse in one for the future. 'Twere better to keep that 'alta mente repostum.'-Virgil-Hem! Dick. Why, what's the matter? Any misfortune ?— Broke, I fear? Pang. No, not broke; but his name, as 'tis customary in these cases, has appeared in the Gazette. Dick. Not broke, but gazetted! Why, zounds and the devil! Pang. Check your passions--learn philosophy. When the wife of the great Socrates threw a-hum!-threw a tea-pot at his erudite head, he was as cool as a cucumber. When Plato 6 Dick. Damn Plato! What of my father? Pang. Don't damn Plato. The bees swarmed round his mellifluous mouth as soon as he was swaddled. Cum in cunis apes in labellis consedissent.'-CiceroHem! Dick. I wish you had a swarm round yours, with all my heart. Come to the point. Pang. In due time. But calm your choler. ‘Ira furor brevis est.'-Horace-Hem! Read this. [Gives a letter. Dick. [Snatches the letter, breaks it open, and reads.] 'DEAR DICK-This comes to inform you I am in a Pang. He, he, he! Of what appearance is the perfect state of health, hoping you are the same gentleman? Waiter. Why, plaguy poor, sir. Pang. 'I hold him rich, al had he not a sherte.'Chaucer-Hem! Denominated the Honourable Mr Dowlas? Waiter. Honourable! He left his name plain Dowlas at the bar, sir. Pang. Plain Dowlas, did he? that will do. the rest is leather' Waiter. Leather, sir! For all Pang. And prunello.'- Pope - Hem! Tell Mr Dowlas a gentleman requests the honour of an inter view. ay, that's the old beginning-It was my lot, last week, to be made'-ay, a bankrupt, I suppose?-'to be made a'-what?-'to be made a P, E, A, R;'-a pear! -to be made a pear! What the devil does he mean by that? Pang. A peer!-a peer of the realm. His lordship's orthography is a little loose, but several of his equals countenance the custom. Lord Loggerhead always spells physician with an F. Dick. A peer!-what, my father?-I'm electrified! Old Daniel Dowlas made a peer! But let me see; [Reads on]-A pear of the realm. Lawyer Ferret got me my tittle'-titt-oh, title!-'and an estate of fifteen thousand per ann.-by making me out next of kin to old Lord Duberly, because he died without-without hair'-'Tis an odd reason, by the by, to be next of kin to a nobleman because he died bald. Waiter. This is his room, sir. He is but just stept into our parcel warehouse-he'll be with you directly. [Exit. Pang. Never before did honour and affluence let fall such a shower on the head of Doctor Pangloss! Fortune, I thank thee! Propitious goddess, I am grateful! I, thy favoured child, who commenced his career in the altogether.'-Shakspeare-Hem! loftiest apartment of a muffin-maker in Milk-alley. Little did I think-'good easy man'-ShakspeareHem!-of the riches and literary dignities which Pang. His lordship means heir heir to his estate. We shall meliorate his style speedily. 'Reform it now Dick. I send my carrot.'-Carrot ! Pang. He, he, he! Chariot, his lordship means. Dick. Respect him, for he's an LL. D., and, moreover, an A. double S.' [They bow. Pang. His lordship kindly condescended to insert that at my request. Dick. And I have made him your tutorer, to mend your cakelology. Pang. Cacology; from Kakos, 'malus,' and Logos, 'verbum.'-Vide Lexicon-Hem! Dick. 'Come with the doctor to my house in Hanover Square.'-Hanover Square!-'I remain your affectionate father, to command.-DUBERLY.' Pang. That's his lordship's title. Dick. It is? Pang. It is. Dick. That's right; tell him to pop my clothes and linen into the carriage; they are in that bundle. Enter WAITER. Pang. Waiter! Here, put all the Honourable Mr Dowlas's clothes and linen into his father's, Lord Duberly's, chariot. Waiter. Where are they all, sir? Pang. All wrapt up in the Honourable Mr Dowlas's pocket handkerchief. [Exit waiter with bundle. Dick. See 'em safe in, doctor, and I'll be with you directly. Pang. I go, most worthy pupil. Six hundred pounds Dick. Say sir to a lord's son. You have no more a year! However deficient in the classics, his knowledge manners than a bear! Dick. Prudence to a nobleman's son with fifteen thousand a year! Pang. Don't give way to your passions. Dick. Give way! Zounds-I'm wild-mad! You teach me!-Pooh!-I have been in London before, and know it requires no teaching to be a modern fine gentleman. Why, it all lies in a nutshell: sport a curriclewalk Bond Street-play at faro-get drunk-dance reels go to the opera-cut off your tail-pull on your pantaloons-and there's a buck of the first fashion in town for you. D'ye think I don't know what's going? Pang. Mercy on me! I shall have a very refractory pupil! Dick. Not at all. We'll be hand and glove together, my little doctor. I'll drive you down to all the races, with my little terrier between your legs, in a tandem. Pang. Doctor Pangloss, the philosopher, with terrier between his legs, in a tandem? a Dick. I'll tell you what, doctor. I'll make you my long-stop at cricket-you shall draw corks when I'm president-laugh at my jokes before company-squeeze lemons for punch-cast up the reckoning-and woe betide you if you don't keep sober enough to see me safe home after a jollification! Pang. Make me a long-stop, and a squeezer of lemons! Zounds! this is more fatiguing than walking out with the lap-dogs! And are these the qualifications for a tutor, young gentleman? Dick. To be sure they are. 'Tis the way that half the prig parsons, who educate us honourables, jump into fat livings. Pang. 'Tis well they jump into something fat at last, for they must wear all the flesh off their bones in the process. Dick. Come now, tutor, go you and call the waiter. Pang. Go and call! Sir-sir! I'd have you understand, Mr Dowlas to Dick. Ay, let us understand one another, doctor. My father, I take it, comes down handsomely to you your management of me? Pang. My lord has been liberal. for of arithmetic is admirable! 'I've often wished that I had, clear, Dick. Nay, nay, don't be so slow. [Exit. a poor man has grown great, his old acquaintance generally begin to be troublesome. Enter ZEKIEL. Zekiel. Well, I han't been long. Dick. No, you are come time enough, in all conscience. [Coolly. Zek. Cicely ha' gotten the place. I be e'en almost stark wild wi' joy. Such a good-natured young madam. Why, you don't seem pleased, man; sure, and sure, you be glad of our good-fortune, Dick? Dick. Dick! Why, what do you-oh! but he doesn't know yet that I am a lord's son. I rejoice to hear of your success, friend Zekiel. But, eh! Why, you No bad tidings Zek. Why, now, that's hearty. look mortal heavy and lumpish, Dick. since we ha' been out, I hope ? Dick. O no. Od rabbit it, You have seen your Zek. Eh? Let's ha' a squint at you. but summut have happened. father, and things ha' gone crossish. Who have been here, Dick? Dick. Only a gentleman, who had the honour of being deputed ambassador from my father. Zek. What a dickens-an ambassador! Pish, now you be a queering a body. An ambassador sent from an old chandler to Dick Dowlas, Lawyer Latitat's clerk? Come, that be a good one, fegs! Dick. Dick Dowlas! and lawyer's clerk! Sir, the gentleman came to inform me that my father, by being proved next of kin to the late lord, is now Lord Duberly; by which means I am now the Honourable Mr Dowlas. Zek. Ods flesh! gi'e us your fist, Dick! I ne'er shook the fist of an honourable afore in all my born days. Old Daniel made a lord! I be main glad to hear it. This be news indeed. But, Dick, I hope he ha' gotten some ready along wi' his title; for a lord without money be but a foolish wishy-washy kind of a thing a'ter all. Dick. My father's estate is fifteen thousand a year. Zek. Mercy on us!-you ha' ta'en away my breath! Dick. Well, Zekiel, Cis and you shall hear from me soon. Zek. Why, you ben't a going, Dick? Dick. I must pay my duty to his lordship; his chariot waits for me below. We have been some time acquainted, Zekiel, and you may depend upon my good offices. Zek. You do seem a little flustrated with these tidings, Dick. I-I should be loath to think our kindness was a cooling. Dick. O no. Rely on my protection. Zek. Why, lookye, Dick Dowlas; as to protection, and all that, we ha' been old friends; and if I should need it from you, it be no more nor my right to expect it, and your business to give it me: but Cicely ha' gotten a place, and I ha' hands and health to get a livelihood. Fortune, good or bad, tries the man, they do say; and if I should hap to be made a lord to-morrow (as who can say what may betide, since they ha' made one out of an old chandler) Dick. Well, sir, and what then? Zek. Why, then, the finest feather in my lordship's cap would be, to shew that there would be as much shame in slighting an old friend because he be poor, as there be pleasure in owning him when it be in our power to do him service. Dick. You mistake me, Zekiel. I-I-s'death! I'm quite confounded! I'm trying to be as fashionable here as my neighbours, but nature comes in, and knocks it all on the head. [Aside.] Zekiel, give me your hand. Zek. Then there be a hearty Castleton slap for you. The grasp of an honest man can't disgrace the hand of a duke, Dick. Dick. You're a kind soul, Zekiel. I regard you sincerely; I love Cicely, and-hang it, I'm going too far now for a lord's son. Pride and old friendship are now fighting in me till I'm almost bewildered. [Aside.] You shall hear from me in a few hours. Good-bye, Zekiel; good-bye. [Exit. Zek. I don't know what ails me, but I be almost ready to cry. Dick be a high-mettled youth, and this news ha' put him a little beside himself. I should make a bit of allowance. His heart, I do think, be in the right road; and when that be the case, he be a hard judge that wont pardon an old friend's spirits when they do carry him a little way out on't. [From The Poor Gentleman.'] [Exit. SIR CHARLES CROPLAND at breakfast; his Valet de Chambre adjusting his hair. Sir Charles. Has old Warner, the steward, been told that I arrived last night? Valet. Yes, Sir Charles; with orders to attend you this morning. Sir Cha. [Yawning and stretching.] What can a man of fashion do with himself in the country at this wretchedly dull time of the year! Valet. It is very pleasant to-day out in the park, Sir Charles. Sir Cha. Pleasant, you booby! How can the country be pleasant in the middle of spring? All the world's in London. Valet. I think, somehow, it looks so lively, Sir Charles, when the corn is coming up. Sir Cha. Blockhead! Vegetation makes the face of a country look frightful. It spoils hunting. Yet as my business on my estate here is to raise supplies for my pleasures elsewhere, my journey is a wise one. What day of the month was it yesterday when I left town on this wise expedition? Valet. The first of April, Sir Charles. Sir Cha. Umph! When Mr Warner comes, shew him in. again. I hope you mean to stay on the spot for some time, Sir Charles? Sir Cha. A very tedious time. Three days, Mr Warner. Warner. Ah, good sir! things would prosper better if you honoured us with your presence a little more. I wish you lived entirely upon the estate, Sir Charles. Sir Cha. Thank you, Warner; but modern men of fashion find it difficult to live upon their estates. Warner. The country about you so charming! Sir Cha. Look ye, Warner-I must hunt in Leicestershire-for that's the thing. In the frosts and the spring months, I must be in town at the clubs-for that's the thing. In summer I must be at the watering-places-for that's the thing. Now, Warner, under these circumstances, how is it possible for me to reside upon my estate? For my estate being in Kent Warner. The most beautiful part of the county. Sir Cha. Pshaw, beauty! we don't mind that in Leicestershire. My estate, I say, being in KentWarner. A land of milk and honey! Sir Cha. I hate milk and honey. Warner. A land of fat! Sir Cha. Hang your fat! Listen to me. My estate being in Kent Warner. So woody! Sir Cha. Curse the wood! No-that's wrong; for it's convenient. I am come on purpose to cut it. Warner. Ah! I was afraid so! Dice on the table, and then the axe to the root! Money lost at play, and then, good lack! the forest groans for it. Sir Cha. But you are not the forest, and why do you groan for it? Warner. I heartily wish, Sir Charles, you may not encumber the goodly estate. Your worthy ancestors had views for their posterity. Sir Cha. And I shall have views for my posterityI shall take special care the trees shan't intercept their prospect. Enter SERVANT. Servant. Mr Ollapod, the apothecary, is in the hall, Sir Charles, to inquire after your health. Sir Cha. Shew him in. [Exit servant.] The fellow's a character, and treats time as he does his patients. He shall kill a quarter of an hour for me this morning. In short, Mr Warner, I must have three thousand pounds in three days. Fell timber to that amount immediately. 'Tis my peremptory order, sir. Warner. I shall obey you, Sir Charles; but 'tis with a heavy heart! Forgive an old servant of the family if he grieves to see you forget some of the duties for which society has a claim upon you. Sir Cha. What do you mean by duties? Warner. Duties, Sir Charles, which the extravagant man of property can never fulfil-such as to support the dignity of an English landholder for the honour of old England; to promote the welfare of his honest tenants; and to succour the industrious poor, who naturally look up to him for assistance. But I shall obey you, Sir Charles. [Exit. Sir Cha. A tiresome old blockhead! But where is this Ollapod? His jumble of physic and shooting may enliven me; and, to a man of gallantry in the country, his intelligence is by no means uninteresting, nor his services inconvenient. Ha, Ollapod! Enter OLLAPOD. Ollapod. Sir Charles, I have the honour to be your slave. Hope your health is good. Been a hard winter here. Sore throats were plenty; so were wood-cocks. Flushed four couple one morning in a half-mile walk from our town to cure Mrs Quarles of a quinsy. May coming on soon, Sir Charles-season of delight, love and campaigning! Hope you come to sojourn, Sir |