It is not what he says. I'm strongly tempted
To open it, and see. No; let it rest.

Why should my curiosity excite me

To search and pry into the affairs of others,
Who have to employ my thoughts so many cares
And sorrows of my own? With how much ease
The spring gives way! Surprising! most prodigious !
My eyes are dazzled, and my ravished heart
Leaps at the glorious sight. How bright's the lustre,
How immense the worth of those fair jewels!
Ay, such a treasure would expel for ever
Base poverty and all its abject train;
The mean devices we 're reduced to use
To keep out famine, and preserve our lives
From day to day; the cold neglect of friends;
The galling scorn, or more provoking pity
Of an insulting world. Possessed of these,
Plenty, content, and power, might take their turn,
And lofty pride bare its aspiring head

At our approach, and once more bend before us.
A pleasing dream! 'Tis past; and now I wake
More wretched by the happiness I've lost;
For sure it was a happiness to think,
Though but a moment, such a treasure mine.

Nay, it was more than thought. I saw and touched
The bright temptation, and I see it yet.

'Tis here 'tis mine-I have it in possession. Must I resign it? Must I give it back?

Am I in love with misery and want,

To rob myself, and court so vast a loss?
Retain it then. But how? There is a way.

Why sinks my heart? Why does my blood run cold?
Why am I thrilled with horror? 'Tis not choice,
But dire necessity, suggests the thought.

What art thou gazing on? Fie, 'tis not well.
This casket was delivered to you closed:
Why have you opened it? Should this be known,
How mean must we appear!

Agnes. And who shall know it?

O. Wil. There is a kind of pride, a decent dignity
Due to ourselves, which, spite of our misfortunes,
May be maintained and cherished to the last.
To live without reproach, and without leave

To quit the world, shews sovereign contempt
And noble scorn of its relentless malice.

Agnes. Shews sovereign madness, and a scorn of

sense!

Pursue no further this detested theme:

I will not die. I will not leave the world

For all that you can urge, until compelled.

O. Wil. To chase a shadow, when the setting sun Is darting his last rays, were just as wise

As your anxiety for fleeting life,

Now the last means for its support are failing:
Were famine not as mortal as the sword,

This warmth might be excused. But take thy choice:
Die how you will, you shall not die alone.
Agnes. Nor live, I hope.

O. Wil. There is no fear of that.

Agnes. Then we'll live both.

O. Wil. Strange folly! Where's the means?

Agnes. The means are there; those jewels.

O. Wil. Ha! take heed:

Perhaps thou dost but try me; yet take heed
There's nought so monstrous but the mind of man
In some conditions may be brought to approve;
Theft, sacrilege, treason, and parricide,
When flattering opportunity enticed,

And desperation drove, have been committed
By those who once would start to hear them named.
Agnes. And add to these detested suicide,
Which, by a crime much less, we may avoid.

O. Wil. The inhospitable murder of our guest?
How couldst thou form a thought so very tempting,
So advantageous, so secure, and easy;
And yet so cruel, and so full of horror?

Agnes. 'Tis less impiety, less against nature,
To take another's life than end our own.

O. Wil. It is no matter, whether this or that
Be, in itself, the less or greater crime:
Howe'er we may deceive ourselves or others,
We act from inclination, not by rule,

Or none could act amiss. And that all err,
None but the conscious hypocrite denies.
Oh, what is man, his excellence and strength,
When in an hour of trial and desertion,
Reason, his noblest power, may be suborned
To plead the cause of vile assassination!

Agnes. You're too severe : reason may justly plead For her own preservation.

O. Wil. Rest contented :

Whate'er resistance I may seem to make,

I am betrayed within my will's seduced,
And my whole soul infected. The desire
Of life returns, and brings with it a train
Of appetites, that rage to be supplied.
Whoever stands to parley with temptation,
Does it to be o'ercome.

Agnes. Then nought remains

But the swift execution of a deed

That is not to be thought on, or delayed.

We must despatch him sleeping: should he wake, 'Twere madness to attempt it.

O. Wil. True, his strength,

Single, is more, much more than ours united;

So may his life, perhaps, as far exceed

Ours in duration, should he 'scape this snare.

Generous, unhappy man! Oh, what could move thee To put thy life and fortune in the hands

Of wretches mad with anguish !

Agnes. By what means?

By stabbing, suffocation, or by strangling,
Shall we effect his death?

O. Wil. Why, what a fiend!

How cruel, how remorseless, how impatient,
Have pride and poverty made thee!

Agnes. Barbarous man!

Whose wasteful riots ruined our estate,

And drove our son, ere the first down had spread
His rosy cheeks, spite of my sad presages,
Earnest entreaties, agonies, and tears,
To seek his bread 'mongst strangers, and to perish
In some remote inhospitable land.

The loveliest youth in person and in mind
That ever crowned a groaning mother's pains!
Where was thy pity, where thy patience then?
Thou cruel husband! thou unnatural father!
Thou most remorseless, most ungrateful man!
To waste my fortune, rob me of my son;
To drive me to despair, and then reproach me.
O. Wil. Dry thy tears:

I ought not to reproach thee. I confess

That thou hast suffered much so have we both.
But chide no more: I'm wrought up to thy purpose.
The poor ill-fated unsuspecting victim,

Ere he reclined him on the fatal couch,

From which he's ne'er to rise, took off the sash

1

And costly dagger that thou saw'st him wear; And thus, unthinking, furnished us with arms Against himself. Which shall I use?

Agnes. The sash.

If you make use of that, I can assist.
O. Wil. No.

'Tis a dreadful office, and I'll spare

Thy trembling hands the guilt. Steal to the door,
And bring me word if he be still asleep. [Exit Agnes.
Or I'm deceived, or he pronounced himself
The happiest of mankind. Deluded wretch?
Thy thoughts are perishing; thy youthful joys,
Touched by the icy hand of grisly death,

Are withering in their bloom. But though extinguished,

He'll never know the loss, nor feel the bitter
Pangs of disappointment. Then I was wrong
In counting him a wretch: to die well pleased
Is all the happiest of mankind can hope for.
To be a wretch is to survive the loss
Of every joy, and even hope itself,

As I have done. Why do I mourn him then?
For, by the anguish of my tortured soul,
He's to be envied, if compared with me.

WILLIAM CONGREVE

The comedies of CONGREVE abound more than any others, perhaps, in the English language, in witty dialogue and lively incident, but their licentiousness has banished them from the stage. The life of this eminent dramatic writer was a happy and prosperous one. He was born at Bardsey, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and baptised February 10, 1669–70. He was of a good family, and his father held a military employment in Ireland, where the poet was educated. He studied the law in the Middle Temple, but began early to write for the stage. His Old Bachelor was produced in January 1692-93, and acted with great applause. Lord Halifax conferred appointments on him in the customs and other departments of public service, worth £600 per annum. Other plays soon appeared: the Double Dealer in 1693; Love for Love in 1695; the Mourning Bride, a tragedy, in 1697; and the Way of the World in 1700. In 1710 he published a collection of miscellaneous poems, of which one little piece, Doris, is worthy of his fame; and his good-fortune still following him, he obtained, on the accession of George I., the office of secretary for the island of Jamaica, which raised his emoluments to about £1200 per annum. Basking in the sunshine of opulence and courtly society, Congreve wished to forget that he was an author; and when Voltaire waited upon him, he said he would rather be considered a gentleman than a poet. If you had been merely a gentleman,' said the witty Frenchman, 'I should not have come to visit you.' A complaint in the eyes, which terminated in total blindness, afflicted Congreve in his latter days: he died at his house in London on the 29th of January 1729. Dryden complimented Congreve as one whom every muse and grace adorned; and Pope dedicated to him his translation of the Iliad. What higher literary honours could have been paid a poet whose laurels were all gained, or at least planted, by the age of thirty? One incident in the history of Congreve is too remarkable to be omitted. contracted a close intimacy with the Duchess of Marlborough (daughter of the great duke), sat at her table daily, and assisted in her household management. On his death, he left the bulk of his fortune, amounting to about £10,000, to this eccentric lady. The duchess spent seven of the

610

He

an

ten thousand pounds in the purchase of a diamond necklace. 'How much better would it have been to have given it to Mrs Bracegirdle,' said Young the poet and clergyman. Mrs Bracegirdle was actress with whom Congreve had been very intimate for many years. The duchess honoured the poet's remains with a splendid funeral. The corpse lay in state under the ancient roof of the Jerusalem chamber, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. The pall was borne by the Duke of Bridgewater, Lord Cobham, the Earl of Wilmington, who had been Speaker, and was afterwards first Lord of the Treasury, and other men of high consideration. The Duchess of Marlborough, if report is to be believed, further manifested her regard for the deceased poet in a manner that spoke more for her devotedness than her taste. It is said that she had a statue of him in ivory, which moved by clock-work, and was placed daily at her table; that she had a waxdoll made in imitation of him, and that the feet of this doll were regularly blistered and anointed by the doctors, as poor Congreve's feet had been when he suffered from the gout. This idol of fashion and literature has been removed by the just award of posterity from the high place he once occupied. His plays are generally without poetry or imagination, and his comic genius is inextricably associated with sensuality and profaneness. We admire his brilliant dialogue and repartee, and his exuberance of dramatic incident and character; but the total absence of the higher virtues which ennoble life-the beauty and gracefulness of female virtue, the feelings of generosity, truth, honour, affection, modesty, and tenderness-leaves his pages barren and unproductive of any permanent interest or popularity. His glittering artificial life possesses but few charms to the lovers of nature or of poetry, and is not recommended by any moral purpose or sentiment. The Mourning Bride, Congreve's only tragedy, possesses higher merit than most of the serious plays of that day. It has the stiffness of the French school, with no small affectation of fine writing, without passion, yet it possesses poetical scenes and language. The opening lines have often been quoted:

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
I've read that things inanimate have moved,
And, as with living souls, have been informed
By magic numbers and persuasive sound.

Dr Johnson considered the description of the cathedral in the following extract as forming the most poetical paragraph in the whole range of the drama-finer than any one in Shakspeare!

ALMERIA-LEONORA.

Almeria. It was a fancied noise, for all is hushed. Leonora. It bore the accent of a human voice. Alm. It was thy fear, or else some transient wind Whistling through hollows of this vaulted aisle. We'll listen.

Leon. Hark!

Alm. No; all is hushed and still as death. 'Tis dreadful!

How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads
To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity. It strikes an awe
And terror on my aching sight; the tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.
Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice;

Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear
Thy voice-my own affrights me with its echoes.
Leon. Let us return; the horror of this place
And silence will increase your melancholy.

Alm. It may my fears, but cannot add to that.
No, I will on; shew me Anselmo's tomb,

Lead me o'er bones and skulls and mouldering earth
Of human bodies; for I'll mix with them;
Or wind me in the shroud of some pale corpse
Yet green in earth, rather than be the bride
Of Garcia's more detested bed: that thought
Exerts my spirits, and my present fears
Are lost in dread of greater ill.

It is difficult by quotation to convey an idea of Congreve's comedies. He does not shine in particular passages, but in a constant stream of wit and liveliness, and the quick interchange of dialogue and

incident. He was a master of dramatic rules and art. Nothing shews more forcibly the taste or inclination of the present day for the poetry of nature and passion, instead of the conventional world of our ancestors in the drama, than the neglect into which the works of Congreve have fallen, even as literary productions.

[Gay Young Men upon Town.]
[From The Old Bachelor.]
BELMOUR-VAINLOVE.

Belmour. Vainlove, and abroad so early! Goodmorrow. I thought a contemplative lover could no more have parted with his bed in a morning, than he could have slept in it.

Vainlove. Belmour, good-morrow. Why, truth on't is, these early sallies are not usual to me; but business, as you see, sir-[Shewing letters]—and business must be followed, or be lost.

Bel. Business ! And so must time, my friend, be close pursued or lost. Business is the rub of life, perverts our aim, casts off the bias, and leaves us wide and short of the intended mark.

Vain. Pleasure, I guess you mean.
Bel. Ay, what else has meaning?
Vain. Oh, the wise will tell you-

Bel. More than they believe or understand. Vain. How; how, Ned? a wise man says more than he understands?

Bel. Ay, ay, wisdom is nothing but a pretending to know and believe more than we really do. You read of but one wise man, and all that he knew was that he knew nothing. Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools; they have need of them. Wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation; and let father Time shake his glass. Let low and earthly souls grovel till they have worked themselves six foot deep into a grave. Business is not my element; I roll in a higher orb, and dwell

Sir Jos. Ay, bully, a smart fellow; and will fight like a cock.

Bluff. Say you so? Then I honour him. But has he been abroad? for every cock will fight upon his own dunghill.

Sir Jos. I don't know; but I'll present you.

Bluff. I'll recommend myself. Sir, I honour you; I understand you love fighting. I reverence a man that loves fighting. Sir, I kiss your hilts.

Sharper. Sir, your servant, but you are misinformed; for unless it be to serve my particular friend, as Sir Joseph here, my country, or my religion, or in some very justifiable cause, I am not for it.

Bluff. Oh, I beg your pardon, sir; I find you are not of my palate; you can't relish a dish of fighting without Now, I think fighting for fighting's sake some sauce. is sufficient cause. Fighting to me is religion and the

laws!

Was not that

Sir Jos. Ah, well said, my hero! great, sir? By the Lord Harry, he says true; fighting is meat, drink, and clothes to him. But, Back, this gentleman is one of the best friends I have in the world, and saved my life last night. You know I told you.

Bluff. Ay, then I honour him again. Sir, may I crave your name?

Sharper. Ay, sir; my name's Sharper.

Sir Jos. Pray, Mr Sharper, embrace my Back; very well. By the Lord Harry, Mr Sharper, he is as brave a fellow as Cannibal; are you not, Bully-Back?

Sharper. Hannibal, I believe you mean, Sir Joseph ? Bluff. Undoubtedly he did, sir. Faith, Hannibal was a very pretty fellow; but, Sir Joseph, comparisons are odious. Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days, it must be granted. But alas, sir, were he alive now, he would be nothing, nothing in the earth.

Sharper. How, sir? I make a doubt if there be at this day a greater general breathing.

Bluff. Oh, excuse me, sir; have you served abroad sir?

Sharper. Not I, really, sir.

Bluff. Oh, I thought so. Why, then, you can know nothing, sir. I am afraid you scarce know the history of the late war in Flanders with all its particulars.

Sharper. Not I, sir; no more than public letters or Gazette tell us.

Bluff. Gazette! Why, there again now. Why, sir, there are not three words of truth, the year round, put into the Gazette. I'll tell you a strange thing now as to that. You must know, sir, I was resident in Flanders the last campaign, had a small post there; but no matter for that. Perhaps, sir, there was scarce anything of moment done but a humble servant of yours that shall be nameless was an eye-witness of. I won't say had the greatest share in 't-though I might say that too, since I name nobody, you know. Well, Mr Sharper, would you think it? In all this time, as I hope for a truncheon, that rascally Gazette-writer never so much as once mentioned me. Not once, by the wars!

[A Swaggering Bully and Boaster.]
[From the same.]

SIR JOSEPH WITTOL-SHARPER-CAPTAIN BLUFF.

Sir Joseph. Oh, here he comes. Ay, my Hector of Troy; welcome, my bully, my back; egad, my heart has gone pit-a-pat for thee.

Bluff. How now, my young knight? Not for fear, I hope? He that knows me must be a stranger to fear. Sir Jos. Nay, egad, I hate fear ever since I had like to have died of a fright. But

Bluff But! Look you here, boy; here's your antidote; here's your Jesuit's Powder for a shaking fit. But who hast thou got with ye; is he of mettle?[Laying his hand on his sword.

in the land of the living.

Sharper. Strange!

Sir Jos. Yet, by the Lord Harry, 'tis true, Mr Sharper; for I went every day to coffee-houses to read the Gazette myself.

Bluff. Ay, ay; no matter.

You see, Mr Sharper,

after all, I am content to retire-live a private person. Scipio and others have done so.

Sharper. Impudent rogue. [Aside. Sir Jos. Ay, this modesty of yours. Egad, if he put in for 't, he might be made general himself yet.

Bluff. Oh, fie no, Sir Joseph; you know I hate this. Sir Jos. Let me but tell Mr Sharper a little, how you ate fire once out of the mouth of a cannon; egad, he did; those impenetrable whiskers of his have confronted flames.

Bluff Death! What do you mean, Sir Joseph?

611

Sir Jos. Look you now, I tell he is so modest, he'll own nothing.

Bluff. Pish; you have put me out; I have forgot what I was about. Pray, hold your tongue, and give me leave[Angrily.

Sir Jos. I am dumb.

Bluff. This sword I think I was telling you of, Mr Sharper. This sword I'll maintain to be the best divine, anatomist, lawyer, or casuist in Europe; it shall decide a controversy, or split a cause.

Sir Jos. Nay, now, I must speak; it will split a hair; by the Lord Harry, I have seen it !

Bluff. Zounds! sir, it is a lie; you have not seen it, nor sha'nt see it: sir, I say you can't see. What d'ye say to that, now?

Sir Jos. I am blind.

Bluff. Death! had any other man interrupted me. Sir Jos. Good Mr Sharper, speak to him; I dare not look that way.

Sharper. Captain, Sir Joseph is penitent.

Bluff. Oh, I am calm, sir; calm as a discharged culverin. But 'twas indiscreet, when you know what will provoke me. Nay, come, Sir Joseph; you know my heat's soon over.

Sir Jos. Well, I am a fool sometimes, but I'm sorry. Bluff. Enough.

Sir Jos. Come, we'll go take a glass to drown

animosities.

[Scandal and Literature in High Life.]
[From The Double Dealer.]

CYNTHIA-LORD and LADY FROTH-BRISK.
Lady Froth. Then you think that episode between
Susan the dairy-maid and our coachman is not amiss.
You know, I may suppose the dairy in town, as well as
in the country.

Brisk. Incomparable, let me perish! But, then, being an heroic poem, had not you better call him a charioteer? Charioteer sounds great. Besides, your ladyship's coachman having a red face, and you comparing him to the sun—and you know the sun is called

"heaven's charioteer.'

Lady F. Oh! infinitely better; I am extremely beholden to you for the hint. Stay; we'll read over those half-a-score lines again. [Pulls out a paper.] Let me see here; you know what goes before the comparison you know. [Reads]

For as the sun shines every day,

So of our coachman I may say.

Brisk. I am afraid that simile won't do in wet weather, because you say the sun shines every day.

Lady F. No; for the sun it won't, but it will do for the coachman; for you know there's most occasion for a coach in wet weather.

Brisk. Right, right; that saves all.

Lady F. Then I don't say the sun shines all the day, but that he peeps now and then; yet he does shine all the day, too, you know, though we don't see him.

Brisk. Right; but the vulgar will never comprehend that.

Lady F. Well, you shall hear. Let me see-
For as the sun shines every day,

So of our coachman I may say,

He shews his drunken fiery face

Just as the sun does, more or less.

Brisk. That's right; all's well, all's well. More or

Zess.

Lady F. [Reads]

And when at night his labour's done,

Then, too, like heaven's charioteer, the sun

Ay, charioteer does better

Into the dairy he descends,

And there his whipping and his driving ends;

There he's secure from danger of a bilk; His fare is paid him, and he sets in milk. For Susan, you know, is Thetis, and so

But

Brisk. Incomparable well and proper, egad! I have one exception to make: don't you think bilk—I know it's a good rhyme-but don't you think bilk and fare too like a hackney coachman?

Lady F. I swear and vow I'm afraid so. And yet our John was a hackney coachman when my lord took him.

Brisk. Was he? I'm answered, if John was a hackney coachman. You may put that in the marginal notes; though, to prevent criticism, only mark it with a small asterisk, and say, 'John was formerly a hackney

coachman.'

Lady F. I will; you'd oblige me extremely to write notes to the whole poem.

Brisk. With all my heart and soul, and proud of the vast honour, let me perish!

Lord Froth. Hee, hee, hee! my dear, have you done? Won't you join with us? We were laughing at my Lady Whister and Mr Sneer.

Lady F. Ay, my dear, were you? Oh! filthy Mr Sneer; he's a nauseous figure, a most fulsamic fop. Foh! He spent two days together in going about Covent Garden to suit the lining of his coach with his complexion.

Lord F. O silly! Yet his aunt is as fond of him as if she had brought the ape into the world herself.

Brisk. Who? my Lady Toothless? Oh, she's a mortifying spectacle; she's always chewing the cud like an old ewe.

Lord F. Foh!

Lady F. Then she's always ready to laugh when Sneer offers to speak; and sits in expectation of his no-jest, with her gums bare, and her mouth open.

Brisk. Like an oyster at low ebb, egad! Ha, ha, ha! Cynthia. [Aside.] Well, I find there are no fools so inconsiderable in themselves, but they can render other people contemptible by exposing their infirmities. can't hit of her name; the old fat fool that paints so Lady F. Then that t'other great strapping lady; I

exorbitantly.

Brisk. I know whom you mean. But, deuce take me, I can't hit of her name either. Paints, d'ye say? Why, she lays it on with a trowel. Then she has a great beard that bristles through it, and makes her look as if she were plastered with lime and hair, let me perish!

Lady F. Oh! you made a song upon her, Mr Brisk. Brisk. Heh? egad, so I did. My lord can sing it. Cynthia. O good, my lord; let us hear it.

Brisk. 'Tis not a song neither. It's a sort of epigram, or rather an epigrammatic sonnet. I don't know what to call it, but it's satire. Sing it, my lord. Lord F. [Sings]

Ancient Phyllis has young graces;
'Tis a strange thing, but a true one;
Shall I tell you how?

She herself makes her own faces,

And each morning wears a new one;
Where's the wonder now?

Brisk. Short, but there's salt in't. My way of writing, egad!

[From Love for Love.]

ANGELICA-SIR SAMPSON LEGEND-TATTLE-MRS FRAIL-MISS PRUE-BEN LEGEND and Servant.

[In the character of Ben, Congreve gave the first humorous and natural representation of the English sailor, afterwards so fertile and amusing'a subject of delineation with Smollett and other novelists and dramatists.]

Ben. Where's father?

Servant. There, sir; his back's towards you.

Sir Sampson. My son, Ben! Bless thee, my dear boy; body o' me, thou art heartily welcome.

Ben. Thank you, father; and I'm glad to see you. Sir S. Odsbud, and I'm glad to see thee. Kiss me, boy; kiss me again and again, dear Ben. [Kisses him. Ben. So, so; enough, father. Mess, I'd rather kiss these gentlewomen.

Sir S. And so thou shalt. Mrs Angelica, my son Ben. Ben. Forsooth, if you please. [Salutes her.] Nay, Mistress, I'm not for dropping anchor here; about ship i' faith. [Kisses Frail.] Nay, and you too, my little cock-boat-so. [Kisses Miss.]

Tattle. Sir, you are welcome ashore.
Ben. Thank you, thank you, friend.

Sir S. Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben, since I saw thee.

Ben. Ay, ay, been! been far enough, an that be all. Well, father, and how do you all at home? How does brother Dick and brother Val?

Sir S. Dick! body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years; I writ you word when you were at Leghorn. Ben. Mess, that's true: marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you say. Well, and how? I have a many questions to ask you. Well, you be not married again, father, be you?

Sir S. No, I intend you shall marry, Ben; I would not marry for thy sake.

Tattle. Well, Miss, I have your promise.

[Aside to Miss. Sir S. Body o' me, madam, you say true. Look you, Ben, this is your mistress. Come, Miss, you must not be shame-faced; we'll leave you together.

Miss Prue. I can't abide to be left alone; may not my cousin stay with me?

Sir S. No, no; come, let us away.

Ben. Look you, father; mayhap the young woman mayn't take a liking to me.

Sir S. I warrant thee, boy; come, come, we'll be gone; I'll venture that.

BEN and MISS PRUE.

Ben. Come, mistress, will you please to sit down? for an you stand astern a that'n, we shall never grapple together. Come, I'll haul a chair; there, an you please to sit, I'll sit beside you.

Miss Prue. You need not sit so near one; if you have anything to say, I can hear you farther off; I an't deaf.

marry.

Mrs Frail. That would be a pity; such a handsome young gentleman.

Ben. Handsome! hee, hee, hee; nay, forsooth, an you be for joking, I'll joke with you, for I love my jest, an the ship were sinking, as we say at sea. But I'll tell you why I don't much stand towards matrimony. I love to roam about from port to port, and from land to land: I could never abide to be port-bound, as we call it. Now, a man that is married has, as it were, d' ye see, his feet in the bilboes, and mayhap mayn't get them out again when he would.

Sir S. Ben's a wag.

Ben. A man that is married, d'ye see, is no more like another man than a galley-slave is like one of us free sailors. He is chained to an oar all his life; and mayhap forced to tug a leaky vessel into the bargain.

Sir S. A very wag! Ben's a very wag! only a little rough; he wants a little polishing.

Mrs F. Not at all; I like his humour mightily; it's plain and honest; I should like such a humour in a husband extremely.

was none of my seeking; I was commanded by father; and if you like of it, mayhap I may steer into your harbour. How say you, mistress? The short of the thing is, that if you like me, and I like you, we may chance to swing in a hammock together.

Miss P. I don't know what to say to you, nor I don't care to speak with you at all.

Ben. No? I'm sorry for that. But pray, why are you so scornful?

Miss P. As long as one must not speak one's mind, one had better not speak at all, I think; and truly Í won't tell a lie for the matter.

Ben. Nay, you say true in that; it's but a folly to lie; for to speak one thing, and to think just the contrary way, is, as it were, to look one way and to row another. Now, for my part, d'ye see, I'm for carrying things above-board; I'm not for keeping anything under hatches; so that if you ben't as willing as I, say so a God's name; there's no harm done. Mayhap you may be shame-faced; some maidens, thof they love a man well enough, yet they don't care to tell 'n so to's face. If that's the case, why, silence gives consent.

Miss P. But I'm sure it is not so, for I'll speak sooner than you should believe that; and I'll speak truth, though one should always tell a lie to a man; and I don't care, let my father do what he will. I'm too big to be whipt; so I'll tell you plainly, I don't like you, nor love you at all, nor never will, that's more. So there's your answer for you, and don't trouble me no more, you ugly thing.

Mrs F. No? why so?

Ben. Why, an you do, you may run the risk to be overset, and then you'll carry your keels above water; hee, hee, hee.

Angelica. I swear Mr Benjamin is the veriest wag in nature-an absolute sea-wit.

Sir S. Nay, Ben has parts; but, as I told you before, they want a little polishing. You must not take anything ill, madam.

Ben. No; I hope the gentlewoman is not angry; I mean all in good part; for if I give a jest, I take a jest; and so, forsooth, you may be as free with me.

Ang. I thank you, sir; I am not at all offended. But methinks, Sir Sampson, you should leave him alone with his mistress. Mr Tattle, we must not hinder lovers.

Ben. Look you, young woman, you may learn to

and civil. As for your love or your liking, I don't value it of a rope's end'; and mayhap I like you as little as you do me. What I said was in obedience to father: I fear a whipping no more than you do. But I tell you one thing, if you should give such language at sea, you'd have a cat-o'-nine-tails laid across your shoulders. Flesh! who are you? You heard t'other handsome young woman speak civilly to me of her own accord. Whatever you think of yourself, I don't think you are any more to compare to her than a can of small-beer to a bowl of punch.

Miss P. Well, and there's a handsome gentleman, and a fine gentleman, and a sweet gentleman, that was here, that loves me, and I love him; and if he sees you speak to me any more, he'll thrash your jacket for you, he will; you great sea-calf.