Wil. But how shall I produce a certificate of that? Should he examine the parish register, and no record of such a child's death be found, I should be taken up and tried on a suspicion of murder. Mrs. Wil. Then tell him the truth at once. Wil. Worse and worse!-He'll suppose this a mere invention of my own, to screen my villany; else, why was I silent so long? and that I had been bribed by his relations to remove an obstacle to their inheriting both his acquired and paternal fortune. Enter CALEB. Cal. There's a gentleman from Colonel Talbot desires to see you. Wil. What's to be done?-I dare not face him! Cal. What shall I say to him, father? Wil. Was there ever any thing so provoking as this fellow ? Cal. To be sure he is, for selling the best old port and sherry in the kingdom. Mrs. Wil. But come, sit down, and listen to me. [They sit. Cal. What signifies hearing so much about father's character--who gets him that character? Why Caleb.-Is there one in the house fit to talk to a gentleman but myself? Mrs. Wil. My dear Caleb, let me entreat you to hear me. Cal. Dear Caleb !-Yes, I'd listen to you all day for such words as these; good words are sugar plums to me; besides, mother, you can't think how pretty folks look when they are pleased. Mrs. Wi. Do you know, Caleb, whose son you are? Cal. Whose son I am!-My father's to be sure. Mrs. Wil. Certainly; but that father is not Jacob Wilkins. Cal. No! par-arrived from the Indies, is your father. Mrs. Wil. Colonel Talbot, the great nabob just Mrs. Wil. I have it.-Show him into the lour, my good boy; and tell him, Mr. Wilkins will be with him presently, my good boy! Cal. My good boy!'-Ecod, she good boys me to some tune this morning; I hope there's no mischief in the wind; for I'm sure those are the first good words I have had from her since she was my step-mother. [Exit. his Mrs. Wil. How old is your son Caleb? Mrs. Wil. Pass him on the colonel for his son. Mrs. Wil. Put a good face on the matter, and you'll not only slip your neck out of a halter, but make your fortune. I can turn Caleb round my finger. Go and speak to this gentleman, and let him know you'll introduce young Mr. Talbot to him immediately. Do as I bid you, and leave the management of the rest of the business to me. Wil. But what reason shall I give for not writing to him so long? Mrs. Wil. You must say you never received one of his letters; and your quitting the country will make it probable enough they might have miscarried. Wil. Then to give his son no better education! Mrs. Wil. You must say he would not take any better; and you may find instances enough of as dull heirs to large estates, to give colour to your story. Wil. And make a drawer of him too! Mrs. Wil. Well, he'll not be the first great man that has cried, 'Coming up, Sir!' - What do you stand confounded for? Away, away, man; and let me break the matter to Caleb. Wil. It goes against my conscience-but self preservation will have it so. [Exit. Mrs. Wil. [Alone.] Now have I my gentleman under my thumb-whenever his tongue wags with the sound of jealousy, I'll threaten to discover upon him--and I'll see my dear, sweet fellow, who followed me home to-day, as often as I please. But to prepare this great booby-Oh, here he comes. Enter CALEB. Cal. Here mother, I have brought you the bill. Mrs. Wil. Well, never mind the bill-I have something very particular to say to you.-Do you know, Caleb, that your father is a man of the first character in this town? Cal. My godfather, I suppose you mean. Mrs. Wil. I tell you, he's your own father. You were given when an infant to my husband, and he was ordered to bring you up as his son; it being necessary, for family reasons, which you'll know another time, to conceal your birth. Cal. I always thought I was a better man's son than I appeared to be.-But, mother, isn't this all a joke? I am in earnest ? Cal. He has often convinced me that he himself was in earnest, as my shoulders can witness. Mrs. Wil. But, dear Sir, I beg ten thousand pardons for keeping my seat so long. [Getting and courtesying very low.-CALEB keeps his seat, with a vacant stare, and chuckling laugh of joy.] up, Cal. I thought I'd come to something at last. Mrs. Wil. Your father's gentleman, Sir, is now waiting to see you. have a gentleman too. Cal. My father's gentleman!-I suppose I shall Mrs. Wil. Oh, no doubt. Cal. Then there will be a pair of us.-But you're sure now you are in earnest ? Mrs. Wil. Will you go and be convinced I am? Cal. Come along, Mrs. Wilkins; I think, that's your name. Mrs. Wil. At your honour's service. but I'll call and see you now and then, though I Cal. Great men are apt to forget such trifles am a colonel's son. Mrs. Wil. We'll always think there's nothing too good at the George for your honour. Cal. But, hark'e, give old Jacob a hint not to forget himself, and make too free. ourselves in your presence. Mrs. Wil. I hope, Sir, we shall never forget Cal. Well, well, I hope not, good woman.-A colonel's son!-What a fool I must be, not to have found out this of my own accord '-But it's a wise child knows its own father. [Exeunt; MRS. WILKINS ridiculing him. SCENE III-A Drawing Room at the House of SIR OLIVER ÖLDSTOCK. Enter CHARLOTTE and HARRIET Char. How you tease me about this all-accoinplished Sir Charles !-I can't abide him! Har. Can't abide him!—I don't think it possible | lady's wit, it rids me of all apprehension on that for any woman actually to dislike him. Char. Yet, he's the last person breathing 1 should elect for my caro sposo; the man's well enough as an acquaintance; he 's lively; does not want for understanding: but the best of him is, the talent he possesses for discovering the ridiculous, wherever it is to be found. Har. What you praise him for, is in my mind the only exceptionable part of his character. Char. Lord! what harm is there in a little good-humoured ill-nature ?--Besides, what would you have people talk of when they meet; as politics are to the men, scandal is to our sex-these two subjects are the vast magazines of the major part of our ideas; between them the heads of half the nation are furnished. score. Char. Sir, your most obedient. Man. I thought your cousin Harriet was here. Char My cousin Harriet!-Lord! what's my cousin Harriet to the purpose?—I shall grow jealous of you, at this rate.-I wonder, Mandeville, what star shed its influence when our marriage was first talked of; no two people breathing agreed better. Man. I always thought you the pleasantest companion imaginable. Char. We were continually laughing at one body's expense or another. Man. And as soon as we are married, I fancy every body will be even with us. Char. Heigho! Man. What's that for, Madam ? Har. Have you seen Mandeville to-day? Char. Poor Harriet; now do I perceive the Char. Not for a husband, I assure you; it was cause of all this extraordinary zeal for the inter-only a requiem to friendship, going to be laid in ests of the handsome baronet; you still are appre- the grave of matrimony. hensive, if you don't provide me with a husband, I shall take your beloved Mandeville from you. Har. As he is sole heir to Colonel Talbot's immense fortune, I know your father will proceed to the last extremities. Char. Dear Harriet, rest perfectly satisfied in my friendship for you; I never will have him; don't know what I would not do to avoid it.My heart is at present a virgin tablet, on which Love has not written a single character: however, should things come to the worst, you yourself must be my deliverer. Har. As how? Char. Even by taking wing with your beloved swain, for that blessed spot, where law forges no fetters for the heart; and Hymen, with a smile upon his cheek, and his torch burning clear, lights consenting votaries to the temple of real and lasting felicity. Heaven, and a generous uncle be praised, who bequeathed me ten thousand pounds independent of my father, I am not obliged to sacrifice my own and my friend's happiness! Har. I'm ashamed, Charlotte, to have harboured a suspicion but for a moment, that a mind like yours could act unworthy of itself. Enter HARRIET. from my cousin, a servant came and told me that Har. Just now, Mr. Mandeville, as I parted your uncle, Colonel Talbot, was arrived.-Your father, Charlotte, has received a letter from him.But what do you think? It seems, he has a son nobody ever heard of before. Char. A son-Now, Mandeville, if you can be content with your mistress, and a moderate income, I'm satisfied you may have her; as the bulk of Colonel Talbot's fortune will certainly devolve to his son, depend upon it, my father will no more press my ladyship on your worship. Man. Madam, my uncle may dispose of his property as he pleases-I sincerely rejoice at his safe arrival in England: and, as he has an heir, I shall be the first to congratulate him on the event; and I hope that heir may prove an heir to his virtues. Char. You are a generous fellow, Mandeville; and if it did not cost you so dear, I should congratulate you on the certain prospect you may indulge, that we two shall never be one. Man. My dear Harriet Char. Now to put my theory into practice.deville? One as naturally follows the other, as Char. Now, why don't you say, my dear ManHere comes Mandeville; do you step into the the echo does the sound. next room, where you may overhear our conver sation, and you shall be entertained with a pro-gize for my leaving you thus abruptly. logue truly anti-matrimonial. Man. The occasion, ladies, I trust, will apolo Char. Oh, go, go; you have my ample consent. Har. Dear Charlotte, I am already perfectly-But, Harriet, will you let him go off so easily? satisfied. Char. But I insist on your going; it will entertain you. [Exit HARRIET. Har. How can you be so ill-natured? Char. She says, she gives you leave to go: but it's on condition, that you do not dedicate a second of your time to any human being but herself, longer than common decency requires it.But, Mandeville, do you and I part as we ought -a betrothed pair? Man. Yes, Charlotte, for we part wedded friends again. [Erit. Char. Now, Harriet, are all your apprehensions removed? Har. They are, my friend; Hope sits smiling at my heart, and once more cheers it with a pros[Exeunt pect of happiness. ACT II. Enter SIR OLIVER, alone. Sir O. This is a devilish lucky hit, the colonel's having a son; it enables me to provide for both my niece and daughter-I expect from the latter a good deal of contradiction in this business, but I like that; I shouldn't love her half so much as I do, if she hadn't spirit enough to contradict me it shows she has an opinion of her own, and gives me an opportunity to prove that I have one also; but of a much superior kind, and, upon occasions, of a very coercive quality; it's not one time in a hundred I can get any body to contradict me; but men of large, independent fortunes never hear the truth-nobody has spirit enough to oppose them in discourse.-Well, I think I shall be as happy as a married man can be, when my girls are disposed of; my wife, to be sure, has a most unaccountable humour; to suppose I'm jealous of her, now she's in her fifty-fifth year! To do Lady Lucretia Oldstock justice, she was once a charming woman; but at present, I think her as plain a piece of goods as a man could meet between Temple-bar and Whitechapel :-here she comes, brimful of news. Enter LADY OLDSTOCK. L. Old. Was ever any thing so wonderful! Sir O. Nothing upon earth! what's the matter my love? L. Old. Why, haven't you heard that Colonel Talbot has a son? Sir O. A son!-a dozen, I dare be sworn, if he would but own them; an old soldier has generally children in all the quarters of the globe. L. Old. Sir Oliver, you're a censorious man, and judge of every body by yourself. Sir O. Upon my soul, my dear, you allow me too much credit; I never was a man of all that gallantry: no, no; I had a domestic magnet that attracted and fixed all my affections; united to such a woman as Lady Öldstock, who could be a rover? L. Old. Why, to do you justice, Sir Oliver, you have, upon the whole, made a very good husband; and, if it was not for the weakness of your temper in one particular, we might live very happy. Sir O. Now she's off. [Aside. L. Old. If, indeed, I was one of the giddy flirts of the day, it would be another thing-but a woman, of whose truth you have had so many years' experience, to be jealous of! Sir O. I tell you again, and again, I am not jealous. L. Old. Ah, Sir Oliver! I wish you would make your words good; if any man of the least tolerable appearance pays me a common mark of respect, don't you immediately sneer, and say that fellow has a design upon you? Sir O. So I do: always think that person has a design upon another, to whom he gives their own way in every thing: no, no; if I am to choose a friend, and an agreeable companion, give me the honest fellow who contradicts me. L. Old. Then you are not jealous? Sir O. No. L. Old. No? Sir O. No; damme if ever I was jealous of you! Sir O. Then it seems, my lady, you have had your civil things said to you, like other women, in your time? L. Old. There, there, it broke forth! What it is to be married to a jealous husband! Sir O. Well, all this I can bear, because I like contradiction-I consider the mind like a spring; the more you press it, the more vigour you lend to its elasticity: since I can remember, I always delighted to be of a different opinion from other people; there's something wonderfully flattering to human pride in being singular-but in marriage it is absolutely necessary-man and wife are like the contending qualities of bitter and sweet, they naturally quarrel, and exist by downright opposition. Enter CHARLOTTE. L. Old. I'll submit my cause to the judgment of Charlotte. Char. Submit your cause to my judgment! my dear Ma'am, by no means; in all cases of matrimonial litigation, the parties should be tried by their peers. Sir O. Right, my girl! Now, in order to qualify you to be impannelled on suits of the kind, I was that moment thinking about moving the court of Hymen, to show cause why a rule should not be granted, to provide you with a husband. L. Old. Whenever you marry, Charlotte, if you wish to be happy, above all things avoid a temper like your father's. Sir O. And like your mother's also, if you wish your husband to be happy. L. Old. I clearly perceive my company is not agreeable. Sir O. Your strange turn of mind, I confess, Lady Oldstock, is not altogether so agreeable, but you see it does not make me angry. L. Old. It's that that tortures me-if I could vex him, it would be a proof I had some power left; but he treats me like a child. [Exit Sir O. It's a spoiled one, if I do. Char. Dear Sir, let me follow her. Sir O. You sha'n't budge a step after hersoothing her in her humours is only adding fuel to fire. Your mother, Charlotte, was born a coquette, and will die one. She was a reigning toast in her youth, and to this hour expects the adulation of those days. But come, sit down, and let me talk to you. [They sit.] I have for some time back observed, Charlotte, that the match I proposed to you with Mandeville, does not meet your wishes. Char. I confess, Sir, it never did-besides, 1 know that gentleman's affections to be engaged elsewhere. Sir O. I understand you, he's fond of my niece, Harriet; well, in the name of happiness, let them go together; I'll never mention his name to you again, nor indeed shall I propose any match to you, upon which I may expect rational contradiction. Char. Now, Sir, you speak like my father.Oh, how my heart springs with gratitude and joy, to hear those generous words from your own lips! L. Old. You are now more provoking, if pos- Sir O. No, my girl, you shall never be sacrisible, than ever; when you find I hold your rificed at the altar of Plutus-I say sacrificed-for, diculous suspicions in contempt, you would wound what is it, in fact, but a sacrifice, to throw away me another way, and mortify my pride, by insi- a fine young woman upon a man it is impossible nuating, that I never had attractions sufficient to she should like; as many fathers do every day, have a civil thing said to me like other women. I who love money more than their children Char. The liberauty of these sentiments delights me, they are so exactly in conformity with my own Dear Sir, you have given me such spirits!- Do you know, when you asked me to sit down, I expected to have had a quite different kind of conversation with you? Sir O. I suppose you thought I had some golden calf to propose to you for a husband? Char. I own I was so ungenerous. Sir O. A fellow, with nothing but gold in his pocket and lead in his pate; ha, ha, ha! Char. Ha, ha, ha! Sir O. How liable are we to be mistaken in our surmises of other people's thoughts' No, no, my girl, I have no such match to propose to youI have a husband for you, it is true, in my eye; and a rich one too-but it is not to riches you object -it is to the man; and, provided he be agreeable, I imagine no woman in her senses can suppose a husband may be too rich ? Char. Provided riches be obtained without leaving a stain upon the principles, it is happiness to possess them, as they give us so much more ample power of distributing felicity. Char. But, if rumour should speak truth? SCENE II-An Apartment at MANDEVILLE'S. Col. Good masters may remove his ignorance, and good company polish his manners; but there is a meanness in the turn of his person, and the cast of his features, which is insuperable; but take man in every point of view, and he will be found the creature of habit; his body, like his mind, is subdued by education. Johns. I wonder, Sir, you never wrote to any particular friend in England, to have inquired about him, when you received no letter from this man, to whose care you committed him. Col. Who could I trust? none of my own family!-Then, what solid friendships do you suppose are contracted at the age I left England? I was then but twenty; all my intimates were Sir O. Give me a kiss, you jade! You are young fellows, sunk in pleasure and dissipation; your father's own daughter; but every body tells if any thing like friendship had subsisted between me you're the picture of me; and, if the colonel's us, the many years we were asunder had dissolved son be but as like his father as you are yours, the tie; his mother, I knew, was dead, and, from you'll be the handsomest couple in Great Britain. Wilkins' silence, I concluded he also had paid Char. [Rising.] The colonel's son, Sir! the debt of nature; therefore I desisted from Sir O. Yes, my old friend, Colonel Talbot's writing, thinking it was in vain to hope for any son; one of the finest young fellows, I am told-certainty till I had myself reached England. but no fop-he has none of the vices and follies Johns. I should not have believed it possible of your young butterflies of fashion. your honour could have had such a son, let his Char. No, Sir; nor any of their accomplish-education be what it may. ments, or I'm misinformed. Sir O. It was an excellent thought of his father's to have him brought up in a snug private Sir O. Oh, infamous scandal!-He a waiter at some horrid place near Smithfield!--The next report, I suppose, will be, that you were bar-maid at the same place; and that I'm an old tobacconist, who supplied the house with cut and dry. from the sign of the Black Boy in a neighbouring alley. Char. I am petrified at the very thoughts of the brute! Sir O. Look you there now: she knows I love contradiction in my heart, and therefore seems averse to the match, because she thinks it will please me. But, come: you, and your mother and my niece shall go pay the colonel and his son a morning visit. Char. Sir, as you insist upon it, I will go as I would to see any other great natural curiosity. Sir O. Was ever any thing like this! she has heard a scandalous report of a man, and she wont wait to be undeceived by her own eyes and her own ears; this is downright invincible obstinacy, not rational, well-founded contradiction: and I hate the one, as much as I love the other: besides, I ever thought you a girl of too much sense, to lav any kind of stress on a tale of mere rumour. Col. I own, Johnson, the weakness of a father induced me to believe I should have found him very different: I fancied, I should have seen him emerging from the low contracted sphere to which his fate had consigned him, by the native energy of his own powers; and flattered myself with the pleasing dream of surprising a young man with affluence and distinction, who in obscurity had acquired virtue to deserve them. Johns. I beg your honour's pardon-but, as I cannot see the least likeness of you in this young gentleman's face, I suppose he resembled his mother. Col. His mother!-She had the countenance of an angel! Johns. Then he differs from you both most devilishly!-But, Sir, the sooner you provide him with a fencing and a dancing master, the better; the latter of these gentlemen seems indispensably necessary, if it 's only to teach him to walk; for no raw recruit on the first day of drilling was ever more pigeon-toed. Col. Where is he now? Johns. I left him, Sir, very busy over his luncheon. Col. His luncheon! Johns. Yes, Sir: a small morsel he takes before dinner, just to stay his stomach consisting of about a pound of beaf stea akard of porter. all his faults, I must consider he is my son, and pity whilst he compels ine to blush for him. Man. Sir, we must endeavour to form him as well as we can: but I am rather inclined to think we shall never be able to give him the graces. Col. He's not three and twenty-that's young; we have many begin later in life to acquire the rudiments of those sciences, in which they afterwards arrive to the highest pitch of eminence.Have you been able to discover how the natural bent of his temper inclines, or if he has any strong propensities? Man. Why, Sir, from what I can collect in my short acquaintance with him, the natural bent of his temper seems inclined to gallantry; and if he has any strong propensity, it is to the game of skittles. Col. No matter how low and vulgar the game be, it shows a spirit of play in him, and it must be crushed: but if he has a turn for gallantry, it gives me the greatest hopes of his reformation. The society of an accomplished and beautiful woman softens and refines the roughest nature; she imparts, by a secret magic, her elegances and her graces; and to converse with her, is a kind of study that insensibly polishes her admirer.-But what reason have you to suppose he is inclined to gallantry? Man. He has imparted all his amours to me; but one in particular, which very much diverted me, indeed :—after having been successful with bar-maids, young milliners, and tailors' daughters, out of number; Cupid shot him from a cheesecake battery, and he fell in love with a pastrycook's daughter; which, oh, terrible! was the cause of his having an affair of honour with an attorney's clerk, in which both parties were bound over: but in painting this Helen, who bred the contention, how shall I do him justice at second hand? Teniers lent him his pencil for her waist, and Titian for her head; for she was shaped like a Dutch cheese, and her locks were as red as a Col. Speak to him, Mandeville.-There is something so barbarous in every thing he says or does, that I can't bear to look at him. Man. You'll excuse me, dear cousin, for giving you a little advice; but as I mean it well, I'm sure you'll not be offended. Cal. Bless your heart, you can't offend me! I'm one of the best tempered boys breathing--but what's the matter with old Firelock? he seems in the sulks. Man. He's not pleased with your manner and address; it is too rude and abrupt: you should never approach him without evident marks of respect. Cal. Oh! I understand you; I should always make a bow when I come into a place where he is.--Ecod, with all my heart; but what set me wrong, was hearing it said, that to have no manners at all was the best of breeding. Man. Ceremony is altogether as ridiculous, as rudeness is offensive; you must avoid both. Col. Have you ever read any thing in your life? Cal. Why, do you think I can't read? Then I tell you I can; and write and cypher too. Man. He doesn't doubt that; he only wishes to know what kind of reading or books you are fond of. Cal. Then you may tell him, I am fond of histories. Man. That's a good hearing, faith! If he's fond of history, he must possess from nature a strong, inquisitive mind, under all this unpromising d'abord. As you are fond of history, ycu have no doubt dipped into the histories of Greece and Rome? Cal. The best of their histories. Cal. Why, in the first place, I have read Don Bellianis's History of Greece, and the Seven wise Masters' History of Rome. Col. Ask him no more questions. Cal. Then I've read the History of Colonel Jack, and the History of the English Rogue, and the History of Moll Flanders. Man. He appears as well read in modern as ancient history. Col. I don't know any thing more mortifying to human pride, than to pass the better part of a man's life in toil, anxiety, and danger, accumulating wealth, to leave it to a fool at last. Cal. You can't think, father, how sensible money makes a fool look, and how foolish a wise man looks without it. Enter SERVANT. Serv. Mr. Serge, your honour's tailor. Man. He's come to take measure of my cousin for his regimentals. Cal. Regimentals! Why, am I to be a colonel as well as my father? Col. Sir, you're to be a soldier. Cal. A soldier! Why, what's all this! Am I to go for a soldier, after all? Has Doll Blouze been with the parish officers ? Col. I have procured you a commission; no son of mine shall waste his youth in ease and indolence, dissipating that wealth I so hardly earned: the greater part, it is true, he shall enjoy; but he shall first prove by his courage, and his services to his country, that he deserves it. Col. There's not a boy within the sound of |