barefoot; in a month out at knees with begging an alms-he shall starve upward and upward, till he has nothing living but his head, and then go out in a stink, like a candle's end upon a saveall.

Lady Wish. Well, sir Rowland, you have the way-You are no novice in the labyrinth of love You have the cluc-But, as I am a person, sir Rowland, you must not attribute my yielding to any sinister appetite, or indigestion of widowhood; nor impute my compla ency to any lethargy of continence-I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials

Wait. Far be it from me

Lady Wish. If you do, I protest I must recede -or think that I have made a prostitution of decorums; but, in the vehemence of compassion, and to save the life of a person of so much importance--

Wait. I esteem it so--

Lady Wish. Or else you wrong my condescension--

Wait. I do not, I do not

Lady Wish. Indeed, you do.

Wait. I do not, fair shrine of virtue.

Lady Wish. If you think the least scruple of carnality was an ingredient

Wait. Dear madam, no. You are all camphire and frankincense; all chastity and odour. Lady Wish. Or that

Enter FOIBLE.

Foi. Madam, the dancers are ready, and there's one with a letter, who must deliver it into your own hands.

Lady Wish, Sir Rowland, will you give me leave think favourably, judge candidly, and conclude you have found a person, who would suffer racks in honour's cause, dear sir Rowland, and will wait on you incessantly.

[Exit LADY WISH FORT. Wait. Fy, fy!-What a slavery have I undergone! Spouse, hast thou any cordial? I want spirits.

Foi. What a washy rogue art thou, to pant thus for a quarter of an hour's lying and swearing to a fine lady!

Wait. O, she is the antidote to desire. Spouse, thou wilt fare the worse for it. By this hand, I'd rather be a chairman in the dog-days-than act sir Rowland till this time to-morrow.

Enter LADY WISHFORT with a letter. Lady Wish. Call in the dancers;-Sir Rowland, we'll sit, if you please, and see the entertainment. [Dance.] Now, with your permission, sir Rowland, I will peruse my letter-I would open it in your presence, because I would not make you uneasy. If it should make you uneasy I would burn it-speak, if it does--but you may see, the superscription is like a woman's hand,

Foi. By heaven! Mrs Marwood's. I know it. My heart akes-get it from her— [To him. Wait. A woman's hand! No, madam, that's no woman's hand, I see that already. That's somebody, whose throat must be cut.

Lady Wish. Nay, sir Rowland, since you give me a proof of your passion by your jealousy, I promise you I'll make a return, by a frank communication-You shall see it-we'll open it together-look you here.-Reads- Madam, though unknown to you,' (Look you there, 'tis from nobody, that I know) I have that honour for your character, that I think myself obliged to let you know you are abused. He, who pretends to be sir Rowland, is a cheat and a rascal-' O heaven's! what's this?

Foi. Unfortunate, all's ruined!

Wait. How, how! let me see, let me see ;[Reading.] A rascal, and disguised, and suborned for that imposture,'-O villainy! O villainy! By the contrivance of

1

Lady Wish. I shall faint, I shall die, ho! Foi. Say, 'tis your nephew's hand.-Quickly, his plot, swear it, swear it.

Wait. Here's a villain, madam! don't you perceive it, don't you see it?

Lady Wish. Too well, too well; I have seen too much.

Wait. I told you at first I knew the hand: a woman's hand! The rascal writes a sort of a large hand; your Roman hand-I saw there was a throat to be cut presently. If he were my son, as he is my nephew, I'd pistol him—

For. O, treachery! But are you sure, sir Rowland, it is his writing?

Wait. Sure! Am I here? Do I live? Do I love this pearl of India? I have twenty letters in my pocket from him, in the same character. Lady Wish. How!

Foi. O, what luck it is, sir Rowland, that you were present at this juncture! this was the business that brought Mr Mirabell disguised to madam Millamant this afternoon. I thought something was contriving, when he stole by me, and would have hid his face.

Lady Wish. How, how!-I heard the villain was in the house, indeed; and, now, I remember, my niece went away abruptly, when sir Wilfull was to have made his addresses.

Foi. Then, then, madam, Mr Mirabell waited for her in her chamber! but, I would not tell your ladyship, to discompose you, when you were to receive sir Rowland.

Wait. Enough, his date is short.

Foi. No, good sir Rowland, don't incur the

law.

Wait. Law! I care not for law. I can but die; and, 'tis in a good cause-My lady shall be satisfied of my truth and innocence, though it cost me my life.

if

Lady Wish. No, dear sir Rowland, don't fight; you should be killed, I must never shew my

face: Or hanged!-0, consider my reputation, sir Rowland !---No, you shan't fight-I'll go in and examine my niece; I'll make her confess. I conjure you, sir Rowland, by all your love, not to fight.

Wait. I am charmed, madam; I obey. But some proof you must let me give you. I'll go for a black box, which contains the writings of my whole estate, and deliver that into your hands. Lady Wish. Ay, dear sir Rowland, that will be some comfort; bring the black box.

SCENE I-Continues.

Wait. And, may I presume to bring a contract to be signed this night? May I hope so far? Lady Wish. Bring what you will; but come alive, pray, come alive. O, this is a happy discovery!

Wait. Dead or alive, I'll come-and, married we will be, in spite of treachery. Come, my buxom widow:

Ere long, you shall substantial proof receive,
That I'm an arrant knight-

LADY WISHFORT and FOIBLE. Lady Wish. Out of my house, out of my house, thou viper, thou serpent, that I have fostered! thou bosom traitress, that I raised from nothing! Begone, begone, begone! go, go!-That I took from washing of old gauze, and weaving of dead hair, with a bleak blue nose, over a chaffing-dish of starved embers, and dining behind a traverserag, in a shop no bigger than a birdcage,—go, go! starve again, do, do.

Foi. Dear madam, I'll beg pardon on my knees.

Lady Wish. Away! out, out! go, set up for yourself again---do, drive a trade, do, with your three-pennyworth of small ware, flaunting upon a pack-thread, under a brandy-seller's bulk, or against a dead wall by a ballad-monger. Go, hang out an old frisoneer-gorget, with a yard of yellow Colberteen, again; do; an old gnawed mask, two rows of pins, and a child's fiddle; a glass necklace, with the beads broken, and a quilted night-cap with one ear. Go, go, drive a trade. These were your commodities, you treacherous trull! this was the merchandise you dealt in, when I took you into my house, placed you next myself, and made you governante of my whole family. You have forgot this, have you, now you have feathered your nest?

Foi. No, no, dear madam! Do but hear me; have but a moment's patience--I'll confess all. Mr Mirabell seduced me; I am not the first, that he has wheedled with his dissembling tongue; your ladyship's own wisdom has been deluded by him; then, how should I, a poor ignorant, defend myself? O, madam! if you knew but what he promised me; and how he assured me your ladyship should come to no damage-Or else the wealth of the Indies should not have bribed me to conspire against so good, so sweet, so kind a lady as you have been to me.

Lady Wish. No damage! What! to betray me, and marry me to a cast serving-man! to make me a receptacle, an hospital for a decayed pimp! No damage! O thou frontless impudence, more than a big-bellied actress !

Foi. Pray, do but hear me, madam; he could not marry your ladyship, madam-No, indeed, his marriage was to have been void in law; for, he was married to me first, to secure your ladyship. Yes, indeed; I inquired of the law in that | case, before I would meddle or make.

|

Lady Wish. What, then, I have been your property, have I? I have been convenient to you, it seems--while you were catering for Mirabell, [ have been broker for you! What, have you made a passive bawd of me?-This exceeds all precedent; I am brought to fine uses, to become a botcher of second-hand marriages between Abigails and Andrews! I'll couple you. Yes, I'll baste you together, you and your Philander. I'll Duke's-Place you, as I'm a person. Your turtle is in custody already: you shall coo in the same cage, if there be a constable or warrant in the parish. [Exit.

Foi. O that ever I was born! O that I was ever married!—a bride! ay, 1 shall be a Bridewell bride, oh!

Enter MRS FAINALL.*

Mrs Fain. Poor Foible, what's the matter? For O madam, my lady's gone for a constable! I shall be had to a justice, and put to Bridewell to beat hemp; poor Waitwell's gone to prison already.

Mrs Fain. Have a good heart, Foible; Mirabell's gone to give security for him. This is all Marwood's and my husband's doing.

Foi. Yes, yes, I know it, madam; she was in my lady's closet, and overheard all that you said to me before dinner. She sent the letter to my lady; and that missing effect, Mr Fainall laid this plot to arrest Waitwell, when he pretended to go for the papers; and, in the mean time, Mrs Marwood declared all to my lady.

Mrs Fain. Was there no mention made of me in the letter? My mother does not suspect my being in the confederacy? I fancy Marwood has not told her, though she has told my husband.

Foi. Yes, madam; but my lady did not sce that part: we stifled the letter before she read

so far.

Mrs Fain. Ay, all's out; my affair with Mirabell, every thing discovered. This is the last day of our living together, that's my comfort.

Foi. Indeed, madam! and so 'tis a comfort, if you knew all he has been even with your ladyship; which I could have told you long enough since; but I love to keep peace and quietness by my good will: I had rather bring friends together, than set them at distance. But Mrs Marwood and he are nearer related than ever their parents thought for.

Mrs Fuin. Say'st thou so, Foible? Canst thou prove this?

Mrs Mar. Let us first dispatch the affair in hand, madam. We shall have leisure to think of retirement afterwards. Here is one who is concerned in the treaty.

Lady Wish. O daughter, daughter! is it possible thou shouldst be my child, bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, and, as I may say, another me, and yet transgress the minute particle of severe virtue? Is it possible you should lean aside to iniquity, who have been cast in the direct mould of virtue?

:

Mrs Fain. This discovery is the most opportune thing I could wish-Now, Mincing!

Enter MINCING.

Min. My lady would speak with Mrs Foible. mem. Mr Mirabell is with her; he has set your spouse at liberty, Mrs Foible, and would have you hide yourself in my lady's closet, till my old lady's anger is abated. O, my old lady is in a perilous passion, at something Mr Fainall has said; he swears, and my old lady cries. There's a fearful hurricane, I vow. He says, mem, how that he'll have my lady's fortune made over to him, or he'll be divorced.

Mrs Fain. Does your lady or Mirabell know that!

Min. Yes, mem, they have sent me to see if Sir Wilfull be sober, and to bring him to them. My lady is resolved to have him, I think, rather than lose such a vast sum as six thousand pounds. O, come Mrs Foible; I hear my old lady.

Mrs Fain. Foible, you must tell Mincing, that she must prepare to vouch when I call her. Foi. Yes, yes, madam.

Min. O, yes, mem, I'll vouch any thing for your ladyship's service, be what it will.

[Exeunt FOIBLE and MINCING.

Enter LADY WISHFORT and MRS MARWOOD. Lady Wish. O my dear friend, how can I enumerate the benefits that I have received from your goodness! To you, I owe the timely discovery of the false vows of Mirabell; to you, I owe the detection of the impostor sir Rowland;

pound for your caprices, and your cuckoldoms. I must part with my plate and my jewels, and ruin my niece, and all little enough—

Mrs Fain. I am wronged and abused, and so are you. 'Tis a false accusation, as false as hell! as false as your friend there, ay, or your friend's friend, my false husband!

Mrs Mar. My friend! Mrs Fainall? your husband my friend! what do you mean?

Mrs Fain. I know what I mean, madam, and so do you: and so shall all the world at a time convenient.

Mrs Mar. I am sorry to see you so passionate, madam. More temper would look more like innocence. But I have done. I am sorry my zeal to serve your ladyship and family should admit of misconstruction, or make me liable to affronts. You will pardon me, madam, if I meddle no more with an affair, in which I am not personally concerned.

Lady Wish. O dear friend, I am so ashamed that you should meet with such returns!—you ought to ask pardon on your knees, ungrateful creature! she deserves more from you, than all your life can accomplish-O don't leave me destitute in this perplexity!-no, stick to me, my good genius!

Mrs Fain. I tell you, madam, you're abused— Stick to you? ay, like a leech, to suck your best blood-she'll drop off, when she's full. Madam, you shan't pawn a bodkin, nor part with a brass counter, in composition for me. I defy them all. Let them prove their aspersions: I know my own innocence, and dare stand a trial.

[Erit.

Lady Wish. Why, if she should be innocent, if she should be wronged after all, ha! I don't know what to think-and, I promise you, her

education has been very unexceptionable-I may say it for I chiefly made it my own care to initiate her very infancy in the rudiments of virtue, and to impress upon her tender years a young odium and aversion to the very sight of men -ay, friend, she would ha' shrieked, if she had but seen a man, till she was in her teens. As I'm a person, 'tis true-She was never suffered to play with a male child, though but in coats; nay, her very babies were of the feminine gender -O, she never looked a man in the face, but her own father, or the chaplain, and him we made a shift to put upon her for a woman, by the help of his long garments and his sleek face, till she was going in her fifteen. O dear friend, I can't believe it. No, no; as she says, let him prove it, let him prove it.

Mrs Mar. Prove it, madam? what, and have your name prostituted in a public court; yours and your daughter's reputation worried at the bar by a pack of bawling lawyers! to be ushered in with an O-yes of scandal; and have your case opened by an old fumbling letcher in a coif like a man-midwife, to bring your daughter's infamy to light; to be a theme for legal punsters, and quibblers by the statute; and become a jest, against a rule of court, where there is no precedent for a jest in any record, not even in Doomsday-book; to discompose the gravity of the bench, and provoke naughty interrogatories in more naughty law Latin; while the good judge, tickled with the proceeding, simpers under a grey beard, and fidgets off and on his cushion, as if he had swallowed cantharides, or sat upon cow-itch!

Lady Wish. O, 'tis very hard!

Mrs Mar. And then to have my young revellers of the Temple take notes, like 'prentices at a conventicle; and after talk it over again in commons, or before drawers in an eating-house! Lady Wish. Worse and worse.

Mrs Mar. Nay, this is nothing; if it would end here, 'twere well. But it must, after this, be consigned by the short-hand writers to the public press; and from thence be transferred to the hands, nay, into the throats and lungs of hawkers, with voices more licentious than the loud flounder-man's; and this you must hear till you are stunned; nay, you must hear nothing else for some days.

Lady Wish. O, 'tis insupportable! No, no, dear friend, make it up, make it up; ay, ay, I'll compound. I'll give up all, myself and my all, my niece and her all-any thing, every thing for composition.

Mrs Mar. Nay, madam, I advise nothing; I only lay before you, as a friend, the inconveniences which, perhaps, you have overseen. Here comes Mr Fainall; if he will be satisfied to huddle up all in silence, I shall be glad. You must think I would rather congratulate than condole with yon.

Enter FAINALL.

Lady Wish. Ay, ay, I do not doubt it, dear Marwood: no, no, I do not doubt it.

Fain. Well, madam, I have suffered myself to be overcome by the importunity of this lady, your friend; and am content you shall enjoy your own proper estate during life; on condition you oblige yourself never to marry, under such penalty as I think convenient.

Lady Wish. Never to marry!

Fain. No more sir Rowlands---the next imposture may not be so timely detected.

Mrs Mar. That condition, I dare answer, my lady will consent to, without difficulty; she has already but too much experienced the perfidiousness of men. Besides, madam, when we retire to our pastoral solitude, we shall bid adieu to all other thoughts.

Lady Wish. Ay, that's true.

Fain. Next, my wife shall settle on me the remainder of her fortune, not made over already ; and, for her maintenance, depend entirely on iny discretion.

Lady Wish. This is most inhumanly savage; exceeding the barbarity of a Muscovite husband. Fain. I learned it from his Czarish majesty's retinue, in a winter evening's conference over brandy and pepper, amongst other secrets of matrimony and policy, as they are at present practised in the northern hemisphere. But this must be agreed unto, and that positively. Lastly, I will be endowed, in right of my wife, with that six thousand pounds, which is the moiety of Mrs Millamant's fortune in your possesion; and which she has forfeited (as will appear by the last-will and testament of your deceased husband, sir Jonathan Wishfort), by her disobedience in contracting herself against your consent or knowledge, and by refusing the offered match with Sir Wilfull Witwould, which you, like a careful aunt, had provided for her.

Lady Wish. My nephew was non compos; and could not make his addresses.

Fain. I come to make demands-I'll hear no objections.

Lady Wish. You will grant me time to consider?

Fain. Yes, while the instrument is drawing, to which you must set your hand till more sufficient deeds can be perfected, which I will take care shall be done with all possible speed. In the mean while, I will go for the said instrument, and till my return, you may balance this matter in your own discretion.

[Exit.

Lady Wish. This insolence is beyond all precedent, all parallel; must I be subject to this merciless villain?

Mrs Mar. 'Tis severe, indeed, madam, that you should smart for your daughter's failings.

Lady Wish. Twas against my consent, that she married this barbarian; but she would have

Mrs Mar. This is precious fooling, if it would pass; but I'll know the bottom of it. Lady Wish. Oh, dear Marwood, you are not going.

too.

Enter MILLAMANT and SIR WILFULL. Sir Wil. Aunt, your servant. Lady Wish. Out, caterpillar! call not me aunt; I know thee not.

Sir Wil. I confess I have been a little in disguise, as they say- 'Sheart! and I'm sorry for't. What would you have? I hope I committed no offence, aunt--and, if I did, I am willing to make satisfaction; and what can a man say fairer? If I have broke any thing, I'll pay for't, an' it cost a pound. And so let that content for what's past, and make no more words. For what's to come, to pleasure you, I'm willing to marry my cousin. So, pray, let's all be friends; she and I are agreed upon the matter before a witness.

Lady Wish. How's this, dear niece? have I any comfort? can this be true?

Mill. I am content to be a sacrifice to your repose, madam; and, to convince you that I had no hand in the plot, as you were misinformed, I have laid my commands on Mirabell to come in person, and be a witness, that I give my hand to this flower of knighthood; and, for the contract that passed between Mirabell and me, I have obliged him to make a resignation of it in your ladyship's presence;-he is without, and waits your leave for admittance.

Lady Wish. Well, I'll swear I am something revived at this testimony of your obedience; but I cannot admit that traitor-I fear I cannot fortify myself to support his appearance. He is as terrible to me as a Gorgon; if I see him, I fear I shall turn to stone, and petrify incessantly.

Mill. If you disoblige him, he may resent your refusal, and insist upon the contract still. Then 'tis the last time he will be offensive to you..

Lady Wish. Are you sure it will be the last time? if I were sure of that-shall I never see him again?

Mill. Sir Wilfull, you and he are to travel together, are you not?

Sir Wil. 'Sheart, the gentleman's a civil gentleman; aunt, let him come in; why, we are sworn brothers, and fellow-travellers. We are to be Pylades and Orestes, he and I-he is to be my interpreter in foreign parts. He has been over-seas once already; and, with proviso that I marry my cousin, will cross them once again, only to bear me company. 'Sheart, I'll call him in-an' I set on't once, he shall come in; and sce who'll hinder him. [Goes to the door, and hems.

Mrs Mar. Not far, madam; I'll return im[Exit MRS MARWOOD.

Enter MIRABELL.

Sir Wil. Look up, man, I'll stand by you; 'sbud, an' she do frown-she can't kill you; besides harkee, she dare not frown desperately, because her face is none of her own; 'sheart, an' she should, her forehead would wrinkle like the coat of a cream-cheese; but mum for that, fellow-traveller.

Mira. If a deep sense of the many injuries I have offered to so good a lady, with a sincere remorse, and a hearty contrition, can but obtain the least glance of compassion, I am too happy. Ah, madam! there was a time-but let it be forgotten-I confess i have deservedly forfeited the high place, I once held, of sighing at your feet; kill me not, by turning from me in disdainI come not to plead for favour; nay, not for par don; I am a supplicant only for pity-I am going where I never shall behold you more.

nay,

Sir Wil. How, fellow-traveller! you shall go by yourself, then.

Mira. Let me be pitied first: and afterwards forgotten-I ask no more.

Sir Wil. By'r lady, a very reasonable request, and will cost you nothing, aunt. Come, come, forgive and forget, aunt; why, you must, an' you are a Christian.

Mira. Consider, madam, in reality, you could not receive much prejudice; it was an innocent device; though, I confess, it had a face of guiltiness-it was at most an artifice, which love contrived-and errors, which love produces, have ever been accounted venial. At least think it is punishment enough, that I have lost what, in my heart, I hold most dear; that to your cruel indignation I have offered up this beauty, and with her my peace and quiet; nay, all my hopes of future confort.

Sir Wil. An' he does not move me, would I may never be o' the quorum! An' it were not as good a deed as to drink, to give her to him again, I would I might never take shipping!Aunt, if you don't forgive quickly, I shall melt, I can tell you that. My contract went no farther than a little mouth-glue, and that's hardly dry; one doleful sigh more from my fellow-traveller, and 'tis dissolved.

Lady Wish. Well, nephew, upon your account ah! he has a false, insinuating tongue. Well, sir, I will stifle my just resentment, at my nephew's request-I will endeavour what I can to forget---but, on proviso, that you resign the contract with my niece immediately.

Mira. It is in writing, and with papers of