have writ to your mistress this morning. It would please my curiosity to know the contents of a wedding-day letter, for courtship must then be over. B. jun. I assure you, sir, there was no insolence in it, upon the prospect of such a vast fortune's being added to our family, but much acknowledgment of the lady's great desert. Sir J. B. But, dear Jack, are you in earnest in all this? and will you really marry her? B. jun. Did I ever disobey any command of yours, sir? Nay, any inclination that I saw you bent upon? Sir J. B. Why, I cann't say you have, son: but methinks in this whole business you have not been so warm as I could have wished you; you have visited her, it is true, but you have not been particular. Every one knows you can say and do as handsome things as any man; but you have done nothing but lived in the general, being complaisant only. B. jun. As I am ever prepared to marry if you bid me, so I am ready to let it alone if you will have me. [Humphrey enters unobserved. Sir J. B. Look you there now! Why, what am I to think of this so absolute and so indifferent a resignation? B. jun. Think that I am still your son, sir-sir -you have been married, and I have not; and you have, sir, found the inconvenience there is when a man weds with too much love in his head. I have been told, sir, that at the time you married, you made a mighty bustle on the occasion-there was challenging and fighting, scaling walls-locking up the lady-and the gallant under an arrest for fear of killing all his rivals. Now, sir, I suppose you having found the ill consequence of these strong passions and prejudices, in preference of one woman to another, in case of a man's becoming a widower Sir J. B. How is this? B. jun. I say, sir, experience has made you wiser in your care of me; for, sir, since you lost my dear mother, your time has been so heavy, so lonely, and so tasteless, that you are so good as to guard me against the like unhappiness, by marrying me prudentially by way of bargain and sale; for, as you well judge, a woman that is espoused for a fortune is yet a better bargain if she dies; for then a man well enjoys what he did marry, the money, and is disencumbered of what he did not marry, the woman. Sir J. B. But pray, sir, do you think Lucinda then a woman of such little merit? B. jun. Pardon me, sir, I don't carry it so far neither; I am rather afraid I shall like her too well; she has, for one of her fortune, a great many needless and superfluous good qualities. Sir J. B. I am afraid, son, there's something I don't see yet, something that's smothered under all this raillery. B. jun. Not in the least, sir.-If the lady is dressed and ready, you see I am. I suppose the lawyers are ready too. Enter HUMPHREY. Humph. Sir, Mr Sealand is at the coffee-house, and has sent to speak with you. Sir J. B. Oh! that's well! then I warrant the lawyers are ready. Son, you'll be in the way, you say B jun. If you please, sir, I'll take a chair and go to Mr Sealand's, where the young lady and I will wait your leisure. Sir J. B. By no means-the old fellow will be so vain if he sees B. jun. Ay-but the young lady, sir, will think me so indifferent Humph. Ay-there you are right-press your readiness to go to the bride-he won't let you. [Aside to BEV. jun. B. jun. Are you sure of that? [Aside to HUMPH, Humph. How he likes being prevented! [Aside. Sir J. B. No, no; you are an hour or two too early. [Looking on his wutch. B. jun. You'll allow me, sir, to think it too late to visit a beautiful, virtuous, young woman, in the pride and bloom of life, ready to give her self to my arms, and to place her happiness or misery for the future in being agreeable or dis pleasing to me, is a― -Call a chair. Sir J. B. No, no, no, dear Jack! Besides, this Sealand is a moody old fellow. There's no dealing with some people but by managing with indifference. We must leave to him the conduct this day; it is the last of his commanding his daughter. of B. jun. Sir, he cann't take it ill that I am impatient to be hers. Sir J. B. Pray let me govern in this matter. You cann't tell how humoursome old fellows are. -There's no offering reason to some of 'em, es pecially when they are rich.-If my son should see him before I've brought Old Sealand into better temper, the match would be impracticable. [Aside. Humph. Pray, sir, let me beg you to let Mr Bevil go.-See whether he will not. Aside to Sir JOHN.]-[Then to BEVIL.] Pray, sir, command yourself; since you see my master is positive, it is better you should not go. B. jun. My father commands me as to the object of my affections. but I hope he will not as to the warmth and height of them. Sir J. B. So I must even leave things as I found them, and in the mean time at least keep old Sealand out of his sight.-Well, son, I'll go myself and take orders in your affair-You'll be in the way, I suppose, if I send to you—I'll leave your old friend with you-Humphrey-don't let him stir, d'ye hear. Your servant, your servant. [Exit Sir JOHN. Humph. I have a sad time on it, sir, between you and my master-I see you are unwilling, and I know his violent inclinations for the match. I must betray neither, and yet deceive you both, for your common good.- -Heaven grant a good end of this matter: but there is a lady, sir, that gives your father much trouble and sorrowYou'll pardon me. own adopted daughter. care of her; the captain, too, proved to have humanity, and became a father to her; for having himself married an English woman, and being childless, he brought home into Toulon this her little countrywoman, this orphan I may call her, B. jun. Humphrey, I know thou art a friend presenting her, with all her dead mother's moveto both, and in that confidence I dare tell thee-ables of value, to his wife, to be educated as his that lady is a woman of honour and virtue. You may assure yourself I never will marry my ; but give me leave to say too, does not come up to a promise that I will take whomsoever he pleases. Humph. Come, sir, I wholly understand you: you would engage my services to free you from this woman whom my master intends you, to way in time for the woman you have really a mind to. make B. jun. Honest Humphrey ! you have always been an useful friend to my father and myself; I beg you to continue your good offices, and don't let us come to the necessity of a dispute, for if we should dispute, I must either part with more than life, or lose the best of fathers. Humph. My dear master! were I but worthy to know this secret that so near concerns you, my life, my all, should be engaged to serve you. This, sir, I dare promise, that I am sure I will and can be secret: your trust, at worst, but leaves you where you were; and if I cannot serve you, I will at once be plain and tell you so. B. jun. That's all I ask. Thou hast made it now my interest to trust thee.-Be patient then, and hear the story of my heart. Humph. I am all attention, sir. B. jun. You may remember, Humphrey, that in my last travels my father grew uneasy at my making so long a stay at Toulon. Humph. I remember it; he was apprehensive some woman had laid hold of you. Humph. Fortune here seemed again to smile on her. B. jun. Only to make her frowns more terrible; for in his height of fortune this captain too, her benefactor, unfortunately was killed at sea, and dying intestate, his estate fell wholly to an advocate, his brother, who coming soon to take possession, there found, among his other riches, this blooming virgin at his mercy. Humph. He durst not sure abuse his power! B. jun. No wonder if his pampered blood was fired at the sight of her.-In short, he loved; but when all arts and gentle means had failed to move, he offered too his menaces in vain, denouncing vengeance on her cruelty, demanding her to account for all her maintenance from her childhood, seized on her little fortune as his own inheritance, and was dragging her by violence to prison, when Providence at the instant interposed, and sent me by miracle to relieve her. Humph. 'Twas Providence, indeed! But pray, sir, after all this trouble, how came this lady at last to England? B. jun. The disappointed advocate, finding she had so unexpected a support, on cooler thoughts descended to a composition, which I, without her knowledge, secretly discharged. Humph. That generous concealment made the obligation double. B. jun. Having thus obtained her liberty, I prevailed, not without some difficulty, to see her safe to England, where we no sooner arrived, but my father, jealous of my being imprudently engaged, immediately proposed this other fatal match that hangs upon my quiet. Humph. I find, sir, you are irrecoverably fixed upon this lady. Humph. Now, sir, I have but one material ques B. jun. His fears were just, for there I first saw this lady: she is of English birth: her father's name was Danvers, a younger brother of an ancient family, and originally an eminent merchant of Bristol, who, upon repeated misfortunes, was reduced to go privately to the Indies. In this retreat, Providence again grew favourable to B. jun. As my vital life dwells in my hearthis industry, and in six years time restored him and yet you see what I do to please my father; to his former fortunes. On this he sent direc-walk in this pageantry of dress, this splendid cotions over that his wife and little family should vering of sorrow-But, Humphrey, you have your follow him to the Indies. His wife, impatient lesson. to obey such welcome orders, would not wait the leisure of a convoy, but took the first occasion of a single ship, and with her husband's sister only and this daughter, then scarce seven years old, undertook the fatal voyage; for here, poor creature, she lost her liberty and life she and her family, with all they had, were unfortunately taken by a privateer from Toulon. Being thus made a prisoner, though, as such, not ill treated, yet the fright, the shock, and the cruel disappointment, seized with such violence upon her unhealthy frame, she sickened, pined, and died at sea. Humph. Poor soul! Oh, the helpless infant! tion B. jun. Ask it freely. Humph. Is it then your own passion for this secret lady, or hers for you, that gives you this aversion to the match your father has proposed you? B. jun. I shall appear, Humphrey, more romantic in my answer than in all the rest of my story; for though i dote on her to death, and have no little reason to believe she has the same thoughts for me, yet, in all my acquaintance and utmost privacies with her, I never once directly told her that I loved. Humph. How was it possible to avoid it? you, that, from a secret I know, you may appear to your father as forward as you please to marry Lucinda, without the least hazard of its coming to a conclusion.-Sir, your most obedient servant. B. Jun. Honest Humphrey! continue but my friend in this exigence, and you shall always find me yours. [Exit HUMPH.] I long to hear how my letter has succeeded with Lucinda. But I think it cannot fail; for at worst, were it possible she should take it ill, her resentment of my indifference may as probably occasion a delay as her taking it right.-Poor Myrtle! what terrors must he be in all this while! -Since he knows she is offered to me, and refused to him, there is no conversing or taking any measures with him for his own service.-But I ought to bear with my friend, and use him as one in adversity. All his disquietudes by my own I prove, [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I-Continues. Enter BEVIL, Jun. and TOM. Tom. Sir, Mr Myrtle. B. jun. Very well-Do you step again, and wait for an answer to my letter. [Exit TOM. Enter MYRTLE. Well, Charles, why so much care in thy countenance? Is there any thing in this world deserves it? You who used to be so gay, so open, so vacant! Myrt. I think we have of late chang'd complexions. You who us'd to be much the graver man are now all air in your behaviour.-But the cause of my concern may, for aught I know, be the same object that gives you all this satisfaction. In a word, I am told that you are this very day (and your dress confirms me in it) to be married to Lucinda. B. jun. You are not misinformed.-Nay, put not on the terrors of a rival till you hear me out. I shall disoblige the best of fathers if I don't seem ready to marry Lucinda; and you know I have ever told you, you might make use of my secret resolution never to marry her for your own service as you please: but I am now driven to the extremity of immediately refusing or complying, unless you help me to escape the match. Myrt. Escape, sir! neither her merit nor her fortune are below your acceptance. Escaping, do you call it? B. jun. Dear sir! do you wish I should desire the match? Myrt. No-but such is my humorous and sickly state of mind, since it has been able to relish nothing but Lucinda, that though I must owe my happiness to your aversion to this marriage, I cann't bear to hear her spoken of with levity or unconcern. B. jun. Pardon me, sir, I shall transgress that way no more. She has understanding, beauty, shape, complexion, wit Myrt. Nay, dear Bevil! don't speak of her as if you lov'd her neither. B. jun. Why then, to give you ease at once, though I allow Lucinda to have good sense, wit, beauty, and virtue, I know another in whom these qualities appear to me more amiable than in her." Myrt. There you spoke like a reasonable and good-natur'd friend. When you acknowledge her merit, and own your prepossession for another, at once you gratify my fondness and cure my jealousy. B. jun. But all this while you take no notice, you have no apprehension of another man, that has twice the fortune of either of us. Myrt. Cimberton! Hang him, a formal, philosophical, pedantic coxcomb!-for the sot, with all these crude notions of divers things, under the direction of great vanity and very little judgment, shews his strongest bias is avarice, which is so predominant in him, that he will examine the limbs of his mistress with the caution of a jockey, and pays no more compliment to her personal charms than if she were a mere breeding animal. B. jun. Are you sure that is not affected? I have known some women sooner set on fire by that sort of negligence, than by all the blaze and ceremony of a court. Myrt. No, no; hang him! the rogue has no art; it is pure simple insolence and stupidity. B. jun. Yet with all this I don't take him for a fool. Myrt. I own the man is not a natural; he has a very quick sense, though a very slow understanding- -he says indeed many things that want only the circumstances of time and place to be very just and agreeable. B. jun. Well, you may be sure of me if you can disappoint him; but my intelligence says the mother has actually sent for the conveyancer to draw articles for his marriage with Lucinda, though those for mine with her are by her father's order ready for signing; but it seems she has not thought fit to consult either him or his daughter in the matter. Myrt. Pshaw! a poor troublesome woman! -Neither Lucinda nor her father will ever be brought to comply with it-besides, I am sure Cimberton can make no settlement upon her without the concurrence of his great uncle, Sir Geoffry in the west. B. jun. Well, sir, and I can tell you that's the very point that is now laid before her counsel, to know whether a firm settlement can be made without this uncle's actually joining in it. Now, pray consider, sir, when my affair with Lucinda comes, as it soon must, to an open rupture, how are you sure that Cimberton's fortune may not then tempt her father too to hear his proposals? Myrt. There you are right indeed; that must be provided against.-Do you know who are her counsel ? : B. jun. Yes, for your service I have found out that too; they are Serjeant Bramble and old Target.-By the way, they are neither of 'em known in the family now I was thinking why you might not put a couple of false counsels upon her, to delay and confound matters a little-besides, it may probably let you into the bottom of her whole design against you. Myrt. As how, pray? B. jun. Why, cann't you slip on a black wig and a gown, and be old Bramble yourself? Myrt. Ha! I don't dislike it--but what shall I do for a brother in the case? B. jun. What think you of my fellow Tom? The rogue's intelligent, and is a good mimic; all his part will be but to stutter heartily, for that's old Target's case-nay, it would be an immoral thing to mock him, were it not that his impatience is the occasion of its breaking out to that degree. The conduct of the scene will chiefly lie upon you. Myrt. I like it of all things; if you'll send Tom to my chambers, I will give him full instructions. This will certainly give me occasion to raise difficulties, to puzzle or confound her project for a while at least. B. jun. I warrant you success; so far we are right then. And now, Charles, your apprehension of my marrying her is all you have to get over. Myrt. Dear Bevil! though I know you are my friend, yet when I abstract myself from my own interest in the thing, I know no objection she can make to you, or you to her, and therefore hope B. jun. Dear Myrtle! I am as much obliged to you for the cause of your suspicion, as I am offended at the effect; but be assured I am taking measures for your certain security, and that all things, with regard to me, will end in your en tire satisfaction. Myrt. Well, I'll promise you to be as easy and es confident as I can, though I cannot but remember that I have more than life at stake on your fidelity. [Going. B. jun. Then, depend upon it, you have no chance against you. Myrt. Nay, no ceremony; you know I must be going. [Exit MYRT. B. jun. Well, this is another instance of the perplexities which arise too in faithful friendship. We must often in this life go on in our good offices, even under the displeasure of those to whom we do them, in compassion to their weaknesses and mistakes. But all this while, poor Iudiana is tortured with the doubt of me; she has no support or comfort but in my fidelity, yet sees me daily press'd to marriage with another. How painful, in such a crisis, must be every hour she thinks on me! I'll let her see, at least, my conduct to her is not chang'd: I'll take this opportunity to visit her; for though the religious vow I have made to my father restrains me from ever marrying without his approbation, yet that confines me not from seeing a virtuous woman, that is the pure delight of my eyes, and the guiltless joy of my heart. But the best condition of human life is but a gentler misery. Isab. Then he-he-he Ind. Well, be not so eager.-If he is an ill man let's look into his stratagems: here's another of them: [Shewing a letter] here's two hundred and fifty pounds in bank notes, with these words, 'To pay for the set of dressing plate which will be brought home to-morrow.' Why, dear aunt! now here's another piece of skill for you which I own I cannot comprehend-and it it is with a bleeding heart I hear you say any thing to the disadvantage of Mr Bevil. When he is present, I look upon him as one to whom I owe my life and the support of it; then again, as the man who loves me with sincerity and honour. When his eyes are cast another way, and I dare survey him, my heart is painfully divided between shame and love-Oh, I could tell you Isab. Oh, you need not; I imagine all this for you. you doubt those who would contemn you for be Ind. I will not doubt the truth of Bevil, I will not doubt it he has not spoken it by an organ that is given to lying: his eyes are all that have ever told me that he was mine: I know his virtue, I know his filial piety, and ought to trust his management with a father to whom he has uncommon obligations. What have I to be concern'd for? My lesson is very short. If he takes me for ever, my purpose of life is only to please him. If he leaves me, (which Heaven avert,) I know he'll do it nobly; and I shall have nothing to do but to learn to die, after worse than death has happen'd to me. Ind. This is my state of mind in his presence, and when he is absent, you are ever dinning my Isab. Ay, do persist in your credulity! flatter ears with notions of the arts of men, that his hid-yourself that a man of his figure and fortune will den bounty, his respectful conduct, his careful inake himself the jest of the town, and marry a provision for me, after his preserving me from handsome beggar for love. the utmost misery, are certain signs he means nothing but to make I know not what of me. Isab. Oh, you have a sweet opinion of him truly! Ind. I have, when I am with him, ten thousand things, besides my sex's natural decency and shame, to suppress my heart, that yearns to thank, to praise, to say it loves him. I say thus it is with me while I see him, and in his absence I am entertain'd with nothing but your endeavours to tear this amiable image from my heart, and in its stead to place a base dissembler, an artful invader of my happiness, my innocence, my honour. Isub. Ah, poor soul! has not his plot taken? don't you die for him? has not the way he has taken been the most proper with you? O ho! he has sense, and has judged the thing right. Ind. Go on then, since nothing can answer you; say what you will of him.-Heigh ho! Isub. Heigh ho! indeed. It is better to say so as you are now than as many others are. There are among the destroyers of women the gentle, the generous, the mild, the affable, the humble, who all, soon after their success in their designs, turn to the contrary of those characters. I will own to you, Mr Bevil carries his hypocrisy the best of any man living; but still he is a man, and therefore a hypocrite. They have usurp❜d an exemption from shame, from any baseness, any cruelty towards us. They embrace without love; they make vows without conscience of obligation; they are partners, nay, seducers to the crime, wherein they pretend to be less guilty. Ind. That's truly observ'd. [Aside.] But what's all this to Bevil? Isab. This is to Bevil and all mankind. Trust not those who will think the worse of you for your confidence in them; serpents who lie in wait for doves. Won't you be on your guard against those who would betray you? won't Ind. The town! I must tell you, madam, the fools that laugh at Mr Bevil will but make them, selves more ridiculous; his actions are the result of thinking, and he has sense enough to make even virtue fashionable. Isab. O' my conscience he has turned her head! Come, come; if he were the honest fool you take him for, why has he kept you here these three weeks without sending you to Bristol in search of your father, your family, and your relations? Ind. I am convinc'd he still designs it; and that nothing keeps him here but the necessity of not coming to an open breach with his father in regard to the match he has 'propos'd him: besides, has he not writ to Bristol? and has not he advice that my father has not been heard of there almost these twenty years? Isab. All sham, mere evasion; he is afraid, if he should carry you thither, your honest relations may take you out of his hands, and so blow up all his wicked hopes at once. Ind. Wicked hopes! did I ever give him any such? Isab. Has he ever given you any honest ones? Can you say in your conscience he has ever once offer'd to marry you? Ind. No; but by his behaviour I am convinc'd he will offer it the moment 'tis in his power, or consistent with his honour to make such a promise good to me. Isab. His honour! |