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House. A fine pickle he'll put the house into ! Had he been master's own son, and a Christian Englishman, there couldn't be more rout than there is about this Creolian, as they call them.

Ser. No matter for that; he's very rich, and that's sufficient. They say he has rum and sugar enough belonging to him, to make all the water in the Thames into punch. But I see my master's coming. [Exeunt. STOCKWELL enters, followed by a Servant. Stock. Where is Mr Belcour? Who brought this note from him?

Ser. A waiter from the London tavern, sir; he says the young gentleman is just dressed, and will be with you directly.

Stock. Shew him in when he arrives.

Ser. I shall, sir. I'll have a peep at him first, however; I've a great mind to see this outlandish spark. The sailor fellow says he'll make rare doings amongst us. [Aside. Stock. You need not wait-leave me. [Exit. Servant.] Let me see[Reads. 'SIR,

I write to you under the hands of the hairdresser. As soon as I have made myself decent, and slipped on some fresh clothes, I win have the honour of paying you my devoirs.

Yours,

BELCOUR.'

He writes at his ease; for he's unconscious to whom his letter is addressed; but what a palpitation does it throw my heart into! a father's heart! 'Tis an affecting interview; when my eyes meet a son, whom yet they never saw, where shall I find constancy to support it? Should he resemble his mother, I am overthrown. All the letters I have had from him (for I industriously drew him into a correspondence with me), bespeak him of quick and ready understanding.-All the reports I ever received, give me favourable impressions of his character; wild, perhaps, as the manner of his country is; but, I trust, not frantic or unprincipled.

Enter Servant.

Ser. Sir, the foreign gentleman is come. Enter another Servant.

Ser. Mr Belcour.

BELCOUR enters.

Stock. Mr Belcour, I'm rejoiced to see you you're welcome to England.

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Bel. I thank you heartily, good Mr Stockwell: you and I have long conversed at a distance; now we are met; and the pleasure this meeting gives me, amply compensates for the perils I have run through in accomplishing it.

Stock. What perils, Mr Belcour? I could not have thought you would have made a bad passage at this time o' year. Bel. Nor did we courier-like, we came posting to your shores, upon the pinions of the swiftest gales that ever blew ; 'tis upon English ground

all my difficulties have arisen; 'tis the passage from the river-side I complain of.

Stock. Ay, indeed! What obstructions can you have met between this and the river-side ?

Bel. Innumerable! Your town's as full of defiles as the island of Corsica; and, I believe, they are as obstinately defended: so much hurry, bustle, and confusion on your quays; so many sugarcasks, porter-butts, and common-council-men in your streets, that, unless a man marched with artillery in his front, 'tis more than the labour of a Hercules can effect, to make any tolerable way through your town.

Stock. I am sorry you have been so incommo

ded.

Bel. Why, faith, 'twas all my own fault. Accustomed to a land of slaves, and out of patience with the whole tribe of custom-house extortioners, boatmen, tide-waiters, and water-bailiffs, that beset me on all sides, worse than a swarm of musquetoes, I proceeded a little too roughly to brush them away with my rattan: the sturdy rogues took this in dudgeon, and, beginning to rebel, the mob chose different sides, and a furious scuffle ensued; in the course of which, my person and apparel suffered so much, that I was obliged to step into the first tavern to refit, before I could make my approaches in any decent trim.

Stock. All without is as I wish; dear Nature, add the rest, and I am happy! [Aside.] Well, Mr Belcour, 'tis a rough sample you have had of my countrymen's spirit; but, I trust, you'll not think the worse of them for it.

Bel. Not at all, not at all; I like them the better. Were I only a visitor, I might, perhaps, wish them a little more tractable; but, as a fellow-subject, and a sharer in their freedom, I applaud their spirit, though I feel the effects of it in every bone of my skin.

Stock. That's well; I like that well. How gladly I could fall upon his neck, and own myself his father! [Aside.

Bel. Well, Mr Stockwell, for the first time in my life, here am I in England; at the fountain head of pleasure, in the land of beauty, of arts, and elegancies. My happy stars have given me a good estate, and the conspiring winds have blown me hither to spend it.

Stock. To use it, not to waste it, I should hope; to treat it, Mr Belcour, not as a vassal, over whom you have a wanton and despotic power; but as a subject, which you are bound to govern with a temperate and restrained authority.

Bel. True, sir; most truly said! Mine's a commission, not a right: I am the offspring of distress, and every child of sorrow is my brother. While I have hands to hold, therefore, I will hold them open to mankind: but, sir, my passions are my masters: they take me where they will; and oftentimes they leave to reason and to virtue nothing but my wishes and my sighs.

Stock. Come, come; the man, who can accuse, corrects himself.

Bel. Ah! that's an office I am weary of: I

wish a friend would take it up: I would to Heaven you had leisure for the employ! but, did you drive a trade to the four corners of the world, you would not find the task so toilsome as to keep me free from faults.

wonder. Your mother, I am told, was a fine lady; and according to the modern style of education you was brought up. It was not so in my young days; there was, then, some decorum in the world, some subordination, as the great Stock. Well, I am not discouraged this can- Locke expresses it. Oh! it was an edifying dour tells me, I should not have the fault of self-sight, to see the regular deportment observed in conceit to combat; that, at least, is not among the number.

Bel. No; if I knew that man on earth, who thought more humbly of me than I do of myself, I would take up his opinion, and forego my own. Stock. And, was I to choose a pupil, it should be one of your complexion: so, if will come along with me, we'll agree upon your admission, and enter on a course of lectures directly. Bel. With all my heart.

you

[Exeunt.

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Chur. I think you are.

Lady Rus. You think I am? and, pray, where do you find the law that tells you so?

Char. I am not proficient enough to quote chapter and verse; but I take charity to be a main clause in the great statute of Christianity.

Lady Rus. I say charity, indeed! And pray, miss, are you sure that it is charity, pure charity, which moves you to plead for captain Dudley? Amongst all your pity, do you find no spice of a certain anti-spiritual passion, called love? Don't mistake yourself; you are no saint, child, believe me; and, I am apt to think, the distresses of old Dudley, and of his daughter into the bargain, would never break your heart, if there was not a certain young fellow of two and twenty in the case; who, by the happy recommendation of a good person, and the brilliant appointments of an ensigncy, will, if I am not mistaken, cozen you out of a fortune of twice twenty thousand pounds, as soon as ever you are of age to bestow it upon him.

Char. A nephew of your ladyship's can never want any other recommendation with me; and, if my partiality for Charles Dudley is acquitted by the rest of the world, I hope Lady Rusport will not condemn me for it.

Lady Rus. I condemn you! I thank Heaven, Miss Rusport, I am no ways responsible for your conduct; nor is it any concern of mine how you dispose of yourself: you are not my daughter; and, when I married your father, poor Sir Stephen Rusport, I found you a forward, spoiled miss of fourteen, far above being instructed by

me.

Char. Perhaps your ladyship calls this instruction?

Lady Rus. You're strangely pert; but 'tis no

our family no giggling, no gossiping, was going on there; my good father, Sir Oliver Roundhead, never was seen to laugh himself, nor ever allowed it in his children.

Char. Ay; those were happy times, indeed! Lady Rus. But, in this forward age, we have coquettes in the egg-shell, and philosophers in the cradle; girls of fifteen, that lead the fashion in new caps and new opinions; that have their sentiments and their sensations; and the idle fops encourage them in it. O' my conscience, I wonder what it is the men can see in such babies!

Char. True, madam: but all men do not overlook the maturer beauties of your ladyship's age; witness your admirer, Major Dennis O'Flaherty: there's an example of some discernment. I declare to you, when your ladyship is by, the major takes no more notice of me, than if I was part of the furniture of your chamber.

Lady Rus. The major, child, has travelled through various kingdoms and climates, and has more enlarged notions of female merit than falls to the lot of an English home-bred lover : in most other countries, no woman on your side forty would ever be named in a polite circle.

Char. Right, madam; I've been told, that in Vienna they have coquettes upon crutches, and Venuses in their grand climacteric: a lover there celebrates the wrinkles, not the dimples, in his mistress's face. The major, I think, has served in the imperial army.

Lady Rus. Are you piqued, my young madam? Had my sister, Louisa, yielded to the addresses of one of Major O'Flaherty's person and appearance, she would have had some excuse: but to run away, as she did, at the age of sixteen too, with a man of old Dudley's sort

Char. Was, in my opinion, the most venial trespass that ever girl of sixteen committed; of a noble family, an engaging person, strict honour, and sound understanding, what accomplishment was there wanting in Captain Dudley, but that which the prodigality of his ancestors had deprived him of?

Lady Rus. They left him as much as he deserves: hasn't the old man captain's half pay? and is not the son an ensign?

Char. An ensign! Alas, poor Charles! Would to Heaven he knew what my heart feels and suffers for his sake!

Enter Servant.

Ser. Ensign Dudley, to wait upon your ladyship.

Lady Rus. Who? Dudley? What can have brought him to town?

Char. Dear madam, 'tis Charles Dudley; 'tis your nephew.

Lady Rus. Nephew! I renounce him as my

nephew! Sir Oliver renounced him as his grandson. Wasn't he son of the eldest daughter, and only male descendant of Sir Oliver? and didn't he cut him off with a shilling? Didn't the poor, dear, good man leave his whole fortune to me, except a small annuity to my maiden sister, who spoiled her constitution with nursing him? And, depend upon it, not a penny of that fortune shall ever be disposed of otherwise, than according to the will of the donor.

Enter CHARLES DUDLEY.

So, young man, whence come you? What brings you to town?

Charles. If there is any offence in my coming to town, your ladyship is in some degree responsible for it; for part of my errand was to pay my duty here.

Lady Rus. I hope you have some better excuse than all this.

Charles. 'Tis true, madam, I have other motives: but, if I consider my trouble repaid by the pleasure I now enjoy, I should hope my aunt would not think my company the less welcome for the value I set upon hers.

Lady Rus. Coxcomb! And where is your father, child, and your sister? Are they in town 100?

Charles. They are.

Lady Rus. Ridiculous! I don't know what people do in London, who have no money to spend in it.

Chart Dear madam, speak more kindly to your nephew; how can you oppress a youth of his sensibility?

Lady Rus. Miss Rusport, I insist upon your retiring to your apartment: when I want your advice, I'll send to you. [Exit CHARLOTTE.] So, you have put on a red coat, too, as well as your father: 'tis plain what value you set upon the good advice Sir Oliver used to give you: how often has he cautioned you against the army?

Charles. Had it pleased my grandfather to enable me to have obey'd his caution, I would have done it; but you well know how destitute I am; and 'tis not to be wondered at, if I prefer the service of my king to that of any other mas

ter.

Lady Rus. Well, well; take your own course; 'tis no concern of mine: you never consulted

me.

Charles. I frequently wrote to your ladyship, but could obtain no answer; and, since my grandfather's death, this is the first opportunity I have had of waiting upon you.

Lady Rus. I must desire you not to mention the death of that dear good man in my hearing; my spirits cannot support it.

Charles. I shall obey you: permit me to say, that, as that event has richly supplied you with the materials of bounty, the distresses of my family can furnish you with objects of it.

Lady Rus. The distresses of your family, child, are quite out of the question at present: had Sir Oliver been pleased to consider them, I should

have been well content; but he has absolutely taken no notice of you in his will, and that to me must and shall be a law. Tell your father and your sister I totally disapprove of their coming up to town.

Charles. Must I tell my father that, before your ladyship knows the motive that brought him hither?-Allured by the offer of exchanging for a commission on full pay, the veteran, after thirty years service, prepares to encounter the fatal heats of Senegambia; but wants a small supply to equip him for the expedition.

Enter Servant.

Ser. Major O'Flaherty, to wait on your ladyship.

Enter Major O'FLAHERTY.

O'Fla. Spare your speeches, young man ; don't you think her ladyship can take my word for that? I hope, madam, 'tis evidence enough of my being present, when I've the honour of telling you so myself.

Lady Rus. Major O'Flaherty, I am rejoiced
Nephew Dudley, you perceive I'm

to see you.

engaged.

Charles. I shall not intrude upon your lady ship's more agreeable engagements. I presume I have my answer?

Lady Rus. Your answer, child! what answer can you possibly expect? or how can your romantic father suppose that I am to abet him in all his idle and extravagant undertakings? Come, major, let me shew you the way into my dressing-room, and let us leave this young adventurer to his meditation. [Exil.

O'Fla. I follow you, my lady. Young gentleman, your obedient! Upon my conscience, as fine a young fellow as I could wish to clap my eyes on: he might have answered my salute, however well, let it pass: Fortune, perhaps, frowns upon the poor lad she's a damned slippery lady, and very apt to jilt us poor fellows, that wear cockades in our hats. Fare thee well, honey, whoever thou art. [Erit.

:

Charles. So much for the virtues of a puritan ! Out upon it! her heart is flint; yet that woman, that aunt of mine, without one worthy particle in her composition, would, I dare be sworn, as soon set her foot in a pest-house as in a play-house. [Going.

Miss RUSPORT enters to him.

Char. Stop, stay a little, Charles; whither are you going in such haste!

Charles, Madam! Miss Rusport! what are your commands?

Char. Why so reserved? We had used to answer to no other names than those of Charles and Charlotte.

Charles. What ails you? You have been weep

ing.
Char.
full too.
to you.

No, no; or, if I have-your eyes are
But I have a thousand things to say
Before you go, tell me, I conjure you,

where you are to be found; here, write me your direction; write it upon the back of this visitingticket-Have you a pencil?

Charles. I have: but why should you desire to find us out? 'tis a poor, little, inconvenient place; my sister has no apartment fit to receive you in.

Enter Servant,

Ser. Madam, my lady desires your company directly.

Char. I am coming-Well, have you wrote it? Give it me. O Charles! either you do not, or you will not, understand me. [Exeunt severally.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-A Room in FULMER'S House.

geon! you may as well think to get truth out of a courtier, or candour out of a critic: I can make nothing of him; besides, he's poor, and therefore not for our purpose.

Mrs Ful. The more fool he! Would any man be poor that had such a prodigy in his possession?

Fal. His daughter, you mean? She is, indeed, uncommonly beautiful.

Mrs Ful. Beautiful! Why, she need only be seen, to have the first men in the kingdom at her feet. Egad, I wish I had the leasing of her beauty; what would some of our young nabobs give

Enter FULMER and Mrs FULMER. Mrs Ful. Why, how you sit musing and moping, sighing and desponding! I'm ashamed of you, Mr Fulmer: is this the country you described to me, a second Eldorado, fivers of gold and rocks of diamonds? You found me in a pretty snug retired way of life at Boulogne, out of the noise and bustle of the world, and wholly at my ease; you, indeed, was upon the wing, with a fiery persecution at your back: but, like a true son of Loyola, you had then a thousand ingenious devices to repair your fortune: and this, your native country, was to be the scene of your perform-girl, ances fool that I was, to be inveigled into it by you! but, thank Heaven, our partnership is revocable. I am not your wedded wife, praised be my stars! for what have we got, whom have we gulled, but ourselves? which of all your trains has taken fire? even this poor expedient of your bookseller's shop seen:s abandoned; for, if a chance customer drops in, who is there, pray, to help him to what he wants?

Ful. Patty, you know it is not upon slight grounds that I despair; there had used to be a livelihood to be picked up in this country, both for the honest and dishonest: I have tried each walk, and am likely to starve at last: there is not a point to which the wit and faculty of man can turn, that I have not set mine to; but in vain, 1 am beat through every quarter of the compass.

Mrs Ful. Ah! common efforts all: strike me a master-stroke, Mr Fulmer, if you wish to make any figure in this country.

Ful. But where, how, and what? I have blustered for prerogative; I have bellowed for freedom; I have offered to serve my country; I have engaged to betray it. A master-stroke, truly! why, I have talked treason, writ treason; and, if a man cann't live by that, he can live by nothing. Here I set up as a bookseller, why men left off reading; and, if I was to turn butcher, I believe, on my conscience, they'd leave off eating.

Captain DUDLEY crosses the stage.

Mrs Ful. Why, there now's your lodger, old Captain Dudley, as he calls himself; there's no flint without fire; something might be struck out of him, if you had the wit to find the way. Ful. Hang him, an old dry-skinned curm dVOL. IV.

Ful. Hush here comes the captain; good leave us to ourselves, and let me try what I can make of him.

Mrs Ful. Captain, truly! i'faith, I'd have a regiment, had I such a daughter, before I was three months older. [Exit Mrs FUL.

Enter Captain DUDLEY.

Ful. Captain Dudley, good morning to you! Dud. Mr Fulmer, I have borrowed a book from your shop; 'tis the sixth volume of my deceased friend Tristram: he is a flattering writer to us poor soldiers; and the divine story of Le Fevre, which makes part of this book, in my opinion of it, does honour, not to its author only, but to hu

man nature,

Ful. He's an author I keep in the way of trade, but one I never relished: he is much too loose and profligate for my taste.

Dud. That's being too severe : I hold him to be a moralist in the noblest sense: he plays, indeed, with the fancy, and sometimes, perhaps, too wantonly; but, while he thus designedly masks his main attack, he comes at once upon the heart; refines, amends it, softens it; beats down each selfish barrier from about it, and opens every sluice of pity and benevolence.

Ful. We of the catholic persuasion are not much bound to him.Well, sir, I shall not oppose your opinion; a favourite author is like a favourite mistress; and there, you know, captain, no man likes to have his taste arraigned.

Dud. Upon my word, sir, I don't know what a man likes in that case; 'tis an experiment I never made.

Ful, Sir!-Are you serious?

Dud. 'Tis of little consequence whether you

think so.

2 P

Ful. What a formal old prig it is! [Aside.] I apprehend you, sir; you speak with caution; you are married?

Dud. I have been.

Ful. And this young lady, which accompanies you

Dud. Passes for my daughter.

Fut. Passes for his daughter! humph-[Aside.] She is exceedingly beautiful, finely accomplished, of a most enchanting shape and air.

Dud. You are much too partial: she has the greatest defect a woman can have. Ful. How so, pray?

Dud. She has no fortune.

Ful. Rather say that you have none; and that's a sore defect in one of your years, Captain Dudley you've served, no doubt ?

Dud. Familiar coxcomb! But I'll humour him.

[Aside. Ful. A close old fox! But I'll unkennel him. [Aside.] Dud. Above thirty years I've been in the service, Mr Fulmer.

Ful. I guessed as much; I laid it at no less: why, 'tis a wearisome time; 'tis an apprenticeship to a profession, fit only for a patriarch. But preferment must be closely followed: you never could have been so far behind-hand in the chase, unless you had palpably mistaken your way. You'll pardon me; but I begin to perceive you have lived in the world, not with it.

Dud. It may be so; and you, perhaps, can give me better council. I'm now soliciting a favour; an exchange to a company on full pay; nothing more; and yet I meet a thousand bars to that; though, without boasting, i should think the certificate of services, which I sent in, might have purchased that indulgence to me.

Enter CHARLES DUDLEY.

Cha. What is the matter, sir? Sure I heard an outcry as I entered the house?

Dud. Not unlikely; our landlord and his wife are for ever wrangling. Did you find your aunt Dudley at home?

Cha. I did.

Dud. And what was your reception ? Cha. Cold as our poverty and her pride could make it.

Dud. You told her the pressing occasion I had for a small supply to equip me for this exchange; has she granted me the relief I asked ?

Cha. Alas, sir, she has peremptorily refused it. Dud. That's hard; that's hard, indeed! My petition was for a small sum; she has refused it, you say? well, be it so; I must not complain. Did you see the broker about the insurance on life? my

Cha. There, again, I am the messenger of ill news: I can raise no money, so fatal is the climate: alas, that ever my father should be sent to perish in such a place!

LOUISA enters hastily.

Dud. Louisa, what's the matter? you seem frightened!

Lou. I am, indeed: coming from Miss Rusport's, I met a young gentleman in the streets, who has beset me in the strangest manner.

Cha. Insufferable! Was he rude to you?

Lou. I cannot say he was absolutely rude to me, but he was very importunate to speak to me, and once or twice attempted to lift up my hat: he followed me to the corner of the street, and there I gave him the slip.

Dud. You must walk no more in the streets,

Ful. Who thinks or cares about them? Cer-child, without me or your brother. tificate of services, indeed! Send in a certificate of your fair daughter; carry her in your hand with you.

Dud. What? Who? My daughter! Carry my daughter! Well, and what then?

Ful. Why, then your fortune's made, that's all.

Dud. I understand you: and this you call knowledge of the world? Despicable knowledge! but, sirrah, I will have you know

[Threatening him. Ful. Help! Who's within? Would you strike me, sir? Would you lift your hand against a man in his own house?

Dud. In a church, if he dare insult the poverty of a man of honour.

Ful. Have a care what you do! remember there is such a thing in law as an assault and battery; ay, and such trifling forms as warrants and

indictments.

Dud. Go, sir: you are too mean for my resentment: 'tis that, and not the law, protects

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Lou. O, Charles! Miss Rusport desires to see you directly; Lady Rusport is gone out, and she has something particular to say to you.

Cha. Have you any commands for me, sir? Dud. None, my dear: by all means wait upon Miss Rusport. Come, Louisa, I shall desire you to go up to your chamber and compose yourself. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Enter BELCOUR, after peeping in at the door.

Bel. Not a soul, as I'm alive! Why, what an odd sort of a house is this! Confound the little jilt, she has fairly given me the slip. A plague upon this London, I shall have no luck in it: such a crowd, and such a hurry, and such a number of shops, and one so like the other, that whe ther the wench turned into this house or the next, or whether she went up stairs or down stairs (for there's a world above and a world below, it seems), I declare, I know no more than if I was in the Blue Mountains. In the name of all the devils at once, why did she run away? If every handsome girl I meet in this town is to lead me such a wild-goose chase, I had better have staid

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