Old Mir. Boh! What language is that, sir? Mir. Spanish, my lord. Old Mir. What d'ye mean? [Trips up his heels. Old Mir. A very concise quarrel, trulyI'll bully him-Trinidade Signieur, give me fair play. Offering to rise. Mir. By all means, sir. [Takes away his sword.] Now, Signieur, where's that bombast look and fustian face your countship wore just now! [Strikes him. Old Mir. The rogue quarrels well, very well: my own son, right!-But hold, sirrah; no more jesting: I'm your father, sir, your father! Mir. My father! Then, by this light, I could find in my heart to pay thee. [Aside.] Is the fellow mad?-Why, sure, sir, I h'an't frightened you out of your senses ? Old Mir. But you have, sir. Mir. Then I'll beat them into you again. [Offers to strike him, Old Mir. Why, rogue-Bob, dear Bob, don't you know me, child? Mir. Ha, ha, ha! the fellow's downright distracted. Thou miracle of impudence! wouldst thou make me believe that such a grave gentleman as my father would go a masquerading thus? that a person of three-score and three would run about in a fool's coat, to disgrace himself and family? Why, you impudent villain, do you think I will suffer such an affront to pass upon my honoured father, my worthy father, my dear father? 'Sdeath, sir, mention my father but once again, and I'll send your soul to thy grandfather this minute! [Offering to stab him. Old Mir. Well, well, I am not your father. Mir. Why, then, sir, you are the saucy, hectoring Spaniard, and I'll use you accordingly. Old Mir. The devil take the Spaniards, sir; we have all got nothing but blows since we began to take their part. Enter DUGARD, ORIANA, Maid, and PETIT. DUGARD runs to Young MIRABEL, the rest to Old MIRABEL. your Pet. The contrivance was well enough, sir, for they imposed upon us all. Mir. Well, my dear dulcinea, did your Don Quixote battle for you bravely? My father will answer for the force of my love. Ori. Pray, sir, don't insult the misfortunes of your own creating. Dug. My prudence will be counted cowardice, if I stand tamely now.-[Comes up between MIRABEL and his Sister.]-Well, sir! Mir. Well, sir! Do you take me for one of your tenants, sir, that you put on your landlord's face at me? Dug. On what presumption, sir, dare you assume thus? [Draws. Old Mir. What's that to you, sir? [Draws. Pet. Help! help! the lady faints. [ORIANA falls into her maid's arms. Mir. Vapours! vapours! she'll come to berself. If it be an angry fit, a dram of assa-fœtida-If jealousy, hartshorn in water-If the mother, burnt feathers—If grief, ratifia-If it be strait stays, or corns, there's nothing like a dram of plain brandy. Ori. Hold off, give me air- -O, my brother, would you preserve my life, endanger not your own; would you defend my reputation, leave it to itself; 'tis a dear vindication that's purchas'd by the sword; for though our champion proves victorious, yet our honour is wounded. Old Mir. Ay, and your lover may be wounded, that's another thing. But I think you are pretty brisk again, my child. Ori. Ay, sir, my indisposition was only a pretence, to divert the quarrel: the capricious taste of your sex excuses this artifice in ours. For often, when our chief perfections fail, [Exit. Pet. Come, Mr Dugard, take courage; there is a way still left to fetch him again. Old Mir. Sir, I'll have no plot that has any relation to Spain. Dug. I scorn all artifice whatsoever; my sword shall do her justice. Pet. Pretty justice, truly! Suppose you run him through the body; you run her through the heart at the same time. Old Mir. And methrough the head!-Rot your sword-Sir, we'll have plots. Come, Petit, let's hear. Dug. Fie, fie, Mirabel, murder father! Mir. My father! What, is the whole family mad?-Give me way, sir; I wont be held. Old Mir. No, nor I neither; let me be gone, [Offering to go. Pet. What if she pretend to go into a nunnery, and so bring him about to declare himself? pra". Mir. My father! Old Mir. Ay, you dog's face! I am your father, for I have bore as much for thee as your mother ever did. Mir. O ho! then this was a trick, it seems; a design, a contrivance, a stratagem-Oh! how my bones ache! Old Mir. Your bones, sirrah! why yours? Mir. Why, sir, ha'n't I been beating my own flesh and blood all this while? O, madam, [To ORIANA] I wish your ladyship joy of your new dignity. Here was a contrivance indeed! Dug. That, I must confess, has a face. Old Mir. A face! A face like an angel, sir. Ads my life, sir, 'tis the most beautiful plot in Christendom. We'll about it immediately. SCENE II.-The Street. DURETETE and MIRABEL. [Exeunt. Dur. [Ina passion.] And though I can't dance, Dur. At me, to be sure-Sir, what made you laugh at me? 1st Gen. You're mistaken, sir; if we were merry, we had a private reason. 2d Gen. Sir, we don't know you. Dur. Sir, I'll make you know me; mark and observe me; I won't be named; it sha'n't be mentioned, nor even whispered in your prayers at church.-'Sdeath, sir, d'ye smile? 1st Gen. Not I, upon my word. Dur. Why, then, look grave as an owl in a barn, or a friar with his crown a-shaving. Mir. Aside to the Gent.] Don't be bullied out of your humour, gentlemen; the fellow's mad; laugh at him, and I'll stand by you. 1st Gen. 'Egad, and so we will. Both. Ha, ha, ha! Dur. Very pretty. [Draws.] She threatened to kick me. Ay, then, you dogs, I'll murder ye. [Fights, and beats them off; MIRABEL runs oper to his side. Mir. Ha, ha, ha! bravely done, Duretete; there you had him, noble captain. Hey! they run, they run; victoria! victoria!-Ha, ha, ha! how happy am I in an excellent friend !-Tell me of your virtuosos and men of sense-a parcel of sour-faced, splenetic rogues!-A man of my thin constitution should never want a fool in his company. I don't affect your fine things, that improve the understanding, but hearty laughing, to fatten my carcase; and, in my conscience, a man of sense is as melancholy without a coxcomb, as a lion without a jackall; he hunts for our diversion, starts game for our spleen, and perfectly feeds us with pleasure. I hate the man who makes acquaintance nice, [Exeunt ACT IV. SCENE I.-Old MIRABEL'S House. Enter Old MIRABEL and DUGARD. Dug. The lady abbess is my relation, and privy to the plot: your son has been there, but had no admittance beyond the privilege of the grate, and there my sister refus'd to see him. He went off more nettled at his repulse than I thought his gaiety could admit. Old Mir. Ay, ay, this nunnery will bring him about, I warrant ye. Enter DURETETE. Dur. Here, where are ye all?-O, Mr Mirabel! you have done fine things for your posterity-And you, Mr Dugard, may come to answer this-I come to demand my friend at your hands; restore him, sir, or [To Old MIRABEL, Old Mir. Restore him! what, d'ye think I bave got him in my trunk, or my pocket? Dur. Sir, he's mad, and you're the cause on't. Old Mir. That may be; for I was as mad as he when I begot him. Dug. Mad, sir! what d'ye mean? Dur. What do you mean, sir, by shutting up your sister yonder to talk like a parrot through a cage; or a decoy duck, to draw others into the snare?-Your son, sir, because she has deserted him, he has forsaken the world; and, in three words, has Old Mir. Hanged himself! Dur. The very same;-turned friar. Old Mir. You lie, sir; 'tis ten times worse. Bob turned friar !-Why should the fellow shave his foolish crown, when the same razor may cut his throat? Dur. If you have any command, or you any interest over him, lose not a minute: he has thrown himself into the next monastery, and has ordered me to pay off his servants, and discharge his equipage. Old Mir. Let me alone to ferret him out: I'll sacrifice the abbot, if he receives him; I'll try whether the spiritual or the natural father has the most right to the child. But, dear captain, what has he done with his estate? Dur. Settled it upon the church, sir. Old Mir. The church! Nay, then the devil won't get him out of their clutches-Ten thousand livres a-year upon the church! 'Tis downright sacrilege.-Come, gentlemen, all hands to work; for half that sum, one of these monasteries shall protect you a traitor from the law, a rebellious wife from her husband, and a disobedient son from his own father. [Exit. gone Dug. But will ye persuade me that he's to a monastery? Dur. Is your sister gone to the filles repentis? I tell you, sir, she's not fit for the society of repenting maids. Dug. Why so, sir? Dur. Because she's neither one nor t'other; SCENE II.-The Inside of a Monastery; ORI- Ori. I hope, Bisarre, there is no harm in jesting with this religious habit. Bis. To me, the greatest jest in the habit is taking it in earnest: I don't understand this imprisoning people with the keys of paradise, nor the merit of that virtue which comes by constraint.-Besides, we may own to one another, that we are in the worst company when among ourselves; for our private thoughts run us into those desires which our pride resists from the attack of the world; and, you may remember, the first woman met the devil when she retired from her man. Ori. But I'm reconciled, methinks, to the mortification of a nunnery; because, I fancy, the habit becomes me. Bis. A well-contrived mortification, truly, that makes a woman look ten times handsomer than she did before!—Ay, my dear, were there any religion in becoming dress, our sex's devotion were rightly placed; for our toilets would do the work of the altar,-we should all be canonized. Ori. But don't you think there is a great deal of merit in dedicating a beautiful face and person to the service of religion? Bis. Not half so much as devoting them to a pretty fellow. If your feminality had no business in this world, why was it sent hither? Let us dedicate our beautiful minds to the service of hea ven; and for our handsome persons, they become a box at the play as well as a pew in the church. Ori. But the vicissitudes of fortune, the incon stancy of man, with other disappointments of life, require some place of religion, for a refuge from their persecution. Bis. Ha, ha, ha!—and do you think there is any devotion in a fellow's going to church, when he takes it only for a sanctuary? Don't you know that religion consists in charity with all mankind; and that you should never think of being friends with Heaven till you have quarrelled with all the world. Come, come, mind your bu siness. Mirabel loves you; 'tis now plain; and hold him to't give fresh orders that he sha'n't see you: we get more by hiding our faces sometimes, than by exposing them; a very mask, you see, whets desire; but a pair of keen eyes, through an iron grate, fire double upon them, with view and disguise. But I must be gone upon my affairs I have brought my captain about again. Ori. But why will you trouble yourself with that coxcomb? : Bis. Because he is a coxcomb: Had I not better have a lover like him, that I can make an ass of, than a lover like yours, to make a fool of me? [Knocking below.] A message from Mirabel, I'll lay my life. [She runs to the door.] Come hither, run, thou charming nun, come hither. Öri. What's the news? [Runs to her. Bis. Don't you see who's below? Ori. I see nobody but a friar. Bis. Ah! thou poor blind Cupid! O' my conscience, these hearts of ours spoil our heads instantly! the fellows no sooner turn knaves, than we turn fools.-A friar! Don't you see a villainous, genteel mien under that cloak of hypocrisy; the loose, careless air of a tall rake-helly fellow? Ori. As I live, Mirabel turned friar! I hope, in heaven, he's not in earnest. Bis. In earnest! ha, ha, ha!—are you in earnest?-Now's your time: this disguise has he certainly taken for a passport, to get in and try your resolution: stick to your habit, to be sure: treat him with disdain, rather than anger; for pride becomes us more than passion. Remember what I say, if you would yield to advantage, and hold out the attack: to draw him on, keep him off, to be sure. The cunning gamesters never gain too fast, But lose at first, to win the more at last. [Erit. Ori. His coming puts me into some ambiguity; I don't know how; I don't fear him, but I mistrust myself. Would he were not come; yet I would not have him gone neither: I'm afraid to talk with him, but I love to see him though. What a strange power has this fantastic fire, That makes us dread even what we most desire! Enter MIRABEL, in a Friar's habit. Mir. Save you, sister-Your brother, young lady, having a regard for your soul's health, has sent me to prepare you for the sacred habit by confession. Ori. That's false: the cloven foot already. [Aside.] My brother's care I own; and to you, sacred sir, I confess, that the great crying sin which I have long indulged, and now prepare to expiate, was love. My morning thoughts, my evening prayers, my daily musings, nightly cares, was love! My present peace, my future bliss, the joy of earth, and hopes of heaven-I all contemned for love! Mir. She's downright stark mad in earnest :death and confusion, I have lost her! [dside.] You confess your fault, madam, in such moving terms, that I could almost be in love with the sin. Ori. Take care, sir; crimes, like virtues, are their own rewards: my chief delight became my only grief: he in whose breast I thought my heart secure, turned robber, and despoiled the treasure that he kept. Mir. Perhaps that treasure he esteems so much, that, like the miser, though afraid to use it, he reserves it safe. Ori. No, holy father: who can be miser in another's wealth, that's prodigal of his own? His heart was open, shar'd to all he knew; and what, alas! must then become of mine? But the same eyes that drew this passion in, shall send it out in tears; to which now hear my vow. Mir. [Discovering himself.] No, my fair angel, but let me repent; here on my knees behold the criminal that vows repentance his.-Ha! No concern upon her! Ori. This turn is odd, and the time has been, that such a sudden change would have surprised me into some confusion. Mir, Restore that happy time, for I am now returned to myself; for I want but pardon to deserve your favour, and here I'll fix till you relent, and give it. Ori. Grovelling, sordid man! why would you act a thing to make you kneel; monarch in your pleasures to be slave to your faults? Are all the conquests of your wand'ring sway, your wit, your humour, fortune, all reduced to the base cringing of a bended knee? Servile and poor!-Pray heaven this change be real. [Aside. Mir. I come not here to justify my fault, but my submission; for though there be a meanness in this humble posture, 'tis nobler still to bend when justice calls, than to resist conviction. Ori. No more— -thy oft-repeated, violated words reproach my weak belief: 'tis the severest calumny to hear thee speak: that humble posture, which once could raise, now mortifies my pride. How canst thou hope for pardon, from one that you affront by asking it? Mir. [Rises.] In my own cause I'll plead no more; but give me leave to intercede for you against the hard injunctions of that habit, which for my fault you wear. Ori. Surprising insolence! My greatest foe pretends to give me counsel!-But I am too warm upon so cool a subject. My resolutions, sir, are fixed; but as our hearts were united with the ceremony of our eyes, so I shall spare some tears to the separation. [Weeps.] That's all; farewell. Mir. And must I lose her? No. [Runs and catches her.] Since all my prayers are vain, I'll use the nobler argument of man, and force you to the justice you refuse: you're mine by precontract; and where's the vow so sacred to disannul another? I'll urge my love, your oath, and plead my cause against all monastic shifts upon the earth. Ori. Unhand me, ravisher! Would you prophane these holy walls with violence? Revenge Old Mir. The devil a bit. Mir. Then kiss me again, my dear ad, for the most happy news-And now, most venerable, holy sister, [Kneels. Your mercy and your pardon I implore, For the offence of asking it before. Look'e, my dear counterfeiting nun, take my advice; be a nun in good earnest; women make the best nuns always when they cann't do otherwise. Ah, my dear father! there is a merit in your son's behaviour that you little think the free deportment of such fellows as I, makes more ladies religious than all the pulpits in France. Ori. Oh, sir, how unhappily have you destroyed what was so near perfection!—He is the counterfeit that has deceived you. Old Mir. Ha! Look'e sir, I recant; she is a nun. Mir. Sir, your humble servant; then I'm a friar this moment. Old Mir. Was ever an old fool so bantered by a brace o' young ones? Hang you both, you're both counterfeits, and my plot's spoiled, that's all. Ori. Shame and confusion, love, anger, and disappointment, will work my brain to madness. [Takes off her habit. Exit. Mir. Ay, ay, throw by the rags; they have served a turn for us both, and they shall e'en go off together. [Takes off his habit. Thus the sick wretch, when tortur'd by his pain, Vows all to Heaven,-his thoughts, his actions, wealth! But if restor❜d to vigour, as before, SCENE II.-Changes to Old MIRABEL'S House. Dur. [Reads.] My rudeness was only a proof of your hutnour, which I have found so agreeable, that I own myself penitent, and willing to make any reparation, upon your first appearance to-BISARRE.'-Mirabel swears she loves me, and this confirms it; then farewell gallantry, and welcome revenge: 'tis my turn now to be upon the sublime: I'll take her off, I warrant her. Enter BISARRE. Well, mistress, do you love me? Bis. I hope, sir, you will pardon the modesty of Dur. Of what? Of a dancing devil?Do you love me, I say? Bis. Perhaps I Dur. What? Bis. Perhaps I do not. Dur. Ha! abused again! Death, woman, I'l Dur. Confirm it then by your obedience; stand there, and ogle me now, as if your heart, blood, and soul were like to fly out at your eyes- -First, the direct surprise. [She looks full upon him. Right; next the deux yeux par oblique. [She gives him the side glance.] Right; now depart, and languish. [She turns from him, and looks over her shoulder.] Very well; now sigh. [She sighs.] Now drop your fan on purpose. [She drops her fan.] Now take it up again. Come now, confess your faults; are not you a proud-say after me. Bis. Proud. Dur. Impertinent. Bis. Puppy. Dur. Zoons! Woman, don't provoke me; we are alone, and you don't know but the devil may tempt me to do you a mischief: ask my pardon immediately. Bis That you are, upon my word, my dear captain; ha, ha, ha! Dur. The Lord deliver me! 1st Lady. What! Is this the mighty man, with the bull-face, that comes to frighten ladies? I long to see him angry :-come, begin. Dur. Ah, madam, I am the best-natured fellow in the world. 2d Lady. A man! We're mistaken; a man has manner: the aukward creature is some tinker's trull in a periwig. Bis. Come, ladies, let's examine him. [They lay hold on him. Dur. Examine! the devil will! you Bis. I'll lay my life, some great dairy maid in man's clothes. Dur. They will do't!-Look'e, dear Christian women, pray hear me. Bis. Will you ever attempt a lady's honour again? Dur. If you please to let me get away with my honour, I'll do any thing in the world. Bis. Will you persuade your friend to marry mine? Dur. Oh! yes, to be sure. Bis. And will you do the same by me? [Runs out. Bis. Ha, ha, ha! the visit, ladies, was critical for our diversion:-we'll go make an end of our [Exeunt. tea. Enter Young MIRABEL and Old MIRABEL. Mir. Your patience, sir: I tell you I won't marry; and though you send all the bishops in France to persuade me, I shall never believe their doctrine against their practice. Old Mir. But will you disobey your father, sir? lie lazing here, bound to a wife, chained like a Mir. Would my father have his youthful son monkey, to make sport to a woman, subject to her whims, humours, longing, vapours, and caprices; to have her one day pleased, to-morrow peevish, the next day mad, the fourth rebellious ; and nothing but this succession of impertinence for ages together?-Be merciful, sir, to your own flesh and blood. Old Mir. But, sir, did not I bear all this; why should not you? Mir. Then you think that marriage, like treason, should attaint the whole body: pray consider, sir, is it reasonable, because you throw yourself down from one storey, that I must cast myself headlong from the garret window? You would compel me to that state which I have Bis. I do, sir; I only mistook the word. kerchief? Bis. Yes, sir. Dur. Cry then, handsomely; cry like a queen in a tragedy. [She pretending to cry, bursts out a-laughing, and enter two ladies laughing. Bis. Ha, ha, ha! Ladies both. Ha, ha, ha! Dur. Hell broke loose upon me, and all the furies fluttered about my cars! Betrayed' again? you have battled it for a whole week together. Old Mir. Never but once, you rogue, and that was when she longed for six Flanders mares: ay, sir, then she was breeding of you, which shewed what an expensive dog I should have of you.— Enter PETIT. Well, Petit, how does she now? Pet. Mad, sir; con pompos !Ay, Mr. Mira |