does it require to be a great man than boldly to put on the appearance of it? How many sage politicians are there who can scarce comprehend the mystery of a mouse-trap; valiant generals, who wouldn't attack a bulrush, unless the wind were in their favour; profound lawyers, who would make excellent wigblocks; and skilful physicians, whose knowledge extends no farther than writing death-warrants in Latin; and are shining examples that a man will never want gold in his pocket who carries plenty of brass in his face. It will be rather awkward, to be

sure, to resign at the end of a month; but, like other great men in office, I must make the most of my time, and retire with a good grace, to avoid being turned out, as a well-bred dog always walks downstairs when he sees preparations on foot for kicking him into the street.

[Exit.

154

SCENES FROM "THE HEIR AT LAW."

BY GEORGE Colman.

LORD DUBERLY. DOCTOR PANGLOSS.. LADY DUBERLY.

LORD and LADY DUBERLY at breakfast.

Duberly. But what does it matter, my lady, whether I drink my tea out of a cup or a sarcer?

Lady Duberly. A great deal in the polite circles, my lord. We have been raised by a strange freak of fortune from nothing, as a body may say, and

Dub. Nothing! As reputable a trade as any in all Gosport! You hold a merchant as cheap as if he trotted about with all his property in a pack, like a pedlar.

Lady D. A merchant, indeed! Curious merchandize you dealt in, truly!

Dub. A large assortment of articles-coals, cloth, herrings, linen, candles, eggs, sugar, treacle, tea, bacon, and brickdust; with many more, too tedious to mention in this here advertisement.

Lady D. Well, praise the bridge that carried you safe over; but you must now drop the tradesman, and learn life. Consider, by the strangest accident you have been raised to neither more nor less than a peer of the realm.

Dub. Oh, 't was the strangest accident, my lady, that ever happened on the face of the universal yearth!

Lady D. True, 't was indeed a windfall; and you must now walk, talk, eat, and drink as becomes your station. 'Tis befitting a nobleman should behave as sich, and know summut of breeding.

Dub. Well, but I han't been a nobleman more nor a week, and my throat isn't noble enough yet to be proof against scalding. Hand over the milk, my lady.

Lady D. Hand over! Ah! what's bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh, my lord.

Dub. Pshaw! here's a fuss, indeed! When I was plain Daniel Dowlas, of Gosport, I was reckoned as 'cute a dab at discourse as any in our town; nobody found fault with me then.

Lady D. But why so loud? I declare the servants will hear !

Dub. Hear! And what will they hear but what they know? Our story a secret! Lord help you! tell 'em Queen Anne's dead, my lady! Don't everybody know that old Lord Duberly was supposed to die without any hair to his estate-as the doctors say, of an implication of disorders, and that his son, Henry Morland, was lost some time ago in the salt sea?

Lady D. Well, there's no occasion to

Dub. Don't everybody know that Lawyer Ferret, of Furnival's Inn, owed the legatees a grudge, and popped a bit of an advertisement into the news? "Whereas, the hair at law, if there be any reviving,

of the late Baron Duberly, will apply-so and sohe'll hear of summut greatly to his advantage."

Lady D. But why bawl it to the

Dub. Didn't he hunt me out, to prove my title, and lug me from the counter, to clap me into a coach? A house here in Hanover Square, and an estate in the country, worth fifteen thousand per annum! Why, bless you, my lady, every little black devil, with a soot-bag, cries it about in the streets, as often as he says sweep!

Lady D. 'T is a pity but my lord had left you some manners with his money.

Dub. He! What, my cousin twenty thousand times removed? He must have left them by word of mouth. Never spoke to him but once in all my born life— upon an electioneering matter: that's a time when most of your proud folks make no bones of tippling with a tallow-chandler, in his back room, on a meltingday! But he-except calling me cousin, and buying a lot of damaged huckaback, to cut into kitchen towels he was as cold and stiff as he is now, though he has been dead and buried these nine months, rot him!

Lady D. There again, now-rot him!

Dub. Why, blood and thunder! what is a man to say, when he wants to consecrate his old stiff-necked relations?

Lady D. Why, an oath now and then may slip in, to garnish genteel conversation; but then it should be done with an air to one's equals, and with a kind of careless condescension to menials. And now, my lord, I must leave you for the concerns of the day:

we elegant people are as full of business as an egg's full of meat.

Dub. Yes, we elegant people find the trade of the tone, as they call it, plaguy fatiguing. What, are you for the wis-a-wis this morning? Much good may it do you, my lady! It makes me sit stuck up and squeezed, like a bear in a bathing-tub!

Lady D. I have a hundred places to call at; folks are so civil since we came to take possession! There's dear Lady Littlefigure, Lord Sponge, Mrs. Holdbank, Lady Betty Pillory, the Honourable Mrs. Cheatwell, and

Dub. Aye, aye; you may always find plenty in this here town to be civil to fifteen thousand a-year, my lady.

Lady D. Well, there's no learning you life;-I'm sure they are as kind and friendly-The supper Lady Betty gave to us and a hundred friends, must have cost her fifty good pounds, if it cost her a brass farden; and she does the same thing, I'm told, three times a-week. If she isn't monstrous rich, I wonder, for my part, how she can afford it.

Dub. Why, ecod, my lady, that would have puzzled me, too, if they hadn't hooked me into a cursed game of cocking and punting, I think they call it; where I lost as much in half-an-hour as would keep her and her company in fricassees and whip-syllabubs for a fortnight! But I may be even with her some o' these a'ternoons; only let me catch her at Put, that's all. Lady D. I bid you a good morning, my lord; as Lady Betty says, I wish you a bon repos ! [Exit. Dub. A bone repos! I don't know how it is, but