Hastings. But though he had the will, he has not the power to relieve you.

Miss Neville. But he has influence, and upon that I am resolved to rely.

Mrs. Hardcastle [running forward from be-| hind]. Olud! he'll murder my poor boy, my darling! Here, good gentleman, whet your rage upon me. Take my money, my life, but spare that young gentleman; spare my child, if you have any mercy. Hastings. I have no hopes. But since you per. Hardcastle. My wife, as I'm a Christian. From sist, I must reluctantly obey you. [Exeunt whence can she come? or what does she mean? Mrs. Hardcastle [kneeling]. Take compassion on us, good Mr. Highwayman. Take our money, our watches, all we have, but spare our lives. We will never bring you to justice, indeed we won't, good Mr. Highwayman.

Hardcastle. I believe the woman's out of her senses. What, Dorothy, don't you know me.

Mrs. Hardcastle. Mr. Hardcastle, as I'm alive! My fears blinded me. But who, my dear, could have expected to meet you here, in this frightful place, so far from home? What has brought you

to follow us?

Hardcastle. Sure, Dorothy, you have not lost your wits? So far from home, when you are within forty yards of your own door! [To him.] This is one of your old tricks, you graceless rogue you. [To her.] Don't you know the gate and the mulberry tree; and don't you remember the horsepond, my dear?

Mrs. Hardcastle. Yes, I shall remember the horse-pond as long as I live; I have caught my death in it. [To Tony.] And is it to you, you graceless varlet, I owe all this? I'll teach you to abuse your mother, I will.

Tony. Ecod, mother, all the parish says you have spoiled me, and so you may take the fruits on't. Mrs. Hardcastle. I'll spoil you, I will.

[Follows him off the Stage. Exit. Hardcastle. There's morality, however, in his reply. [Exit.

Miss Neville. No, Mr. Hastings, no. Prudence| once more comes to my relief, and I will obey its dictates. In the moment of passion, fortune may be despised, but it ever produces a lasting repentI'm resolved to apply to Mr. Hardcastle's compassion and justice for redress.

ance.

SCENE CHANGE3.

Enter SIR CHARLES MARLOW and MISS HARD

CASTLE.

Sir Charles. What a situation am I in! If what you say appears, I shall then find a guilty son. I. what he says be true, I shall then lose one that, of all others, I most wished for a daughter.

Miss Hardcastle. I am proud of your approbation; and to show I merit it, if you place yourselves as I directed, you shall hear his explicit declarations. But he comes.

Sir Charles. I'll to your father and keep him to the appointment. [Exit Sir Charles.

Enter MARLOW.

Marlow. Though prepared for setting out, I come once more to take leave; nor did I till this moment, know the pain I feel in the separation.

Miss Hardcastle [in her own natural manner]. I believe these sufferings can not be very great, sir, which you can so easily remove. A day or two longer, perhaps, might lessen your uneasiness, by showing the little value of what you think proper to regret.

Marlow [aside]. This girl every moment improves upon me. [To her.] It must not be, madam. I have already trifled too long with my heart. My very pride begins to submit to my passion. The disparity of education and fortune, the anger of a parent, and the contempt of my equals, begin to lose their weight; and nothing can restore me to myself but this painful effort of resolution.

Miss Hardcastle. Then go, sir: I'll urge nothing more to detain you. Though my family be as good as hers you came down to visit, and my education, without equal affluence? I must remain contented I hope, not inferior, what are these advantages with the slight approbation of imputed merit; I must have only the mockery of your addresses, while all your serious aims are fixed on fortune.

Enter HARDCASTLE and SIR CHARLES MARLOW from behind.

Sir Charles. Here, behind this screen. Hardcastle. Ay, ay; make no noise. I'll en gage my Kate covers him with confusion at last.

Marlow. By Heavens! madam, fortune was ever my smallest consideration. Your beauty at first caught my eye, for who could see that without emotion? But every moment that I converse with you, steals in some new grace, heightens the picIture, and gives it stronger expression. What at

Marlow. Zounds, there's no bearing this; it's

first seemed rustic plainness, now appears refined |
simplicity. What seemed forward assurance, now worse than death!
strikes me as the result of courageous innocence
and conscious virtue.

Sir Charles. What can it mean? He amazes me! Hardcastle. I told you how it would be. Hush! Marlow. I am now determined to stay, madam, and I have too good an opinion of my father's discernment, when he sees you, to doubt his approbation.

Miss Hardcastle. No, Mr. Marlow, I will not, can not detain you. Do you think I could suffer a connexion in which there is the smallest room for repentance? Do you think I would take the mean advantage of a transient passion to load you with confusion? Do you think I could ever relish that happiness which was acquired by lessening yours?

Marlow. By all that's good, I can have no happiness but what's in your power to grant me! Nor shall I ever feel repentance but in not having seen your merits before. I will stay even contrary to your wishes; and though you should persist to shun me, I will make my respectful assiduities atone for the levity of my past conduct.

Miss Hardcastle. Sir, I must entreat you'll de

sist. As our acquaintance began, so let it end, in| indifference. I might have given an hour or two to levity; but seriously, Mr. Marlow, do you think

I could ever submit to a connexion where I must appear mercenary, and you imprudent? Do you think I could ever catch at the confident addresses

of a secure admirer?

Marlow (kneeling]. Does this look like security? Does this look like confidence? No, madam, every moment that shows me your merit, only serves to increase my diffidence and confusion. Here let me continue―

Sir Charles. I can hold it no longer. Charles, Charles, how hast thou deceived me! Is this your indifference, your uninteresting conversation?

Hardcastle. Your cold contempt; your formal interview! What have you to say now?

Marlow. That I'm all amazement! What can it mean?

Miss Hardcastle. In which of your characters, sir, will you give us leave to address you? As the faltering gentleman, with looks on the ground, that speaks just to be heard, and hates hypocrisy; or the loud confident creature, that keeps it up with Mrs. Mantrap, and old Miss Biddy Buckskin, till three in the morning ?-Ha! ha! ha!

Marlow. 0, curse on iny noisy head! I never attempted to be impudent yet that I was not taken down! I must be gone.

Hardcastle. By the hand of my body, but you shall not. I see it was all a mistake, and I am rejoiced to find it. You shall not, sir, I tell you. I know she'll forgive you. Won't you forgive him, Kate? We'll all forgive you. Take courage, man. [They retire, she tormenting him to the back scene.

Enter MRS. HARDCASTLE, TONY.
Mrs. Hardcastle. So, so, they're gone off. Let
them go,
I care not.
Hardcastle. Who gone?

Mrs. Hardcastle. My dutiful niece and her gentleman, Mr. Hastings, from town. He who came

down with our modest visiter here.

Sir Charles. Who, my honest George Hastcould not have made a more prudent choice. ings? As worthy a fellow as lives, and the girl

Hardcastle. Then, by the hand of my body, I'm proud of the connexion.

Mrs. Hardcastle. Well, if he has taken away the lady, he has not taken her fortune; that remains in this family to console us for her loss.

Hardcastle. Sure, Dorothy, you would not be so mercenary?

Mrs. Hardcastle. Ay, that's my affair, not yours. Hardcastle. But you know if your son, when of then at her own disposal. age, refuses to marry his cousin, her whole fortune

is

Mrs. Hardcastle. Ay, but he's not of age, and she has not thought proper to wait for his refusal. Enter HASTINGS and MISS NEVILLE. Mrs. Hardcastle [aside]. What, returned so Hardcastle. It means that you can say and un- soon! I begin not to like it. say things at pleasure: that you can address a lady in private, and deny it in public: that you have one story for us, and another for my daughter.

Marlow. Daughter!-This lady your daughter? Hardcastle. Yes, sir, my only daughter: my Kate; whose else should she be?

Hastings [to Hardcastle]. For my late attempt to fly off with your niece, let my present confusion be my punishment. We are now come back, to appeal from your justice to your humanity. By her father's consent I first paid her my addresses, and our passions were first founded in duty.

Marlow. Oh, the devil! Miss Neville. Since his death, I have been Miss Hardcastle. Yes, sir, that very identical obliged to stoop to dissimulation to avoid oppres tall squinting lady you were pleased to take me sion. In an hour of levity, I was ready even to for; [courtesying] she that you addressed as the give up my fortune to secure my choice: but I'm mild, modest, sentimental man of gravity, and the now recovered from the delusion, and hope from bold, forward, agreeable Rattle of the ladies' club. your tenderness what is denied me from a neare Ha! ha! ha! connexion.

Mrs. Hardcastle. Pshaw, pshaw; this is all but The first act shows the simple country maid, the whining end of a modern novel. Harmless and young, of every thing afraid; Blushes when hired, and with unmeaning action "I hopes as how to give you satisfaction." Her second act displays a livelier sceneThe unblushing bar-maid of a country inn,

Hardcastle. Be it what it will, I'm glad they're come back to reclaim their due. Come hither, Tony, boy. Do you refuse this lady's hand whom I now offer you.

Tony. What signifies my refusing? You know Who whisks about the house, at market caters, Talks loud, coquets the guests, and scolds the

I can't refuse her till I'm of age, father.

Hardcastle. While I thought concealing your age, boy, was likely to conduce to your improvement, I concurred with your mother's desire to keep it secret. But since I find she turns it to a wrong use, I must now declare you have been of age these three months.

Tony. Of age! Am I of age, father?
Hardcastle. Above three months.

Tony. Then you'll see the first use I'll make of my liberty. [Taking Miss Neville's hand.] Witness all men by these presents, that I, Anthony Lumpkin, esquire, of BLANK place, refuse you, Constantia Neville, spinster, of no place at all, for my true and lawful wife. So Constance Neville may marry whom she pleases, and Tony Lumpkin is his own man again.

Sir Charles. O brave 'Squire!
Hastings. My worthy friend.

Mrs. Hardcastle. My undutiful offspring! Marlow. Joy, my dear George, I give you joy sincerely. And could I prevail upon my little tyrant here to be less arbitrary, I should be the happiest man alive, if you would return me the favour.

waiters.

Next the scene shifts to town, and there she soars
The chop-house toast of ogling connoisseurs.
On 'squires and cits she there displays her arts,
And on the gridiron broils her lovers' hearts—
And as she smiles, her triumphs to complete,
E'en common-council men forget to eat.
The fourth acts shows her wedded to the 'squire,
And madam now begins to hold it higher;
Pretends to taste, at operas cries caro!
And quits her Nancy Dawson for Che Faro:
Doats upon dancing, and in all her pride
Swims round the room, the Heinel of Cheapside.
Ogles and lears with artificial skill,
Till, having lost in age the power to kill,
She sits all night at cards, and ogles at spadille.
Such, through our lives the eventful history—
The fifth and last act still remains for me.
The bar-maid now for your protection prays,
Turns female Barrister, and pleads for Bays.

EPILOGUE,

Hastings [to Miss Hardcastle]. Come, madam, you are now driven to the very last scene of all To be spoken in the character of Tony Lumpkin. your contrivances. I know you like him, I'm sure he loves you, and you must and shall have him.

BY J. CRADOCK, ESQ.

Hardcastle [joining their hands]. And I say WELL-now all's ended—and my comrades gone, so too. And, Mr. Marlow, if she makes as good Pray what becomes of mother's nonly son? a wife as she has a daughter, I don't believe you'll A hopeful blade! in town I'll fix my station, ever repent your bargain. So now to supper. To- And try to make a bluster in the nation: morrow we shall gather all the poor of the parish As for my cousin Neville, I renounce her, about us, and the mistakes of the night shall be Off-in a crack—I'll carry big Bet Bouncer. crowned with a merry morning: so, boy, take her; and as you have been mistaken in the mistress, my wish is, that you may never be mistaken in the wife. [Exeunt omnes.

EPILOGUE, BY DR. GOLDSMITH, SPOKEN BY MRS. BULKLEY, IN THE CHARACTER OF

MISS HARDCASTLE.

WELL, having stoop'd to conquer with success,
And gain'd a husband without aid from dress,
Still, as a bar-maid, I could wish it too,

As I have conquer'd him to conquer you:
And let me say, for all your resolution,
That pretty bar-maids have done execution.
Our life is all a play, composed to please,
"We have our exits and our entrances."

Why should not I in the great world appear?
I soon shall have a thousand pounds a-year!
No matter what a man may here inherit,
In London-'gad, they've some regard to spirit.
I see the horses prancing up the streets,
And big Bet Bouncer bobs to all she meets;
Then hoiks to jigs and pastimes, every night—
Not to the plays-they say it a'n't polite;
To Sadler's Wells, perhaps, or operas go,
And once, by chance, to the roratorio.
Thus here and there, for ever up and down,
We'll set the fashions too to half the town;
And then at auctions-money ne'er regard,
Buy pictures like the great, ten pounds a-yard.
Zounds! we shall make these London gentry say
We know what's damn'd genteel as well as they

This came too late to be spoken.

AN ORATORIO.

How doubly sweet when Heaven was with us Come on, my companions, the triumph display,

The sun calls us out on this festival day,
And our monarch partakes in the joy.

SECOND PRIEST.

Is this a time to bid us raise the strain,
Or mix in rites that Heaven regards with pain?
No, never. May this hand forget each art
That wakes to finest joys the human heart,

Like the sun, our great monarch all rapture sup- Ere I forget the land that gave me birth,

plies,

Both similar blessings bestow;

The sun with his splendour illumines the skies,
And our monarch enlivens below.

AIR.

CHALDEAN WOMAN.

Haste, ye sprightly sons of pleasure,
Love presents the fairest treasure,
Leave all other joys for me.

A CHALDEAN ATTENDANT.

Or rather, love's delights despising,
Haste to raptures ever rising,

Wine shall bless the brave and free.

FIRST PRIEST.

Wine and beauty thus inviting,
Each to different joys exciting,
Whither shall my choice incline?

SECOND PRIEST.

I'll waste no longer thought in choosing,
But, neither this nor that refusing,

I'll make them both together mine.

FIRST PRIEST.

RECITATIVE.

But whence, when joy should brighten o'er the
land,

This sullen gloom in Judah's captive band?
Ye sons of Judah, why the lute unstrung?
Or why those harps on yonder willows hung?
Come, take the lyre, and pour the strain along,
The day demands it; sing us Sion's song.
Dismiss your griefs, and join our warbling choir,
For who like you can wake the sleeping lyre?

AIR.

Every moment as it flows,
Some peculiar pleasure owes,
Come then, providently wise,
Seize the debtor as it flies.

SECOND PRIEST.

Think not to-morrow can repay
The debt of pleasure lost, to-day.
Alas! to-morrow's richest store
Can but pay its proper score.

SECOND PROPHET

RECITATIVE.

Chain'd as we are, the scorn of all mankind, f'o want, to toil, and every ill consign'd,