A

BY

TO-NIGHT we come upon a bold design,
To try to please without one borrow'd line;
Our plot is new, and regularly clear,
And not one single tittle from Moliere.
O'er buried poets we with caution tread,
And parish sextons leave to rob the dead.
For you, bright British fair, in hopes to charm ye,
We bring, to-night, a lover from the army.
You know the soldiers have the strangest arts,
Such a proportion of prevailing parts,
You'd think that they rid post to women's hearts.
I wonder whence they draw their bold pretence;
We do not choose them, sure, for our defence:
That plea is both impolitic and wrong,
And only suits such dames as want a tongue.
Is it their eloquence and fine address?
The softness of their language?—Nothing less.

Is it their courage, that they bravely dare
To storm the sex at once?-'Egad! 'tis there.
They act by us as in the rough campaign,
Unmindful of repulses, charge again:
They mine and countermine, resolved to win,
And, if a breach is made,-they will come in.
You'll think, by what we have of soldiers said,
Our female wit was in the service bred:
But she is to the hardy toil a stranger;
She loves the cloth indeed, but hates the danger:
Yet, to this circle of the brave and gay,
She bid one, for her good intentions, say,
She hopes you'll not reduce her to half-pay.
As for our play, 'tis English humour all:
Then will you let our manufacture fall?
Would you the honour of our nation raise,
Keep English credit up, and English plays.

SCENE I.-A Tavern.

Colonel FAINWELL and FREEMAN over a bottle. Free. Come, colonel, his majesty's health. You are as melancholy as if you were in love! I wish some of the beauties of Bath ha'n't snapt your heart.

Col. Why, faith, Freeman, there is something in't; I have seen a lady at Bath, who has kindled such a flame in me, that all the waters there cann't quench.

Free. Women, like some poisonous animals, carry their antidote about 'em-Is she not to be had, colonel?

Col. That's a difficult question to answer; however, I resolve to try: perhaps you may be able to serve me; you merchants know one anotherThe lady told me herself she was under the charge of four persons.

Free. Odso! 'tis Mrs Anne Lovely. Col The same-Do you know her? Free. Know her! ay.- -Faith, colonel, your condition is more desperate than you imagine: Why, she is the talk and pity of the whole town; and it is the opinion of the learned that she must die a maid.

Col. Say you so? That's somewhat odd, in this charitable city.-She's a woman, I hope ? Free. For aught I know, but it had been as well for her, had nature made her any other part of the creation. The man who keeps this house served her father; he is a very honest fellow, and may be of use to you; we'll send for him to take a glass with us: he'll give you her whole history, and 'tis worth your hearing.

Col. But may one trust him?

Free. With your life: I have obligations enough upon him to make him do any thing: I serve him with wine. [Knocks. Col. Nay, I know him very well myself. I once used to frequent a club that was kept here.

Col. I thank you, Mr Sackbut.

Sack. I am as glad to see you as I should a hundred tun of French claret custom free. service to you, sir. [Drinks.] You don't look so -My merry as you used to do; ar'n't you well, colonel? Free. He has got a woman in his head, landlord; can you help him?

Suck. If 'tis in my power, I sha'n't scruple to serve my friend.

Col. 'Tis one perquisite of your calling. Sack. Ay, at t'other end of the town, where you officers use, women are good forcers of trade: a well-custom'd house, a handsome bar-keeper, with clean obliging drawers, soon get the master an estate; but our citizens seldom do any thing but cheat within the walls.-But as to the lady, colonel, point you at particulars? or have you a good Champagne stomach? Are you in full pay, or reduc'd, colonel.

Col. Reduc'd, reduc'd, landlord.

Free. To the miserable condition of a lover!

Sack. Pish! that's preferable to half-pay: a woman's resolution may break before the peace: push her home, colonel; there's no parlying with the

fair sex.

Col. Were the lady her own mistress, I have some reasons to believe I should soon command in chief.

Free. You know Mrs Lovely, Mr Sackbut? Sack. Know her! Ay, poor Nancy : I have carried her to school many a frosty morning. Alas! if she's the woman, I pity you, colonel : her father, my old master, was the most whimsical, out-ofthe-way temper'd man I ever heard of, as you will guess by his last will and testament. This was his only child, and I have heard him wish her dead a thousand times.

Col. Why so?

Suck. He hated posterity, you must know, and wish'd the world were to expire with himself.— He used to swear, if she had been a boy, he would have qualified him for the opera.

Free. 'Twas a very unnatural resolution in a father.

Sack. He died worth thirty thousand pounds, which he left to his daughter, provided she married with the consent of her guardians; but that she might be sure never to do so, he left her in the care of four men, as opposite to each other as the four elements: each has his quarterly rule; and three months in a year she is oblig'd to be subject to each of their humours; and they are pretty different, I assure you.-She is just come from Bath.

Col. 'Twas there I saw her.

Sack. Ay, sir, the last quarter was her beau guardian's. She appears in all public places during his reign.

Col. She visited a lady who boarded in the same house with me: I liked her person, and found an

T

opportunity to tell her so. She replied, she had no objection to mine; but if I could not reconcile contradictions, I must not think of her, for that she was condemned to the caprice of four persons, who never yet agreed in any one thing, and she was obliged to please them all.

Sack. 'Tis most true, sir: I'll give you a short description of the men, and leave you to judge of the poor lady's condition. One is a kind of virtuoso, a silly, half-witted fellow, but positive and surly; fond of every thing antique and foreign, and wears his clothes of the fashion of the last century; doats upon travellers; and believes more of Sir John Mandeville than he does of the Bible.

Col. That must be a rare odd fellow !

Sack. Another is a 'Change broker; a fellow that will out-lie the devil for the advantage of stock, and cheat his father that got him, in a bargain he is a great stickler for trade, and hates every man that wears a sword.

Free. He is a great admirer of the Dutch management, and swears they understand trade better than any nation under the sun.

Sack. The third is an old beau, that has May in his fancy and dress, but December in his face and his heels he admires all the new fashions, and those must be French; loves operas, balls, masquerades, and is always the most tawdry of the whole company on a birth-day.

Col. These are pretty opposite to one another, truly:-And the fourth, what is he, landlord? Sack. A very rigid quaker, whose quarter began this day. I saw Mrs Lovely go in, not above two hours ago,-Sir Philip set her down. What think you now, colonel; is not the poor lady to be pitied?

Col. Ay, and rescu'd too, landlord.
Free. In my opinion that's impossible.

Col. There is nothing impossible to a lover.What would not a man attempt for a fine woman and thirty thousand pounds? Besides, my honour is at stake; I promised to deliver her, and she bid me win her and wear her.

Sack. That's fair, faith.

Free. If it depended upon knight-errantry, I should not doubt your setting free the damsel; but to have avarice, impertinence, hypocrisy, and pride at once to deal with, requires more cunning than generally attends a man of honour.

Col. My fancy tells me I shall come off with glory. I am resolved to try, however. Do you know all the guardians, Mr Sackbut?

Sack. Very well, sir; they all use my house. Col. And will you assist me, if occasion requires?

Suck. In every thing I can, colonel.

Free. I'll answer for him: and whatever I can serve you in you may depend on. I know Mr Periwinkle and Mr Tradelove; the latter has a very great opinion of my interest abroad.—I happen'd to have a letter from a correspondent two hours before the news arrived of the French king's death: I communicated it to him; upon which he bought all the stock he could; and what

with that, and some wagers he laid, he told me he had got to the tune of five hundred pounds; so that I am much in his good graces.

Col. I don't know but you may be of service to me, Freeman.

Free. If I can, command me, colonel. Col. Isn't it possible to find a suit of clothes ready made, at some of these sale shops, fit to rig out a beau, think you, Mr Sackbut?

Sack. O! hang'em-No, colonel, they keep nothing ready made that a gentleman would be seen in but I can fit you with a suit of clothes, if you'd make a figure-velvet and gold brocade

They were pawn'd to me by a French count, who had been stript at play, and wanted money to carry him home: he promised to send for them, but I have not heard any thing of him.

Free. He has not fed upon frogs long enough yet to recover his loss; ha, ha!

Col. Ha, ha! Well, the clothes will do, Mr Sackbut, though we must have three or four fellows in tawdry liveries; they can be procur'd, I hope.

Free. 'Egad! I have a brother come from the West Indies that can match you; and, for expe dition sake, you shall have his servants: there's a black, a tawney Moor, and a Frenchman: they don't speak one word of English, so can make no mistake.

Col. Excellent-'Egad! I shall look like an Indian prince.-First, I'll attack my beau guar dian; where lives he?

Suck. Faith, somewhere about St James's, tho' to say in what street I cannot; but any chairman will tell you where Sir Philip Modelove lives.

Free. Oh! you'll find him in the Park at eleven every day; at least, I never pass through at that hour without seeing him there.-But what do you intend?

Col. To address him in his own way, and find what he designs to do with the lady.

SCENE II.-PRIM'S House. Enter Mrs LOVELY and her maid BETTY. fret Betty. Bless me, madam! Why do you

and tease yourself so? This is giving them the advantage with a witness.

Mrs Loo. Must I be condemned all my life to the preposterous humours of other people, and pointed at by every boy in town?-Oh! I could tear my flesh, and curse the hour I was bornIsn't it monstrously ridiculous, that they should desire to impose their quaking dress upon me at these years! When I was a child, no matter what they made me wear, but now

Betty. I would resolve against it, madam; I'd see 'em hang'd before I'd put on the pinch'd cap again.

Mrs Lov. Then I must never expect one moment's ease: she has rung such a peal in my ears already, that I sha'n't have the right use of them this month.-What can I do?

Betty. What can you not do, if you will but give your mind to it? Marry, madam.

Mrs Lov. What! and have my fortune go to build churches and hospitals?

Betty. Why, let it go.- -If the colonel loves you as he pretends, he'll marry you without a fortune, madam; and I assure you a colonel's lady is no despicable thing; a colonel's post will maintain you like a gentlewoman, madam.

Mrs Lov. So you would advise me to give up my own fortune, and throw myself upon the colonel's?

Betty. I would advise you to make yourself easy, madam.

Mrs Lov. That's not the way, I'm sure. No, no, girl, there are certain ingredients to be mingled with matrimony, without which I may as well change for the worse as the better. When the woman has fortune enough to make the man happy, if he has either honour or good manners, he'll make her easy. Love makes but a slovenly figure in a house where Poverty keeps the door. Betty. And so you resolve to die a maid, do you, madam.

Mrs Lov. Or have it in my power to make the man I love master of my fortune.

Betty. Then you don't like the colonel so well

SCENE I.-The Park.

as I thought you did, madam, or you would no take such a resolution.

Mrs Lov. It is because I do like him, Betty, that I do take such a resolution.

Betty. Why, do you expect, madam, the colonel can work miracles? Is it possible for him to marry you with the consent of all your guardians ?

Mrs Lov. Or he must not marry me at all: and so I told him; and he did not seem displeased with the news.- -He promised to set me free; and I, on that condition, promised to make him master of that freedom.

Betty. Well, I have read of enchanted castles, ladies delivered from the chains of magic, giants kill'd, and monsters overcome; so that I shall be the less surprised if the colonel should conjure you out of the power of your four guardians; if he does, I am sure he deserves your fortune.

Mrs Lov. And shall have it, girl, if it were ten times as much-For I'll ingenuously contess to thee, that I do like the colonel above all the men I ever saw :-There's something so jantee in a soldier, a kind of je-ne-sçai-quoi air, that makes them more agreeable than the rest of mankind.-They command regard; as who shall say, We are your defenders; we preserve your beauties from the insults of rude and unpolish'd foes, and ought to be preferr'd before those lazy, indolent mortals, who, by dropping into their fathers' estates, set up their coaches, and think to rattle themselves into our affections.

Betty. Nay, madam, I confess that the army has engrossed all the prettiest fellows-A laced coat and a feather have irresistible charms.

Mrs Lov. But the colonel has all the beauties of the mind as well as the body.-O! all ye powers that favour happy lovers, grant that he may be mine! Thou god of Love, if thou be'st aught but name, assist my Fainwell!

Col. So, now if I can but meet this beau!'Egad! methinks I cut a smart figure, and have as much of the tawdry air as any Italian count or French marquis of them all.- -Sure I shall know this knight again-Ah! yonder he sits, making love to a mask, i'faith. I'll walk up the Mall, and come down by him. [Exit.

Scene draws, and discovers Sir PHILIP upon a Bench, with a Woman mask'd.

Sir Phil. Well, but, my dear, are you really onstant to your keeper?

Wom. Yes, really, sir.-Hey-day! Who comes yonder? He cuts a mighty figure.

Sir Phil. Ha! a stranger, by his equipage keeping so close at his heels. He has the appearance of a man of quality.-Positively French, by his dancing air.

Wom. He crosses, as if he meant to sit down

here.

Sir Phil. He has a mind to make love to thee,

child.
Enter Colonel, and seats himself upon the Bench
by Sir PHILIP.

Wom. It will be to no purpose, if he does.
Sir Phil. Are you resolved to be cruel then?
Col. You must be very cruel indeed, if you

can deny any thing to so fine a gentleman, madam. [Takes out his watch. Wom. I never mind the outside of a man. Col. And I'm afraid thou art no judge of the inside.

Sir Phil. I am positively of your mind, sir; for creatures of her function seldom penetrate beyond the pocket.

Wom. Creatures of your composition have, indeed, generally more in their pockets than in their heads. [Aside. Sir Phil. Pray what says your watch? mine is down. [Pulling out his watch. Col. I want thirty-six minutes of twelve, sir.[Puts up his watch, and takes out his snuff-box. Sir Phil. May I presume, sir?

Col. Sir, you honour me. [Presenting the box. Sir Phil. He speaks good English-though he must be a foreigner. [Aside.]-This snuff is extremely good, and the box prodigious fine; the work is French, I presume, sir.

Col. I bought it in Paris, sir-I do think the workmanship pretty neat.

Sir Phil. Neat! 'tis exquisitely fine, sir. Pray, sir, if I may take the liberty of enquiring-what country is so happy to claim the birth of the finest gentleman in the universe? France, I pre

sume.

Col. Then you don't think me an Englishman?
Sir Phil. No, upon my soul, don't I.
Col. I am sorry for't.

Sir Phil. Impossible you should wish to be an Englishman! Pardon me, sir; this island could not produce a person of such alertness.

Col. As this mirror shews you, sir.

[Puts up a pocket glass to Sir PHILIP's face. Wom. Coxcombs! I'm sick to hear them praise one another. One seldom gets any thing by such animals; not even a dinner, unless one can dine upon soup and celery.

Sir Phil. O Gad, sir!-Will you leave us, madam? Ha, ha! [Erit Wom. Col. She fears 'twill be only losing time to stay here; ha, ha!—————I know not how to distinguish you, sir, but your mien and address speak you right honourable.

Sir Phil. Thus great souls judge of others by themselves-I am only adorn'd with knighthood, that's all, I assure you, sir: my name is Sir Philip Modelove.

Col. Of French extraction?
Sir Phil. My father was French.

Col. One may plainly perceive it-There is a certain gaiety peculiar to my nation (for I will own myself a Frenchman) which distinguishes us every where-A person of your figure would be a vast addition to a coronet.

Sir Phil. I must own I had the offer of a barony about five years ago, but I abhorr'd the fatigue which must have attended it. I could never yet bring myself to join with either party.

Col. You are perfectly in the right, Sir Philip -a fine person should not embark himself in the slovenly concern of politics; dress and pleasure are objects proper for the soul of a fine gentle

man.

Sir Phil. And love.

Col. Oh! that's included under the article of pleasure.

Sir Phil. Parbleu il est un homme d'esprit.I must embrace you-[Rises and embraces.]— Your sentiments are so agreeable to mine, that we appear to have but one soul, for our ideas and conceptions are the same.

Col. I should be sorry for that. [4side.]-You do me too much honour, Sir Philip.

Sir Phil. Your vivacity and jantee mien assu red me, at first sight, there was nothing of this foggy island in your composition. May I crave your name, sir?

Col. My name is La Fainwell, sir, at your service.

Sir Phil. The La Fainwells are French, I know, tho' the name is become very numerous in Great Britain of late years-I was sure you was French the moment I laid my eyes upon you; I could not come into the supposition of your being an Englishman: this island produces few such orna

ments.

Col. Pardon me, Sir Philip; this island has two things superior to all nations under the sun. Sir Phil. Ah! what are they?

Col. The ladies and the laws.

Sir Phil. The laws, indeed, do claim a prefe rence of other nations,-but, by my soul, there are fine women every where I must own I have felt their power in all countries.

Col. There are some finish'd beauties, I confess, in France, Italy, Germany, nay, even in Holland, mais elles sont bien rare: but les belles Angloises! Oh, Sir Philip, where find we such wo men! such symmetry of shape! such elegancy of dress! such regularity of features! such sweetness of temper! such commanding eyes! and such bewitching smiles!

-But I

Sir Phil. Ah!-Parbleu vous etes attrapé Col. Non, je vous assure, chevalier.declare there is no amusement so agreeable to my goût as the conversation of a fine woman.I could never be prevailed upon to enter into, what the vulgar call the pleasures of the bottle.

Sir Phil. My own taste, positivement—A ball, or a masquerade, is certainly preferable to all the productions of the vineyard.

Col. Infinitely! I hope the people of quality in England will support that branch of pleasure, which was imported with their peace, and since naturaliz'd by the ingenious Mr Heidegger.

Sir Phil. The ladies assure me it will become

part of the constitution-upon which I subscrib'd a hundred guincas-It will be of great service to the public, at least to the company of surgeons, and the city in general.

Col. Ha, ha! it may help to ennoble the blood of the city. Are you married, Sir Philip?

Sir Phil. No; nor do I believe I ever shall enter into that honourable state; I have an absolute tendre for the whole sex.

Col. That's more than they have for you, I dare swear. (Aside. Sir Phil. And I have the honour to be very well with the ladies, I can assure you, sir: and I