THE

BY

PREST by the load of life, the weary mind
Surveys the general toil of human kind;
With cool submission joins the labouring train,
And social sorrow loses half its pain:
Our anxious Bard, without complaint, may share
This bustling season's epidemic care.
Like Cæsar's pilot, dignify'd by fate,
Tost in one common storm with all the great;
Distrest alike, the statesman and the wit,
When one a borough courts, and one the pit.
The busy candidates for power and fame,
Have hopes, and fears, and wishes, just the same;
Disabled both to combat, or to fly,
Must hear all taunts, and hear without reply.
Uncheck'd on both, loud rabbles vent their rage,

As mongrels bay the lion in a cage. Th' offended burgess hoards his angry tale, For that blest year when all that vote may rail Their schemes of spite the poet's foes dismiss, Till that glad night, when all that hate may hiss. This day the powder'd curls and golden coat, Says swelling Crispin, begg❜d a cobler's vote. This night, our wit, the pert apprentice cries, Lies at my feet, I hiss him, and he dies. The great, 'tis true, can charm th' electing tribe; The bard may supplicate, but cannot bribe. Yet judged by those, whose voices ne'er were sold He feels no want of all-persuading gold; But confident of praise, if praise be due, | Trusts without fear, to merit, and to you.

Sir Wil. And upon that I proceed, as my last

WOOD's House.

Enter Sir WILLIAM HONEYWOOD and JARVIS. Sir Wil. Good Jarvis, make no apologies for this honest bluntness. Fidelity, like yours, is the best excuse for every freedom.

Jar. I cann't help being blunt, and being very angry too, when I hear you talk of disinheriting so good, so worthy a young gentleman as your nephew, my master. All the world loves him.

him. That very fellow has just absconded, and I have taken up the security. Now, my intention is to involve him in fictitious distress, before he has plunged himself into real calamity. To arrest him for that very debt, to clap an officer upon him, and then let him see which of his friends will come to his relief.

Sir Wil. Say rather, that he loves all the world; that is his fault.

Sir Wil. What signifies his affection to me, or how can I be proud of a place in a heart where every sharper and coxcomb find an easy entrance? Jar. I grant you that he's rather too good-natured; that he's too much every man's man; that he laughs this minute with one, and cries the next with another; but whose instructions may he thank for all this?

Sir Wil. Not mine, sure. My letters to him during my employment in Italy, taught him only that philosophy which might prevent, not defend, his errors.

Jar. Faith, begging your honour's pardon, I'm sorry they taught him any philosophy at all; it has only served to spoil him. This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey. For my own part, whenever I hear him mention the name on't, I'm always sure he's going to play the fool.

Sir Wil. Don't let us ascribe his faults to his philosophy, I entreat you. No, Jarvis, his good nature arises rather from his fears of offending the importunate, than his desire of making the deserving happy.

Jar. What it arises from, I don't know. But, to be sure, every body has it that asks it.

Sir Wil. Ay, or that does not ask it. I have been now for some time a concealed spectator of his follies, and find them as boundless as his dissipation.

Jar. And yet, faith, he has some fine name or other for them all. He calls his extravagance, generosity; and his trusting every body, universal benevolence. It was but last week he went security for a fellow whose face he scarce knew, and that he called an act of exalted mu-mumunificence; ay, that was the name he gave it.

Sir Wil. We must try him once more, however, and I'll go this instant to put my scheme into execution; and I don't despair of succeeding, as, by your means, I can have frequent opportunities of being about him, without being known. What a pity it is, Jarvis, that any man's good-will to others should produce so much neglect of himself, as to require correction! Yet we must touch his weaknesses with a delicate hand. There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence, that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue. [Exit.

Jar. Well, go thy ways, Sir William Honeywood. It is not without reason that the world allows thee to be the best of men. But here comes his hopeful nephew; the strange good-natured, foolish, open-hearted-And yet, all his faults are such, that one loves him still the better for them.

Enter HONEYWOOD.

Hon. Well, Jarvis, what messages from my friends this morning?

Jar. You have no friends.

Hon. Well; from my acquaintance then? Jur. [Pulling out bills.] A few of our usual cards of compliment, that's all. This bill from your tailor; this from your mercer; and this from the little broker in Crooked-lane. He says he has been at a great deal of trouble to get back the money you borrowed.

Hon. That I don't know; but I'm sure we were at a great deal of trouble in getting him to lend it. Jar. He has lost all patience.

Hon. Then he has lost a very good thing. Jar. There's that ten guineas you were sending to the poor gentleman and his children in the Fleet. I believe that would stop his mouth, for a while at least.

Ilon. Ay, Jarvis, but what will fill their mouths

in the mean time? Must I be cruel because he happens to be importunate; and, to relieve his avarice, leave them to insupportable distress?

Jar. 'Sdeath, sir! the question now is how to relieve yourself-yourself. Haven't I reason to be out of my senses, when I see things going at sixes and sevens?

Hon. Whatever reason you may have for being out of your senses, I hope you'll allow that I'm not quite unreasonable for continuing in mine.

mind my cellar.-I forgot, your honour, Mr Croaker is below. I came on purpose to tell you. Hon. Why didn't you shew him up, blockhead? But. Shew him up, sir? With all my heart, sir. Up or down, all's one to me. [Erit.

Jar. Ay, we have one or other of that family in this house from morning till night. He comes on the old affair, I suppose. The match between his son, that's just returned from Paris, and Miss Richland, the young lady he's guardian to.

Hon. I'm no man's rival.

Jar. Your uncle in Italy preparing to disinherit you; your own fortune almost spent; and nothing but pressing creditors, false friends, and a pack of drunken servants, that your kindness has made unfit for any other family.

Hon. Then they have the more occasion for being in mine.

Jar. Soh! What will you have done with him that I caught stealing your plate in the pantry? In the fact, I caught him in the fact.

Hon. In the fact! if so, I really think that we should pay him his wages, and turn him off. Jar. He shall be turn'd off at Tyburn, the dog; we'll hang him, if it be only to frighten the rest of the family.

Hon. No, Jarvis: it's enough that we have lost what he has stolen; let us not add to it the loss of a fellow-creature!

Jar. Very fine; well, here was the footman just now, to complain of the butler; he says he does most work, and ought to have most wages.

Hon. That's but just; though perhaps here comes the butler to complain of the footman.

Jar. Ay, it's the way with them all, from the scullion to the privy-counsellor. If they have a bad master, they keep quarrelling with him; if they have a good master, they keep quarrelling with

one another.

Jar. Ah! if you loved yourself but half as well as she loves you, we should soon see a marriage that would set all things to rights again.

Hon. Love me! Sure, Jarvis, you dream. No, no; her intimacy with me never amounted to more than friendship-mere friendship. That she is the most lovely woman that ever warm'd the hu man heart with desire, I own; but never let me harbour a thought of making her unhappy, by a connection with one so unworthy her merits as I am. No, Jarvis, it shall be my study to serve her, even in spite of my wishes; and to secure her happiness, though it destroys my own.

Jur. Was ever the like! I want patience.

Hon. Besides, Jarvis, though I could obtain Miss Richland's consent, do you think I could succeed with her guardian, or Mrs Croaker his wife; who, though both very fine in their way, are yet a little opposite in their dispositions, you know?

Jar. Opposite enough, Heaven knows; the very reverse of each other; she all laugh and no joke; he always complaining, and never sorrowful; a fretful poor soul, that has a new distress for every hour in the four and twenty

Hon. Hush, hush, he's coming up, he'll hear you.

Jar. One whose voice is a passing-bell-
Hon. Well, well, go, do.

Jur. A raven that bodes nothing but mischief; a coffin and cross bones; a bundle of rue; a sprig of deadly night shade; a-[HONEYWOOD stopping his mouth, at last pushes him off. [Erit JARVIS.

Hon. I must own my old monitor is not entirely wrong. There is something in my friend Croaker's conversation that quite depresses me. His very mirth is an antidote to all gaiety, and his appearance has a stronger effect on my spirits than an undertaker's shop.- -Mr Croaker, this is such a satisfaction

Enter CROAKER.

Cro. A pleasant morning to Mr Honeywood, and many of them.—How is this?—You look most shockingly to day, my dear friend. I hope this weather does not affect your spirits. To be sure, if this weather continues-I say nothing -But God send we be all better this day three months.

Hon. I heartily concur in the wish, though I own not in your apprehensions.

Cro. May be not! Indeed what signifies what weather we have in a country going to ruin, like

ours? Taxes rising, and trade falling. Money flying out of the kingdom, and Jesuits swarming into it. I know at this time no less than an hundred and twenty-seven Jesuits between CharingCross and Temple-Bar.

Hon. The Jesuits will scarce pervert you or me, I should hope.

Cro. May be not. Indeed, what signifies whom they pervert in a country that has scarce any religion to lose! I am only afraid for our wives and daughters.

Hon. I have no apprehensions for the ladies, I assure you.

Cro. May be not. Indeed, what signifies whether they be perverted or no! The women in my time were good for something. I have seen a lady drest from top to toe in her own manufactures formerly; but now-a-days, the devil a thing of their own manufacture's about them, except their faces.

Hon. But, however these faults may be practised abroad, you don't find them at home, either with Mrs Croaker, Olivia, or Miss Richland.

Cro. The best of them will never be canoniz'd for a saint when she's dead.--By the bye, my dear friend, I don't find this match between Miss Richland and my son much relish'd, either by one side or t'other.

Hon. I thought otherwise.

Gro. Ah, Mr Honeywood, a little of your fine serious advice to the young lady might go far: I know she has a very exalted opinion of your understanding.

Hon. But would not that be usurping an authority that more properly belongs to yourself?

Cro. My dear friend, you know but little of my authority at home. People think, indeed, because they see me come out in a morning thus, with a pleasant face, and to make my friends merry, that all's well within. But I have cares that would break a heart of stone. My wife has so encroach'd upon every one of my privileges, that I am now no more than a mere lodger in my own house.

Hon. But a little spirit exerted on your side might perhaps restore your authority.

Cro. No, though I had the spirit of a lion! I do rouse sometimes. But what then? Always haggling, haggling; a man is tired of getting the better before his wife is tired of losing the victory.

Hon. It's a melancholy consideration indeed, that our chief comforts often produce our greatest anxieties, and that an increase of our possessions is but an inlet to new disquietudes.

Cro. Ah, my dear friend, these were the very words of poor Dick Doleful to me not a week before he made away with himself.--Indeed, Mr Honeywood, I never see you but you put me in mind of poor Dick. Ah, there was merit neglected for you! and so true a friend; we loved each other for thirty years, and yet he never asked me to lend him a single farthing.

Hon. Pray what could induce him to commit so rash an action at last?

Cro. I don't know; some people were malicious enough to say it was keeping company with me; because we used to meet now and then and open

our hearts to each other. To be sure I loved to hear him talk, and he loved to hear me talk; poor dear Dick. He used to say that Croker rhimed to joker; and so we used to laugh-Poor Dick! [Going to cry. Hon. His fate affects me.

Cro. Ay, he grew sick of this miserable life, where we do nothing but eat and grow hungry, dress and undress, get up and lie down; while reason, that should watch like a nurse by our side, falls as fast asleep as we do.

Hon. To say truth, if we compare that part of life which is to come, by that which we have past, the prospect is hideous.

Cro. Life at the greatest and best is but a froward child, that must be humour'd and coax'd a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over.

Hon. Very true, sir, nothing can exceed the vanity of our existence, but the folly of our pursuits. We wept when we came into the world, and every day tells us why.

Cro. Ah, my dear friend, it is a perfect_satisfaction to be miserable with you. My son Leontine sha'n't lose the benefit of such fine conversation. I'll just step home for him. I am willing to shew him so much seriousness in one scarce older than himself—And what if I bring my last letter to the Gazetteer on the increase and progress of earthquakes? It will amuse us, I promise you. I there prove how the late earthquake is coming round to pay us another visit from London to Lisbon, from Lisbon to the Canary Islands, from the Canary Islands to Palmyra, from Palmyra to Constantinople, and so from Constantinople back to London again.

[Exit.

Hon. Poor Croaker! Ilis situation deserves the utmost pity. I shall scarce recover my spirits these three days. Sure, to live upon such terms is worse than death itself. And yet, when I consider my own situation, a broken fortune, an hopeless passion, friends in distress; the wish but not the power to serve them- — [Pausing and sighing.

Enter Butler.

But. More company below, sir; Mrs Croaker and Miss Richland; shall I shew them up? But they're shewing up themselves. [Exit.

Enter Mrs CROAKER and Miss RICHLAND. Miss Rich. You're always in such spirits.

Mrs Cro. We have just come, my dear Honeywood, from the auction. There was the old deaf dowager, as usual, bidding like a fury against herself.--And then so curious in antiques! herself the most genuine piece of antiquity in the whole collection.

Hon. Excuse me, ladies, if some uneasiness from friendship makes me unfit to share in this good humour: I know you'll pardon me.

Mrs Cro. I vow he seems as melancholy as if he had taken a dose of my husband this morning. Well, if Richland here can pardon you, I must.

Miss Rich. You would seem to insinuate, madam, that I have particular reasons for being disposed to refuse it?

Mrs Cro. Whatever I insinuate, my dear, don't be so ready to wish an explanation.

Miss Rich. I own I should be sorry, Mr Honeywood's long friendship and mine should be misunderstood.

Hon. There's no answering for others, madam; but I hope you'll never find me presuming to offer more than the most delicate friendship may readily allow.

Miss Rich. And I shall be prouder of such a tribute from you than the most passionate professions from others.

Hon. My own sentiments, madam: friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves. Miss Rich. And, without a compliment, I know none more disinterested, or more capable of friendship, than Mr Honeywood.

Mrs Cro. And indeed I know nobody that has more friends, at least among the ladies. Miss Fruzz, Miss Odbody, and Miss Winterbottom, praise him in all companies. As for Miss Biddy Bundle, she's his professed admirer.

Miss Rich. Indeed! an admirer! I did not know, sir, you were such a favourite there. But is she seriously so handsome? Is she the mighty thing talk'd of?

Hon. The town, madam, seldom begins to praise a lady's beauty till she's beginning to lose it. [Smiling. Mrs Cro. But she's resolved never to lose it, it seems. For, as her natural face decays, her skill improves in making the artificial one. Well, nothing diverts me more than one of those fine old dressy things, who thinks to conceal her age, by every where exposing her person; sticking herself up in the front of a side-box; trailing through a minuet at Almack's; and then, in the public gardens, looking for all the world like one of the painted ruins of the place.

Hon. Every age has its admirers, ladies. While you, perhaps, are trading among the warmer climates of youth, there ought to be some to carry on an useful commerce in the frozen latitudes beyond fifty.

Miss Rich. But then the mortifications they must suffer before they can be fitted out for traffic. I have seen one of them fret a whole morning at her hair-dresser, when all the fault was her face.

Hon. And yet, I'll engage, has carried that face at last to a very good market. This good-natured town, madam, has husbands, like spectacles, to fit every age, from fifteen to fourscore.

Mrs Cro. Well, you're a dear good-natured creature. But you know you're engaged with us this morning upon a strolling party. I want to shew Olivia the town, and the things; I believe I shall have business for you for the whole day.

Hon. I am sorry, madam, I have an appointment with Mr Croaker, which it is impossible to put off.

Mrs Cro. What! with my husband! Then I'm resolved to take no refusal. Nay, I protest you must. You know I never laugh so much as with you.

sure.

Oliv. But consider, Leontine, your disobedience and my indiscretion: your being sent to France to bring home a sister; and, instead of a sister, bringing home-————

Leo. One dearer than a thousand sisters. One that I am convinced will be equally dear to the rest of the family, when she comes to be known. Oliv. And that, I fear, will shortly be.

Leo Impossible, till we ourselves think proper to make the discovery. My sister, you know, has been with her aunt, at Lyons, since she was a child, and you find every creature in the family takes you for her.

Oliv. But mayn't she write, mayn't her aunt write?

Leo. Her aunt scarce ever writes, and all my sister's letters are directed to me.

Oliv. But won't your refusing Miss Richland, for whom you know the old gentleman intends you, create a suspicion ?

Leo. There, there's my master-stroke. I have resolved not to refuse her; nay, an hour hence I have consented to go with my father to make her an offer of my heart and fortune.

Oliv. Your heart and fortune!

Leo. Don't be alarm'd, my dearest. Can Olivia think so meanly of my honour, or my love, as to suppose I could ever hope for happiness from any but her? No, my Olivia, neither the force, nor, permit me to add, the delicacy of my passion, leave any room to suspect me. I only offer Miss Richland an heart, I am convinced she will refuse; as I am confident that, without knowing it, her affections are fixed upon Mr Honeywood.

Oliv. Mr Honeywood! You'll excuse my apprehensions; but, when your merits come to be put in the balance

Leo. You view them with too much partiality. However, by making this offer, I shew a seeming compliance with my father's commands; and per

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