SCENE I.-A Street in Bath.

Coachman crosses the Stage-Enter FAG, looking after him.

Fag. What! Thomas! Sure 'tis he?-What! Thomas! Thomas!

Coach. Hey! Odd's life! Mr Fag! give us your hand, my old fellow-servant.

Fag. Excuse my glove, Thomas !-I'm devilish glad to see you, my lad: why, my prince of charioteers, you look as hearty!-But who the deuce thought of seeing you in Bath!

Coach. Sure, master, Madam Julia, Harry, Mrs Kate, and the postillion, be all come, Fug. Indeed!

Coach. Ay! Master thought another fit of the mind to gi't the slip, and whip! we were all off gout was coming to make him a visit; so he'd a at an hour's warning.

Fag. Ay, ay! hasty in every thing, or it would not be Sir Anthony Absolute.

Coach. But tell us, Mr Fag, how does young master? Odd! Sir Anthony will stare to see the captain here!

Fug. I do not serve Captain Absolute now.
Coach. Why, sure!

Fag. At present I am employed by Ensign Beverley.

Coach. I doubt, Mr Fag, you ha'n't changed for the better.

Lady Slattern has been before me. She has a most observing thumb; and, I believe, cherishes her nails for the convenience of making marginal notes. Well, child, what have you brought me? Lucy. Oh! here, ma'am.

[Taking books from under her cloak, and from her pockets.

This is The Gordian Knot,' and this 'Peregrine Pickle.' Here are The Tears of Sensibility,' and Humphrey Clinker.' This is The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality, written by herself;' and here the second volume of The Sentimental Journey.'

Lydia. Heigh-ho! What are those books by the glass?

Lucy. The great one is only The Whole Duty of Man,' where I press a few blonds, ma'am. Lydia. Very well. Give me the sal volatile. Lucy. Is it in a blue cover, ma'am? Lydia. My smelling bottle, you simpleton ! Lucy. O, the drops! here, ma'am. Lydia. Hold! here's some one coming-quick, see who it is[Exit LUCY. Surely I heard my cousin Julia's voice!

Re-enter LUCY.

Lucy. Lud! ma'am, here is Miss Melville! Lydia. Is it possible?

Enter JULIA.

My dearest Julia, how delighted am I! [Embrace.] How unexpected was this happiness! Julia. True, Lydia; and our pleasure is the greater; but what has been the matter? You were denied to me at first.

Lydia. Ah, Julia, I have a thousand things to tell you! but first inform me what has conjured you to Bath? Is Sir Anthony here?

Julia. He is; we are arrived within this hour; and, I suppose, he will be here to wait on Mrs Malaprop as soon as he is dressed.

Lydia. Then, before we are interrupted, let me impart to you some of my distress! I know your gentle nature will sympathize with me, though your prudence may condemn me: My letters have informed you of my whole connection with Beverley-but I have lost him, Julia ! My aunt has discovered our intercourse, by a note she intercepted, and has confined me ever since. Yet, would you believe it? she has fallen absolutely in love with a tall Irish baronet she met one night since we have been here at Lady Macshuffle's rout.

Julia. You jest, Lydia?

Lydia. No, upon my word! She really carries on a kind of correspondence with him, under a feigned name though, till she chuses to be known to him-But it is a Delia or a Celia, I assure you!

Julia. Then surely she is now more indulgent to her niece?

Lydia. Quite the contrary. Since she has discovered her own frailty, she has become more suspicious of mine. Then I must inform you of another plague! That odious Acres is to be in

Bath to-day; so that I protest I shall be teased out of all spirits!

Julia. Come, come, Lydia, hope for the best. Sir Anthony shall use his interest with Mrs Malaprop.

Lydia. But you have not heard the worst: Unfortunately I had quarrelled with my poor Beverley, just before my aunt made the discovery, and I have not seen him since, to make it up. Julia. What was his offence?

Lydia. Nothing at all! But I don't know how it was, as often as we had been together, we had never had a quarrel: And, somehow, I was afraid he would never give me an opportunity. So, last Thursday I wrote a letter to myself, to inform myself that Beverley was at that time paying his addresses to another woman. I signed it, Your Friend Unknown,' shewed it to Beverley, charged him with his falsehood, put myself in a violent passion, and vowed I'd never see him more.

Julia. And you let him depart so, and have not seen him since?

Lydia. 'Twas the next day my aunt found the matter out. I intended only to have teased him three days and a half, and now I've lost him for

ever.

Julia. If he is as deserving and sincere as you have represented him to me, he will never give you up so. Yet consider, Lydia; you tell me he is but an ensign, and you have thirty thousand pounds!

Lydia. But you know I lose most of my fortune if I marry without my aunt's consent, till of age; and that is what I have determined to do, ever since I knew the penalty. Nor could I love the man, who would wish to wait a day for the alternative.

Julia. Nay, this is caprice!

Lydia. What, does Julia tax me with caprice? I thought her lover, Faulkland, had inured her to it.

Julia. I do not love even his faults.

Lydia. But, à propos! you have sent to him, I suppose?

Julia. Not yet, upon my word! nor has he the least idea of my being in Bath. Sir Anthony's resolution was so sudden, I could not inform him of it.

Lydia. Well, Julia, you are your own mistress, (though under the protection of Sir Anthony,) yet have you, for this long year, been a slave to the caprice, the whim, the jealousy of this ungrateful Faulkland, who will ever delay assuming the rights of a husband, while you suffer him to be equally imperious as a lover.

Julia. Nay, you are wrong entirely. We were contracted before my father's death. That, and some consequent embarrassments, have delayed what I know to be my Faulkland's most ardent wish. He is too generous to trifle on such a point. And, for his character, you wrong him there too. No, Lydia, he is too proud, too noble to be jealous; if he is captious, 'tis without dissembling; if fretful, without rudeness. Unused to the fopperies of love, he is negligent of the

little duties expected from a lover-but being unhackneyed in the passion, his affection is ardent and sincere; and, as it engrosses his whole soul, he expects every thought and emotion of his mistress to move in unison with his. Yet, though his pride calls for this full return, his humility makes him undervalue those qualities in him, which would entitle him to it; and, not feeling why he should be loved to the degree he wishes, he still suspects that he is not loved enough. This temper, I must own, has cost me many unhappy hours; but I have learned to think myself his debtor for those imperfections which arise from the ardour of his attachment.

Lydia. Well, I cannot blame you for defending him. But, tell me candidly, Julia, had he never saved your life, do you think you should have been attached to him as you are? Believe me, the rude blast that overset your boat, was a prosperous gale of love to him.

Julia. Gratitude may have strengthened my attachment to Mr Faulkland, but I loved him before he had preserved me; yet, surely, that alone were an obligation sufficient

Lydia. Obligation! Why, a water-spaniel would have done as much! Well, I should never think of giving my heart to a man, because he could swim!

Julia. Come, Lydia, you are too inconside

rate.

Lydia. Nay, I do but jest. What's here?

Enter LUCY, in a hurry.

Lucy. O, madam, here is Sir Anthony Absolute just come home with your aunt! Lydia. They'll not come here. Lucy, do you watch. [Exit LUCY.

Julia. Yet I must go. Sir Anthony does not know I am here, and if we meet, he'll detain me, to shew me the town. I'll take another opportunity of paying my respects to Mrs Malaprop, when she shall treat me, as long as she chooses, with her select words so ingeniously misapplied, without being mispronounced.

Re-enter LUCY.

Lucy. O lud! Ma'am, they are both coming up stairs!

Lydia. Well, I'll not detain you, coz. Adieu, my dear Julia; I'm sure you are in haste to send to Faulkland. There-through my room you'll find another stair-case.

Lydia. Never mind-open at Sobriety. Fling me Lord Chesterfield's Letters. Now for them. Enter Mrs MALAPROP, and Sir ANTHONY AB

SOLUTE.

Mrs Mal. There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deliberate simpleton, who wants to disgrace her family, and lavish herself on a fellow not worth a shilling.

Lydia. Madam, I thought you once

Mrs Mal. You thought, miss! I don't know any business you have to think at all. Thought does not become a young woman. But the point we would request of you is, that you will promise to forget this fellow-to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.

Lydia. Ah, madam! our memories are independent of our wills. It is not easy to forget.

Mrs Mal. But I say it is, miss; there is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor dear uncle, as if he had never existed-and I thought it my duty so to do; and let me tell you, Lydia, these violent memories don't become a young woman.

Sir Anth. Why, sure, she won't pretend to remember what she's ordered not! Ay, this comes of her reading!

Lydia. What crime, madam, have I committed, to be treated thus?

Mrs Mal. Now, don't attempt to extirpate yourself from the matter; you know I have proof controvertible of it. But tell me, will you promise to do as you are bid? Will you take a husband of your friends' choosing?

Lydia. Madam, I must tell you plainly, that had I no preference for any one else, the choice you have made would be my aversion.

Mrs Mal. What business have you, miss, with preference and aversion? They don't become a young woman; and you ought to know, that, as both always wear off, 'tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion. I'm sure I hated your poor dear uncle, before marriage, as if he'd been a black-a-moor-and yet, miss, you are sensible what a wife I made! and when it pleased Heaven to release me from him, 'tis unknown what tears I shed! But suppose we were going to give you another choice, will you promise us to give up this Beverley?

Lydia. Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that promise, my actions would certainly as far belie my words.

Mrs Mal. Take yourself to your room. You are fit company for nothing but your own ill hu

mours.

Lydia. Willingly, madam-I cannot change for the worse. [Exit LYDIA. Mrs Mal. There's a little intricate hussy for

Sir Anth. It is not to be wondered at, madam : all this is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. Had I a thousand daughters, by