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come abroad: but I invented a dream, and sent him to Artemidorus for interpretation, and so stole out to see you. Well, and what will you give me now? Come, what will you give me, Mr. Tattle?

Tat. I? My soul, madam.

Mrs. Frail. Pooh, no, I thank you; I have enough to do to take care of my own. Well, but I'll come and see you one of these mornings: I hear you have a great many pictures.

Tat. I have a pretty good collection, at your service -some originals.

Scan. Hang him, he has nothing but the Seasons and the Twelve Cæsars, paltry copies; and the Five Senses, as ill represented as they are in himself; and he himself is the only original you will see there.

Mrs. Frail. Ay, but I hear he has a closet of beauties. Scan. Yes, all that have done him favours, if you will believe him.

Mrs. Frail. Ay, let me see those, Mr. Tattle.

Tat. Oh, madam, those are sacred to love and contemplation. No man but the painter and myself was ever bless'd with the sight.

Mrs. Frail. Well, but a woman

Tat. Nor woman, till she consented to have her picture there too; for then she is obliged to keep the secret. Scan. No, no, come to me, if you'd see pictures. Mrs. Frail. You?

Scan. Yes, faith, I can show you your own picture, and most of your acquaintance, to the life, and as like as at Kneller's.

Mrs. Frail. O, lying creature!-Valentine, does not he lie?-I can't believe a word he says.

Val. No, indeed, he speaks truth now: for, as Tattle has pictures of all that have granted him favours, he has the pictures of all that have refused him, if satires, characters, and lampoons are pictures.

Scan. Yes, mine are most in black and white-and yet there are some set out in their true colours, both men and women. I can show you pride, folly, affectation, wantonness, inconstancy, covetousness, dissimu

lation, malice, and ignorance, all in one piece. Then I can show you lying, foppery, vanity, cowardice, bragging, and ugliness, in another piece: and yet one of these is a celebrated beauty, and t'other a professed beau. I have some hieroglyphics too. I have a lawyer, with a hundred hands, two heads, and but one face; a divine, with two faces, and one head; and I have a soldier, with his brains in his belly, and his heart where his head should be.

Tat. And no head?
Scan. No head.

Mrs. Frail. Pooh, this is all invention. Well, I'll come some morning, if it be but to disprove you,

Re-enter JEREMY.

Jer. Sir, here's the steward again from your father. Val. I'll come to him.-Will you give me leave? I'll wait on you again presently.

Mrs. Frail. No, I'll be gone. Come, who squires me to the Exchange? I must call on my sister Foresight there.

Scan. I will: I have a mind to your sister.

Mrs. Frail. Civil!

Tat. I will, because I have a tendre for your ladyship. Mrs. Frail. That's somewhat the better reason, to my opinion.

Val. Tell Angelica, I am about making hard conditions, to come abroad, and be at liberty to see her.

Scan. I'll give an account of you and your proceedings. If indiscretion be a sign of love, you are the most a lover of any body that I know. You fancy that parting with your estate will help you to your mistress. In my mind, he is a thoughtless adventurer,

Who hopes to purchase wealth by selling land,
Or win a mistress with a losing hand. [Exeunt.

[graphic]

SCENE I. A Room in FORESIGHT'S House.

Enter FORESIGHT and Servant.

Fore. Hey-day! What, are all the women of my family abroad? Is not my wife come home, nor my sister, nor my daughter?

Serv. No, sir.

Fore. Mercy on us! what can be the meaning of it? Sure the moon is in all her fortitudes! Is my niece Angelica at home?

Serv. Yes, sir.

Fore. I believe you lie, sir.

Serv. Sir?

Fore. I say you lie, sir. It is impossible that any thing should be as I would have it; for I was born, sir, when the crab was ascending; and all my affairs go backward.

Serv. I can't tell indeed, sir.

Fore. No, I know you can't, sir. But I can tell, and foretell, sir.

Enter Nurse.

Nurse, where's your young mistress?

Nurse. Wee'st heart! I know not; they're none of them come home yet. Poor child, I warrant she's fond of seeing the town!-Marry, pray heaven they have given her any dinner!- -Good lack-a-day, ha, ha, ha! strange! I'll vow and swear now, ha, ha, ha! marry, and did you ever see the like?

Fore. Why, how now? what's the matter?

Nurse. Pray heaven send your worship good luck! marry, and amen, with all my heart! for you have put on one stocking with the wrong side outward.

Fore. Ha, how? Faith and troth, I'm glad of it: and so I have; that may be good luck, in troth; in troth, it may, very good luck. Nay, I have had some omens; I got out of bed backwards too this morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too. But then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad omens those! Some bad, some good; our lives are checkered; mirth and sorrow, want and plenty, night and day, make up our time.-Bat, in troth, I am pleased at my stocking-very well pleased at my stocking!-Oli, here's my niece!-Sirrah, go tell sir Sampson Legend I'll wait on him, if he's at leisure.-"Tis now three o'clock; a very good hour for business; Mercury governs this hour. [Exit Servant.

Enter ANGELICA.

Ang. Is it not a good hour for pleasure too, uncle? Pray lend me your coach; mine's gone to be mended. Fore. What, would you be gadding too? Sure all females are mad to-day.-It is of evil portent, and bodes mischief to the master of a family.-I remember an old prophecy, written by Messahalah, the Arabian, and thus translated by a reverend Buckinghamshire bard:

"When housewives all the house forsake,
And leave good men to brew and bake,
Withouten guile, then be it said,
That house doth stand upon its head;
And when the head is set in ground,
Ne mar❜l, if it be fruitful found."

Fruitful, the head fruitful: that bodes horns; the fruit of the head is horns!-Dear niece, stay at home-for by the head of the house is meant the husband; the prophecy needs no explanation.

Ang. Well, but I cannot prevent your having horns, uncle, by going abroad; nor secure you from them by staying at home.

Fore. Yes, yes; while there's one woman left, the prophecy is not in full force.

Ang. But my inclinations are in force. I have a mind to go abroad; and if you won't lend me your coach, I'll take a hackney, or a chair; and leave you to erect a scheme, and find who's in conjunction with your wife. Why don't you keep her at home, if you're jealous of her when she's abroad? You know my aunt is a little retrogade (as you call it) in her nature. Uncle, I'm afraid you are not lord of the ascendant! Ha, ha, ha! Fore. Well, jill-flirt, you are very pert-and always ridiculing that celestial science.

Ang. Nay, uncle, don't be angry.—If you are, I'll reap up all your false prophecies, ridiculous dreams, and idle divinations. I'll swear you are a nuisance to the neighbourhood.-What a bustle did you keep against the last invisible eclipse, laying in provision as it were for a siege! What a world of fire and candle, matches and tinderboxes, did you purchase! One would have thought we were ever after to live under ground; or at least making a voyage to Greenland, to inhabit there all the dark season.

Fore. Why, you malapert slut!

Ang. Will you lend me your coach? or I'll go on.Nay, uncle, I'll indict you for a wizard.

Fore. How, hussy! was there ever such a provoking minx?

Nurse. O merciful father, how she talks!

Ang. Yes, I can make oath of your unlawful midnight practices; you and the old nurse there.

Nurse. Marry, heaven defend!-I at midnight practices!-O Lord, what's here to do?-I in unlawful doings with my master's worship!-Why, did you ever

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