Palm. Away, impertinent!—my dear Leonidas!

Leon. My dear Palmyra!

Palm. Death shall never part us; my destiny is yours. [He is led off, she follows.

Mel. Impertinent! Oh I am the most unfortunate person this day breathing: That the princess should thus rompre en visiere, without occasion. Let me die, but I'll follow her to death, till I make my peace.

Pala. [Holding her.] And let me die, but I'll follow you to the infernals, till you pity me.

Mel. [Turning towards him angrily.] Ay, 'tis long of you that this malheur is fallen upon me; your impertinence has put me out of the good graces of the princess, and all that, which has ruined me, and all that, and, therefore, let me die, but I'll be revenged, and all that.

Pala. Facon, facon, you must and shall love me, and all that; for my old man is coming up, and all that; and I am desespere au dernier, and will not be disinherited, and all that.

Mel. How durst you interrupt me so mal apropos, when you knew I was addressing to the princess?

Pala. But why would you address yourself so much a contretemps then?

Mel. Ah, mal peste!

Pala. Ah, j'enrage!

Phil. Radoucissez vous, de grace, madame; vous etes bien en colere pour peu de chose. Vous n'entendez pas la raillerie gallante.

Mel. Ad autres, ad autres: He mocks himself of me,[1] he abuses me: Ah me unfortunate! [Cries.

Phil. You mistake him, madam, he does but accommodate his phrase to your refined language. Ah qu'il est un cavalier accompli! Pursue your point, sir— [To him.

Pala. Ah qu'il fait beau dans ces boccages; [Singing.] Ah que le ciet donne un beau jour! There I was with you, with a minuet.

Mel. Let me die now, but this singing is fine, and extremely French in him: [Laughs.] But then, that he should use my own words, as it were in contempt of me, I cannot bear it. [Crying.

Pala. Ces beaux sejours, ces doux ramages— [Singing.

Mel. Ces beaux sejours, ces doux ramages. [Singing after him.] Ces beaux sejours nous invitent a l'amour! Let me die, but he sings en cavalier, and so humours the cadence! [Laughing.

Pala. Foy, ma Clymene, voy sous ce chene. [Singing again.] S'entrebaiser ces oiseaux amoreux! Let me die now, but that was fine. Ah, now, for three or four brisk Frenchmen, to be put into masking habits, and to sing it on a theatre, how witty it would be! and then to dance helter skelter to a chanson a boire: Toute la terre, toute la terre est a moi! What's matter though it were made and sung two or three years ago in cabarets, how it would attract the admiration, especially of every one that's an eveille!

Mel. Well; I begin to have a tendre for you; but yet, upon condition, that—when we are married, you— [PAL. sings, while she speaks.

Phil. You must drown her voice: If she makes her French conditions, you are a slave for ever.

Mel. First, you will engage—that—

Pala. Fa, la, la, la, &c. [Louder.

Mel. Will you hear the conditions?

Pala. No; I will hear no conditions; I am resolved to win you en Francois: To be very airy, with abundance of noise, and no sense: Fa la, la, la, &c.

Mel. Hold, hold: I am vanquished with your gayete d'esprit. I am yours, and will be yours, sans nulle reserve, ni condition: And let me die, if I do not think myself the happiest nymph in Sicily—My dear French dear, stay but a minuite, till I raccommode myself with the princess; and then I am yours, jusqu' a la mort. Allons donc.— [Exeunt MEL. PHIL.

Palu. [Solus, fanning himself with his hat.] I never thought before that wooing was so laborious an exercise; if she were worth a million, I have deserved her; and now, methinks too, with taking all this pains for her, I begin to like her. 'Tis so; I have known many, who never cared for hare nor partridge, but those they caught themselves would eat heartily: The pains, and the story a man tells of the taking them, makes the meat go down more pleasantly. Besides, last night I had a sweet dream of her, and, gad, she I have once dreamed of, I am stark mad till I enjoy her, let her be never so ugly.

Enter DORALICE.

Dor. Who's that you are so mad to enjoy, Palamede?

Pala. You may easily imagine that, sweet Dorarlice.

Dor. More easily than you think I can: I met just now with a certain man, who came to you with letters from a certain old gentleman, y'cleped your father; whereby I am given to understand, that to-morrow you are to take an oath in the church to be grave henceforward, to go ill-dressed and slovenly, to get heirs for your estate, and to dandle them for your diversion; and, in short, that love and courtship are to be no more.

Pala. Now have I so much shame to be thus apprehended in the manner, that I can neither speak nor look upon you; I have abundance of grace in me, that I find: But if you have any spark of true friendship in you, retire with me a little into the next room, that hath a couch or bed in it, and bestow your charity upon a dying man! A little comfort from a mistress, before a man is going to give himself in marriage, is as good as a lusty dose of strong-water to a dying malefactor: it takes away the sense of hell and hanging from him.

Dor. No, good Palamede, I must not be so injurious to your bride: 'Tis ill drawing from the bank to-day, when all your ready money is payable to-morrow.

Pala. A wife is only to have the ripe fruit, that falls of itself; but a wise man will always preserve a shaking for a mistress.

Dor. But a wife for the first quarter is a mistress.

Pala. But when the second comes—

Dor. When it does come, you are so given to variety, that you would make a wife of me in another quarter.

Pala. No, never, except I were married to you: married people can never oblige one another; for all they do is duty, and consequently there can be no thanks: But love is more frank and generous than he is honest; he's a liberal giver, but a cursed pay-master.

Dor. I declare I will have no gallant; but, if I would, he should never be a married man; a married man is but a mistress's half-servant, as a clergyman is but the king's half-subject: For a man to come to me that smells of the wife! 'Slife, I would as soon wear her old gown after her, as her husband.

Pala. Yet 'tis a kind of fashion to wear a princess's cast shoes; you see the country ladies buy them, to be fine in them.

Dor. Yes, a princess's shoes may be worn after her, because they keep their fashion, by being so very little used; but generally a married man is the creature of the world the most out of fashion: his behaviour is dumpish; his discourse, his wife and family; his habit so much neglected, it looks as if that were married too; his hat is married, his peruke is married, his breeches are married,—and, if we could look within his breeches, we should find him married there too.

Pala. Am I then to be discarded for ever? pray do but mark how that word sounds: for ever! it has a very damn'd sound, Doralice.

Dor. Ay, for ever! it sounds as hellishly to me, as it can do to you, but there's no help for it.

Pala. Yet, if we had but once enjoyed one another!—but then once only, is worse than not at all: It leaves a man with such a lingering after it.

Dor. For aught I know, 'tis better that we have not; we might upon trial have liked each other less, as many a man and woman, that have loved as desperately as we, and yet, when they came to possession, have sighed and cried to themselves, Is this all?

Pala. That is only, if the servant were not found a man of this world; but if, upon trial, we had not liked each other, we had certainly left loving; and faith, that's the greater happiness of the two.

Dor. 'Tis better as 'tis; we have drawn off already as much of our love as would run clear; after possessing, the rest is but jealousies, and disquiets, and quarrelling, and piecing.

Pala. Nay, after one great quarrel, there's never any sound piecing; the love is apt to break in the same place again.

Dor. I declare I would never renew a love; that's like him, who trims an old coach for ten years together; he might buy a new one better cheap.

Pala. Well, madam, I am convinced, that 'tis best for us not to have enjoyed; but, gad, the strongest reason is, because I can't help it.

Dor. The only way to keep us new to one another is never to enjoy, as they keep grapes, by hanging them upon a line; they must touch nothing, if you would preserve them fresh.

Pala. But then they wither, and grow dry in the very keeping; however, I shall have a warmth for you, and an eagerness, every time I see you; and, if I chance to out-live Melantha—

Dor. And if I chance to out-live Rhodophil—

Pala. Well, I'll cherish my body as much as I can, upon that hope. 'Tis true, I would not directly murder the wife of my bosom; but, to kill her civilly, by the way of kindness, I'll put as fair as another man: I'll begin to-morrow night, and be very wrathful with her; that's resolved on.

Dor. Well, Palamede, here's my hand, I'll venture to be your second wife, for all your threatenings.

Pala. In the mean time I'll watch you hourly, as I would the ripeness of a melon; and I hope you'll give me leave now and then to look on you, and to see if you are not ready to be cut yet.

Dor. No, no, that must not be, Palamede, for fear the gardener should come and catch you taking up the glass.

Enter RHODOPHIL.

Rho. [Aside.] Billing so sweetly! now I am confirmed in my suspicions; I must put an end to this ere it go farther—[To DORALICE.] Cry you mercy, spouse, I fear I have interrupted your recreations.

Dor. What recreations?

Rho. Nay, no excuses, good spouse; I saw fair hand conveyed to lip, and prest, as though you had been squeezing soft wax together for an indenture. Palamede, you and I must clear this reckoning: why would you have seduced my wife?

Pala. Why would you have debauched my mistress?

Rho. What do you think of that civil couple, that played at a game, called Hide and Seek, last evening in the grotto?

Pala. What do you think of that innocent pair, who made it their pretence to seek for others, but came, indeed, to hide themselves there?

Rho. All things considered, I begin vehemently to suspect, that the young gentleman I found in your company last night, was a certain youth of my acquaintance.

Pala. And I have an odd imagination, that you could never have suspected my small gallant, if your little villainous Frenchman had not been a false brother.

Rho. Further arguments are needless; draw off; I shall speak to you now by the way of bilbo. [Claps his hand to his sword.

Pala. And I shall answer you by the way of Dangerfield[2]. [Claps his hand on his.

Dor. Hold, hold; are not you two a couple of mad fighting fools, to cut one another's throats for nothing?

Pala. How for nothing? He courts the woman I must marry.

Rho. And he courts you, whom I have married.

Dor. But you can neither of you be jealous of what you love not.

Rho. Faith, I am jealous, and this makes me partly suspect that I love you better than I thought.

Dor. Pish! a mere jealousy of honour.

Rho. Gad, I am afraid there's something else in't; for Palamede has wit, and, if he loves you, there's something more in ye than I have found: Some rich mine, for aught I know, that I have not yet discovered.

Pala. 'Slife, what's this? Here's an argument for me to love Melantha; for he has loved her, and he has wit too, and, for aught I know, there may be a mine; but, if there be, I am resolved I'll dig for it.

Dor. [To RHODOPHIL.] Then I have found my account in raising your jealousy. O! 'tis the most delicate sharp sauce to a cloyed stomach; it will give you a new edge, Rhodophil.

Rho. And a new point too, Doralice, if I could be sure thou art honest.

Dor. If you are wise, believe me for your own sake: Love and religion have but one thing to trust to; that's a good sound faith. Consider, if I have played false, you can never find it out by any experiment you can make upon me.

Rho. No? Why, suppose I had a delicate screwed gun; if I left her clean, and found her foul, I should discover, to my cost, she had been shot in.

Dor. But if you left her clean, and found her only rusty, you would discover, to your shame, she was only so for want of shooting.

Pala. Rhodophil, you know me too well to imagine I speak for fear; and therefore, in consideration of our past friendship, I will tell you, and bind it by all things holy, that Doralice is innocent.

Rho. Friend, I will believe you, and vow the same for your Melantha; but the devil on't is, how shall we keep them so?

Pala. What dost think of a blessed community betwixt us four, for the solace of the women, and relief of the men? Methinks it would be a pleasant kind of life: Wife and husband for the standing dish, and mistress and gallant for the desert.

Rho. But suppose the wife and mistress should both long for the standing dish, how should they be satisfied together?

Pala. In such a case they must draw lots; and yet that would not do neither, for they would both be wishing for the longest cut.

Rho. Then I think, Palamede, we had as good make a firm league, not to invade each other's propriety.

Pala. Content, say I. From henceforth let all acts of hostility cease betwixt us; and that, in the usual form of treaties, as well by sea as land, and in all fresh waters.

Dor. I will add but one proviso, that whoever breaks the league, either by war abroad, or neglect at home, both the women shall revenge themselves by the help of the other party.

Rho. That's but reasonable. Come away, Doralice; I have a great temptation to be sealing articles in private.

Pala. Hast thou so? [Claps him on the shoulder.

"Fall on, Macduff, And cursed be he that first cries, Hold, enough."

Enter POLYDAMAS, PALMYRA, ARTEMIS, ARGALEON: After them EUBULUS and HERMOGENES, guarded.

Palm. Sir, on my knees I beg you—

Poly. Away, I'll hear no more.

Palm. For my dead mother's sake; you say you loved her, And tell me I resemble her. Thus she Had begged.

Poly. And thus I had denied her.

Palm. You must be merciful.

Arga. You must be constant.

Poly. Go, bear them to the torture; you have boasted You have a king to head you; I would know To whom I must resign.

Eub. This is our recompence For serving thy dead queen.

Herm. And education Of thy daughter.

Arga. You are too modest, in not naming all His obligations to you: Why did you Omit his son, the prince Leonidas?

Poly. That imposture I had forgot; their tortures shall be doubled.

Herm. You please me; I shall die the sooner.

Eub. No; could I live an age, and still be racked, I still would keep the secret. [As they are going off,

Enter LEONIDAS, guarded.

Leon. Oh, whither do you hurry innocence! If you have any justice, spare their lives; Or, if I cannot make you just, at least I'll teach you to more purpose to be cruel.

Palm. Alas, what does he seek!

Leon. Make me the object of your hate and vengeance: Are these decrepid bodies, worn to ruin, Just ready of themselves to fall asunder. And to let drop the soul,— Are these fit subjects for a rack and tortures? Where would you fasten any hold upon them? Place pains on me,—united fix them here,— I have both youth, and strength, and soul to bear them; And, if they merit death, then I much more, Since 'tis for me they suffer.

Herm. Heaven forbid We should redeem our pains, or worthless lives, By our exposing yours.

Eub. Away with us. Farewell, sir: I only suffer in my fears for you.

Arga. So much concerned for him! Then my [Aside. Suspicion's true. [Whispers the King.

Palm. Hear yet my last request for poor Leonidas, Or take my life with his.

Arga. Rest satisfied, Leonidas is he. [To the King.

Poly. I am amazed: What must be done?

Arga. Command his execution instantly: Give him not leisure to discover it; He may corrupt the soldiers.

Poly. Hence with that traitor, bear him to his death: Haste there, and see my will performed.

Leon. Nay, then, I'll die like him the gods have made me. Hold, gentlemen, I am— [ARGALEON stops his mouth.

Arga. Thou art a traitor; 'tis not fit to hear thee.

Leon. I say, I am the— [Getting loose a little.

Arga. So; gag him, and lead him off. [Again stopping his mouth. [LEONIDAS, HERMOGENES, EUBULUS, led off; POLYDAMAS and ARGALEON follow.

Palm. Duty and love, by turns, possess my soul And struggle for a fatal victory. I will discover he's the king:—Ah, no! That will perhaps save him; But then I'm guilty of a father's ruin. What shall I do, or not do? Either way I must destroy a parent, or a lover. Break heart; for that's the least of ills to me, And death the only cure. [Swoons.

Arte. Help, help the princess.

Rho. Bear her gently hence, where she may Have more succour. [She is borne off; ARTE. follows her. [Shouts within, and clashing of swords.

Pala. What noise is that?

Enter AMALTHEA, running.

Amal. Oh, gentlemen, if you have loyalty, Or courage, show it now! Leonidas, Broke on the sudden from his guards, and snatching A sword from one, his back against the scaffold, Bravely defends himself, and owns aloud He is our long-lost king; found for this moment, But, if your valour helps not, lost for ever. Two of his guards, moved by the sense of virtue, Are turned for him, and there they stand at bay Against an host of foes.

Rho. Madam, no more; We lose time; my command, or my example, May move the soldiers to the better cause. You'll second me? [To PALA.

Pala. Or die with you: No subject e'er can meet A nobler fate, than at his sovereign's feet. [Exeunt. [Clashing of swords within, and shouts.

Enter LEONIDAS, RHODOPHIL, PALAMEDE, EUBULUS, HERMOGENES, and their Party, victorious; POLYDAMAS and ARGALEON, disarmed.

Leon. That I survive the dangers of this day, Next to the gods, brave friends, be yours the honour; And, let heaven witness for me, that my joy Is not more great for this my right restored, Than 'tis, that I have power to recompense Your loyalty and valour. Let mean princes, Of abject souls, fear to reward great actions; I mean to shew, That whatsoe'er subjects, like you, dare merit, A king, like me, dares give.

Rho. You make us blush, we have deserved so little.

Pala. And yet instruct us how to merit more.

Leon. And as I would be just in my rewards, So should I in my punishments; these two, This, the usurper of my crown, the other, Of my Palmyra's love, deserve that death, Which both designed for me.

Poly. And we expect it.

Arga. I have too long been happy, to live wretched.

Poly. And I too long have governed, to desire A life without an empire.

Leon. You are Palmyra's father; and as such, Though not a king, shall have obedience paid From him who is one. Father, in that name All injuries forgot, and duty owned. [Embraces him.

Poly. O, had I known you could have been this king, Thus god-like, great and good, I should have wished To have been dethroned before. 'Tis now I live, And more than reign; now all my joys flow pure, Unmixed with cares, and undisturbed by conscience.

Enter PALMYRA, AMALTHEA, ARTEMIS, DORALICE, and MELANTHA.

Leon. See, my Palmyra comes! the frighted blood Scarce yet recalled to her pale cheeks, Like the first streaks of light broke loose from darkness, And dawning into blushes.—Sir, you said [To POLY. Your joys were full; Oh, would you make mine so! I am but half restored without this blessing.

Poly. The gods, and my Palmyra, make you happy, As you make me! [Gives her hand to LEONIDAS.

Palm. Now all my prayers are heard: I may be dutiful, and yet may love. Virtue and patience have at length unravelled The knots, which fortune tyed.

Mel. Let me die, but I'll congratulate his majesty: How admirably well his royalty becomes him! Becomes! that is lui sied, but our damned language expresses nothing.

Pala. How? Does it become him already? 'Twas but just now you said, he was such a figure of a man.

Mel True, my dear, when he was a private man he was a figure; but since he is a king, methinks he has assumed another figure: He looks so grand, and so august! [Going to the King.

Pala. Stay, stay; I'll present you when it is more convenient. I find I must get her a place at court; and when she is once there, she can be no longer ridiculous; for she is young enough, and pretty enough, and fool enough, and French enough, to bring up a fashion there to be affected.

Leon. [To RHODOPHIL.] Did she then lead you to this brave attempt? [To AMALTHEA.] To you, fair Amalthea, what I am, And what all these, from me, we jointly owe: First, therefore, to your great desert we give Your brother's life; but keep him under guard Till our new power be settled. What more grace He may receive, shall from his future carriage Be given, as he deserves.

Arga. I neither now desire, nor will deserve it; My loss is such as cannot be repaired, And, to the wretched, life can be no mercy.

Leon. Then be a prisoner always: Thy ill fate And pride will have it so: But since in this I cannot, Instruct me, generous Amalthea, how A king may serve you.

Amal. I have all I hope, And all I now must wish; I see you happy. Those hours I have to live, which heaven in pity Will make but few, I vow to spend with vestals: The greatest part in prayers for you; the rest In mourning my unworthiness. Press me not farther to explain myself; 'Twill not become me, and may cause your trouble.

Leon. Too well I understand her secret grief, [Aside. But dare not seem to know it.—Come, my fairest; [To PALMYRA. Beyond my crown I have one joy in store, To give that crown to her whom I adore. [Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.

Thus have my spouse and I informed the nation, And led you all the way to reformation; Not with dull morals, gravely writ, like those, Which men of easy phlegm with care compose,— Your poets, of stiff words and limber sense, Born on the confines of indifference; But by examples drawn, I dare to say, From most of you who hear and see the play. There are more Rhodophils in this theatre, More Palamedes, and some few wives, I fear: But yet too far our poet would not run; Though 'twas well offered, there was nothing done. He would not quite the women's frailty bare, But stript them to the waist, and left them there: And the men's faults are less severely shown, For he considers that himself is one.— Some stabbing wits, to bloody satire bent, Would treat both sexes with less compliment; Would lay the scene at home; of husbands tell, For wenches, taking up their wives i' the Mall; And a brisk bout, which each of them did want, Made by mistake of mistress and gallant. Our modest author thought it was enough To cut you off a sample of the stuff: He spared my shame, which you, I'm sure, would not, For you were all for driving on the plot: You sighed when I came in to break the sport, And set your teeth when each design fell short. To wives and servants all good wishes lend, But the poor cuckold seldom finds a friend. Since, therefore, court and town will take no pity, I humbly cast myself upon the city.

Footnotes: 1. He mocks himself of me.] Melantha, like some modern coxcombs, uses the idiom as well as the words of the French language.

2. Dangerfield.] A dramatic bully, whose sword and habit became proverbial. "This gentleman, appearing with his mustaccios, according to the Turkish manner, Cordubee hat, and strange out-of-the-way clothes, just as if one had been dressed up to act Captain Dangerfield in the play, &c." Life of Sir Dudley North.

* * * * *

THE

ASSIGNATION;

OR,

LOVE IN A NUNNERY.

A

COMEDY.

Successum dea dira negat VIRG.



THE ASSIGNATION.

This play was unfortunate in the representation. It is needless, at the distance of more than a century, to investigate the grounds of the dislike of an audience, who, perhaps, could at the very time have given no good reason for their capricious condemnation of a play, not worse than many others which they received with applause. The author, in the dedication, hints at the "lameness of the action;" but, as the poet and performers are nearly equally involved in the disgrace of a condemned piece, it is a very natural desire on either side to assign the cause of its failure to the imperfections of the other; of which there is a ludicrous representation in a dialogue betwixt the player and the poet in "Joseph Andrews." Another cause of its unfavourable reception seems to have been, its second title of "Love in a Nunnery." Dryden certainly could, last of any man, have been justly suspected of an intention to ridicule the Duke of York and the Catholic religion; yet, as he fell under the same censure for the "Spanish Friar," it seems probable that such suspicions were actually entertained. The play certainly contains, in the present instance, nothing to justify them. In point of merit, "The Assignation" seems pretty much on a level with Dryden's other comedies; and certainly the spectators, who had received the blunders of Sir Martin Mar-all with such unbounded applause, might have taken some interest in those of poor Benito. Perhaps the absurd and vulgar scene, in which the prince pretends a fit of the cholic, had some share in occasioning the fall of the piece. This inelegant jeu de theatre is severely ridiculed in the "Rehearsal."

To one person, the damnation of this play seems to have afforded exquisite pleasure. This was Edward Ravenscroft, once a member of the Middle Temple,—an ingenious gentleman, of whose taste it may be held a satisfactory instance, that he deemed the tragedy of "Titus Andronicus" too mild for representation, and generously added a few more murders, rapes, and parricides, to that charnel-house of horrors[1]. His turn for comedy being at least equal to his success in the blood-stained buskin, Mr Ravenscroft translated and mangled several of the more farcical French comedies, which he decorated with the lustre of his own great name. Amongst others which he thus appropriated, were the most extravagant and buffoon scenes in Moliere's "Bourgeois Gentilhomme;" in which Monsieur Jourdain is, with much absurd ceremony, created a Turkish Paladin; and where Moliere took the opportunity to introduce an entree de ballet, danced and sung by the Mufti, dervises, and others, in eastern habits. Ravenscroft's translation, entitled "The Citizen turned Gentleman," was acted in 1672, and printed in the same year; the jargon of the songs, like similar nonsense of our own day, seems to have been well received on the stage. Dryden, who was not always above feeling indignation at the bad taste and unjust preferences of the age, attacked Ravenscroft in the prologue to "The Assignation," as he had before, though less directly, in that of "Marriage a-la-Mode." Hence the exuberant and unrepressed joy of that miserable scribbler broke forth upon the damnation of Dryden's performance, in the following passage of a prologue to another of his pilfered performances, called "The Careless Lovers," acted, according to Langbaine, in the vacation succeeding the fall of "The Assignation," in 1673:

An author did, to please you, let his wit run, Of late, much on a serving man and cittern; And yet, you would not like the serenade,— Nay, and you damned his nuns in masquerade: You did his Spanish sing-song too abhor; Ah! que locura con tanto rigor! In fine, the whole by you so much was blamed, To act their parts, the players were ashamed[2]. Ah, how severe your malice was that day! To damn, at once, the poet and his play[3]: But why was your rage just at that time shown, When what the author writ was all his own? Till then, he borrowed from romance, and did translate[4]; And those plays found a more indulgent fate.

Ravenscroft, however, seems to have given the first offence; for, in the prologue to "The Citizen turned Gentleman," licensed 9th August 1672, we find the following lines, obviously levelled at "The Conquest of Granada," and other heroic dramas of our author:

Then shall the knight, that had a knock in's cradle, Such as Sir Martin and Sir Arthur Addle[5], Be flocked unto, as the great heroes now In plays of rhyme and noise, with wondrous show:— Then shall the house, to see these Hectors kill and slay, That bravely fight out the whole plot of the play, Be for at least six months full every day.

Langbaine, who quotes the lines from the prologue to Ravenscroft's "Careless Lovers," is of opinion, that he paid Dryden too great a compliment in admitting the originality of "The Assignation," and labours to shew, that the characters are imitated from the "Romance Comique" of Scarron, and other novels of the time. But Langbaine seems to have been unable to comprehend, that originality consists in the mode of treating a subject, more than in the subject itself.

"The Assignation" was acted in 1672, and printed in 1673.

Footnotes:

1. In the prologue to this beautified edition, Ravenscroft modestly tells us:

Like other poets, he'll not proudly scorn To own, that he but winnowed Shakespeare's corn: So far was he from robbing him of's treasure, That he did add his own, to make full measure.

2. This looks as if there had been some ground for Dryden's censure upon the actors.

3. A flat parody on the lines in Dryden's prologue, referring to Mamamouchi:

Grimace and habit sent you pleased away: You damned the poet, but cried up the play.

4. It is somewhat remarkable, that the censure contained in what is above printed like verses, recoils upon the head of the author, who never wrote a single original performance. Langbaine, the persecutor of all plagiarism, though he did not know very well in what it consisted, threatens to "pull off Ravenscroft's disguise, and discover the politic plagiary that lurks under it. I know," continues the biographer, "he has endeavoured to shew himself master of the art of swift writing, and would persuade the world, that what he writes is extempore wit, and written currente calamo. But I doubt not to shew, that though he would be thought to imitate the silk-worm, that spins its web from its own bowels, yet I shall make him appear like the leech, that lives upon the blood of other men, drawn from the gums; and, when he is rubbed with salt, spews it up again."

5. Sir Martin Mar-all we are acquainted with. Sir Arthur Addle is a similar character, in a play called "Sir Solomon, or, The Cautious Coxcomb," attributed to one John Caryll.



TO

MY MOST HONOURED FRIEND,

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, BART[1].

SIR,

The design of dedicating plays is as common and unjust, as that of desiring seconds in a duel. It is engaging our friends, it may be, in a senseless quarrel where they have much to venture, without any concernment of their own[2]. I have declared thus much beforehand, to prevent you from suspicion, that I intend to interest either your judgment or your kindness, in defending the errors of this comedy. It succeeded ill in the representation, against the opinion of many of the best judges of our age, to whom you know I read it, ere it was presented publicly. Whether the fault was in the play itself, or in the lameness of the action, or in the number of its enemies, who came resolved to damn it for the title, I will not now dispute. That would be too like the little satisfaction which an unlucky gamester finds in the relation of every cast by which he came to lose his money. I have had formerly so much success, that the miscarriage of this play was only my giving Fortune her revenge; I owed it her, and she was indulgent that she exacted not the payment long before. I will therefore deal more reasonably with you, than any poet has ever done with any patron: I do not so much as oblige you for my sake, to pass two ill hours in reading of my play. Think, if you please, that this dedication is only an occasion I have taken, to do myself the greatest honour imaginable with posterity; that is, to be recorded in the number of those men whom you have favoured with your friendship and esteem. For I am well assured, that, besides the present satisfaction I have, it will gain me the greatest part of my reputation with after ages, when they shall find me valuing myself on your kindness to me; I may have reason to suspect my own credit with them, but I have none to doubt of yours. And they who, perhaps, would forget me in my poems, would remember me in this epistle.

This was the course which has formerly been practised by the poets of that nation, who were masters of the universe. Horace and Ovid, who had little reason to distrust their immortality, yet took occasion to speak with honour of Virgil, Varius, Tibullus, and Propertius, their contemporaries; as if they sought, in the testimony of their friendship, a farther evidence of their fame. For my own part, I, who am the least amongst the poets, have yet the fortune to be honoured with the best patron, and the best friend. For, (to omit some great persons of our court, to whom I am many ways obliged, and who have taken care of me even amidst the exigencies of a war[3]) I can make my boast to have found a better Maecenas in the person of my Lord Treasurer Clifford[4], and a more elegant Tibullus in that of Sir Charles Sedley. I have chosen that poet to whom I would resemble you, not only because I think him at least equal, if not superior, to Ovid in his elegies; nor because of his quality, for he was, you know, a Roman knight, as well as Ovid; but for his candour, his wealth, his way of living, and particularly because of this testimony which is given him by Horace, which I have a thousand times in my mind applied to you:

Non tu corpus eras sine pectore: Dii tibi formam, Dii tibi divitias dederant, artemque fruendi. Quid voveat dulci nutricula majus alumno, Quam sapere, et fari possit quae sentiat, et cui Gratia, forma, valetudo contingat abunde; Et mundus victus, non deficiente crumena?

Certainly the poets of that age enjoyed much happiness in the conversation and friendship of one another. They imitated the best way of living, which was, to pursue an innocent and inoffensive pleasure, that which one of the ancients called eruditam voluptatem. We have, like them, our genial nights, where our discourse is neither too serious nor too light, but always pleasant, and, for the most part, instructive; the raillery, neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious on the absent; and the cups only such as will raise the conversation of the night, without disturbing the business of the morrow[5]. And thus far not only the philosophers, but the fathers of the church, have gone, without lessening their reputation of good manners, or of piety. For this reason, I have often laughed at the ignorant and ridiculous descriptions which some pedants have given of the wits, as they are pleased to call them; which are a generation of men as unknown to them, as the people of Tartary, or the Terra Australia, are to us. And therefore as we draw giants and anthropophagi in those vacancies of our maps, where we have not travelled to discover better; so those wretches paint lewdness, atheism, folly, ill-reasoning, and all manner of extravagancies amongst us, for want of understanding what we are. Oftentimes it so falls out, that they have a particular pique to some one amongst us, and then they immediately interest heaven in their quarrel; as it is an usual trick in courts, when one designs the ruin of his enemy, to disguise his malice with some concernment of the kings; and to revenge his own cause, with pretence of vindicating the honour of his master. Such wits as they describe, I have never been so unfortunate as to meet in your company; but have often heard much better reasoning at your table, than I have encountered in their books. The wits they describe, are the fops we banish: For blasphemy and atheism, if they were neither sin nor ill manners, are subjects so very common, and worn so threadbare, that people, who have sense, avoid them, for fear of being suspected to have none. It calls the good name of their wit in question as it does the credit of a citizen when his shop is filled with trumperies and painted titles, instead of wares: We conclude them bankrupt to all manner of understanding; and that to use blasphemy, is a kind of applying pigeons to the soles of the feet; it proclaims their fancy, as well as judgment, to be in a desperate condition. I am sure, for your own particular, if any of these judges had once the happiness to converse with you,—to hear the candour of your opinions; how freely you commend that wit in others of which you have, so large a portion yourself; how unapt you are to be censorious; with how much easiness you speak so many things, and those so pointed, that no other man is able to excel, or perhaps to reach by study;—they would, instead of your accusers, become your proselytes. They would reverence so much sense, and so much good nature in the same person; and come, like the satyr, to warm themselves at that fire, of which they were ignorantly afraid when they stood at a distance. But you have too great a reputation to be wholly free from censure: it is a fine which fortune sets upon all extraordinary persons, and from which you should not wish to be delivered until you are dead. I have been used by my critics much more severely, and have more reason to complain, because I am deeper taxed for a less estate. I am, ridiculously enough, accused to be a contemner of universities; that is, in other words, an enemy of learning; without the foundation of which, I am sure, no man can pretend to be a poet. And if this be not enough, I am made a detractor from my predecessors, whom I confess to have been my masters in the art. But this latter was the accusation of the best judge, and almost the best poet, in the Latin tongue. You find Horace complaining, that, for taxing some verses in Lucilius, he himself was blamed by others, though his design was no other than mine now, to improve the knowledge of poetry; and it was no defence to him, amongst his enemies, any more than it is for me, that he praised Lucilius where he deserved it; pagina laudatur eadem. It is for this reason I will be no more mistaken for my good meaning: I know I honour Ben Jonson more than my little critics, because, without vanity I may own, I understand him better[6]. As for the errors they pretend to find in me, I could easily show them, that the greatest part of them are beauties; and for the rest, I could recriminate upon the best poets of our nation, if I could resolve to accuse another of little faults, whom, at the same time, I admire for greater excellencies. But I have neither concernment enough upon me to write any thing in my own defence, neither will I gratify the ambition of two wretched scribblers, who desire nothing more than to be answered. I have not wanted friends, even among strangers, who have defended me more strongly, than my contemptible pedant could attack me[7]. For the other, he is only like Fungoso in the play, who follows the fashion at a distance, and adores the Fastidious Brisk of Oxford[8]. You can bear me witness, that I have not consideration enough for either of them to be angry. Let Maevius and Bavius admire each other; I wish to be hated by them and their fellows, by the same reason for which I desire to be loved by you. And I leave it to the world, whether their judgment of my poetry ought to be preferred to yours; though they are as much prejudiced by their malice, as I desire you should be led by your kindness, to be partial to,

SIR,

Your most humble, And most faithful servant, JOHN DRYDEN.

Footnotes:

1. Sir Charles Sedley, noted among "the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease," was so highly applauded for his taste and judgment, that Charles said, "Nature had given him a patent to be Apollo's viceroy." Some account has been given of this celebrated courtier, in the introduction to the Essay on Dramatic Poetry. Dryden was at this time particularly induced to appeal to the taste of the first among the gay world, by the repeated censures which had been launched against him from the groves of Academe. Mr Malone gives the titles of three pamphlets which had appeared against Dryden. 1. The Censure of the Rota, on Mr Dryden's Conquest of Granada, printed at Oxford. 2. A Description of the Academy of the Athenian Virtuoso, with a discourse held there in vindication of Mr Dryden's Conquest of Granada, against the Author of the Censure of the Rota. 3. A Friendly Vindication of Mr Dryden, from the Author of the Censure of the Rota, printed at Cambridge. Thus assailed by the grave and the learned, censured for the irregularities of his gay patrons, which he countenanced although he did not partake, and stigmatized as a detractor of his predecessors, and a defamer of classical learning, it was natural for Dryden to appeal to the most accomplished of those amongst whom he lived, and to whose taste he was but too strongly compelled to adapt his productions. Sedley, therefore, as a man of wit and gallantry, is called upon to support our author against the censures of pedantic severity. Whatever may be thought of the subject, the appeal is made with all Dryden's spirit and elegance, and his description of the attic evenings spent with Sedley and his gay associates, glosses over, and almost justifies, their occasional irregularities. We have but too often occasion to notice, with censure, the licentious manners of the giddy court of Charles; let us not omit its merited commendation. If the talents of the men of parts of that period were often ill-directed, and ill-rewarded, let not us, from whom that gratitude is justly due, forget that they were called forth and stimulated to exertion, by the countenance and applause of the great. We, at least, who enjoy the fruit of these exertions, ought to rejoice, that the courtiers of Charles possessed the taste to countenance and applaud the genius which was too often perverted by the profligacy of their example, and left unrewarded amid their selfish prodigality.

2. At this period, seconds in a duel fought, as well as principals.

3. The second Dutch war, then raging.

4. To whom the tragedy of "Amboyna" is dedicated.

5. It is impossible to avoid contrasting this beautiful account of elegant dissipation with the noted freak of Sir Charles Sedley, to whom it is addressed. In June 1663, being in company with Lord Buckhurst and Sir Thomas Ogle, in a tavern in Bowstreet, and having become furious with intoxication, they not only exposed themselves, by committing the grossest indecencies in the balcony, in the sight of the passengers; but, a mob being thus collected, Sedley stripped himself naked, and proceeded to harangue them in the grossest and most impious language. The indignation of the populace being excited, they attempted to burst into the house, and a desperate riot ensued, in which the orator and his companions had nearly paid for their frolic with their lives. For this riot they were indicted in the Court of Common Pleas, and heavily fined; Sedley in the sum of L. 500. When the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Hyde, to repress his insolence, asked him if he had ever read the "Complete Gentleman?" Sedley answered, that he had read more books than his lordship; a repartee which exhibits more effrontery than wit. The culprits employed Killigrew and another courtier to solicit a mitigation of the fine; but, in the true spirit of court friendship, they begged it for themselves, and extorted every farthing.

6. Our author here shortly repeats what he has said at more length in his Defence of the Epilogue to the second part of the Conquest of Granada.

7. The pedant Mr Malone conjectures to be Matthew Clifford, Master of the Charter-house, one of the Duke of Buckingham's colleagues in writing "The Rehearsal." But the pedant is obviously the same with the Fastidious Brisk of Oxford, mentioned in the following sentence, which can hardly apply to Clifford, who was educated at Cambridge. One Leigh is said by Wood to have written the Censure of the Rota; and as he was educated at Oxford and the book printed there, he may be "the contemptible pedant," though his profession was that of a player in the duke's company.

8. Fungoso and Sir Fastidious Brisk are two characters in "Every Man Out of his Humour;" the former of whom is represented as copying the dress and manners of the latter. Dryden seems only to mean, that one of those pamphleteers was the servile imitator of the other.



PROLOGUE.

Prologues, like bells to churches, toll you in With chiming verse, till the dull plays begin; With this sad difference though, of pit and pew, You damn the poet, but the priest damns you: But priests can treat you at your own expence, And gravely call you fools without offence. Poets, poor devils, have ne'er your folly shown, But, to their cost, you proved it was their own: For, when a fop's presented on the stage, Straight all the coxcombs in the town engage; For his deliverance and revenge they join, And grunt, like hogs, about their captive swine. Your poets daily split upon this shelf,— You must have fools, yet none will have himself. Or if, in kindness, you that leave would give, No man could write you at that rate you live: For some of you grow fops with so much haste, Riot in nonsense, and commit such waste, 'Twould ruin poets should they spend so fast. He, who made this, observed what farces hit, And durst not disoblige you now with wit. But, gentlemen, you over-do the mode; You must have fools out of the common road. Th' unnatural strained buffoon is only taking; No fop can please you now of God's own making. Pardon our poet, if he speaks his mind; You come to plays with your own follies lined: Small fools fall on you, like small showers, in vain; Your own oiled coats keep out all common rain. You must have Mamamouchi[1], such a fop As would appear a monster in a shop; He'll fill your pit and boxes to the brim, Where, rain'd in crowds, you see yourselves in him. Sure there's some spell, our poet never knew, In Hullibabilah de, and Chu, chu, chu; But Marababah sahem[2] most did touch you; That is, Oh how we love the Mamamouchi! Grimace and habit sent you pleased away: You damned the poet, and cried up the play. This thought had made our author more uneasy, But that he hopes I'm fool enough to please ye. But here's my grief,—though nature, joined with art, Have cut me out to act a fooling part, Yet, to your praise, the few wits here will say, 'Twas imitating you taught Haynes to play.

Footnotes: 1. See the introductory remarks on the "Citizen turned Gentleman," of Ravenscroft, where the jest turns on Jorden's being created a Mamamouchi, or Turkish paladin, as it is interpreted.

2. Trickman. I told him she was woundrous beautiful. Then said he, Marababa sahem, Ah how much in love am I!

Jorden. Marababa sahem, means, how much in love am I?

Trick. Yes.

Jorden. I am beholden to you for telling me, for I ne'er could have thought that Marababa sahem, should signify, Ah how much in love am I. Ah this Turkish is an admirable language! Citizen turned Gentleman, Act. IV.

In the same piece, we are presented with a grand chorus of Turks and Dervises, who sing, "Hu la baba la chou ba la baba la da."



DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

Duke of Mantua. Prince FREDERICK, his son. AURELIAN, a Roman Gentleman. CAMILLO, his friend. MARIO, Governor of Rome. ASCANIO, page of honour to the Prince. BENITO, Servant to AURELIAN. VALERIO, confidant to the Duke. FABIO, Servant to MARIO.

SOPHRONIA, Abbess of the Torr' di Specchi. LUCRETIA, a Lady designed to be a Nun. HIPPOLITA, a Nun. LAURA, } VIOLETTA } Sisters, nieces to MARIO. FRONTONA, lets Lodgings.

SCENE—Rome.



THE

ASSIGNATION;

OR,

LOVE IN A NUNNERY.

ACT I.

SCENE I.—A Room, a great glass placed.

Enter BENITO, with a guitar in his hand.

Ben. [Bowing to the glass.] Save you, sweet signior Benito; by my faith I am glad to see you look so bonnily to-day. Gad, sir, every thing becomes you to a miracle: your peruke, your clothes, your hat, your shoe-ties; and, gad, sir, let me tell you, you become every thing; you walk with such a grace, and you bow so pliantly!

Aurelian. [Within.] Benito, where are you, sirrah?

Ben. Sirrah! That my damned master should call a man of my extraordinary endowments, sirrah! A man of my endowments? Gad, I ask my own pardon, I mean a person of my endowments; for a man of my parts and talents, though he be but a valet de chambre, is a person; and let me tell my master—Gad, I frown too, as like a person as any jack-gentleman of them all; but, gad, when I do not frown, I am an absolute beauty, whatever this glass says to the contrary; and, if this glass deny it, 'tis a base lying glass; so I'll tell it to its face, and kick it down into the bargain.

Aur. [Within.] Why, Benito, how long shall we stay for you?

Ben. I come, sir.—What the devil would he have? But, by his favour, I'll first survey my dancing and my singing. [He plays on his guitar, and dances and sings to the glass.] I think that was not amiss: I think so. Gad, I can dance [Lays down the guitar.] and play no longer, I am in such a rapture with myself. What a villanous fate have I! With all these excellencies, and a profound wit, and yet to be a serving-man!

Enter AURELIAN and CAMILLO.

Aur. Why, you slave, you dog, you son of twenty fathers, am I to be served at this rate eternally? A pox of your conceited coxcomb!

Cam. Nay, pr'ythee, Aurelian, be not angry.

Aur. You do not know this rogue, as I do, Camillo. Now, by this guitar, and that great looking-glass, I am certain how he has spent his time. He courts himself every morning in that glass at least an hour; there admires his own person, and his parts, and studies postures and grimaces, to make himself yet more ridiculous than he was born to be.

Cam. You wrong him, sure.

Aur. I do; for he is yet more fool than I can speak him. I never sent him on a message, but he runs first to that glass, to practise how he may become his errand. Speak, is this a lie, sirrah?

Ben. I confess, I have some kindness for the mirror.

Aur. The mirror! there's a touch of his poetry too; he could not call it a glass. Then the rogue has the impudence to make sonnets, as he calls them; and, which is greater impudence, he sings them too; there's not a street in all Rome which he does not nightly disquiet with his villanous serenade: with that guitar there, the younger brother of a cittern, he frights away the watch; and for his violin, it squeaks so lewdly, that Sir Tibert[1] in the gutter mistakes him for his mistress. 'Tis a mere cat-call.

Cam. Is this true, Benito?

Ben. to Cam. [Aside.] My master, sir, may say his pleasure; I divert myself sometimes with hearing him. Alas, good gentleman, 'tis not given to all persons to penetrate into men's parts and qualities; but I look on you, sir, as a man of judgment, and therefore you shall hear me play and sing. [He takes up the guitar, and begins.

Aur. Why, you invincible sot you, will nothing mend you? Lay it down, or—

Ben. to Cam. Do ye see, sir, this enemy to the muses? he will not let me hold forth to you. [Lays down the guitar.] O envy and ignorance, whither will you!—But, gad, before I'll suffer my parts to be kept in obscurity—

Aur, What will you do, rascal?

Ben. I'll take up the guitar, and suffer heroically. [He plays, AUR. kicks.

Aur. What? do you mutiny?

Ben. Ay, do, kick till your toes ache; I'll be baffled in my music by ne'er a foot in Christendom.

Aur. I'll put you out of your tune, with a vengeance to you. [As AURELIAN kicks harder, BENITO sings faster, and sometimes cries out.

Cam. holding Aur. Nay, then, 'tis time to stickle[2]. Hold, Aurelian, pr'ythee spare Benito, you know we have occasion for him.

Aur. I think that was well kicked.

Ben. And I think that was well sung too.

Cam. Enough, Aurelian.

Ben. No, sir; let him proceed to discourage virtue and see what will come on it.

Cam. Now to our business. But we must first instruct Benito.

Aur. Be ruled by me, and do not trust him. I prophesy he'll spoil the whole affair; he has a worm in his head as long as a conger, a brain so barren of all sense, and yet so fruitful of foolish plots, that if he does not all things his own way, yet at least he'll ever be mingling his designs with yours, and go halves with you; so that, what with his ignorance, what with his plotting, he'll be sure to ruin you with an intention to serve you. For my part, I had turned him off long since, but that my wise father commanded the contrary.

Cam. Still you speak, as if what we did were choice, and not necessity. You know their uncle is suspicious of me, and consequently jealous of all my servants; but if we employ yours, who is not suspected, because you are a stranger, I doubt not to get an assignation with the younger sister.

Aur. Well, use your own way, Camillo: but if it ever succeed with his management—

Cam. You must understand then, Benito, that this old Signior Mario has two nieces, with one of which I am desperately in love, and—

Ben. [Aside to him.] I understand you already, sir, and you desire love reciprocal. Leave your business in my hands; and, if it succeed not, think me no wiser than my master.

Cam. Pray take me with you. These sisters are great beauties, and vast fortunes; but, by a clause in their father's will, if they marry without their uncle's consent, are to forfeit all. Their uncle, who is covetous and base to the last degree, takes advantage of this clause; and, under pretence of not finding fit matches for them, denies his consent to all who love them.

Ben. Denies them marriage! Very good, sir.

Cam. More than this, he refuses access to any suitor, and immures them in a mean apartment on the garden side, where he barbarously debars them from all human society.

Ben. Uses them most barbarously! Still better and better.

Cam. The younger of these sisters, Violetta, I have seen often in the garden, from the balcony in this chamber, which looks into it; have divers times shot tickets on the point of an arrow, which she has taken; and, by the signs she made me, I find they were not ill received.

Ben. I'll tell you now, just such an amour as this had I once with a young lady, that—

Aur. Quote yourself again, you rogue, and my feet shall renew their acquaintance with your buttocks.

Cam. Dear Benito, take care to convey this ticket to Violetta; I saw her just now go by to the next chapel: be sure to stand ready to give her holy water, and slip the ticket into the hand of her woman Beatrix; and take care the elder sister, Laura, sees you not, for she knows nothing of our amour.

Ben. A word to the wise. Have you no service to Laura? [To AUR.

Aur. None that I shall trouble you withal; I'll see first what returns you make from this voyage, before I put in my venture with you. Away; begone, Mr Mercury.

Ben. I fly, Mr Jupiter. [Exit.

Aur. This lady, Laura, I have seen from your balcony, and was seen by her. Methought, too, she looked with a languishing eye upon me, as who should say, Are you a man, and have no pity for a poor distressed virgin? For my part, I never found so much disposition in myself to love any woman at first sight. Handsome she is; of that I am certain.

Cam. And has wit, I dare assure you; but I have not heard she has admitted of any gallantry.

Aur. Her hour is not come yet; she has not met with a man to love; when that happens, (as I am resolved to push my fortune) you shall see that, as her love warms, her virtue will melt down, and dissolve in it; for there's no such bawd to a woman, as her own wit is.

Cam. I look upon the assignation as certain; will you promise me to go? You and Benito shall walk in the garden, while I search the nymph within the shade. One thing I had forgot to tell you, that our general of the church, the Duke of Mantua, and the prince his son, are just approaching the gates of Rome. Will you go see the ceremony of their entrance?

Aur. With all my heart. They say he has behaved himself gallantly against the French, at their return from Naples. Besides, I have a particular knowledge of young prince Frederick, ever since he was last at our Venetian carnivals.

Cam. Away, then, quickly; lest we miss the solemnity. [Exeunt.

Enter LAURA and VIOLETTA, striving about a letter, which LAURA holds.

Vio. Let it go, I say.

Lau. I say, let you go.

Vio. Nay, sweet sister Laura.

Lau. Nay, dear Violetta, it is in vain to contend; I am resolved I'll see it. [Plucks the paper from VIOLETTA.

Vio. But I am resolved you shall not read it. I know not what authority this is which you assume, or what privilege a year or two can give you, to use this sovereignty over me.

Lau. Do you rebel, young gentlewoman? I'll make you know I have a double right over you. One, as I have more years, and the other, as I have more wit.

Vio. Though I am not all air and fire, as you are, yet that little wit I have will serve to conduct my affairs without a governess.

Lau. No, gentlewoman, but it shall not. Are you fit, at fifteen, to be trusted with a maidenhead? It is as much as your betters can manage at full twenty.

_For 'tis of a nature so subtile, That, if it's not luted with care, The spirit will work through the bottle, And vanish away into air.

To keep it, there nothing so hard is, 'Twill go betwixt waking and sleeping; The simple too weak for a guard is, And no wit would be plagued with the keeping._

Vio. For aught I see, you are as little to be trusted with your madness, as I with my simplicity; and, therefore, pray restore my letter.

Lau. [Reading it.] What's here? An humble petition for a private meeting? Are you twittering at that sport already, mistress novice?

Vio. How! I a novice at ripe fifteen? I would have you to know, that I have killed my man before I was fourteen, and now am ready for another execution.

Lau. A very forward rose-bud: You open apace, gentlewoman. I find indeed your desires are quick enough; but where will you have cunning to carry on your business with decency and secrecy? Secrecy, I say, which is a main part of chastity in our sex. Where wit, to be sensible of the delicacies of love? the tenderness of a farewell-sigh for an absence? the joy of a return? the zeal of a pressing hand? the sweetness of little quarrels, caused and cured by the excess of love? and, in short, the pleasing disquiets of the soul, always restless, and wandering up and down in a paradise of thought, of its own making?

Vio. If I understood not thus much before, I find you are an excellent instructor; and that argues you have had a feeling of the cause in your time too, sister.

Lau. What have I confessed before I was aware! She'll find out my inclination to that stranger, whom I have only seen, and to whom I have never spoken—[Aside.] No, good Violetta, I never was in love; all my experience is from plays and romances. But, who is this man, to whom you have promised an assignation?

Vio. You'll tell my uncle.

Lau. I hate my uncle more than you do.

Vio. You know the man, 'tis signior Camillo: His birth and fortunes are equal to what I can expect; and he tells me his intentions are honourable.

Lau. Have I not seen him lately in his balcony, which looks into our garden, with another handsome gentleman in his company, who seems a stranger?

Vio. They are the same. Do you think it a reasonable thing, dear Laura, that my uncle should keep us so strictly, that we must be beholden to hearsay, to know a young gallant is in the next house to us?

Lau. 'Tis hard, indeed, to be mewed like hawks, and never manned: To be locked in like nuns here.

Vio. They, that look for nun's flesh in me, shall be mistaken.

Lau. Well, what answer have you returned to this letter?

Vio. That I would meet him at eight this evening, in the close walk in the garden, attended only by Beatrix, my woman.

Lau. Who comes with him?

Vio. Only his friend's man, Benito; the same who brought me the letter which you took from me.

Lau. Stay, let me think a little. Does Camillo, or this Benito, know your maid Beatrix?

Vio. They have never talked with her; but only seen her.

Lau. 'Tis concluded then. You shall meet your servant, but I'll be your Beatrix: I'll go instead of her, and counterfeit your waiting-woman; in the dark I may easily pass for her. By this means I shall be present to instruct you, for you are yet a callow maid: I must teach you to peck a little; you may come to prey for yourself in time.

Vio. A little teaching will serve my turn: If the old one left me to myself, I could go near to get my living.

Lau. I find you are eager, and baiting to be gone already, and I'll not hinder you when your hour approaches. In the mean time, go in, and sigh, and think fondly and ignorantly of your approaching pleasures:

Love, in young hearts, is like the must of wine; 'Tis sweetest then; but elder 'tis more fine. [Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.—The front of a Nunnery.

Prince FREDERICK, AURELIAN, CAMILLO, and ASCANIO, the Prince's Page.

Fred. My father's ancient, and may repose himself, if he pleases, after the ceremony of his entrance; but we, who are younger, should think it a sin to spend any part of day-light in a chamber. What are your ways of living here?

Cam. Why, sir, we pass our time, either in conversation alone, or in love alone, or in love and conversation together.

Fred. Come, explain, explain, my counsel learned in the laws of living.

Cam. For conversation alone; that's either in going to court, with a face of business, and there discoursing of the affairs of Europe, of which Rome, you know, is the public mart; or, at best, meeting the virtuosi, and there wearying one another with rehearsing our own works in prose and poetry.

Fred. Away with that dry method, I will have none on't. To the next.

Cam. Love alone, is either plain wenching, where every courtezan is your mistress, and every man your rival; or else, what's worse, plain whining after one woman: that is, walking before her door by day, and haunting her street by night, with guitars, dark-lanthorns, and rondaches[3].

Aur. Which, I take it, is, or will he our case, Camillo.

Fred. Neither of these will fit my humour: If your third prove not more pleasant, I shall stick to the old Almain recreation; the divine bottle, and the bounteous glass, that tuned up old Horace to his odes.

Aur. You shall need to have no recourse to that; for love and conversation will do your business: that is, sir, a most delicious courtezan,—I do not mean down-right punk,—but punk of more than ordinary sense in conversation; punk in ragou, punk, who plays on the lute, and sings; and, to sum up all, punk, who cooks and dresses up herself, with poignant sauce, to become a new dish every time she is served up to you.

Fred. This I believe, Aurelian, is your method of living, you talk of it so savourily.

Aur. There is yet another more insipid sort of love and conversation: As, for example, look you there, sir; the courtship of our nuns. [Pointing to the Nunnery.] They talk prettily; but, a pox on them, they raise our appetites, and then starve us. They are as dangerous as cold fruits without wine, and are never to be used but where there are abundance of wenches in readiness, to qualify them.

Cam. But yet they are ever at hand, and easy to come by; and if you'll believe an experienced sinner, easiness in love is more than half the pleasure of it.

Fred. This way of chatting pleases me; for debauchery, I hate it; and to love is not in my nature, except it be my friends. Pray, what do you call that nunnery?

Cam. 'Tis a house of Benedictines, called the Torre di Specchi, where only ladies of the best quality are professed. [LUCRETIA and HIPPOLITA appear at the grate.

Aur. Look you yonder, sir, are two of the pretty magpies in white and black. If you will lull yourself into a Platonic dream, you may; but consider your sport will be dull when you play without stakes.

Fred. No matter, I'll fool away an hour of courtship; for I never was engaged in a serious love, nor I believe can be. Farewell, gentlemen; at this time I shall dispense with your attendance;—nay, without ceremony, because I would be incognito.

Cam. Come then, Aurelian, to our own affairs. [Exeunt AURELIAN and CAMILLO.

The Prince and ASCANIO approach.

Fred. [To LUCRETIA.] For what crime, fair creature, were you condemned to this perpetual prison?

Luc. For chastity and devotion, and two or three such melancholy virtues: They first brought me hither, and must now keep me company.

Fred. I should rather have guessed it had been murder, and that you are veiled for fear of doing more mischief with those eyes; for, indeed, they are too sharp to be trusted out of the scabbard.

Luc. Cease, I beseech you, to accuse my eyes, till they have done some execution on your heart.

Fred. But I am out of reach, perhaps.

Luc. Trust not to that; they may shoot at a distance, though they cannot strike you near at hand.

Fred. But if they should kill, you are ne'er the better: There's a grate betwixt us, and you cannot fetch in the dead quarry.

Luc. Provided we destroy the enemy, we do not value their dead bodies: But you, perhaps, are in your first error, and think we are rather captives than warriors; that we come like prisoners to the grate, to beg the charity of passengers for their love.

Fred. [To ASCANIO.] Enquire, as dextrously as you can, what is the name and quality of this charming creature.

Luc. [To HIPPOLITA.] Be sure, if the page approaches you, to get out of him his master's name. [The Prince and LUCRETIA seem to talk.

Hip. [To ASCANIO.] By that short whisper, which I observed you took with your master, I imagine, Mr Page, you come to ask a certain question of me.

Asca. By this thy question, and by that whisper with thy lady, (O thou nymph of devotion!) I find I am to impart a secret, and not to ask one: Therefore, either confess thou art yet a mere woman under that veil, and, by consequence, most horribly inquisitive, or thou shalt lose thy longing, and know nothing of my master.

Hip. By my virginity, you shall tell first.

Asca. You'll break your oath, on purpose to make the forfeit.

Hip. Your master is called—

Asca. Your lady is ycleped—

Hip. For decency, in all matters of love, the man should offer first, you know.

Asca. That needs not, when the damsel is so willing.

Hip. But I have sworn not to discover first, that her name is madam Lucretia; fair, as you see, to a miracle, and of a most charming conversation; of royal blood, and niece to his holiness; and, if she were not espoused to heaven, a mistress for a sovereign prince.

Asca. After these encomiums, 'twere vain for me to praise my master: He is only poor prince Frederick, otherwise called the prince of Mantua; liberal, and valiant, discreet and handsome, and, in my simple judgment, a fitter servant for your lady, than his old father, who is a sovereign.

Hip. Dare you make all this good, you have said of your master?

Asca. Yes, and as much more of myself to you.

Hip. I defy you upon't, as my lady's second.

Asca. As my master's, I accept it. The time?

Hip. Six this evening.

Asca. The place?

Hip. At this grate.

Asca. The weapons?

Hip. Hands, and it may be lips.

Asca. 'Tis enough: Expect to hear from me. [They withdraw, and whisper to their Principals. After the whisper.

Fred. [To LUCRETIA.] Madam, I am glad I know my enemy; for since it is impossible to see, and not admire you, the name of Lucretia is the best excuse for my defeat.

Luc. Persons, like prince Frederick, ought not to assault religious houses, or to pursue chastity and virtue to their last retreat.

Fred. A monastery is no retreat for chastity; 'tis only a hiding place for bad faces, where they are thrust in crowds together, like heaps of rubbish out of the way, that the world may not be peopled with deformed persons: And that such, who are out of play themselves, may pray for a blessing on their endeavours, who are getting handsome children, and carrying on the work for public benefit.

Luc. Then you would put off heaven with your leavings, and use it like them, who play at cards alone; take the courts for yourselves, and give the refuse to the gentlemen.

Fred. You mistake me, madam; I would so contrive it, that heaven and we might be served at once. We have occasion for wit and beauty; now piety and ugliness will do as well for heaven: that plays at one game, and we at another; and therefore heaven may make its hand with the same cards that we put out.

Luc. I could easily convince you, if the argument concerned me; hut I am one of those, whom, for want of wit and beauty, you have condemned to religion; and therefore am your humble servant, to pray for your handsome wife and children.

Fred. Heaven forbid, madam, that I should condemn you, or indeed any handsome woman, to be religious! No, madam; the occasions of the world are great and urgent for such as you; and, for my part, I am of opinion, that it is as great a sin for a beauty to enter into a nunnery, as for an ugly woman to stay out of it.

Luc. The cares of the world are not yet upon you; but as soon as ever you come to be afflicted with sickness, or visited with a wife, you'll be content I should pray for you.

Fred. Any where rather than in a cloyster; for, truly, I suppose, all your prayers there will be how to get out of it; and, upon that supposition, madam, I am come to offer you my service for your redemption. Come, faith, be persuaded, the church shall lose nothing by it: I'll take you out, and put in two or three crooked apostles in your place. [Bell rings within.

Luc. Hark, the bell rings; I must leave you: 'tis a summons to our devotion.

Fred. Will you leave me for your prayers, madam? You may have enough of them at any time, but remember you cannot have a man so easily.

Luc. Well, I'll say my beads for you, and that's but charity; for I believe I leave you in a most deplorable condition. [Exeunt Women.

Fred. Not deplorable neither, but a little altered: If I could be in love, as I am sure I cannot, it should be with her, for I like her conversation strangely.

Asca. Then, as young as I am, sir, I am beforehand with you; for I am in love already. I would fain make the first proof of my manhood upon a nun: I find I have a mighty grudging to holy flesh.

Fred. I'll ply Lucretia again, as soon as ever her devotion's over. Methinks these nuns divide their time most admirably; from love to prayers, from prayers to love; that is, just so much sin, just so much godliness.

Asca. Then I can claim that sister's love by merit. Half man, half boy; for her half flesh, half spirit. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.—A Street.

AURELIAN and CAMILLO.

Aur. I'll proceed no farther, if Benito goes: I know his folly will produce some mischief.

Cam. But Violetta desired me, in her note, to bring him, on purpose to pass the time with her woman, Beatrix.

Aur. That objection's easily removed: I'll supply Benito's place; the darkness will prevent discovery; and, for my discourse, I'll imitate the half wit and patched breeding of a valet de chambre.

Cam. But how shall we get rid of him?

Aur. Let me alone for that.

Enter BENITO.

Ben. Come, are we ready, gallants? The clock's upon the stroke of eight.

Aur. But we have altered our resolution; we go another way to-night.

Ben. I hope you have not broke my assignation?

Aur. Why do you hope so?

Ben. Because my reputation is engaged in't: I've stipulated, upon mine honour, that you shall come.

Aur. I shall beat you, if you follow me. Go, sirrah, and adjourn to the great looking-glass, and let me hear no more from you till to-morrow morning.

Ben. Sir, my fidelity, and, if I may be so vain, my discretion, may stand you in some stead.

Aur. Well, come along then; they are brave fellows, who have challenged us; you shall have fighting enough, sir.

Ben. How, sir, fighting?

Aur. You may escape with the loss of a leg, or an arm, or some such transitory limb.

Ben. No, sir; I have that absolute obedience to your commands, that I will bridle my courage, and stay at home. [Exit.

Cam. You took the only way to be rid of him. There's the wall; behind yon pane of it we'll set up the ladder. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.—A Night-piece of a Garden.

Enter LAURA and VIOLETTA.

Vio. Remember your waiting-woman's part, Laura.

Lau. I warrant you, I'll wait on you by night, as well as I governed you by day.

Vio. Hark, I hear footsteps; and now, methinks, I see something approaching us.

Lau. They are certainly the men whom we expect.

Enter AURELIAN and CAMILLO.

Cam. I hear womens' voices.

Aur. We are right, I warrant you.

Cam. Violetta, my love!

Vio. My dear Camillo!

Cam. Speak those words again; my own name never sounded so sweetly to me, as when you spoke it, and made me happy by adding dear to it.

Vio. Speak softly then; I have stolen these few minutes from my watchful uncle and my sister, and they are as full of danger as they are of love. Something within me checks me too, and says, I was too forward in venturing thus to meet you.

Cam. You are too fearful rather; and fear's the greatest enemy to love.

Vio. But night will hide my blushes, when I tell you, I love you much, or I had never trusted my virtue and my person in your hands.

Cam. The one is sacred, and the other safe; but this auspicious minute is our first of near converse. May I not hope that favour, which strangers, in civility, may claim, even from the most reserved? [Kisses her hand.

Vio. I fear you'll censure me.

Cam. Yes, as the blest above tax heaven for making them so happy. [They walk further off.

Aur. [Stepping towards LAURA.] Damsel of darkness, advance, and meet my flames!

Lau. [Stepping forward.] Right trusty valet, heard, but yet unseen, I have advanced one step on reputation.

Aur. Now, by laudable custom, I am to love thee vehemently.

Lau. We should do well to see each other first: You know 'tis ill taking money without light.

Aur. O, but the coin of love is known by the weight only, and you may feel it in the dark: Besides, you know 'tis prince-like to love without seeing.

Lau. But then you may be served as princes are sometimes.

Aur. Let us make haste, however, and despatch a little love out of the way: We may do it now with ease, and save ourselves a great deal of trouble, if we take it in time, before it grows too fast upon our hands.

Lau. Fye, no; let us love discreetly: we must manage our passion, and not love all our love out at one meeting, but leave some for another time.

Aur. I am for applying the plaster while the wound is green; 'twill heal the better. [Takes her by the hand.

Lau. Let go my hand! What crime has the poor wretch committed, that you press it thus? I remember no mischief it has done you.

Aur. O, 'tis a heinous malefactor, and is pressed by law, because it will confess nothing. Come, withdraw a little farther, we have urgent business with one another.

Lau. 'Twere a shame to quit my ground upon the first charge; yet if you please to take a truce a little, I will consent to go behind the lovers, and listen with you.

Aur. I wonder you deferred the proposition so long. I were neither true valet, nor you true woman, if we could not eves-drop. [They retire behind the other two, who come forward upon the Stage.

Cam. [Kissing VIOLETTA'S hand.] Give me another yet, and then—

Vio. And then will you be satisfied?

Cam. And then I'll ask a thousand more, and ne'er be satisfied. Kisses are but thin nourishment; they are too soon digested, and hungry love craves more.

Vio. You feed a wolf within you.

Cam. Then feast my love with a more solid diet. He makes us now a miser's feast, and we forbear to take our fill. The silent night, and all these downy hours, were made for lovers: Gently they tread, and softly measure time, that no rude noise may fright the tender maid, from giving all her soul to melting joys.

Vio. You do not love me; if you did, you would not Thus urge your satisfaction in my shame; At best, I see you would not love me long, For they, who plunder, do not mean to stay.

Cam. I haste to take possession of my own.

Vio. Ere heaven and holy vows have made it so?

Cam. Then witness, heaven, and all these twinkling stars—

Vio. Hold, hold, you are distempered with your love; Time, place, and strong desires, now swear, not you.

Cam. Is not love love, without a priest and altars? The temples are inanimate, and know not What vows are made in them; the priest stands ready For his hire, and cares not what hearts he couples; Love alone is marriage.

Vio. I never will receive these midnight vows: But when I come hereafter to your arms, I'll bring you a sincere, full, perfect bliss; Then you will thank me that I kept it so, And trust my faith hereafter.

Lau. There is your destiny, lover mine: I am to be honest by infection; my lady will none, you see.

Aur. Truth is, they are a lost couple, unless they learn grace by our example. Come, shall we begin first, and shame them both? [Takes her by the hand again.

Lau. You will never be warned of this hand, Benito.

Aur. Oh, it is so soft, as it were made on purpose to take hearts, and handle them without hurting! These taper fingers too, and even joints so supple, that methinks I mould them as they pass through mine: nay, in my conscience, though it be nonsense to say it, your hand feels white too.

Lau. Methinks yours is not very hard, for a serving-man's. But where, in the name of wonder, have you learned to talk so courtly? You are a strange valet de chambre.

Aur. And you are as strange a waiting-woman: You have so stabbed me with your repartees to-night, that I should be glad to change the weapon, to be revenged on you.

Lau. These, I suppose, are fragments, which you learned from your wild master, Aurelian: many a poor woman has passed through his hands with these very words. You treat me just like a serving-man, with the cold meat which comes from your master's table.

Aur. You could never have suspected me for using my master's wit, if you had not been guilty of purloining from your lady. I am told, that Laura, your mistress's sister, has wit enough to confound a hundred Aurelians.

Lau. I shall do your commendations to Laura for your compliment.

Aur. And I shall not fair to revenge myself, by informing Aurelian of yours.

Enter BENITO with a Guitar.

Ben. The poor souls shall not lose by the bargain, though my foolish gadding masters have disappointed them. That ladder of ropes was doubtless left there by the young lady in hope of them.

Vio. Hark, I hear a noise in the garden.

Lau. I fear we are betrayed.

Cam. Fear nothing, madam, but stand close.

Ben. Now, Benito, is the time to hold forth thy talent, and to set up for thyself. Yes, ladies, you shall be serenaded, and when I have displayed my gifts, I'll retire in triumph over the wall, and hug myself for the adventure. [He fums on the Guitar.

Vio. Let us make haste, sister, and get into covert; this music will raise the house upon us immediately.

Lau. Alas, we cannot; the damn'd musician stands just in the door where we should pass.

Ben. singing. Eveillez vous, belles endormies; Eveillez vous: car il est jour: Mettez la tete a la fenestre, Vous entendrez parler d'amour.

Aur. [aside to CAM.] Camillo, this is my incorrigible rogue; and I dare not call him, Benito, for fear of discovering myself not to be Benito.

Cam. The alarm is already given through the house. Ladies, you must be quick: Secure yourselves and leave us to shift. [Exeunt Women.

Within. This way, this way.

Aur. I hear them coming; and, as ill luck will have it, just by that quarter where our ladder is placed.

Cam. Let us hide in the dark walk till they are past.

Aur. But then Benito will be caught, and, being known to be my man, will betray us.

Ben. I hear some in the garden: Sure they are the ladies, that are taken with my melody. To it again, Benito; this time I will absolutely enchant them. [Fums again.

Aur: He is at it again. Why, Benito, are you mad?

Ben. Ah, madam! are you there? This is such a favour to your poor unworthy servant. [Sings.

But still between kissing Amyntas did say, Fair Phillis, look up, and you'll turn night to day.

Aur. Come away, you insufferable rascal; the house is up, and will be upon us immediately.

Ben. O gemini, is it you, sir?

Within. This way; follow, follow.

Aur. Leave your scraping and croaking, and step with us into this arbour.

Ben. Scraping and croaking! 'Sfoot, sir, either grant I sing and play to a miracle, or I'll justify my music, though I am caught, and hanged for it.

Enter MARIO, and Servants.

Mar. Where is this serenading rascal? If I find him, I'll make him an example to all midnight caterwaulers, of which this fidler is the loudest.

Ben. O that I durst but play my tune out, to convince him! Soul of harmony! Is this lewd? [Plays and sings softly.

Cam. Peace, dear Benito: We must flatter him.

Ben. [singing softly.] Mettez le tete: The notes which follow are so sweet, sir, I must sing them, though it be my ruin—Parler d'amour. [LAURA and VIOLETTA in the Balcony.

Lau. Yes, we are safe, sister; but they are yet in danger.

Vio. They are just upon them.

Lau. We must do something: Help, help! thieves, thieves! we shall be murdered.

Mar. Where? Where are they?

Lau. Here, sir, at our chamber-door, and we are run into the balcony for shelter: Dear uncle, come and help us.

Mar. Back again quickly: I durst have sworn they had been in the garden. 'Tis an ignis fatuus, I think, that leads us from one place to another. [Exit MARIO, and Servants.

Vio. They are gone. My dear Camillo, make haste, and preserve yourself.

Cam. May our next meeting prove more propitious!

Aur. [To BENTIO.] Come, sirrah, I shall make you sing another note when you are at home.

Ben. Such another word, and I'll sing again.

Aur. Set the ladder, and mount first, you rogue.

Ben. Mount first yourself, and fear not my delaying. If I am caught, they'll spare me for my playing. [Sings as he goes off. Vouz entendrez parler d'amour. [Exeunt.

ACT III.

SCENE I.—The Front of the Nunnery.

ASCANIO, and HIPPOLITA, at the Grate.

Hip. I see you have kept touch, brother.

Asca. As a man of honour ought, sister, when he is challenged. And now, according to the laws of duel, the next thing is to strip, and, instead of seconds, to search one another.

Hip. We will strip our hands, if you please, brother; for they are the only weapons we must use.

Asca. That were to invite me to my loss, sister; I could have made a full meal in the world, and you would have me take up with hungry commons in the cloyster. Pray mend my fare, or I am gone.

Hip. O, brother, a hand in a cloyster is fare like flesh in Spain; 'tis delicate, because 'tis scarce. You may be satisfied with a hand, as well as I am pleased with the courtship of a boy.

Asca. You may begin with me, sister, as Milo did; by carrying a calf first, you may learn to carry an ox hereafter. In the mean time produce your hand, I understand nun's flesh better than you imagine: Give it me, you shall see how I will worry it. [She gives her hand.] Now could not we thrust out our lips, and contrive a kiss too?

Hip. Yes, we may; but I have had the experience of it: It will be but half flesh, half iron.

Asca. Let's try, however.

Hip. Hold, Lucretia's here.

Asca. Nay, If you come with odds upon me, 'tis time to call seconds. [ASCANIO hems.

The Prince and LUCRETIA appear.

Luc. Sir, though your song was pleasant, yet there was one thing amiss in it,—that was, your rallying of religion.

Fred. Do you speak well of my friend Love, and I'll try to speak well of your friend Devotion.

Luc. I can never speak well of love: 'Twas to avoid it that I entered here.

Fred. Then, madam, you have met your man; for, to confess the truth to you, I have but counterfeited love, to try you; for I never yet could love any woman: and, since I have seen you, and do not, I am certain now I shall 'scape for ever.

Luc. You are the best man in the world, if you continue this resolution. Pray, then, let us vow solemnly these two things: the first, to esteem each other better than we do all the world besides; the next, never to change our amity to love.

Fred. Agreed, madam. Shall I kiss your hand on it?

Luc. That is too like a lover; or if it were not, the narrowness of the grate will excuse the ceremony.

Hip. No, but it will not, to my knowledge: I have tried every bar many a fair time over; and at last have found out one, where a hand may get through, and be gallanted.

Luc. [giving her hand.] There, sir, 'tis a true one.

Fred. [kissing it.] This, then, is a seal to our perpetual friendship, and defiance to all love.

Luc. That seducer of virtue.

Fred. That disturber of quiet.

Luc. That madness of youth.

Fred. That dotage of old age.

Luc. That enemy to good humour.

Fred. And, to conclude all, that reason of all unreasonable actions.

Asca. This doctrine is abominable; do not believe it, sister.

Hip. No; if I do, brother, may I never have comfort from sweet youth at my extremity.

Luc. But remember one article of our friendship, that though we banish love, we do not mirth, nor gallantly; for I declare, I am for all extravagancies, but just loving.

Fred. Just my own humour; for I hate gravity and melancholy next to love.

Asca. Now it comes into my head, the duke of Mantua makes an entertainment to night in masquerade: If you love extravagancy so well, madam, I'll put you into the head of one; lay by your nunship for an hour or two, and come amongst us in disguise.

Fred. My boy is in the right, madam. Will you venture? I'll furnish you with masking-habits.

Hip. O my dear sister, never refuse it; I keep the keys, you know: I'll warrant you we will return before we are missed. I do so long to have one fling into the sweet world again, before I die. Hang it, at worst, it is but one sin more, and then we will repent for all together.

Asca. But if I catch you in the world, sister, I'll make you have a better opinion of the flesh and the devil for ever after.

Luc. If it were known, I were lost for ever.

Fred. How should it be known? You have her on your side, there, that keeps the keys: And, put the worst, that you are taken in the world, the world is a good world to stay in; and there are certain occasions of waking in a morning, that may be more pleasant to you than your matins.

Luc. Fye, friend, these extravagancies are a breach of articles in our friendship. But well, for once, I'll venture to go out: Dancing and singing are but petty transgressions.

Asca. My lord, here is company approaching; we shall be discovered.

Fred. Adieu, then, jusqu' a revoir; Ascanio shall be with you immediately, to conduct you.

Asca. How will you disguise, sister? Will you be a man or a woman?

Hip. A woman, brother page, for life: I should have the strangest thoughts if I once wore breeches.

Asca. A woman, say you? Here is my hand, if I meet you in place convenient, I'll do my best to make you one. [Exeunt.

Enter AURELIAN and CAMILLO.

Cam. But why thus melancholy, with hat pulled down, and the hand on the region of the heart, just the reverse of my friend Aurelian, of happy memory?

Aur. Faith, Camillo, I am ashamed of it, but cannot help it.

Cam. But to be in love with a waiting-woman! with an eater of fragments, a simperer at lower end of a table, with mighty golls, rough-grained, and red with starching, those discouragers and abaters of elevated love!

Aur. I could love deformity itself, with that good humour. She, who is armed with gaiety and wit, needs no other weapon to conquer me.

Cam. We lovers are the great creators of wit in our mistresses. For Beatrix, she is a mere utterer of yes and no, and has no more sense than what will just dignify her to be an arrant waiting-woman; that is, to lie for her lady, and take your money.

Aur. It may be, then, I found her in the exaltation of her wit; for certainly women have their good and ill days of talking, as they have of looking.

Cam. But, however, she has done you the courtesy to drive out Laura; and so one poison has expelled the other.

Aur. Troth, not absolutely neither; for I dote on Laura's beauty, and on Beatrix's wit: I am wounded with a forked arrow, which will not easily be got out.

Cam. Not to lose time in fruitless complaints, let us pursue our new contrivance, that you may see your two mistresses, and I my one.

Aur. That will not now be difficult: This plot's so laid, that I defy the devil to make it miss. The woman of the house, by which they are to pass to church, is bribed; the ladies are by her acquainted with the design; and we need only to be there before them, and expect the prey, which will undoubtedly fall into the net.

Cam. Your man is made safe, I hope, from doing us any mischief?

Aur. He has disposed of himself, I thank him, for an hour or two: The fop would make me believe, that an unknown lady is in love with him, and has made him an assignation.

Cam. If he should succeed now, I should have the worse opinion of the sex for his sake.

Aur. Never doubt but he will succeed: Your brisk fool, that can make a leg, is ever a fine gentleman among the ladies, because he is just of their talent, and they understand him better than a wit.

Cam. Peace, the ladies are coming this way to the chapel, and their jailor with them: Let them go by without saluting, to avoid suspicion; and let us go off to prepare our engine.

Enter MARIO, LAURA, and VIOLETTA.

Aur. I must have a look before we go. Ah, you little divine rogue! I'll be with you immediately. [Exeunt AURELIAN and CAMILLO.

Vio. Look you, sister, there are our friends, but take no notice.

Lau. I saw them. Was not that Aurelian with Camillo?

Vio. Yes.

Lau. I like him strangely. If his person were joined with Benito's wit, I know not what would become of my poor heart.

Enter FABIO, and whispers with MARIO.

Mar. Stay, nieces, I'll but speak a word with Fabio, and go with you immediately.

Vio. I see, sister, you are infinitely taken with Benito's wit; but I have heard he is a very conceited coxcomb.

Lau. They, who told you so, were horribly mistaken. You shall be judge yourself, Violetta; for, to confess frankly to you, I have made him a kind of an appointment.

Vio. How! have you made an assignation to Benito? A serving-man! a trencher-carrying rascal!

Lau. Good words, Violetta! I only sent to him from an unknown lady near this chapel, that I might view him in passing by, and see if his person were answerable to his conversation.

Vio. But how will you get rid of my uncle?

Lau. You see my project; his man Fabio is bribed by me, to hold him in discourse.

Enter BENITO, looking about him.

Vio. In my conscience this is he. Lord, what a monster of a man is there! with such a workiday rough-hewn face too! for, faith, heaven has not bestowed the finishing upon it.

Lau. It is impossible this should be Benito; yet he stalks this way. From such a piece of animated timber, sweet heaven deliver me!

Ben. [Aside.] This must of necessity be the lady who is in love with me. See, how she surveys my person! certainly one wit knows another by instinct. By that old gentleman, it should be the lady Laura too. Hum! Benito, thou art made for ever.

Lau. He has the most unpromising face, for a wit, I ever saw; and yet he had need have a very good one, to make amends for his face. I am half cured of him already.