SCENE II.--_A spacious Garden, belonging to_ DON CÆSAR.

_Enter_ MINETTE _and_ INIS, R. 2d E.

_Min._ There, will that do! My lady sent me to make her up a nosegay; these orange flowers are delicious, and this rose, how sweet?

_Inis._ Pho! what signifies wearing sweets in her bosom, unless they would sweeten her manners?--'tis amazing you can be so much at your ease; one might think your lady's tongue was a lute, and her morning scold an agreeable serenade.

_Min._ So they are--Custom, you know. I have been used to her music now these two years, and I don't believe I could relish my breakfast without it.

_Inis._ I would rather never break my fast, than do it on such terms. What a difference between your mistress and mine! Donna Victoria is as much too gentle, as her cousin is too harsh.

_Min._ Ay, and you see what she gets by it; had she been more spirited, perhaps her husband would not have forsaken her;--men enlisted under the matrimonial banner, like those under the king's, would be often tempted to run away from their colours, if fear did not keep them in dread of desertion.

_Inis._ If making a husband afraid is the way to keep him faithful, I believe your lady will be the happiest wife in Spain.

_Min._ Ha! ha! ha! how people may be deceived!--nay, how people are deceived!--but time will discover all things.

_Inis._ What! what, is there a secret in the business, Minette? if there is, hang time! let's have it directly.

_Min._ Now, if I dared but tell ye--lud! lud! how I could surprise ye!----[_Going._]

_Inis._ [_Stopping her._] Don't go.

_Min._ I must go; I am on the very brink of betraying my mistress,--I must leave you--mercy upon me!--it rises like new bread.

_Inis._ I hope it will choke ye, if you stir till I know all.

_Min._ Will you never breathe a syllable?

_Inis._ Never.

_Min._ Will you strive to forget it the moment you have heard it?

_Inis._ I'll swear to myself forty times a-day to forget it.

_Min._ You are sure you will not let me stir from this spot till you know the whole?

_Inis._ Not as far as a thrush hops.

_Min._ So! now, then, in one word,--here it goes. Though every body supposes my lady an arrant scold, she's no more a----[_Looking out._] _Don Cæsar._ [_Without_, L.] Out upon't e--h--h!

_Min._ Oh, St. Gerome!--here is her father, and his privy counsellor, Gasper. I can never communicate a secret in quiet. Well! come to my chamber, for, now my hand's in, you shall have the whole.--I would not keep it another day to be confidant to an infanta. [_Exeunt_, R.

_Enter_ DON CÆSAR _and_ GASPER, L.

_Gasp._ Take comfort, sir; take comfort.

_Cæsar._ Take it;--why, where the devil shall I find it? You may say, take physic, sir, or, take poison, sir----they are to be had; but what signifies bidding me take comfort, when I can neither buy it, beg it, nor steal it?

_Gasp._ But patience will bring it, sir.

_Cæsar._ 'Tis false, sirrah.--Patience is a cheat, and the man that ranked her with the cardinal virtues was a fool. I have had patience at bed and board these three long years, but the comfort she promised, has never called in with a civil how d'ye?

_Gasp._ Ay, sir, but you know the poets say that the twin sister and companion of comfort is good humour. Now if you would but drop that agreeable acidity, which is so conspicuous----

_Cæsar._ Then let my daughter drop her perverse humour; 'tis a more certain bar to marriage than ugliness or folly; and will send me to my grave, at last, without male heirs. [_Crying._] How many have laid siege to her! But that humour of hers, like the works of Gibraltar, no Spaniard can find pregnable.

_Gasp._ Ay, well--Troy held out but ten years----Let her once tell over her beads, unmarried at five-and-twenty, and, my life upon it, she ends the rosary, with a hearty prayer for a good husband.

_Cæsar._ What, d'ye expect me to wait till the horrors of old maidenism frighten her into civility? no, no;--I'll shut her up in a convent, marry myself, and have heirs in spite of her. There's my neighbour Don Vasquez's daughter, she is but nineteen----

_Gasp._ The very step I was going to recommend, sir. You are but a young gentleman of sixty-three, I take it; and a husband of sixty-three, who marries a wife of nineteen, will never want heirs, take my word for it.

_Cæsar._ What! do you joke, sirrah?

_Gasp._ Oh no, sir--not if you are serious. I think it would be one of the pleasantest things in the world--Madam would throw a new life into the family; and when you are above stairs in the gout, sir, the music of her concerts, and the spirit of her converzationes, would reach your sick bed, and be a thousand times more comforting than flannels and panada.

_Cæsar._ Come, come, I understand ye.--But this daughter of mine--I shall give her but two chances more.----Don Garcia and Don Vincentio will both be here to-day, and if she plays over the old game, I'll marry to-morrow morning, if I hang myself the next.

_Gasp._ You decide right, signor; at sixty-three the marriage noose and the hempen noose should always go together.

_Cæsar._ Why, you dog you, do you suppose--There's Don Garcia--there he is coming through the portico. Run to my daughter, and bid her remember what I have said to her. [_Exit_ GASPER, R.] She has had her lesson--but another memento mayn't be amiss--a young slut! pretty, and witty, and rich--a match for a prince, and yet--but hist!----Not a word to my young man; if I can but keep him in ignorance till he is married, he must make the best of his bargain afterwards, as other honest men have done before him.

_Enter_ GARCIA, L.

Welcome, Don Garcia! why, you are rather before your time.

_Gar._ Gallantry forbid that I should not, when a fair lady is concerned. Should Donna Olivia welcome me as frankly as you do, I shall think I have been tardy.

_Cæsar._ When you made your overtures, signor, I understood it was from inclination to be allied to my family, not from a particular passion to my daughter. Have you ever seen her?

_Gar._ But once--that transiently--yet sufficient to convince me that she is charming.

_Cæsar._ Why, yes, though I say it, there are few prettier women in Madrid; and she has got enemies amongst her own sex accordingly. They pretend to say that----I say, sir, they have reported that she is not blessed with that kind of docility and gentleness that a----now, though she may not be so very placid, and insipid, as some young women, yet, upon the whole--

_Gar._ Oh, fie, sir!--not a word--a beauty cannot be ill-tempered; gratified vanity keeps her in good humour with herself, and every body about her.

_Cæsar._ Yes, as you say--vanity is a prodigious sweetener; and Olivia, considering how much she has been humoured, is as gentle and pliant as----

_Enter_ MINETTE, R.

_Min._ Oh, sir! shield me from my mistress--She is in one of her old tempers--the whole house is in an uproar.--I cannot support it!

_Cæsar._ Hush!

_Min._ No, sir, I can't hush--a saint could not bear it. I am tired of her tyranny, and must quit her service.

_Cæsar._ Then quit it in a moment--go to my steward, and receive your wages--go--begone. 'Tis a cousin of my daughter's she is speaking of.

_Min._ A cousin, sir!--No, 'tis Donna Olivia, your daughter--my mistress. Oh, sir! you seem to be a sweet, tender-hearted young gentleman--'twould move you to pity if----[_To_ GARCIA.]

_Cæsar._ I'll move you, hussy, to some purpose, if you don't move off.

_Gar._ I am really confounded--can the charming Olivia----

_Cæsar._ Spite, sir--mere malice! my daughter has refused her some cast gown, or some--

_Olivia._ [_Without_, R.] Where is she?--Where is Minette?

_Cæsar._ Oh, 'tis all over!--the tempest is coming.

_Enter_ OLIVIA, R.

_Oliv._ Oh, you vile creature!--to speak to me!--to answer me!--am I made to be answered?

_Cæsar._ Daughter! daughter!

_Oliv._ Because I threw my work-bag at her, she had the insolence to complain; and, on my repeating it, said she would not bear it.--Servants choose what they shall bear!

_Min._ When you are married, ma'am, I hope your husband will bear your humour less patiently than I have done.

_Oliv._ My husband!--dost think my husband shall contradict my will? Oh, I long to set a pattern to those milky wives, whose mean compliances degrade the sex.

_Gar._ Opportune! [_Aside._]

_Oliv._ The only husband on record who knew how to treat a wife was Socrates; and though his lady was a Grecian, I have some reason to believe her descendants matched into our family; and never shall my tame submission disgrace my ancestry.

_Gar._ Heavens! why have you never curbed this intemperate spirit, Don Cæsar? [R. _of_ OLIVIA.]

_Oliv._ [_Starting._] Curbed, sir! talk thus to your groom--curbs and bridles for a woman's tongue!

_Gar._ Not for yours, lady, truly! 'tis too late. But had the torrent, not so overbearing, been taken at its spring, it might have been stemmed, and turned in gentle streamlets at the master's pleasure.

_Oliv._ A mistake, friend!--my spirit, at its spring, was too powerful for any master.

_Gar._ Indeed!--perhaps you may meet a Petruchio, gentle Catherine, yet.

_Oliv._ But no gentle Catherine will he find me, believe it.----Catherine! why, she had not the spirit of a roasted chestnut--a few big words, an empty oath, and a scanty dinner, made her as submissive as a spaniel. My fire will not be so soon extinguished--it shall resist big words, oaths, and starving.

_Min._ I believe so, indeed; help the poor gentleman, I say, to whose fate you fall! [_Returns up._]

_Gar._ Don Cæsar, adieu! My commiseration for your fate subdues the resentment I should otherwise feel at your endeavouring to deceive me into such a marriage. [_Crosses_, L.]

_Oliv._ Marriage! oh, mercy!--Is this Don Garcia! [_Apart to_ CÆSAR.]

_Cæsar._ Yes, termagant!

_Oliv._ O, what a misfortune! Why did you not tell me it was the gentleman you designed to marry me to?--Oh, sir! all that is past was in sport; a contrivance between my maid and me: I have no spirit at all--I am as patient as poverty.

_Gar._ This mask fits too ill on your features, fair lady: I have seen you without disguise, and rejoice in your ignorance of my name, since, but for that, my peaceful home might have become the seat of perpetual discord.

_Min._ Ay, sir, you would never have known what a quiet hour---- [_On_ R. _of Olivia_.]

_Oliv._ [_Strikes her._] Impertinence! Indeed, sir, I can be as gentle and forbearing as a pet lamb.

_Gar._ I cannot doubt it, madam; the proofs of your placidity are very striking--But adieu! though I shall pray for your conversion, rather than have the honour of it--I'd turn Dominican, and condemn myself to perpetual celibacy. [_Exit_, L.

_Cæsar._ Now, hussy!--now, hussy!--what do you expect?

_Oliv._ Dear me! how can you be so unreasonable! did ever daughter do more to oblige a father! I absolutely begged the man to have me.

_Cæsar._ Yes, vixen! after you had made him detest ye; what, I suppose, he did not hit your fancy, madam; though there is not, in all Spain, a man of prettier conversation.

_Oliv._ Yes he has a very pretty kind of conversation; 'tis like a parenthesis.

_Cæsar._ Like a parenthesis!

_Oliv._ Yes, it might be all left out, and never missed. However, I thought him a modest kind of a well-meaning young man, and that he would make a pretty sort of a husband--for notwithstanding his blustering, had I been his wife, in three months he should have been as humble and complaisant as----

_Cæsar._ Ay, there it is--there it is!--that spirit of yours, hussy, you can neither conquer nor conceal; but I'll find a way to tame it, I'll warrant me.

[_Exit_, R. OLIVIA _and_ MINETTE _follow him with their eyes, and then burst into a laugh_.

_Min._ Well, madam, I give you joy! had other ladies as much success in getting lovers, as you have in getting rid of yours, what contented faces we should see!

_Oliv._ But to what purpose do I get rid of them, whilst they rise in succession like monthly pinks? Was there ever any thing so provoking? After some quiet, and believing the men had ceased to trouble themselves about me, no less than two proposals have been made to my inexorable father this very day--What will become of me?

_Min._ What should become of you? You'll chuse one from the pair, I hope. Believe me, madam, the only way to get rid of the impertinence of lovers, is to take one, and make him a scarecrow to the rest.

_Oliv._ Oh, but I cannot!--Invention assist me this one day!

_Min._ Upon my word, madam, invention owes you nothing; and I am afraid you can draw on that bank no longer.--You must trust to your established character of vixen.

_Oliv._ But that won't frighten them all, you know, though it did its business with sober Don Garcia. The brave General Antonio would have made a property of me, in spite of every thing, had I not luckily discovered his antipathy to cats, and so scared the hero, by pretending an immoderate passion for young kittens.

_Min._ Yes, but you was still harder pushed by the Castilian Count, and his engraved genealogy from Noah.

_Oliv._ Oh, he would have kept his post as immovably as the griffins at his gate, had I not very seriously imparted to him, that my mother's great uncle sold oranges in Arragon.

_Min._ And pray, madam, if I may be so bold, who is the next gentleman?

_Oliv._ Oh, Don Vincentio, who distracts every body with his skill in music. He ought to be married to a Viol de Gamba. I bless my stars I have never yet had a miser in my list--on such a character all art would be lost, and nothing but an earthquake, to swallow up my estate, could save me.

_Min._ Well, if some one did but know, how happy would some one be, that for his sake----

_Oliv._ Now, don't be impertinent, Minette. You have several times attempted to slide yourself into a secret, which I am resolved to keep to myself. Continue faithful, and suppress your curiosity. [_Exit_, R.

_Min._ Suppress my curiosity, madam!--why, I am a chambermaid, and a sorry one too, it should seem, to have been in your confidence two years, and never have got the master-secret yet. I never was six weeks in a family before, but I knew every secret they had in it for three generations; ay, and I'll know this too, or I'll blow up all her plans, and declare to the world, that she is no more a vixen than other fine ladies----they have most of them a touch on't. [_Exit_, R.