SCENE III.--_Another Apartment.

_Enter_ CÆSAR _and_ VINCENTIO, L.

_Vin._ Presto, presto, signior! where is the Olivia?--not a moment to spare. I left off in all the fury of composition; minums and crotchets have been battling it through my head the whole day, and trying a semibreve in G sharp, has made me as flat as double F.

_Cæsar._ Sharp and flat!--trying a semibreve!--oh--gad, sir! I had like not to have understood you; but a semibreve is something of a demi-culverin, I take it; and you have been practising the art military.

_Vin._ Art military!--what, sir! are you unacquainted with music?

_Cæsar._ Music! oh, I ask pardon: then you are fond of music----'ware of discords! [_Aside._]

_Vin._ Fond of it! devoted to it.--I composed a thing to-day, in all the gusto of Sacchini, and the sweetness of Gluck. But this recreant finger fails me in composing a passage in E octave; if it does not gain more elastic vigour in a week, I shall be tempted to have it amputated, and supply the shake with a spring.

_Cæsar._ Mercy! amputate a finger, to supply a shake!

_Vin._ Oh, that's a trifle in the road to reputation--to be talked of, is the summum bonum of this life.--A young man of rank should not glide through the world, without a distinguished rage, or, as they call it in England--a hobby-horse.

_Cæsar._ A hobby horse!

_Vin._ Yes; that is, every man of figure determines on setting out in life, in that land of liberty, in what line to ruin himself; and that choice is called his hobby-horse. One makes the turf his scene of action--another drives about tall phaetons, to peep into their neighbour's garret windows; and a third rides his hobby-horse in parliament, where it jerks him sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other; sometimes in, and sometimes out; till at length, he is jerked out of his honesty, and his constituents out of their freedom.

_Cæsar._ Ay! Well, 'tis a wonder, that with such sort of hobby-horses as these, they should still outride all the world, to the goal of glory.

_Vin._ This is all cantabile; nothing to do with the subject of the piece, which is Donna Olivia;--pray give me the key note to her heart.

_Cæsar._ Upon my word, signor, to speak in your own phrase, I believe that note has never yet been sounded.--Ah! here she comes! look at her.--Isn't she a fine girl?

_Vin._ Touching! Musical, I'll be sworn! her very air is harmonious!

_Cæsar._ [_Aside._] I wish thou may'st find her tongue so.

_Enter_ OLIVIA, _courtesies profoundly to each_. R.

Daughter, receive Don Vincentio--his rank, fortune, and merit, entitle him to the heiress of a grandee; but he is contented to become my son-in-law, if you can please him. [_Crosses_, R. OLIVIA _courtesies again_.

_Vin._ Please me! she entrances me! Her presence thrills me like a cadenza of Pachierotti's, and every nerve vibrates to the music of her looks.

_Her step andante gently moves,_ _Pianos glance from either eye;_ _Oh how larghetto is the heart,_ _That charms so forté can defy!_

Donna Olivia, will you be contented to receive me as a lover?

_Oliv._ Yes, sir--No, sir.

_Vin._ Yes, sir! no, sir! bewitching timidity?

_Cæsar._ Yes, sir, she's remarkably timid,--She's in the right cue, I see. [_Aside._]

_Vin._ 'Tis clear you have never travelled.--I shall be delighted to show you England.--You will there see how entirely timidity is banished the sex. You must affect a marked character, and maintain it at all hazards.

_Oliv._ 'Tis a very fine day, sir.

_Vin._ Madam!

_Oliv._ I caught a sad cold the other evening.--Pray, was you at the ball last night?

_Vin._ What ball, fair lady?

_Oliv._ Bless me! they say, Lucinda has run away with her footman, and Don Philip has married his house-maid. Now, am I not very agreeable? [_Apart to_ DON CÆSAR.]

_Cæsar._ O, such perverse obedience!

_Vin._ Really, madam, I have not the honour to know Don Philip and Lucinda--nor am I happy enough, entirely to comprehend you.

_Oliv._ No! I only meant to be agreeable--but, perhaps, you have no taste for pretty little small talk!

_Vin._ Pretty little small talk!

_Oliv._ A marked character you admire; so do I, I dote on it.--I would not resemble the rest of the world in any thing.

_Vin._ My taste to the fiftieth part of a crotchet!--We shall agree admirably when we are married!

_Oliv._ And that will be unlike the rest of the world, and therefore, charming!

_Cæsar._ [_Aside._] It will do! I have hit her humour at last. Why didn't this young dog offer himself before?

_Oliv._ I believe, I have the honour to carry my taste that way, farther than you, Don Vincentio. Pray, now, what is your usual style in living?

_Vin._ My winters I spend in Madrid, as other people do. My summers I drawl through at my castle----

_Oliv._ As other people do!--and yet you pretend to taste and singularity, ha! ha! ha! Good Don Vincentio, never talk of a marked character again. Go into the country in July, to smell roses and woodbines, when every body regales on their fragrance! Now, I would rusticate only in winter, and my bleak castle should be decorated with verdure and flowers, amidst the soft zephyrs of December.

_Cæsar._ [_Aside._] Oh, she'll go too far!

_Oliv._ On the leafless trees I would hang green branches--the labour of silk worms, and therefore, natural; whilst my rose shrubs and myrtles should be scented by the first perfumers in Italy. Unnatural, indeed, but, therefore, singular and striking.

_Vin._ Oh, charming! You beat me, where I thought myself the strongest. Would they but establish newspapers here, to paragraph our singularities, we should be the most envied couple in Spain!

_Cæsar._ [_Aside._] By St. Antony, he is as mad as she is!

_Vin._ What say you, Don Cæsar? Olivia, and her winter garden, and I and my music.

_Oliv._ Music, did you say? Music! I am passionately fond of that!

_Cæsar._ She has saved my life! I thought she was going to knock down his hobby-horse. [_Aside._]

_Vin._ You enchant me! I have the finest band in Madrid--My first violin draws a longer bow than Giardini; my clarionets, my viol de gamba----Oh, you shall have such concerts!

_Oliv._ Concerts! Pardon me there--My passion is a single instrument.

_Vin._ That's carrying singularity very far indeed! I love a crash; so does every body of taste.

_Oliv._ But my taste isn't like every body's; my nerves are so particularly fine, that more than one instrument overpowers them.

_Vin._ Pray tell me the name of that one: I am sure it must be the most elegant and captivating in the world.--I am impatient to know it.--We'll have no other instrument in Spain, and I will study to become its master, that I may woo you with its music. Charming Olivia! tell me, is it a harpsichord? a piano forte? a pentachord? a harp?

_Oliv._ You have it, you have it; a harp--yes, a Jew's-harp is, to me, the only instrument. Are you not charmed with the delightful h--u--m of its base, running on the ear, like the distant rumble of a state coach? It presents the idea of vastness and importance to the mind. The moment you are its master--I'll give you my hand.

_Vin._ Da capo, madam, da capo! a Jew's-harp!

_Oliv._ Bless me, sir, don't I tell you so? Violins chill me; clarionets, by sympathy, hurt my lungs; and, instead of maintaining a band under my roof, I would not keep a servant, who knew a bassoon from a flute, or could tell whether he heard a jigg, or a canzonetta.

_Cæsar._ Oh thou perverse one! you know you love concerts--you know you do. [_In great agitation._]

_Oliv._ I detest them! It's vulgar custom that attaches people to the sound of fifty different instruments at once; 'twould be as well to talk on the same subject, in fifty different tongues. A band; 'tis a mere olio of sound! I'd rather listen to a three-stringed guitar serenading a sempstress in some neighbouring garret.

_Cæsar._ Oh you----Don Vincentio, [_Crosses_, C.] this is nothing but perverseness, wicked perverseness. Hussy!--didn't you shake, when you mentioned a garret? didn't bread and water, and a step-mother, come into your head at the same time?

_Vin._ Piano, piano, good sir! Spare yourself all farther trouble. Should the Princess of Guzzarat, and all her diamond mines, offer themselves, I would not accept them, in lieu of my band--a band, that has half ruined me to collect. I would have allowed Donna Olivia a blooming garden in winter; I would even have procured barrenness and snow for her in the dog-days; but, to have my band insulted!--to have my knowledge in music slighted!--to be roused from all the energies of composition, by the drone of a Jew's-harp, I cannot breathe under the idea.

_Cæsar._ Then--then you refuse her, sir!

_Vin._ I cannot use so harsh a word--I take my leave of the lady.--Adieu, madam--I leave you to enjoy your solos, whilst I fly to the raptures of a crash. [_Exit_, L.

[CÆSAR _goes up to her, and looks her in the face; then goes off without speaking_, L.

_Oliv._ Mercy; that silent anger is terrifying: I read a young mother-in-law, and an old lady abbess, in every line of his face.

_Enter_ VICTORIA, R.

Well, you heard the whole, I suppose--heard poor unhappy me scorned and rejected.

_Vict._ I heard you in imminent danger; and expected Signor Da Capo would have snapped you up, in spite of caprice and extravagance.

_Oliv._ Oh, they charmed, instead of scaring him. I soon found, that my only chance was to fall across his caprice. Where is the philosopher who could withstand that?

_Vict._ But what, my good cousin, does all this tend to?

_Oliv._ I dare say you can guess. Penelope had never cheated her lovers with a never-ending web, had she not had an Ulysses.

_Vict._ An Ulysses! what, are you then married?

_Oliv._ O no, not yet! but, believe me, my design is not to lead apes; nor is my heart an icicle. If you choose to know more, put on your veil, and slip with me through the garden, to the Prado.

_Vict._ I can't, indeed. I am this moment going to dress _en homme_ to visit the impatient Portuguese.

_Oliv._ Send an excuse; for, positively, you go with me. Heaven and earth! I am going to meet a man! whom I have been fool enough, to dream and think of these two years, and I don't know that ever he thought of me in his life.

_Vict._ Two years discovering that?

_Oliv._ He has been abroad. The only time I ever saw him was at the Duchess of Medina's--there were a thousand people; and he was so elegant, so careless, so handsome!--In a word, though he set off for France the next morning, by some witchcraft or other, he has been before my eyes ever since.

_Vict._ Was the impression mutual?

_Oliv._ He hardly noticed me. I was then a bashful thing just out of a convent, and shrunk from observation.

_Vict._ Why, I thought you were going to meet him.

_Oliv._ To be sure; I sent him a command this morning, to be at the Prado. I am determined to find out if his heart is engaged, and if it is----

_Vict._ You'll cross your arms, and crown your brow with willows?

_Oliv._ No, positively; not whilst we have myrtles. I would prefer Julio, 'tis true, to all his sex; but if he is stupid enough to be insensible to me, I shan't for that reason, pine like a girl, on chalk and oatmeal.--No, no; in that case, I shall form a new plan, and treat my future lovers with more civility.

_Vict._ You are the only woman in love, I ever heard talk reasonably.

_Oliv._ Well, prepare for the Prado, and I'll give you a lesson against your days of widowhood. Don't you wish this the moment, Victoria? A pretty widow at four-and-twenty has more subjects, and a wider empire, than the first monarch upon earth. I long to see you in your weeds.

_Vict._ Never may you see them! Oh, Olivia! my happiness, my life, depend on my husband. The fond hope of still being united to him, gives me spirits in my affliction, and enables me to support even the period of his neglect with patience. [_Exeunt_, R.