SCENE I.--_Newgate.

YOUNG BOOKWIT _discovered on a couch asleep_, LATINE _looking on him._

_Lat._ How quietly he rests! Oh that I could, By watching him, hanging thus over him, And, feeling all his care, protract his sleep! Oh, sleep! thou sweetest gift of Heaven to man, Still in thy downy arms embrace my friend, Nor loose him from his inexistent trance To sense of yesterday and pain of being; In thee oppressors soothe their angry brow, In thee the oppressed forget tyrannic power, In thee---- The wretch condemned is equal to his judge, And the sad lover to his cruel fair; Nay, all the shining glories men pursue, When thou art wanted, are but empty noise. Who then would court the pomp of guilty power, When the mind sickens at the weary show, And dies to temporary death for ease; When half our life's cessation of our being---- He wakes---- How do I pity that returning life, Which I could hazard thousand lives to save!

_Y. Book._ How heavily do I awake this morning! Oh, this senseless drinking! To suffer a whole week's pain for an hour's jollity! Methinks my senses are burning round me. I have but interrupted hints of the last night----Ha! in a gaol! Oh, I remember, I remember. Oh, Lovemore! Lovemore! I remember----

_Lat._ You must have patience, and bear it like a man.

_Y. Book._ Oh, whither shall I run to avoid myself? Why all these bars? These bolted iron gates? They're needless to secure me----Here, here's my rack, My gaol, my torture---- Oh, I can't bear it. I cannot bear the rushing of new thoughts; Fancy expands my senses to distraction, And my soul stretches to that boundless space To which I've sent my wretched, wretched friend. Oh, Latine! Latine! Is all our mirth and humour come to this? Give me thy bosom, close in thy bosom hide me From thy eyes; I cannot bear their pity or reproach.

_Lat._ Dear Bookwit, how heartily I love you--I don't know what to say. But pray have patience.

_Y. Book._ If you can't bear my pain that's but communicated by your pity, how shall I my proper inborn woe, my wounded mind?

_Lat._ In all assaults of fortune that should be serene, Not in the power of accident or chance----

_Y. Book._ Words! words! all that is but mere talk. Perhaps, indeed, to undeserved affliction Reason and argument may give relief, Or in the known vicissitudes of life We may feel comfort by our self-persuasion; But oh! there is no taking away guilt: This divine particle will ache for ever. There is no help but whence I dare not ask; When this material organ's indisposed Juleps can cool and anodynes give rest; But nothing mix with this celestial drop, But dew from that high Heaven of which 'tis part.

_Lat._ May that high Heaven compose your mind, And reconcile you to yourself.

_Y. Book._ How can I hope it? No----I must descend from man, Grovel on earth, nor dare look up again! Oh, Lovemore! Lovemore! Where is he now? Oh, thinking, thinking, why didst thou not come sooner? Or not now!---- My thoughts do so confuse me now--as my folly and pleasures did before this fatal accident--that I cannot recollect whence Lovemore was provoked to challenge me.

_Lat._ You know, dear Bookwit, I feared some ill from a careless way of talking. But alas! I dreamt not of so great----

_Y. Book._ Ay, there it was; he was naturally a little jealous. Heavens, do I say he was? I talked to him of ladies, treats, and he might possibly believe 'twas where he had engaged----I remember his serious behaviour on that subject. Oh, this unhappy tongue of mine!

Thou lawless, voluble, destroying foe, That still run'st on, nor wait'st command of reason, Oh, I could tear thee from me----

_Lat._ Did you not expostulate before the action?

_Y. Book._ He would have don't; but I, flushed with the thoughts of duelling, pressed on----Thus for the empty praise of fools, I'm solidly unhappy.

_Lat._ You take it too deeply. Your honour was concerned.

_Y. Book._ Honour! The horrid application of that sacred word to a revenge against friendship, law, and reason is a damned last shift of the damned envious foe of human race. The routed fiend projected this, but since the expansive glorious law from Heaven came down----Forgive.[76]

_Enter_ TURNKEY.

_Turn._ Gentlemen, I come to tell you that you have the favour to be carried in chairs to your indictment, to which you must go immediately.

_Lat._ We are ready, sir,

_Y. Book._ How shall I bear the eyeshot of the crowd in court? [_Exeunt._