SCENE I.--CLERIMONT, SEN.'S _House.

_Enter_ CLERIMONT, SEN. _and_ FAINLOVE.

_Cler. Sen._ Well, Mr. Fainlove, how do you go on in your amour with my wife?

_Fain._ I am very civil and very distant; if she smiles or speaks, I bow and gaze at her; then throw down my eyes, as if oppressed by fear of offence, then steal a look again till she again sees me. This is my general method.

_Cler. Sen._ And it is right. For such a fine lady has no guard to her virtue but her pride; therefore you must constantly apply yourself to that. But, dear Lucy, as you have been a very faithful but a very costly wench to me, so my spouse also has been constant to my bed, but careless of my fortune.

_Fain._ Ah! my dear, how could you leave your poor Lucy, and run into France to see sights, and show your gallantry with a wife? Was not that unnatural?

_Cler. Sen._ She brought me a noble fortune, and I thought she had a right to share it; therefore carried her to see the world, forsooth, and make the tour of France and Italy, where she learned to lose her money gracefully, to admire every vanity in our sex, and contemn every virtue in her own, which, with ten thousand other perfections, are the ordinary improvements of a travelled lady. Now I can neither mortify her vanity, that I may live at ease with her, or quite discard her, till I have catched her a little enlarging her innocent freedoms, as she calls 'em. For this end I am content to be a French husband, though now and then with the secret pangs of an Italian one; and therefore, sir, or madam, you are thus equipped to attend and accost her ladyship. It concerns you to be diligent. If we wholly part--I need say no more. If we do not--I'll see thee well provided for.

_Fain._ I'll do all I can, I warrant you, but you are not to expect I'll go much among the men.

_Cler. Sen._ No, no; you must not go near men; you are only (when my wife goes to a play) to sit in a side box with pretty fellows. I don't design you to personate a real man, you are only to be a pretty gentleman; not to be of any use or consequence in the world, as to yourself, but merely as a property to others; such as you see now and then have a life in the entail of a great estate, that seem to have come into the world only to be tags in the pedigree of a wealthy house. You must have seen many of that species.

_Fain._ I apprehend you; such as stand in assemblies, with an indolent softness and contempt of all around them; who make a figure in public and are scorned in private; I have seen such a one with a pocket glass to see his own face, and an effective perspective to know others. [_Imitates each._

_Cler. Sen._ Ay, ay, that's my man--thou dear rogue.

_Fain._ Let me alone; I'll lay my life I'll horn you--that is, I'll make it appear I might if I could.

_Cler. Sen._ Ay, that will please me quite as well.

_Fain._ To show you the progress I have made, I last night won of her five hundred pounds, which I have brought you safe. [_Giving him bills._

_Cler. Sen._ Oh the damned vice! That women can imagine all household care, regard to posterity, and fear of poverty, must be sacrificed to a game at cards! Suppose she had not had it to pay, and you had been capable of finding your account another way?

_Fain._ That's but a suppose--

_Cler. Sen._ I say, she must have complied with everything you asked.

_Fain._ But she knows you never limit her expenses.--I'll gain him from her for ever if I can. [_Aside._

_Cler. Sen._ With this you have repaid me two thousand pounds, and if you did not refund thus honestly, I could not have supplied her. We must have parted.

_Fain._ Then you shall part--if t'other way fails--[_Aside._]--However, I can't blame your fondness of her, she has so many entertaining qualities with her vanity. Then she has such a pretty unthinking air, while she saunters round a room, and prattles sentences.

_Cler. Sen._ That was her turn from her infancy; she always had a great genius for knowing everything but what it was necessary she should. The wits of the age, the great beauties, and short-lived people of vogue, were always her discourse and imitation. Thus the case stood when she went to France; but her fine follies improved so daily, that though I was then proud of her being called Mr. Clerimont's wife, I am now as much out of countenance to hear myself called Mrs. Clerimont's husband, so much is the superiority of her side.

_Fain._ I am sure if ever I gave myself a little liberty, I never found you so indulgent.

_Cler. Sen._ I should have the whole sex on my back, should I pretend to retrench a lady so well visited as mine is. Therefore I must bring it about that it shall appear her own act, if she reforms; or else I shall be pronounced jealous, and have my eyes pulled out for being open. But I hear my brother Jack coming, who, I hope, has brought yours with him--Hist, not a word.

_Enter_ CAPTAIN CLERIMONT _and_ POUNCE.

_Cler._ I have found him out at last, brother, and brought you the obsequious Mr. Pounce; I saw him at a distance in a crowd, whispering in their turns with all about him. He is a gentleman so received, so courted, and so trusted----

_Pounce._ I am very glad if you saw anything like that, if the approbation of others can recommend me (where I much more desire it) to this company.

_Cler._ Oh, the civil person--But, dear Pounce, you know I am your professed admirer; I always celebrated you for your excellent skill and address, for that happy knowledge of the world, which makes you seem born for living with the persons you are with, wherever you come. Now my brother and I want your help in a business that requires a little more dexterity than we ourselves are masters of.

_Pounce._ You know, sir, my character is helping the distressed, which I do freely and without reserve; while others are for distinguishing rigidly on the justice of the occasion, and so lose the grace of the benefit. Now 'tis my profession to assist a free-hearted young fellow against an unnatural long-lived father; to disencumber men of pleasure of the vexation of unwieldy estates; to support a feeble title to an inheritance; to----

_Cler. Sen._ I have been well acquainted with your merits, ever since I saw you with so much compassion prompt a stammering witness in Westminster Hall, that wanted instruction. I love a man that can venture his ears with so much bravery for his friend.

_Pounce._ Dear sir, spare my modesty, and let me know to what all this panegyric tends.

_Cler. Sen._ Why, sir, what I would say is in behalf of my brother, the Captain, here, whose misfortune it is that I was born before him.

_Pounce._ I am confident he had rather you should have been so than any other man in England.

_Cler._ You do me justice, Mr. Pounce, but though 'tis to that gentleman, I am still a younger brother, and you know we that are so, are generally condemned to shops, colleges, or inns of court.

_Pounce._ But you, sir, have escaped 'em, you have been trading in the noble mart of glory.

_Cler._ That's true. But the general makes such haste to finish the war, that we red coats may be soon out of fashion; and then I am a fellow of the most easy indolent disposition in the world! I hate all manner of business.

_Pounce._ A composed temper, indeed!

_Cler._ In such a case I should have no way of livelihood, but calling over this gentleman's dogs in the country, drinking his stale beer to the neighbourhood, or marrying a fortune.

_Cler. Sen._ To be short, Pounce--I am putting Jack upon marriage, and you are so public an envoy, or rather plenipotentiary, from the very different nations of Cheapside, Covent Garden, and St. James's; you have, too, the mien and language of each place so naturally, that you are the properest instrument I know in the world, to help an honest young fellow to favour in one of 'em, by credit in the other.

_Pounce._ By what I understand of your many prefaces, gentlemen, the purpose of all this is, that it would not in the least discompose this gentleman's easy indolent disposition to fall into twenty thousand pounds, though it came upon him never so suddenly.

_Cler._ You are a very discerning man; how could you see so far through me, as to know I love a fine woman, pretty equipage, good company, and a clean habitation?

_Pounce._ Well, though I am so much a conjurer--what then?

_Cler. Sen._ You know a certain person, into whose hands you now and then recommend a young heir, to be relieved from the vexation of tenants, taxes, and so forth----

_Pounce._ What! My worthy friend and city patron Hezekiah Tipkin, banker in Lombard Street; would the noble Captain lay any sums in his hands?

_Cler._ No; but the noble Captain would have treasure out of his hands. You know his niece?

_Pounce._ To my knowledge ten thousand pounds in money.

_Cler._ Such a stature, such a blooming countenance, so easy a shape!

_Pounce._ In jewels of her grandmother's five thousand.

_Cler._ Her wit so lively, her mien so alluring!

_Pounce._ In land a thousand a year.

_Cler._ Her lips have that certain prominence, that swelling softness that they invite to a pressure; her eyes that languish, that they give pain, though they look only inclined to rest; her whole person that one charm----

_Pounce._ Raptures! Raptures!

_Cler._ How can it, so insensibly to itself, lead us through cares it knows not, through such a wilderness of hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, desires, despairs, ecstasies and torments, with so sweet, yet so anxious vicissitude!

_Pounce._ Why, I thought you had never seen her?

_Cler._ No more I han't.

_Pounce._ Who told you then of her inviting lips, her soft sleepy eyes?

_Cler._ You yourself.

_Pounce._ Sure you rave, I never spoke of her afore to you.

_Cler._ Why, you won't face me down--Did you not just now say she had ten thousand pounds in money, five in jewels, and a thousand a year?

_Pounce._ I confess my own stupidity and her charms. Why, if you were to meet, you would certainly please her, you have the cant of loving; but pray, may we be free--that young gentleman.

_Cler._ A very honest, modest gentleman of my acquaintance, one that has much more in him than he appears to have. You shall know him better, sir; this is Mr. Pounce; Mr. Pounce, this is Mr. Fainlove; I must desire you to let him be known to you and your friends.

_Pounce._ I shall be proud. Well then, since we may be free, you must understand, the young lady, by being kept from the world, has made a world of her own. She has spent all her solitude in reading romances, her head is full of shepherds, knights, flowery meads, groves, and streams, so that if you talk like a man of this world to her, you do nothing.

_Cler._ Oh, let me alone--I have been a great traveller in fairy-land myself, I know Oroondates; Cassandra, Astræa and Clelia[82] are my intimate acquaintance.

Go my heart's envoys, tender sighs make haste, And with your breath swell the soft zephyr's blast; Then near that fair one if you chance to fly, Tell her, in whispers, 'tis for her I die.

_Pounce._ That would do, that would do--her very language.

_Cler. Sen._ Why then, dear Pounce, I know thou art the only man living that can serve him.

_Pounce._ Gentlemen, you must pardon me, I am soliciting the marriage settlement between her and a country booby, her cousin, Humphry Gubbin, Sir Harry's heir, who is come to town to take possession of her.

_Cler. Sen._ Well, all that I can say to the matter is, that a thousand pounds on the day of Jack's marriage to her, is more than you'll get by the despatch of those deeds.

_Pounce._ Why, a thousand pounds is a pretty thing, especially when 'tis to take a lady fair out of the hands of an obstinate ill-bred clown, to give her to a gentle swain, a dying enamoured knight.

_Cler. Sen._ Ay, dear Pounce, consider but that--the justice of the thing.

_Pounce._ Besides, he is just come from the glorious Blenheim![83] Look ye, Captain, I hope you have learned an implicit obedience to your leaders.

_Cler._ 'Tis all I know.

_Pounce._ Then, if I am to command, make not one step without me. And since we may be free, I am also to acquaint you, there will be more merit in bringing this matter to bear than you imagine. Yet right measures make all things possible.

_Cler._ We'll follow yours exactly.

_Pounce._ But the great matter against us is want of time, for the nymph's uncle, and 'squire's father, this morning met, and made an end of the matter. But the difficulty of a thing, Captain, shall be no reason against attempting it.

_Cler._ I have so great an opinion of your conduct, that I warrant you we conquer all.

_Pounce._ I am so intimately employed by old Tipkin, and so necessary to him, that I may, perhaps, puzzle things yet.

_Cler. Sen._ I have seen thee cajole the knave very dexterously.

_Pounce._ Why, really, sir, generally speaking, 'tis but knowing what a man thinks of himself, and giving him that, to make him what else you please. Now Tipkin is an absolute Lombard Street wit, a fellow that drolls on the strength of fifty thousand pounds. He is called on 'change, Sly-boots, and by the force of a very good credit, and very bad conscience, he is a leading person. But we must be quick, or he'll sneer old Sir Harry out of his senses, and strike up the sale of his niece immediately.

_Cler._ But my rival, what's he?

_Pounce._ There's some hopes there, for I hear the booby is as averse as his father is inclined to it. One is as obstinate as the other is cruel.

_Cler. Sen._ He is, they say, a pert blockhead, and very lively out of his father's sight.

_Pounce._ He that gave me his character called him a docile dunce, a fellow rather absurd, than a direct fool. When his father's absent, he'll pursue anything he's put upon. But we must not lose time. Pray be you two brothers at home to wait for any notice from me, while that pretty gentleman and I, whose face I have known, take a walk and look about for 'em--So, so, young lady. [_Aside to_ FAINLOVE.] [_Exeunt._