SCENE II.--_St. James's Park.

_Enter_ SIR JOHN BEVIL _and_ MR. SEALAND.

_Sir J. Bev._ Give me leave, however, Mr. Sealand, as we are upon a treaty for uniting our families, to mention only the business of an ancient house. Genealogy and descent are to be of some consideration in an affair of this sort.

_Mr. Seal._ Genealogy and descent! Sir, there has been in our family a very large one. There was Galfrid the father of Edward, the father of Ptolomey, the father of Crassus, the father of Earl Richard, the father of Henry the Marquis, the father of Duke John.

_Sir J. Bev._ What, do you rave, Mr. Sealand? all these great names in your family?

_Mr. Seal._ These? yes, sir. I have heard my father name 'em all, and more.

_Sir J. Bev._ Ay, sir? and did he say they were all in your family?

_Mr. Seal._ Yes, sir, he kept 'em all. He was the greatest cocker[134] in England. He said Duke John won him many battles, and never lost one.

_Sir J. Bev._ Oh, sir, your servant! you are laughing at my laying any stress upon descent; but I must tell you, sir, I never knew anyone but he that wanted that advantage turn it into ridicule.

_Mr. Seal._ And I never knew any one who had many better advantages put that into his account.--But, Sir John, value yourself as you please upon your ancient house, I am to talk freely of everything you are pleased to put into your bill of rates on this occasion; yet, sir, I have made no objections to your son's family. 'Tis his morals that I doubt.

_Sir J. Bev._ Sir, I can't help saying, that what might injure a citizen's credit may be no stain to a gentleman's honour.

_Mr. Seal._ Sir John, the honour of a gentleman is liable to be tainted by as small a matter as the credit of a trader. We are talking of a marriage, and in such a case, the father of a young woman will not think it an addition to the honour or credit of her lover that he is a keeper----

_Sir J. Bev._ Mr. Sealand, don't take upon you to spoil my son's marriage with any woman else.

_Mr. Seal._ Sir John, let him apply to any woman else, and have as many mistresses as he pleases.

_Sir J. Bev._ My son, sir, is a discreet and sober gentleman.

_Mr. Seal._ Sir, I never saw a man that wenched soberly and discreetly, that ever left it off; the decency observed in the practice hides, even from the sinner, the iniquity of it. They pursue it, not that their appetites hurry 'em away, but, I warrant you, because 'tis their opinion they may do it.

_Sir J. Bev._ Were what you suspect a truth--do you design to keep your daughter a virgin till you find a man unblemished that way?

_Mr. Seal._ Sir, as much a cit as you take me for, I know the town and the world; and give me leave to say, that we merchants are a species of gentry that have grown into the world this last century, and are as honourable, and almost as useful, as you landed folks, that have always thought yourselves so much above us; for your trading, forsooth, is extended no farther than a load of hay or a fat ox. You are pleasant people, indeed, because you are generally bred up to be lazy; therefore, I warrant you, industry is dishonourable.

_Sir J. Bev._ Be not offended, sir; let us go back to our point.

_Mr. Seal._ Oh! not at all offended; but I don't love to leave any part of the account unclosed. Look you, Sir John, comparisons are odious, and more particularly so on occasions of this kind, when we are projecting races that are to be made out of both sides of the comparisons.

_Sir J. Bev._ But, my son, sir, is, in the eye of the world, a gentleman of merit.

_Mr. Seal._ I own to you, I think him so.--But, Sir John, I am a man exercised and experienced in chances and disasters. I lost, in my earlier years, a very fine wife, and with her a poor little infant. This makes me, perhaps, over cautious to preserve the second bounty of providence to me, and be as careful as I can of this child. You'll pardon me, my poor girl, sir, is as valuable to me as your boasted son to you.

_Sir. J. Bev._ Why, that's one very good reason, Mr. Sealand, why I wish my son had her.

_Mr. Seal._ There is nothing but this strange lady here, this _incognita_, that can be objected to him. Here and there a man falls in love with an artful creature, and gives up all the motives of life to that one passion.

_Sir J. Bev._ A man of my son's understanding cannot be supposed to be one of them.

_Mr. Seal._ Very wise men have been so enslaved; and, when a man marries with one of them upon his hands, whether moved from the demand of the world or slighter reasons, such a husband soils with his wife for a month perhaps--then good be w'ye, madam, the show's over--Ah! John Dryden points out such a husband to a hair, where he says,--

"And while abroad so prodigal the dolt is, Poor spouse at home as ragged as a colt is."

Now, in plain terms, sir, I shall not care to have my poor girl turned a-grazing, and that must be the case when----

_Sir J. Bev._ But pray consider, sir, my son----

_Mr. Seal._ Look you, sir, I'll make the matter short. This unknown lady, as I told you, is all the objection I have to him; but, one way or other, he is, or has been, certainly engaged to her. I am therefore resolved, this very afternoon, to visit her. Now from her behaviour, or appearance, I shall soon be let into what I may fear or hope for.

_Sir J. Bev._ Sir, I am very confident there can be nothing inquired into relating to my son, that will not, upon being understood, turn to his advantage.

_Mr. Seal._ I hope that as sincerely as you believe it.--Sir John Bevil, when I am satisfied, in this great point, if your son's conduct answers the character you give him, I shall wish your alliance more than that of any gentleman in Great Britain; and so your servant. [_Exit._

_Sir J. Bev._ He is gone in a way but barely civil; but his great wealth, and the merit of his only child, the heiress of it, are not to be lost for a little peevishness.

_Enter_ HUMPHRY.

Oh! Humphry, you are come in a seasonable minute. I want to talk to thee, and to tell thee that my head and heart are on the rack about my son.

_Humph._ Sir, you may trust his discretion; I am sure you may.

_Sir J. Bev._ Why, I do believe I may, and yet I'm in a thousand fears when I lay this vast wealth before me; when I consider his prepossessions, either generous to a folly, in an honourable love, or abandoned, past redemption, in a vicious one; and, from the one or the other, his insensibility to the fairest prospect towards doubling our estate: a father, who knows how useful wealth is, and how necessary, even to those who despise it--I say a father, Humphry, a father cannot bear it.

_Humph._ Be not transported, sir; you will grow incapable of taking any resolution in your perplexity.

_Sir J. Bev._ Yet, as angry as I am with him, I would not have him surprised in anything. This mercantile rough man may go grossly into the examination of this matter, and talk to the gentlewoman so as to----

_Humph._ No, I hope, not in an abrupt manner.

_Sir J. Bev._ No, I hope not! Why, dost thou know anything of her, or of him, or of anything of it, or all of it?

_Humph._ My dear master, I know so much that I told him this very day you had reason to be secretly out of humour about her.

_Sir J. Bev._ Did you go so far? Well, what said he to that?

_Humph._ His words were, looking upon me steadfastly: "Humphry," says he, "that woman is a woman of honour."

_Sir J. Bev._ How! Do you think he is married to her, or designs to marry her?

_Humph._ I can say nothing to the latter; but he says he can marry no one without your consent while you are living.

_Sir J. Bev._ If he said so much, I know he scorns to break his word with me.

_Humph._ I am sure of that.

_Sir J. Bev._ You are sure of that--well! that's some comfort. Then I have nothing to do but to see the bottom of this matter during this present ruffle--Oh, Humphry----

_Humph._ You are not ill, I hope, sir.

_Sir J. Bev._ Yes, a man is very ill that's in a very ill-humour. To be a father is to be in care for one whom you oftener disoblige than please by that very care--Oh! that sons could know the duty to a father before they themselves are fathers--But, perhaps, you'll say now that I am one of the happiest fathers in the world; but, I assure you, that of the very happiest is not a condition to be envied.

_Humph._ Sir, your pain arises, not from the thing itself, but your particular sense of it. You are overfond, nay, give me leave to say, you are unjustly apprehensive from your fondness. My master Bevil never disobliged you, and he will, I know he will, do everything you ought to expect.

_Sir J. Bev._ He won't take all this money with this girl--For ought I know, he will, forsooth, have so much moderation as to think he ought not to force his liking for any consideration.

_Humph._ He is to marry her, not you; he is to live with her, not you, sir.

_Sir J. Bev._ I know not what to think. But, I know, nothing can be more miserable than to be in this doubt--Follow me; I must come to some resolution. [_Exeunt._