SCENE II.

_Old_ Laroon, Isabel, Beatrice.

_Old Lar._ Good-morrow, my little Wag-tail--my Grashopper, my Butterfly. Odso! you little Baggage, you look as full of----as full of Love and Sport and Wantonness----I wish I was a young Fellow again----Oh! that I was but five and twenty for thy sake. Where's my Boy? What, has not he been with you, has not he serenaded you?--Odsheart--I never let his Mother sleep for a Month before I married her.

_Isa._ Indeed!

_Old Lar._ No Madam, nor for a Month afterwards neither. The young Fellows of this Age are nothing, mere Butterflies, to those of ours----Odsheart I remember the Time, when I could have taken a Hop, Step, and Jump over the Steeple of _Notre Dame_.

_Bea._ I fancy the Sparks of your Age had Wings, Sir.

_Old Lar._ Wings, you little Baggage, no--but they had--they had Limbs, like Elephants, and as strong they were as _Sampson_, and as swift as----Why, I have my self run down a Stag in a fair Chace, and eat him afterwards for my Dinner. But come, where is my old Neighbour, my old Friend, my old _Jourdain_?

_Isa._ At his Devotions, I suppose, this is the Hour he generally employs in them.

_Old Lar._ This Hour! ay, all Hours. I dare swear he spends more Time in them, than all the Priests in _Toulon_. Well, give him his due, he was wicked as long as he could be so, and when he could sin no longer, why he began to repent that he had sinned at all. Oh! there is nothing so devout as an old Whoremaster.

_Bea._ I fancy then it will be shortly Time for you to think of it, Sir!

_Old Lar._ Ay, Madam, about some thirty or forty Years hence it may----Odsheart! I am but in the prime of my Years yet: And if it was not for a saucy young Rascal who looks me in the Face and calls me Father, might make a very good Figure among the Beaus. But tho' I am not so young in Years, I am in Constitution as any of them; and I don't question but to live to see a Son and a great Grandson both born on the same Day.

_Isa._ You will excuse this Lady, Mr. _Laroon_, who is going to retire so much earlier--

_Old Lar._ Retire!----Then it is with a young Fellow, I hope.

_Isa._ Into a Cloister, I assure you.

_Old Lar._ A Cloister!--Why, Madam, if you have a mind to hang your self at the Year's End; would it not be better to spend your Time in Matrimony than in a Nunnery? Don't let a Set of rascally Priests put strange Notions in your Head. Take my Word for it, and I am a very honest Fellow, there are no Raptures worth a Louse, but those in the Arms of a brisk young Cavalier. Of all the Actions of my Youth, there are none I reflect on with so much Pleasure as having burnt half a Dozen Nunneries, and delivered several hundred Virgins out of Captivity.

_Bea._ Oh! Villany! unheard of Villany!

_Isa._ Unheard of till this Moment I dare swear.

_Old Lar._ Out of which Number there are at present nine Countesses, three Dutchesses, and a Queen, who owe their Liberty and their Promotion to this Arm.