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Bev. No; live, I charge you. We have a little one; though I have left him, you will not leave him. To Lewson's kindness bequeath him. Is not this Charlotte? We have lived in love, though I have wronged you. Can you forgive me, Charlotte? Char. Forgive you! O, my poor brother! Bev. Lend me your hand, love. So; raise me-no; it will not be; my life is finished. O for a few short moments to tell you how my heart bleeds for you; that even now, thus dying as I am, dubious and fearful of a hereafter, my bosom pang is for your miseries. Support her, Heaven! And now I go. O, mercy! mercy! [Dies. Lew. How is it, madam? My poor Charlotte, too! Char. Her grief is speechless.

Lew. Jarvis, remove her from this sight. [Jarvis and Charlotte lead Mrs Beverley aside.] Some ministering angel bring her peace. And thou, poor breathless corpse, may thy departed soul have found the rest it prayed for. Save but one error, and this last fatal deed, thy life was lovely. Let frailer minds take warning; and from example learn that want of pru[Exeunt.

dence is want of virtue.

Of a more intellectual and scholar-like cast were

The truth direct; for these to me foretell
And certify a part of thy narration;
With which, if the remainder tallies not,
An instant and a dreadful death abides thee.
Pris. Then, thus adjured, I'll speak to you as just
As if you were the minister of heaven,
Sent down to search the secret sins of men.

Some eighteen years ago, I rented land
Of brave Sir Malcolm, then Balarmo's lord;
But falling to decay, his servants seized
All that I had, and then turned me and mine
(Four helpless infants and their weeping mother)
Out to the mercy of the winter winds.
A little hovel by the river side
Received us: there hard labour, and the skill
In fishing, which was formerly my sport,
Supported life. Whilst thus we poorly lived,
One stormy night, as I remember well,
The wind and rain beat hard upon our roof;
Red came the river down, and loud and oft
The angry spirit of the water shrieked.
At the dead hour of night was heard the cry
Of one in jeopardy. I rose, and ran
To where the circling eddy of a pool,
My reach whatever floating thing the stream
Beneath the ford, used oft to bring within
Had caught. The voice was ceased; the person lost:
But, looking sad and earnest on the waters,
By the moon's light I saw, whirled round and round,
basket; soon I drew it to the bank,
And nestled curious there an infant lay.
Lady R. Was he alive?

Pris. He was.

Lady R. Inhuman that thou art! How could'st thou kill what waves and tempests spared?

the two dramas of Mason, Elfrida and Caractacus.
They were brought on the stage by Colman (which
Southey considers to have been a bold experiment in
those days of sickly tragedy), and were well received.
They are now known as dramatic poems, not as act-A
ing plays. The most natural and affecting of all the
tragic productions of the day, was the Douglas of
Home, founded on the old ballad of Gil Morrice, which
Percy has preserved in his Reliques. 'Douglas' was
rejected by Garrick, and was first performed in
Edinburgh in 1756. Next year Lord Bute procured
its representation at Covent Garden, where it drew
tears and applause as copiously as in Edinburgh.
The plot of this drama is pathetic and interesting.
The dialogue is sometimes flat and prosaic, but
other parts are written with the liquid softness and
moral beauty of Heywood or Dekker. Maternal
affection is well depicted under novel and striking
circumstances the accidental discovery of a lost
child- My beautiful! my brave!'-and Mr Mac-
kenzie, the Man of Feeling,' has given as his opi-
nion that the chief scene between Lady Randolph
and Old Norval, in which the preservation and
existence of Douglas is discovered, has no equal in
modern and scarcely a superior in the ancient drama.
Douglas himself, the young hero, enthusiastic, ro-
mantic, desirous of honour, careless of life and every
other advantage when glory lay in the balance,' is
beautifully drawn, and formed the schoolboy model
of most of the Scottish youth sixty years since.'
As a specimen of the style and diction of Home,
we subjoin part of the discovery scene. Lord Ran-
dolph is attacked by four men, and rescued by
young Douglas. An old man is found in the woods,
and is taken up as one of the assassins, some rich
jewels being also in his possession.

[Discovery of her Son by Lady Randolph.]
PRISONER-LADY RANDOLPH-ANNA, her maid.
Lady R. Account for these; thine own they cannot

be:

For these, I say: be steadfast to the truth;
Detected falsehood is most certain death.

[Anna removes the servants and returns.
Pris. Alas! I'm sore beset; let never man,
For sake of lucre, sin against his soul!
Eternal justice is in this most just!
J, guiltless now, must former guilt reveal.

Pris. I was not so inhuman.
Lady R. Didst thou not?

Anna. My noble mistress, you are moved too much:
This man has not the aspect of stern murder;
Let him go on, and you, I hope, will hear
Good tidings of your kinsman's long lost child.
Pris. The needy man who has known better days,
One whom distress has spited at the world,
Is he whom tempting fiends would pitch upon
To do such deeds, as make the prosperous men
Lift up their hands, and wonder who could do them;
And such a man was I; a man declined,
Who saw no end of black adversity;
Yet, for the wealth of kingdoms, I would not
Have touched that infant with a hand of harm.
Lady R. Ha! dost thou say so? Then perhaps he
lives!

Pris. Not many days ago he was alive.
Lady R. O, God of heaven! Did he then die so lately?
Pris. I did not say he died; I hope he lives.
Not many days ago these eyes beheld
Him, flourishing in youth, and health, and beauty.
Lady R. Where is he now?

Pris. Alas! I know not where.

Lady R. O, fate! I fear thee still. Thou riddler speak

Direct and clear, else I will search thy soul.

Anna. Permit me, ever honoured! keen impatience,
Though hard to be restrained, defeats itself.
Pursue thy story with a faithful tongue,
To the last hour that thou didst keep the child.
Pris. Fear not my faith, though I must speak my

shame.

Within the cradle where the infant lay
Was stowed a mighty store of gold and jewels;
Tempted by which, we did resolve to hide,
From all the world, this wonderful event,
And like a peasant breed the noble child.
We left the country, travelled to the north,

Lady R. O, Anna, hear! Once more I charge thee That none might mark the change of our estate,

speak

Bought flocks and herds, and gradually brought forth Till I shall call upon thee to declare,

Our secret wealth. But God's all-seeing eye
Beheld our avarice, and smote us sore;
For one by one all our own children died,
And he, the stranger, sole remained the heir
Of what indeed was his. Fain then would I,
Who with a father's fondness loved the boy,
Have trusted him, now in the dawn of youth,
With his own secret; but my anxious wife,
Foreboding evil, never would consent.
Meanwhile the stripling grew in years and beauty;
And, as we oft observed, he bore himself,
Not as the offspring of our cottage blood,

For nature will break out: mild with the mild,
But with the froward he was fierce as fire,
And night and day he talked of war and arms.
I set myself against his warlike bent;
But all in vain; for when a desperate band
Of robbers from the savage mountains came-
Lady R. Eternal Providence! What is thy name?
Pris. My name is Norval; and my name he

bears.

Lady R. 'Tis he, 'tis he himself! It is my son!
O, sovereign mercy! "Twas my child I saw!
No wonder, Anna, that my bosom burned.

Anna. Just are your transports: ne'er was woman's
heart

Proved with such fierce extremes. High-fated dame!
But yet remember that you are beheld

By servile eyes; your gestures may be seen
Impassioned, strange; perhaps your words o'erheard.
Lady R. Well dost thou counsel, Anna; Heaven be-

stow

On me that wisdom which my state requires!
Anna. The moments of deliberation pass,
And soon you must resolve. This useful man
Must be dismissed in safety, ere my lord
Shall with his brave deliverer return.

Pris. If I, amidst astonishment and fear,
Have of your words and gestures rightly judged,
Thou art the daughter of my ancient master;
The child I rescued from the flood is thine.

Lady R. With thee dissimulation now were vain.
I am indeed the daughter of Sir Malcolm;
The child thou rescuedst from the flood is mine.
Pris. Blessed be the hour that made me a poor
man!

My poverty hath saved my master's house.

Lady R. Thy words surprise me; sure thou dost not
feign!

The tear stands in thine eye: such love from thee
Sir Malcolm's house deserved not, if aright
Thou told'st the story of thy own distress.

Pris. Sir Malcolm of our barons was the flower;
The fastest friend, the best, the kindest master;
But ah! he knew not of my sad estate.
After that battle, where his gallant son,
Your own brave brother, fell, the good old lord
Grew desperate and reckless of the world;
And never, as he erst was wont, went forth

To overlook the conduct of his servants.

By them I was thrust out, and them I blame;
May heaven so judge me as I judged my master,
And God so love me as I love his race!

Lady R. His race shall yet reward thee. On thy

faith

Depends the fate of thy loved master's house.

Rememberest thou a little lonely hut,

That like a holy hermitage appears

Among the cliffs of Carron?

Pris. I remember

The cottage of the cliffs.

Lady R. "Tis that I mean;

There dwells a man of venerable age,

Who in my father's service spent his youth:
Tell him I sent thee, and with him remain,

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Before the king and nobles, what thou now
To me hast told. No more but this, and thou
Shalt live in honour all thy future days;
Thy son so long shall call thee father still,
And all the land shall bless the man who saved
The son of Douglas, and Sir Malcolm's heir.

JOHN HOME, author of Douglas, was by birth connected with the family of the Earl of Home; his father was town-clerk of Leith, where the poet was born in 1722. He entered the church, and succeeded Blair, author of The Grave,' as minister of Athelstaneford. Previous to this, however, he had taken up arms as a volunteer in 1745 against the Chevalier, and after the defeat at Falkirk, was imprisoned in the old castle of Doune, whence he effected his escape, with some of his associates, by cutting their blankets into shreds, and letting themselves down on the ground. The romantic poet soon found the church as severe and tyrannical as the army of Charles Edward. So violent a storm was raised by the fact that a Presbyterian minister had written a play, that Home was forced to succumb to the presbytery, and resign his living. Lord Bute rewarded him with the sinecure office of conservator of Scots privileges at Campvere, and on the accession of George III. in 1760, when the influence of Bute was paramount, the poet received a pension of £300 per annum. He wrote various other tragedies, which soon passed into oblivion; but with an income of about £600 per annum, with an easy, cheerful, and benevolent disposition, and enjoying the friendship of David Hume, Blair, Robertson, and all the most distinguished for rank or talents, John Home's life glided on in happy tranquillity. He survived nearly all his associates, and died in 1808, aged eighty-six.

Among the other tragic writers may be mentioned Mallet, whose drama of Elvira was highly successful, and another drama by whom, Mustapha, enjoyed a factitious popularity by glancing at the characters of the king and Sir Robert Walpole. Glover, author of 'Leonidas,' also produced a tragedy, Boadicea, but it was found deficient in interest for a mixed audience. In this play, Davies, the biographer of Garrick, relates that Glover'preserved a custom of the Druids, who enjoined the persons who drank their poison to turn their faces towards the wind, in order to facilitate the operation of the potion!' Horace Walpole was author of a tragedy, The Mysterious Mother, which, though of a painful and revolting nature as to plot and incident, abounds in vigorous description and striking ima gery. As Walpole had a strong predilection for Gothic romance, and had a dramatic turn of mind, it is to be regretted that he did not devote himself more to the service of the stage, in which he would have anticipated, and rivalled the style of the German drama. The Mysterious Mother' has never been ventured on the stage. The Grecian Daughter, by Murphy, produced in 1772, was a classic subject, treated in the French style, but not destitute of tenderness.

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To drain its blood and treasure, to neglect
Each art of peace, each care of government;
And all for what? By spreading desolation,
Rapine, and slaughter o'er the other half,
To gain a conquest we can never hold.

I venerate this land. Those sacred hills,
Those vales, those cities, trod by saints and prophets,
By God himself, the scenes of heavenly wonders,
Inspire me with a certain awful joy.

But the same God, my friend, pervades, sustains,
Surrounds, and fills this universal frame;
And every land, where spreads his vital presence,
His all-enlivening breath, to me is holy.
Excuse me, Theald, if I go too far:

I meant alone to say, I think these wars
A kind of persecution. And when that-
That most absurd and cruel of all vices,
Is once begun, where shall it find an end?
Each in his turn, or has or claims a right
To wield its dagger, to return its furies,
And first or last they fall upon ourselves.

THOMSON'S Edward and Eleonora.

[Love.]

Why should we kill the best of passions, Love?
It aids the hero, bids Ambition rise
To nobler heights, inspires immortal deeds,
Even softens brutes, and adds a grace to Virtue.
THOMSON'S Sophonisba.

[Miscalculations of Old Men.]

Those old men, those plodding grave state pedants,
Forget the course of youth; their crooked prudence,
To baseness verging still, forgets to take
Into their fine-spun schemes the generous heart,
That, through the cobweb system bursting, lays
Their labours waste.

THOMSON'S Tancred and Sigismunda.

[Awfulness of a Scene of Pagan Rites.]

This is the secret centre of the isle:
Here, Romans, pause, and let the eye of wonder
Gaze on the solemn scene; behold yon oak,
How stern he frowns, and with his broad brown arms
Chills the pale plain beneath him: mark yon altar,
The dark stream brawling round its rugged base;
These cliffs, these yawning caverns, this wide circus,
Skirted with unhewn stone; they awe my soul,
As if the very genius of the place
Himself appeared, and with terrific tread
Stalked through his drear domain. And yet, my friends,
If shapes like his be but the fancy's coinage,
Surely there is a hidden power that reigns
'Mid the lone majesty of untamed nature,
Controlling sober reason; tell me else,
Why do these haunts of barbarous superstition
O'ercome me thus? I scorn them; yet they awe me.

MASON'S Caractacus.

[Against Homicide.]

Think what a sea of deep perdition whelms
The wretch's trembling soul, who launches forth
Unlicensed to eternity. Think, think,
And let the thought restrain thy impious hand.
The race of man is one vast marshalled army,
Summoned to pass the spacious realms of Time,
Their leader the Almighty. In that march
Ah! who may quit his post? when high in air
The chosen archangel rides, whose right hand wields
The imperial standard of Heaven's providence,
Which, dreadful sweeping through the vaulted sky,
Overshadows all creation.

MASON'S Elfrida.

[Solitude on a Battle Field.]

I have been led by solitary care

To yon dark branches, spreading o'er the brook,
Which murmurs through the camp; this mighty camp,
Where once two hundred thousand sons of war,
With restless dins awaked the midnight hour.
Now horrid stillness in the vacant tents
Sits undisturbed; and these incessant rills,
Whose pebbled channel breaks their shallow stream,
Fill with their melancholy sounds my ears,
As if I wandered, like a lonely hind,
O'er some dead fallow, far from all resort:
Unless that ever and anon a groan
Bursts from a soldier, pillowed on his shield
In torment, or expiring with his wounds,
And turns my fixed attention into horror.
GLOVER'S Boadices.

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But, prince, remember then

The vows, the noble uses of affliction;
Preserve the quick humanity it gives,
The pitying, social sense of human weakness;
Yet keep thy stubborn fortitude entire.
The manly heart that to another's wo
Is tender, but superior to its own.
Learn to submit, yet learn to conquer fortune;
Attach thee firmly to the virtuous deeds
And offices of life; to life itself,

With all its vain and transient joys, sit loose.
Chief, let devotion to the sovereign mind,
A steady, cheerful, absolute dependence
In his best, wisest government, possess thee.
In thoughtless gay prosperity, when all
Attends our wish, when nought is seen around us
But kneeling slavery, and obedient fortune;
Then are blind mortals apt, within themselves
To fly their stay, forgetful of the giver;
But when thus humbled, Alfred, as thou art,
When to their feeble natural powers reduced,
"Tis then they feel this universal truth
That Heaven is all in all, and man is nothing.
MALLET'S Alfred.

COMIC DRAMATISTS.

The comic muse was, during this period, more successful than her tragic sister. In the reign of George II., the witty and artificial comedies of Vanbrugh and Farquhar began to lose their ground, both on account of their licentiousness, and the formal system on which they were constructed with regard to characters and expression. In their room, Garrick, Foote, and other writers, placed a set of dramatic compositions, which, though often of a humble and unpretending character, exercised great influence in introducing a taste for more natural portraitures and language; and these again led the │ way to the higher productions, which we are still accustomed to refer to veneratively, as the legitimate English comedies.

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Amongst the first five-act plays in which this improvement was seen, was The Suspicious Husband of Hoadly, in which there is but a slight dash of the license of Farquhar. Its leading character, Ranger, is still a favourite. GEORGE COLMAN, manager of Covent Garden theatre, was an excellent comic writer, and produced above thirty pieces, a few of which deservedly keep possession of the stage. His Jealous Wife, founded on Fielding's 'Tom Jones,' has some highly effective scenes and well-drawn characters. It was produced in 1761; five years after

George Colman.

wards, Colman joined with Garrick and brought out The Clandestine Marriage, in which the character of an aged beau, affecting gaiety and youth, is strikingly personified in Lord Ogleby. ARTHUR MURPHY (1727-1805), a voluminous and miscellaneous writer, added comedies as well as tragedies to the stage, and his Way to Keep Him is still occasionally performed. HUGH KELLY, a scurrilous newspaper writer, surprised the public by producing a comedy, False Delicacy, which had remarkable success both on the fortunes and character of the author: the profits of his first third night realised £150-the largest sum of money he had ever before seen- and from a low, petulant, absurd, and ill-bred censurer,' says Davies, Kelly was transformed to the humane, affable, good-natured, well-bred man.' The marked success

of Kelly's sentimental style gave the tone to a much more able dramatist, RICHARD CUMBERLAND (17321811), who, after two or three unsuccessful pieces, in 1771 brought out The West Indian, one of the best stage plays which English comedy can yet boast. The plot, incidents, and characters (including the first draught of an Irish gentleman which the theatre had witnessed), are all well sustained. Other dramas of Cumberland, as The Wheel of Fortune, The Fashionable Lover, &c., were also acted with applause, though now too stiff and sentimental for our audiences. Goldsmith thought that Cumberland had carried the refinement of comedy to excess, and he set himself to correct the fault. His first dramatic performance, The Good-Natured Man, presents one of the happiest of his delineations in the character of Croaker; but as a whole, the play wants point and sprightliness. His second drama,

She Stoops to Conquer, performed in 1773, has all the requisites for interesting and amusing an audience; and Johnson said, he knew of no comedy for many years that had answered so much the great end of comedy-making an audience merry.' The plot turns on what may be termed a farcical incident-two parties mistaking a gentleman's house for an inn. But the excellent discrimination of character, and the humour and vivacity of the dialogue throughout the play, render this piece one of the richest contributions which have been made to modern comedy. The native pleasantry and originality of Goldsmith were never more happily displayed, and his success, as Davies records, revived fancy, wit, gaiety, humour, incident, and character, in the place of sentiment and moral preachment.'

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Tony. Then desire them to step this way, and I'll set them right in a twinkling. [Exit Landlord.] Gentlemen, as they mayn't be good enough company for you, step down for a moment, and I'll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon. [Exeunt Mob.] Fatherin-law has been calling me a whelp and hound this half-year. Now, if I pleased, I could be so revenged upon the old grumbletonian. But then I am afraid -afraid of what? I shall soon be worth fifteen hundred a-year, and let him frighten me out of that if he can.

Enter LANDLORD, conducting MARLOW and HASTINGS.

Mar. What a tedious uncomfortable day have we had of it! We were told it was but forty miles across the country, and we have come above threescore.

Hast. And all, Marlow, from that unaccountable reserve of yours, that would not let us inquire more frequently on the way.

Mar. I own, Hastings, I am unwilling to lay myself under an obligation to every one I meet; and often stand the chance of an unmannerly answer.

Hast. At present, however, we are not likely to receive any answer.

Tony. No offence, gentlemen; but I am toid you have been inquiring for one Mr Hardcastle in these parts. Do you know what part of the country you are Hast. Not in the least, sir; but should thank you for information.

in?

Tony. Nor the way you came?

Hast. No, sir; but if you can inform us

Tony. Why, gentlemen, if you know neither the road you are going, nor where you are, nor the road you came, the first thing I have to inform you is that you have lost your way.

Mar. We wanted no ghost to tell us that.

Tony. Pray, gentlemen, may I be so bold as to ask the place from whence you came?

Mar. That's not necessary towards directing us where we are to go.

Tony. No offence; but question for question is all fair, you know. Pray, gentlemen, is not this same Hardcastle a cross-grained, old-fashioned, whimsical fellow, with an ugly face, a daughter, and a pretty son!

Hast. We have not seen the gentleman; but he has the family you mention.

Tony. The daughter a tall, trapesing, trolloping, talkative maypole; the son a pretty, well-bred, agreeable youth, that everybody is fond of.

Mar. Our information differs in this: the daughter is said to be well-bred and beautiful; the son an awkward booby, reared up and spoiled at his mother's apron-string.

Tony. He-he-hem. Then, gentlemen, all I have to tell you is, that you won't reach Mr Hardcastle's house this night, I believe.

Hast. Unfortunate!

keeps as good wines and beds as any in the whole county.

Mar. Well, if he supplies us with these, we shall want no further connexion. We are to turn to the right, did you say?

Tony. No, no, straight forward. I'll just step myself and show you a piece of the way. [To the Landlord.] Mum! [Exeunt.

[Arrival at the Supposed Inn.]

Enter MARLOW and HASTINGS.

Hast. After the disappointments of the day, welTony. It's a long, dark, boggy, dangerous way. come once more, Charles, to the comforts of a clean Stingo, tell the gentlemen the way to Mr Hardcastle's room and a good fire. Upon my word a very well[winking at the Landlord]—Mr Hardcastle's of Quag-looking house; antique, but creditable. mire-marsh. You understand me?

Land. Master Hardcastle's? Lack-a-daisy! my masters you're come a deadly deal wrong. When you came to the bottom of the hill you should have crossed down Squash-lane.

Mar. Cross down Squash-lane?

Mar. The usual fate of a large mansion. Having first ruined the master by good house-keeping, it has at last come to levy contributions as an inn.

Hast. As you say, we passengers are to be taxed to pay all these fineries. I have often seen a good sideboard, or a marble chimney-piece, though not actually

Land. Then you were to keep straight forward till put in the bill, inflame the bill confoundedly. you came to four roads.

Mar. Come to where four roads meet?

Mar. Travellers must pay in all places; the only difference is, that in good inns you pay dearly for

Tony. Ay; but you must be sure to take only luxuries; in bad inns you are fleeced and starved.

one.

Mar. O, sir! you're facetious.

Tony. Then, keeping to the right, you are to go sideways till you come upon Crack-skull Common; there you must look sharp for the track of the wheel, and go forward till you come to Farmer Murrain's barn. Coming to the farmer's barn, you are to turn to the right, and then to the left, and then to the right about again, till you find out the old mill

Mar. Zounds! man, we could as soon find out the longitude!

Hast. What's to be done, Marlow?

Mar. This house promises but a poor reception; though perhaps the landlord can accommodate us.

Land. Alack, master! we have but one spare bed in the whole house.

Enter HARDCASTLE.

Hard. Gentlemen, once more you are heartily welcome. Which is Mr Marlow? [Mar. advances.] Sir, you're heartily welcome. It's not my way, you see, to receive my friends with my back to the fire! I like to give them a hearty reception, in the old style, at my gate; I like to see their horses and trunks taken care of.

Mar. [Aside.] He has got our names from the servants already. [To Hard.] We approve your caution and hospitality, sir. [To Hast.] I have been thinking, George, of changing our travelling dresses in the morning; I am grown confoundedly ashamed of mine. Hard. I beg, Mr Marlow, you'll use no ceremony in this house.

Hast. I fancy, you're right: the first blow is half Tony. And to my knowledge that's taken up by the battle. We must, however, open the campaign. three lodgers already. [After a pause, in which the Hard. Mr Marlow-Mr Hastings-gentlemenrest seem disconcerted.] I have hit it: don't you think, pray be under no restraint in this house. This is Stingo, our landlady would accommodate the gentle-Liberty-hall, gentlemen; you may do just as you men by the fireside with three chairs and a bol- please here.

ster?

Hast. I hate sleeping by the fireside.

Mar. And I detest your three chairs and a bolster.

Tony. You do, do you? Then let me see-what if you go on a mile farther to the Buck's Head, the old Buck's Head on the hill, one of the best inns in the whole country.

Hast. O ho! so we have escaped an adventure for this night, however.

Land. [Apart to Tony.] Sure you bean't sending them to your father's as an inn, be you?

Tony Mum! you fool, you; let them find that out. [To them.] You have only to keep on straight forward till you come to a large house on the road-side: you'll see a pair of large horns over the door; that's the sign. Drive up the yard, and call stoutly about you.

Hast. Sir, we are obliged to you. The servants can't miss the way.

Mar. Yet, George, if we open the campaign too fiercely at first, we may want ammunition before it is over. We must show our generalship by securing, if necessary, a retreat.

Hard. Your talking of a retreat, Mr Marlow, puts me in mind of the Duke of Marlborough when he went to besiege Denain. He first summoned the garrison

Mar. Ay, and we'll summon your garrison, old boy. Hard. He first summoned the garrison, which might consist of about five thousand men

Hast. Marlow, what's o'clock ?

Hard. I say gentlemen, as I was telling you, he summoned the garrison, which might consist of about five thousand men

Mar. Five minutes to seven.

Hard. Which might consist of about five thousand men, well appointed with stores, ammunition, and other implements of war. Now, says the Duke of Marlborough to George Brooks, that stood next to him Tony. No, no: but I tell you though, the landlord-you must have heard of George Brooks-I'll pawn is rich, and going to leave off business; so he wants to be thought a gentleman, saving your presence, he, he, he! He'll be for giving you his company; and, ecod! if you mind him, he'll persuade you that his mother was an alderman, and his aunt a justice of the

peace.

Land. A troublesome old blade, to be sure; but a

my dukedom, says he, but I take that garrison without spilling a drop of blood. So

Mar. What? My good friend, if you give us a glass of punch in the meantime, it would help us to carry on the siege with vigour.

Hard. Punch, sir!-This is the most unaccountable kind of modesty I ever met with. [Aside.

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