a man; how could I make that coup d'etourdi to think him one?

Palm. Away, impertinent !-my dear Leonidas! Leon. My dear Palmyra!

Palm. Death shall never part us; my destiny is yours. [He is led off, she follows. Mel. Impertinent! Oh I am the most unfortunate person this day breathing: That the princess should thus rompre en visiere, without occasion. Let me die, but I'll follow her to death, till I make my peace.

Pala. [Holding her.] And let me die, but I'll follow you to the infernals, till you pity me.

Mel. [Turning towards him angrily.] Ay, 'tis long of you that this malheur is fallen upon me; your impertinence has put me out of the good graces of the princess, and all that, which has ruined me, and all that, and, therefore, let me die, but I'll be revenged, and all that.

Pala. Façon, façon, you must and shall love me, and all that; for my old man is coming up, and all that; and I am desesperé au dernier, and will not be disinherited, and all that.

Mel. How durst you interrupt me so mal apropos, when you knew I was addressing to the princess?

Pala. But why would you address yourself so much a contretemps then?

Mel. Ah, mal peste !

Pala. Ah, j'enrage!

Phil. Radoucissez vous, de grace, madame; vous étes bien en colere pour peu de chose.

pas la raillerie gallante.

me,

Vous n'entendez

Mel. Ad autres, ad autres: He mocks himself of * he abuses me: Ah me unfortunate! [Cries.

He mocks himself of me.] Melantha, like some modern coxcombs, uses the idiom as well as the words of the French language,

Phil. You mistake him, madam, he does but accommodate his phrase to your refined language. Ah qu'il est un cavalier accompli! Pursue your point, [To him. Pala. Ah qu'il fait beau dans ces boccages; [Singing.] Ah que le ciel donne un beau jour! There I was with you, with a minuét.

sir

Mel. Let me die now, but this singing is fine, and extremely French in him: [Laughs.] But then, that he should use my own words, as it were in contempt of me, I cannot bear it. [Crying.

Pala. Ces beaux sejours, ces doux ramages

[Singing. Mel. Ces beaux sejours, ces dour ramages. [Singing after him.] Ces beaux sejours nous invitent à l'amour! Let me die, but he sings en cavalier, and so humours the cadence! [Laughing.

Pala. Foy, ma Clymene, voy sous ce chene. [Singing again.] S' entrebaiser ces oiseaur amoreur! Let me die now, but that was fine. Ah, now, for three or four brisk Frenchmen, to be put into masking habits, and to sing it on a theatre, how witty it would be! and then to dance helter skelter to a chanson a boire: Toute la terre, toute la terre est a moi! What's matter though it were made and sung two or three years ago in cabarets, how it would attract the admiration, especially of every one that's an eveillé !

Mel. Well; I begin to have a tendre for you; but yet, upon condition, that when we are married, you[PAL. sings, while she speaks. Phil. You must drown her voice: If she makes her French conditions, you are a slave for ever. Mel. First, you will engage that

Pala. Fa, la, la, la, &c.

Mel. Will you hear the conditions?

[Louder.

Pala. No; I will hear no conditions; I am re

solved to win you en François: To be very airy,

with abundance of noise, and no sense : Fa la, la, la, &c.

Mel. Hold, hold: I am vanquished with your gayeté d'esprit. I am yours, and will be yours, sans nulle reserve, ni condition: And let me die, if I do not think myself the happiest nymph in SicilyMy dear French dear, stay but a minuite, till I raccommode myself with the princess; and then I am yours, jusqu' a la mort. Allons donc.

[Exeunt MEL. PHIL.

Pala. [Solus, fanning himself with his hat.] I never thought before that wooing was so laborious an exercise; if she were worth a million, I have deserved her; and now, methinks too, with taking all this pains for her, I begin to like her. Tis so; I have known many, who never cared for hare nor partridge, but those they caught themselves would eat heartily: The pains, and the story a man tells of the taking them, makes the meat go down more pleasantly. Besides, last night I had a sweet dream of her, and, gad, she I have once dreamed of, I am stark mad till I enjoy her, let her be never so ugly.

Enter DORALICE.

Dor. Who's that you are so mad to enjoy, Palamede?

Pala. You may easily imagine that, sweet Doralice.

Dor. More easily than you think I can: I met just now with a certain man, who came to you with letters from a certain old gentleman, y'cleped your father; whereby I am given to understand, that to-morrow you are to take an oath in the church to be grave henceforward, to go ill-dressed and slovenly, to get heirs for your estate, and to dandle them for your diversion; and, in short, that love and courtship are to be no more.

Pala. Now have I so much shame to be thus apprehended in the manner, that I can neither speak nor look upon you; I have abundance of grace in me, that I find: But if you have any spark of true friendship in you, retire with me a little into the next room, that hath a couch or bed in it, and bestow your charity upon a dying man! A little comfort from a mistress, before a man is going to give himself in marriage, is as good as a lusty dose of strong-water to a dying malefactor: it takes away the sense of hell and hanging from

him.

Dor. No, good Palamede, I must not be so injurious to your bride: Tis ill drawing from the bank to-day, when all your ready money is payable to

morrow.

Pala. A wife is only to have the ripe fruit, that falls of itself; but a wise man will always preserve a shaking for a mistress.

Dor. But a wife for the first quarter is a mis

tress.

Pala. But when the second comes

Dor. When it does come, you are so given to variety, that you would make a wife of me in another quarter.

Pala. No, never, except I were married to you: married people can never oblige one another; for all they do is duty, and consequently there can be no thanks: But love is more frank and generous than he is honest; he's a liberal giver, but a cursed pay-master.

Dor. I declare I will have no gallant; but, if I would, he should never be a married man; a married man is but a mistress's half-servant, as a clergyman is but the king's half-subject: For a man to come to me that smells of the wife! 'Slife, I would as soon wear her old gown after her, as her husband.

Pala. Yet 'tis a kind of fashion to wear a princess's cast shoes; you see the country ladies buy them, to be fine in them.

Dor. Yes, a princess's shoes may be worn after her, because they keep their fashion, by being so very little used; but generally a married man is the creature of the world the most out of fashion his behaviour is dumpish; his discourse, his wife and family; his habit so much neglected, it looks as if that were married too; his hat is married, his peruke is married, his breeches are married,—and, if we could look within his breeches, we should find him married there too.

Pala. Am I then to be discarded for ever? pray do but mark how that word sounds; for ever! it has a very damn'd sound, Doralice.

Dor. Ay, for ever! it sounds as hellishly to me, as it can do to you, but there's no help for it.

Pala. Yet, if we had but once enjoyed one another!--but then once only, is worse than not at all: It leaves a man with such a lingering after it.

Dor. For aught I know, 'tis better that we have not; we might upon trial have liked each other less, as many a man and woman, that have loved as desperately as we, and yet, when they came to possession, have sighed and cried to themselves, Is this all?

Pala. That is only, if the servant were not found a man of this world; but if, upon trial, we had not liked each other, we had certainly left loving; and faith, that's the greater happiness of the two.

Dor. 'Tis better as 'tis; we have drawn off already as much of our love as would run clear; after possessing, the rest is but jealousies, and disquiets, and quarrelling, and piecing.

Pala. Nay, after one great quarrel, there's never any sound piecing; the love is apt to break in the same place again.