To nothing this essential, (happier får, XV. Speech of Belial, advising Peace. Is.. To give his enemies their wish, and end Whatever doing, what can we suffer more, Stock. MR. BELCOUR, I am rejoiced to see you; you are welcome to England. Bel. I thank you heartily, good Mr. Stockwell. You and I have long conversed at a distance; now we are met; and the pleasure this meeting gives me, amply compensates for the perils I have run through in accomplishing it. Stock. What perils. Mr. Belcour? I could not have thought you would have met with a bad passage at this time oʻyear. Bel. Nor did we. Courier like, we came posting to your shores, upon the pinions of the swiftest gales that ever blew. It is upon English ground all my difficulties have arisen; it is the passage from the river side I complain of. Stock. Indeed! What obstructions can you have met between this and the river side ? Bel. Innumerable! Your town's as full of defiles as the island of Corsica; and I believe they are as obstinately defended. So much hurry, bustle and confusion on your quays; so many sugar casks, porter butts and common council men in your streets; that unless a man marched with artillery in his front, it is more than the labor of an Hercules can effect, to make any tolerable way through your town. Stock. I am sorry you have been so incommoded. Bel. Why, truly it was all my own fault. Accustomed to a land of slaves, and out of patience with the whole tribe of customhouse extortioners, boatmen, tidewaiters and water bailiffs, that beset me on all sides, worse than a swarm of moschetoes, I proceeded a little too roughly to brush them away with my ratan. The sturdy rogues took this in dudgeon; and beginning to rebel, the mob chose different sides, and a furious scuffle ensued; in the course of which, my person and apparel suffered so much, that I was obliged to step into the first tavern to refit, before I could make my approaches in any decent trim. Stock. Well, Mr. Belcour, it is a rough sample you have had of my countrymen's spirit; but I trust you will not think the worse of them for it. Bel. Not at all, not at all: I like them the better.Were I only a visitor, I might perhaps wish them a little more tractable; but, as a fellow subject, and a sharer in their freedom, I applaud their spirit--though I feel the effects of it in every bone in my skin Well, Mr. Stockwell, for the first time in my life, here am I in England; at the fountain head of pleasure; in the land of beauty, of arts and elegancies. My happy stars have given me a good estate, and the conspiring winds have blown me hither to spend it. Stock. To use it, not to waste it, I should hope; to treat it, Mr. Belcour, not as a vassal over whom you have a wanton despotic power, but as a subject whom you are bound to govern with a temperate and restrained authority. Bel. True, Sir, most truly said; mine's a commission, not a right; I am the offspring of distress, and every child of sorrow is my brother. While I have hands to hold, therefore, I will hold them open to mankind. But Sir, my passions are my masters; they take me where they will; and oftentimes they leave to reason and virtue, nothing but my wishes and my sighs. Stock. Come, come, the man who can accuse, corrects himself. Bel. Ah! That is an office I am weary of. I wish a friend would take it up! I would to heaven you had leisure for the employ. But did you drive a trade to the four corners of the world, you would not find the task so toilsome as to keep me from faults. Stock. Well, I am not discouraged. This candor tells me I should not have the fault of self-conceit to combat; that, at least is not amongst the number. Bel. No; if I knew that man on earth who thought more humbly of me than I do of myself, I would take his opinion, and forego my own. Stock. And were I to choose a pupil, it should be one of your complexion: so if you will come along with me, we will agree upon your admission, and enter upoa a course of lectures directly. Bel. With all my heart. II.-Lady Townly and Lady Grace. PROVCKED HUSBAND, Lady T. OH, my dear Lady Grace! How could you leave me so unmercifully alone all this while ? Lady G. I thought my Lord had been with you. Lady T. Why, yes-and therefore I wanted your relief; for he has been in such a fluster here Lady G. Bless me! For what? Lady T. Only our usual breakfast; we have each of us had our dish of matrimonial comfort this morningwe have been charming company. Lady G. I am mighty glad of it; sure it must be a vast happiness, when man and wife can give themselves the same turn of conversation! Lady T. Oh, the prettiest thing in the world! Lady G. Now I should be afraid, that where two people are every day together so, they must be often in want of something to talk upon. Lady T. Oh, my dear, you are the most mistaken in the world! Married people have things to talk of, child, that never enter into the imagination of others. -Why, here's my Lord and I, now; we have not been married above two short years, you know, and we have already eight or ten things constantly in bank, that whenever we want company, we can take up any one of them for two hours together, and the subject nev. er the flatter; nay, if we have occasion for it, it will be as fresh next day too, as it was the first hour it entertained us. Lady G. Certainly, that must be vastly pretty. |