Mrs. Hardcastle [running forward from be-| hind]. Olud! he'll murder my poor boy, my darling! Here, good gentleman, whet your rage upon me. Take my money, my life, but spare that young gentleman; spare my child, if you have any mercy. Hardcastle. My wife, as I'm a Christian. From sist, I must reluctantly obey you.

Hastings. But though he had the will, he has not the power to relieve you.

Miss Neville. But he has influence, and upon that I am resolved to rely.

whence can she come? or what does she mean? Mrs. Hardcastle [kneeling]. Take compassion on us, good Mr. Highwayman. Take our money, our watches, all we have, but spare our lives. We will never bring you to justice, indeed we won't, good Mr. Highwayman.

Hardcastle. I believe the woman's out of her senses. What, Dorothy, don't you know me. Mrs. Hardcastle. Mr. Hardcastle, as I'm alive! My fears blinded me. But who, my dear, could have expected to meet you here, in this frightful place, so far from home? What has brought you to follow us?

Hastings. I have no hopes. But since you per[Exeunt

SCENE CHANGES.

Enter SIR CHARLES MARLOW and MISS HARD

CASTLE.

Sir Charles. What a situation am I in! If what you say appears, I shall then find a guilty son. If what he says be true, I shall then lose one that, of all others, I most wished for a daughter.

Miss Hardcastle. I am proud of your approbation; and to show I merit it, if you place yourselves as I directed, you shall hear his explicit declarations. But he comes.

Sir Charles. I'll to your father and keep him to [Exit Sir Charles.

Hardcastle. Sure, Dorothy, you have not lost your wits? So far from home, when you are within for-the appointment. ty yards of your own door! [To him.] This is one of your old tricks, you graceless rogue you. [To her.] Don't you know the gate and the mulberry tree; and don't you remember the horsepond, my dear?

Mrs. Hardcastle. Yes, I shall remember the

horse-pond as long as I live; I have caught my death in it. [To Tony.] And is it to you, you graceless varlet, I owe all this? I'll teach you to abuse your mother, I will.

Tony. Ecod, mother, all the parish says you have spoiled me, and so you may take the fruits on't. Mrs. Hardcastle. I'll spoil you, I will.

[Follows him off the Stage. Erit. Hardcastle. There's morality, however, in his reply. [Exit.

Enter HASTINGS and MISS NEVILLE,

Hastings. My dear Constance, why will you deliberate thus? If we delay a moment, all is lost for ever. Pluck up a little resolution, and we shall soon be out of the reach of her malignity.

Miss Neville. I find it impossible. My spirits are so sunk with the agitations I have suffered, that I am unable to face any new danger. Two or three years' patience will at last crown us with happiness. Hastings. Such a tedious delay is worse than inconstancy. Let us fly, my charmer. Let us date our happiness from this very moment. Perish fortune! Love and content will increase what we possess beyond a monarch's revenue. Let me prevail.

Enter MARLOW.

Marlow. Though prepared for setting out, I come once more to take leave; nor did I till this moment, know the pain I feel in the separation.

Miss Hardcastle [in her own natural manner]. which you can so easily remove. I believe these sufferings can not be very great, sir, A day or two longer, perhaps, might lessen your uneasiness, by showing the little value of what you think proper to regret.

Marlow [aside]. This girl every moment improves upon me. [To her.] It must not be, madam. I have already trifled too long with my heart. My very pride begins to submit to my passion. The disparity of education and fortune, the anger of a parent, and the contempt of my equals, begin to lose their weight; and nothing can restore me to myself but this painful effort of resolution.

Miss Hardcastle. Then go, sir: I'll urge nothing more to detain you. Though my family be as good as hers you came down to visit, and my education, I hope, not inferior, what are these advantages without equal affluence? I must remain contentel with the slight approbation of imputed merit; I while all your serious aims are fixed on fortune. must have only the mockery of your addresses,

Enter HARDCASTLE and SIR CHARLES MARLOW from behind.

Sir Charles. Here, behind this screen. Hardcastle. Ay, ay; make no noise. I'll en gage my Kate covers him with confusion at last.

Miss Neville. No, Mr. Hastings, no. Prudence Marlow. By Heavens! madam, fortune was once more comes to my relief, and I will obey its ever my smallest consideration. Your beauty at dictates. In the moment of passion, fortune may first caught my eye, for who could see that without be despised, but it ever produces a lasting repent-emotion? But every moment that I converse with I'm resolved to apply to Mr. Hardcastle's you, steals in some new grace, heightens the piccompassion and justice for redress. ture, and gives it stronger expression. What at

ance.

Marlow. Zounds, there's no bearing this; it's

first seemed rustic plainness, now appears refined |
simplicity. What seemed forward assurance, now worse than death!
strikes me as the result of courageous innocence
and conscious virtue.

Sir Charles. What can it mean? He amazes me! Hardcastle. I told you how it would be. Hush! Marlow. I am now determined to stay, madam, and I have too good an opinion of my father's discernment, when he sees you, to doubt his approbation.

Miss Hardcastle. No, Mr. Marlow, I will not, can not detain you. Do you think I could suffer a connexion in which there is the smallest room for repentance? Do you think I would take the mean advantage of a transient passion to load you with confusion? Do you think I could ever relish that happiness which was acquired by lessening yours?

Marlow. By all that's good, I can have no happiness but what's in your power to grant me! Nor shall 1 ever feel repentance but in not having seen your merits before. I will stay even contrary to your wishes; and though you should persist to shun me, I will make my respectful assiduities atone for the levity of my past conduct.

Miss Hardcastle. In which of your characters, sir, will you give us leave to address you? As the faltering gentleman, with looks on the ground, that speaks just to be heard, and hates hypocrisy; or the loud confident creature, that keeps it up with Mrs. Mantrap, and old Miss Biddy Buckskin, till three in the morning?-Ha! ha! ha!

Marlow. O, curse on my noisy head! I never attempted to be impudent yet that I was not taken down! I must be gone.

Hardcastle. By the hand of my body, but you shall not. I see it was all a mistake, and I am rejoiced to find it. You shall not, sir, I tell you. I know she'll forgive you. Won't you forgive him, Kate? We'll all forgive you. Take courage, man. [They retire, she tormenting him to the back scene.

Enter MRS. HARDCASTLE, TONY.

Mrs. Hardcastle. So, so, they're gone off. Let them go, I care not.

Hardcastle. Who gone?

Mrs. Hardcastle. My dutiful niece and her gende-tleman, Mr. Hastings, from town. He who came

Miss Hardcastle. Sir, I must entreat you'll sist. As our acquaintance began, so let it end, in indifference. I might have given an hour or two to levity; but seriously, Mr. Marlow, do you think I could ever submit to a connexion where I must appear mercenary, and you imprudent? Do you think I could ever catch at the confident addresses

of a secure admirer?

Marlow (kneeling]. Does this look like security? Does this look like confidence? No, madam, every moment that shows me your merit, only serves to increase my diffidence and confusion. Here let me continue

Sir Charles. I can hold it no longer. Charles, Charles, how hast thou deceived me! Is this your indifference, your uninteresting conversation?

Hardcastle. Your cold contempt; your formal| interview! What have you to say now?

Marlow. That I'm all amazement! What can it mean?

Hardcastle. It means that you can say and unsay things at pleasure: that you can address a lady in private, and deny it in public: that you have one story for us, and another for my daughter.

Marlow. Daughter!—This lady your daughter? Hardcastle. Yes, sir, my only daughter: my Kate; whose else should she be?

down with our modest visiter here.

Sir Charles. Who, my honest George Hastings? As worthy a fellow as lives, and the girl could not have made a more prudent choice.

Hardcastle. Then, by the hand of my body, I'm proud of the connexion.

Mrs. Hardcastle. Well, if he has taken away the lady, he has not taken her fortune; that remains in this family to console us for her loss.

Hardcastle. Sure, Dorothy, you would not be so mercenary?

Mrs. Hardcastle. Ay, that's my affair, not yours. Hardcastle. But you know if your son, when of then at her own disposal. age, refuses to marry his cousin, her whole fortune

is

Mrs. Hardcastle. Ay, but he's not of age, and she has not thought proper to wait for his refusal.

Enter HASTINGS and MISS NEVILLE.

Mrs. Hardcastle [aside]. What, returned so soon! I begin not to like it.

Hastings [to Hardcastle]. For my late attempt to fly off with your niece, let my present confusion be my punishment. We are now come back, to appeal from your justice to your humanity. By her father's consent I first paid her my addresses, and our passions were first founded in duty.

Marlow. Oh, the devil! Miss Neville. Since his death, I have been Miss Hardcastle. Yes, sir, that very identical obliged to stoop to dissimulation to avoid opprestall squinting lady you were pleased to take me sion. In an hour of levity, I was ready even to for; [courtesying] she that you addressed as the give up my fortune to secure my choice: but I'm mild, modest, sentimental man of gravity, and the now recovered from the delusion, and hope from bold, forward, agreeable Rattle of the ladies' club. your tenderness what is denied me from a neare! Ha! ha! ha! connexion.

Mrs. Hardcastle. Pshaw, pshaw; this is all but | The first act shows the simple country maid, the whining end of a modern novel. Harmless and young, of every thing afraid; Hardcastle. Be it what it will, I'm glad they're Blushes when hired, and with unmeaning action come back to reclaim their due. Come hither," I hopes as how to give you satisfaction." Tony, boy. Do you refuse this lady's hand whom Her second act displays a livelier sceneI now offer you. The unblushing bar-maid of a country inn, Tony. What signifies my refusing? You know Who whisks about the house, at market caters, I can't refuse her till I'm of age, father. Talks loud, coquets the guests, and scolds the

Hardcastle. While I thought concealing your age, boy, was likely to conduce to your improvement, I concurred with your mother's desire to keep it secret. But since I find she turns it to a wrong use, I must now declare you have been of age these three months.

Tony. Of age! Am I of age, father?
Hardcastle. Above three months.

waiters.

Next the scene shifts to town, and there she soars,
The chop-house toast of ogling connoisseurs.
On 'squires and cits she there displays her arts,
And on the gridiron broils her lovers' hearts—
And as she smiles, her triumphs to complete,
E'en common-council men forget to eat.
The fourth acts shows her wedded to the 'squire,

Tony. Then you'll see the first use I'll make of And madam now begins to hold it higher; my liberty. [Taking Miss Neville's hand.] Wit-Pretends to taste, at operas cries caro! ness all men by these presents, that I, Anthony And quits her Nancy Dawson for Che Faro: Lumpkin, esquire, of BLANK place, refuse you, Doats upon dancing, and in all her pride Constantia Neville, spinster, of no place at all, for Swims round the room, the Heinel of Cheapside. my true and lawful wife. So Constance Neville Ogles and lears with artificial skill, may marry whom she pleases, and Tony Lumpkin Till, having lost in age the power to kill, is his own man again. She sits all night at cards, and ogles at spadille. Such, through our lives the eventful history— The fifth and last act still remains for me. The bar-maid now for your protection prays, Turns female Barrister, and pleads for Bays.

Sir Charles. O brave 'Squire!
Hastings. My worthy friend.

Mrs. Hardcastle. My undutiful offspring! Marlow. Joy, my dear George, I give you joy sincerely. And could I prevail upon my little tyrant here to be less arbitrary, I should be the happiest man alive, if you would return me the favour.

EPILOGUE,*

Hastings [to Miss Hardcastle]. Come, madam, you are now driven to the very last scene of all To be spoken in the character of Tony Lumpkin. your contrivances. I know you like him, I'm sure

he loves you, and you must and shall have him.

say

BY J. CRADOCK, ESQ.

Hardcastle [joining their hands]. And I WELL-now all's ended—and my comrades gone, so too. And, Mr. Marlow, if she makes as good Pray what becomes of mother's nonly son? a wife as she has a daughter, I don't believe you'll A hopeful blade! in town I'll fix my station, ever repent your bargain. So now to supper. To- And try to make a bluster in the nation: morrow we shall gather all the poor of the parish As for my cousin Neville, I renounce her, about us, and the mistakes of the night shall be Off-in a crack—I'll carry big Bet Bouncer. crowned with a merry morning: so, boy, take her; and as you have been mistaken in the mistress, my wish is, that you may never be mistaken in the wife. [Exeunt omnes.

EPILOGUE, BY DR. GOLDSMITH, SPOKEN BY MRS. BULKLEY, IN THE CHARACTER Or

MISS HARDCASTLE.

WELL, having stoop'd to conquer with success,
And gain'd a husband without aid from dress,
Still, as a bar-maid, I could wish it too,

As I have conquer'd him to conquer you;
And let me say, for all your resolution,
That pretty bar-maids have done execution.
Our life is all a play, composed to please,
"We have our exits and our entrances,"

Why should not I in the great world appear?
I soon shall have a thousand pounds a-year!
No matter what a man may here inherit,
In London-'gad, they've some regard to spirit.
I see the horses prancing up the streets,
And big Bet Bouncer bobs to all she meets;
Then hoiks to jigs and pastimes, every night—
Not to the plays-they say it a'n't polite;
To Sadler's Wells, perhaps, or operas go,
And once, by chance, to the roratorio,
Thus here and there, for ever up and down,
We'll set the fashions too to half the town;
And then at auctions-money ne'er regard,
Buy pictures like the great, ten pounds a-yard.
Zounds! we shall make these London gentry say
We know what's damn'd genteel as well as they

AN ORATORIO.

How doubly sweet when Heaven was with us Come on, my companions, the triumph display,

The sun calls us out on this festival day,
And our monarch partakes in the joy.

SECOND PRIEST.

Is this a time to bid us raise the strain,
Or mix in rites that Heaven regards with pain?
No, never. May this hand forget each art
That wakes to finest joys the human heart,

Like the sun, our great monarch all rapture sup- Ere I forget the land that gave me birth,