Sol. That's tooty fay imposseeble. My master has laid his conjunctions upon me to take you a promenade.

Old. [Bowing.] Thank you, sir. Now, whether this foreigner is going to take me out of doors, or into the housekeeper's room, I wish I may be burnt if I can understand. [Exeunt, L.

END OF ACT III.

ACT IV.

SCENE I-An Apartment in the Manor-House-Barford discovered sitting at table.

Bar. The wealthy man takes his time:-but poverty, it seems, must always wait the leisure of the rich. Oh! I hear him coming. [Rises.

Enter TORRENT, r.

Tor. (.) Ah! Mr. Barford! this is kind! You are come to dinner, as I requested.

Bar. I am here, sir, upon business.

Tor. Well, we'll settle it after our bottle, and

Bar. Pardon me, I

Tor. But why didn't you bring your friend, the parson? I respect the cloth, and there's a plum-pudding. Bar. Look at this pocket-book, sir. [Putting it into his hands.]

Tor. 'Tis a-hem!-'tis a mighty neat one, indeed.
Bar. You certainly recollect it.

Tor. I-I think I have seen a clasp of this pattern before.

Bar. Nay, sir, I know it is yours, and I must insist upon restoring it to you. There are bank-notes to the amount of a hundred and fifty pounds. See if they be right.

Tor. Pshaw! I'll tell you what-If you come to cut my throat, for trying to do you a favour, you are too late. I could have quarrell'd with you to your heart's content, at first, for your doctrines; till I saw they arose from disappointments. I am always inclin'd to affront a curly hater of man; but never able to offend, nor be offended by, a man in misfortune.

Bar. You mistake the motive of my visit, sir: I came to thank vou; but there is something, beyond a poor

man's pride, which forbids me to accept of your assist

ance.

Tor. "Tisn't misanthropy, though you make such a boast of it.

Bur. You cannot penetrate my sentiments.

Tor. Better than you yourself, perhaps;—and, with all your pride and hatred, I have a great mind to send you on a message, and you will skip for joy at the office. Bar. Sir!

Tor. Carry this pocket-book to your palsied landlord, with his little boy, whom you rescued from the fire, at the risk of your life; and ask your feelings, by the way, whether you hate your fellow-creatures.

Bar. [Eagarly.] Give it me. I-No-[Checks himself.] He is an humble son of labour. Whenever you can remove distress, without wounding sensibility, you must not lose the pleasure of drying a tear with your own hand. But how should you know that transaction?

Tor. Because the world isn't so bad as you pretend to think. If there are too many to chatter tales to a man's disadvantage, there are enough to proclaim a fact to his credit; and one steady sound of Candour's clarion is heard through a thousand squeaks of Scandal's penny trumpets. But how came you to know, to a certainty, that this book is mine?

Bar. You forgot that the inclos'd memorandums, and your own written name (which had I perceiv'd first, I should have search'd no further) must lead to a discovery.

Tor. Confound my stupidity !-The next pocket-book I buy, I'll make a nota-bene in it never to forget remembering my memorandums. However, it has brought you here, and bids fair to make us better acquainted.— And there's my friend Heartly, and myself, and—come, come-we'll try to make this country pleasant to you.

Bar. Perhaps, Mr. Torrent, when you know my history, you are the last man who would endeavour to make any country pleasant to me.

Tor. Hey! the devil! I wish to make any body comfortable but a downright rogue; I-I am sure you can't be that character.

Bar. I have punctually discharg'd all moral obligations, sir. I have serv'd too, in his majesty's army; I have retir'd from it with unblemish'd honour, and so I mean to retire to my grave.

Tor. Then you'll want no flourishes on your tombstone. A homely chisel chipping out plain duties, faithfully perform'd to king, country, and relatives, beats the best poetical epitaph I can remember. 'Tis a blunt question to ask,—but you see that's my way-Who are you?

Bar. One who, by the intelligence you have given him this morning, is willing to disclose himself.

Tor. I have given!

Bar. (c.) I once possess'd a moderate independence: youthful ardour threw me into the army, and I was order'd abroad. At the time of my departure, the hand of the woman I almost ador'd was given to me in marriage by the friend I most lov'd. That friend was an officer in our regiment, who, having no resource but his profession, shar'd my purse, as he shar'd my confidence.

Tor. (L.C.) I like that sharing. When an officer is independent, every little bandy-legg'd drummer in his regiment should at least be, once in a winter, a pair of stockings the better for him.

Bur. My wife resolv'd to be the partner of my voyage. Flush'd with the hope of fame, and ardent in my country's cause, I gaz'd from the deck upon my native cliffs, without one sigh, as I receded from them; for I had the wife of my bosom on one side, and the friend of my bosom on the other.

Tor. I wish I were young-I'd marry, and go into the army, to-morrow morning.

Bar. Mark the reverse.-After five years' residence in the West Indies, the friend, whose need had been supplied by my unsuspecting love, seduc'd the innocent he had given to me at the altar; and, at one blow, struck two of the keenest wounds upon his benefactor's heart, the heart of man can suffer.

Tor. Damn him for a scoundrel !

Bar. The guilty fled together. I pursu'd, and overtook their carriage. The bosom traitor threw out his sword, unsheath'd, and exclaim'd he was ready, on the instant, to give me satisfaction.

Tor. What? By--Oh, true-I had forgot :-) - The modern notion of satisfaction is, that the injur'd is to enjoy a chance of being murder'd by his injurer.

Bar. The hilt of his sword stuck deep in the soil of the road, while the blade pointed upwards to that heaven

E

which had witness'd his villany. In leaping out he fell upon it; it pierc'd his body, and he expir'd at my feet.

Tor. And by almost the only sword that would not have been disgrac'd, by ridding the world of such a monster. Who was he?

Bar. Your brother.

Tor. My bro-I-You-So, then, it seems he died at last, by--I don't mean to insult you by being shock'd at his death; but he was my brother, and I can't help it. What became of your wife?

Bar. We had a daughter, four years old. The wretched woman hurried from the scene of death, to give a last kiss to her little one, before she shrunk from the eye of an outrag'd husband; but, while the smiling baby twin'd its arms about her neck, a mother's tenderness urged her to add to a wife's cruelty; and, as she rush'd from my roof for ever, she bore away my infant.

Tor. Pray, say no more :-he was my brother, but I'm afraid he deserv'd to

Bar. Deserv'd! Oh! probity, honour, domestic peace! how often are your sacred bonds rent asunder, and how lenient is law to the offender!-If the famish'd criminal be executed, who purloins a little food to preserve life, what sentence can be too severe for the libertine wretch, who has plunged his friend's family in anguish, to gratify his passions!

Tor. You have too much reason, I believe, to abhor my brother's memory.

Bar. He has disgusted me with the living, but I wage no war with the dead; although his death ruin'd my fortunes, as his life destroy'd my happiness.

Tor. Your fortunes!

Bar. At the moment he was planning my misery and my wife's shame, I had become his security to so large an amount, that my paternal income was annihilated in discharging his creditors.

Tor. Bring your claim against his relations. I am the only one surviving, and will discharge the bonds directly. Where are they?

Bar. Here is your brother's note, bearing a reference to those bonds for seven thousand pounds.

[Showing it to Torrent. Tor. I'll swear to the hand. Let me cancel the debt, though I blush at the relationship.

Bar. I cancel it now, sir. [Tears it.] That pocket

book, which I have just return'd, has given me a far, far more valuable claim; my title is indisputably legal, and I am here to assert it.

Tor. Pocket-book! There's nothing that I recollect, but-but the paltry notes and-[Searching it]-and some memorandums-and a long letter here without an envelope, from a poor girl in distress, who is coming to be my housekeeper.

Bar. I must see her.

Tor. See her!-Why?

Bar. That this heart, so long cold and desolate, may feel the aching transport of a father, when it beats against the bosom of my child.

Tor. Child! What, is she the infant daughter that -Hollo! [Calling.] You shall be-Solomon !-I'm as much pleas'd as if-Thomas! Pooh !-he's drunkMy dear sir, if she's not arrived yet, you'll see her tonight to a certainty.

Bar. Not arrived! The letter says she would be here this morning.

Tor. Yes; but she's not come.-The moment I-that is, she-I mean that-zounds! I'm too much flurried to speak plain. But don't distrust me :-If my brother has sullied his memory, by making a husband wretched, don't suppose I can't jump for joy in making a father happy.

Enter SOLOMON Gundy, r.

Tor. Is Miss Fanny-is-the housekeeper arriv'd? Sol. No.

Bar. No!

Tor. No!

Sol. Nong paw, as the French say; but the little man in the bob wig is run out of his senses.

Tor. Then I wish you had run into them.-What's the matter with him?

Sol. A total arrangement of his ineffectuals.—He's what we call foo at Dunkirk. He says you sent him into the park to take him in; calls all the prospects a blind; and when I showed him the stags, he ran into the chuteau, and said he wouldn't be kept from his own little dear.

Tor. Why, what is all this ?-Don't be impatient. [To Barford.] This is only a strange surveyor that-You shall soon be made easy. [Retires up, L.

Bar. I shall expect it, sir.