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Sir S. No, no, only give you a rent-roll of my possessions-Ah! baggage !—I warrant you for a little Sampson. Odd, Sampson is a very good name for an able fellow. Your Sampsons were strong dogs from the beginning.

Ang. Have a care, and don't over-act your part. If you remember, Sampson, the strongest of the name, pulled an old house over his head at last.

Sir S. Say you so, hussy ?-Come, let's go then; odd, I long to be pulling too. Come away-Odso, here's somebody coming. [Exeunt.

Enter TATTLE and JEREMY.

Tatt. Is not that she, gone out just now?

Jer. Ay, sir, she's just going to the place of ap. pointment. Ah, sir, if you are not very faithful and close in this business, you'll certainly be the death of a person that has a most extraordinary passion for your honour's service.

Tatt. Ay, who's that?

Jer. Even my unworthy self, sir. Sir, I have had an appetite to be fed with your commands a great while-And now, sir, my former master having much troubled the fountain of his understanding, it is a very plausible occasion for me to quench my thirst at the spring of your bounty. I thought I could not recommend myself better to you, sir, than by the delivery of a great beauty and fortune into your arms, whom I have heard you sigh for.

Tatt. I'll make thy fortune; say no more. Thou

art a pretty fellow, and canst carry a message to a lady, in a pretty soft kind of phrase, and with a good persuading accent.

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Jer. Sir, I have the seeds of rhetoric and oratory head-I have been at Cambridge.

my

Tatt. Ay; 'tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an university; but the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman. I hope you are secret in your nature, private, close, ha ?

Jer. O sir, for that, sir, 'tis my chief talent; I'm as secret as the head of Nilus.

Tatt. Ay who's he, though? A privy-counsellor ? Jer. O ignorance! [Aside.]-A cunning Egyptian, sir, that with his arms could over-run the country, yet nobody could ever find out his head quarters.

Tatt. Close, dog! a good whoremaster, I warrant him! The time draws nigh, Jeremy, Angelica will be veiled like a nun; and I must be hooded like a friar; ha, Jeremy?

Jer. Ay, sir, hooded like a hawk, to seize at first sight upon the quarry. It is the whim of my master's madness to be so dressed; and she is so in love with him, she'll comply with any thing to please him. Poor lady! I'm sure she'll have reason to pray for me, when she finds what a happy change she has made, between a madman and so accomplished a gentleman.

Tatt. Ay, faith, so she will, Jeremy: You're a good friend to her, poor creature -I swear I do it hardly so much in consideration of myself, as compassion to her.

Jer. 'Tis an act of charity, sir, to save a fine woman with thirty thousand pounds from throwing herself away.

Tatt. So 'tis, faith! I might have saved several others in my time; but egad I could never find in my heart to marry any body before.

Jer. Well, sir, I'll go and tell her my master's coming; and meet you in half a quarter of an hour, with your disguise, at your own lodgings. You must talk a little madly;—she won't distinguish the tone of your voice.

Tatt. No, no, let me alone for a counterfeit. I'll be ready for you. [Exit Jeremy.

Enter Miss PRUE.

Miss P. O, Mr. Tattle, are you here? I'm glad I have found you. I have been looking up and down for you like any thing, till I'm as tired as any thing in the world.

Tatt. O pox! how shall I get rid of this foolish girl? [Aside.

Miss P. O, I have pure news, I can tell you pure news-I must not marry the seaman now-My father says so. Why won't you be my husband? You say you love me! and you won't be my husband. And I know you may be my husband now, if you please. Tatt. O fie, miss! who told you so, child? Miss P. Why, my father-I told him that you loved

me.

Tatt. O fie, miss! why did you do so! and who told you so, child?

Miss P. Who? Why you did; did not you?

Tatt. O pox, that was yesterday, miss; that was a great while ago, child. I have been asleep since; slept a whole night, and did not so much as dream of the matter.

Miss P. Pshaw! O but I dreamt that it was so though.

Tatt. Ay, but your father will tell you that dreams come by contraries, child. O fie! what, we must not love one another now. Pshaw, that would be a foolish thing indeed! Fie, fie! you're a woman now, and must think of a new man every morning, and forget him every night. No, no, to marry is to be a child again, and play with the same rattle always: O fie, marrying is a paw thing!

Miss P. Well, but don't you love me as well as you did last night then?

Tatt. No, no, child, you would not have me.
Miss P. No Yes but I would though.

Tatt. Pshaw, but I tell you, you would not. You forget you are a woman, and don't know your own mind.

Miss P. But here's my father, and he knows my mind.

Enter FORESIGHT.

For. O, Mr. Tattle, your servant, you are a clos man; but methinks your love to my daughter was

secret I might have been trusted with !-or had you a mind to try if I could discover it by my art ?-Hum, ha! I think there is something in your physiognomy, that has a resemblance of her; and the girl is like me.

Tatt. And so you would infer, that you and I are alike-What does the old prig mean? I'll banter him, and laugh at him, and leave him. [Aside.]-I fancy you have a wrong notion of faces.

For. How? what? a wrong notion! how so? Tatt. In the way of art, I have some taking features, not obvious to vulgar eyes, that are indication of a sudden turn of good fortune, in the lottery of wives; and promise a great beauty and great fortune reserved alone for me, by a private intrigue of destiny, kept secret from the piercing eye of perspicuity, from all astrologers, and the stars themselves.

For. How? I will make it appear, that what you say is impossible.

Tatt. Sir, I beg your pardon, I am in haste-
For. For what?

Tatt. To be married, sir—married.

For. Ay, but pray take me along with you, sir. Tatt. No, sir; it is to be done privately-I never make confidents.

For. Well; but my consent, I mean-You won't marry my daughter without my consent?

Tatt. Who, I sir? I am an absolute stranger to you and your daughter, sir.

For. Hey-day! What time of the moon is this?

Tatt. Very true, sir; and desire to continue so. I

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