James. I can't tell, indeed, sir. For. No, I know you can't, sir. But I can tell, and foretell, sir. Enter NURSE. For. Nurse, where's your young mistress? Nurse. Wee'st heart! I know not; they're none of them come home yet. Poor child, I warrant she's fond of seeing the town! Marry, pray Heaven they have given her any dinner! Good lack-a-day, ha! ha! ha! O strange; I'll vow and swear now, ha! ha! ha! marry, and did you ever see the like! For. Why, how now, what's the matter? Nurse. Pray Heaven send your worship good luck! marry, and amen, with all my heart! for you have put on one stocking with the wrong side outward. For. Ha, how? Faith and troth, I'm glad of it; and so I have; that may be good luck in troth; in troth it may, very good luck: nay, I have had some omens. I got out of bed backwards too this morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too. But then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad omens those! Some bad, some good; our lives are chequered: mirth and sorrow, want and plenty, night and day, make up our time. But, in troth, I am pleased at my stocking-very well pleased at my stocking!-Oh, here's my niece!Sirrah, go tell Sir Sampson Legend I'll wait on him, if he's at leisure. [Exit JAMES.] 'Tis now three o'clock, a very good hour for business; Mercury governs this hour. Enter ANGELICA. Ang. Is it not a good hour for pleasure too, uncle? Pray lend me your coach; mine's gone to be mended. For. What, would you be gadding too? Sure all females are mad to-day. It is of evil portend, and bodes mischief to the master of a family. I remember an old prophecy, written by Messahalah the Arabian, and thus translated by a reverend Bucking hamshire bard: When housewives all the house forsake, Fruitful! the head fruitful! that bodes horns; the fruit of the head is horns: Dear niece, stay at home -for by the head of the house is meant the husband; the prophecy needs no explanation. Ang. Well, but I can neither make you a cuckold, uncle, by going abroad, nor secure you from being one, by staying at home. For. Yes, yes; while there's one woman left, the prophecy is not in full force. Ang. But my inclinations are in force. I have a mind to go abroad; and if you won't lend me your coach, I'll take a hackney, or a chair. Why don't you keep your wife at home, if you're jealous of her when she's abroad? You know my aunt is a little retrograde (as you call it) in her nature. Uncle, I'm afraid you are not lord of the ascendant! ha, ha, ha! For. Well, jill-flirt, you are very pert-and always ridiculing that celestial science. Ang. Nay, uncle, don't be angry. If you are, I'll reap up all your false prophecies, ridiculous dreams, and idle divinations. I'll swear, you are a nuisance to the neighbourhood. What a bustle did you keep against the last invisible eclipse, laying in provision, as it were for a siege! What a world of fire and candle, matches and tinderboxes, did you purchase! One would have thought we were ever after to live under ground; or at least to make a voyage to Greenland, to inhabit there all the dark season.-Indeed, uncle, I'll indite you for a wizard. For. How, hussy! was there ever such a provoking minx ? Nurse. O merciful father, how she talks! Ang. Yes, I can make oath of your unlawful midnight practices; you and the old nurse there. Nurse. Marry, Heaven defend!-I at midnight practices!-O lord, what's here to do?-I in unlawful doings with my master's worship!-Why, did you ever hear the like now? - Sir, did ever I do any thing but warm your bed, and tuck you up, and set the candle and your tobacco-box by you, and now and then rub the soles of your feet ? - lord, I! Ang. Yes, I saw you together, through the keyhole of the closet, one night, like Saul and the witch of Endor, turning the sieve and sheers, and pricking your thumbs, to write poor innocent servants names in blood, about a little nutmeg-grater, which she had forgot in the caudle-cup. For. I defy you, hussy; but I'll remember this. I'll be revenged on you, cockatrice; I'll hamper you -You have your fortune in your own hands-but I'll find a way to make your lover, your prodigal spendthrift gallant, Valentine, pay for all, I will.I will have patience, since it is the will of the stars I should be thus tormented this is the effect of the malicious conjunctions and oppositions in the third house of my nativity; there the curse of kindred was foretold. But I will have my doors locked up-I'll punish you; not a man shall enter my house. Ang. Do, uncle, lock them up quickly, before my aunt comes home-you'll have a letter for alimony to-morrow morning!-But let me be gone first; and then let no mankind come near the house: but converse with spirits and the celestial signs, the bull and the ram, and the goat. Bless me, there are a great many horned beasts among the twelve signs, uncle! But cuckolds go to heaven! For. But there's but one virgin among the twelve signs, spitfire!-but one virgin! Ang. Nor there had not been that one, if she had had to do with any thing but astrologers, uncle! That makes my aunt go abroad. For. How! how! is that the reason? Come, you know something; tell me, and I'll forgive you; do, good niece. Come, you shall have my coach and horses-faith and troth, you shall.-Does my wife complain? Come, I know women tell one another. Ang. Ha! ha! ha! Fur. Do you laugh? Well, gentlewoman, I'llBut come, be a good girl, don't perplex your poor uncle! Tell me won't you speak? Odd, I'll Enter JAMES. Ser. Sir Sampson is coming to wait upon you, sir. [Exit. Ang. Good b'ye, uncle.-Call me a chair.-I'll find out my aunt, and tell her, she must not come home. [Exit. For. I am so perplexed and vexed, I am not fit to receive him; I shall scarce recover myself before the hour be past. Go, Nurse, and hid them tell Sir Sampson, I'm ready to wait on him. Nurse. Yes, sir. [Exit. For. Well-why, if I was born to be a cuckold, there's no more to be said!-He is here already. Enter Sir SAMPSON LEGEND, with a Paper. Sir S. Nor no more to be done, old boy; that is plain-here it is, I have it in my hand, old Ptolemy; I'll make the ungracious prodigal know who begat him; I will, old Nostrodamus. What, I warrant, my son thought nothing belonged to a father, but forgiveness and affection; no authority, no correction, no arbitrary power-nothing to be done, but for him to offend, and me to pardon! I warrant you, if he danced till doomsday, he thought I was to pay the piper. Well, but here it is under black and white, signatum, sigillatum, and deliberatum-that as soon as my son Benjamin is arrived, he is to make over to him his right of inheritance. Where's my daughter that is to be-ha! old Merlin? Body of me, I'm so glad I'm revenged on this undutiful rogue! For. Odso, let me see; let me see the paper. Ay, faith and troth, here it is, if it will but hold-I wish things were done, and the conveyance made. - When was this signed? what hour? Odso, you should have consulted me for the time. Well, but we'll make haste. Sir S. Haste! ay, ay, haste enough; my son Ben will be in town to-night-I have ordered my lawyer to draw up writings of settlement and jointure-all shall be done to-night.-No matter for the time; pr'ythee, brother Foresight, leave superstition:-there's no time but the time present; there's no more to be said of what's past; and all that is to come will happen. If the sun shine by day, and the stars by night -why, we shall know one another's faces without the help of a candle; and that's all the stars are good for. For. How, how, Sir Sampson? that all? Give me leave to contradict you, and tell you, you are ignorant, Sir S. I tell you, I am wise: and sapiens dominabitur astris; there's Latin for you, to prove it, and an argument to confound your Ephemeris. Ignorant! -I tell you, I have travelled, old Fercu: and know the globe. I have seen the antipodes, where the sun rises at midnight, and sets at noon day. For. But I tell you, I have travelled, and travelled in the celestial spheres; know the signs and the planets, and their houses; can judge of motions di |
