ingly to day, my dear friend. I hope this weather does not affect your fpirits. To be fure, if this weather continues-I fay nothing-But God fend we be all better this day three months.

HONEYWOOD.

I heartily concur in the wish, though I own not in your apprehenfions.

CROAKER.

May be not indeed what fignifies what weather we have in a country going to ruin like ours? taxes rifing and trade falling. Money flying out of the kingdom, and Jefuits fwarming into it. I know at this time no less than an hundred and twenty-feven Jefuits between Charing-crofs and Temple-bar.

HONEYWOOD.

The Jefuits will scarce pervert you or me, I should hope.

May be not.

CROAKER.

Indeed what fignifies whom they pervert in a country that has fcarce any religion to lofe? I'm only afraid for our wives and daughters. HONEYWOOD.

I have no apprehenfions for the ladies, I affure you.

CROAKER.

May be not. Indeed what fignifies whether they be perverted or no? the women in my time were good for fomething. I have feen a lady dreft from top to toe in her own manufactures formerly. But

now

now a-days the devil a thing of their own manufactures about them, except their faces.

HONEYWOOD.

But, however thefe faults may be practifed abroad, you don't find them at home, either with Mrs. Croaker, Olivia, or Mifs Richland.

CROAKER.

The best of them will never be canoniz'd for a faint when she's dead. By the bye, my dear friend, I don't find this match between Mifs Richland and my fon much relished, either by one fide or t'other. HONEYWOOD.

I thought otherwise.

CROAKER.

Ah, Mr. Honeywood, a little of your fine ferious advice to the young lady might go far: I know the has a very exalted opinion of your understanding.

HONEYWOOD.

But would not that be ufurping an authority that more properly belongs to yourfelf.

CROAKER.

My dear friend, you know but little of my autho rity at home. People think, indeed, because they fee me come out in a morning thus, with a pleasant face, and to make my friends merry, that all's well within. But I have cares that would break an heart of stone. My wife has fo encroached upon every one of my privileges, that I'm now no more than a mere lodger in my own house.

Ho

HONEYWOOD.

But a little fpirit exerted on your fide might perhaps restore your authority.

CROAKER.

No, though I had the spirit of a lion! I do rouze fometimes. But what then! always haggling and haggling. A man is tired of getting the better before his wife is tired of lofing the victory.

HONEYWOOD.

It's a melancholy confideration indeed, that our chief comforts often produce our greatest anxieties, and that an encrease of our poffeffions is but an inlet to new difquietudes.

CROAKER:

Ah, my dear friend, these were the very words of poor Dick Doleful to me not a week before he made away with himself. Indeed, Mr. Honeywood, I never see you but you put me in mind of poorDick. Ah there was merit neglected for you! and fo true a friend; we lov'd each other for thirty years, and yet he never asked me to lend him a fingle farthing.

HONEYWOOD.

Pray what could induce him to commit fo rash an action at laft?

CROAKER,

I don't know, fome people were malicious enough to say it was keeping company with me; because we used to meet now and then and open our hearts

to

to each other. To be fure I loved to hear him talk, and he loved to hear me talk; poor dear Dick. He us'd to fay that Croaker rhim'd to joker; and fo we us'd to laugh-Poor Dick. (Going to cry.)

HONEYWOOD.

His fate affects me.

CROAKER.

Ay, he grew fick of this miferable life, where we do nothing but eat and grow hungry, drefs and undrefs, get up and lie down; while reafon, that fhould watch like a nurse by our fide, falls as faft asleep as we do.

HONEYWOOD.

To fay truth, if we compare that part of life which is to come, by that which we have paft, the profpect is hideous.

CROAKER.

Life at the greatest and best is but a froward child, that must be humour'd and coax'd a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over.

HONEYWOOD.

Very true, Sir, nothing can exceed the vanity of our existence, but the folly of our purfuits. We wept when we came into the world, and every day tells us why.

CROAKER.

Ah, my dear friend, it is a perfect fatisfaction to be miferable with you. My fon Leontine shan't lose the benefit of such fine conversation.

I'll just step

home

home for him. I am willing to fhew him fo much ferioufnefs in one fcarce older than himfelf-And what if I bring my laft letter to the Gazetteer on the encrease and progrefs of earthquakes? It will amufe us, I promife you. I there prove how the late earthquake is coming round to pay us another visit from London to Lisbon, from Lisbon to the Canary Islands, from the Canary Islands to Palmyra, from Palmyra to Conftantinople, and fo from Conftantinople back.to London again.

HONEYWOOD.

[Exit.

Poor Croaker! his fituation deferves the utmoft pity. I fhall fcarce recover my fpirits thefe three days. Sure to live upon fuch terms is worse than death itself. And yet, when I confider my own fituation, a broken fortune, an hopeless paffion, friends in diftrefs; the wish but not the power to serve them (paufing and fighing.)

Enter BUTLER.

BUTLER.

More company below, Sir: Mrs. Croaker and Mifs Richland; fhall I fhew them up? but they're fhewing up them felves.

[Exit.

Enter Mrs. CROAKER and Mifs RICHLAND.

Mifs RICHLAND.

You're always in fuch fpirits.

Mrs. CROAKER.

We have just come, my dear Honeywood, from the auction. There was the old deaf dowager, as

VOL. II.

C

ufcal,