HONEYWOOD. But a little spirit exerted on your fide might perhaps restore your authority. CROAKER. No, though I had the fpirit 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 greateft 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, ånd. yet he never asked me to lend him a fingle farthing. HONEYWOOD. Pray what could induce him to commit so rash an action at laft? CROAKER. I don't know, fome people were malicious enough to fay it was keeping company with me; becaufe 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 fast afleep as we do. HONEYWOOD. To fay truth, if we compare that part of life which is to come, by that which we have past, 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 pursuits. 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 home home for him. I am willing to fhew him fo much ferioufnefs in one fcarce older than himself-And what if I bring my laft letter to the Gazetteer on the encrease and progress of earthquakes? It will amufe us, I promise you. I there prove how the late earthquake is coming round to pay us another vifit 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 deserves the utmost pity. I fhall scarce recover my spirits these three days. Sure to live upon fuch terms is worfe than death itself. And yet, when I confider my own fi tuation, a broken fortune, an hopeless paffion, friends in diftrefs; the wish but not the power to ferve 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 themselves. [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 ufual And ufual, bidding like a fury against herself. then fo curious in antiques! herself the moft genuine piece of antiquity in the whole collection. HONEYWOOD. Excuse me, ladies, if fome uneafinefs from friendship makes me unfit to fhare in this good humour: I know you'll pardon me. Mrs. CROAKER. I vow he seems as melancholy as if he had taken a dofe of my husband this morning. Well, if Richland here can pardon you, I muft. Mifs RICHLAND. You would seem to infinuate, madam, that I have particular reasons for being difpofed to refuse it. Mrs. CROAKER. Whatever I infinuate, my dear, don't be fo ready to with an explanation. Mifs RICHLAND. I own I should be forry, Mr. Honeywood's long friendship and mine fhould be misunderstood. HONEYWOOD. There's no answering for others, madam. But I hope you'll never find me prefuming to offer more than the most delicate friendship may readily allow. Mifs RICHLAND. And I fhall be prouder of fuch a tribute from you than the most paflionate profeffions from others. Ho HONEYWood. My own fentiments, madam: friendship is a dif interested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and flaves. Mifs RICHLAND. And, without a compliment, I know none more difinterested, or more capable of friendship than Mr. Honeywood. Mrs. CROAKER. And, indeed, I know nobody that has more friends, at least among the ladies. Mifs Fruzz, Mifs Odbody, and Mifs Winterbottom praife him in all companies. As for Mifs Biddy Bundle, fhe's his profeffed admirer. Mifs RICHLAND. Indeed! an admirer! I did not know, Sir, you were fuch a favourite there. But is the seriously so handfome? Is fhe the mighty thing talked of? HONEYWOOD. The town, madam, feldom begins to praise a lady's beauty, till he's beginning to lose it. (Smiling) Mrs. CROAKER. But he's refolv'd never to lose it, it feems. For, as her natural face decays, her skill improves in making the artificial one. Well, nothing diverts me more than one of those fine, old, dreffy things, who thinks to conceal her age, by every where expofing her perfon; fticking herself up in the front of a fide |