Enter Miss NEVILLE.

Miss Hard. I'm glad you're come, Neville, my dear. Tell me, Constance, how do I look this evening? Is there any thing whimsical about me? Is it one of my well looking days, child? Am I in face to day?

Miss Nev. Perfectly, my dear. Yet now I look agajn-bless me !-sure no accident has happened among the canary birds or the gold fishes. Has your brother or the cat been meddling? Or has the last novel been too moving?

Miss Hard. No; nothing of all this. I have been threatened I can scarce get it out-I have been threatened with a lover.

Miss Nev. And his name

Miss Hard. Is Marlow.

Miss Nev. Indeed!

Miss Hard. The son of Sir Charles Marlow.

Miss Nev. As I live, the most intimate friend of Mr. Hastings, my admirer. They are never asunder. I believe you must have seen him when we lived in

town.

Miss Hard. Neter.

Miss Nev. He's a very singular character, I assure you. Among women of reputation and virtue, he is the modestest man alive; but his acquaintance give him a very different character among creatures of another stamp you understand me.

Miss Hard. An odd character, indeed. I shall never be able to manage him. What shall I do?

Pshaw, think no more of him, but trust to occurrences for success. But how goes on your own affair, my dear, has my mother been courting you for my brother Tony, as usual?

Miss Nev. I have just come from one of our agreeable tete-a-tetes. She has been saying a hundred tender things, and setting off her pretty monster as the very pink of perfection.

Miss Hard. And her partiálity is such, that she actually thinks him so. A fortune like yours is no small temptation. Besides, as she has the sole management of it, I'm not surprised to see her unwilling to let it go out of the family.

Miss Nev. A fortune like mine, which chiefly consists in jewels, is no such mighty temptation. But at any rate if my dear Hastings be but constant, I make no doubt to be too hard for her at last. However, I let her suppose that I am in love with her son, and she never once dreams that my affections are fixed upon another.

Miss Hard. My good brother holds out stoutly. I could almost love him for hating you so.

Nev. It is a good natured creature at bottom, and I'm sure would wish to see me married to any body but himself. But my aunt's bell rings for our afternoon's walk round the improvements. Allons. Courage is necessary as our affairs are critical.

Miss Hard. Would it were bed time and all were well.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

An Alehouse Room. Several shabby fellows, with Punch and Tobacco. TONY at the head of the Table, a little higher than the rest: A mallet in his hand.

Omnes. Hurrea, hurrea, hurrea, bravo.

1st Fel. Now, gentlemen, silence for a song. The 'Squire is going to knock himself down for a song. Omnes. Ay, a song, a song.

Tony. Then I'll sing you, gentlemen, a song I made upon this ale-house, the Three Pigeons.

SONG.

Let school-masters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning;

Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,

Give Genus a better discerning.

Let them brag of their Heathenish Gods,

Their Lethes, their Styxes, and Stygians: Their Quis, and their Quas, and their Quods, They're all but a parcel of Pigeons.

Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

When Methodist preachers come down,
A preaching that drinking is sinful,
I'll wager the rascals a crown,

They always preach best with a skinful.
But when you come down with your pence,
For a slice of their scurvy religion,

I'll leave it to all men of sense,

But you my good friend are the Pigeon.

Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

Then come, put the jorum about,

And let us be merry and clever,

Our hearts and our liquors are stout,

Here's the Three Folly Pigeons for ever.

Let some cry up woodcock or hare,

Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons;

But of all the birds in the air,

Here's a health to the Three Folly Pigeons.

Omnes. Bravo, bravo.

Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

1st Fel. The 'Squire has got spunk in him.

2nd Fel. I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives us nothing that's low.

3rd Fel. O damn any thing that's low, I cannot bear it.

4th Fel. The genteel thing is the genteel thing at

any

time. If so be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.

3rd Fel. I like the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What tho' I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a gentleman for all that. May this be my poison if my bear ever dances but to the very genteelest of Water Parted, or the minuet in Ariadne. 2nd Fel. What a pity it is the 'Squire is not come to

tunes.

his own. It would be well for all the publicans within ten miles round of him.

Tony. Ecod, and so it would Master Slang. I'd then shew what it was to keep choice of company.

2nd Fel. O he takes after his own father for that. To be sure old 'Squire Lumpkin was the finest gentleman I ever set my eyes on. For winding the streight horn, or beating a thicket for a hare, or a wench, he never had his fellow. It was a saying in the place, that he kept the best horses, dogs, and girls, in the whole county.

Tony. Ecod, and when I'm of age I'll be no bastard I promise you. I have been thinking of Bett Bouncer and the miller's grey mare to begin with. But come, my boys, drink about and be merry, for you pay no reckoning. Well Stingo, what's the matter?

Enter LANDLORD.

Land. There be two gentlemen in a post-chaise at the door. They have lost their way upo' the forest; and they are talking something about Mr. Hardcastle.

Tony. As sure as can be one of them must be the gentleman that's coming down to court my sister. Do they seem to be Londoners?

Land. I believe they may. They look woundily like Frenchmen.

Tony. Then desire them to step this way, and I'll set them right in a twinkling. [Exit Landlord] Gentlemen, as they may'nt be good enough company for