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fear I be oblige to leave Inglande, before I have fini dis grande affaire.

Esop, Twenty or thirty dozen! for what?

French. For my crediteurs; to make em forget de vay to my logement, and no trouble me for de future. Esop. What! have you so many creditors!

French. So many! begar I have 'em dans touts les quartiers de la ville, in all parts of de town, faitEsop. Wonderful and surprizing!

French. Vonderful! vat is vonderfulborrow money?

-dat I should

Esop. No, Sir, that any body should lend it you

French En verite vous vous trompez; you do mistake it, mon ami: if fortune gives me no money, nature gives me des talens; j'ai des talens, monsieur Esop; vech are de same ting- -par example; de Englisman have de money, I have de flatterie and bonne addresse; and a little of dat from a French tongue is very good credit and securite for tousand pound-eh! bien donc, sal I have dis twenty or tirty douzaines of your vater? ouy, ou non? Esop. 'Tis impossible, Sir.

French. Impossible! pourquoi donc ? vy not?

Esop. Because if every fine gentlemen, who owes money, should make the same demand, we should have no water left for our other customers.

French. Que voulez vous que je fasse donc ? Vat most I do den, Sir?

Esop. Marry the lady as soon as you can, pay your debts with part of her portion, drink the water to forget your extravagance, retire with her to your own country, and be a better œconomist for the future.

French. Go to my own centre!- -je vous demande pardon; I had much rather stay vere I am; I cannot go dere, upon my vard

Esop. Why not, friend!

French. Entre nous, I had much rather pass for one French marquis in Inglande, keep bonne compagnie, manger des delicatesses, and do no ting at all; dan keep a shop en Provence, couper and frisser les cheveux, and live upon soupe and sallade de rest of my life

Esop. I cannot blame you for your choise; and if other people are so blind not to distinguish the barber from the

fme gentleman, their folly must be their punishment and you shall take the benefit of the water with them. French. Monsieur Esop, sans flatterie ou compliments, I am your very humble serviteur-Jan Frisseron en Provence, ou le marquis de Pouville en Angleterre.

[Exit Frenchman. Esop. Shield me and defend me! another fine lady!

Enter Mrs RIOT.

Mrs Riot. A monster! a filthy brute! your watermen are as unpolite upon the Styr as upon the Thames-Stow a lady of fashion with tradesmen and mechanics -Ah! what's this, Serbeerus, or Plutus! (seeing Esop.) am I to be frighted with all the monsters of this internal world. Esop. What is the matter, lady?

Mrs Riot. Every thing is the matter, my spirits are uncompos'd, and every circumstance about me in a perfect dilemma.

Esop. What had disorder'd you thus?

Mrs Riot. Your filthy boatman, Scarroon there.

Esop. Charon, lady, you mean.

Mrs Riot. And who are you, you ugly creature you ? if I see any more of you I shall die with temerity. Esop. The wise think me handsome, madam.

Mrs Riot. I hate the wise; but who are you?

Esop. I am Esop madam, honour'd this day by Proserpine with the distribution of the waters of Lethe: command me.

Mrs Riot. Shew me to the pump-room then, fellowwhere's the company-I die in solitude.

Esop. What company?

Mrs Riot. The best company, people of fashion! the beau monde! shew me to none of your gloomy souls, who wander about in your groves and streams-shew me to glittering balls, enchanting masquerades, ravishing operas, and all the polite enjoyments of Elysian.

Esop. This is a language unknown to me, lady--No such fine doings here, and very little good company (as you call it) in Elysium

Mrs Riot. What! no operas! eh! no Elysian then! [Sings fantastically in Italian.] 'Sfortunato Monticelli! ba nish'd Elysian, as well as the Hay-Market! Your taste here, I suppose, rises no higher than your Shakespears and

you

your Johnsons: oh you Goats and Vandils! in the name of barbarity take 'em to yourselves, we are tir'd of 'em upon earth: one goes indeed to a Play-house sometimes, because one does not know how else one can kill one's tine—every body goes, because-all the world's there--but for my part- -call Scarroon, and let him tal e me back again, I'll stay no longer here-stupid immortals!

Esop. You are a happy woman, that have neither cares nor follies to disturb you.

Mrs Riot. Cares! ha! ha! ha! nay, now I must laugh in your ugly face, my dear; what cares, does your wisdom think, can enter into the circle of a fine lady's enjoyments?

Esop. By the account I have just hear'd of a fine lady's life, her very pleasures are both follies and cares; so drink the water, and forget them, madam.

Mrs Riot. Oh gad! that was so like my husband now -forget my follies! forget the fashion, forget my being, the very quincettence and emptity of a fine lady! the fellow would make me as great a brute as my husband.

Esop You have an husband then, madam?

Mrs Rivt. Yes-I think so-an husband and no husband Come, fetch me some of your water; if I must forget something, I had as good forget him, for he's grown insufferable o' late.

Esop. I thought, madam, you had nothing to complain

Mrs Riot. One's husband, you know, is almost next to nothing.

Esop. How has he offended you?

Mrs Riot. The man talks of nothing but his money, and my extravagance- -won't remove out of the filthy city, tho' he knows I die for the other end of the own; nor leave off his nasty merchandizing, tho' I've laboured to convince him, he loses money by it. The man was once tolerable enough, and let me have money when I wanted it; but now he's never out of a tavern, and is grown so va liant, that, do you know-he has presum'd to contradict me, and refuse me money upon every occasion.

Esop. And all this without any provocation on your side?
Mrs Riot, Laud! how should I provoke him? I seldom

see

see him, very seldom speak to the creature, unless I want money; besides, he's out all day—

Esop. And you all night, madam: is it not so?

Mrs Riot, I keep the best company, sir, and day-light is no agreeable sight to a polite assembly; the sun is very well and comfortable, to be sure, for the lower part of the creation but to ladies who have a true taste of pleasure, wax candles, or no candles, are preferable to all the sunbeams in the universe

Esop. Preposterous fancy!

Mrs Riot. And so, most delicate sweet Sir, you don't approve my scheme! ha! ha! ha!ch you ugly devil you! have you the vanity to imagine people of fashion will mind what you say? or that to learn politeness and breeding, it is necessary to take a lesson of morality out of Esop's Fables- -ha! ha! ha!

Esop. It is necessary to get a little reflection somewhere; when these spirits leave you, and your senses are surfeited, what must be the consequence ?

Mrs Riot. Oh, a have the best receipt in the world for the vapours; and lest the poison of your receipts should taint my vivacity, I ntust beg leave to take it now, by way of anecdote.

Esop. Oh by all means-ignorance, and vanity!

Mrs Riot. (Drawing out a card) Lady Rantan's compliments to Mrs Riot.

SONG.

I.

The card invites, in crowds we fly,

To join the jovial rout, full cry:

What joy from cares and plagues all day,
To bie to the midnight hark-away.

II.

Nor want, nor pain, nor grief, nor care,
Nor dronish busbands enter there;

The brisk, the bold, the young and
All bie to the midnight haik-away.

gay,

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III.

Uncounted strikes the morning clock,
And drowsy watchman idly knock ;
Till day-light peeps, we sport and play,
And roar to the jolly hark-away.

IV.

When tir'd with sport, to bed we creep,
And kill the tedious day with sleep ;
To-morrow's welcome call obey,

And again to the midnight hark-away.

Mrs Riot. There's a life for you, you old fright! so trouble your head no more about your betters-1 am so perfectly satisfied with myself, that I will not alter an atom of me, for all you can say; so you may bottle up your philosophical waters for your own use, or for the fools that want 'em-Gad's my life! there's Billy Butterfly in the grove- -I must go to him— -we shall so rally your wisdom between us-ha, ha, ha.

The brisk, the bold, the young, the gay,

All bie to the midnight hark-away. [Exit singing. Esop. Unhappy woman! nothing can retrieve her; when the head has once a wrong bias, 'tis ever obstinate, in proportion to its weakness: but here comes one who seems to have no occasion for Lethe to make him more happy, than he is.

Enter DRUNKEN MAN and TAYLOR.

Drunken Man. Come along, neighbour Snip, come along, taylor; don't be afraid of hell before you die, you sniv'ling dog you.

Tayl. For heaven's sake, Mr Riot, don't be so boisterous with me, lest we should offend the powers below. Esop. What in the name of ridicule have we here!

So, Sir, what are you?

Drunken Man. Drunk-very drunk at your service. Esop. That's a piece of information I did not want. Drunken Man. And yet it's all the information I can give you.

Esop. Prav, Sir, what brought you hither?
Drunken Man, Curiosity, and a hackney coach.

Esop.

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