Act 1 — SCENE II.

Enter Lorenzo.

Lor. Well, I am the most unlucky rogue! I have been ranging over half the town; but have sprung no game. Our women are worse infidels than the Moors: I told them I was one of the knight-errants, that delivered them from ravishment; and I think in my conscience, that is their quarrel to me.

Ped. Is this a time for fooling? Your cousin is run honourably mad in love with her majesty; he is split upon a rock, and you, who are in chase of harlots, are sinking in the main ocean. I think, the devil's in the family. [Exit.

Lor. [Solus.] My cousin ruined, says he! hum, not that I wish my kinsman's ruin; that were unchristian: but, if the general is ruined, I am heir; there's comfort for a Christian! Money I have; I thank the honest Moors for it; but I want a mistress. I am willing to be lewd; but the tempter is wanting on his part.

Enter Elvira, veiled.

Elv. Stranger! Cavalier!—will you not hear me? you Moor-killer, you Matador!—

Lor. Meaning me, madam?

Elv. Face about, man! you a soldier, and afraid of the enemy!

Lor. I must confess, I did not expect to have been charged first: I see souls will not be lost for want of diligence in this devil's reign. [Aside.] Now, Madam Cynthia, behind a cloud, your will and pleasure with me?

Elv. You have the appearance of a cavalier; and if you are as deserving as you seem, perhaps you may not repent of your adventure. If a lady like 397 you well enough to hold discourse with you at first sight; you are gentleman enough, I hope, to help her out with an apology, and to lay the blame on stars, or destiny, or what you please, to excuse the frailty of a woman?

Lor. O, I love an easy woman! there's such ado, to crack a thick-shelled mistress; we break our teeth, and find no kernel. 'Tis generous in you, to take pity on a stranger, and not to suffer him to fall into ill hands at his first arrival.

Elv. You may have a better opinion of me than I deserve; you have not seen me yet; and, therefore, I am confident you are heart-whole.

Lor. Not absolutely slain, I must confess; but I am drawing on apace: you have a dangerous tongue in your head, I can tell you that; and if your eyes prove of as killing metal, there is but one way with me. Let me see you, for the safeguard of my honour; 'tis but decent the cannon should be drawn down upon me before I yield.

Elv. What a terrible similitude have you made, colonel, to shew that you are inclining to the wars? I could answer you with another in my profession: Suppose you were in want of money, would you not be glad to take a sum upon content in a sealed bag, without peeping?—but, however, I will not stand with you for a sample. [Lifts up her veil.

Lor. What eyes were there! how keen their glances! you do well to keep them veiled; they are too sharp to be trusted out of the scabbard.

Elv. Perhaps now, you may accuse my forwardness; but this day of jubilee is the only time of freedom I have had; and there is nothing so extravagant as a prisoner, when he gets loose a little, and is immediately to return into his fetters.

Lor. To confess freely to you, madam, I was never in love with less than your whole sex before; but now I have seen you, I am in the direct road 398 of languishing and sighing; and, if love goes on as it begins, for aught I know, by to-morrow morning you may hear of me in rhyme and sonnet. I tell you truly, I do not like these symptoms in myself. Perhaps I may go shufflingly at first; for I was never before walked in trammels; yet, I shall drudge and moil at constancy, till I have worn off the hitching in my pace.

Elv. Oh, sir, there are arts to reclaim the wildest men, as there are to make spaniels fetch and carry: chide them often, and feed them seldom. Now I know your temper, you may thank yourself, if you are kept to hard meat. You are in for years, if you make love to me.

Lor. I hate a formal obligation with an Anno Domini at end on't; there may be an evil meaning in the word years, called matrimony.

Elv. I can easily rid you of that fear: I wish I could rid myself as easily of the bondage.

Lor. Then you are married?

Elv. If a covetous, and a jealous, and an old man be a husband.

Lor. Three as good qualities for my purpose as I could wish: now love be praised!

Enter Elvira's Duenna, and whispers to her.

Elv. [Aside.] If I get not home before my husband, I shall be ruined. [To him.] I dare not stay to tell you where. Farewell!—Could I once more— [Exit.

Lor. This is unconscionable dealing; to be made a slave, and know not whose livery I wear. Who have we yonder?

Enter Gomez.

By that shambling in his walk, it should be my rich 399 old banker, Gomez, whom I knew at Barcelona: As I live 'tis he!—What, old Mammon here! [To Gomez.

Gom. How! young Beelzebub?

Lor. What devil has set his claws in thy haunches, and brought thee hither to Saragossa? Sure he meant a farther journey with thee.

Gom. I always remove before the enemy: When the Moors are ready to besiege one town, I shift quarters to the next; I keep as far from the infidels as I can.

Lor. That's but a hair's breadth at farthest.

Gom. Well, you have got a famous victory; all true subjects are overjoyed at it: There are bonfires decreed; an the times had not been hard, my billet should have burnt too.

Lor. I dare say for thee, thou hast such a respect for a single billet, thou wouldst almost have thrown on thyself to save it; thou art for saving every thing but thy soul.

Gom. Well, well, you'll not believe me generous, 'till I carry you to the tavern, and crack half a pint with you at my own charges.

Lor. No; I'll keep thee from hanging thyself for such an extravagance; and, instead of it, thou shalt do me a mere verbal courtesy. I have just now seen a most incomparable young lady.

Gom. Whereabouts did you see this most incomparable young lady?—My mind misgives me plaguily. [Aside.

Lor. Here, man, just before this corner-house: Pray heaven, it prove no bawdy-house.

Gom. [Aside.] Pray heaven, he does not make it one!

Lor. What dost thou mutter to thyself? Hast thou any thing to say against the honesty of that house?

400 Gom. Not I, colonel; the walls are very honest stone, and the timber very honest wood, for aught I know; but for the woman, I cannot say, till I know her better: Describe her person, and, if she live in this quarter, I may give you tidings of her.

Lor. She is of a middle stature, dark-coloured hair, the most bewitching leer with her eyes, the most roguish cast! her cheeks are dimpled when she smiles, and her smiles would tempt an hermit.

Gom. [Aside.] I am dead, I am buried, I am damned.—Go on, colonel; have you no other marks of her?

Lor. Thou hast all her marks; but she has a husband, a jealous, covetous, old hunks: Speak! canst thou tell me news of her?

Gom. Yes; this news, colonel, that you have seen your last of her.

Lor. If thou help'st me not to the knowledge of her, thou art a circumcised Jew.

Gom. Circumcise me no more than I circumcise you, colonel Hernando: Once more, you have seen your last of her.

Lor. [Aside.] I am glad he knows me only by that name of Hernando, by which I went at Barcelona; now he can tell no tales of me to my father.—[To him.] Come, thou wer't ever good-natured, when thou couldst get by it—Look here, rogue; 'tis of the right damning colour: Thou art not proof against gold, sure!—Do not I know thee for a covetous—

Gom. Jealous old hunks? those were the marks of your mistress's husband, as I remember, colonel.

Lor. Oh the devil! What a rogue in understanding was I, not to find him out sooner![Aside.

Gom. Do, do, look sillily, good colonel; 'tis a decent melancholy after an absolute defeat.

Lor. Faith, not for that, clear Gomez; but—

401 Gom. But—no pumping, my dear colonel.

Lor. Hang pumping! I was thinking a little upon a point of gratitude. We two have been long acquaintance; I know thy merits, and can make some interest;—Go to; thou wert born to authority; I'll make thee Alcaide, Mayor of Saragossa.

Gom. Satisfy yourself; you shall not make me what you think, colonel.

Lor. Faith, but I will; thou hast the face of a magistrate already.

Gom. And you would provide me with a magistrate's head to my magistrate's face; I thank you, colonel.

Lor. Come, thou art so suspicious upon an idle story! That woman I saw, I mean that little, crooked, ugly woman,—for t'other was a lie,—is no more thy wife,—As I'll go home with thee, and satisfy thee immediately, my dear friend.

Gom. I shall not put you to that trouble; no, not so much as a single visit; not so much as an embassy by a civil old woman, nor a serenade of twinkledum twinkledum under my windows; nay, I will advise you, out of my tenderness to your person, that you walk not near yon corner-house by night; for, to my certain knowledge, there are blunderbusses planted in every loop-hole, that go off constantly of their own accord, at the squeaking of a fiddle, and the thrumming of a guitar.

Lor. Art thou so obstinate? Then I denounce open war against thee; I'll demolish thy citadel by force; or, at least, I'll bring my whole regiment upon thee; my thousand red locusts, that shall devour thee in free quarters. Farewell, wrought night-cap. [Exit Lorenzo.

Gom. Farewell, Buff. Free quarters for a regiment of red-coat locusts? I hope to see them all in the Red-Sea first! But oh, this Jezabel of mine! I'll 402 get a physician that shall prescribe her an ounce of camphire every morning, for her breakfast, to abate incontinency. She shall never peep abroad, no, not to church for confession; and, for never going, she shall be condemned for a heretic. She shall have stripes by Troy weight, and sustenance by drachms and scruples: Nay, I'll have a fasting almanack, printed on purpose for her use, in which No Carnival nor Christmas shall appear, But lents and ember-weeks shall fill the year.[Exit.