bout their necks.
But hold, I must examine you before I go further; you look
suspiciously. Are you a husband?

_Foresight._--I am married.

_Valentine._--Poor creature! Is your wife of Covent Garden _Parish_?

_Foresight._--No; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

_Valentine._--Alas, poor man! his eyes are sunk, and his hands
shrivelled; his legs dwindled, and his back bow'd. Pray, pray, for a
metamorphosis--change thy shape, and shake off age; get the _Medea's_
kettle and be boiled anew; come forth with lab'ring callous hands,
and chine of steel, and _Atlas'_ shoulders. Let Taliacotius trim the
calves of twenty chairmen, and make the pedestals to stand erect
upon, and look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha! That a man should
have a stomach to a wedding supper, when the pidgeons ought rather
to be laid to his feet! ha, ha, ha!

_Foresight._--His frenzy is very high now, _Mr. Scandal_.

_Scandal._--I believe it is a spring-tide.

_Foresight._--Very likely--truly; you understand these matters. _Mr.
Scandal_, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things
he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and hieroglyphical.

_Valentine._--Oh! why would _Angelica_ be absent from my eyes so
long?

_Jeremy._--She's here, Sir.

_Mrs. Foresight._--Now, Sister!

_Mrs. Frail._--O Lord! what must I say?

_Scandal._--Humour him, Madam, by all means.

_Valentine._--Where is she? Oh! I see her; she comes, like Riches,
Health, and Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and
abandoned wretch. Oh--welcome, welcome!

_Mrs. Frail._--How d'ye, Sir? Can I serve you?

_Valentine._--Hark'ee--I have a secret to tell you. _Endymion_ and the
moon shall meet us on _Mount Latmos_, and we'll be married in the
dead of night. But say not a word. _Hymen_ shall put his torch into
a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give her
peacock poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail; and Argus's
hundred eyes be shut--ha! Nobody shall know, but _Jeremy._

_Mrs. Frail._--No, no; we'll keep it secret; it shall be done
presently.

_Valentine._--The sooner the better. _Jeremy_, come
hither--closer--that none may overhear us. _Jeremy_, I can tell you
news; _Angelica_ is turned nun, an