ath an universal leveller of mankind. Ha! But is there not
such a thing as honesty? Yes, and whosoever has it about him, bears an
enemy in his breast. For your honest man, as I take it, is that nice,
scrupulous, conscientious person, who will cheat nobody but himself; such
another coxcomb as your wise man, who is too hard for all the world, and
will be made a fool of by nobody but himself; ha, ha, ha. Well, for
wisdom and honesty give me cunning and hypocrisy; oh, 'tis such a
pleasure to angle for fair-faced fools! Then that hungry gudgeon
credulity will bite at anything. Why, let me see, I have the same face,
the same words and accents when I speak what I do think, and when I speak
what I do not think, the very same; and dear dissimulation is the only
art not to be known from nature.

Why will mankind be fools, and be deceived,
And why are friends' and lovers' oaths believed,
When each, who searches strictly his own mind,
May so much fraud and power of baseness find?

ACT III.

SCENE I.

LORD TOUCHWOOD _and_ LADY TOUCHWOOD.

LADY TOUCH. My lord, can you blame my brother Plyant if he refuse his
daughter upon this provocation? The contract's void by this unheard-of
impiety.

LORD TOUCH. I don't believe it true; he has better principles. Pho,
'tis nonsense. Come, come, I know my Lady Plyant has a large eye, and
would centre everything in her own circle; 'tis not the first time she
has mistaken respect for love, and made Sir Paul jealous of the civility
of an undesigning person, the better to bespeak his security in her
unfeigned pleasures.

LADY TOUCH. You censure hardly, my lord; my sister's honour is very well
known.

LORD TOUCH. Yes, I believe I know some that have been familiarly
acquainted with it. This is a little trick wrought by some pitiful
contriver, envious of my nephew's merit.

LADY TOUCH. Nay, my lord, it may be so, and I hope it will be found so.
But that will require some time; for in such a case as this,
demonstration is necessary.

LORD TOUCH. There should have been demonstration of the contrary too,
before it had been believed.

LADY TOUCH. So I suppose there was.

LORD TOUCH. How? Where? When?

LADY TOUCH. That I can't tell; nay, I don't say there was. I am willing
to believe as favourably of my nephew as I can.

LORD TOUCH. I don't know that. [_Half aside_.]

LADY TOUCH. How? Don't you believe that, say you, my lord?

LORD TOUCH. N