re is the old cant--_cruel man--broken vows--Heaven's just
revenge_. Why, the woman is thinking of murder--not of love. No one
should pretend to write upon so threadbare a topic without having at
least some novelty of expression. _The despairing Araminta_--Lie there,
fair desperate. And this--how comes it?"

"Flung into the window of the hall, by a fellow who ran off at full
speed," answered Jerningham.

"This is a better text," said the Duke; "and yet it is an old one
too--three weeks old at least--The little Countess with the jealous
lord--I should not care a farthing for her, save for that same jealous
lord--Plague on't, and he's gone down to the country--_this evening--in
silence and safety--written with a quill pulled from the wing of
Cupid_--Your ladyship has left him pen-feathers enough to fly away
with--better clipped his wings when you had caught him, my lady--And
_so confident of her Buckingham's faith_,--I hate confidence in a young
person. She must be taught better--I will not go."

"You Grace will not be so cruel!" said Jerningham.

"Thou art a compassionate fellow, Jerningham; but conceit must be
punished."

"But if your lordship should resume your fancy for her?"

"Why, then, you must swear the billet-doux miscarried," answered the
Duke. "And stay, a thought strikes me--it shall miscarry in great style.
Hark ye--Is--what is the fellow's name--the poet--is he yonder?"

"There are six gentlemen, sir, who, from the reams of paper in their
pocket, and the threadbare seams at their elbows, appear to wear the
livery of the Muses."

"Poetical once more, Jerningham. He, I mean, who wrote the last
lampoon," said the Duke.

"To whom your Grace said you owed five pieces and a beating!" replied
Jerningham.

"The money for his satire, and the cudgel for his praise--Good--find
him--give him the five pieces, and thrust the Countess's
billet-doux--Hold--take Araminta's and the rest of them--thrust them all
into his portfolio--All will come out at the Wit's Coffee-house; and if
the promulgator be not cudgelled into all the colours of the rainbow,
there is no spite in woman, no faith in crabtree, or pith in heart
of oak--Araminta's wrath alone would overburden one pair of mortal
shoulders."

"But, my Lord Duke," said his attendant, "this Settle[*] is so dull a
rascal, that nothing he can write will take."

[*] Elkana Settle, the unworthy scribbler whom the envy of Rochester
and others tried to raise to