MRS. FORESIGHT, MRS. FRAIL, VALENTINE, SCANDAL, FORESIGHT, _and_ JEREMY.
SCAN. And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon him?
[_To_ JEREMY.]
JERE. Yes, sir; he says he’ll favour it, and mistake her for Angelica.
SCAN. It may make us sport.
FORE. Mercy on us!
VAL. Husht—interrupt me not—I’ll whisper prediction to thee, and thou
shalt prophesy. I am Truth, and can teach thy tongue a new trick. I
have told thee what’s past,—now I’ll tell what’s to come. Dost thou know
what will happen to-morrow?—Answer me not—for I will tell thee.
To-morrow, knaves will thrive through craft, and fools through fortune,
and honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer suit. Ask me
questions concerning to-morrow.
SCAN. Ask him, Mr. Foresight.
FORE. Pray what will be done at court?
VAL. Scandal will tell you. I am Truth; I never come there.
FORE. In the city?
VAL. Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the usual hours. Yet
you will see such zealous faces behind counters, as if religion were to
be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go methodically in the city: the
clocks will strike twelve at noon, and the horned herd buzz in the
exchange at two. Wives and husbands will drive distinct trades, and care
and pleasure separately occupy the family. Coffee-houses will be full of
smoke and stratagem. And the cropt prentice, that sweeps his master’s
shop in the morning, may ten to one dirty his sheets before night. But
there are two things that you will see very strange: which are wanton
wives with their legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about
their necks. But hold, I must examine you before I go further. You look
suspiciously. Are you a husband?
FORE. I am married.
VAL. Poor creature! Is your wife of Covent Garden parish?
FORE. No; St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.
VAL. Alas, poor man; his eyes are sunk, and his hands shrivelled; his
legs dwindled, and his back bowed: pray, pray, for a metamorphosis.
Change thy shape and shake off age; get thee Medea’s kettle and be boiled
anew; come forth with lab’ring callous hands, a chine of steel, and Atlas
shoulders. Let Taliacotius trim the calves of twenty chairmen, and make
thee 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
pigeons ought rather to be laid to his feet, ha, ha, ha!
FORE. His frenzy is very high now, Mr. Scandal.
SCAN. I believe it is a spring tide.
FORE. Very likely, truly. You understand these matters. Mr. Scandal, I
shall be very glad to confer with you about these things which he has
uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and hieroglyphical.
VAL. Oh, why would Angelica be absent from my eyes so long?
JERE. She’s here, sir.
MRS. FORE. Now, sister.
MRS. FRAIL. O Lord, what must I say?
SCAN. Humour him, madam, by all means.
VAL. 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?
VAL. Harkee; I have a secret to tell you: Endymion and the moon shall
meet us upon 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.
VAL. The sooner the better. Jeremy, come hither—closer—that none may
overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you news: Angelica is turned nun, and I
am turning friar, and yet we’ll marry one another in spite of the pope.
Get me a cowl and beads, that I may play my part,—for she’ll meet me two
hours hence in black and white, and a long veil to cover the project, and
we won’t see one another’s faces, till we have done something to be
ashamed of; and then we’ll blush once for all.