me work. I'll earn what I eat. I love you for your kindness, but I will not be dependent.

Mrs E. Since you will!-You say, you can draw?

Joanna. It has been my delight. I have studied the human countenance, have read Lavater.

Mrs E. Anan! Will you copy the engraving I showed you?

Joanna. What, the portrait of that strange

Mrs E. Mr Mordent. [Handing down a Frame. Joanna. Mordent?

Mrs E Of Portland Place.

Joanna. [Examining.] I don't quite like him! Mrs E. Why?

Joanna. He's a wicked man→→→→→

Mrs E. Nay

Joanna. A wild eye!-I hope he is not your relation?

Mrs E. No; but has been my very good friend. Joanna. Take care of him!

Mrs E. Can you judge so certainly?

Joanna. Looking at such a face, who can fail? [Examining MRS ENFIELD.] You are a worthy lady, a kind lady; your actions bespeak it; and yetDon't be angry-there is something about your features that I don't like!

Mrs E. Bless me, dear!

Joanna. I must be wrong, because you are good! But you have not a good countenance. That's strange: I never saw such a thing before !-And the more I look, the less I like.

Mrs E. [Aside.] Does she suspect me?

Joanna. If ever I draw your face, I'll alter some of the lines. I'll make them such as I think virtue ought to have made them: open, honest, undaunted. You have such a number of little artful wrinkles, at the corners of your eyes!-You are very cunning!

Mrs E. [In a Tremor.] What does she mean?

I

Joanna. But what of that? You are kind to me, and I fear no cunning, not I: You found me friendless, have given me work, and I would die to serve you! So I'll copy that wild man's portrait.

Mrs E. Wild!

Joanna. Nay, for that matter, you need not fear him; but, if you know any vain, foolish, young girls, that love flaunting, and will listen to fine promises, bid them beware of him!

Mrs E. [Aside.] A little witch!

Enter BETTY.

Betty. Mr Lennox is below, madam.

[Exit.

Mrs E. I am glad of that! Come, my sweet Jo

anna, I'll introduce you to him,

Joanna. Me, madam?

Mrs E. Ay, child! that I will.

ر

Every body shall

know what an angel my dear young friend is. Joanna. Consider, madam

Mrs E. Nay, I am sure you will not refuse me this pleasure? Come, come! Joanna. You are too kind!

Mrs E. Come, my precious.

Joanna. Well, I commit myself to your trust. Friendless and fatherless, you will be my guardian. You are too generous to injure the helpless and the forlorn, and the lines in your face are false !

[Exeunt,

SCENE II.

An Antichamber in the House of MORDENT.

Enter MORDENT and CHEveril.

Cher. Grumble no more, guardy. Have done with prognosticating evil, 'tis all in vain: your gloomy ieign is ended; I am at liberty.

Mor. To play the fool!

Chev. I'm free, I'm alive, I'm beginning to exist! Mor. Like a wretch at the stake, when the flames first reach him!

Chev. The whole world is before me, its pleasures are spread out, and I long to fall on; the golden apples of delight hang inviting me to pluck, eat, and

Mor. Be poisoned !

Chev. Ha ha! ha!

Mor. As your guardian, I—

Chev. Damn guardianship, I have been guarded too long. Years out of number have I been fed with lean Latin, crabbed Greek, and an abominable olio of the four faculties; served up with the jargon of Aristotle, the quirks of Thomas Aquinas,-My brain was a broker's shop; the little good furniture it contained all hid by lumber.

Mor. Let me tell you, young sir

Chev. Not now, your day is done.-J am on the wing to visit the regions of fruition and Paradise; to banquet with the gods, and sip ambrosia from the lips of Venus and Hebe, the Hours, the Loves, and the Graces!

Mor. You are lunatic!

Chev. No, I am just come to my senses; for I am just come to my estate, high health, high spirits, eight thousand a-year, and one-and-twenty.

Mor. Youth! Riches! Poor idiot! Health too! What is a man but a walking hospital? You, boy, you, little as you suspect it, include within yourself a whole pharmacopoeia of malady and mischief!

Chev. Zounds! He'll persuade me presently I am Pandora's box!

Mor. So you are.

Chev. Why, guardy, you are mad!

Mor. True, or I should take the shortest

way

y to

get rid of misery, and instantly go hang myself.

Chev What a picture!

Mor. Equal it in accuracy, if you can.

Chev. Why I am but a young artist: However, I can dash my brush at the canvass as daringly as you have done, so what think you [Rapturously.] of mirth, songs, and smiles; youth, beauty, and kisses; friendship, liberty, and love; with a large capacious soul of benevolence, that can sooth the afflicted, succour the poor, heal the sick, instruct the ignorant, honour the wise, reform the bad, adore the good, and hug genius and virtue to the heart?

Mor. Every feature a lie.

Chev. Curse me but I say the likeness is at least as good as yours, and I am sure the colouring is infinitely more delightful.

Enter DONALD.

Don. I'ze ganging aboot the business of the poor lassy, ken ye me? Gin ye want me, l'ze be back in a blink.

Mor. Go to the devil, if you will; so that you do

not torment me.

Chev. Ha, friend Donald! Don't you know that I'm of age? Won't you revel and roar, my boy? Why do you look so glum, old Honesty?

Don. Troth ye mistake the maitter, young gentle. man; I am an auld go-between.

Chev. Ha ha ha!

Don. It's varra true; wetch makes me unco blate. A helpless bairn has been cast upo' the wide warld, by a hairtless father, and I am a pairt o' the

cause.

Mor. Again, imp?

Chev. A child deserted by the father!

Don. Ye well may show the gogle o' yeer eyn.
Chev. Is he poor? Is he pennyless?

Don. Much thereabout, an I dunna miss my ken.
Chev. Bring the child to me, bring it to me, old

C

Rueful, I'll be its father. I never fathered a child in my life, I long to begin.

Don. Ye seem truly to hae mair human affaction than some fathers.

Mor. Begone, leave us, bloodsucker! goblin ! vampire !

Don. Yes--I'ze gang where I tow'd ye; and gin I dunna hear o' her, ye'ze hear o' me!

[Exit. Cher. Bring me the baby, Donald! Zounds, how it would delight me to father all the fatherless children in the world! poor little dears! I should have a plentiful brood!—And so, guardian, I want mo

ney.

Mor. What, to purchase destruction wholesale? Chev. I have five hundred good, wicked, spirited, famous projects on hand. You have seventeen thousand pounds of mine, hard cash. I want it.

Mor. Seventeen thousand plagues!

Chev. Every farthing.

Mor. Your money, sir, is locked up in mortgages. Chev. Locked up! Oh, damme, I'll unlock it. I'll send honest Grime to ye; he carries a master key. Mor. Have you no regard to my convenience? Chev. I'll pay the premium; and, if you want security, you may have mine. I must have money ! The world must hear of me! I'll be a patron, and a subscriber, and a collector, and an amateur, and a connoisseur, and a dilletanti ! I'll hunt, I'll race, I'll dice: I'll grub, plant, plan, and improve! I'll buy a stud, sell a forest, build a palace, and pull down a church. [Exit.

Mor. Mr Cheveril !-He is flown-Why ay, with spirits equally wild, wanton, and ignorant of evil, I began my career. I have now lived long enough to discover, that universal nature is universal agony ! O this rejected Joanna! Miserable girl! Well! Am not I miserable too? Who is not?-The dangers to which she may be exposed! The cruelty of utterly