LD. EUST. I fhall not come to you, to heal the wound : your medicines are too rough and coarfe for me.

FRAM. The foft poifon of flattery, might, perhaps, please you better.

LD. EUST. Your confcience may, probably, have as much need of palliatives, as mine, Mr. Frampton, as I am pretty well convinced, that your courfe of life, has not been more regular than my own.

FRAM. With true contrition, my lord, I confefs part of your farcafm, to be juft. Pleasure was the object of my purfuit, and pleasure I obtained, at the expence, both of health, and fortune: but yet, my lord, I broke not in upon the peace of others; the laws of hospitality, I never violated; nor did I ever feek to injure, or feduce, the wife or daughter of my friend.

LD. EUST. I care not what you did; give me the letters. FRAM. I have no right to keep, and therefore shall furrender them, though with the utmost reluctance; but, by our former friendship, I intreat you not to open them.

LD. EUST. That you have forfeited.

FRAM. Since it is not in my power to prevent your committing an error, which you ought, for ever, to repent of, I will not be a witness of it. There are the letters.

LD. EUST. You may, perhaps, have cause to repent your prefent conduct, Mr. Frampton, as much as I do our paft attachment.

FRAM. Rather than hold your friendship upon fuch terms, I refign it for ever. Farewel, my lord. Re-enter FRAMPTON.

FRAM. Ill treated as I have been, my lord, I find it impoffible to leave you furrounded by difficulties.

Lo. EUST. That fentiment fhould have operated sooner,

Mr.

Mr. Frampton. Recollection is feldom of use to our friends, though it may fometimes be ferviceable to ourselves.

FRAM. Take advantage of your own expreffion, my lord, and recollect yourself. Born and educated as I have been, a gentleman, how have you injured both yourself and me, by admitting and uniting in the fame confidence, your rafcally fervant!

LD. EUST. The exigency of my fituation is a fufficient excufe to myself, and ought to have been fo to the man who called himself my friend.

FRAM. Have a care, my lord, of uttering the leaft doubt upon that fubject; for could I think you once mean enough to fufpect the fincerity of my attachment to you, it muft vanish at that inftant.

LD. EUST. The proofs of your regard have been rather painful of late, Mr. Frampton.

FRAM. When I see my friend upon the verge of a precipice, is that a time for compliment? Shall I not rudely rush forward, and drag him from it? Juft in that ftate you are at present, and I will strive to fave you. Virtue may languish in a noble heart, and fuffer her rival, vice, to ufurp her power; but baseness muft not enter, or fhe flies for ever. The man who has forfeited his own efteem, thinks all the world has the fame consciousness, and therefore is what he deferves to be, a wretch.

LD. EUST. Oh, Frampton! you have lodged a dagger my heart.

in

FRAM. No, my dear Euftace, I have faved you from one, from your own reproaches, by preventing your being guilty of a meannefs, which you could never have forgiven yourself.

LD. EUST. Can you forgive me, and be ftill my friend? Q 2 FRAM.

FRAM. As firmly as I have ever been, my lord.But let us, at prefent, haften to get rid of the mean bufinefs we are engaged in, and forward the letters we have no right to detain.

DUKE. NO

CHA P.

IX.

DUKE

AND LOR D.

OW, my co-mates, and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more fweet

SCHOOL FOR RAKES.

Than that of painted pomp? are not these woods
More free from peril, than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The feafon's difference; as the icy phang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I fhrink with cold, I fmile, and fay,
This is no flattery; thefe are counsellors,
That feelingly perfuade me what I am.
Sweet are the ufes of adverfity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head:
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in ftones, and good in every thing.

-Come, fhall we go, and kill us venifon!
And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this defert city,
Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
Have their round haunches gor'd.

LORD. Indeed, my Lord,

A

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;
And in that kind fwears you do more ufurp
Than doth your brother, that hath banish'd you,
To day my Lord of Amiens, and myself,
Did fteal behind him, as he lay along
Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood ;
To the which place a poor fequeftered ftag,
That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and, indeed, my Lord,
The wretched animal heav'd forth fuch groans
That their discharge did ftretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chafe; and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on th' extremeft verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

DUKE. But what faid Jaques?

Did he not moralize this spectacle ?

LORD. O yes, into a thousand fimiles,
First, for his weeping in the needless stream;
Poor Deer, quoth he, thou mak'ft a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much. Then being alone,
Left an abandon'd of his velvet friends;

'Tis right, quoth he, thus mifery doth part

The flux of company. Anon a careless herd,
Full of the pafture, jumps along by him,
And never stays to greet him: Ay, quoth Jaques,
Sweep on, you fat and greafy citizens,

"Ţis just the fashion; wherefore do you look

Q3

Upon

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?
Thus moft invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life; fwearing, that we
Are mere ufurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,
To fright the animals, and to kill them up
In their affign'd and native dwelling-place.

DUKE. And did you leave him in this contemplation LORD. We did, my Lord, weeping and commenting Upon the fobbing deer.

DUKE. Show me the place;

I love to cope him in thefe fullen fits,

For then he's full of matter.

LORD. I'll bring you to him ftraight.

DUKE.

CHA P.

X.

AND JAQUE S.

HY,
HY, how now, Monfieur, what a life is
this,

DUKE

SHAKESPEAR.

That your poor friend muft woo your company?
What? you look merrily.

JAQ A fool, a fool ;- I met a fool i' th' foreft,

A motley fool; a miferable varlet!

As I do live by food, I met a fool,

Who laid him down and baik'd him in the fun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.

Good morrow, fool, quoth I; No, Sir, quoth he,
Call me not fool, till Heaven hath fent me fortune;
And then he drew a dial from his poak,

And