JERE. O Lord, madam, did you ever know any madman mad enough to own it?

VAL. Sot, can't you apprehend?

ANG. Why, he talked very sensibly just now.

JERE. Yes, madam; he has intervals. But you see he begins to look wild again now.

VAL. Why, you thick-skulled rascal, I tell you the farce is done, and I will be mad no longer. [Beats him.]

ANG. Ha, ha, ha! is he mad or no, Jeremy?

JERE. Partly, I think,--for he does not know his own mind two hours. I'm sure I left him just now in the humour to be mad, and I think I have not found him very quiet at this present. Who's there?

[One knocks.]

VAL. Go see, you sot.--I'm very glad that I can move your mirth though not your compa.s.sion.

ANG. I did not think you had apprehension enough to be exceptions.

But madmen show themselves most by over-pretending to a sound understanding, as drunken men do by over-acting sobriety. I was half inclining to believe you, till I accidently touched upon your tender part: but now you have restored me to my former opinion and compa.s.sion.

JERE. Sir, your father has sent to know if you are any better yet.

Will you please to be mad, sir, or how?

VAL. Stupidity! You know the penalty of all I'm worth must pay for the confession of my senses; I'm mad, and will be mad to everybody but this lady.

JERE. So--just the very backside of truth,--but lying is a figure in speech that interlards the greatest part of my conversation.

Madam, your ladyship's woman.

SCENE XX.

VALENTINE, ANGELICA, JENNY.

ANG. Well, have you been there?--Come hither.

JENNY. Yes, madam; Sir Sampson will wait upon you presently.

[Aside to ANGELICA.]

VAL. You are not leaving me in this uncertainty?

ANG. Would anything but a madman complain of uncertainty?

Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing, and the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase. Never let us know one another better, for the pleasure of a masquerade is done when we come to show our faces; but I'll tell you two things before I leave you: I am not the fool you take me for; and you are mad and don't know it.

SCENE XXI.

VALENTINE, JEREMY.

VAL. From a riddle you can expect nothing but a riddle. There's my instruction and the moral of my lesson.

JERE. What, is the lady gone again, sir? I hope you understood one another before she went?

VAL. Understood! She is harder to be understood than a piece of Egyptian antiquity or an Irish ma.n.u.script: you may pore till you spoil your eyes and not improve your knowledge.

JERE. I have heard 'em say, sir, they read hard Hebrew books backwards; maybe you begin to read at the wrong end.

VAL. They say so of a witch's prayer, and dreams and Dutch almanacs are to be understood by contraries. But there's regularity and method in that; she is a medal without a reverse or inscription, for indifference has both sides alike. Yet, while she does not seem to hate me, I will pursue her, and know her if it be possible, in spite of the opinion of my satirical friend, Scandal, who says -

That women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand.

ACT V.--SCENE I.

A room in Foresight's house.

ANGELICA and JENNY.

ANG. Where is Sir Sampson? Did you not tell me he would be here before me?

JENNY. He's at the great gla.s.s in the dining-room, madam, setting his cravat and wig.

ANG. How! I'm glad on't. If he has a mind I should like him, it's a sign he likes me; and that's more than half my design.

JENNY. I hear him, madam.

ANG. Leave me; and, d'ye hear, if Valentine should come, or send, I am not to be spoken with.

SCENE II.

ANGELICA, SIR SAMPSON.

SIR SAMP. I have not been honoured with the commands of a fair lady a great while,--odd, madam, you have revived me,--not since I was five-and-thirty.

ANG. Why, you have no great reason to complain, Sir Sampson, that is not long ago.

SIR SAMP. Zooks, but it is, madam, a very great while: to a man that admires a fine woman as much as I do.

ANG. You're an absolute courtier, Sir Sampson.

SIR SAMP. Not at all, madam,--odsbud, you wrong me,--I am not so old neither, to be a bare courtier, only a man of words. Odd, I have warm blood about me yet, and can serve a lady any way. Come, come, let me tell you, you women think a man old too soon, faith and troth you do. Come, don't despise fifty; odd, fifty, in a hale const.i.tution, is no such contemptible age.

ANG. Fifty a contemptible age! Not at all; a very fashionable age, I think. I a.s.sure you, I know very considerable beaus that set a good face upon fifty. Fifty! I have seen fifty in a side box by candle-light out-blossom five-and-twenty.