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 you felf 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 so to the man who called himself my friend. FRAM. Have a care, my lord, of uttering the leaft doubt upon that subject; for could I think you once mean enough to suspect the fincerity of my attachment to you, it must vanish at that inftant. LD. EUST. The proofs of your regard have been rather painful of late, Mr. Frampton.. FRAM. When I fee 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 prefent, and I will ftrive to fave you. Virtue may languish in a noble heart, and suffer her rival, vice, to ufurp her power; but bafeness-muft not enter, or she 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 in my heart. FRUM. 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? -But FRAM. As firmly as I have ever been, my lord. le: us, at prefent, haften to get rid of the mean business we are engaged in, and forward the letters we have no right to detain. SCHOOL FOR RAKES С Н А Р. IX. DUKE AND LO R D. DUKE. NOW, my co-mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head: And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Come, shall we go, and kill us venifon! And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools, LORD. Indeed, my Lord, The The melancholy Jaques grieves at that; And in that kind fwears you do more ufurp Than doth your brother that hath banished you. Did fteal behind him, as he lay along Under an oak, whofe antique root peeps out DUKE. But what faid Jaques ? Did he not moralize this spectacle? First, for his weeping in the needlefs stream ; Tis juft the fashion: wherefore do you look Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?. DUKE. And did you leave him in this contemplations? 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. SHAKSPEARL. CHA P. X. DUKE AND JAQUE S. HY, how now, Monfieur, what a life i DUKE. WHY, this, That your poor friends must 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 bafk'd him in the fun, In good fet terms, and yet a motley fool. And And looking on it with lack-luftre eye, Says very wifely, It is ten o'clock; Thus may we fee, quoth he, how the world wags : And after one hour more 'twill be eleven ; A worthy fool! motley's the only wear? JAQ. O worthy fool! one that hath been a courtier, And fays, if ladies be but young and fair, They have the gift to know it: and in his brain, Which is as dry as the remainder-bisket After a voyage, he hath ftrange places cramn'd In mangled forms. O that I were a fool! DUKE. Thou fhalt have one. JHQ. It is my only fuit; Provided that you weed your better judgments They moft muft laugh. And why, Sir, muft they fo? |