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Pru. Lord, sir! one does not know how to face you; you really frighten me out of my wits.

Ail. She won't speak now!

Pru. Yes, sir, I-will speak. [Altering her 2 tone.] There's Dr. Last below, as fine as a mountebank.

future.

Ail. Daughter, go into your chamber; and I must beg of you, sir, to take your leave; and pray let your friend know, that neither he, nor his substitute, need continue their visits for the [Exit NANCY. Har. [Aside.] Well, my good old gentleman, you shall hear from me again sooner than you imagine; for, since the way has been pointed out to me, I will make a bold push to drive this quack out of the house. [Exit.

Enter DOCTOR LAST, drest in a tawdry manner, followed by a black boy.

Dr Last. An impudent rascal has thrown a dead cat into my chariot, and hit me such at douse on the nose, besides splatching me! Ail. Doctor Last

Dr. Last. Mr. Ailwould-Sir, I pay you my compliments-Pompey, bring the carriage for me at six o'clock-and, do you hear? call at Covent Garden market for the yerbs, and put them into the boot.

Ail. Upon my word! [Admiring LAST.] Lord, Lord! what an advantage dress is!

Dr. Last. To tell you the truth, I got this suit of clothes a bargain: they belonged to a gentle. man who died under my hands.

Ail. Prudence, go and desire your young mistress to come hither,

Pru. Dr. Last-sir, your most obedient.

[Exit.

Ail. You impudent, saucy— Dr. Last. Never mind her; Lord! she meant no harm-I'm too good-natured to take notice of every trifle—I'm one of the best natured fellows, I believe that ever was born-Why, I'm like a dog in my own house; I never troubles myself about nothing; all I desire is to see things handsome. and they give me whatever they please.

Ail. Well, I think my daughter will, in that respect, match you to a tittle, for she's as goodnatured a girl as lives.

Dr. Last. I'll tell you a thing you'll be glad to hear; I believe I shall come out with a new medicine in a day or two.

Ail. I'll take it-What is it?
Dr. Last. Essence of cucumber.
Ail. Of cucumber!

Dr. Last. Ay, for the heartburn.
Ail. I'm very often troubled with that
er; but will it be good for nothing else?

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Nancy.

Nan. I don't know what to say, sir.

Dr. Last. Let her alone, let her alone; we'll I fancy, Mr. Ailwould, we shall have very fine talk fast enough, when we're better acquainted children; I had three as beautiful babes by my last spouse, as ever a woman brought into the world.

Ail. I hope they're dead, doctor?

Dr. Last. Yes, yes; I told you a bit agone. Sweet pretty little angels! they all lies in Pancridge church-yard with their poor dear mammy.

Ail. In Pancras church-yard.

Dr. Last. Yes, there's tomb-stones over every one of them.

Ail. Tomb-stones!

Dr. Last. Ay.

Ail. Is there though?

Dr. Last. Yes; what's the matter with you?
Ail. Heigh ho!

Dr. Last. Have you got the cholic?
Ail. No.

Nan. Has any sudden illness seized you, sir? Ail. No, only low spirits. I think somehow, shall be buried in Pancras church-yard myself. Pru. Lord, sir! how can you take such things into your head?

I

Ail. I wish there had been no talk about tombstones.

Pru. Here's my lady.

Enter MRS. AILWOULD.
Ail, Mrs. Ailwould, this is Dr. Last.
Mrs. Ail. I have seen the doctor before, my
dear; but what's the matter with you, eh?

Dr. Last. Nothing, madam, nothing; he has only got a little fit of the horrors. let him alone he'll come to himself again by and by.

Mrs. Ail. I hope, daughter-in-law, you are sensible of the goodness of this gentleman, in taking you without a portion?

Dr. Last. Yes, yes; and I hope my parson disor-proves agreeable to her. Have you seen my picture, miss, that's in the expedition room at

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Spring-gardens? every one says it is monstrous | be glad to provoke me to make you some invelike me, Take her to see it, do, it will cost but tinent answer: but I tell you before-hand, I st a shilling; you'll easily know it—it's o'the same be careful not to give you that advantage ose side with the image there-Venus the methodist, I thinks they call it.

Ail. Well, but, doctor, give me leave to ask you, and don't be offended at my being a little particular, on account of my girl; I know you have realized something considerable: but, how have you laid out your money? Have you ever a scrap of land?

Dr. Last. Why, as far as this here, there's my place by Hounslow, I bought it out and out; the whole concern costs me upwards of fifteen hundred pounds, with my pond and my pigeon-house,

and

Pru. Have you any fish in your pond, doctor? Dr. Lust. No, my dear, it's not deep enough; besides, its in the road, and I'm afraid they'd be stole: but I have pigs and pigeons; and next summer I shall make a new reproach to my house, with a fistula that will give us a view of all the gibbets upon the heath-then there's a large running ditch that I'll make into a turpentine river.

Ail Come, Nancy, let me have the satisfaction of seeing you give your hand to Dr. Last. Nan. Sir

Ail. Nay, nay, no coying.

Nan. Dear sir, let me beg of you not to be so precipitate, but allow the gentleman and me sufficient time to know one another, and try if

our inclinations are mutual.

Dr. Last. My inclinations are mutual, miss, and not to be changed; for the fire of love, as I may say, is shot from your beautiful eyes into my heart: and I could say more-if it was not out of respect to the company.

Mrs. Ail. Perhaps, my dear, Miss Nancy has fixed her inclinations somewhere else; and, like a dutiful daughter, made a choice for herself.

Nan. If I had, madain, it would be such a one as neither reason nor honour would make me ashamed of.

Mrs. Ail. But if I were in your papa's place, miss, I would make you take the person I thought proper for your husband, or I know what I'd do.

Nan. O, madam, nobody doubts your affection; but, perhaps, you may be baulked in the favour you design me.

Ail Well, but stay; methinks I make but a whimsical sort of a figure between you both.

Nan. The duty of a daughter, madam, is not unlimited; and there are certain cases, to which neither law nor reason can make it extend.

Mrs. Ail. That is to say, you are very willing to be married, but you are not willing your father should have any hand in the matter?

Ail. Dr. Last, I beg your pardon for all this. Dr. Last. Let them go on! I likes to hear them.

Mrs. Ail. Your insolence is insufferable, child!

Nan. I am very sensible, madam, you would

me.

Mrs. Ail. You don't know, my dear, that you are very silly.

Nan. Tis labour lost, madam; I shall make no answer.

Mrs. Ail. You have a ridiculous pride aboc you-a vain self-sufficiency, which makes 1-t shocking to every body.

Nan. I tell you, madam. once more, it was do; I will preserve my temper in spite of ya and, to deprive you of all hopes of succeedry against me, I'll take myself out of your sightin mediately.

Ail. Harkye, Nancy, no more words; resour to marry this gentleman within three days, I'll turn you out to starve in the streets.

[Exit NASC Mrs. Ail. A little impudent, saucy mins! Dr. Lest. She has a purdigious deal of torque for such a young crater!

Ail. My lamb, don't make yourself unery about the baggage; I'll bring her to her senses I'll warrant you.

Mrs. Ail. Indeed, my dear, you don't know how I'm shocked at her behaviour.

Ail. Are you shocked, love?

Mrs. Ail. Yes, that I am, to the soul!! thought she wanted to insinuate that I didnt love you, my dear; and any thing of that kind s worse to me than ten thousand daggers! Ail. She's going to faint.

Dr. Lust. Let me feel her pulse.
Ail. A glass of water here!

Dr. Last. No, no, give her a glass of cherr brandy; I'm no friend to drenching Christians bowels with water, as if they were the tripes c a brute beast.

Mrs. Ail. Mr. Ailwould, permit me to go into my own room a little, to recover myselt. Ail. Do so, my love.

Dr. Last. And, do you hear, madam, take a dram, as I bids you; a little rum and sugar, you have any in the house; that's what I gene rally swallows, and I always find the good effects [Exit MRS. AILWOULD. Enter PRUDENCE.

of it.

Ail. How now?

Pru. Sir, a gentleman, that says he comes from your brother, Mr. Friendly, desires to see you.

Ail. Who is he? what would he have? Pru. I don't know-He cuts a droll figureHere he is, sir.

Ail. Get out of the room.

Enter, WAG, in disguise.

Wag. Sir, I'm your most obedient.
Ail. Your servant, sir.

Wag. By what I perceive, sir, I have not the honour to be known to you-my name is Scower

sir; and I am recommended by your brother, Mr. Friendly, and study the practice of physic. Ail. Sir, your servant.

Wag. I observe you look very earnestly at me, sir; what age do you think I am of?

Dr. Lust. Hold, let me tell him-What age are you of You are about four-and-twenty, or thereaways.

Wag. By the Lord, I'm above fout score!
Dr. Last. That's a damned lie, I'm sure!
Ail. Hold, doctor! perhaps he has lived all
his life upon tincture of sage.

Wag. Sage! a fiddle! I have secrets myself that will keep me alive these hundred years.

Dr. Last. I suspect this is the soldier that lives in the Old Bailey. You'll see how I'll make him expose himself. You say you're a doctor? who made you so?

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Ail. Eh! the dropsy?

Wag. Why, don't you see what a swelled belly you have, and your eyes starting out of your head?

Wag. Sir, I am a travelling doctor; and, at present, have the honour of being physician in ordinary to one emperor, four kings, three electors, and I don't know how many prince palantines, margraves, bishops, and vulgar highnesses; passing from town to town, from kingdom to kingdom, to find out patients worthy of my prac-'ll stand to his tapping. tice, and fit to exercise the great and noble secrets of my art. I scorn to amuse myself with the little fry of common distempers, the trifles of rheumatisms, scurvies, and megrims; give me your diseases of importance, good purple fevers, good pleurisies, with inflammations of the lungs : these are what please me; these are what I triumph over.

Ail. Really, doctor, I always thought you had mistaken my disorder.

Dr. Last. He has no dropsy-he has not a sup of water in him. Let him be tapped to try;

Dr. Last. Ax him, can be bleed and draw teeth? I dare to say he knows nothing of chirurgery.

Wag. Have you never heard of my black powder that is taken like snuff, and purges by the smell, provided that, at the same time, you swallow three large glasses of laxative tisan?

Dr. Lust. Then its the tisan that does it! Mark that! O! he's quite a cheat!

Wag. Let me feel your pulse-Come, beat as you should do-[[ Feeling his pulse in a ridiculous manner; at the same time humming a tune.]

Ail. Why, sir, one would think you were playing upon the spinet?

Wag. Even so, sir; for I do not, like other physicians, with a watch in my hand, determine the state of the pulse by that fallible measurer

of time.

Ail. How then?

Wag. By a tune; which, I believe, you will allow to be a discovery new, and entirely my own. If the pulse moves in concert with the minuet in Ariadne, I am sure that the patient is well. Let me see, sir-Tol, lol, derol-there we dropped a crotchet. Tol, lol, de-rol-there we mounted a minum. Tol, lol, lol-and there a semi-demi quaver is missing.

Ail. A seini-demi quaver!

Wag. Stay!-Let me consider-two bars and a halt-Who is your physician? Ail. Dr. Last.

Wag. What? that little fellow?

Wag. You are an ignoramus!—Let us hear a little what are your complaints.

Ail. I have every now and then a pain in my head.

Wag. Dropsy.

Al. Sometimes a mist before my eyes.
Wag. Dropsy.

Ail. Sometimes a violent palpitation at my

heart.

Wag. Dropsy.

Ail. At other times I am taken with a violent pain in my belly, as if it was the colic. Wag. Dropsy again. tite to what you eat?

Ail. Yes, sir.

You have a good appe

Wag. Dropsy. Yov love to drink a glass of wine?

Ail. Yes.

Wag. That's the dropsy. You take a comfortable nap after dinner?

Ail. True, sir.

Wag. Dropsy! dropsy! dropsy!-All dropsy! Dr. Last. Well, if it be can you cure him? Wag. A quack like you would say, ay: but I sincerely tell the gentleman at once, he's a dead

man.

Ail. Then, the Lord have mercy on me! Wag. That is, I mean, he would be dead in twenty-four hours, if I was not to help him; but I have the only remedy in the world for it.

Dr. Last. Don't believe him; he's a cheat! Ail. Give it to me; I'll take it, let it be what it will.

Wag. Then, observe, I don't desire a brass farthing without you're cured.

Ail. Look you there, doctor!

Dr. Last. Well, don't I do the same? Wag. But, if you are cured, you must give me a bundred guineas.

Ail. You shall have the money.

Dr. Last. It's too much; I'll do it for five. Wag. I have been at a great deal of pains and trouble, and made many experiments, in order to find a radical cure of this disease, that should be at once safe, cheap, and easy. My first invention was a pump; by means of which, fixed in the belly of the patient, I meant to pump out the dropsical humour, as you would water out of the hold of a ship; threescore and eleven people died under the operation.

Ail. Well, what is the loss of a few individuals, for the general good of mankind? You brought it to perfection at last?

Wag. No; at last I found it was impracticable; yet I would have gone on in hopes, but people grew chicken-hearted, and would not let

me try.

Dr. Last. So they well might-You should not pump me in that manner for five thousand pound.

Wag. Well, sir, my next experiment was called the soaking operation; which was contrived thus: I made the patient swallow a piece of spunge fastened to a string, which, going down his throat into his stomach, I let lie there till I had absorbed or soaked up the watery humours, and then drew it up again, with all it's contents; repeating the operation till I had left the body as dry as an empty decanter.

Ail. Well, and what success?

Wag. Why, I had a great deal better success with this than the former: for I think it killed but four-and-twenty.

Dr. Last. Well, take my advice, Mr. Ailwould, neither be pumped nor soaked.

Wag. The gentleman has nothing to fear; what I shall make use of upon occasion is my great driver, or essence infernalis.-You sec this little phial?

Dr. Last. Let me see it-and I'll make bold to taste it, too.-Don't touch it, Mr. Ailwould! don't touch it! it's corroding supplement, and will throw you into a salvation.

Wag. Not a grain of mercury in it, upon my honour! nothing but simples.

Ail. Pray give the phial to me; I think I can distinguish for I have taken a great many of these things. I vow to man, it tastes to me like strong beer or porter!

Wag. [Aside.] By the Lord he has guessed it:-Observe me, sir, it is tincture drawn from ratsbane, arsenic, laudanum, verdigrise, copperas, with a convenient mixture of the juice of hemlock. You see, sir, I despise quackery; I tell you fairly what my medicines are.

Dr. Last. Medicines, do you call them? Wag. Give it cat, dog, mouse, rat; or, in short, any creature, biped or quadruped, of the brute creation, they are immediately thrown into the most intolerable torments, swell like a tun, and burst before your eyes.

Ail. A fine medicine, indeed! Wag. Well, I'll let you take the contents of this whole bottle; and if it does you any more

harm than so much new milk, I'll give you leare to knock me down.

Ail. Knock you down!

Wag. Nay, more; if you had infirmities from head to foot, the first dose will cure you of every one of thein.

Dr. Last. Yes, indeed, I believe it would, Wag. Tell me, Mr. Ailwould, what do you do with this arm?

Ail. My arm!

Wag. Take my advice, cut off this arm in mediately.

Ail. The deuce! Cut off my arm!

Wag. It is the new method of practice the I mean to introduce. Don't we prune trees a their branches, to make them more healthy? And, don't you see that this arms draws all the nourishment to itself, and hinders the other from thriving?

Ail. Ay, but I have occasion for my arm. Wag. Here's an eye, too, which I would have instantly plucked out, were I in your place.Ail. Pluck out my eye!

Wag. Don't you see it injures the other, and occasions these mists you complained of but now. Be guided by me, and have it take away directly; you'll see the better with your left.

Dr. Last. I tell you, Mr. Ailwould, this is

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Dr. Last. Ay, but you shan't get off so.—Stop thief!

Wag. Nay, then, I must take to my heels. [Throws his wig at LAST, and runs of. Ail. Did you ever see such an impudent scoundre!?

Dr. Last. Do you keep the wig-we can swear to the wig-while I follow, and find out who he is-I'm almost sure he's the soldier in the Old Bailey; for he has a spite against me, and employs old women to tear down my advertis ments.

Enter FRIENDLY and PRUDENCE. Ail. Ah! I'm quite overcome! I can't sup port myself any longer.

Pru. Your brother, Mr. Friendly, sir. Friend. How now! What's the matter? Ail. O! Mr. Friendly, your servant—but I wonder you are not ashamed to see my face: did you think my sickly habit would not put me out of the world soon enough, but you must join with wretches to drive me hence?

Friend. I don't understand you.

Ail. How could you send me that wicked monster, who, under the name of a doctor, wanted to give me poison; to cut off my arms, thrust out my eyes, and so make me blind and lame.

Friend. I never sent you any physician!

Ail. No-he pretended he came by your recommendation.

Ail. I have not been in the open air these two months.

Friend. He's some impostor-and indeed,
my dear brother, you lay yourself too open to
the practice of such fellows, who are acquaint-prevailed on by your brother,
ed with your weakness, and take advantage of
it.

Friend. So much the worse for you.
Pru. So it is, Mr. Friendly. Do, sir, be

Ail. My weakness is great, indeed, us you

may see.

Friend. How do you find yourself to-day,

then?

Ail. Extremely ill, indeed.
Friend. How! extremely!

Ail. In a condition so faint and feeble, that I am not able to stir.

Friend. Indeed!

Ail. I have scarce strength enough to speak

to you.

Friend. I'm beartily sorry for it, brother, because I came to talk to you upon a matter of consequence; no less than to propose a match for my niece.

Ail. [Rises in a viloent passion.] Brother, don't talk to me of that hussy; she's an impudent, ungrateful jade; I detest, I renounce her; and will own nobody for my friend, that speaks a word in her favour.

Friend. However, brother, I'm glad to find, that your strength returns a little, and that you have still got spirits enough to exert yourself: my visit has done you so much good at least; and to do you still more, I insist upon your coming with me into the garden immediately.

Ail. Into the garden!

Friend. Ay; a walk there will do you good. |

Ail. I know I shall catch my death of cold.
Friend. I warrant you.

Ail. Well, come then. Prudence, give me my furred gown.

Friend. What! to go into the garden in the middle of July?

Ail. Ay, ay, I'll take care of myself in spite of you all.

Pru. Get him out at any rate. [Aside.]— Here's your gown, sir.

Ail. So-Let me wrap it close about meWhere are my flannel gloves.

Pru. Here, sir.

Ail. Now, pull down my night-cap, and put on my hat.

Friend. Why, brother, you're wrapt up like a Russian courier ? for a winter journey into Siberia?

Ail. You may say what you please.-Here, Prudence, tie a handkerchief about my neck. Friend. Is that necessary, too?

Ail. Come, now, brother, I'll go with you, though I am sure it will be the death of me. [Going off.

Pru. Well, but, sir

Ail. What's the matter?

Pru. You forgot, sir, that you can't walk without your cane.

Ail. That's true; give it me.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-A room in AILWOULD's house with
a door in the back.

AILWOULD, and MRS. AILWOULD.
Ail Where art thou going abroad, my life?
Mrs. Ail. To the Temple, my dear, to Mr.
Juggle, the lawyer, to desire him to come here
and make your will, since you will have it so.
Ail. That's right, lamb, that's right-

Mrs. Ail. But an accident has happened, dearest, which I thought it my duty to inform you of before I went.-As I passed by your daughter Nancy's chamber, I saw a young fellow there in earnest conference with her.

Ail. How! with my daughter!

Mrs. Ail. Yes; and I'm sure I saw the same young fellow, a little before, talking with your brother in the parlour.

Ail. And could you overhear what she and the young fellow were saying together?

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