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224 WILLIAM CONGREVE [ACT n
with a distinguishing taste?—I warrant now he'd rather
eat a pheasant than a piece of poor John: 8 and smell now
—why, I warrant he can smell, and loves perfumes above a
stink.—Why, there's it; and music—don't you love music,
scoundrel?
Jer. Yes, I have a reasonable good ear, sir, as to jigs and
country dances, and the like; I don't much matter your
solos or sonatas; they give me the spleen.
Sir Samp. The spleen, ha! ha! ha! a pox confound you!
—solos or sonatas? 'Dons, whose son are you? how were
you engendered, muckworm?
Jer. I am by my father the son of a chairman; my mother
sold oysters in winter and cucumbers in summer; and I
came up-stairs into the world; for I was born in a cellar.
Fore. By your looks, you should go up-stairs out of the
world too, friend.
Sir Samp. And if this rogue were anatomised now, and
dissected, he has his vessels of digestion and concoction, and
so forth, large enough for the inside of a cardinal, this son
of a cucumber!—These things are unaccountable and unreasonable.—Body
o'me, why was not I a bear? that my
cubs might have lived upon sucking their paws. Nature has
been provident only to bears and spiders; the one has its
nutriment in his own hands, and t'other spins his habitation
out of his own entrails.
Val. Fortune was provident enough to supply all the
necessities of my nature, if I had my right of inheritance.
Sir Samp. Again! 'Dons, han't you four thousand pounds
—if I had it again, I would not give thee a groat.—What,
wouldst thou have me turn pelican, and feed thee out of
my own vitals?—'S'heart, live by your wits,—you were
always fond of the wits:—now let's see if you have wit
enough to keep yourself.—Your brother will be in town
to-night or to-morrow morning, and then look you, perform
covenants, and so your friend and servant.—Come, Brother
Foresight. [Exeunt Sir SAMPSDN and FORESIGHT.
Jer. I told you what your visit would come to.
Val. 'Tis as much as I expected.—I did not come to see
him: I came to Angelica; but since she was gone abroad it
was easily turned another way; and at least looked well on
my side.—What's here? Mrs. Foresight and Mrs. Frail; they
B An inferior kind of dried hake.