_Cank._ I am sure if you were not as great a Stranger to your own Dullness as you are to Apollo and the Nine, as you quaintly call them, you would never think of writing a Tragedy. But most Writers are such vain, envious Coxcombs, and busy themselves so continually in the pleasing Search of other People's Faults, that they never have time to look into their own. For this Blockhead now, who has no more Imagination than a Dutch Burgomaster, because he can common place Corneille and Racine, sets up for the Euripides of the Age, and has the Vanity to prefer his sleepy, lumpish Tragedy to my Comedy which has that Viscomica, that fine Ridiculum of Human Nature which Caesar so lauded in the Greek and so regretted the Want of in the Roman Poet. (_Exit_) (_Enter_ HARRIET _and_ HEARTLY) _Har._ O I have teazed the Wretch 'till his Envy shook him like the Ague fit. _Heart._ And I have praised the Play and flattered my Lady's Judgment to such a Degree of Pride and Obstinancy as will never bear Contradiction again. No successful Poet after his Ninth Night was ever so brimfull of Vanity as I have made her Ladyship. She run[s] over with folly. _Har._ Let me tell you, Sir, Trifle makes a pretty ridiculous Figure upon this Occasion. _Heart._ And indeed upon any Occasion; he never departs from his Character. I left him, and that other Coxcomb Nibble, in the most ridiculous dispute about the Rules of Criticism, and what was high, and what was low Comedy, and what was Farce, that ever was heard. Sir Patrick, he got into the Squabble with them, and did so contradict himself and them, and did so flounder and blunder that they had all gone to Loggerheads if my Lady hadn't stepped in and pre-emptorily decided the point. _Har._ O delightful! I should have liked that of all things. See here the Knight comes; let us play him off a little. _Heart._ With all my Heart. (_Enter Sir_ PATRICK) _Heart._ Sir Patrick, your humble Servant, have you settled the Argument between Nibble and Trifle at last? _Sir Pat._ Yes, yes, I settled it as dead as a Door Nail betwixt them. _Heart._ Which way, Sir? _Sir Pat._ Why I told them they were both wrong and knew nothing at all of the Matter, but they did not believe me so they went to it again, and there I left them.--(_Seeing Harriet, addresses her_) Madam, I am your most obedient Slave and humble Servant! 'Till death do us part. _Har._ O Sir Patrick, you are superlatively obliging. (_Curtzying very low_) I am afraid, Sir Patrick, that is more than my short Acquaintance with you can merit. _Sir Pat._ O Madam, you merit more than human Nature can bestow upon you. You are all perfection, beautiful as Venus, and as wise as Medusa. _Both._ Ha, ha, ha. _Heart._ Medusa! Ha, ha, ha, Minerva I believe you mean. _Sir Pat._ Faith I believe so too; but one may easily mistake; you know they are so very much alike, especially as they are both Heathen Gods too. _Both._ Ha, ha, ha.