_Lett._ Victoria! Then I find this is none on't meant to my lady--nor to me neither; the master and man are both rogues. [_Aside._ _Pen._ Receive your seasonable epistle now at midnight! _Vict._ He can't mean me----To you he all along addressed.--Would I could read it without her. [_Aside._ _Pen._ To show you I value neither author nor bearer of it--kick the fellow down! _Lat._ Nay, madam, since matters must come to extremities, I'd rather have the honour of your ladyship's command to be cudgelled by your good family than have it from my master. A disappointed lover in his rage will strike stone walls and things inanimate, much more a poor live footman; therefore I must deliver my message. I'll read it to you, ladies, for I see you are friends. _Pen._ Away with him. _Lat._ "If the sincerity of my intentions were not----" _Lett._ Get out, false wretch. _Lat._ "Demonstrable, in spite of----" _Maid._ Take that---- _Lat._ "These accidents in which I have been involved, I should not dare to tell you how alternately joys, raptures, ecstasies, miseries, doubts, and anxieties do attack a breast devoted to you." Whither shall injured virtue fly for shelter, When love and honour suffer thus in me? Oh! I could rage, call elements about me, spout cataracts-- Must I be drubbed with broom-staves? [_Exit._ LAT. _Pen._ Come in, my dear, again. The night is cold. [_Exeunt._ SCENE III.--_Covent Garden._ _Enter_ LOVEMORE _and_ FREDERICK. _Love._ It is so pleasant a night that I will see you over the Garden to your lodgings. _Fred._ That compliment won't pass upon me. Your reason for sauntering this way is that 'tis near Penelope's. _Love._ I come for her sake! No; should she write, beseech, kneel to me, I think I ne'er should value her more. No, I'll be no longer her tool, her jest; she shall not dally with a passion she deserves not. _Fred._ 'Twere very well were this resolution in your power; but believe me, friend, one smile, one glance that were but doubtful whether favourable, would conquer all your indignation. _Love._ Faith, I'm afraid what you say is true. _Fred._ Then strive not to be rationally mad, which you attempt if you think you can at once be at your own command and at another's. Would you be master of yourself and have a mistress? _Love._ But I can rebel against that mistress. _Fred._ Do if you can. Nay, I'm sure 'tis in your power, because to-morrow morning you are to fight a rival for her--because though you know she lies backwards, and you can't so much as see her chamber window, you must needs walk hither. Well, I protest I'm of your mind; there is, me thinks, now a particular, amiable gloom about that house--though, perhaps, to ordinary beholders it is exactly like the others. _Love._ You are very witty, I must confess, at your friend's follies, Mr. Frederick.