_O. Book._ I saw the boy a-coming in a chair; he looks so languid and distressed, poor lad! He has all his mother's softness, by nature of the sweetest disposition. Oh, gentlemen, you know not what it is to be a father! To see my only child in that condition----My grief quickened at the sight of him. I thought I could have patience till I saw him. _Enter_ SERVANT. _Serv._ There are two or three in chairs desire admittance by appointment. _O. Book._ 'Tis right, sir. _Enter_ YOUNG BOOKWIT, LATINE, _and_ GAOLER. Oh, my dear child! Oh, Tom! are all thy aged father's hopes, then, come to this, that he can't see thee, his only son, but guarded by a gaoler? Thy mother's happy that lived not to see this day. Is all the nurture that she gave thy infancy, the erudition she bequeathed thy youth, thus answered? Oh, my son! my son! rise and support thy father! I sink with tenderness, my child; come to my arms while thou art mine. _Y. Book._ Oh, best of fathers! Let me not see your tears, Don't double my afflictions by your woe---- There's consolation when a friend laments us, but When a parent grieves, the anguish is too native, Too much our own to be called pity. Oh, sir, consider; I was born to die. 'Tis but expanding thought, and life is nothing. Ages and generations pass away, And with resistless force, like waves o'er waves, Roll down the irrevocable stream of time Into the insatiate ocean for ever----Thus we are gone. But the erroneous sense of man--'tis the lamented That's at rest, but the survivor mourns. All my sorrows vanish with that thought, But Heaven grant my aged father patience! _O. Book._ Oh, child! [_Turning away._ _Y. Book._ Do not torment yourself, you shall promise not to grieve. What if they do upbraid you with my death? Consider, sir, in death that our relation ceases; Nor shall I want your care, or know your grief. It matters not whether by law, or nature, 'tis I die. What, won't my father hear me plead to him? Don't turn from me---- Yet don't look at me with your soul so full. _O. Book._ Oh, my child! my child! I could hear thee ever. 'Twas that I loved thee that I turn away; To hear my son persuade me to resign him, I can't, I can't. The grief is insupportable. _Y. Book._ You make a coward of me with your anguish. I grow an infant, scarce can weep with silence; But let me keep some decency in my distress. _O. Book._ If we might be apart-- [_Looking at the company._ But that's too much to hope. _Gaol._ No, no, we'll leave you to yourselves. [_Exeunt._ _O. Book._ I have too much upon me, child, to speak--and, indeed, have nothing to say, but to feed my eyes upon thee e'er we part for ever, if tears would let me. When you have slept in your cradle, I have waked for you--and was it to this end! Oh, child, you've broke your father's heart. [_Swoons._