LIEUTENANT O’CONNOR. Upon my word, doctor, you are right; the London ladies were always too handsome for me; then they are so defended, such a circumvallation of hoop, with a breastwork of whale-bone that would turn a pistol-bullet, much less Cupid’s arrows,—then turret on turret on top, with stores of concealed weapons, under pretence of black pins,—and above all, a standard of feathers that would do honour to a knight of the Bath. Upon my conscience, I could as soon embrace an Amazon, armed at all points. DR. ROSY. Right, right, my Alexander! my taste to a tittle. LIEUTENANT O’CONNOR. Then, doctor, though I admire modesty in women, I like to see their faces. I am for the changeable rose; but with one of these quality Amazons, if their midnight dissipations had left them blood enough to raise a blush, they have not room enough in their cheeks to show it. To be sure, bashfulness is a very pretty thing; but, in my mind, there is nothing on earth so impudent as an everlasting blush. DR. ROSY. My taste, my taste!—Well, Lauretta is none of these. Ah! I never see her but she put me in mind of my poor dear wife. LIEUTENANT O’CONNOR. [_Aside_.] Ay, faith; in my opinion she can’t do a worse thing. Now he is going to bother me about an old hag that has been dead these six years. DR. ROSY. Oh, poor Dolly! I never shall see her like again; such an arm for a bandage—veins that seemed to invite the lancet. Then her skin, smoothe and white as a gallipot; her mouth as large and not larger than the mouth of a penny phial; her lips conserve of roses; and then her teeth—none of your sturdy fixtures—ache as they would, it was but a small pull, and out they came. I believe I have drawn half a score of her poor dear pearls—[_weeps_]—But what avails her beauty? Death has no consideration—one must die as well as another. LIEUTENANT O’CONNOR. [_Aside_.] Oh, if he begins to moralize—-[_Takes out his snuff-box_.] DR. ROSY. Fair and ugly, crooked or straight, rich or poor—flesh is grass—flowers fade! LIEUTENANT O’CONNOR. Here, doctor, take a pinch, and keep up your spirits. DR. ROSY. True, true, my friend; grief can’t mend the matter—all’s for the best; but such a woman was a great loss, lieutenant. LIEUTENANT O’CONNOR. To be sure, for doubtless she had mental accomplishments equal to her beauty. DR. ROSY. Mental accomplishments! she would have stuffed an alligator, or pickled a lizard, with any apothecaru’s wife in the kingdom. Why, she could decipher a prescription, and invent the ingredients, almost as well as myself: then she was such a hand at making foreign waters!—for Seltzer, Pyrmont, Islington, or Chalybeate, she never had her equal; and her Bath and Bristol springs exceeded the originals.—Ah, poor Dolly! she fell a martyr to her own discoveries. LIEUTENANT O’CONNOR. How so, pray? DR. ROSY. Poor soul! her illness was occasioned by her zeal in trying an improvement on the Spa-water by an infusion of rum and acid.