_Count._ [_Walking away from her_] Torture! _Lady P._ But I ‘ll take care to have you prognosticated. _Count._ [_Aside_] I can support it no longer. [_Going._] _Edmund._ [_Catching him by the hand_] My dear Count—— _Count._ Sir, I am a dishonoured villain [_Exit._ _Lady P._ There! There! he tells you himself he is a willin? his conscience flies in his face, and he owns it! _Edmund._ [_With great ardour and feeling_] Madam, he is a noble-hearted gentleman! His agonizing mind deems it villainy to suffer insults so gross. [_Exit._ _Re-enter the_ COUNT, _deep in thought, and much agitated._ _Lady P._ [_Seeing him_] Marry my daughter, indeed!—Faugh! [_Exit Lady Peckham._ _Count._ Into what has my impetuous anger hurried me?—Guilty of falsehood! I? To recede is impossible! What! Stand detected before this city Madam!—whose tongue, itching with the very scrophula of pride, would iterate liar in my ear! No! Falsehood itself is not so foul.’—ACT III. This is truth and nature. If it should be thought that the description of Lady Peckham borders too much on caricature, it should be remembered that grossness is the essence of the character, and it serves to set off more forcibly the refinement of the Count. If, however, it should be insisted that the scene which has been transcribed is a union of farce and sentimental comedy, still it is farce worthy of Foote, and the serious part is worthy of any one. The sentiments which are inculcated in the scene which precedes the one just quoted, are such as have never been embodied with the prejudices of any class of men, because it must be confessed they are much more adapted to convince the reason than to flatter the passions or the imagination! Lucy Peckham is a female philosopher, and lectures the Count on his pretensions, in a manner scarcely less grating to his feelings, than the personalities of her mother. The Count says, ‘Mankind have agreed, Madam, to honour the descendants of the wise and the brave.’ To this his mistress replies, ‘They have so,—But you have, doubtless, too much native merit to arrogate to yourself the worth of others! You are no jay, decked in the peacock’s feathers! You are not idiot enough to imagine that a skin of parchment, on which are emblazoned the arms and the acts of one wise man, with a long list of succeeding fools, is any honour to you! Responsible to mankind for the use and the abuse of such talents as you feel yourself endowed with, you ought to think only how you may deserve greatly; and disdain to be that secondary thing, that insignificant cypher, which is worthless, except from situation!’