_Eger. [With great warmth_.] I have done, sir,--you have refused.--I have nothing more to say upon the subject.--I am satisfied. _Sid. [With a glow of tender friendship_.] Come, come--correct this warmth,--it is the only weak ingredient in your nature, and you ought to watch it carefully. If I am wrong,--I will submit without reserve;--but consider the nature of your request--and how it would affect me:--from your earliest youth, your father has honoured me with the care of your education, and the general conduct of your mind; and, however singular and morose his temper may be to others,--to me--he has ever been respectful and liberal.--I am now under his roof too,--and because I will not abet an unwarrantable passion by an abuse of my sacred character, in marrying you beneath your rank,--and in direct opposition to your father's hopes and happiness,--you blame me--you angrily break from me--and call me unkind. _Eger. [With tenderness and conviction_.] Dear Sidney,--for my warmth I stand condemned: but for my marriage with Constantia, I think I can justify it upon every principle of filial duty,--honour,--and worldly prudence. _Sid_. Only make that appear, Charles, and you know you may command me. _Eger. [With great filial regret_.] I am sensible how unseemly it appears in a son to descant on the unamiable passions of a parent;--but, as we are alone, and friends,--I cannot help observing in my own defence,--that when a father will not allow the use of reason to any of his family--when his pursuit of greatness makes him a slave abroad--only to be a tyrant at home,--when a narrow partiality to Scotland, on every trivial occasion, provokes him to enmity even with his wife and children, only because they dare give a national preference where they think it most justly due;--and when, merely to gratify his own ambition, he would marry his son into a family he detests,--[_great warmth_.] sure, Sidney, a son thus circumstanced (from the dignity of human reason and the feelings of a loving heart) has a right--not only to protest against the blindness of a parent, but to pursue those measures that virtue and happiness point out. _Sid_. The violent temper of Sir Pertinax, I own, cannot be defended on many occasions, but still--your intended alliance with Lord Lumbercourt-- _Eger_. [_With great impatience._] O! contemptible!--a trifling, quaint, haughty, voluptuous, servile tool,--the mere lackey of party and corruption; who, for the prostitution of near thirty years and the ruin of a noble fortune, has had the despicable satisfaction, and the infamous honour--of being kicked up and kicked down--kicked in and kicked out,-- just as the insolence, compassion, or convenience of leaders predominated:--and now--being forsaken by all parties, his whole political consequence amounts to the power of franking a letter, and the right honourable privilege of not paying a tradesman's bill.