_Isa._ Oh! ten thousand pretty things! Equipage, Cards, Musick, Plays,
Balls, Flattery, Visits, and that prettiest thing of all pretty things,
a pretty Fellow----I rather wonder what Charms a Woman of any Spirit can
fancy in a Nunnery, in watching, working, praying, and sometimes, I am
afraid, wishing for other Company than that of an old fusty Friar--Oh!
'tis a delightful State, when every Man one sees, instead of tempting us
to Sin, is to rebuke us for them.
_Bea._ Such Sentiments as these would indeed make you very uneasy--but
believe me, Child, you would soon bring yourself to hate Mankind;
fasting and praying are the best Cures in the World for these violent
Passions.
_Isa._ On my Conscience I should want neither; if the continual Sight of
a Set of dirty Priests would not bring me to abhor Mankind, I dare swear
nothing could.
SCENE II.
_Old_ Laroon, Isabel, Beatrice.
_Old Lar._ Good-morrow, my little Wag-tail--my Grashopper, my Butterfly.
Odso! you little Baggage, you look as full of----as full of Love and
Sport and Wantonness----I wish I was a young Fellow again----Oh! that I
was but five and twenty for thy sake. Where's my Boy? What, has not he
been with you, has not he serenaded you?--Odsheart--I never let his
Mother sleep for a Month before I married her.
_Isa._ Indeed!
_Old Lar._ No Madam, nor for a Month afterwards neither. The young
Fellows of this Age are nothing, mere Butterflies, to those of
ours----Odsheart I remember the Time, when I could have taken a Hop,
Step, and Jump over the Steeple of _Notre Dame_.
_Bea._ I fancy the Sparks of your Age had Wings, Sir.
_Old Lar._ Wings, you little Baggage, no--but they had--they had Limbs,
like Elephants, and as strong they were as _Sampson_, and as swift
as----Why, I have my self run down a Stag in a fair Chace, and eat him
afterwards for my Dinner. But come, where is my old Neighbour, my old
Friend, my old _Jourdain_?
_Isa._ At his Devotions, I suppose, this is the Hour he generally
employs in them.
_Old Lar._ This Hour! ay, all Hours. I dare swear he spends more Time in
them, than all the Priests in _Toulon_. Well, give him his due, he was
wicked as long as he could be so, and when he could sin no longer, why
he began to repent that he had sinned at all. Oh! there is nothing so
devout as an old Whoremaster.
_Bea._ I fancy then it will be shortly Time for you to think of it, Sir!
_Old Lar._ Ay, Madam, about some thirty or forty Years hence it
may----Odsheart! I am but in the prime of my Years yet: And if it was
not for a saucy young Rascal who looks me in the Face and calls me
Father, might make a very good Figure among the Beaus. But tho' I am not
so young in Years, I am in Constitution as any of them; and I don't
question but to live to see a Son and a great Grandson both born on the
same Day.
_Isa._ You will excuse this Lady, Mr. _Laroon_, who is going to retire
so much earlier--
_Old Lar._ Retire!----Then it is with a young Fellow, I hope.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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