_Pleas._ Why should my mother be so inquisitive about this lodger? I half suspect old Eve herself has a mind to be nibbling at the pippin. He makes love to one of them, I am confident; it may be to both; for, methinks, I should have done so, if I had been a man; but the damned petticoats have perverted me to honesty, and therefore I have a grudge to him for the privilege of his sex. He shuns me, too, and that vexes me; for, though I would deny him, I scorn he should not think me worth a civil question. _Re-enter_ WOODALL, _with_ TRICKSY, MRS BRAINSICK, JUDITH, _and Music._ _Mrs Brain._ Come, your works, your works; they shall have the approbation of Mrs Pleasance. _Trick._ No more apologies; give Judith the words, she sings at sight. _Jud._ I'll try my skill. A SONG FROM THE ITALIAN. _By a dismal cypress lying, Damon cried, all pale and dying,-- Kind is death, that ends my pain, But cruel she I loved in vain. The mossy fountains Murmur my trouble, And hollow mountains My groans redouble: Every nymph mourns me, Thus while I languish; She only scorns me, Who caused my anguish. No love returning me, but all hope denying; By a dismal cypress lying, Like a swan, so sung he dying,-- Kind is death, that ends my pain, But cruel she I loved in vain._ _Pleas._ By these languishing eyes, and those _simagres_ of yours, we are given to understand, sir, you have a mistress in this company; come, make a free discovery which of them your poetry is to charm, and put the other out of pain. _Trick._ No doubt 'twas meant to Mrs Brainsick. _Mrs Brain._ We wives are despicable creatures; we know it, madam, when a mistress is in presence. _Pleas._ Why this ceremony betwixt you? 'Tis a likely proper fellow, and looks as he could people a new isle of Pines[7]. _Mrs Brain._ 'Twere a work of charity to convert a fair young schismatick, like you, if 'twere but to gain you to a better opinion of the government. _Pleas._ If I am not mistaken in you, too, he has works of charity enough upon his hands already; but 'tis a willing soul, I'll warrant him, eager upon the quarry, and as sharp as a governor of Covent-Garden. _Wood._ Sure this is not the phrase of your family! I thought to have found a sanctified sister; but I suspect now, madam, that if your mother kept a pension in your father's time, there might be some gentleman-lodger in the house; for I humbly conceive you are of the half-strain at least. _Pleas._ For all the rudeness of your language, I am resolved to know upon what voyage you are bound; your privateer of love, you Argier's man, that cruize up and down for prize in the Straitsmouth; which of the vessels would you snap now? _Trick._ We are both under safe convoy, madam; a lover and a husband. _Pleas._ Nay, for your part, you are notably guarded, I confess; but keepers have their rooks, as well as gamesters; but they only venture under them till they pick up a sum, and then push for themselves.