The Conscious Lovers

each other with dissembled anger and real fear.

Betrayed by honour, and compelled by shame,
They hazard being, to preserve a name:
Nor dare inquire into the dread mistake,
Till plunged in sad eternity they wake.

Exeunt.

Scene II. St. James’s Park.

	Enter Sir John Bevil and Mr. Sealand.
John Bevil	Give me leave, however, Mr. Sealand, as we are upon a treaty for uniting our families, to mention only the business of an ancient house. Genealogy and descent are to be of some consideration in an affair of this sort.
Mr. Sealand	Genealogy and descent! Sir, there has been in our family a very large one. There was Galfrid the father of Edward, the father of Ptolomey, the father of Crassus, the father of Earl Richard, the father of Henry the Marquis, the father of Duke John.
John Bevil	What, do you rave, Mr. Sealand? all these great names in your family?
Mr. Sealand	These? yes, sir. I have heard my father name ’em all, and more.
John Bevil	Ay, sir? and did he say they were all in your family?
Mr. Sealand	Yes, sir, he kept ’em all. He was the greatest cocker32 in England. He said Duke John won him many battles, and never lost one.
John Bevil	Oh, sir, your servant! you are laughing at my laying any stress upon descent; but I must tell you, sir, I never knew anyone but he that wanted that advantage turn it into ridicule.
Mr. Sealand	And I never knew anyone who had many better advantages put that into his account.⁠—But, Sir John, value yourself as you please upon your ancient house, I am to talk freely of everything you are pleased to put into your bill of rates on this occasion; yet, sir, I have made no objections to your son’s family. ’Tis his morals that I doubt.
John Bevil	Sir, I can’t help saying, that what might injure a citizen’s credit may be no stain to a gentleman’s honour.
Mr. Sealand	Sir John, the honour of a gentleman is liable to be tainted by as small a matter as the credit of a trader. We are talking of a marriage, and in such a case, the father of a young woman will not think it an addition to the honour or credit of her lover that he is a keeper⁠—
John Bevil	Mr. Sealand, don’t take upon you to spoil my son’s marriage with any woman else.
Mr. Sealand	Sir John, let him apply to any woman else, and have as many mistresses as he pleases.
John Bevil	My son, sir, is a discreet and sober gentleman.
Mr. Sealand	Sir, I never saw a man that wenched soberly and discreetly, that ever left it off; the decency observed in the practice hides, even from the sinner, the iniquity of it. They pursue it, not that their appetites hurry ’em away, but, I warrant you, because ’tis their opinion they may do it.
John Bevil	Were what you suspect a truth⁠—do you design to keep your daughter a virgin till you find a man unblemished that way?
Mr. Sealand	Sir, as much a cit as you take me for, I know the town and the world; and give me leave to say, that we merchants are a species of gentry that have grown into the world this last century, and are as honourable, and almost as useful, as you landed folks, that have always thought yourselves so much above us; for your trading, forsooth, is extended no farther than a load of hay or a fat ox. You are pleasant people, indeed, because you are generally bred up to be lazy; therefore, I warrant you, industry is dishonourable.
John Bevil	Be not offended, sir; let us go back to our point.
Mr. Sealand	Oh! not at all offended; but I don’t love to leave any part of the account unclosed. Look you, Sir John, comparisons are odious, and more particularly so on occasions of this kind, when we are projecting races that are to be made out of both sides of the comparisons.
John Bevil	But, my son, sir, is, in the eye of the world, a gentleman of merit.
Mr. Sealand	I own to you, I think him so.⁠—But, Sir John, I am a man exercised and experienced in chances and disasters. I lost, in my earlier years, a very fine wife, and with her a poor little infant. This makes me, perhaps, over cautious to preserve the second bounty of providence to me, and be as careful as I can of this child. You’ll pardon me, my poor girl, sir, is as valuable to me as your boasted son to you.
John Bevil	Why, that’s one very good reason, Mr. Sealand, why I wish my son had her.
Mr. Sealand	There is nothing but this strange lady here, this incognita, that can be objected to him. Here and there a man falls in love with an artful creature, and gives up all the motives of life to that one passion.
John Bevil	A man of my son’s understanding cannot be supposed to be one of them.
Mr. Sealand	Very wise men have been so enslaved; and, when a man marries with one of them upon his hands, whether moved from the demand of the world or slighter reasons, such a husband soils with his wife for a month perhaps⁠—then good be w’ye, madam, the show’s over⁠—Ah! John Dryden points out such a husband to a hair, where he says⁠—
	“And while abroad so prodigal the dolt is, Poor spouse at home as ragged as a colt is.”
	Now, in plain terms, sir, I shall not care to have my poor girl turned a-grazing, and that must be the case when⁠—
John Bevil	But pray consider, sir, my son⁠—
Mr. Sealand	Look you, sir, I’ll make the matter short. This unknown lady, as I told you, is all the objection I have to him; but, one way or other, he is, or has been, certainly engaged to her. I am therefore resolved, this very afternoon, to visit her. Now from her