SCENE I.-A Room.

GOVERNOR CAPE and ROBIN.

Gov. And he believes me dead, Robin?
Rob. Most certainly.

Gov. You have given him no intimation that his fortunes might mend?

Rob. Not a distant hint.

Gov. How did he receive the news? Rob. Calmly enough: when I told him, that his hopes from abroad were at an end, that the friend of his deceased father thought he had done enough in putting it in his power to earn his own livelihood, he replied, 'twas no more than he had long expected, charged me with his warmest acknowledgements to his concealed benefactor, thanked me for my care, sighed, and left me.

Gov. And how has he lived since?

Rob. Poorly, but honestly: to his pen he owes all his subsistence. I am sure my heart bleeds for him: consider, sir, to what temptations you expose him.

Gov. The severer his trials, the greater his triumph. Shall the fruits of my honest industry, the purchase of so many perils, be lavished on a lazy, luxurious booby, who has no other merit than being born five-and-twenty years after me? No, no, Robin; him, and a profusion of debts, were all that the extravagance of his mother left

me.

Rob. You loved her, sir?

Gov. Fondly, nay foolishly; or necessity had not compelled me to seek for shelter in another climate. "Tis true, fortune has been favourable to my labours; and when George convinces me,

Gov. Nor had I his education.

Rob. As the world goes, the worst you could have given him. Lack-a-day! Learning, learning, sir, is no commodity for this market: nothing makes money here, sir, but money; or some certain fashionable qualities that you would not wish your son to possess.

formances, that you

Cape. You shall have a larger-[Erit Devil.] 'Sdeath! a pretty situation I am in! And are these the fruits I am to reap from a long, laborious, and expensive

Re-enter Devil.

Devil. I had like to have forgot; here's your

Rob. Patron! The world has lost its use; a

guinea-subscription at the request of a lady, whose chambermaid is acquainted with the author, may be now and then picked up-Proteetor! Why, I dare believe there's more money laid out upon Islington turnpike, in a month, than upon all the learned men in Great Britain in se

ven years.

Gov. And yet the press groans with their productions! How do they all exist?

Rob. In garrets, sir; as, if you will step to your son's apartment, in the next street, you will

see.

Rob. That you want the aid of his profession; a well-peuned address, now, from the subjects of your late government, with your gracious reply, to put into the newspapers.

Gov. Ay! is that part of his practice? Well lead on, Robin. [Exeunt.

SCENE II-CAPE's Lodgings,-YOUNG CAPE discovered with the Printer's Devil. Cape. Pr'ythee, go about thy business-vanish, dear devil.

Devil. Master bid me not come without the proof; he says as how there are two other answers ready for the press; and if yours don't come out a Saturday, 'twont pay for the paper. But you are always so lazy; I have more plague with youthere's Mr. Guzzle, the translator, never keeps me a minute-unless the poor gentleman happens to be fuddled.

Cape. Why you little, sooty, snivelling, diabolical puppy, is it not sufficient to be plagued with the stupidity of your absurd master, but I must be pestered with your impertinence?

Devil. Impertinence! Marry come up, I keep as good company as your worship every day in the year-there's Mr. Clench, in Little Britain, does not think it beneath him to take part of a pot of porter with me, though he has wrote two volumes of Lives in quarto, and has a fulio a-coming out in numbers.

in

Cape. Harkye, sirrah, if you don't quit the room this instant, I'll show you a shorter way to the street, than the stairs.

Devil. I shall save you the trouble; give me the French book that you took the story from for the last journal.

which, with the two-and-a-penny master passed his word for to Mrs. Suds, your washerwoman, makes the three half-crowns.

Cape. Lay it on the table.

Devil. Here's a man on the stairs wants you; by the sheepishness of bis looks, and the shabbiness of his dress, he's either a pick-pocket or a poet-Here, walk in, Mr. What-d'ye-call-um, the gentleman's at home.

[Surveys the figure, laughs, and exit.

Enter Poet.

Poet. Your name, I presume, is Cape?
Cape. You have hit it, sir.

Poet. Sir, I beg pardon; you are a gentleman that writes?

Cape. Sometimes.

Poet. Why, sir, my case, in a word, is this: I, like you, have long been a retainer of the Muses, as you may see by their livery.

Cape. They have not discarded you, I hope? Poet. No, sir; but their upper servants, the booksellers, have-I printed a collection of jests upon my own account, and they have ever since refused to employ me; you, sir, I hear, are in their graces: now I have brought you, sir, three imitations of Juvenal in prose; Tully's oration for Milo, in blank verse; two essays on the British herring-fishery, with a large collection of rebusses; which, if you will dispose of to them, in your own name, we'll divide the profits.

Cape. I am really, sir, sorry for your distress; but I have a larger cargo of my own manufacturing, than they choose to engage in.

Poet. That's pity; you have nothing in the compiling or index way, that you would entrust to the care of another?

Cape. Nothing.

Poet. I'll do it at half price.

Cape. I'm concerned it is not in my power, at present, to be useful to you; but if this triflePoet. Sir, your servant. Shall I leave you any of my

Cape. By no means.

Poet. An essay or an ode? Cape. Not a line.

Poet. Your very obedient

the bookseller, and Index the printer. noble triumvirate! and the rascals are scriptive and arbitrary as the famous one, into the bargain.

Enter SPRIGHTLY.

Sprigh. What! in soliloquy, George? reciting some of the pleasantries, I suppose, in your new piece?

Cape. My disposition has at present very little of the vis comica.

Spright. What's the matter?

Cape. Survey that mass of wealth upon the table; all my own, and earned in little more

than a week.

Spright. Why, 'tis an inexhaustible mine! Cape. Ay; and delivered to me, too, with all the soft civility of Billingsgate, by a printer's prime minister, called a devil.

Spright. I met the imp upon the stairs. But I thought these midwives to the muses were the idolizers of you, their favourite sons.

Cape. Our tyrants, Tom! had I indeed a posthumous piece of infidelity, or an amorous novel, decorated with luscious copper-plates, the slaves would be civil enough.

Spright. Why don't you publish your own works?

Cape. What! and paper my room with them? No, no, that will never do; there are secrets in all trades ours is one great mystery; but the explanation would be too tedious at present. Spright. Then why don't you divert your attention to some other object?

Cape. That subject was employing my thoughts.

Spright. How have you resolved?

Cape. I have, I think, at present, two strings to my bow: if my comedy succeeds, it buys me a commission; if my mistress, my Laura, proves kind, I am settled for life; but if both my cords snap-adicu to the quill, and welcome the

musket.

and some whimsical, unaccountable turns in his conversation, that are entertaining enough; but the extravagance and oddity of his manner, and the boast of his birth, complete his character.

Cape. But how will a person of his pride and pedigree, relish the humility of this apart

ment.

Spright. Oh, he's prepared-you are, George, though prodigiously learned and ingenious, an abstracted being, odd and whimsical; the case with all your great geniuses; you love the snug, the chimney corner of life; and retire to this obscure nook, merely to avoid the importunity of the great.

Cape. Your servant- -But what attraction can a character of this kind have for Mr. Cadwallader.

Spright. Infinite! next to a peer, he honours. a poet and modestly imputes his not making a figure in the learned world himself, to the neglect of his education-Hush! he's on the stairs -On with your cap, and open your book. Remember great dignity and absence.

Vump. Bless me! he's very young, and exceedingly well rigged; what! a good subscription, I reckon?

But

you

Cape. But slowly; I believe I have a friend in her heart, but a most potent enemy in her head: you know I am poor and she is prudent. With regard to her fortune, too, I believe her brother's consent is essentially necessarypromised to make me acquainted with him. Spright. I expect him here every instant. He may, George, be useful to you in more than one capacity; if your comedy is not crowded, he is a character, I can tell you, that will make no contemptible figure in it.

Cape. His sister gave me a sketch of him

last summer.

Spright. A sketch can never convey him. His peculiarities require infinite labour, and high finishing.

Cape. Give me the outlines.

Spright. He is a compound of contrarieties; pride and meanness, folly and archness: at the same time that he would take the wall of a

Cape. Warranted originals.

Vamp. No, uo; I don't deal in the sermon way, now; I lost money by the last I printed, for all 'twas wrote by a methodist; but I believe sir, if they ben't long and have a good deal of Latin in them, I can get you a chap.

Spright. For what, sir?

Vamp. The manuscript sermons you have wrote, and want to dispose of.

Spright Sermons that I have wrote!
Vamp. Ay, ay; Mr. Cape has been telling

me.

Spright. He has? I am mightily obliged to him.

Vamp. Nay, nay; don't be afraid; I'll keep council; old Vamp had not kept a shop so long at the Turnstile, if he did not know how to be