Like a swan, so sung he dying,—
051 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.