THE IMPROVISATORE[462:3]
OR, 'JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, JOHN'
Scene—A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining.
Katharine. What are the words?
Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore; here he comes. Kate has a favour to ask of you, Sir; it is that you will repeat the ballad[463:1] that Mr. —— sang so sweetly.
Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies; but I do not recollect the words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this:—
Love would remain the same if true,
When we were neither young nor new;
Yea, and in all within the will that came,
By the same proofs would show itself the same.
Eliz. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont and Fletcher, which my mother admired so much? It begins with something about two vines so close that their tendrils intermingle.
Fri. You mean Charles' speech to Angelina, in The Elder Brother[463:2].