Enter L’Eclair.
L’Ec. So, Captain! you are well encountered. I have sad forebodings that our shining course of arms is threatened with eclipse. If I may use the boldness to advise, we shall strike our tents, and file off in quick march without beat of drum. Our laurels are in more danger here than in the midst of the enemy’s lines.
Flor. How now! my doughty ’squire: what may be our present jeopardy?
L’Ec. Ah! captain, the sex—the dear seductive sex; this house is the modern Capua, and we are the Hannibals of France, toying away our severe virtues amid its voluptuousness. One damsel throws forward the prettiest ancle in anatomy, and cries, “Mr. L’Eclair, I’m your’s for a Waltz”: a second languishes upon me from large blue melting eyes, and whispers, “Mr. L’Eclair, will you take a stroll by moonlight in the grove?” while a third, in all the ripe round plumpness of uneasy health, calls the modest blood to my fingers’ ends, by requesting me “to adjust some error in the pinning of her ’kerchief.” O! captain, captain, heros are but men, men but flesh, and flesh is but weakness; therefore, let us briefly put on a Parthian valor, and strive to conquer by a flight!
Flor. Knave! prate of deserting these dear precious scenes again, and I’ll finish your career myself by a coup-de-main. No, no; change churlish dreams and braving trumpets to mellifluous flutes. I am to be married. Varlet, wish me joy.
L’Ec. Certainly, captain, I do wish you joy; when a man has once determined upon matrimony he acts wisely to collect the congratulations of his friends beforehand, for heaven only knows, whether there may be any opportunity for them afterwards. May I take the freedom to inquire the lady?
Flor. ’Tis she—L’Eclair, ’tis she, the only she, the peerless, priceless Geraldine.
L’Ec. “Peerless” I grant the lady, but as to her being “priceless,” I should think for my own poor particular, that when I bartered my liberty for a comely bedfellow, I was paying full value for my goods, besides a swinging overcharge for the fashion of the make.
Flor. Tush! man, ’tis not by form or feature I compute my prize. Geraldine’s mind, not her beauty, is the magnet of my love. The graces are the fugitive handmaids of youth, and dress their charge with flowers as fleeting as they are fair; but the virtues faithfully o’erwatch the couch of age, and when the flaunting rose has wither’d, twine the cheerful evergreen, crowning true lovers freshly to the last! Exit.
L’Ec. “True lovers!” well, now I love Love, myself, particularly when ’tis mix’d with brandy! like the loves of the landlady of Lisle, and the bandy-legg’d captain.[*]