Sir Sampson, Scandal, Foresight, Miss Foresight, Mrs. Frail.
FORE. What says he? What, did he prophesy? Ha, Sir Sampson, bless us! How are we?
SIR SAMP. Are we? A pox o’ your prognostication. Why, we are fools as we use to be. Oons, that you could not foresee that the moon would predominate, and my son be mad. Where’s your oppositions, your trines, and your quadrates? What did your Cardan and your Ptolemy tell you? Your Messahalah and your Longomontanus, your harmony of chiromancy with astrology. Ah! pox on’t, that I that know the world and men and manners, that don’t believe a syllable in the sky and stars, and sun and almanacs and trash, should be directed by a dreamer, an omen-hunter, and defer business in expectation of a lucky hour, when, body o’ me, there never was a lucky hour after the first opportunity.
SCENE XII.
Scandal, Foresight, Mrs. Foresight, Mrs. Frail.
FORE. Ah, Sir Sampson, heav’n help your head. This is none of your lucky hour; Nemo omnibus horis sapit. What, is he gone, and in contempt of science? Ill stars and unconvertible ignorance attend him.
SCAN. You must excuse his passion, Mr. Foresight, for he has been heartily vexed. His son is non compos mentis, and thereby incapable of making any conveyance in law; so that all his measures are disappointed.
FORE. Ha! say you so?
MRS. FRAIL. What, has my sea-lover lost his anchor of hope, then? [Aside to Mrs. Foresight.]
MRS. FORE. O sister, what will you do with him?