Bri. And grow rich in your imagination; heyday, heyday! Georgicks, Bucolicks, and Bees! art mad?

Char. No, Sir, the knowledge of these guards me from it.

Bri. But can you find among your bundle of Books (and put in all your Dictionaries that speak all Tongues) what pleasure they enjoy, that do embrace a well-shap’d wealthy Bride?  Answer me that.

Char. ’Tis frequent, Sir, in Story, there I read of all kind of virtuous and vitious women; the antient Spartan Dames, and Roman Ladies, their Beauties and Deformities; and when I light upon a Portia or Cornelia, crown’d with still flourishing leaves of truth and goodness; with such a feeling I peruse their Fortunes, as if I then had liv’d, and freely tasted their ravishing sweetness; at the present loving the whole Sex for their goodness and example.  But on the contrary, when I look on a Clytemnestra, or a Tullia; the first bath’d in her Husband[s] bloud; the latter, without a touch of piety, driving on her Chariot o’er her Father’s breathless Trunk, horrour invades my faculties; and comparing the multitudes o’th’ guilty, with the few that did die Innocents, I detest and loath ’em as Ignorance or Atheism.

Bri.  You resolve then ne’er to make payment of the debt you owe me.

Char. What debt, good Sir?

Bri.  A debt I paid my Father when I begat thee, and made him a Grandsire, which I expect. from you.

Char.  The Children, Sir, which I will leave to all posterity, begot and brought up by my painful Studies, shall be my living Issue.

Bri.  Very well; and I shall have a general Collection of all the quiddits from Adam to this time, to be my Grandchild.

Char.  And such a one, I hope, Sir, as shall not shame the Family.

Bri.  Nor will you take care of my Estate?

Char.  But in my wishes; for know, Sir, that the wings on which my Soul is mounted, have long since born her too high, to stoop to any Prey that soars not upwards.  Sordid and dunghill minds, compos’d of earth, in that gross Element fix all their happiness; but purer Spirits, purged and refin’d, shake off that clog of humane frailty; give me leave t’enjoy my self; that place that does contain my Books (the best Compa[n]ions) is to me a glorious Court, where hourly I converse with the old Sages and Philosophers, and sometimes for variety, I confer with Kings and Emperors, and weigh their Counsels, calling their Victories (if unjustly got) unto a strict accompt, and in my phancy, deface their ill-plac’d Statues; can I then part with such constant pleasures, to embrace uncertain vanities?  No, be it your care t’augment your heap of wealth; it shall be mine t’increase in knowledge—­Lights there for my Study—­ [Exit.

Bri.  Was ever man that had reason thus transported from all sense and feeling of his proper good?  It vexes me, and if I found not comfort in my young Eustace, I might well conclude my name were at a period!