La. Rod. I find, Collonel, an English Officer may be perfectly well-bred, but I attribute it to your success in War; you have taken most of the French Officers Prisoners, whose Conversation has refin’d your Manners.

Col. ’Tis granted, Madam, their Conversation’s wondrous Degaugee—­ we’ll take ’em to refine us ev’ry Year.

La. Rod. Sir Harry, what Diversions are a-foot; but England is so phlegmatick a Climate, no Carnivals, nor Midnight-Masquerades, but Two and fifty Days lost ev’ry Year for want of Balls and Operas on a Sunday.

Sir Har. Our Nation, Madam’s so far gone in Parties,
That Faction’s even carry’d to Diversions,
One Party strives for Sense, and t’other Sound;
The Major here, I think opposes both.

Bram. So I do—­What signifies a Comedy of Fools; han’t we the Courts of Westminster to divert us; and your Tragedies, where Kings and Emperors are murder’d; in a quarter of an Hour after they are at Buxton’s Coffee-House, playing at All-Fours; then your Singing-Op’ras, I hate your Italian Squaling, like a Woman in Labour; and ’fore-gad, Madam, ’tis a most miraculous thing to me, that a Lady of your Experience, who has travers’d the World, and ought to know Nature in a wonderful Perfection, shou’d admire an Eunuch.

La. Rod. You shou’d have liv’d in former Ages, Major, when odious Tilts and Tournaments were in Vogue; our Pleasures are too curious for your Taste, I fancy the Bear-Garden suits your Genius mightily.

Bram. Ay, Madam, there’s Celestial Sport and Pastime; the Musick of the Dogs, the Harmony o’ the Butchers, to see, a Mastiff tear a Bull by the Throat, the Bull once wounded, goring o’er the Ground, cants a fat Woman higher than the Monument—­I love Reality in my Diversions; but at a Play-House I never laugh’d but once, and that was at a most agreeable Noise the Footmen made in the Upper-Gall’ry.

La. Rod. Savage Creature!

Nick. Your brutish Temper, Major, wou’d make one fancy you were born in Greenland, and suckl’d by a Wolf.

Bram. Better be suckl’d in Greenland than in Essex; a Wolf’s a nobler Creature than a Calf; for now young Fellows are so nicely bred, so fondl’d, and so furbelow’d with Follies, they scarce retain the Species of a Man; for my part, I have Magick in my Looks, I have frighted a High-Priest into Quakerism; converted a Jew to no Religion at all, and possess’d Squire Lacy with a Spirit of Prophetick Lying; I can turn a Justice of Peace into a Jack-Daw, a Citizen into any tame kind of Beast, and an old fadling Judge into a fidgetting Dry-Nurse—­But I find, Madam, you are got into a Beau-Chat, where my rough Language is as disagreeable, as martial Musick at White’s Chocolate-House; tho’, were I a Lady of a great Estate, I’d show as great Sagacity in despising the Fops, and think my Fortune prodigiously repaid in the Affections of so renown’d a Person as Major-Bramble. [Exit.