GRACE. Perhaps you would follow your fri...

GRACE. Perhaps you would follow your friend into the dining- room; refreshment after your long journey must be requisite.

YOUNG COURTLY. Pardon me, madam; but the lovely garden and the loveliness before me is better refreshment than I could procure in any dining-room.

GRACE. Ha! Your company and compliments arrive together.

YOUNG COURTLY. I trust that a passing remark will not spoil so welcome an introduction as this by offending you.

GRACE. I am not certain that anything you could say would offend me.

YOUNG COURTLY. I never meant -

GRACE. I thought not. In turn, pardon me, when I request you will commence your visit with this piece of information: I consider compliments impertinent, and sweetmeat language fulsome.

YOUNG COURTLY. I would Condemn my tongue to a Pythagorean silence if I thought it could attempt to flatter.

GRACE. It strikes me, sir, that you are a stray bee from the hive of fashion; if so, reserve your honey for its proper cell. [A truce to compliments] - You have just arrived from town, I apprehend.

YOUNG COURTLY. This moment I left mighty London, under the fever of a full season, groaning with the noisy pulse of wealth and the giddy whirl of fashion. Enchanting, busy London ! how have I prevailed on myself to desert you ! Next week the new ballet comes out, - the week after comes Ascot. - Oh!

GRACE. How agonizing must be the reflection.

YOUNG COURTLY. Torture! Can you inform me how you manage to avoid suicide here? If there was but an opera even within twenty miles ! We couldn't get up a rustic ballet among the village girls? No? - ah!

GRACE. I am afraid you would find that difficult. How I contrive to support life I don't know - it is wonderful - but I have not precisely contemplated suicide yet, nor do I miss the opera.

YOUNG COURTLY. How Can you manage to kill time?

GRACE. I can't. Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them. I have many employments - this week I devote to study and various amusements - next week to being married - the following week to repentance, perhaps.

YOUNG COURTLY. Married!

GRACE. You seem surprised; I believe it is of frequent occurrence in the metropolis. - Is it not?

YOUNG COURTLY. Might I ask to whom?

GRACE. A gentleman who has been strongly recommended to me for the situation of husband.

YOUNG COURTLY. What an extraordinary match! Would you not consider it advisable to see him, previous to incurring the consequences of such an act?

GRACE. You must be aware that fashion says otherwise. The gentleman swears eternal devotion to the lady's fortune, and the lady swears she will outlive him still. My Lord's horses, and my lady's diamonds, shine through a few seasons, until a seat in Parliament, or the continent, stares them in the face; then, when thrown upon each other for resources of comfort, they begin to quarrel about the original conditions of the sale.]

YOUNG COURTLY. Sale! No! that would be degrading civilization into a Turkish barbarity.

GRACE. Worse, sir, a great deal worse; ^[for there at least they do not attempt concealment of the barter]; but here, every London ball-room is a marriage mart - young ladies are trotted out, while the mother, father, or chaperone plays auctioneer, and knocks them down to the highest bidder, - young men are ticketed up with their fortunes on their backs, - and Love, turned into a dapper showman, descants on the excellent qualities of the material.

YONG COURTLY: Oh! that such a custom could have ever emanated from the healthy soil of an English heart!

GRACENo. It never did - like most of our literary dandyisms and dandy literature, it was borrowed from the French.

YOUNG COURTLY You seem to laugh at love. grace. Love! why, the very word is a breathing satire upon a man's reason - a mania, indigenous to humanity - nature's jester, who plays off tricks upon the world, and trips up common sense. When I'm in love, I'll write an almanac, for very lack of wit - prognosticate the sighing season - when to beware of tears - about this time, expect matrimony to be prevalent! Ha! ha! Why should I lay out my life in love's bonds upon the bare security of a man's word?

[Enter JAMES.]

JAMES. The squire, madam, has just arrived, and another gentleman with him. GRACE (aside). My intended, I suppose. (Exit james.)]

YOUNG COURTLY. I perceive you are one of the railers against what is termed the follies of high life.

GRACE. No, not particularly; I deprecate all folly. By what prerogative can the west-end mint issue absurdity, which, if coined in the east, would be voted vulgar?

YOUNG COURTLY. By a sovereign right - because it has Fashion's head upon its side, and that stamps it current.

GRACE . Poor Fashion, for how many sins has thou to answer ! The gambler pawns his birth-right for fashion - the rogue steals his friend's wife for fashion - each abandons himself to the storm of impulse, calling it the breeze of fashion.

YOUNG COURTLY. Is this idol of the world so radically vicious?

GRACE. No; the root is well enough, as the body was, until it had outgrown its native soil; but now], like a mighty giant lying over Europe, it pillows its head in Italy, its heart in France, leaving the heels alone its sole support for England.

YOUNG COURTLY. Pardon me, madam, you wrong yourself to rail against your own inheritance - the kingdom to which loveliness and wit attest your title. GRACE. A mighty realm, forsooth, - with milliners for ministers, a cabinet of coxcombs, envy for my homage, ruin for my revenue - my right of rule depending on the shape of a bonnet or the sit of a pelisse, with the next grand noddle as my heir-apparent. Mr Hamilton, when I am crowned, I shall feel happy to abdicate in your favour.

(Curtseys and exit.)

London Assurance