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Mrs. F. But for that other

Selby. He dismiss'd him straight,

From dreams of grandeur and of Caliph's love,
To the bare cottage on the withering moor,

Where friends, turn'd fiends, and hollow confidants,
And widows, hide, who in a husband's ear
Pour baneful truths, but tell not all the truth;
And told him not that Robin Halford died
Some moons before his marriage-bells were ruug.
Too near dishonour hast thou trod, dear wife,
And on a dangerous cast our fates were set;
But Heaven, that will'd our wedlock to be blest,
Hath interposed to save it gracious too.

Your penance is-to dress your cheek in smiles,
And to be once again my merry Kate.-

Sister, your hand;

Your wager won, makes me a happy man;

Though poorer, Heaven knows, by a thousand pounds.
The sky clears up after a dubious day.—
Widow, your hand. I read a penitence
In this dejected brow; and in this shame
Your fault is buried. You shall in with us,
And, if it please you, taste our nuptial fare;
For, till this moment, I can joyful say,
Was never truly Selby's Wedding Day.

The Pawnbroker's Daughter.

A FARCE.

(Blackwood's Magazine, January, 1830.)

[A foretaste of this gravely humorous conceit will be found in one of Charles Lamb's earliest and most whimsical essays, "On the Inconveniences of being Hanged," a paper contributed by him, in 1811, to the second number of Leigh Hunt's Reflector, in the form of a letter, signed "Pensilis." The similarity of the humour running through farce and essay is clearly discernible upon a comparison of the whole of the latter with the closing words of Pendulous.]

FLINT, a Pawnbroker.

CHARACTERS.

DAVENPORT, in love with MARIAN.
PENDULOUS, a Reprieved Gentleman.
CUTLET, a Sentimental Butcher.
GOLDING, a Magistrate.
WILLIAM, Apprentice to Flint.

BEN, Cutlet's Boy.

MISS FLYN.

BETTY, her Maid.

MARIAN, Daughter to Flint.
LUCY, her Maid.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-An Apartment at FLINT's house.

FLINT. WILLIAM.

Flint. Carry those umbrellas, cottons, and wearing apparel, upstairs. You may send that chest of tools to Robins's.

Wil. That which you lent six pounds upon to the journeyman carpenter that had the sick wife?

Flint. The same.

Wil. The man says if you can give him till Thursday

Flint. Not a minute longer. His time was out yesterday. These improvident fools!

Wil. The finical gentleman has been here about the seal that was his grandfather's.

Flint. He cannot have it. Truly, our trade would be brought to a fine pass if we were bound to humour the fancies of our customers. This man would be taking a liking to a snuff-box that he had inherited; and that gentlewoman might conceit a favourite chemise that had descended to her.

Wil. The lady in the carriage has been here crying about those jewels. She says if you cannot let her have them at the advance she offers, her husband will come to know that she has pledged them.

Flint. I have uses for those jewels. Send Marian to me. (Exit WILLIAM.) I know no other trade that is expected to depart from its fair advantages but ours. I do not see the baker, the butcher, the shoemaker, or, to go higher, the lawyer, the physician, the divine, give up any of their legitimate gains, even when the pretences of their art had failed; yet we are to be branded with an odious name, stigmatized, discountenanced even by the administrators of those laws which acknowledge us; scowled at by the lower sort of people, whose needs we serve!

Enter MARIAN.

Come hither, Marian. Come, kiss your father. The report runs that he is full of spotted crime. What is your belief, child?

Mar. That never good report went with our calling, father. I have heard you say, the poor look only to the advantages which we derive from them, and overlook the accommodations which they receive from us. But the poor are the poor, father, and have little leisure to make distinctions. I wish we could give up this business.

Flint. You have not seen that idle fellow, Davenport?

Mar. No, indeed, father-since your injunction.

Flint. I take but my lawful profit. The law is not over favourable to us.
Mar. Marian is no judge of these things.

Flint. They call me oppressive, grinding-I know not what

Mar. Alas!

Flint. Usurer, extortioner. Am I these things? Mar. You are Marian's kind and careful father. to know.

That is enough for a child

Flint. Here, girl, is a little box of jewels, which the necessities of a foolish woman of quality have transferred into our true and lawful possession. Go, place them with the trinkets that were your mother's. They are all yours, Marian, if you do not cross me in your marriage. No gentry shall match into this house, to flout their wife hereafter with her parentage. I will hold this business with convulsive grasp to my dying day. I will plague these poor, whom you speak so tenderly of.

Mar. You frighten me, father. Do not frighten Marian.

Flint. I have heard them say, There goes Flint-Flint, the cruel pawnbroker !

Mar. Stay at home with Marian. You shall hear no ugly words to vex you. Flint. You shall ride in a gilded chariot upon the necks of these poor, Marian. Their tears shall drop pearls for my girl. Their sighs shall be good wind for us. They shall blow good for my girl. Put up the jewels, Marian. [Exit. Lucy. Miss, miss, your father has taken his hat, and is stepped out, and Mr. Davenport is on the stairs; and I came to tell you

Mar. Alas! who let him in?

Dav. My dearest girl

Enter LUCY.

Enter DAVENPORT.

Mar. My father will kill me if he finds you have been here!

Dav. There is no time for explanations. I have positive information that your father means, in less than a week, to dispose of you to that ugly Saunders. The wretch has bragged of it to his acquaintances, and already calls you his. Mar. O heavens !

Dav. Your resolution must be summary as the time which calls for it. Mine or his you must be, without delay. There is no safety for you under this roof. Mar. My father

Dav. Is no father, if he would sacrifice you.

Mar. But he is unhappy. Do not speak hard words of my father.

Dav. Marian must exert her good sense.

Lucy (as if watching at the window). O, miss, your father has suddenly returned. I see him with Mr. Saunders, coming down the street. Mr. Saunders, ma'am !

Mar. Begone, begone, if you love me, Davenport!

Dav. You must go with me then, else here I am fixed.

Lucy. Ay, miss, you must go, as Mr. Davenport says. Here is your cloak, miss, and your hat, and your gloves. Your father, ma'am

Mar. Oh! where-where? Whither do you hurry me, Davenport ?

Dav. Quickly, quickly, Marian! At the back door.

[Exit MARIAN with DAVENPORT, reluctantly; in her flight still holding the jewels.

Lucy. Away-away! What a lucky thought of mine to say her father was coming! he would never have got her off else. Lord, Lord, I do love to help lovers! [Exit, following them.

SCENE II.-A Butcher's Shop.

CUTLET. BEN.

Cut. Reach me down that book off the shelf, where the shoulder of veal hangs. Ben. Is this it?

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Cut. No-this is "Flowers of Sentiment"-the other-ay, this is a good book. 'An Argument against the Use of Animal Food. By J. R." That means Joseph Ritson. I will open it anywhere, and read just as it happens. One cannot dip amiss in such books as these. The motto, I see, is from Pope. I dare say very much to the purpose (reads).

"The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he sport and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops his flowery food,
And licks the hand-

Bless us, is that saddle of mutton gone home to Mrs. Simpson's? It should have gone an hour ago.

Ben. I was just going with it.

Cut. Well, go. Where was I? Oh!

"And licks the hand just raised to shed its blood."

"It is probable

What an affecting picture! (turns over the leaves, and reads). that the long lives which are recorded of the people before the flood were owing to their being confined to a vegetable diet.'

Ben. The young gentleman in Pullen's Row, Islington, that has got the consumption, has sent to know if you can let him have a sweetbread.

Cut. Take two,-take all that are in the shop. What a disagreeable interruption! (reads again). "Those fierce and angry passions, which impel man to wage destructive war with man, may be traced to the ferment in the blood produced by an animal diet."

Ben. The two pound of rump-steaks must go home to Mr. Molyneux's. He is in training to fight Cribb.

Cut. Well, take them; go along, and do not trouble me with your disgusting details.

[Exit BEN. Cut. (throwing down the book). Why was I bred to this detestable business? Was it not plain that this trembling sensibility, which has marked my character from earliest infancy, must for ever disqualify me for a profession whichwhat do ye want? what do ye buy? O, it is only somebody going past. I thought it had been a customer.-Why was not I bred a glover, like my cousin Langston? To see him poke his two little sticks into a delicate pair of real Woodstock ! "A very little stretching, ma'am, and they will fit exactly."Or a haberdasher, like my next-door neighbour-"Not a better bit of lace in all town, my lady-Mrs. Breakstock took the last of it last Friday-all but this bit, which I can afford to let your ladyship have a bargain. Reach down that drawer on your left hand, Miss Fisher."

Enter, in haste, DAVENPORT, MARIAN, and LUCY.

Lucy. This is the house I saw a bill up at, ma'am; and a droll creature the landlord is.

Dav. We have no time for nicety.

Cut. What do ye want? what do ye buy? O, it is only you, Mrs. Lucy. [LUCY whispers CUTLET. Cut. I have a set of apartments at the end of my garden. They are quite detached from the shop. A single lady at present occupies the ground floor. Mar. Ay, ay, anywhere.

Dav. In, in.

Cut. Pretty lamb !-she seems agitated.

DAVENPORT and MARIAN go in with CUTLET.

Lucy. I am mistaken if my young lady does not find an agreeable companion in these apartments. Almost a namesake. Only the difference of Flyn and Flint. I have some errands to do, or I would stop and have some fun with this droll butcher

CUTLET returns.

Cut. Why, how odd this is! Your young lady knows my young lady. They are as thick as flies.

Lucy. You may thank me for your new lodger, Mr. Cutlet.-But, bless me, you do not look well?

Cut. To tell you the truth, I am rather heavy about the eyes. Want of sleep, I believe.

Lucy. Late hours, perhaps. Raking last night?

Cut. No, that is not it, Mrs. Lucy. My repose was disturbed by a very different cause from what you may imagine. It proceeded from too much thinking.

Lucy. The deuce it did! and what, if I may be so bold, might be the subject of your Night Thoughts?

Cut. The distresses of my fellow-creatures. I never lay my head down on my pillow but I fall a-thinking how many at this very instant are perishing. Some with cold

Lucy. What, in the midst of summer?

Cut. Ay. Not here, but in countries abroad, where the climate is different from ours. Our summers are their winters, and vice versâ, you know. Some

with cold

Lucy. What a canting rogue it is! I should like to trump up some fine story to plague him (aside).

Cut. Others with hunger-some a prey to the rage of wild beasts

Lucy. He has got this by rote, out of some book.

Cut. Some drowning, crossing crazy bridges in the dark-some by the violence of the devouring flame

Lucy. I have it. -For that matter, you need not send your humanity a-travelling, Mr. Cutlet. For instance, last night

Cut. Some by fevers, some by gun-shot wounds

Lucy. Only two streets off

Cut. Some in drunken quarrels

Lucy (aloud). The butcher's shop at the corner.

Cut. What were you saying about poor Cleaver?

Lucy. He has found his ears at last (side). That he has had his house burnt down.

Cut. Bless me!

Lucy. I saw four small children taken in at the greengrocer's.

Cut. Do you know if he is insured?

Lucy. Some say he is, but not to the full amount.

Cut. Not to the full amount--how shocking! He killed more meat than any of the trade between here and Carnaby Market-and the poor babes--four of them you say what a melting sight!-he served some good customers about Marybone-I always think more of the children in these cases than of the fathers and mothers-Lady Lovebrown liked his veal better than any man's in the market-I wonder whether her ladyship is engaged-I must go and comfort poor Cleaver, however. [Exit. Lucy. Now is this pretender to humanity gone to avail himself of a neighbour's supposed ruin to inveigle his customers from him. Fine feelings! pshaw !

Re-enter CUTLET.

[Exit.

Cut. What a deceitful young hussey! there is not a word of truth in her. There has been no fire. How can people play with one's feelings so!--(sing) -"For tenderness formed "-No, I'll try the air I made upon myself. The words may compose me. (Sings)

A weeping Londoner I am,

A washerwoman was my dam;
She bred me up in a cock-loft,

And fed my mind with sorrows soft;

For when she wrung with elbows stout
From linen wet the water out,-
The drops so like to tears did drip,
They gave my infant nerves the hyp.

M

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