the virtues that procur'd the father a peerage, could with that be entail'd on the son.

Have a care, hussy—there are severe laws against speaking evil of dignities.—

Sir!

Scandalum magnatum is a statute must not be trifled with: why you are not one of those vulgar sluts that think a man the worse for being a Lord?

No, Sir; I am contented with only, not thinking him the better.

For all this, I believe, hussy, a right honourable proposal would soon make you alter your mind.

Not unless the proposer had other qualities than what he possesses by patent. Besides, Sir, you know Sir Luke is a devotee to the bottle.

Not a whit the less honest for that.

It occasions one evil at least; that when under its influence, he generally reveals all, sometimes more than he knows.

Proofs of an open temper, you baggage: but, come, come, all these are but trifling objections.

You mean, Sir, they prove the object a trifle.

Why you pert jade; do you play on my words? I say Sir Luke is—

Nobody.

Nobody! how the deuce do you make that out?—He is neither person attained or outlaw'd, may in any of his majesty's courts sue or be sued, appear by attorney, or in propria persona, can acquire, buy, procure, purchase, possess, and inherit, not only personalities, such as goods, and chattels, but even realities, as all lands, tenements, and hereditaments, whatsoever, and wheresoever.

But, Sir—

Nay, further child, he may sell, give, bestow, bequeath, devise, demise, lease, or to farm lett, ditto lands, to any person whomsoever—and—

Without doubt, Sir; but there are notwithstanding in this town a great number of nobodies, not described by lord Coke.

Hey!

There is your next-door neighbour, Sir Harry Hen, an absolute blank.

How so, Mrs. Pert?

What, Sir! a man who is not suffer'd to hear, see, smell, or in short to enjoy the free use of any one of his senses; who, instead of having a positive will of his own, is deny'd even a paltry negative; who can neither resolve or reply, consent or deny, without first obtaining the leave of his lady: an absolute monarch to sink into the sneaking state of being a slave to one of his subjects—Oh fye!

Why, to be sure, Sir Harry Hen, is as I may say—

Nobody Sir, in the fullest sense of the word—Then your client Lord Solo.

Heyday!—Why you would not annihilate a peer of the realm, with a prodigious estate and an allow'd judge too of the elegant arts.

O yes, Sir, I am no stranger to that