HEARTWELL, VAINLOVE and BELLMOUR following.
BELL.Hist, hist, is not that Heartwell going to Silvia?
VAIN.He's talking to himself, I think; prithee let's try if we can hear him.
HEART.Why, whither in the devil's name am I agoing now? Hum--let me think--is not this Silvia's house, the cave of that enchantress, and which consequently I ought to shun as I would infection? To enter here is to put on the envenomed shirt, to run into the embraces of a fever, and in some raving fit, be led to plunge myself into that more consuming fire, a woman's arms.Ha! well recollected, I will recover my reason, and be gone.
BELL.Now Venus forbid!
VAIN.Hush -
HEART.Well, why do you not move? Feet, do your office--not one inch; no, fore Gad I'm caught.There stands my north, and thither my needle points.Now could I curse myself, yet cannot repent.Othou delicious, damned, dear, destructive woman! S'death, how the young fellows will hoot me! I shall be the jest of the town: nay, in two days I expect to be chronicled in ditty, and sung in woful ballad, to the tune of the Superannuated Maiden's Comfort, or the Bachelor's Fall; and upon the third, I shall be hanged in effigy, pasted up for the exemplary ornament of necessary houses and cobblers' stalls.Death, I can't think on't--I'll run into the danger to lose the apprehension.
