Well, Mr.Jonathan, from your account, which Iconfess is very accurate, you must have been at the play-house.
JONATHAN
Why, I vow, I began to smell a rat.When Icame away, I went to the man for my money again; you want your money? says he; yes, says I; for what? says he; why, says I, no man shall jocky me out of my money; I paid my money to see sights, and the dogs a bit of a sight have I seen, unless you call listening to people's private business a sight.
Why, says he, it is the School for Scandalization.--The School for Scandalization!--Oh! ho! no wonder you New-York folks are so cute at it, when you go to school to learn it; and so I jogged off.
JESSAMY
My dear Jenny, my master's business drags me from you; would to heaven I knew no other servitude than to your charms.
JONATHAN
Well, but don't go; you won't leave me so--JESSAMY
Excuse me.--Remember the cash.[Aside to him, and--Exit.]
JENNY
Mr.Jonathan, won't you please to sit down? Mr.
Jessamy tells me you wanted to have some conversa-tion with me.[Having brought forward two chairs, they sit.]
JONATHAN
Ma'am!--
JENNY
Sir!--
JONATHAN
Ma'am!--
JENNY
Pray, how do you like the city, Sir?
JONATHAN
Ma'am!--
JENNY
I say, Sir, how do you like New-York?
JONATHAN
Ma'am!--
JENNY
The stupid creature! but I must pass some little time with him, if it is only to endeavour to learn whether it was his master that made such an abrupt entrance into our house, and my young mistress's heart, this morn-ing.[Aside.] As you don't seem to like to talk, Mr.
Jonathan--do you sing?
JONATHAN
Gor, I--I am glad she asked that, for I forgot what Mr.Jessamy bid me say, and I dare as well be hanged as act what he bid me do, I'm so ashamed.[Aside.]
Yes, Ma'am, I can sing--I can sing Mear, Old Hundred, and Bangor.
JENNY
Oh! I don't mean psalm tunes.Have you no little song to please the ladies, such as Roslin Castle, or the Maid of the Mill?
JONATHAN
Why, all my tunes go to meeting tunes, save one, and I count you won't altogether like that 'ere.
JENNY
What is it called?
JONATHAN
I am sure you have heard folks talk about it; it is called Yankee Doodle.
JENNY
Oh! it is the tune I am fond of; and if I know any-thing of my mistress, she would be glad to dance to it.Pray, sing!
JONATHAN [Sings.]
Father and I went up to camp, Along with Captain Goodwin;And there we saw the men and boys, As thick as hasty-pudding.
Yankee doodle do, etc.
And there we saw a swamping gun, Big as log of maple, On a little deuced cars, A load for father's cattle.
Yankee doodle do, etc.
And every time they fired it off It took a horn of powder, It made a noise--like father's gun, Only a nation louder.
Yankee doodle do, etc.
There was a man in our town, His name was--No, no, that won't do.Now, if I was with Tabitha Wymen and Jemima Cawley down at father Chase's, I shouldn't mind singing this all out before them--you would be affronted if I was to sing that, though that's a lucky thought; if you should be affronted, I have something dang'd cute, which Jessamy told me to say to you.
JENNY
Is that all! I assure you I like it of all things.
JONATHAN
No, no; I can sing more; some other time, when you and I are better acquainted, I'll sing the whole of it--no, no--that's a fib--I can't sing but a hun-dred and ninety verses; our Tabitha at home can sing it all.--[Sings.]
Marblehead's a rocky place, And Cape-Cod is sandy;Charlestown is burnt down, Boston is the dandy.
Yankee doodle, doodle do, etc.
I vow, my own town song has put me into such top-ping spirits that I believe I'll begin to do a little, as Jessamy says we must when we go a-courting.--[Runs and kisses her.] Burning rivers! cooling flames!
red-hot roses! pig-nuts! hasty-pudding and ambrosia!
JENNY
What means this freedom? you insulting wretch.
[Strikes him.]
JONATHAN
Are you affronted?
JENNY
Affronted! with what looks shall I express my anger?
JONATHAN
Looks! why as to the matter of looks, you look as cross as a witch.
JENNY
Have you no feeling for the delicacy of my sex?
JONATHAN
Feeling! Gor, I--I feel the delicacy of your sex pretty smartly [rubbing his cheek], though, I vow, Ithought when you city ladies courted and married, and all that, you put feeling out of the question.But Iwant to know whether you are really affronted, or only pretend to be so? 'Cause, if you are certainly right down affronted, I am at the end of my tether; Jessamy didn't tell me what to say to you.
JENNY
Pretend to be affronted!
JONATHAN
Aye, aye, if you only pretend, you shall hear how I'll go to work to make cherubim consequences.
[Runs up to her.]
JENNY
Begone, you brute!
JONATHAN
That looks like mad; but I won't lose my speech.
My dearest Jenny--your name is Jenny, I think?--My dearest Jenny, though I have the highest esteem for the sweet favours you have just now granted me--Gor, that's a fib, though; but Jessamy says it is not wicked to tell lies to the women.[Aside.] I say, though I have the highest esteem for the favours you have just now granted me, yet you will consider that, as soon as the dissolvable knot is tied, they will no longer be favours, but only matters of duty and mat-ters of course.
JENNY
Marry you! you audacious monster! get out of my sight, or, rather, let me fly from you.
[Exit hastily.]
JONATHAN
Gor! she's gone off in a swinging passion, before Ihad time to think of consequences.If this is the way with your city ladies, give me the twenty acres of rock, the Bible, the cow, and Tabitha, and a little peaceable bundling.
SCENE II.The Mall.
Enter MANLY.
It must be so, Montague! and it is not all the tribe of Mandevilles that shall convince me that a nation, to become great, must first become dissipated.Lux-ury is surely the bane of a nation: Luxury! which enervates both soul and body, by opening a thousand new sources of enjoyment, opens, also, a thousand new sources of contention and want: Luxury! which ren-ders a people weak at home, and accessible to bribery, corruption, and force from abroad.When the Grecian states knew no other tools than the axe and the saw, the Grecians were a great, a free, and a happy people.
