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feen Careless walking on the terras, and fays fhe will be determined in her choice by his behaviour. In a dialogue between them, the hints at what paffed with Hortenfia: Carelefs being ignorant of the matter, wonders what he means; and as the affair is on the point of being difcovered, they are joined by Hortenfia, Blunt, and Sir Philip. Hortenfia views Careless with filent indignation, which he imputes to her love of fecrecy; and here enfues a fcene of equivocal mifconftruction between all the parties, and concludes the fecond act.

Bellfield and Wifely open the 3d a: the former pretends to be unfeeling to all the little difafters in life, particularly in love-matters; and then affumes a falfe vivacity in a state of real unea finefs, when he is told that Lucinda has fettled every thing with Carelefs. The fcene is changed to Careless's lodgings, where the hero of the piece boafts again to his friend Blunt, of his clofe and dexterous management in all his late transactions; but upon opening two or three letters it appears, that he has brought himself into more fcrapes by his unguarded difpofition. Bellfield then enters to vindicate the honour of Lucinda, defires Careless to name his weapon, and fix his time and place: however, upon declaring his pofitive in tention to marry Hortenfia, Bellfield's ill-humour foon turns to joy, and he goes away perfectly fatisfied. Careless thinks his affairs in a fine train, when Brazen delivers him, under a new cover, the letter of difmif. fion, which Hortenfia had fent to Wifely. This introduces fresh confufion, Blunt defpairs of his friend's ever fucceeding, and Carelefs follows Bellfield to hinder his telling Lucinda

of his having refigned all pretenfions to her. Wifely and Bellfield meet; the former is mortified to hear that Careless thinks again of Hortenfia; but to check Bellfield's gaiety on the occafion, Careless enters, and revives the drooping fpirits of Wifely, by avowing his defign to fettle matters with Lucinda. Wifely encourages him in that intention; Bellfield diffuades him, and is upon the point of coming to an open rupture, when the entry of Sir Philip prevents the mifchief. Sir Philip, Wifely, and Bellfield, go away together to prepare for the mafk, and alfo to talk of bufinefs of importance. Careless remains, and meets Hortenfia; all circumstances between them are now explained, particularly how fnuff box came to be returned to her, and the letter fent to him. She upbraids him feverely for his indifcretion, and refolves to bestow herfelf upon Wifely. Careless follows her to the mask, determined to be cautious for the future. Previous to his coming, Sir Philip learns from Wifely the defigns of Carelefs to difhonour him with his wife, and is placed behind a window-curtain that he may over-hear all.

Then Careless enters in a mafquerade drefs, and meets Lucinda mafked, whom he takes to be Sir Philip's lady, as he has contrived to wear the very diefs that was fettled between the parties. He makes love to her without referve; talks flightly of Lucinda and Hortenfia, and being defired to draw up the curtain, he difcovers Sir Philip, who expreffes his indignation, ftill attending to his dancing. He pulls the mask in a pathon from Lucinda's face, and is pleafed to find it was not his wife, that was confenting to his difgrace. Wifely, Bellfield, and

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Hortenfia, then enter; Careless lofes both mistresses, who give themselves away before his face, as a punishment for his want of fincerity and fecurity in love. He continues blabbing with his future schemes to the laft, amidst the laughter of the com

pany, and, after being reconciled to Sir Philip, concludes the piece with declaring, that he has the fatisfaction to feel himself above all narrow selfish designs, and that he is upon the whole, No One's Enemy except his Own.

An Account of the Farce called WHAT WE MUST ALL COME TO.

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MR.

R. Drugget having acquired an immenfe fortune by trade, had retired from business, and lived at a houfe on the London-road, about three miles from London. His wife having a love for perfons of rank, had perfuaded him to give his elder daughter to Sir Charles Racket, a young baronet, and was for his marrying his youngeft, Nancy, to Mr. Lovelace, another man of fafhion. Mr. Drugget agreed with his wife, tho' he had formerly encouraged Mr. Woodly, who had juft difgufted him, by finding fault with his house and gardens, which was Drugget's fole delight, tho' managed with a moft ridiculous falfe taste. Mifs Nancy, however, was of another fentiment, and loved Woodly. Mrs. Dimity, the maid, to circumvent Lovelace, advifes him to perfuade Mr. Drugget not to cut his two large yew trees into the figure of the two giants in Guildhall. This puts him in a paffion with Lovelace; when

Sir Charles and his lady coming down to fee their father, they, for a while, are very fond, till they quarrel about his having led a club at whift, when the infifted he should have led a diamond. The quarrel rifes fo high, that he upbraids her with her low birth, and leaves her, declaring he will never live with her more, and orders his horfes to be put to.

This throws the family into great disorder, and his telling Drugget that he had found her out, makes the old folks think the had been false to him; till, after some scenes of confufion, he acquits her of that; and when it is found they quarrelled on account of a card, the old folks treat it as the greatest trifle, and perfuade them to a reconciliation, which is effected, but broken again by the fame cause. Drugget then feeing the folly of marrying his daughter to a perfon of high life, gives Mifs Nancy to Mr. Woodly, and fays, that quarrels in the married ftate is What we must all

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The Hiftory of Abdalzar, the Man by Experience made wife.

a village of Arabia, not far from that city, to which devout grims repair in crouds, to offer their prayers upon the tomb of choly prophet, who to the inhaants of the eaft declared the will God with the words of authority, sweit Abdaizar, called in his village trich, because he in wealth furpied all the inhabitants of that le district. Abdalzar had been by his father, who was a phyfician, and had by pra&tifing the healing at acquired the riches, and which te left to his fon, been inftructed in aironomy, aftrology, phyfic, and other branches of learning; of which e had a knowledge fufficient to anure his leisure hours, and to furith him with an agreeable occupaLon in those moments which, with not of the rich, are fhortened by the dilipation of diffolute pleafures, or rendered long and tedious by the corrodings of care and anxiety.

Abdaizar had paffions as turbulent as other men; but being remote from the objects which excite defire or ftimulate ambition, he appared to others, and he thought Liafelf difpaffionate, and by philo. fophy railed above inquietudes, which ruffle the minds of meo, and emotions which hurry them away. Meditation and ftudy entirely engroed him; and though he made Lo difcoveries in fcience, his mind was fafficiently delighted with the contemplation of thofe already made.

In this manner the life of Abdalzar rolled on for feveral years; each day was an image of the foregoing, fudy and recreation were his only binefs, he was free from advocations that fufpend, and interruptions that confule the attention. But repetition at length gave rife to dif guft, and to purfue ftudies calculated to promote the good of fociety, January 1764.

in the tranquillity of folitude, appeared to be inconfiftent with the dictates of reafon and philofophy. To what purpofe, faid he, have I ftored my memory with the various precepts of morality, and examined all their fubtle difquifitions concerning virtue, if I live fecluded from fociety, where only they can be made a practical ufe of? What end does my knowledge in fimples, or my fkill in phyfick, anfwer, if none reap any benefit from it? Every art and fcience has fome reference to fociety, and when cultivated by the cloistered hermit is ufelefs. I will freight repair to Grand Cairo, where the multitude of inhabitants, and variety of occupations, will afford means of every day diverfifying the fcene of life, and fupply opportunities of applying to the purpo.es of life, the knowledge which I have acquired in retirement.

Abdalzar had no fooner formed this refolution, than he fet out for Grand Cairo, and in a short time arrived in that metropolis. At entering it he was ftruck with admiration at the crouds with which the trees fwarmed, and the conitant hurry of bufinefs occafioned by the great diverfity of trades and callings, which the real wan's of human nature, or the imaginary necefities, fuggefted by the capricioufnefs of imagination, had multiplied almoft to infinity.

Abdalzar being fettled at Cairo, made it his first endeavour to become connected with the men eminent for their talents or learning, thinking that he could not better improve his acquired knowledge, than by grafting upon it the idcas communicated by others. He was not at all at a lefs to make acquaintance among the learned ; those who have cultivated the fciences,

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take pleasure in making a parade of their knowledge and to be diftinguifhed as more knowing than others, is often the chief motive that excites to study. Omlac, a renowned alchymift, was the firft who engaged his attention; by tranfmutation he could perform furprising feats, and he every day expected to poffefs him felf of Solomon's feal, and the philofopher's ftone. With this man Ab.. dalzar the Arabian frequently converfed, he could not but admire the fluency with which he talked upon the moft abftrufe fubjects, and the obfcurity with which he expreffed himfelf contributed to increale Ab dalzar's admiration of his knowledge. He declared that he was then in the 250th year of his age, that he had protracted his life to that period by the fecrets of his art, and that he doubted not but that, by compleating the great work, he fhould be able to make man immortal. Abdalzar thought fo extraordinary a perfonage could not be too much cultivated; he liftened with attention to his difcourfe, and often fupplied him with confiderable fums of money, which the alchymift told him he had occafion for, in order to enable him to go on with the great work. Thefe be promifed to repay by treasures inexhaustible as the fources of the Nile.

Whilft Abdalzar indulged thefe golden dreams, Omlac on a fudden departed from Cairo, and the former was highly mortified to difcover that he had been impofed upon by a cheat, who lived by availing himfelt of the folly of redulity. Abdalzar however was not fo unjuft, as to form a judgment of all men of learning from the ill conduct of one: he endeavoured to precure a connexion with other men eminent for their kill in the fciences, and fcon became acquain d with the aftrologer Eff di fendi was an aftronomer we mag nation could tread the circuit of the fkies, he

could point out where every star rofe and defcended, and caiculate exactly the moment when the luminaries of heaven were to be obferved. But he did not flop there; he penetrated the regions of faturity, and, by the aid of judicial aftrology, foretold events, even when they lay hid in the womb of time. Crouds repaired to him every day, to confult him with regard to the refult of a law-fuit, the cute of a difeafe, or the fuccefs of a fcheme in bufinefs; and his anfwers fo often proved prophetic, that his reputation was fpread all over Egipt. Abda'zar was more delighted with the converfation of the astrologer, than he had been with that of the chymift. He with pleasure contemplated objects fo diflant as the heavenly bodies, and was curious to know their motions and fituations for that very reafon, because they were at fo great a distance. The fame curiofity that makes men be curious of knowing whatever relates to Princes, and men in elevated flations, first gave birth to aftronomy. If the flars were not railed fo high above our fphere, we fhould be quite indifferent about them. During Abdalzar's connexion with the aftrologer Effendi, the latter once boafted of the certainty of his fcience, in terms that the former thought rather too arrogant : he exprcffed fome doubt, that as Effendi generally made an approach to truth in his predictions, fo he might fometimes deviate from it, and that frong conjecture, not abfolute certainty, was the bafis of aftrological anticipations of futurity. Incenfed at this, Effendi made a prediction which was to be the criterion of the certitude of his art; he foretold that the Sultan of Egypt fhould die in the space of fifteen months. Abdalzar affured Effendi, that fuch a prediction being verified would banifh all his doubts concerning the certitude of aftrology, and waited with impatience for the approach of

that

that day, that was to decide fo impo tant a question. The day came, the prediЯtion was not fulfilled, the Sultan did not die at the time te aftrologer had fixed, but, which mewhat furprised and aff &ed Abalzar. Efendi himself was fnatched way by death, on the very day ich according to him was to prove fatal to the Sultan.

zar fo much a sceptick as to doubt of the truths inculcated by preachers, made him doubt very much of the efficacy of preaching. The. longer he lived in the world, the more his doubt was confirmed; he found that thofe who talked mot about virtue obferved its precepts the kaft, and that tho' laws are eitablished in every country, and the obfervance of them enforced by capital punishments, the fame crimes are fill repeated, and men can neither be reafoned into virtue by exhortation, nor deterred from vice by. examples.

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This thought funk deep in his mind; after much deliberation, he at luft concluded that human fcience. and human forefight are vain; that all things are directed by a fatality which mortals neither trace comprehend, and that the only way to regulate our conduct, is to follow the predominant impulfe of the mind, that being or divine direction which muft lead us right in the end. Abdalzar having adopt

Abdalzar, convinced by this of the vanity of aftrology, was upon the point of renouncing all the iciences, as precarious and uncertain, when he recollected that he had never attached himfelf to morality, the fierce in which men are moit intereßted. Doubtlefs, faid he to himfelf, I have hitherto made a bad choice. I have been unfuccefsful in the purfuit of knowledge, becaufe I have hitherto turned my attention to fciences founded on the vanity or avarice of men, and have neglec ted that which points out the path to true happiness, by delivering the precepts of wisdom. Abdalzar therefore, in order to retrieve loft time, frequented the lectures of a philofo-ed this opinion, refolved no more to pher, who taught morality by method, and explained the nature and limits of every duty. To him the Arabian liftened with attention, perfuafion dwelt upon his tongue, and every period was founded upon conviction; but the auditor foon found that the preacher did not regulate his conduct by his own precepts, but reafoned according to one fyftem, and lived according to another. Bayaz, for that was the name of the philofopher, though he inculcated a ftrict adherence to religious ordinances, was frequently known to drink of the liquor, the ufe of which is prohibited by the prophet, till the heavenly light of reafon was dimmed by the fumes of ebriety; and though he declaimed against all invafions of property, at laft fled into Perfia with the wife of his reighbour, whom he had enticed to elope from her husband. This event, tho' it did not make Abdal.

perplex himflf with the inveftigation of truth, or idolize the futility of human knowledge; he determined for the remainder of his life to follow the example of men who devote their time to the diipation of pleafure, the purfait of buinefs, or the afpiring of ambition. He was however for a while perplexed which of the three to chufe, but foon the alluring charms of pleafure prevailed; they prefented themselves to. the mind of Abda zur in all the

luftre which a glowing imagination. could fuperadd to their real beauty, his heart was fubdued, pleasure was the object of his choice, and he refolved for the time to come to make it his fole occupation. My coffers, faid he, are fillet with gold, and pleasure will attend at my nod, my days fhall be paffed in feftivity, and the compliance of beauty shall crown my felicity at might.

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