Belvil.  Poor Jack, I am really sorry for him.  The account which you give me of his mortifying change of reception at the assembly, would be highly diverting if it gave me less pain to hear it.  With all his amusing absurdities, and amongst them not the least, a predominant desire to be thought well of by the fair sex, he has an abundant share of good-nature, and is a man of honor.  Notwithstanding all that has happened, Melesinda may do worse than take him yet.  But did the women resent it so deeply as you say?

Gent. O intolerably—­they fled him as fearfully when ’twas once blown, as a man would be avoided, who was suddenly discovered to have marks of the plague, and as fast; when before they had been ready to devour the foolishest thing he could say.

Belvil Ha! ha! so frail is the tenure by which these women’s favorites commonly hold their envied preeminence.  Well, I must go find him out and comfort him.  I suppose, I shall find him at the inn.

Gent. Either there or at Melesinda’s—­Adieu! [Exeunt.

SCENE.—­Mr. H——­’s Apartment.

Mr. H. (solus.) Was ever anything so mortifying? to be refused by old Mother Damnable!—­with such parts and address,—­and the little squeamish devils, to dislike me for a name, a sound.—­Oh my cursed name! that it was something I could be revenged on! if it were alive, that I might tread upon it, or crush it, or pummel it, or kick it, or spit it out—­for it sticks in my throat, and will choke me.

My plaguy ancestors! if they had left me but a Van, or a Mac, or an Irish O’, it had been something to qualify it.—­Mynheer Van Hogsflesh,—­or Sawney Mac Hogsflesh,—­or Sir Phelim O’Hogsflesh,—­but downright blunt------.  If it had been any other name in the world, I could have borne it.  If it had been the name of a beast, as Bull, Fox, Kid, Lamb, Wolf, Lion; or of a bird, as Sparrow, Hawk, Buzzard, Daw, Finch, Nightingale; or of a fish, as Sprat, Herring, Salmon; or the name of a thing, as Ginger, Hay, Wood; or of a color, as Black, Gray, White, Green; or of a sound, as Bray; or the name of a month, as March, May; or of a place, as Barnet, Baldock, Hitchen; or the name of a coin, as Farthing, Penny, Twopenny; or of a profession, as Butcher, Baker, Carpenter, Piper, Fisher, Fletcher, Fowler, Glover; or a Jew’s name, as Solomons, Isaacs, Jacobs; or a personal name, as Foot, Leg, Crookshanks, Heaviside, Sidebottom, Longbottom, Ramsbottom, Winterbottom; or a long name, as Blanchenhagen, or Blanchenhausen; or a short name, as Crib, Crisp, Crips, Tag, Trot, Tub, Phips, Padge, Papps, or Prig, or Wig, or Pip, or Trip; Trip had been something, but Ho—–. (Walks about in great agitation—­recovering his calmness a little, sits down.)