_Sid_. The violent temper of Sir Pertinax, I own, cannot be defended on many occasions, but still--your intended alliance with Lord Lumbercourt--
_Eger_. [_With great impatience._] O! contemptible!--a trifling, quaint, haughty, voluptuous, servile tool,--the mere lackey of party and corruption; who, for the prostitution of near thirty years and the ruin of a noble fortune, has had the despicable satisfaction, and the infamous honour--of being kicked up and kicked down--kicked in and kicked out,-- just as the insolence, compassion, or convenience of leaders predominated:--and now--being forsaken by all parties, his whole political consequence amounts to the power of franking a letter, and the right honourable privilege of not paying a tradesman's bill.
_Sid_. Well, but, dear Charles, you are not to wed my lord,--but his daughter.
_Eger_. Who is as disagreeable to me for a companion, as her father for a friend, or an ally.
_Sid_. What--her Scotch accent, I suppose, offends you?
_Eger_. No, upon my honour--not in the least,--I think it entertaining in her;--but were it otherwise--in decency--and indeed in national affection (being a Scotchman myself), I can have no objection to her on that account,--besides, she is my near relation.
_Sid_. So I understand. But pray, Charles, how came Lady Rodolpha, who, I find, was born in England, to be bred in Scotland?
_Eger_. From the dotage of an old, formal, obstinate, stiff, rich, Scotch grandmother, who, upon a promise of leaving this grandchild all her fortune, would have the girl sent to her to Scotland, when she was but a year old, and there has she been ever since, bred up with this old lady in all the vanity and unlimited indulgence that fondness and admiration could bestow on a spoiled child--a fancied beauty and a pretended wit.
_Eger_. I do not think so, Sidney; for she seems a being expressly fashioned by nature to figure in these days of levity and dissipation:-- her spirits are inexhaustible: her parts strong and lively; with a sagacity that discerns, and a talent not unhappy in painting out the weak side of whatever comes before her:--but what raises her merit to the highest pitch in the laughing world is her boundless vanity and spirits in the exertion of those talents, which often render her much more ridiculous than the most whimsical of the characters she exposes--[_in a tone of friendly affection._] and is _this_ a woman fit to make _my_ happiness?-- _this_ the partner that Sidney would recommend to me for life?--to _you_, who best know me, I appeal.
