The Mournful Nuptials, or Love the Cure of all Woes ::

Young man, this visit is as fruitless as the last: your
father's and your own persuasions no more can move
me than can contending winds remove a mountain.

Y. Freeman.
Sir, you mistake me;
I come not to intreat, but to demand.
Restore to me my wife, my virgin wife,
Whom yester's sun beheld
In wedlock's sacred bands to Freeman join'd.

Briar.
O! this is well! first you rob my fold,
And then, with an undaunted face, demand
The lamb that I've re-taken from the thief.
The negligence with which you've treated me,
By marrying my daughter
Without so much as asking my consent,
Shews me in what mean light you place her father.
You thought, as I suppose,
That there was no necessity to ask
A poor unfortunate parent his assent

To wed his dow'rless child: he doubtless, you believ'd,
wou'd thank you: but know, unthinking youth, this
disrespect throws thee as far from my regard as is the

west from east; and, if I'm able, I'll part my daughter
from you

As far asunder as the north and south.

Freeman senr.

Hear me, rash man: perhaps the sentence that you pass
on him devotes yourself, your wife, and child, to misery:
here stands a father wrong'd, as you call yourself:
I was no more consulted in the match than you;
yet I forgive it; for 'twas a fault of youth, a fault of
love.

Y. Freeman.

This was the first occasion I ever gave my father to
complain, and shall be, if I know myself, the last. I
wish that others wou'd learn from you humanity and
prudence.

Briar.
Let them forgive who will, I'll not forgive:
Perhaps I'm wrong, yet, while I think I'm right,
Tho I am wrong, I will be so. You may
As well attempt
To make the gallant steed a patient ass,
As try to frame my temper to your own.

Freeman senr.

I wou'd be your physician, and cure you of that phrenzy
which seems to hurry you on to your destruction.
You are on a precipice, and see it not; and I wou'd
fain prevent you from taking the fatal leap.

Briar.
Thou solemn and profound philosopher
Reserve your sage instructions
For those who will be thankful for your pains.

Y. Freeman.
I blush to see my father condescend
To plead so much in vain, and I the cause:
Pardon me, Sir,
That I have brought this weight upon your head;

Lose no more words on that ungen'rous man.
Cast the rich seed upon a barren rock,
And thence expect to reap a fruitful harvest.
Since you have stop'd your ears to mild persuasion,
I tell you, man,
You can as soon drive from the stars their brightness
As from my Charlotte's thoughts expel her Freeman;
Where-e'er she is, she will be always mine;
You may as easyly make vice and virtue one, as prevail
on her
To give her heart or hand to any other:
She is my wife,
More lov'd by me than by the eye the light,
Or by the ear than is the charmer's voice:
I go, but I shall come to you again,
And make you render up a true account
Of the great treasure you withhold from me.

Briar.
Know I can threaten, friend, as loud as you.
Tho much I love my child,
Yet there is nothing that I will not do
To keep her from you: so be gone; I hurl
Defyance after you.

Freeman senr.
You may repent too late.

(Freeman senr. and Y. Freeman go.

University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.