Lady Sneer. O Lud! you are going to be moral, and forget that you are among friends.

Jos. Surf. Egad, that’s true! I’ll keep that sentiment till I see Sir Peter. However, it is certainly a charity to rescue Maria from such a libertine, who, if he is to be reclaimed, can be so only by a person of your ladyship’s superior accomplishments and understanding.

Snake. I believe, Lady Sneerwell, here’s company coming: I’ll go and copy the letter I mentioned to you. Mr. Surface, your most obedient.

Jos. Surf. Sir, your very devoted.—[Exit Snake.] Lady Sneerwell, I am very sorry you have put any farther confidence in that fellow.

Lady Sneer. Why so?

Jos Surf. I have lately detected him in frequent conference with old Rowley, who was formerly my father’s steward, and has never, you know, been a friend of mine.

Lady Sneer. And do you think he would betray us?

Jos. Surf. Nothing more likely: take my word for’t, Lady Sneerwell, that fellow hasn’t virtue enough to be faithful even to his own villany. Ah, Maria!

Enter Maria.

Lady Sneer. Maria, my dear, how do you do? What’s the matter?

Mar. Oh! there’s that disagreeable lover of mine, Sir Benjamin Backbite, has just called at my guardian’s, with his odious uncle, Crabtree; so I slipped out, and ran hither to avoid them.

Lady Sneer. Is that all?

Jos. Surf. If my brother Charles had been of the party, madam, perhaps you would not have been so much alarmed.

Lady Sneer. Nay, now you are severe; for I dare swear the truth of the matter is, Maria heard you were here. But, my dear, what has Sir Benjamin done, that you should avoid him so?

Mar. Oh, he has done nothing—but ’tis for what he has said: his conversation is a perpetual libel on all his acquaintance.

Jos. Surf. Ay, and the worst of it is, there is no advantage in not knowing him; for he’ll abuse a stranger just as soon as his best friend: and his uncle’s as bad.

Lady Sneer. Nay, but we should make allowance; Sir Benjamin is a wit and a poet.

Mar. For my part, I own, madam, wit loses its respect with me, when I see it in company with malice. What do you think, Mr. Surface?

Jos. Surf. Certainly, madam; to smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another’s breast is to become a principal in the mischief.

Lady Sneer. Psha! there’s no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature: the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick. What’s your opinion, Mr Surface?

Jos. Surf. To be sure, madam; that conversation, where the spirit of raillery is suppressed, will ever appear tedious and insipid.