say! [Exit, R. Jaf. (C.) Yes, if my heart would let me——      This proud, this swelling heart: home I would go, But that my doors are hateful to my eyes, Filled and damned up with gaping creditors! I've now not fifty ducats in the world, Yet still I am in love, and pleased with ruin. Oh, Belvidera! Oh! she is my wife—      And we will bear our wayward fate together, But ne'er know comfort more. Enter Pierre, L. S. E. Pierre. (L. C.) My friend, good morrow; How fares the honest partner of my heart? What, melancholy! not a word to spare me! Jaf. (C.) I'm thinking, Pierre, how that damned starving quality, Called honesty, got footing in the world. Pierre. Why, powerful villainy first set it up, For its own ease and safety. Honest men Are the-soft easy cushions on which knave's Repose and fatten. Were all mankind villains, They'd starve each other; lawyers would want practice, Cut-throats, reward: each man would kill his brother Himself; none would be paid or hanged for murder. Honesty! 'twas a cheat, invented first To bind the hands of bold deserving rogues, That fools and cowards might sit safe in power, And lord it uncontrolled above their betters. Jaf. Then honesty is but a notion? Pierre. Nothing else; Like wit, much talked of, not to be defined:      He that pretends to most, too, has least share in't Tis a ragged virtue. Honesty! no more on't. Jaf. Sure, thou art honest?  [11]     Pierre. So, indeed, men think me; But they're mistaken, Jaffier; I'm a rogue, As well as they; A fine, gay, bold-faced villain as thou seest me!      'Tis true. I pay my debts, when they're contracted; I steal from no man; would not cut a throat To gain admission to a great man's purse; Would not betray my friend, To get his place or fortune; I scorn to flatter A blown-up fool above me, or crush the wretch beneath me; Yet, Jaffier, for all this, I am a villain. Jaf. (R. C.) A villain! Pierre. Yes, a most notorious villain; To see the sufferings of my fellow-creatures, And own myself a man; to see our senators Cheat the deluded people with a show Of liberty, which yet they ne'er must taste of. They say, by them our hands are free from fetters; Yet whom they please, they lay in basest bonds; Bring whom they please to infamy and sorrow; Drive us, like wrecks, down the rough tide of power, Whilst no hold's left to save us from destruction. All that bear this are villains, and I one, Not to rouse up at the great call of nature, And check the growth of these domestic spoilers, That make us slaves, 

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