Chương Chương 8 · MASKWELL _alone_.

Till then, success will attend me; for when I meet you, I meet the only

obstacle to my fortune. Cynthia, let thy beauty gild my crimes; and

whatsoever I commit of treachery or deceit, shall be imputed to me as a

merit. Treachery? What treachery? Love cancels all the bonds of

friendship, and sets men right upon their first foundations.

Duty to kings, piety to parents, gratitude to benefactors, and fidelity

to friends, are different and particular ties. But the name of rival

cuts 'em all asunder, and is a general acquittance. Rival is equal, and

love like death an universal leveller of mankind. Ha! But is there not

such a thing as honesty? Yes, and whosoever has it about him, bears an

enemy in his breast. For your honest man, as I take it, is that nice,

scrupulous, conscientious person, who will cheat nobody but himself; such

another coxcomb as your wise man, who is too hard for all the world, and

will be made a fool of by nobody but himself; ha, ha, ha. Well, for

wisdom and honesty give me cunning and hypocrisy; oh, 'tis such a

pleasure to angle for fair-faced fools! Then that hungry gudgeon

credulity will bite at anything. Why, let me see, I have the same face,

the same words and accents when I speak what I do think, and when I speak

what I do not think, the very same; and dear dissimulation is the only

art not to be known from nature.

Why will mankind be fools, and be deceived,

And why are friends' and lovers' oaths believed,

When each, who searches strictly his own mind,

May so much fraud and power of baseness find?

SCENE 9.