Squire _Humph._ Feather, have him before the parliament.
Sir _Fran._ And so I will: I'll make him know who I am. Where does he
live?
_Geo._ I believe in _London_, Sir.
Sir _Fran._ What's the villain's name?
_Geo._ I think I heard somebody call him _Dick_.
Sir _Fran._ Where did he go?
_Geo._ Sir, he went home.
Sir _Fran._ Where's that?
_Geo._ By my troth I do naw knaw. I heard him say he had nothing more
to do with us to-night, and so he'd go home and smoke a pipe.
Lady _Head._ Come, Sir _Francis_, don't put yourself in a heat;
accidents will happen to people in travelling abroad to see the world.
Eat your supper heartily, go to bed, sleep quietly, and to-morrow
see if you can buy a handsome second-hand coach for the present use,
bespeak a new one, and then all's easy.
[_Exeunt._
_Enter Colonel ~Courtly~._
_Col._ Who's that, _Deborah_?
_Deb._ At your service, Sir.
_Col._ What, do you keep open house here? I found the street door as
wide as it could gape.
_Deb._ Sir, we are all in a bustle, we have lodgers come to-night, the
house full.
_Col._ Where's your mistress?
_Deb._ Prodigious busy with her company, but I'll tell Mrs. _Martilla_
you are here, I believe she'll come to you.
[_Exit._
_Col._ That will do as well. Poor _Martilla_! she's a very good girl,
and I have lov'd her a great while. I think six months it is, since
like a merciless highwayman, I made her deliver all she had about her;
she begg'd hard, poor thing, I'd leave her one small bauble. Had I let
her keep it, I believe she had still kept me. Cou'd women but refuse
their ravenous lovers that one dear destructive moment, how long might
they reign over them! But for a bane to both their joys and ours, when
they have indulg'd us with such favours as make us adore them, they are
not able to refuse us that one, which puts an end to our devotion.
_Enter ~Martilla~._
_Col._ _Martilla_, how dost thou do, my child?
_Mart._ As well as a losing gamester can.
_Col._ Why, what have you lost?
_Mart._ I have lost you.
_Col._ How came you to lose me?
_Mart._ By losing myself.
_Col._ We can be friends still.
_Mart._ Dull ones.
_Col._ Useful ones, perhaps. Shall I help thee to a good husband?
_Mart._ Not if I were rich enough to live without one.
_Col._ I'm sorry I'm not rich enough to make thee so; but we won't talk
of melancholy things. Who are these folks your aunt has got in her
house?
_Mart._ One Sir _Francis Headpiece_ and his Lady, with a son and
daughter.
_Col._ _Headpiece_! Cotso, I know 'em a little. I met with 'em at a
race in the country two years since; a sort of blockhead, is not he?
_Mart._ So they say.
_Col._ His wife seem'd a mettlesome gentlewoman, if she had but a fair
field to range in.
_Mart._ That she won't want now, for they stay in town the whole winter.
_Col._ Oh that will do to shew all her parts in.
_Enter Mrs. ~Motherly~._
How do you do, my old acquaintance?
Mrs. _Moth._ At your service, you know, always colonel.
_Col._ I hear you have got good company in the house.
Mrs. _Moth._ I hope it will prove so; he's a parliament man only,
colonel, you know there's some danger in that.
_Col._ O, never fear, he'll pay his landlady, tho' he don't pay his
butcher.
Mrs. _Moth._ His wife's a clever woman.
_Col._ So she is.
Mrs. _Moth._ How do you know?
_Col._ I have seen her in the country, and begin to think I'll visit
her in town.
Mrs. _Moth._ You begin to look like a rogue.
_Col._ What, your wicked fancies are stirring already?
Mrs. _Moth._ Yours are, or I'm mistaken. But I'll have none of your
pranks play'd upon her.
_Col._ Why, she's no girl, she can defend herself.
Mrs. _Moth._ But what if she won't?
_Col._ Why then she can blame neither you nor me.
Mrs. _Moth._ You'll never be quiet till you get my windows broke; but I
must go and attend my lodgers, so good night.
_Col._ Do so, and give my service to my lady, and tell her, if she'll
give me leave, I'll do myself the honour to-morrow to come and tender
my services to her, as long as she stays in town. If it ben't too long.
[_Aside._
Mrs. _Moth._ I'll tell her what a devil you are, and advise her to take
care of you.
[_Exit._
_Col._ Do, that will make her every time she sees me think what I'd be
at. Dear _Martilla_, good night; I know you won't be my hindrance; I'll
do you as good a turn some time or other. Well, I'm so glad, you don't
love me too much.
_Mart._ When that's our fate, as too, too oft we prove, How bitterly we
pay the past delights of love.
+ACT+ II. +SCENE+ I.
_Lord_ Loverule's _House_.
_Enter Lord ~Loverule~, and Lady ~Arabella~. He
following her._
Lady _Ara._ Well, look you, my Lord, I can bear it no longer; nothing
still but about my faults, my faults! an agreeable subject truly!
Lord _Love._ But, Madam, if you won't hear of your faults, how is it
likely you shou'd ever mend 'em?
Lady _Ara._ Why I don't intend to mend 'em. I can't mend 'em, I have
told you so an hundred times; you know I have try'd to do it, over and
over, and it hurts me so, I can't bear it. Why, don't you know, my
Lord, that whenever (just to please you only) I have gone about to wean
myself from a fault (one of my faults I mean that I love dearly) han't
it put me so out of humour, you cou'd scarce endure the house with me?
Lord _Love._ Look you, my dear, it is very true, that in weaning one's
self from----
Lady _Ara._ Weaning! why ay, don't you see, that even in weaning poor
children from the nurse, it's almost the death of 'em? and don't you
see your true religious people when they go about to wean themselves,
and have solemn days of fasting and praying, on purpose to help them,
does it not so disorder them, there's no coming near 'em? are they not
as cross as the devil? and then they don't do the business neither; for
next day their faults are just where they were the day before.
Lord _Love._ But, Madam, can you think it a reasonable thing to be
abroad till two o'clock in the morning, when you know I go to bed at
eleven?
Lady _Ara._ And can you think it a wise thing (to talk your own way
now) to go to bed at eleven, when you know I am likely to disturb you
by coming there at three?
Lord _Love._ Well, the manner of womens living of late is
insupportable, and some way or other----
Lady _Ara._ It's to be mended, I suppose--Pray, my Lord, one word
of fair argument: You complain of my late hours; I of your early
ones; so far we are even, you'll allow; but which gives us the best
figure in the eye of the polite world? my two o'clock speaks life,
activity, spirit, and vigour; your eleven has a dull, drowsy, stupid,
good-for-nothing sound with it. It favours much of a mechanic, who must
get to bed betimes, that he may rise early to open his shop. Faugh!
Lord _Love._ I thought to go to bed early and rise so, was ever
esteem'd a right practice for all people.
Lady _Ara._ Beasts do it.
Lord _Love._ Fy, fy, Madam, fy; but 'tis not your ill hours alone
disturb me; but the ill company who occasion those ill hours.
Lady _Ara._ And pray what ill company may those be?
Lord _Love._ Why, women that lose their money, and men that win it:
especially when 'tis to be paid out of their husband's estate; or
if that fail, and the creditor be a little pressing, the lady will,
perhaps, be oblig'd to try if the gentleman instead of gold will accept
of a trinket.
Lady _Ara._ My Lord, you grow scurrilous, and you'll make me hate you.
I'll have you to know, I keep company with the politest people in the
town, and the assemblies I frequent are full of such.
Lord _Love._ So are the churches now and then.
Lady _Ara._ My friends frequent them often, as well as the assemblies.
Lord _Love._ They wou'd do it oftener if a groom of the chamber there
were allow'd to furnish cards and dice to the company.
Lady _Ara._ You'd make a woman mad.
Lord _Love._ You'd make a man a fool.
Lady _Ara._ If Heav'n has made you otherwise, that won't be in my power.
Lord _Love._ I'll try if I can prevent your making me a beggar at least.
Lady _Ara._ A beggar! Crœsus! I'm out of patience--I won't come home
'till four to-morrow morning.
Lord _Love._ I'll order the doors to be lock'd at twelve.
Lady _Ara._ Then I won't come home till to-morrow night.
Lord _Love._ Then you shall never come home again, Madam.
[_Exit._
Lady _Ara._ There he has knock'd me down: my father upon our marriage
said, wives were come to that pass, he did not think it fit they shou'd
be trusted with pin money, and so would not let this man settle one
penny upon his poor wife, to serve her at a dead lift for separate
maintenance.
_Enter ~Clarinda~._
_Clar._ Good-morrow, Madam; how do you do to-day? you seem to be in a
little fluster.
Lady _Ara._ My Lord has been in one, and as I am the most complaisant
poor creature in the world, I put myself into one too, purely to be
suitable company to him.
_Clar._ You are prodigious good; but surely it must be mighty
agreeable when a man and his wife can give themselves the same turn of
conversation.
Lady _Ara._ O, the prettiest thing in the world.
_Clar._ But yet, tho' I believe there's no life so happy as a marry'd
one, in the main; yet I fancy, where two people are so very much
together, they must often be in want of something to talk upon.
Lady _Ara._ _Clarinda_, you are the most mistaken in the world; married
people have things to talk of, child, that never enter into the
imagination of others. Why now, here's my Lord and I, we han't been
married above two short years you know, and we have already eight or
ten things constantly in bank, that whenever we want company we can
talk of any of them for two hours together, and the subject never the
flatter. It will be as fresh next day, if we have occasion for it, as
it was the first day it entertained us.
_Clar._ Why that must be wonderful pretty.
Lady _Ara._ O there's no life like it. This very day now for example,
my Lord and I, after a pretty cheerful _tête à tête_ dinner, sat down
by the fire-side, in an idle, indolent, pick-tooth way for a while,
as if we had not thought of one another's being in the room. At last,
stretching himself, and yawning twice, my dear, says he, you came home
very late last night. 'Twas but two in the morning, says I. I was in
bed (_yawning_) by eleven, says he. So you are every night, says I.
Well, says he, I'm amazed how you can sit up so late. How can you be
amazed, says I, at a thing that happens so often? Upon which we enter'd
into conversation. And tho' this is a point has entertain'd us above
fifty times already, we always find so many pretty new things to say
upon't, that I believe in my soul it will last as long as we live.
_Clar._ But in such sort of family dialogues, tho' extremely well for
passing of time, don't there now and then enter some little sort of
bitterness?
Lady _Ara._ O yes; which don't do amiss at all; a little something
that's sharp, moderates the extreme sweetness of matrimonial society,
which would else perhaps be cloying. Tho' to tell you the truth,
_Clarinda_, I think we squeezed a little too much lemon into it this
bout; for it grew so sour at last, that I think I almost told him he
was a fool; and he talkt something oddly of turning me out of doors.
_Clar._ O, but have a care of that.
Lady _Ara._ Why, to be serious, _Clarinda_, what wou'd you have a woman
do in my case? There is no one thing he can do in the world to please
me----Except giving me money; and that he is grown weary of; and I at
the same time, partly by nature, and partly perhaps by keeping the
best company, do with my soul love almost every thing that he hates; I
dote upon assemblies, adore masquerades, my heart bounds at a ball; I
love a play to distraction, cards inchant me, and dice--put me out of
my little wits--Dear, dear hazard, what music there is in the rattle
of the dice, compared to a sleepy opera! Do you ever play at hazard,
_Clarinda_?
_Clar._ Never; I don't think it fits well upon women; it's very
masculine, and has too much of a rake; you see how it makes the men
swear and curse. Sure it must incline the women to do the same too if
they durst give way to it.
Lady _Ara._ So it does; but hitherto for a little decency, we keep it
in; and when in spite of our teeth, an oath gets into our mouths, we
swallow it.
_Clar._ That's enough to burst you; but in time perhaps you'll let 'em
fly as they do.
Lady _Ara._ Why, 'tis probable we may, for the pleasure of all polite
womens lives now, you know, is founded upon entire liberty to do what
they will. But shall I tell you what happened t'other night? having
lost all my money but ten melancholy guineas, and throwing out for
them, what do you think slipt from me?
_Clar._ An oath?
Lady _Ara._ Gud soons!
_Clar._ O Lord! O Lord! did not it frighten you out of your wits?
Lady _Ara._ _Clarinda_, I thought a gun had gone off.--But I forget you
are a prude, and design to live soberly.
_Clar._ Why 'tis true; both my nature and education, do in a good
degree incline me that way.
Lady _Ara._ Well, surely to be sober is to be terribly dull. You will
marry; won't you?
_Clar._ I can't tell but I may.
Lady _Ara._ And you'll live in town?
_Clar._ Half the year, I should like it very well.
Lady _Ara._ And you wou'd live in _London_ half a year, to be sober in
it?
_Clar._ Yes.
Lady _Ara._ Why can't you as well go and be sober in the country?
_Clar._ So I wou'd the other half year.
Lady _Ara._ And pray what pretty scheme of life wou'd you form now, for
your summer and winter sober entertainments?
_Clar._ A scheme that I think might very well content us.
Lady _Ara._ Let's hear it.
_Clar._ I cou'd in summer pass my time very agreeably, in riding
soberly, in walking soberly, in sitting under a tree soberly, in
gardening soberly, in reading soberly, in hearing a little music
soberly, in conversing with some agreeable friends soberly, in working
soberly, in managing my family and children (if I had any) soberly, and
possibly by these means I might induce my husband to be as sober as
myself.
Lady _Ara._ Well, _Clarinda_, thou art a most contemptible creature.
But let's have the sober town scheme too, for I am charm'd with the
country one.
_Clar._ You shall, and I'll try to stick to my sobriety there too.
Lady _Ara._ If you do, you'll make me sick of you. But let's hear it
however.
_Clar._ I wou'd entertain myself in observing the new fashion soberly,
I wou'd please myself in new clothes soberly, I wou'd divert myself
with agreeable friends at home and abroad soberly. I wou'd play at
quadrille soberly, I wou'd go to court soberly, I wou'd go to some
plays soberly, I wou'd go to operas soberly, and I think I cou'd go
once, or, if I lik'd my company, twice to a masquerade, soberly.
Lady _Ara._ If it had not been for that last piece of sobriety, I was
going to call for some surfeit-water.
_Clar._ Why, don't you think, that with the further aid of
breakfasting, dining, supping and sleeping (not to say a word of
devotion) the four and twenty hours might roll over in a tolerable
manner?
Lady _Ara._ How I detest that word, Tolerable! And so will a country
relation of ours that's newly come to town, or I'm mistaken.
_Clar._ Who is that?
Lady _Ara._ Even my dear Lady _Headpiece_.
_Clar._ Is she come?
Lady _Ara._ Yes, her sort of a tolerable husband has gotten to be
chosen parliament-man at some simple town or other, upon which she has
persuaded him to bring her and her folks up to _London_.
_Clar._ That's good; I think she was never here before.
Lady _Ara._ Not since she was nine years old; but she has had an
outrageous mind to it ever since she was marry'd.
_Clar._ Then she'll make the most of it, I suppose, now she is come.
Lady _Ara._ Depend upon that.
_Clar._ We must go and visit her.
Lady _Ara._ By all means; and may be you'll have a mind to offer her
your tolerable scheme for her _London_ diversion this winter; if you
do, mistress, I'll shew her mine too, and you'll see she'll so despise
you and adore me, that if I do but chirrup to her, she'll hop after me
like a tame sparrow, the town round. But there's your admirer I see
coming in, I'll oblige him and leave you to receive part of his visit,
while I step up to write a letter. Besides, to tell you the truth, I
don't like him half so well as I used to do; he falls off of late from
being the company he was, in our way. In short, I think he's growing to
be a little like my lord.
[_Exit._
_Enter Sir ~Charles~._
Sir _Charles_. Madam, your servant; they told me Lady _Arabella_ was
here.
_Clar._ She's only stept up to write a letter, she'll come down
presently.
Sir _Charles_. Why, does she write letters? I thought she had never
time for't: pray how may she have dispos'd of the rest of the day?
_Clar._ A good deal as usual; she has visits to make 'till six; she's
then engag'd to the play, from that 'till court-time, she's to be at
cards at Mrs. _Idle_'s; after the drawing-room, she takes a short
supper with Lady _Hazard_, and from thence they go together to the
assembly.
Sir _Charles_. And are you to do all this with her?
_Clar._ The visits and the play, no more.
Sir _Charles_. And how can you forbear all the rest?
_Clar._ 'Tis easy to forbear, what we are not very fond of.
Sir _Charles_. I han't found it so. I have past much of my life in this
hurry of the ladies, yet was never so pleas'd as when I was at quiet
without 'em.
_Clar._ What then induc'd you to be with 'em?
Sir _Charles_. Idleness and the fashion.
_Clar._ No mistresses in the case?
Sir _Charles_. To speak honestly, yes. When one is in a toyshop, there
was no forbearing the baubles; so I was perpetually engaging with some
coquet or other, whom I cou'd love perhaps just enough to put it into
her power to plague me.
_Clar._ Which power I suppose she sometimes made use of.
Sir _Charles_. The amours of a coquet, Madam, general'y mean nothing
farther; I look upon them and prudes to be nuisances much alike, tho'
they seem very different; the first are always disturbing the men, and
the latter always abusing the women.
_Clar._ And all I think is to establish the character of being virtuous.
Sir _Charles_. That is, being chaste they mean, for they know no
other virtue; therefore indulge themselves in every thing else that's
vicious; they (against nature) keep their chastity, only because they
find more pleasure in doing mischief with it, than they shou'd have in
parting with it. But, Madam, if both these characters are so odious,
how highly to be valued is that woman, who can attain all they aim at,
without the aid of the folly or vice of either!
_Enter Lady ~Arabella~._
Lady _Ara._ Your servant, Sir. I won't ask your pardon for leaving you
alone a little with a lady that I know shares so much of your good
opinion.
Sir _Charles_. I wish, Madam, she cou'd think my good opinion of value
enough, to afford me a small part in hers.
Lady _Ara._ I believe, Sir, every woman who knows she has a place in a
fine gentleman's good opinion, will be glad to give him one in hers,
if she can. But however you two may stand in one another's, you must
take another time, if you desire to talk farther about it, or we shan't
have enough to make our visits in; and so your servant, Sir. Come,
_Clarinda_.
Sir _Charles_. I'll stay and make my Lord a visit, if you will give me
leave.
Lady _Ara._ You have my leave, Sir, tho' you were a Lady.
[_Exit with ~Clar~._
_Enter Lord ~Loverule~._
Lord _Love._ Sir _Charles_, your servant; what, have the ladies left
you?
Sir _Charles_. Yes, and the ladies in general I hope will leave me too.
Lord _Love._ Why so?
Sir _Charles_. That I mayn't be put to the ill manners of leaving them
first.
Lord _Love._ Do you then already find your gallantry inclining to an
ebb?
Sir _Charles_. 'Tis not that I am yet old enough to justify myself in
an idle retreat, but I have got I think a sort of surfeit on me, that
lessens much the force of female charms.
Lord _Love._ Have you then been so glutted with their favours?
Sir _Charles_. Not with their favours, but with their service; it is
unmerciful. I once thought myself a tolerable time-killer; I drank, I
play'd, I intrigu'd, and yet I had hours enough for reasonable uses;
but he that will list himself a lady's man of mettle now, she'll work
him so at cards and dice, she won't afford him time enough to play with
her at any thing else, though she herself should have a tolerable good
mind to it.
Lord _Love._ And so the disorderly lives they lead, incline you to a
reform of your own.
Sir _Charles_. 'Tis true; for bad examples (if they are but bad enough)
give us as useful reflections as good ones do.
Lord _Love._ 'Tis pity any thing that's bad, shou'd come from women.
Sir _Charles_. 'Tis so, indeed, and there was a happy time, when both
you and I thought there never could.
Lord _Love._ Our early first conceptions of them, I well remember, were
that they never could be vicious, nor never could be old.
Sir _Charles_. We thought so then; the beauteous form we saw them
cast in, seem'd design'd a habitation for no vice, nor no decay; all
I had conceiv'd of angels, I conceiv'd of them; true, tender, gentle,
modest, generous, constant, I thought was writ in every feature; and
in my devotions, Heaven, how did I adore thee, that blessings like
them should be the portion of such poor inferior creatures as I took
myself and all men else (compared with them) to be!--but where's that
adoration now?
Lord _Love._ 'Tis with such fond young fools as you and I were then.
Sir _Charles_. And with such it will ever be.
Lord _Love._ Ever. The pleasure is so great, in believing women to be
what we wish them, that nothing but a long and sharp experience can
ever make us think them otherwise. That experience, friend, both you
and I have had, but yours has been at other mens expence; mine----at my
own.
Sir _Charles_. Perhaps you'd wonder, shou'd you find me dispos'd to run
the risque of that experience too.
Lord _Love._ I shou'd, indeed.
Sir _Charles_. And yet 'tis possible I may; I know at least, I still
have so much of my early folly left, to think, there's yet one woman
fit to make a wife of: How far such a one can answer the charms of
a mistress, marry'd men are silent in, so pass----for that I'd take
my chance; but cou'd she make a home easy to her partner, by letting
him find there a chearful companion, an agreeable intimate, a useful
assistant, a faithful friend, and (in its time perhaps) a tender
mother, such change of life, from what I lead, seems not unwise to
think of.