SCENE I.

Transcribed from the 1895 Methuen and Co. edition (English Classics,

edited by W. E. Henley) by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

THE

COMEDIES

OF

WILLIAM CONGREVE

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

METHUEN AND CO.

36 ESSEX STREET: STRAND

LONDON

1895

{Painting of William Congreve: p0.jpg}

Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty

INTRODUCTION

I.

Before repeating such known facts of Congreve's life as seem agreeable to

the present occasion, and before attempting (with the courage of one's

office) to indicate with truth what manner of man he was, and what are

the varying qualities of his four comedies, it seems well to discuss and

have done with two questions, obviously pertinent indeed, but of a wider

scope than the works of any one writer.

The first is a stupid question, which may be happily dismissed with brief

ceremony. Grossness of language--the phrase is an assumption--is a

matter of time and place, a relative matter altogether. There is a

thing, and a generation finds a name for it. The delicacy which prompts

a later generation to reject that name is by no means necessarily a

result of stricter habits, is far more often due to the flatness which

comes of untiring repetition and to the greater piquancy of litotes. I

am told that there are, or were, people in America who reject the word

'leg' as a gross word, but they must have found a synonym. So there is

not a word in Congreve for which there is not some equivalent expression

in contemporary writing. He says this or that: your modern writers say

so-and-so. One man may even think the monosyllables in better taste than

the periphrases. Another may sacrifice to his intolerance thereof such

enjoyment as he was capable of taking from the greatest triumphs of

diction or observation: he is free to choose. It may be granted that to

one unfamiliar with the English of two centuries since the grossness of

Congreve's language may seem excessive--like splashes of colour occurring

too frequently in the arrangement of a wall. But that is merely a result

of novelty: given time and habit, a more artistic perspective will be

achieved.

The second question is more complex. Since Jeremy Collier let off his

_Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_,

there has never lacked a critic to chastise or to deplore--the more

effective and irritating course--not simply the coarseness but, the

immorality of our old comedies, their attitude towards and their peculiar

interests in life. Without affirming that we are now come to the Golden

Age of criticism, one may rejoice that modern methods have taught quite

humble critics to discriminate between issues, and to deal with such a

matter as this with some mental detachment. The great primal fallacy

comes from a habit of expecting everything in everything. Just as in a

picture it is not enough for some people that it is well drawn and well

painted, but they demand an interesting story, a fine sentiment, a great

thought: so since our national glory is understood to be the happy home,

the happy home must be triumphant everywhere, even in satiric comedy. The

best expression of this fallacy is in Thackeray. Concluding a most

eloquent, and a somewhat patronising examination of Congreve, 'Ah!' he

exclaims, 'it's a weary feast, that banquet of wit where no love is.' The

answer is plain: comedy of manners is comedy of manners, and satire is

satire; introduce 'love'--an appeal, one supposes, to sympathy with

strictly legitimate and common affection and a glorification of the happy

home--and the rules of your art compel you to satirise affection and to

make the happy home ridiculous: a truly deplorable work, which the

incriminated dramatists were discreet enough for the most part to avoid.

The remark brings us to the first of the half-truths, which cause the

complexity of the subject. The dramatists whose withers the

well-intentioned and disastrous Collier wrung seem to have thought their

best answer was to pose as people with a mission--certainly Congreve so

posed--to reform the world with an exhibition of its follies. An amusing

answer, no doubt, of which the absurdity is obvious! It does, however,

contain a half-truth. The idea of _The Way of the World's_ reforming

adulterers--observe the quotation from Horace on the title-page--is a

little delicious; yet the exhibition in a ludicrous light of the thing

satirised is surely an end of satiric comedy? The right of the matter is

indicated in a sentence which occurs in the dedication of _The Double-

Dealer_ far more wisely than in Congreve's answer to Collier: 'I should

be very glad of an opportunity to make my compliment to those ladies who

are offended: but they can no more expect it in a comedy, than to be

tickled by a surgeon, when he's letting 'em blood.' Something more than

a half-truth is in Charles Lamb's theory, that the old comedy 'has no

reference whatever to the world that is': that it is 'the Utopia of

Gallantry' merely. Literally, historically, the theory is a fantasy.

What the Restoration dramatists did not borrow from France was inspired

directly by the court of Charles the Second, and nobody conversant with

the memoirs of that court can have any difficulty in matching the fiction

with reality. I imagine that Congreve in part accepted a tradition of

the stage, but I am also perfectly well assured that he depicted what he

saw. How far the virtues we should associate with the Charles the Second

spirit may atone for its vices is a question which would take us far into

moral philosophy. It is enough to remark that those vices are the

exclusive possession of no period: so long as society is constituted in

anything like its present order, there must be a section of it for which

those vices are the main interest in life. But Charles Lamb's gay and

engaging defiance of the kill-joys of his day has this value: it is most

certainly just to say that, in appreciating satiric comedy, 'our

coxcombical moral sense' must be 'for a little transitory ease excluded.'

For one may apprehend the whole truth to be somewhat thus. Satiric

comedy, or comedy of manners, is the art of making ludicrous in dramatic

form some phase of life. The writers of our old comedy thought that

certain vices--gambling, adultery, and the like--formed a phase of life

which for divers reasons, essential and accidental, lent itself best to

their purpose. They may, or may not, have thought they were doing

society a service: their real justification is that, as artists, they had

to take for their art that material they could use best. They used it

according to their lights: Wycherley with a coarse and heavy hand, so

that it became nauseous; Etherege with a light touch and a gay

perception; Congreve with an instinct of good-breeding, with a sure and

extensive observation, and with an incomparable style. But all were

justified in choosing for their material just what they chose. They

sinned artistically, now here, now there; but to complain of this old

comedy as a whole, that vice in it is crammed too closely, is to forget

that a play is a picture, not a photograph, of life--is life arranged and

coloured--and that comedy of manners is composed of foibles or vices

condensed and relieved by one another. In so far as they overdid this

work, the comic writers were artistically at fault, and Jeremy Collier

was a good critic; but when he and his successors go beyond the artistic

objection, one takes leave to say, they misapprehend the thing

criticised. To complain that 'love' and common morality have no place in

satiric comedy is either to contemplate ridicule of them or to ask comedy

to be other than satiric. We know what happened when the dramatists gave

way: there followed, Hazlitt says, 'those _do-me-good_, lack-a-daisical,

whining, make-believe comedies in the next age, which are enough to set

one to sleep, and where the author tries in vain to be merry and wise in

the same breath.' These in place of 'the court, the gala day of wit and

pleasure, of gallantry, and Charles the Second!' And all because people

would not keep their functions distinct, and remember that at a comedy

they were in a court of art and not in a court of law! The old comedy is

dead, and its spirit gone from the stage: I have but endeavoured to show

that no harm need come to our phylacteries, if a flame start from its

ashes in the printed book.

II.

William Congreve was born at Bardsey, near Leeds, and was baptized on

10th February 1669 [1670]. The Congreves were a Staffordshire family, of

an antiquity of four hundred years at the date of the poet's birth.

Richard, his grandfather, was a redoubtable Cavalier, and William, his

father, an officer in the army. The latter was given a command at

Youghal, while his son was still an infant, and becoming shortly

afterwards agent to Lord Cork, removed to Lismore. So it chanced that

the poet had his schooling at Kilkenny (with Swift), and proceeded to

Trinity College, Dublin, in 1685, rejoining Swift, and like his friend

becoming a pupil of St. George Ashe, the mathematician. In 1688 he left

Dublin, remained with his people in Staffordshire for some two years,

entered himself at the Temple, and came upon the town with _The Old

Bachelor_ in January 1692. _The Double-Dealer_ was produced in November

1693. In 1694 a storm in the theatre led to a secession of Betterton and

other renowned players from Drury Lane: with the result that a new

playhouse was opened in Lincoln's Inn Fields, on 30th April 1695, with

_Love for Love_. In the same year Congreve was appointed 'Commissioner

for Licensing Hackney Coaches.' _The Mourning Bride_ was produced in

1697, and was followed, oddly enough, by the controversy, or rather

'row,' with Jeremy Collier. In March 1700 came _The Way of the World_.

The poet was made Commissioner of Wine-Licences in 1705, and in 1714 with

his Jamaica secretaryship and his places in the Customs and the

delightful 'Pipe-Office,' he had an income of twelve hundred pounds a

year. He died at his house in Surrey Street, Strand, on 19th January

1728 [1729].

One or two comments on these dates are obvious. They dissipate the

Thackerayan fable that on the production of _The Old Bachelor_, the

fortunate young author received a shower of sinecures, 'all for writing a

comedy.'

'And crazy Congreve scarce could spare

A shilling to discharge a chair,'

writes Swift, and 'crazy' indicates that Congreve was gouty before he was

rich. But then, the gout was a very early factor in his life, and one

may call the line an exaggeration. Another couplet:

'Thus Congreve spent in writing plays,

And one poor office, half his days:'

probably expresses the truth. With his plays and his hackney coaches he

doubtless got through his twenties and thirties with no very hardly

grinding poverty, and at forty or so was comfortably secure. But another

fact, which the dates bring out very sharply, has a different interest.

At an age when Swift was beginning to try his powers, Congreve's work was

done. A few odes, a few letters he was still to write, but no more

comedies. Was it ill-health? or because the town had all but damned his

greatest play? or because he cared more for life than for art?

III.

The question brings one to an attempted appreciation of the man. Mr.

Gosse, for whose _Life_ I would express my gratitude, confesses that 'it

is not very easy to construct a definite portrait of Congreve.' But that

it baffled that very new journalist, Mrs. Manley, in his own day, and Mr.

Gosse, with his information, in ours, to give 'salient points' to

Congreve's character, proves in itself an essential characteristic, which

need be negatively stated only by choice. That no amusing eccentricities

are recorded, no ludicrous adventures, no persistent quarrels, implies,

taken with other facts we know, that he was a well-bred man of the world,

with the habit of society: that in itself is a definite personal quality.

One supposes him an ease-loving man, not inclined to clown for the

amusement of his world. He was loved by his friends, being tolerant, and

understanding the art of social life. He was successful, and must

therefore have had enemies, but he was careless to improve hostilities.

For the temperament which is so plain in the best of his writings must

have been present in his life--an unobtrusive, because a never directly

implied, superiority and an ironical humour. The picture of swaggering

snobbishness which Thackeray was inspired to make of him is proved bad by

all that we know. A swaggerer could not have made a fast friend of

Dryden--grown mellow, indeed, but by no means beggared of his fire--on

his first coming to town, nor kept the intimacy of Swift, nor avoided the

fault-finding of Dennis. It is quite unnecessary to suppose that

Congreve's famous remark to Voltaire, that he wished to be visited as a

plain gentleman, was the remark (if it was made) of a snob: it was

clearly a legitimate deprecation, spoken by a man who had written nothing

notable for twenty-six years, which Voltaire misunderstood in a moment of

stupidity, or in one of forgetfulness misrepresented. His superiority

and his irony came from a just sense of the perspective of things, and,

not preventing affection for his friends, left him indifferent to his

foes. Probably, also, a course of dissipation (at which Swift hints) in

his youth, acting on a temperament not particularly ardent, had left him

with such passions for war and love as were well under control. The two

women with whom his name is connected were Mrs. Bracegirdle and the

Duchess of Marlborough; but nobody knew--though the latter's mother

hinted the worst--how far the intimacy went. That is to say, no patent

scandal was necessary to the connexion, if in either case Congreve was a

lover. And (once more) Congreve was a gentleman.

But why did he become sterile at thirty? Where, if not in dealing with

motives and causes, may one be fancy-free? Here there are many, of which

the first to be given is mere conjecture, but conjecture, I fancy, not

inconsistent with such facts as are known. When Congreve produced his

first comedy, he was but twenty-three, fresh from college and the

country, ignorant, as we are told, of the world. He discovered very soon

that he had an aptitude for social life, that, no doubt, living humours

and follies were as entertaining as printed ones, that for a popular and

witty man the world was pleasant. But no man may be socially finished

all at once. In the course of the seven years between _The Old Bachelor_

and _The Way of the World_, Congreve must have found his wit becoming

readier, his tact surer, his appreciation of natural comedy finer and (as

personal keenness decreased) more equable, his popularity greater, and--in

fine--the world more pleasant and the attractions of the study waning and

waning in comparison. He was a finished artist, he was born, one might

almost say, with a style; but his inclination was to put his art into

life rather than into print. Even in our days (thank God for all His

mercies!) everybody is not writing a book. There are people whose talk

has inimitable touches, and whose lives are art, but who never sit down

to a quire of foolscap. I believe that Congreve naturally was one of

these, that his literary ambition was a result of accidental necessity,

and that had he lived as a boy in the society he was of as a very young

man--for all its literary ornaments--we should have had of him only odes

and songs. His generation was idler and took itself less seriously than

ours. The primal curse was not imposed on everybody as a duty. In seven

years of growing appreciation Congreve came to think the little graces

and humours the better part. That I believe to have been the first cause

of his early sterility; but others helped to determine the effect. A

certain indolence is of course implied in what has been said. There was

the gout, and there were his unfortunate obesity and his failing sight.

There was Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, an absorbing dame. There

were the success of _Love for Love_ and the failure of _The Way of the

World_. For all that may be said of the indifference of the true artist

to the verdict of the many-headed beast--and Congreve's contempt was as

fine as any--it is not amusing when your play or your book falls flat,

and Congreve must have known that he might write another, and possibly a

better, _Way of the World_, but no more _Love for Loves_. Not to

anticipate a later division of the subject, it may be said here that a

man of thirty, of a fine intellect and a fine taste, of a languid habit

withal, and with an invalided constitution, while he might repeat the

triumphs of diction and intellect of _The Way of the World_, was most

unlikely to return to the broader humours and the more popular gaiety of

the other play. Congreve, like Rochester before him, despised the

judgment of the town in these matters, but by the town he would have to

be judged.

He was a witty, handsome man of the world, of imperturbable temper and

infinite tact, who could make and keep the friendship of very various

men, and be intimate with a woman without quarrelling with her lovers. He

had a taste for pictures and a love for music. He must have hated

violence and uproar, and liked the finer shades of life. He wore the

mode of his day, and was free from the superficial protests of the narrow-

minded. Possibly not a very 'definite portrait,' possibly a very

negative characterisation. Possibly, also, a tolerably sure foundation

for a structure of sympathetic imagination.

IV.

Passing from necessarily vague and not obviously pertinent remarks to

criticism, which may fairly be less diffident, we leave Congreve's life

and come to his work, to his 'tawdry playhouse taper,' as Thackeray

called it. It is only after the man has appeared that we recognise that

he came at the hour; but the nature of the hour is in this case not

difficult to be discerned. The habit of playgoing was well-established;

the turmoil of the Revolution was over; De Jure was at a comfortable

distance, and De Facto's wife was a patroness of the arts. But playgoers

had but to be shown something better than that they had, to discover that

the convention of the Restoration needed new blood. A justification of

its choice of material has been attempted: there is no inconsistency in

affirming that the tendency to use it with a mere monotony of ribaldry

was emphatic. Of this tendency the most notable and useful illustration

is Wycherley, because in point of wit and dramatic skill he dwarfed his

colleagues. As Mr. Swinburne has said, the art of Congreve is different

in kind, not merely in degree, from the cruder and more boisterous

product of the 'brawny' dramatist. Happily, however, for his success,

the difference was not instantly clear. His first play links him with

Wycherley, not with that rare and faint embryo of the later Congreve,

George Etherege. 'You was always a gentleman, Mr. George,' as the valet

says in _Beau Austin_. Happily for his popularity Congreve first

followed the more popular man. It is not, indeed, until he wrote his

last play that he was a whole Etherege idealised, albeit a greater than

Etherege in the meantime. The peculiar effect which Etherege achieved in

_Sir Fopling Flutter_--at whom and with whom you laugh at once--was not

sublimated (the fineness left, the faintness become firmness) until

Congreve created Witwoud, the inimitable, in _The Way of the World_.

At the very first Congreve had good fortune in his players. It was a

brave time for them. True, their salaries were not wonderfully large.

Colley Cibber complains of the days before the revolt in 1694: 'at what

unequal salaries the hired actors were held by the absolute authority of

their frugal masters, the patentees.' But the example was not faded of

those gay days when they were the pets of the most artistic court that

England has known: when great ladies carried Kynaston in his woman's

dress to Hyde Park after the play, and the King was the most persistent

and the most interested playgoer in his realm. They were not thus petted

for irrelevant reasons--for their respectability, their piety, or their

domestic virtues; and their recognition as artists by an artistic society

did not spoil their art. When Congreve started on his course of play-

writing, Queen Mary kept up, in a measure, the amiable custom of her

uncle. He was very fortunate in his casts. There was Betterton, first

of all, the versatile, the restrained, and, witness everybody, the

incomparable. There was Underhill, 'a correct and natural comedian'--one

must quote Cibber pretty often in this connexion--not well suited, one

must suppose, to play Setter to Betterton's Heartwell in _The Old

Bachelor_, but by reason of his admirable assumption of stupidity to make

an excellent Sir Sampson in _Love for Love_. There were Powel, Williams,

Verbruggen, Bowen, and Dogget (Fondlewife in the first play: afterwards

Ben Legend, a part which made his fame and turned his head)--all notable

comedians. Kynaston, graceful in old age as he had been beautiful in

youth, was not in _The Old Bachelor_, but created Lord Touchwood in _The

Double-Dealer_. Mountfort had been murdered by my Lord Mohun, and Leigh

had followed him to the grave, but their names lived in their wives. Mrs.

Mountfort 'was mistress of more variety of humour than I ever knew in any

one woman actress . . . nothing, though ever so barren, if within the

bounds of nature, could be flat in her hands.' Indeed 'she was so fond

of humour, in what low part soever to be found, that she would make no

scruple of defacing her fair form to come heartily into it'--assuredly a

rare actress! About Mrs. Leigh Cibber is less enthusiastic, but grants

her 'a good deal of humour': her old women were famous. Mrs. Barry was a

stately, dignified actress, best, no doubt, in tragedy. Lastly, there

was Mrs. Bracegirdle, the innocent _publica cura_, whom authors courted

through their plays, and who had all the men in the house for longing

lovers. Who shall say how far 'her youth and lively aspect' influenced

the criticisms that have come down to us? She played Millamant to

Congreve's satisfaction.

V.

It is not difficult to understand how it was that Dryden thought _The Old

Bachelor_ the best first play he had seen, and the town applauded to the

echo. But it is a little hard to understand why later critics, with the

three other comedies before them, have not more expressly marked the

difference between the first and those. There is no new tune in _The Old

Bachelor_: it is an old tune more finely played, and for that very reason

it met with immediate acceptance. It is not likely that Dryden--a great

poet and a great and generous critic, it may be, but an old man--would

have bestowed such unhesitating approval on a play which ignored the

conventions in which he had lived. As it was, he saw those conventions

reverently followed, yet served by a master wit. The fact that Congreve

allowed Dryden and others to 'polish' his play, by giving it an air of

the stage and the town which it lacked, need not of course spoil it for

us. The stamp of Congreve is clearly marked on the dialogue, though not

on every page. You may see its essentials in two passages taken

absolutely at random. 'Come, come,' says Bellmour in the very first

scene, 'leave business to idlers and wisdom to fools; they have need of

'em: wit be my faculty and pleasure my occupation, and let Father Time

shake his glass.' Or Fondlewife soliloquises: 'Tell me, Isaac, why art

thee jealous? Why art thee distrustful of the wife of thy bosom? Because

she is young and vigorous, and I am old and impotent. Then why didst

thee marry, Isaac? Because she was beautiful and tempting, and because I

was obstinate and doating. . . .' In the one passage is the gay and

skilfully light paradox, in the other the clean, rhythmical, and

balanced, yet dramatic and appropriate English that are elements of

Congreve's style. It is in the conventions of its characterisation that

_The Old Bachelor_ belongs, not to true Congrevean comedy but, to that of

the models from which he was to break away. The characterisation of _The

Way of the World_ is light and true, that of _The Old Bachelor_ is heavy

and yet vague. Vainlove indeed, the 'mumper in love,' who 'lies canting

at the gate,' is individual and Congrevean. But Heartwell, the

blustering fool, Bellmour, the impersonal rake, Wittol and Bluffe, the

farcical sticks, Fondlewife, the immemorial city husband, and the troop

of undistinguished women--what can be said of them but that they are

glaring stage properties, speaking better English than the comic stage

had before attracted? Germs, possibly, of better things to come, that is

all, so far as characterisation goes. The Fondlewife episode, in

particular, which doubtless was mightily popular--what is there more in

it than the mutton fisted wit and brutality of Wycherley, with some of

Congreve's English? Such scenes as these, it may be hazarded, so

contemptible in the light of Congreve's better work, are ineffective now

because they fall between two stools: between the comedy (or tragedy) of

a crude physical fact, naked and impossible, as in Rochester, and the

comedy (or tragedy) of delicately-phrased intrigue. The latter was yet

to come when this play was produced, and meantime such episodes went very

well, and their popularity is intelligible. For the rest _The Old

Bachelor_, though to us in these days its plot appear a somewhat

uninspiring piece of fairyland, was a good acting play, fitted with great

skill to its actual players. The part of Fondlewife, created by Dogget,

was on a revival played (to his own immense satisfaction) by Colley

Cibber. In Araminta Mrs. Bracegirdle began (in a faint outline as it

were) the series of lively, sympathetic, intelligent heroines which

Congreve wrote for her. Lord Falkland's Prologue is as funny as it is

indecently suggestive, which is saying a great deal. The one actually

spoken gave an opportunity of the merriest archness to Mrs. Bracegirdle,

and was calculated to put the audience in the best of good humours.

The faults of _The Double-Dealer_ are obvious on a first reading, and

were very justly condemned on a first acting. The intrigue is wearisome:

its involutions are ineffectively puzzling. Maskwell's villainy and

Mellefont's folly are both unconvincing. The tragedy of Lady Touchwood,

less tragic than that of Lady Wishfort in _The Way of the World_, is more

obviously than that out of the picture. The play is, in fact, not pure

comedy of manners: it is that _plus_ tragedy, an element less offensive

than the sentimentality which spoils _The School for Scandal_, but yet a

notable fault. For while you can resolve the tragedy of Lady Wishfort

into wicked and very grim comedy, you can do nothing with the tragedy of

Lady Touchwood but try to ignore it. In his epistle dedicatory to

Charles Montague, Congreve admits that his play has faults, but does not

take in hand those adduced above, with the exception of the objections to

Maskwell and Mellefont. 'They have mistaken cunning in one character for

folly in another': an ineffectual answer, because the extremity of

cunning is equally destructive of dramatic balance. He defends his use

of soliloquy very warmly: of which it may be said that, so long as his

rule--that no character may overhear the soliloquiser--is observed, it is

a tolerable convention, but a confession of weakness in construction. He

declares he 'would rather disoblige all the critics in the world than one

of the fair sex,' and, having made his bow, he turns upon the ladies and

rends them. An author campaigning against his critics is always a

pleasant spectacle, but Congreve's defence of _The Double-Dealer_ is

rather amusing than convincing.

It needed no defence; for with all its faults, such as they are, upon it,

there are in it scenes and characters which only Congreve could have

made. Brisk is a worthy forerunner of Witwoud, Sir Paul Plyant a

delicious old credulous fool; while the tyrannical and vain Lady Plyant

is so drawn that you almost love her. But the triumph is Lady Froth, 'a

great coquet, pretender to poetry, wit, and learning,' and one would

almost as lief have seen Mrs. Mountfort in the part as the Bracegirdle's

Millamant. Her serious folly and foolish wisdom, her poem and malice and

compliments and babbling vivacity--set off, it is fair to remember, by a

pretty face--are atonement for a dozen Maskwells. She is a female

Witwoud, her author's first success in a sort of character he draws to

perfection. The scene between Mellefont and Lady Plyant, where she

insists on believing that the gallant, under cover of a marriage with her

stepdaughter, purposes to lead her astray, and where she goes through a

delightful farce of answering her scruples before the bewildered man--the

scene that for some far-fetched reason led Macaulay's mind to the incest

in the _Oedipus Rex_--is perhaps the best comedy of situation in the

piece. But the scene of defamation between the Froths and Brisk is

notable as (with the Cabal idea in _The Way of the World_) the

inspiration of the Scandal Scenes in Sheridan's play. When we remember

that less than two years were gone since the production of _The Old

Bachelor_, the improvement in Congreve is remarkable. Almost his only

concession to the groundlings is the star-gazing episode of Lady Froth

and Brisk: a mistake, because it spoils her inconsequent folly, but a

small matter. In his second play Congreve was himself, the wittiest and

most polished writer of comedy in English. In the face of this fact 'the

public' conducted itself characteristically: it more or less damned _The

Double-Dealer_ until the queen approved, when it applauded lustily. That

occasion gave Colley Cibber his first chance as Kynaston's substitute in

Lord Touchwood. When one remembers Dryden's long, struggling, cudgelling

and cudgelled life, it is impossible to read without emotion his tribute

to a very young and successful author in the verses prefixed to this

play:

Firm Doric pillars found your solid base:

The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space;

Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.

. . . . .

We cannot envy you, because we love.

. . . . .

Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought,

But Genius must be born, and never can be taught.

This is your portion, this your native store;

Heav'n, that but once was prodigal before.

To Shakespeare gave as much; she could not give him more.

The tribute is indubitably sincere; in point of Congreve's wit and

diction it is as indubitably true.

_Love for Love_ was the most popular of Congreve's comedies: it held the

stage so long that Hazlitt could say, 'it still acts and is still acted

well.' Being wise after the event, one may give some obvious reasons. It

is more human than any other of his plays, and at the same time more

farcical. By 'more human' it is not meant that the characters are truer

to life than those in _The Way of the World_, but that they are truer to

average life, and therefore more easily recognisable by the average

spectator. Tattle, for instance, is so gross a fool, that any fool in

the pit could see his folly; Witwoud might deceive all but the elect. No

familiarity--direct or indirect--with a particular mode of life and

speech is necessary to the appreciation of _Love for Love_. Sir Sampson

Legend is your unmistakable heavy father, cross-grained and bullying.

Valentine is no ironical, fine gentleman like Mirabell, but a young rake

from Cambridge, all debts and high spirits. Scandal is a plain railer at

things, especially women; Ben Legend a sea-dog who cannot speak without a

nautical metaphor; Jeremy an idealised comic servant; and Foresight

grotesque farce. Angelica is a shrewd but hearty 'English girl,' and

Miss Prue a veritable country Miss; while Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight

are broadly skittish matrons. There is nothing in the play to strain the

attention or to puzzle the intellect, and it is full of laughter: no

wonder it was a success. It is, intellectually, on an altogether

different plane from _The Way of the World_, on a slightly lower one than

_The Double-Dealer_. But in its own way it is irresistibly funny, and by

reason of its diction it is never for a moment other than distinguished.

I imagine the bodkin scene will always take the palm in it for mere

mirth. Delightful sisters!

I suppose you would not go alone to the World's End?

The World's End! What, do you mean to banter me?

Poor innocent! You don't know that there's a place called the World's

End? I'll swear you can keep your countenance purely; you'd make an

admirable player. . . . But look you here, now--where did you lose

this gold bodkin?--Oh, sister, sister!

My bodkin?

Nay, 'tis yours; look at it.

Well, if you go to that, where did you find this bodkin? Oh, sister,

sister!--sister every way.

Broad, popular comedy, it is admirable; but it is not especially

Congrevean. Tattle's love-lesson to Miss Prue and his boasting of his

duchesses are in the same broad vein. Valentine's mad scene is more

remarkable, in that Congreve gives rein to his fancy, and that his

diction is at its very best. 'Hark'ee, I have a secret to tell you.

Endymion and the Moon shall meet us upon Mount Latmos, and will be

married in the dead of night. But say not a word. Hymen shall put his

torch into a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give

her peacock poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail, and Argus's

hundred eyes be shut, ha? Nobody shall know, but Jeremy.'

TATTLE. Do you know me, Valentine?

VALENTINE. You? Who are you? No, I hope not.

TATTLE. I am Jack Tattle, your friend.

VALENTINE. My friend, what to do? I am no married man, and thou

canst not lie with my wife. I am very poor, and thou canst not borrow

money of me. Then, what employment have I for a friend?

ANGELICA. Do you know me, Valentine?

VALENTINE. Oh, very well.

ANGELICA. Who am I?

VALENTINE. You're a woman, one to whom Heaven gave beauty when it

grafted roses on a briar. You are the reflection of Heaven in a pond,

and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white, a sheet of

lovely, spotless paper, when you first are born; but you are to be

scrawled and blotted by every goose's quill. I know you; for I loved

a woman, and loved her so long, that I found out a strange thing: I

found out what a woman was good for.

Imagine Betterton, the greatest actor of his time, delivering that last

speech, with its incomparable rhythm! I like to think that he gave the

spectators an idea that Valentine's self-sacrifice for Angelica was

nothing but a bold device, a calculated effect; otherwise the sacrifice

is an excrescence in this comedy, which, popular and broad though it be,

is cynical in Congreve's manner throughout. One is consoled, however, by

the pleasant fate of the ingenious Mr. Tattle and the intriguing Mrs.

Frail, who are left tied for life against their will. The trick, by the

way, of a tricked marriage is constant in Congreve, and reveals his

poverty of construction. He can devise you comic situations

unflaggingly, but when he approaches the end of a play his _deus ex

machina_ is invariably this flattest and most battered old deity in

fairyland.

The dedication to Lord Dorset contains nothing of interest beyond the

confession that the play is too long, and the information that part of it

was omitted in the playing. A line in the prologue, 'We grieve One

falling Adam and one tempted Eve,' is explained by Colley Cibber to refer

to Mrs. Mountford, who, having cast her lot with Betterton and migrated

to Lincoln's Inn Fields, threw up her part on a question of cash, and to

Williams, an actor who 'loved his bottle better than his business,' who

deserted at the same time. It serves to show the interest the town took

in the players, that the fact was referred to on the stage. The lady's

part was taken by Mrs. Ayliff; Mrs. Leigh played the nurse--a very poor

part after Lady Plyant; Dogget's success as Ben Legend has been noted.

Mrs. Bracegirdle's Angelica was doubtless ravishing: a 'virtuous young

woman,' as our ancestors phrased it, but quite relieved from insipidity.

It would need a greater presumption than the writer is gifted withal to

add his contribution to the praises critics have lavished on _The Way of

the World_. It is better to quote Mr. Swinburne. 'In 1700 Congreve

replied to Collier with the crowning work of his genius--the unequalled

and unapproached masterpiece of English comedy. The one play in our

language which may fairly claim a place beside, or but just beneath, the

mightiest work of Moliere, is _The Way of the World_.' But he continues:

'On the stage, which had recently acclaimed with uncritical applause the

author's more questionable appearance in the field of tragedy,'--_The

Mourning Bride_,--'this final and flawless evidence of his incomparable

powers met with a rejection then and ever since inexplicable on any

ground of conjecture.' There the critics are not unanimous. Mr. Gosse,

for instance, has his explanation: that the spectators must have

fidgeted, and wished 'that the actors and actresses would be doing

something.' Very like, indeed: the spectators, then as now, would no

doubt have preferred 'knock-about farce.' But, I venture to think, the

explanation is not complete. The construction of the play is weak,

certainly, but the actors and actresses do a great deal after all. For

that matter, audiences will stand scenes of still wit--but they like to

comprehend it; and the characters in _The Way of the World_, or most of

them, represent a society whose attitude and speech are entirely ironical

and paradoxical, a society of necessity but a small fraction of any

community. Some sort of study or some special experience is necessary to

the enjoyment of such a set. It is not the case of a few witticisms and

paradoxes firing off at intervals, like crackers, from the mouths of one

or two actors with whom the audience is taught to laugh as a matter of

course: the vein is unbroken. Now, literalness and common sense are the

qualities of the average uninstructed spectator, and _The Way of the

World_ was high over the heads of its audience.

To come to details. The tragedy of Lady Wishfort has often been

remarked--the veritable tragedy of a lovesick old woman. All the

grotesque touches, her credulity, her vanity, her admirable dialect ('as

I'm a person!'), but serve to make the tragedy the more pitiable. Either,

therefore, our appreciation of satiric comedy is defective, or Congreve

made a mistake. To regard this poor old soul as mere comedy is to attain

to an almost satanic height of contempt: the comedy is more than grim, it

is savagely cruel. To be pitiless, on the other hand, is a satirist's

virtue. On the whole, we may reasonably say that the tragedy is not too

keen in itself, but that it is too obviously indicated. Witwoud is

surely a great character? The stage is alive with mirth when he is on

it. His entrance in the very first part of the play is delightful.

'Afford me your compassion, my dears; pity me, Fainall; Mirabell, pity

me. . . . Fainall, how does your lady? Gad, I say anything in the world

to get this fellow out of my head. I beg pardon that I should ask a man

of pleasure, and the town, a question at once so foreign and domestic.

But I talk like an old maid at a marriage, I don't know what I say.' But

one might quote for ever. Witwoud, almost as much as Millamant herself,

is an eternal type. His little exclamations, his assurance of sympathy,

his terror of the commonplace--surely one knows them well? His tolerance

of any impertinence, lest he should be thought to have misunderstood a

jest, is a great distinction. But Congreve's gibe in the dedication at

the critics, who failed 'to distinguish betwixt the character of a

Witwoud and a Truewit,' is hardly fair: as Dryden said of Etherege's Sir

Fopling, he is 'a fool so nicely writ, The ladies might mistake him for a

wit.' Then, Millamant is the ultimate expression of those who, having

all the material goods which nature and civilisation can give, live on

paradoxes and artifices. Her insolence is the inoffensive insolence only

possible to the well-bred. 'O ay, letters,--I had letters,--I am

persecuted with letters,--I hate letters,--nobody knows how to write

letters; and yet one has 'em, one does not know why,--they serve one to

pin up one's hair.' 'Beauty the lover's gift!--Lord, what is a lover,

that it can give? Why one makes lovers as fast as one pleases, and they

live as long as one pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases; and

then if one pleases one makes more.'

In parts of its characterisation _The Way of the World_ is extremely bold

in observation, extremely careless of literary types and traditions. Mrs.

Fainall, a woman who is the friend, and assists in the intrigues, of a

man who has ceased to be her lover, is most unconventionally human. Of

all the inimitable scenes, that in which Millamant and Mirabell make

their conditions of marriage is perhaps the most unquestionable triumph.

'Let us never visit together, nor go to a play together, but let us be

very strange and well-bred'--there is its keynote. The dialogue is as

sure and perfect in diction, in balance of phrases, and in musical

effectiveness as can be conceived, and for all its care is absolutely

free in its gaiety. It is the ultimate expression of the joys of the

artificial. As for the prologue, it is an invitation to the dullards to

damn the play, and is anything but serenely confident. The dedication,

to 'Ralph, Earl of Mountague,' has an interesting fact: it tells us that

the comedy was written immediately after staying with him, 'in your

retirement last summer from the town,' and pays a tribute to the

influence of the society the dramatist met there. 'Vous y voyez

partout,' said Voltaire of Congreve, 'le langage des honnetes gens avec

des actions de fripon; ce qui prouve qu'il connaissait bien son monde, et

qu'il vivait dans ce qu'on appelle la bonne compagnie.'

The want of dramatic skill which has been alleged against Congreve is

simply a question of construction--of the construction of his plays as a

whole. His plots hang fire, are difficult to follow, and are not worth

remembering. But many things besides go to the making of good plays, and

few playwrights have had all the theatrical virtues. Do we not pardon a

lack of incident in a novel of character? In this connexion it is worth

while to contrast Congreve with Sheridan, who in the matter of

construction was a far abler craftsman. But is there not in the elder

poet enough to turn the scale, even the theatrical scale, ten times over?

Compare the petty indignation, with which the dramatist of _The School

for Scandal_ deals with his scandalmongers, and the amused indifference

of Congreve towards the cabalists in _The Way of the World_. Or take any

hero of Congreve's and contrast him with that glorification of vulgar

lavishness and canting generosity, that very barmaid's hero, Charles

Surface. It is all very well to say that Joseph is the real hero; but

Sheridan made it natural for the stupid sentimentality of later days to

make him the villain, and Congreve would have made it impossible. Of wit

(of course) there is more in a scene of Congreve than in a play of

Sheridan. Moreover, faulty in construction as his main plots are, in

detail his construction is often admirable: as in play of character upon

character, in countless opportunities for delightful archness and cruelty

in the women, for the display of every comic emotion in the men. He

lived in the playhouse, and his characters, true to life though they be,

have about them as it were an ideal essence of the boards. With Hazlitt,

'I would rather have seen Mrs. Abington's Millamant than any Rosalind

that ever appeared on the stage.' A lover and a constant frequenter of

the theatre--albeit the plays he sees bore him to death--cannot, in

reading Congreve, choose but see the glances and hear the intonations of

imaginary players.

VI.

Congreve's choice of material has been defended at an early stage of

these remarks. There is the further and more interesting question of his

point of view, his attitude towards it. Mr. Henley speaks of his

'deliberate and unmitigable baseness of morality.' Differing with

deference, I think it may be shown that his attitude is a pose merely,

and an artistic and quite innocent pose. It is the amusing pose of the

boyish cynic turned into an artistic convention. The lines:

'He alone won't betray in whom none will confide,

And the nymph may be chaste that has never been tried:'

which conclude the characteristic song in the third act of _Love for

Love_, are typical of his attitude. Does anybody suppose that an

intelligent man of the world meant that sentiment in all seriousness?

'Nothing's new besides our faces,

Every woman is the same'--

those lines (in his first play), which seemed so shocking to Thackeray,

what more do they express than the green cynicism of youth? When Mr.

Leslie Stephen speaks of his 'gush of cynical sentiment,' he speaks

unsympathetically, but the phrase, to be an enemy's, is just. It is

cynical sentiment, and the hostility comes from taking it seriously. I

think it the most artistic attitude for a writer of gay, satiric

comedies, and that its very excess should prevent its being taken for

more than a convention. We are not called upon to see satiric comedies

all day long, and the question, everlastingly asked by implication of

every work of art--'Would you like to live with it?'--is here, as in most

other cases, irrelevant. One is reminded that there is more in life than

intrigues and cynical comments on them. And one is inclined to put the

questions in answer: 'Does a man who really feels the sorrowful things of

life, its futile endeavours and piteous separations, find relief in

seeing his emotions mimicked on the stage in a 'wholesome' play of

sentiment with a happy ending? Is he not rather comforted by the

distractions of cheerful frivolity, of conventional denial of his pains?'

The demand is as inartistic and irrelevant as the criticism which

suggested it, but it returns a sufficient reply. It does not touch the

'catharsis' of tragedy, which is another matter. For the rest,

Congreve's attitude, cynicism apart, is an attitude of irony and

superiority over common emotions, the attitude, artificial and

inoffensive, of the society he depicts in his greatest play. He enjoys

the humours of his puppets, he is never angry with them. It is the

attitude of an artist in expounding human nature, of an expert in

observation of life: an attitude attainable but by very few, and disliked

as a rule by the rest, who want to clap or to hiss--who can laugh but who

cannot smile.

VII.

When Congreve left the stage, said Dennis the critic, 'comedy left it

with him.' Vanburgh and Farquhar were left to expound comedy of manners,

the one with a vigorous gusto, the other with a romantic gaiety. The

peculiar perfume of _The Way of the World_ was given to neither, yet they

wrote comedy of manners. But if Congreve left colleagues, he left no

sons, and most certainly, one may say, that when those colleagues died,

English comedy took to her bed. 'The Comic Muse, long sick, is now a-

dying,' wrote Garrick in his prologue to _She Stoops to Conquer_, and she

had not to apologise, like Charles the Second, for the unconscionable

time she was about it. It is a little crude to attribute her demise to

Jeremy Collier and his _Short View_--a block painted to look like a

thunderbolt. It is not a matter of decency, of alteration or improvement

in manners. A comedy might be wholly Congrevean without a coarse word

from beginning to end. It is a matter of the exclusion (not the

stultification), the suspension of moral prepossessions, the absence of

sympathetic sentimentalism, the habit of shirking nothing and smiling at

all things. These qualities are not characteristic of the average

Englishman. Now, satiric comedy did not in its initiation depend upon

the average Englishman. It took its cue from the court of Charles the

Second, who--with a dash of thoroughly English humour--was more than half-

French in temperament, and attracted to himself all that was artistically

frivolous in his kingdom. Questions of decency and morality--which after

all are not perpetually amusing--apart, the social spirit typified in

this exceptional king is one of sceptical humour and ironical smiles: it

takes common emotions for granted--is bored by them, in fact--and is a

foe to sentimentality and gush and virtuously happy endings. It was the

spirit of Charles the Second that inspired English comedy, and inspired

it most thoroughly in Congreve but a few years after Charles's death.

Under changed conditions, one is apt to underestimate the influence of

the Court upon the Town two hundred years ago. Well, the Georges became

our defenders of the faith, and they hated 'boets and bainters.' English

comedy was thrown back upon the patronage and the inspiration of average

England, and up to the time of writing has shown few signs of recovery.

Of course, the decay was gradual: you may see it at a most interesting

stage in _The School for Scandal_, a comedy of manners with a strong dash

of common sentimentality. It would be just possible, one conceives, to

play _The School for Scandal_ as Charles Lamb says he saw it played, with

Joseph for a hero, as a comedy of manners: you can just imagine Sir Peter

as a sort of Sir Paul Plyant, and as not played to raise a lump in your

throat. But Sheridan made it a difficult task. Perhaps you may see the

evil influence at its worst in the so-called comedies which were our

glory twenty-five years ago: in such a play as _Caste_, an even river of

sloppy sentiment, where the acme of chivalrous delicacy is to refrain

from lighting a cigarette in a woman's presence, where the triumph of

humour is for a guardsman to take a kettle off the fire, and where the

character of Eccles shows what excellent comedy the author might (alas!)

have written.

One is fain to ask if the spirit of Congrevean comedy will ever come back

to our stage. An echo of it has been heard in dialogue once or twice in

the last few years: not a trace has been seen in action. And yet we

permit our dramatists a pretty wide range of subjects. We allow the

subjects: it is the Congrevean attitude towards them which we should

condemn. But the stage would be all the merrier if we could only

understand that that attitude is harmless; that to see the humorous

aspect of a thing is not to ignore the pathetic or the sociological; and

that we should return all the heartier to our serious and sentimental

considerations of the problems of life for allowing them to be laughed at

for an evening at a comedy. Meantime we can read the book.

G. S. STREET.

THE OLD BACHELOR

_Quem tulit ad scenam ventoso Gloria curru_,

_Exanimat lentus spectator_; _sedulus inflat_:

_Sic leve_, _sic parvum est_, _animum quod laudis avarum_

_Subruit_, _and reficit_.

HORAT. _Epist._ I. lib. ii.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES, LORD CLIFFORD OF LANESBOROUGH, etc.

My Lord,--It is with a great deal of pleasure that I lay hold on this

first occasion which the accidents of my life have given me of writing to

your lordship: for since at the same time I write to all the world, it

will be a means of publishing (what I would have everybody know) the

respect and duty which I owe and pay to you. I have so much inclination

to be yours that I need no other engagement. But the particular ties by

which I am bound to your lordship and family have put it out of my power

to make you any compliment, since all offers of myself will amount to no

more than an honest acknowledgment, and only shew a willingness in me to

be grateful.

I am very near wishing that it were not so much my interest to be your

lordship's servant, that it might be more my merit; not that I would

avoid being obliged to you, but I would have my own choice to run me into

the debt: that I might have it to boast, I had distinguished a man to

whom I would be glad to be obliged, even without the hopes of having it

in my power ever to make him a return.

It is impossible for me to come near your lordship in any kind and not to

receive some favour; and while in appearance I am only making an

acknowledgment (with the usual underhand dealing of the world) I am at

the same time insinuating my own interest. I cannot give your lordship

your due, without tacking a bill of my own privileges. 'Tis true, if a

man never committed a folly, he would never stand in need of a

protection. But then power would have nothing to do, and good nature no

occasion to show itself; and where those qualities are, 'tis pity they

should want objects to shine upon. I must confess this is no reason why

a man should do an idle thing, nor indeed any good excuse for it when

done; yet it reconciles the uses of such authority and goodness to the

necessities of our follies, and is a sort of poetical logic, which at

this time I would make use of, to argue your lordship into a protection

of this play. It is the first offence I have committed in this kind, or

indeed, in any kind of poetry, though not the first made public, and

therefore I hope will the more easily be pardoned. But had it been

acted, when it was first written, more might have been said in its

behalf: ignorance of the town and stage would then have been excuses in a

young writer, which now almost four years' experience will scarce allow

of. Yet I must declare myself sensible of the good nature of the town,

in receiving this play so kindly, with all its faults, which I must own

were, for the most part, very industriously covered by the care of the

players; for I think scarce a character but received all the advantage it

would admit of from the justness of the action.

As for the critics, my lord, I have nothing to say to, or against, any of

them of any kind: from those who make just exceptions, to those who find

fault in the wrong place. I will only make this general answer in behalf

of my play (an answer which Epictetus advises every man to make for

himself to his censurers), viz.: 'That if they who find some faults in

it, were as intimate with it as I am, they would find a great many more.'

This is a confession, which I needed not to have made; but however, I can

draw this use from it to my own advantage: that I think there are no

faults in it but what I do know; which, as I take it, is the first step

to an amendment.

Thus I may live in hopes (sometime or other) of making the town amends;

but you, my lord, I never can, though I am ever your lordship's most

obedient and most humble servant,

WILL. CONGREVE.

TO MR. CONGREVE.

When virtue in pursuit of fame appears,

And forward shoots the growth beyond the years.

We timely court the rising hero's cause,

And on his side the poet wisely draws,

Bespeaking him hereafter by applause.

The days will come, when we shall all receive

Returning interest from what now we give,

Instructed and supported by that praise

And reputation which we strive to raise.

Nature so coy, so hardly to be wooed,

Flies, like a mistress, but to be pursued.

O Congreve! boldly follow on the chase:

She looks behind and wants thy strong embrace:

She yields, she yields, surrenders all her charms,

Do you but force her gently to your arms:

Such nerves, such graces, in your lines appear,

As you were made to be her ravisher.

Dryden has long extended his command,

By right divine, quite through the muses' land,

Absolute lord; and holding now from none,

But great Apollo, his undoubted crown.

That empire settled, and grown old in power

Can wish for nothing but a successor:

Not to enlarge his limits, but maintain

Those provinces, which he alone could gain.

His eldest Wycherly, in wise retreat,

Thought it not worth his quiet to be great.

Loose, wand'ring Etherege, in wild pleasures tost,

And foreign int'rests, to his hopes long lost:

Poor Lee and Otway dead! Congreve appears,

The darling, and last comfort of his years.

May'st thou live long in thy great master's smiles,

And growing under him, adorn these isles.

But when--when part of him (be that but late)

His body yielding must submit to fate,

Leaving his deathless works and thee behind

(The natural successor of his mind),

Then may'st thou finish what he has begun:

Heir to his merit, be in fame his son.

What thou hast done, shews all is in thy pow'r,

And to write better, only must write more.

'Tis something to be willing to commend;

But my best praise is, that I am your friend,

THO. SOUTHERNE.

TO MR. CONGREVE.

The danger's great in these censorious days,

When critics are so rife to venture praise:

When the infectious and ill-natured brood

Behold, and damn the work, because 'tis good,

And with a proud, ungenerous spirit, try

To pass an ostracism on poetry.

But you, my friend, your worth does safely bear

Above their spleen; you have no cause for fear;

Like a well-mettled hawk, you took your flight

Quite out of reach, and almost out of sight.

As the strong sun, in a fair summer's day,

You rise, and drive the mists and clouds away,

The owls and bats, and all the birds of prey.

Each line of yours, like polished steel's so hard,

In beauty safe, it wants no other guard.

Nature herself's beholden to your dress,

Which though still like, much fairer you express.

Some vainly striving honour to obtain,

Leave to their heirs the traffic of their brain:

Like China under ground, the ripening ware,

In a long time, perhaps grows worth our care.

But you now reap the fame, so well you've sown;

The planter tastes his fruit to ripeness grown.

As a fair orange-tree at once is seen

Big with what's ripe, yet springing still with green,

So at one time, my worthy friend appears,

With all the sap of youth, and weight of years.

Accept my pious love, as forward zeal,

Which though it ruins me I can't conceal:

Exposed to censure for my weak applause,

I'm pleased to suffer in so just a cause;

And though my offering may unworthy prove,

Take, as a friend, the wishes of my love.

J. MARSH.

TO MR. CONGREVE, ON HIS PLAY CALLED

THE OLD BACHELOR.

Wit, like true gold, refined from all allay,

Immortal is, and never can decay:

'Tis in all times and languages the same,

Nor can an ill translation quench the flame:

For, though the form and fashion don't remain,

The intrinsic value still it will retain.

Then let each studied scene be writ with art,

And judgment sweat to form the laboured part.

Each character be just, and nature seem:

Without th' ingredient, wit, 'tis all but phlegm:

For that's the soul, which all the mass must move,

And wake our passions into grief or love.

But you, too bounteous, sow your wit so thick,

We are surprised, and know not where to pick;

And while with clapping we are just to you,

Ourselves we injure, and lose something new.

What mayn't we then, great youth, of thee presage,

Whose art and wit so much transcend thy age?

How wilt thou shine at thy meridian height,

Who, at thy rising, giv'st so vast a light?

When Dryden dying shall the world deceive,

Whom we immortal, as his works, believe,

Thou shalt succeed, the glory of the stage,

Adorn and entertain the coming age.

BEVIL. HIGGONS.

PROLOGUE INTENDED FOR THE OLD BACHELOR.

Written by the LORD FALKLAND.

Most authors on the stage at first appear

Like widows' bridegrooms, full of doubt and fear:

They judge, from the experience of the dame,

How hard a task it is to quench her flame;

And who falls short of furnishing a course

Up to his brawny predecessor's force,

With utmost rage from her embraces thrown,

Remains convicted as an empty drone.

Thus often, to his shame, a pert beginner

Proves in the end a miserable sinner.

As for our youngster, I am apt to doubt him,

With all the vigour of his youth about him;

But he, more sanguine, trusts in one and twenty,

And impudently hopes he shall content you:

For though his bachelor be worn and cold,

He thinks the young may club to help the old,

And what alone can be achieved by neither,

Is often brought about by both together.

The briskest of you all have felt alarms,

Finding the fair one prostitute her charms

With broken sighs, in her old fumbler's arms:

But for our spark, he swears he'll ne'er be jealous

Of any rivals, but young lusty fellows.

Faith, let him try his chance, and if the slave,

After his bragging, prove a washy knave,

May he be banished to some lonely den

And never more have leave to dip his pen.

But if he be the champion he pretends,

Both sexes sure will join to be his friends,

For all agree, where all can have their ends.

And you must own him for a man of might,

If he holds out to please you the third night.

PROLOGUE.

Spoken by MRS. BRACEGIRDLE.

How this vile world is changed! In former days

Prologues were serious speeches before plays,

Grave, solemn things, as graces are to feasts,

Where poets begged a blessing from their guests.

But now no more like suppliants we come;

A play makes war, and prologue is the drum.

Armed with keen satire and with pointed wit,

We threaten you who do for judges sit,

To save our plays, or else we'll damn your pit.

But for your comfort, it falls out to-day,

We've a young author and his first-born play;

So, standing only on his good behaviour,

He's very civil, and entreats your favour.

Not but the man has malice, would he show it,

But on my conscience he's a bashful poet;

You think that strange--no matter, he'll outgrow it.

Well, I'm his advocate: by me he prays you

(I don't know whether I shall speak to please you),

He prays--O bless me! what shall I do now?

Hang me if I know what he prays, or how!

And 'twas the prettiest prologue as he wrote it!

Well, the deuce take me, if I han't forgot it.

O Lord, for heav'n's sake excuse the play,

Because, you know, if it be damned to-day,

I shall be hanged for wanting what to say.

For my sake then--but I'm in such confusion,

I cannot stay to hear your resolution.

[_Runs off_.]

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

MEN.

HEARTWELL, a surly old bachelor, pretending to slight women, secretly in

love with Silvia--Mr. Betterton.

BELLMOUR, in love with Belinda--Mr. Powell

VAINLOVE, capricious in his love; in love with Araminta--Mr. Williams

SHARPER,--Mr. Verbruggen

SIR JOSEPH WITTOL,--Mr. Bowen

CAPTAIN BLUFFE,--Mr. Haines.

FONDLEWIFE, a banker--Mr. Dogget

SETTER, a pimp--Mr Underhill

SERVANT to Fondlewife.

WOMEN.

ARAMINTA, in love with Vainlove--Mrs. Bracegirdle

BELINDA, her cousin, an affected lady, in love with Bellmour--Mrs.

Mountfort

LAETITIA, wife to Fondlewife--Mrs. Barry

SYLVIA, Vainlove's forsaken mistress--Mrs. Bowman

LUCY, her maid--Mrs. Leigh

BETTY.

BOY and FOOTMEN.

SCENE: London.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

SCENE: _The Street_.

BELLMOUR _and_ VAINLOVE _meeting_.

BELL. Vainlove, and abroad so early! Good-morrow; I thought a

contemplative lover could no more have parted with his bed in a morning

than he could have slept in't.

VAIN. Bellmour, good-morrow. Why, truth on't is, these early sallies

are not usual to me; but business, as you see, sir--[_Showing Letters_.]

And business must be followed, or be lost.

BELL. Business! And so must time, my friend, be close pursued, or lost.

Business is the rub of life, perverts our aim, casts off the bias, and

leaves us wide and short of the intended mark.

VAIN. Pleasure, I guess you mean.

BELL. Ay; what else has meaning?

VAIN. Oh, the wise will tell you--

BELL. More than they believe--or understand.

VAIN. How, how, Ned! A wise man say more than he understands?

BELL. Ay, ay! Wisdom's nothing but a pretending to know and believe

more than we really do. You read of but one wise man, and all that he

knew was, that he knew nothing. Come, come, leave business to idlers and

wisdom to fools; they have need of 'em. Wit be my faculty, and pleasure

my occupation; and let Father Time shake his glass. Let low and earthly

souls grovel till they have worked themselves six foot deep into a grave.

Business is not my element--I roll in a higher orb, and dwell--

VAIN. In castles i' th' air of thy own building. That's thy element,

Ned. Well, as high a flier as you are, I have a lure may make you stoop.

[_Flings a Letter_.]

BELL. I, marry, sir, I have a hawk's eye at a woman's hand. There's

more elegancy in the false spelling of this superscription [_takes up the

Letter_] than in all Cicero. Let me see.--How now!--Dear _perfidious

Vainlove_. [_Reads_.]

VAIN. Hold, hold, 'slife, that's the wrong.

BELL. Nay, let's see the name--Sylvia!--how canst thou be ungrateful to

that creature? She's extremely pretty, and loves thee entirely--I have

heard her breathe such raptures about thee--

VAIN. Ay, or anybody that she's about--

BELL. No, faith, Frank, you wrong her; she has been just to you.

VAIN. That's pleasant, by my troth, from thee, who hast had her.

BELL. Never--her affections. 'Tis true, by heaven: she owned it to my

face; and, blushing like the virgin morn when it disclosed the cheat

which that trusty bawd of nature, night, had hid, confessed her soul was

true to you; though I by treachery had stolen the bliss.

VAIN. So was true as turtle--in imagination--Ned, ha? Preach this

doctrine to husbands, and the married women will adore thee.

BELL. Why, faith, I think it will do well enough, if the husband be out

of the way, for the wife to show her fondness and impatience of his

absence by choosing a lover as like him as she can; and what is unlike,

she may help out with her own fancy.

VAIN. But is it not an abuse to the lover to be made a blind of?

BELL. As you say, the abuse is to the lover, not the husband. For 'tis

an argument of her great zeal towards him, that she will enjoy him in

effigy.

VAIN. It must be a very superstitious country where such zeal passes for

true devotion. I doubt it will be damned by all our Protestant husbands

for flat idolatry. But, if you can make Alderman Fondlewife of your

persuasion, this letter will be needless.

BELL. What! The old banker with the handsome wife?

VAIN. Ay.

BELL. Let me see--_Laetitia_! Oh, 'tis a delicious morsel. Dear Frank,

thou art the truest friend in the world.

VAIN. Ay, am I not? To be continually starting of hares for you to

course. We were certainly cut out for one another; for my temper quits

an amour just where thine takes it up. But read that; it is an

appointment for me, this evening--when Fondlewife will be gone out of

town, to meet the master of a ship, about the return of a venture which

he's in danger of losing. Read, read.

BELL. [_reads_.] Hum, Hum--Out of town this evening, and talks of

sending for Mr. Spintext to keep me company; but I'll take care he shall

not be at home. Good! Spintext! Oh, the fanatic one-eyed parson!

VAIN. Ay.

BELL. [_reads_.] Hum, Hum--That your conversation will be much more

agreeable, if you can counterfeit his habit to blind the servants. Very

good! Then I must be disguised?--With all my heart!--It adds a gusto to

an amour; gives it the greater resemblance of theft; and, among us lewd

mortals, the deeper the sin the sweeter. Frank, I'm amazed at thy good

nature--

VAIN. Faith, I hate love when 'tis forced upon a man, as I do wine. And

this business is none of my seeking; I only happened to be, once or

twice, where Laetitia was the handsomest woman in company; so,

consequently, applied myself to her--and it seems she has taken me at my

word. Had you been there, or anybody, 't had been the same.

BELL. I wish I may succeed as the same.

VAIN. Never doubt it; for if the spirit of cuckoldom be once raised up

in a woman, the devil can't lay it, until she has done't.

BELL. Prithee, what sort of fellow is Fondlewife?

VAIN. A kind of mongrel zealot, sometimes very precise and peevish. But

I have seen him pleasant enough in his way; much addicted to jealousy,

but more to fondness; so that as he is often jealous without a cause,

he's as often satisfied without reason.

BELL. A very even temper, and fit for my purpose. I must get your man

Setter to provide my disguise.

VAIN. Ay; you may take him for good and all, if you will, for you have

made him fit for nobody else. Well--

BELL. You're going to visit in return of Sylvia's letter. Poor rogue!

Any hour of the day or night will serve her. But do you know nothing of

a new rival there?

VAIN. Yes; Heartwell--that surly, old, pretended woman-hater--thinks her

virtuous; that's one reason why I fail her. I would have her fret

herself out of conceit with me, that she may entertain some thoughts of

him. I know he visits her every day.

BELL. Yet rails on still, and thinks his love unknown to us. A little

time will swell him so, he must be forced to give it birth; and the

discovery must needs be very pleasant from himself, to see what pains he

will take, and how he will strain to be delivered of a secret, when he

has miscarried of it already.

VAIN. Well, good-morrow. Let's dine together; I'll meet at the old

place.

BELL. With all my heart. It lies convenient for us to pay our afternoon

services to our mistresses. I find I am damnably in love, I'm so uneasy

for not having seen Belinda yesterday.

VAIN. But I saw my Araminta, yet am as impatient.

SCENE II.

BELLMOUR _alone_.

BELL. Why, what a cormorant in love am I! Who, not contented with the

slavery of honourable love in one place, and the pleasure of enjoying

some half a score mistresses of my own acquiring, must yet take

Vainlove's business upon my hands, because it lay too heavy upon his; so

am not only forced to lie with other men's wives for 'em, but must also

undertake the harder task of obliging their mistresses. I must take up,

or I shall never hold out. Flesh and blood cannot bear it always.

SCENE III.

[_To him_] SHARPER.

SHARP. I'm sorry to see this, Ned. Once a man comes to his soliloquies,

I give him for gone.

BELL. Sharper, I'm glad to see thee.

SHARP. What! is Belinda cruel, that you are so thoughtful?

BELL. No, faith, not for that. But there's a business of consequence

fallen out to-day that requires some consideration.

SHARP. Prithee, what mighty business of consequence canst thou have?

BELL. Why, you must know, 'tis a piece of work toward the finishing of

an alderman. It seems I must put the last hand to it, and dub him

cuckold, that he may be of equal dignity with the rest of his brethren:

so I must beg Belinda's pardon.

SHARP. Faith, e'en give her over for good and all; you can have no hopes

of getting her for a mistress; and she is too proud, too inconstant, too

affected and too witty, and too handsome for a wife.

BELL. But she can't have too much money. There's twelve thousand pound,

Tom. 'Tis true she is excessively foppish and affected; but in my

conscience I believe the baggage loves me: for she never speaks well of

me herself, nor suffers anybody else to rail at me. Then, as I told you,

there's twelve thousand pound. Hum! Why, faith, upon second thoughts,

she does not appear to be so very affected neither.--Give her her due, I

think the woman's a woman, and that's all. As such, I'm sure I shall

like her; for the devil take me if I don't love all the sex.

SHARP. And here comes one who swears as heartily he hates all the sex.

SCENE IV.

[_To them_] HEARTWELL.

BELL. Who? Heartwell? Ay, but he knows better things. How now,

George, where hast thou been snarling odious truths, and entertaining

company, like a physician, with discourse of their diseases and

infirmities? What fine lady hast thou been putting out of conceit with

herself, and persuading that the face she had been making all the morning

was none of her own? For I know thou art as unmannerly and as unwelcome

to a woman as a looking-glass after the smallpox.

HEART. I confess I have not been sneering fulsome lies and nauseous

flattery; fawning upon a little tawdry whore, that will fawn upon me

again, and entertain any puppy that comes, like a tumbler, with the same

tricks over and over. For such, I guess, may have been your late

employment.

BELL. Would thou hadst come a little sooner. Vainlove would have

wrought thy conversion, and been a champion for the cause.

HEART. What! has he been here? That's one of love's April fools; is

always upon some errand that's to no purpose; ever embarking in

adventures, yet never comes to harbour.

SHARP. That's because he always sets out in foul weather, loves to

buffet with the winds, meet the tide, and sail in the teeth of

opposition.

HEART. What! Has he not dropt anchor at Araminta?

BELL. Truth on't is she fits his temper best, is a kind of floating

island; sometimes seems in reach, then vanishes and keeps him busied in

the search.

SHARP. She had need have a good share of sense to manage so capricious a

lover.

BELL. Faith I don't know, he's of a temper the most easy to himself in

the world; he takes as much always of an amour as he cares for, and quits

it when it grows stale or unpleasant.

SHARP. An argument of very little passion, very good understanding, and

very ill nature.

HEART. And proves that Vainlove plays the fool with discretion.

SHARP. You, Bellmour, are bound in gratitude to stickle for him; you

with pleasure reap that fruit, which he takes pains to sow: he does the

drudgery in the mine, and you stamp your image on the gold.

BELL. He's of another opinion, and says I do the drudgery in the mine.

Well, we have each our share of sport, and each that which he likes best;

'tis his diversion to set, 'tis mine to cover the partridge.

HEART. And it should be mine to let 'em go again.

SHARP. Not till you had mouthed a little, George. I think that's all

thou art fit for now.

HEART. Good Mr. Young-Fellow, you're mistaken; as able as yourself, and

as nimble, too, though I mayn't have so much mercury in my limbs; 'tis

true, indeed, I don't force appetite, but wait the natural call of my

lust, and think it time enough to be lewd after I have had the

temptation.

BELL. Time enough, ay, too soon, I should rather have expected, from a

person of your gravity.

HEART. Yet it is oftentimes too late with some of you young, termagant,

flashy sinners--you have all the guilt of the intention, and none of the

pleasure of the practice--'tis true you are so eager in pursuit of the

temptation, that you save the devil the trouble of leading you into it.

Nor is it out of discretion that you don't swallow that very hook

yourselves have baited, but you are cloyed with the preparative, and what

you mean for a whet, turns the edge of your puny stomachs. Your love is

like your courage, which you show for the first year or two upon all

occasions; till in a little time, being disabled or disarmed, you abate

of your vigour; and that daring blade which was so often drawn, is bound

to the peace for ever after.

BELL. Thou art an old fornicator of a singular good principle indeed,

and art for encouraging youth, that they may be as wicked as thou art at

thy years.

HEART. I am for having everybody be what they pretend to be: a

whoremaster be a whoremaster, and not like Vainlove, kiss a lap-dog with

passion, when it would disgust him from the lady's own lips.

BELL. That only happens sometimes, where the dog has the sweeter breath,

for the more cleanly conveyance. But, George, you must not quarrel with

little gallantries of this nature: women are often won by 'em. Who would

refuse to kiss a lap-dog, if it were preliminary to the lips of his lady?

SHARP. Or omit playing with her fan, and cooling her if she were hot,

when it might entitle him to the office of warming her when she should be

cold?

BELL. What is it to read a play in a rainy day? Though you should be

now and then interrupted in a witty scene, and she perhaps preserve her

laughter, till the jest were over; even that may be borne with,

considering the reward in prospect.

HEART. I confess you that are women's asses bear greater burdens: are

forced to undergo dressing, dancing, singing, sighing, whining, rhyming,

flattering, lying, grinning, cringing, and the drudgery of loving to

boot.

BELL. O brute, the drudgery of loving!

HEART. Ay! Why, to come to love through all these incumbrances is like

coming to an estate overcharged with debts, which, by the time you have

paid, yields no further profit than what the bare tillage and manuring of

the land will produce at the expense of your own sweat.

BELL. Prithee, how dost thou love?

SHARP. He! He hates the sex.

HEART. So I hate physic too--yet I may love to take it for my health.

BELL. Well come off, George, if at any time you should be taken

straying.

SHARP. He has need of such an excuse, considering the present state of

his body.

HEART. How d'ye mean?

SHARP. Why, if whoring be purging, as you call it, then, I may say,

marriage is entering into a course of physic.

BELL. How, George! Does the wind blow there?

HEART. It will as soon blow north and by south--marry, quotha! I hope

in heaven I have a greater portion of grace, and I think I have baited

too many of those traps to be caught in one myself.

BELL. Who the devil would have thee? unless 'twere an oysterwoman to

propagate young fry for Billingsgate--thy talent will never recommend

thee to anything of better quality.

HEART. My talent is chiefly that of speaking truth, which I don't expect

should ever recommend me to people of quality. I thank heaven I have

very honestly purchased the hatred of all the great families in town.

SHARP. And you in return of spleen hate them. But could you hope to be

received into the alliance of a noble family--

HEART. No; I hope I shall never merit that affliction, to be punished

with a wife of birth, be a stag of the first head and bear my horns

aloft, like one of the supporters of my wife's coat. S'death I would not

be a Cuckold to e'er an illustrious whore in England.

BELL. What, not to make your family, man and provide for your children?

SHARP. For her children, you mean.

HEART. Ay, there you've nicked it. There's the devil upon devil. Oh,

the pride and joy of heart 'twould be to me to have my son and heir

resemble such a duke; to have a fleering coxcomb scoff and cry, 'Mr. your

son's mighty like his Grace, has just his smile and air of's face.' Then

replies another, 'Methinks he has more of the Marquess of such a place

about his nose and eyes, though he has my Lord what-d'ye-call's mouth to

a tittle.' Then I, to put it off as unconcerned, come chuck the infant

under the chin, force a smile, and cry, 'Ay, the boy takes after his

mother's relations,' when the devil and she knows 'tis a little compound

of the whole body of nobility.

BELL+SHARP. Ha, ha, ha!

BELL. Well, but, George, I have one question to ask you--

HEART. Pshaw, I have prattled away my time. I hope you are in no haste

for an answer, for I shan't stay now. [_Looking on his watch_.]

BELL. Nay, prithee, George--

HEART. No; besides my business, I see a fool coming this way. Adieu.

SCENE V.

SHARPER, BELLMOUR.

BELL. What does he mean? Oh, 'tis Sir Joseph Wittoll with his friend;

but I see he has turned the corner and goes another way.

SHARP. What in the name of wonder is it?

BELL. Why, a fool.

SHARP. 'Tis a tawdry outside.

BELL. And a very beggarly lining--yet he may be worth your acquaintance;

a little of thy chymistry, Tom, may extract gold from that dirt.

SHARP. Say you so? 'Faith I am as poor as a chymist, and would be as

industrious. But what was he that followed him? Is not he a dragon that

watches those golden pippins?

BELL. Hang him, no, he a dragon! If he be, 'tis a very peaceful one. I

can ensure his anger dormant; or should he seem to rouse, 'tis but well

lashing him, and he will sleep like a top.

SHARP. Ay, is he of that kidney?

BELL. Yet is adored by that bigot, Sir Joseph Wittoll, as the image of

valour. He calls him his back, and indeed they are never asunder--yet,

last night, I know not by what mischance, the knight was alone, and had

fallen into the hands of some night-walkers, who, I suppose, would have

pillaged him. But I chanced to come by and rescued him, though I believe

he was heartily frightened; for as soon as ever he was loose, he ran away

without staying to see who had helped him.

SHARP. Is that bully of his in the army?

BELL. No; but is a pretender, and wears the habit of a soldier, which

nowadays as often cloaks cowardice, as a black gown does atheism. You

must know he has been abroad--went purely to run away from a campaign;

enriched himself with the plunder of a few oaths, and here vents them

against the general, who, slighting men of merit, and preferring only

those of interest, has made him quit the service.

SHARP. Wherein no doubt he magnifies his own performance.

BELL. Speaks miracles, is the drum to his own praise--the only implement

of a soldier he resembles, like that, being full of blustering noise and

emptiness--

SHARP. And like that, of no use but to be beaten.

BELL. Right; but then the comparison breaks, for he will take a drubbing

with as little noise as a pulpit cushion.

SHARP. His name, and I have done?

BELL. Why, that, to pass it current too, he has gilded with a title: he

is called Capt. Bluffe.

SHARP. Well, I'll endeavour his acquaintance--you steer another course,

are bound--

For love's island: I, for the golden coast.

May each succeed in what he wishes most.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

SIR JOSEPH WITTOLL, SHARPER _following_.

SHARP. Sure that's he, and alone.

SIR JO. Um--Ay, this, this is the very damned place; the inhuman

cannibals, the bloody-minded villains, would have butchered me last

night. No doubt they would have flayed me alive, have sold my skin, and

devoured, etc.

SHARP. How's this!

SIR JO. An it hadn't been for a civil gentleman as came by and frighted

'em away--but, agad, I durst not stay to give him thanks.

SHARP. This must be Bellmour he means. Ha! I have a thought--

SIR JO. Zooks, would the captain would come; the very remembrance makes

me quake; agad, I shall never be reconciled to this place heartily.

SHARP. 'Tis but trying, and being where I am at worst, now luck!--cursed

fortune! this must be the place, this damned unlucky place--

SIR JO. Agad, and so 'tis. Why, here has been more mischief done, I

perceive.

SHARP. No, 'tis gone, 'tis lost--ten thousand devils on that chance

which drew me hither; ay, here, just here, this spot to me is hell;

nothing to be found, but the despair of what I've lost. [_Looking about

as in search_.]

SIR JO. Poor gentleman! By the Lord Harry I'll stay no longer, for I

have found too--

SHARP. Ha! who's that has found? What have you found? Restore it

quickly, or by--

SIR JO. Not I, sir, not I; as I've a soul to be saved, I have found

nothing but what has been to my loss, as I may say, and as you were

saying, sir.

SHARP. Oh, your servant, sir; you are safe, then, it seems. 'Tis an ill

wind that blows nobody good. Well, you may rejoice over my ill fortune,

since it paid the price of your ransom.

SIR JO. I rejoice! agad, not I, sir: I'm very sorry for your loss, with

all my heart, blood and guts, sir; and if you did but know me, you'd

ne'er say I were so ill-natured.

SHARP. Know you! Why, can you be so ungrateful to forget me?

SIR JO. O Lord, forget him! No, no, sir, I don't forget you--because I

never saw your face before, agad. Ha, ha, ha!

SHARP. How! [_Angrily_.]

SIR JO. Stay, stay, sir, let me recollect--he's a damned angry fellow--I

believe I had better remember him, until I can get out of his sight; but

out of sight out of mind, agad. [_Aside_.]

SHARP. Methought the service I did you last night, sir, in preserving

you from those ruffians, might have taken better root in your shallow

memory.

SIR JO. Gads-daggers-belts-blades and scabbards, this is the very

gentleman! How shall I make him a return suitable to the greatness of

his merit? I had a pretty thing to that purpose, if he ha'n't frighted

it out of my memory. Hem! hem! sir, I most submissively implore your

pardon for my transgression of ingratitude and omission; having my entire

dependence, sir, upon the superfluity of your goodness, which, like an

inundation, will, I hope, totally immerge the recollection of my error,

and leave me floating, in your sight, upon the full-blown bladders of

repentance--by the help of which, I shall once more hope to swim into

your favour. [_Bows_.]

SHARP. So-h, oh, sir, I am easily pacified, the acknowledgment of a

gentleman--

SIR JO. Acknowledgment! Sir, I am all over acknowledgment, and will not

stick to show it in the greatest extremity by night or by day, in

sickness or in health, winter or summer; all seasons and occasions shall

testify the reality and gratitude of your superabundant humble servant,

Sir Joseph Wittoll, knight. Hem! hem!

SHARP. Sir Joseph Wittoll?

SIR JO. The same, sir, of Wittoll Hall in _Comitatu_ Bucks.

SHARP. Is it possible! Then I am happy to have obliged the mirror of

knighthood and pink of courtesie in the age. Let me embrace you.

SIR JO. O Lord, sir!

SHARP. My loss I esteem as a trifle repaid with interest, since it has

purchased me the friendship and acquaintance of the person in the world

whose character I admire.

SIR JO. You are only pleased to say so, sir. But, pray, if I may be so

bold, what is that loss you mention?

SHARP. Oh, term it no longer so, sir. In the scuffle last night I only

dropt a bill of a hundred pound, which, I confess, I came half despairing

to recover; but, thanks to my better fortune--

SIR JO. You have found it, sir, then, it seems; I profess I'm heartily

glad--

SHARP. Sir, your humble servant. I don't question but you are, that you

have so cheap an opportunity of expressing your gratitude and generosity,

since the paying so trivial a sum will wholly acquit you and doubly

engage me.

SIR JO. What a dickens does he mean by a trivial sum? [_Aside_.] But

ha'n't you found it, sir!

SHARP. No otherwise, I vow to Gad, but in my hopes in you, sir.

SIR JO. Humh.

SHARP. But that's sufficient. 'Twere injustice to doubt the honour of

Sir Joseph Wittoll.

SIR JO. O Lord, sir.

SHARP. You are above, I'm sure, a thought so low, to suffer me to lose

what was ventured in your service; nay, 'twas in a manner paid down for

your deliverance; 'twas so much lent you. And you scorn, I'll say that

for you--

SIR JO. Nay, I'll say that for myself, with your leave, sir, I do scorn

a dirty thing. But, agad, I'm a little out of pocket at present.

SHARP. Pshaw, you can't want a hundred pound. Your word is sufficient

anywhere. 'Tis but borrowing so much dirt. You have large acres, and

can soon repay it. Money is but dirt, Sir Joseph--mere dirt.

SIR JO. But, I profess, 'tis a dirt I have washed my hands of at

present; I have laid it all out upon my Back.

SHARP. Are you so extravagant in clothes, Sir Joseph?

SIR JO. Ha, ha, ha, a very good jest, I profess, ha, ha, ha, a very good

jest, and I did not know that I had said it, and that's a better jest

than t'other. 'Tis a sign you and I ha'n't been long acquainted; you

have lost a good jest for want of knowing me--I only mean a friend of

mine whom I call my Back; he sticks as close to me, and follows me

through all dangers--he is indeed back, breast, and head-piece, as it

were, to me. Agad, he's a brave fellow. Pauh, I am quite another thing

when I am with him: I don't fear the devil (bless us) almost if he be by.

Ah! had he been with me last night--

SHARP. If he had, sir, what then? he could have done no more, nor

perhaps have suffered so much. Had he a hundred pound to lose?

[_Angrily_.]

SIR JO. O Lord, sir, by no means, but I might have saved a hundred

pound: I meant innocently, as I hope to be saved, sir (a damned hot

fellow), only, as I was saying, I let him have all my ready money to

redeem his great sword from limbo. But, sir, I have a letter of credit

to Alderman Fondlewife, as far as two hundred pound, and this afternoon

you shall see I am a person, such a one as you would wish to have met

with--

SHARP. That you are, I'll be sworn. [_Aside_.] Why, that's great and

like yourself.

SCENE II.

[_To them_] CAPTAIN BLUFFE.

SIR JO. Oh, here a' comes--Ay, my Hector of Troy, welcome, my bully, my

Back; agad, my heart has gone a pit pat for thee.

BLUFF. How now, my young knight? Not for fear, I hope; he that knows me

must be a stranger to fear.

SIR JO. Nay, agad, I hate fear ever since I had like to have died of a

fright. But--

BLUFF. But? Look you here, boy, here's your antidote, here's your

Jesuits' powder for a shaking fit. But who hast thou got with thee? is

he of mettle? [_Laying his hand upon his sword_.]

SIR JO. Ay, bully, a devilish smart fellow: 'a will fight like a cock.

BLUFF. Say you so? Then I honour him. But has he been abroad? for

every cock will fight upon his own dunghill.

SIR JO. I don't know, but I'll present you--

BLUFF. I'll recommend myself. Sir, I honour you; I understand you love

fighting, I reverence a man that loves fighting. Sir, I kiss your hilts.

SHARP. Sir, your servant, but you are misinformed, for, unless it be to

serve my particular friend, as Sir Joseph here, my country, or my

religion, or in some very justifiable cause, I'm not for it.

BLUFF. O Lord, I beg your pardon, sir, I find you are not of my palate:

you can't relish a dish of fighting without sweet sauce. Now, I think

fighting for fighting sake's sufficient cause; fighting to me's religion

and the laws.

SIR JO. Ah, well said, my Hero; was not that great, sir? by the Lord

Harry he says true; fighting is meat, drink, and cloth to him. But,

Back, this gentleman is one of the best friends I have in the world, and

saved my life last night--you know I told you.

BLUFF. Ay! Then I honour him again. Sir, may I crave your name?

SHARP. Ay, sir, my name's Sharper.

SIR JO. Pray, Mr. Sharper, embrace my Back. Very well. By the Lord

Harry, Mr. Sharper, he's as brave a fellow as Cannibal, are not you,

Bully-Back?

SHARP. Hannibal, I believe you mean, Sir Joseph.

BLUFF. Undoubtedly he did, sir; faith, Hannibal was a very pretty

fellow--but, Sir Joseph, comparisons are odious--Hannibal was a very

pretty fellow in those days, it must be granted--but alas, sir! were he

alive now, he would be nothing, nothing in the earth.

SHARP. How, sir! I make a doubt if there be at this day a greater

general breathing.

BLUFF. Oh, excuse me, sir! Have you served abroad, sir?

SHARP. Not I, really, sir.

BLUFF. Oh, I thought so. Why, then, you can know nothing, sir: I am

afraid you scarce know the history of the late war in Flanders, with all

its particulars.

SHARP. Not I, sir, no more than public letters or gazettes tell us.

BLUFF. Gazette! Why there again now. Why, sir, there are not three

words of truth the year round put into the Gazette. I'll tell you a

strange thing now as to that. You must know, sir, I was resident in

Flanders the last campaign, had a small post there, but no matter for

that. Perhaps, sir, there was scarce anything of moment done but an

humble servant of yours, that shall be nameless, was an eye-witness of. I

won't say had the greatest share in't, though I might say that too, since

I name nobody you know. Well, Mr. Sharper, would you think it? In all

this time, as I hope for a truncheon, this rascally gazette-writer never

so much as once mentioned me--not once, by the wars--took no more notice

than as if Nol. Bluffe had not been in the land of the living.

SHARP. Strange!

SIR JO. Yet, by the Lord Harry, 'tis true, Mr. Sharper, for I went every

day to coffee-houses to read the gazette myself.

BLUFF. Ay, ay, no matter. You see, Mr. Sharper, after all I am content

to retire; live a private person. Scipio and others have done it.

SHARP. Impudent rogue. [_Aside_.]

SIR JO. Ay, this damned modesty of yours. Agad, if he would put in

for't he might be made general himself yet.

BLUFF. Oh, fie! no, Sir Joseph; you know I hate this.

SIR JO. Let me but tell Mr. Sharper a little, how you ate fire once out

of the mouth of a cannon. Agad, he did; those impenetrable whiskers of

his have confronted flames--

BLUFF. Death, what do you mean, Sir Joseph?

SIR JO. Look you now. I tell you he's so modest he'll own nothing.

BLUFF. Pish, you have put me out, I have forgot what I was about. Pray

hold your tongue, and give me leave. [_Angrily_.]

SIR JO. I am dumb.

BLUFF. This sword I think I was telling you of, Mr. Sharper. This sword

I'll maintain to be the best divine, anatomist, lawyer, or casuist in

Europe; it shall decide a controversy or split a cause--

SIR JO. Nay, now I must speak; it will split a hair, by the Lord Harry,

I have seen it.

BLUFF. Zounds, sir, it's a lie; you have not seen it, nor sha'n't see

it; sir, I say you can't see; what d'ye say to that now?

SIR JO. I am blind.

BLUFF. Death, had any other man interrupted me--

SIR JO. Good Mr. Sharper, speak to him; I dare not look that way.

SHARP. Captain, Sir Joseph's penitent.

BLUFF. Oh, I am calm, sir, calm as a discharged culverin. But 'twas

indiscreet, when you know what will provoke me. Nay, come, Sir Joseph,

you know my heat's soon over.

SIR JO. Well, I am a fool sometimes, but I'm sorry.

BLUFF. Enough.

SIR JO. Come, we'll go take a glass to drown animosities. Mr. Sharper,

will you partake?

SHARP. I wait on you, sir. Nay, pray, Captain; you are Sir Joseph's

back.

SCENE III.

ARAMINTA, BELINDA, BETTY _waiting_, _in Araminta's apartment_.

BELIN. Ah! nay, dear; prithee, good, dear, sweet cousin, no more. O

Gad! I swear you'd make one sick to hear you.

ARAM. Bless me! what have I said to move you thus?

BELIN. Oh, you have raved, talked idly, and all in commendation of that

filthy, awkward, two-legged creature man. You don't know what you've

said; your fever has transported you.

ARAM. If love be the fever which you mean, kind heaven avert the cure.

Let me have oil to feed that flame, and never let it be extinct till I

myself am ashes.

BELIN. There was a whine! O Gad, I hate your horrid fancy. This love

is the devil, and, sure, to be in love is to be possessed. 'Tis in the

head, the heart, the blood, the--all over. O Gad, you are quite spoiled.

I shall loathe the sight of mankind for your sake.

ARAM. Fie! this is gross affectation. A little of Bellmour's company

would change the scene.

BELIN. Filthy fellow! I wonder, cousin--

ARAM. I wonder, cousin, you should imagine I don't perceive you love

him.

BELIN. Oh, I love your hideous fancy! Ha, ha, ha, love a man!

ARAM. Love a man! yes, you would not love a beast.

BELIN. Of all beasts not an ass--which is so like your Vainlove. Lard,

I have seen an ass look so chagrin, ha, ha, ha (you must pardon me, I

can't help laughing), that an absolute lover would have concluded the

poor creature to have had darts, and flames, and altars, and all that in

his breast. Araminta, come, I'll talk seriously to you now; could you

but see with my eyes the buffoonery of one scene of address, a lover, set

out with all his equipage and appurtenances; O Gad I sure you would--But

you play the game, and consequently can't see the miscarriages obvious to

every stander by.

ARAM. Yes, yes; I can see something near it when you and Bellmour meet.

You don't know that you dreamt of Bellmour last night, and called him

aloud in your sleep.

BELIN. Pish, I can't help dreaming of the devil sometimes; would you

from thence infer I love him?

ARAM. But that's not all; you caught me in your arms when you named him,

and pressed me to your bosom. Sure, if I had not pinched you until you

waked, you had stifled me with kisses.

BELIN. O barbarous aspersion!

ARAM. No aspersion, cousin, we are alone. Nay, I can tell you more.

BELIN. I deny it all.

ARAM. What, before you hear it?

BELIN. My denial is premeditated like your malice. Lard, cousin, you

talk oddly. Whatever the matter is, O my Sol, I'm afraid you'll follow

evil courses.

ARAM. Ha, ha, ha, this is pleasant.

BELIN. You may laugh, but--

ARAM. Ha, ha, ha!

BELIN. You think the malicious grin becomes you. The devil take

Bellmour. Why do you tell me of him?

ARAM. Oh, is it come out? Now you are angry, I am sure you love him. I

tell nobody else, cousin. I have not betrayed you yet.

BELIN. Prithee tell it all the world; it's false.

ARAM. Come, then, kiss and friends.

BELIN. Pish.

ARAM. Prithee don't be so peevish.

BELIN. Prithee don't be so impertinent. Betty!

ARAM. Ha, ha, ha!

BETTY. Did your ladyship call, madam?

BELIN. Get my hoods and tippet, and bid the footman call a chair.

ARAM. I hope you are not going out in dudgeon, cousin.

SCENE IV.

[_To them_] FOOTMAN.

FOOT. Madam, there are--

BELIN. Is there a chair?

FOOT. No, madam, there are Mr. Bellmour and Mr. Vainlove to wait upon

your ladyship.

ARAM. Are they below?

FOOT. No, madam, they sent before, to know if you were at home.

BELIN. The visit's to you, cousin; I suppose I am at my liberty.

ARAM. Be ready to show 'em up.

SCENE V.

[_To them_] BETTY, _with Hoods and Looking-glass_.

I can't tell, cousin; I believe we are equally concerned. But if you

continue your humour, it won't be very entertaining. (I know she'd fain

be persuaded to stay.) [_Aside_.]

BELIN. I shall oblige you, in leaving you to the full and free enjoyment

of that conversation you admire.

BELIN. Let me see; hold the glass. Lard, I look wretchedly to-day!

ARAM. Betty, why don't you help my cousin? [_Putting on her hoods_.]

BELIN. Hold off your fists, and see that he gets a chair with a high

roof, or a very low seat. Stay, come back here, you Mrs. Fidget--you are

so ready to go to the footman. Here, take 'em all again, my mind's

changed; I won't go.

SCENE VI.

ARAMINTA, BELINDA.

ARAM. So, this I expected. You won't oblige me, then, cousin, and let

me have all the company to myself?

BELIN. No; upon deliberation, I have too much charity to trust you to

yourself. The devil watches all opportunities; and in this favourable

disposition of your mind, heaven knows how far you may be tempted: I am

tender of your reputation.

ARAM. I am obliged to you. But who's malicious now, Belinda?

BELIN. Not I; witness my heart, I stay out of pure affection.

ARAM. In my conscience I believe you.

SCENE VII.

[_To them_] VAINLOVE, BELLMOUR, FOOTMAN.

BELL. So, fortune be praised! To find you both within, ladies, is--

ARAM. No miracle, I hope.

BELL. Not o' your side, madam, I confess. But my tyrant there and I,

are two buckets that can never come together.

BELIN. Nor are ever like. Yet we often meet and clash.

BELL. How never like! marry, Hymen forbid. But this it is to run so

extravagantly in debt; I have laid out such a world of love in your

service, that you think you can never be able to pay me all. So shun me

for the same reason that you would a dun.

BELIN. Ay, on my conscience, and the most impertinent and troublesome of

duns--a dun for money will be quiet, when he sees his debtor has not

wherewithal. But a dun for love is an eternal torment that never rests--

BELL. Until he has created love where there was none, and then gets it

for his pains. For importunity in love, like importunity at Court, first

creates its own interest and then pursues it for the favour.

ARAM. Favours that are got by impudence and importunity, are like

discoveries from the rack, when the afflicted person, for his ease,

sometimes confesses secrets his heart knows nothing of.

VAIN. I should rather think favours, so gained, to be due rewards to

indefatigable devotion. For as love is a deity, he must be served by

prayer.

BELIN. O Gad, would you would all pray to love, then, and let us alone.

VAIN. You are the temples of love, and 'tis through you, our devotion

must be conveyed.

ARAM. Rather poor silly idols of your own making, which upon the least

displeasure you forsake and set up new. Every man now changes his

mistress and his religion as his humour varies, or his interest.

VAIN. O madam--

ARAM. Nay, come, I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great

danger of being dull. If my music-master be not gone, I'll entertain you

with a new song, which comes pretty near my own opinion of love and your

sex. Who's there? Is Mr. Gavot gone? [_Calls_.]

FOOT. Only to the next door, madam. I'll call him.

SCENE VIII.

ARAMINTA, BELINDA, VAINLOVE, _and_ BELLMOUR.

BELL. Why, you won't hear me with patience.

ARAM. What's the matter, cousin?

BELL. Nothing, madam, only--

BELIN. Prithee hold thy tongue. Lard, he has so pestered me with flames

and stuff, I think I sha'n't endure the sight of a fire this twelvemonth.

BELL. Yet all can't melt that cruel frozen heart.

BELIN. O Gad, I hate your hideous fancy--you said that once before--if

you must talk impertinently, for Heaven's sake let it be with variety;

don't come always, like the devil, wrapt in flames. I'll not hear a

sentence more, that begins with an 'I burn'--or an 'I beseech you,

madam.'

BELL. But tell me how you would be adored. I am very tractable.

BELIN. Then know, I would be adored in silence.

BELL. Humph, I thought so, that you might have all the talk to yourself.

You had better let me speak; for if my thoughts fly to any pitch, I shall

make villainous signs.

BELIN. What will you get by that; to make such signs as I won't

understand?

BELL. Ay, but if I'm tongue-tied, I must have all my actions free

to--quicken your apprehension--and I--gad let me tell you, my most

prevailing argument is expressed in dumb show.

SCENE IX.

[_To them_] MUSIC-MASTER.

ARAM. Oh, I am glad we shall have a song to divert the discourse. Pray

oblige us with the last new song.

SONG.

I.

Thus to a ripe, consenting maid,

Poor, old, repenting Delia said,

Would you long preserve your lover?

Would you still his goddess reign?

Never let him all discover,

Never let him much obtain.

II.

Men will admire, adore and die,

While wishing at your feet they lie:

But admitting their embraces,

Wakes 'em from the golden dream;

Nothing's new besides our faces,

Every woman is the same.

ARAM. So, how de'e like the song, gentlemen?

BELL. Oh, very well performed; but I don't much admire the words.

ARAM. I expected it; there's too much truth in 'em. If Mr. Gavot will

walk with us in the garden, we'll have it once again; you may like it

better at second hearing. You'll bring my cousin.

BELL. Faith, madam, I dare not speak to her, but I'll make signs.

[_Addresses Belinda in dumb show_.]

BELIN. Oh, foh, your dumb rhetoric is more ridiculous than your talking

impertinence, as an ape is a much more troublesome animal than a parrot.

ARAM. Ay, cousin, and 'tis a sign the creatures mimic nature well; for

there are few men but do more silly things than they say.

BELL. Well, I find my apishness has paid the ransom for my speech, and

set it at liberty--though, I confess, I could be well enough pleased to

drive on a love-bargain in that silent manner--'twould save a man a world

of lying and swearing at the year's end. Besides, I have had a little

experience, that brings to mind--

When wit and reason both have failed to move;

Kind looks and actions (from success) do prove,

Ev'n silence may be eloquent in love.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

SCENE: _The Street_.

SILVIA _and_ LUCY.

SILV. Will he not come, then?

LUCY. Yes, yes; come, I warrant him, if you will go in and be ready to

receive him.

SILV. Why did you not tell me? Whom mean you?

LUCY. Whom you should mean, Heartwell.

SILV. Senseless creature, I meant my Vainlove.

LUCY. You may as soon hope to recover your own maiden-head as his love.

Therefore, e'en set your heart at rest, and in the name of opportunity

mind your own business. Strike Heartwell home before the bait's worn off

the hook. Age will come. He nibbled fairly yesterday, and no doubt will

be eager enough to-day to swallow the temptation.

SILV. Well, since there's no remedy--yet tell me--for I would know,

though to the anguish of my soul, how did he refuse? Tell me, how did he

receive my letter--in anger or in scorn?

LUCY. Neither; but what was ten times worse, with damned senseless

indifference. By this light I could have spit in his face. Receive it!

Why, he received it as I would one of your lovers that should come empty-

handed; as a court lord does his mercer's bill or a begging dedication--he

received it as if 't had been a letter from his wife.

SILV. What! did he not read it?

LUCY. Hummed it over, gave you his respects, and said he would take time

to peruse it--but then he was in haste.

SILV. Respects, and peruse it! He's gone, and Araminta has bewitched

him from me. Oh, how the name of rival fires my blood. I could curse

'em both; eternal jealousy attend her love, and disappointment meet his.

Oh that I could revenge the torment he has caused; methinks I feel the

woman strong within me, and vengeance kindles in the room of love.

LUCY. I have that in my head may make mischief.

SILV. How, dear Lucy?

LUCY. You know Araminta's dissembled coyness has won, and keeps him

hers--

SILV. Could we persuade him that she loves another--

LUCY. No, you're out; could we persuade him that she dotes on him,

himself. Contrive a kind letter as from her, 'twould disgust his nicety,

and take away his stomach.

SILV. Impossible; 'twill never take.

LUCY. Trouble not your head. Let me alone--I will inform myself of what

passed between 'em to-day, and about it straight. Hold, I'm mistaken, or

that's Heartwell, who stands talking at the corner--'tis he--go get you

in, madam, receive him pleasantly, dress up your face in innocence and

smiles, and dissemble the very want of dissimulation. You know what will

take him.

SILV. 'Tis as hard to counterfeit love as it is to conceal it: but I'll

do my weak endeavour, though I fear I have not art.

LUCY. Hang art, madam, and trust to nature for dissembling.

Man was by nature woman's cully made:

We never are but by ourselves betrayed.

SCENE II.

HEARTWELL, VAINLOVE _and_ BELLMOUR _following_.

BELL. Hist, hist, is not that Heartwell going to Silvia?

VAIN. He's talking to himself, I think; prithee let's try if we can hear

him.

HEART. Why, whither in the devil's name am I agoing now? Hum--let me

think--is not this Silvia's house, the cave of that enchantress, and

which consequently I ought to shun as I would infection? To enter here

is to put on the envenomed shirt, to run into the embraces of a fever,

and in some raving fit, be led to plunge myself into that more consuming

fire, a woman's arms. Ha! well recollected, I will recover my reason,

and be gone.

BELL. Now Venus forbid!

VAIN. Hush--

HEART. Well, why do you not move? Feet, do your office--not one inch;

no, fore Gad I'm caught. There stands my north, and thither my needle

points. Now could I curse myself, yet cannot repent. O thou delicious,

damned, dear, destructive woman! S'death, how the young fellows will

hoot me! I shall be the jest of the town: nay, in two days I expect to

be chronicled in ditty, and sung in woful ballad, to the tune of the

Superannuated Maiden's Comfort, or the Bachelor's Fall; and upon the

third, I shall be hanged in effigy, pasted up for the exemplary ornament

of necessary houses and cobblers' stalls. Death, I can't think on't--I'll

run into the danger to lose the apprehension.

SCENE III.

BELLMOUR, VAINLOVE.

BELL. A very certain remedy, probatum est. Ha, ha, ha, poor George,

thou art i' th' right, thou hast sold thyself to laughter; the

ill-natured town will find the jest just where thou hast lost it. Ha,

ha, how a' struggled, like an old lawyer between two fees.

VAIN. Or a young wench between pleasure and reputation.

BELL. Or as you did to-day, when half afraid you snatched a kiss from

Araminta.

VAIN. She has made a quarrel on't.

BELL. Pauh, women are only angry at such offences to have the pleasure

of forgiving them.

VAIN. And I love to have the pleasure of making my peace. I should not

esteem a pardon if too easily won.

BELL. Thou dost not know what thou wouldst be at; whether thou wouldst

have her angry or pleased. Couldst thou be content to marry Araminta?

VAIN. Could you be content to go to heaven?

BELL. Hum, not immediately, in my conscience not heartily. I'd do a

little more good in my generation first, in order to deserve it.

VAIN. Nor I to marry Araminta till I merit her.

BELL. But how the devil dost thou expect to get her if she never yield?

VAIN. That's true; but I would--

BELL. Marry her without her consent; thou 'rt a riddle beyond woman--

SCENE IV.

[_To them_] SETTER.

Trusty Setter, what tidings? How goes the project?

SETTER. As all lewd projects do, sir, where the devil prevents our

endeavours with success.

BELL. A good hearing, Setter.

VAIN. Well, I'll leave you with your engineer.

BELL. And hast thou provided necessaries?

SETTER. All, all, sir; the large sanctified hat, and the little precise

band, with a swinging long spiritual cloak, to cover carnal knavery--not

forgetting the black patch, which Tribulation Spintext wears, as I'm

informed, upon one eye, as a penal mourning for the ogling offences of

his youth; and some say, with that eye he first discovered the frailty of

his wife.

BELL. Well, in this fanatic father's habit will I confess Laetitia.

SETTER. Rather prepare her for confession, sir, by helping her to sin.

BELL. Be at your master's lodging in the evening; I shall use the robes.

SCENE V.

SETTER _alone_.

SETTER. I shall, sir. I wonder to which of these two gentlemen I do

most properly appertain: the one uses me as his attendant; the other

(being the better acquainted with my parts) employs me as a pimp; why,

that's much the more honourable employment--by all means. I follow one

as my master, the other follows me as his conductor.

SCENE VI.

[_To him_] LUCY.

LUCY. There's the hang-dog, his man--I had a power over him in the reign

of my mistress; but he is too true a _Valet de Chambre_ not to affect his

master's faults, and consequently is revolted from his allegiance.

SETTER. Undoubtedly 'tis impossible to be a pimp and not a man of parts.

That is without being politic, diligent, secret, wary, and so forth--and

to all this valiant as Hercules--that is, passively valiant and actively

obedient. Ah, Setter, what a treasure is here lost for want of being

known.

LUCY. Here's some villainy afoot; he's so thoughtful. May be I may

discover something in my mask. Worthy sir, a word with you. [_Puts on

her mask_.]

SETTER. Why, if I were known, I might come to be a great man--

LUCY. Not to interrupt your meditation--

SETTER. And I should not be the first that has procured his greatness by

pimping.

LUCY. Now poverty and the pox light upon thee for a contemplative pimp.

SETTER. Ha! what art who thus maliciously hast awakened me from my dream

of glory? Speak, thou vile disturber--

LUCY. Of thy most vile cogitations--thou poor, conceited wretch, how

wert thou valuing thyself upon thy master's employment? For he's the

head pimp to Mr. Bellmour.

SETTER. Good words, damsel, or I shall--But how dost thou know my master

or me?

LUCY. Yes; I know both master and man to be--

SETTER. To be men, perhaps; nay, faith, like enough: I often march in

the rear of my master, and enter the breaches which he has made.

LUCY. Ay, the breach of faith, which he has begun: thou traitor to thy

lawful princess.

SETTER. Why, how now! prithee who art? Lay by that worldly face and

produce your natural vizor.

LUCY. No, sirrah, I'll keep it on to abuse thee and leave thee without

hopes of revenge.

SETTER. Oh! I begin to smoke ye: thou art some forsaken Abigail we have

dallied with heretofore--and art come to tickle thy imagination with

remembrance of iniquity past.

LUCY. No thou pitiful flatterer of thy master's imperfections; thou

maukin made up of the shreds and parings of his superfluous fopperies.

SETTER. Thou art thy mistress's foul self, composed of her sullied

iniquities and clothing.

LUCY. Hang thee, beggar's cur, thy master is but a mumper in love, lies

canting at the gate; but never dares presume to enter the house.

SETTER. Thou art the wicket to thy mistress's gate, to be opened for all

comers. In fine thou art the highroad to thy mistress.

LUCY. Beast, filthy toad, I can hold no longer, look and tremble.

[_Unmasks_.]

SETTER. How, Mrs. Lucy!

LUCY. I wonder thou hast the impudence to look me in the face.

SETTER. Adsbud, who's in fault, mistress of mine? who flung the first

stone? who undervalued my function? and who the devil could know you by

instinct?

LUCY. You could know my office by instinct, and be hanged, which you

have slandered most abominably. It vexes me not what you said of my

person; but that my innocent calling should be exposed and scandalised--I

cannot bear it.

SETTER. Nay, faith, Lucy, I'm sorry, I'll own myself to blame, though we

were both in fault as to our offices--come, I'll make you any reparation.

LUCY. Swear.

SETTER. I do swear to the utmost of my power.

LUCY. To be brief, then; what is the reason your master did not appear

to-day according to the summons I brought him?

SETTER. To answer you as briefly--he has a cause to be tried in another

court.

LUCY. Come, tell me in plain terms, how forward he is with Araminta.

SETTER. Too forward to be turned back--though he's a little in disgrace

at present about a kiss which he forced. You and I can kiss, Lucy,

without all that.

LUCY. Stand off--he's a precious jewel.

SETTER. And therefore you'd have him to set in your lady's locket.

LUCY. Where is he now?

SETTER. He'll be in the Piazza presently.

LUCY. Remember to-day's behaviour. Let me see you with a penitent face.

SETTER. What, no token of amity, Lucy? You and I don't use to part with

dry lips.

LUCY. No, no, avaunt--I'll not be slabbered and kissed now--I'm not i'

th' humour.

SETTER. I'll not quit you so. I'll follow and put you into the humour.

SCENE VII.

SIR JOSEPH WITTOLL, BLUFFE.

BLUFF. And so, out of your unwonted generosity--

SIR JO. And good-nature, Back; I am good-natured and I can't help it.

BLUFF. You have given him a note upon Fondlewife for a hundred pound.

SIR JO. Ay, ay, poor fellow; he ventured fair for't.

BLUFF. You have disobliged me in it--for I have occasion for the money,

and if you would look me in the face again and live, go, and force him to

redeliver you the note. Go, and bring it me hither. I'll stay here for

you.

SIR JO. You may stay until the day of judgment, then, by the Lord Harry.

I know better things than to be run through the guts for a hundred

pounds. Why, I gave that hundred pound for being saved, and de'e think,

an there were no danger, I'll be so ungrateful to take it from the

gentleman again?

BLUFF. Well, go to him from me--tell him, I say, he must refund--or

Bilbo's the world, and slaughter will ensue. If he refuse, tell him--but

whisper that--tell him--I'll pink his soul. But whisper that softly to

him.

SIR JO. So softly that he shall never hear on't, I warrant you. Why,

what a devil's the matter, Bully; are you mad? or de'e think I'm mad?

Agad, for my part, I don't love to be the messenger of ill news; 'tis an

ungrateful office--so tell him yourself.

BLUFF. By these hilts I believe he frightened you into this composition:

I believe you gave it him out of fear, pure, paltry fear--confess.

SIR JO. No, no, hang't; I was not afraid neither--though I confess he

did in a manner snap me up--yet I can't say that it was altogether out of

fear, but partly to prevent mischief--for he was a devilish choleric

fellow. And if my choler had been up too, agad, there would have been

mischief done, that's flat. And yet I believe if you had been by, I

would as soon have let him a' had a hundred of my teeth. Adsheart, if he

should come just now when I'm angry, I'd tell him--Mum.

SCENE VIII.

[_To them_] BELLMOUR, SHARPER.

BELL. Thou 'rt a lucky rogue; there's your benefactor; you ought to

return him thanks now you have received the favour.

SHARP. Sir Joseph! Your note was accepted, and the money paid at sight.

I'm come to return my thanks--

SIR JO. They won't be accepted so readily as the bill, sir.

BELL. I doubt the knight repents, Tom. He looks like the knight of the

sorrowful face.

SHARP. This is a double generosity: do me a kindness and refuse my

thanks. But I hope you are not offended that I offered them.

SIR JO. May be I am, sir, may be I am not, sir, may be I am both, sir;

what then? I hope I may be offended without any offence to you, sir.

SHARP. Hey day! Captain, what's the matter? You can tell.

BLUFF. Mr. Sharper, the matter is plain: Sir Joseph has found out your

trick, and does not care to be put upon, being a man of honour.

SHARP. Trick, sir?

SIR JO. Ay, trick, sir, and won't be put upon, sir, being a man of

honour, sir, and so, sir--

SHARP. Harkee, Sir Joseph, a word with ye. In consideration of some

favours lately received, I would not have you draw yourself into a

_premunire_, by trusting to that sign of a man there--that pot-gun

charged with wind.

SIR JO. O Lord, O Lord, Captain, come justify yourself--I'll give him

the lie if you'll stand to it.

SHARP. Nay, then, I'll be beforehand with you, take that, oaf. [_Cuffs

him_.]

SIR JO. Captain, will you see this? Won't you pink his soul?

BLUFF. Husht, 'tis not so convenient now--I shall find a time.

SHARP. What do you mutter about a time, rascal? You were the

incendiary. There's to put you in mind of your time.--A memorandum.

[_Kicks him_.]

BLUFF. Oh, this is your time, sir; you had best make use on't.

SHARP. I--Gad and so I will: there's again for you. [_Kicks him_.]

BLUFF. You are obliging, sir, but this is too public a place to thank

you in. But in your ear, you are to be seen again?

SHARP. Ay, thou inimitable coward, and to be felt--as for example.

[_Kicks him_.]

BELL. Ha, ha, ha, prithee come away; 'tis scandalous to kick this puppy

unless a man were cold and had no other way to get himself aheat.

SCENE IX.

SIR JOSEPH, BLUFFE.

BLUFF. Very well--very fine--but 'tis no matter. Is not this fine, Sir

Joseph?

SIR JO. Indifferent, agad, in my opinion, very indifferent. I'd rather

go plain all my life than wear such finery.

BLUFF. Death and hell to be affronted thus! I'll die before I'll suffer

it. [_Draws_.]

SIR JO. O Lord, his anger was not raised before. Nay, dear Captain,

don't be in passion now he's gone. Put up, put up, dear Back, 'tis your

Sir Joseph begs, come let me kiss thee; so, so, put up, put up.

BLUFF. By heaven, 'tis not to be put up.

SIR JO. What, Bully?

BLUFF. The affront.

SIR JO. No, aged, no more 'tis, for that's put up all already; thy

sword, I mean.

BLUFF. Well, Sir Joseph, at your entreaty--But were not you, my friend,

abused, and cuffed, and kicked? [_Putting up his sword_.]

SIR JO. Ay, ay, so were you too; no matter, 'tis past.

BLUFF. By the immortal thunder of great guns, 'tis false--he sucks not

vital air who dares affirm it to this face. [_Looks big_.]

SIR JO. To that face I grant you, Captain. No, no, I grant you--not to

that face, by the Lord Harry. If you had put on your fighting face

before, you had done his business--he durst as soon have kissed you, as

kicked you to your face. But a man can no more help what's done behind

his back than what's said--Come, we'll think no more of what's past.

BLUFF. I'll call a council of war within to consider of my revenge to

come.

SCENE X.

HEARTWELL, SILVIA. _Silvia's apartment_.

SONG.

As Amoret and Thyrsis lay

Melting the hours in gentle play,

Joining faces, mingling kisses,

And exchanging harmless blisses:

He trembling cried, with eager haste,

O let me feed as well as taste,

I die, if I'm not wholly blest.

[_After the song a dance of antics_.]

SILV. Indeed it is very fine. I could look upon 'em all day.

HEART. Well has this prevailed for me, and will you look upon me?

SILV. If you could sing and dance so, I should love to look upon you

too.

HEART. Why, 'twas I sung and danced; I gave music to the voice, and life

to their measures. Look you here, Silvia, [_pulling out a purse and

chinking it_] here are songs and dances, poetry and music--hark! how

sweetly one guinea rhymes to another--and how they dance to the music of

their own chink. This buys all t'other--and this thou shalt have; this,

and all that I am worth, for the purchase of thy love. Say, is it mine

then, ha? Speak, Syren--Oons, why do I look on her! Yet I must. Speak,

dear angel, devil, saint, witch; do not rack me with suspense.

SILV. Nay, don't stare at me so. You make me blush--I cannot look.

HEART. O manhood, where art thou? What am I come to? A woman's toy, at

these years! Death, a bearded baby for a girl to dandle. O dotage,

dotage! That ever that noble passion, lust, should ebb to this degree.

No reflux of vigorous blood: but milky love supplies the empty channels;

and prompts me to the softness of a child--a mere infant and would suck.

Can you love me, Silvia? Speak.

SILV. I dare not speak until I believe you, and indeed I'm afraid to

believe you yet.

HEART. Death, how her innocence torments and pleases me! Lying, child,

is indeed the art of love, and men are generally masters in it: but I'm

so newly entered, you cannot distrust me of any skill in the treacherous

mystery. Now, by my soul, I cannot lie, though it were to serve a friend

or gain a mistress.

SILV. Must you lie, then, if you say you love me?

HEART. No, no, dear ignorance, thou beauteous changeling--I tell thee I

do love thee, and tell it for a truth, a naked truth, which I'm ashamed

to discover.

SILV. But love, they say, is a tender thing, that will smooth frowns,

and make calm an angry face; will soften a rugged temper, and make ill-

humoured people good. You look ready to fright one, and talk as if your

passion were not love, but anger.

HEART. 'Tis both; for I am angry with myself when I am pleased with you.

And a pox upon me for loving thee so well--yet I must on. 'Tis a bearded

arrow, and will more easily be thrust forward than drawn back.

SILV. Indeed, if I were well assured you loved; but how can I be well

assured?

HEART. Take the symptoms--and ask all the tyrants of thy sex if their

fools are not known by this party-coloured livery. I am melancholic when

thou art absent; look like an ass when thou art present; wake for thee

when I should sleep; and even dream of thee when I am awake; sigh much,

drink little, eat less, court solitude, am grown very entertaining to

myself, and (as I am informed) very troublesome to everybody else. If

this be not love, it is madness, and then it is pardonable. Nay, yet a

more certain sign than all this, I give thee my money.

SILV. Ay, but that is no sign; for they say, gentlemen will give money

to any naughty woman to come to bed to them. O Gemini, I hope you don't

mean so--for I won't be a whore.

HEART. The more is the pity. [_Aside_.]

SILV. Nay, if you would marry me, you should not come to bed to me--you

have such a beard, and would so prickle one. But do you intend to marry

me?

HEART. That a fool should ask such a malicious question! Death, I shall

be drawn in before I know where I am. However, I find I am pretty sure

of her consent, if I am put to it. [_Aside_.] Marry you? No, no, I'll

love you.

SILV. Nay, but if you love me, you must marry me. What, don't I know my

father loved my mother and was married to her?

HEART. Ay, ay, in old days people married where they loved; but that

fashion is changed, child.

SILV. Never tell me that; I know it is not changed by myself: for I love

you, and would marry you.

HEART. I'll have my beard shaved, it sha'n't hurt thee, and we'll go to

bed--

SILV. No, no, I'm not such a fool neither, but I can keep myself honest.

Here, I won't keep anything that's yours; I hate you now, [_throws the

purse_] and I'll never see you again, 'cause you'd have me be naught.

[_Going_.]

HEART. Damn her, let her go, and a good riddance. Yet so much

tenderness and beauty and honesty together is a jewel. Stay, Silvia--But

then to marry; why, every man plays the fool once in his life. But to

marry is playing the fool all one's life long.

SILV. What did you call me for?

HEART. I'll give thee all I have, and thou shalt live with me in

everything so like my wife, the world shall believe it. Nay, thou shalt

think so thyself--only let me not think so.

SILV. No, I'll die before I'll be your whore--as well as I love you.

HEART. [_Aside_.] A woman, and ignorant, may be honest, when 'tis out

of obstinacy and contradiction. But, s'death, it is but a may be, and

upon scurvy terms. Well, farewell then--if I can get out of sight I may

get the better of myself.

SILV. Well--good-bye. [_Turns and weeps_.]

HEART. Ha! Nay, come, we'll kiss at parting. [_Kisses her_.] By

heaven, her kiss is sweeter than liberty. I will marry thee. There,

thou hast done't. All my resolves melted in that kiss--one more.

SILV. But when?

HEART. I'm impatient until it be done; I will not give myself liberty to

think, lest I should cool. I will about a licence straight--in the

evening expect me. One kiss more to confirm me mad; so.

SILV. Ha, ha, ha, an old fox trapped--

SCENE XI.

[_To her_] LUCY.

Bless me! you frighted me; I thought he had been come again, and had

heard me.

LUCY. Lord, madam, I met your lover in as much haste as if he had been

going for a midwife.

SILV. He's going for a parson, girl, the forerunner of a midwife, some

nine months hence. Well, I find dissembling to our sex is as natural as

swimming to a negro; we may depend upon our skill to save us at a plunge,

though till then, we never make the experiment. But how hast thou

succeeded?

LUCY. As you would wish--since there is no reclaiming Vainlove. I have

found out a pique she has taken at him, and have framed a letter that

makes her sue for reconciliation first. I know that will do--walk in and

I'll show it you. Come, madam, you're like to have a happy time on't;

both your love and anger satisfied! All that can charm our sex conspire

to please you.

That woman sure enjoys a blessed night,

Whom love and vengeance both at once delight.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

SCENE: _The Street_.

BELLMOUR, _in fanatic habit_, SETTER.

BELL. 'Tis pretty near the hour. [_Looking on his watch_.] Well, and

how, Setter, hae, does my hypocrisy fit me, hae? Does it sit easy on me?

SET. Oh, most religiously well, sir.

BELL. I wonder why all our young fellows should glory in an opinion of

atheism, when they may be so much more conveniently lewd under the

coverlet of religion.

SET. S'bud, sir, away quickly: there's Fondlewife just turned the

corner, and 's coming this way.

BELL. Gad's so, there he is: he must not see me.

SCENE II.

FONDLEWIFE, BARNABY.

FOND. I say I will tarry at home.

BAR. But, sir.

FOND. Good lack! I profess the spirit of contradiction hath possessed

the lad--I say I will tarry at home, varlet.

BAR. I have done, sir; then farewell five hundred pound.

FOND. Ha, how's that? Stay, stay, did you leave word, say you, with his

wife? With Comfort herself?

BAR. I did; and Comfort will send Tribulation hither as soon as ever he

comes home. I could have brought young Mr. Prig to have kept my mistress

company in the meantime. But you say--

FOND. How, how, say, varlet! I say let him not come near my doors. I

say, he is a wanton young Levite, and pampereth himself up with dainties,

that he may look lovely in the eyes of women. Sincerely, I am afraid he

hath already defiled the tabernacle of our sister Comfort; while her good

husband is deluded by his godly appearance. I say that even lust doth

sparkle in his eyes and glow upon his cheeks, and that I would as soon

trust my wife with a lord's high-fed chaplain.

BAR. Sir, the hour draws nigh, and nothing will be done here until you

come.

FOND. And nothing can be done here until I go; so that I'll tarry, de'e

see.

BAR. And run the hazard to lose your affair, sir!

FOND. Good lack, good lack--I profess it is a very sufficient vexation

for a man to have a handsome wife.

BAR. Never, sir, but when the man is an insufficient husband. 'Tis

then, indeed, like the vanity of taking a fine house, and yet be forced

to let lodgings to help pay the rent.

FOND. I profess a very apt comparison, varlet. Go and bid my Cocky come

out to me; I will give her some instructions, I will reason with her

before I go.

SCENE III.

FONDLEWIFE _alone_.

And in the meantime I will reason with myself. Tell me, Isaac, why art

thee jealous? Why art thee distrustful of the wife of thy bosom? Because

she is young and vigorous, and I am old and impotent. Then why didst

thee marry, Isaac? Because she was beautiful and tempting, and because I

was obstinate and doting; so that my inclination was (and is still)

greater than my power. And will not that which tempted thee, also tempt

others, who will tempt her, Isaac? I fear it much. But does not thy

wife love thee, nay, dote upon thee? Yes. Why then! Ay, but to say

truth, she's fonder of me than she has reason to be; and in the way of

trade, we still suspect the smoothest dealers of the deepest designs. And

that she has some designs deeper than thou canst reach, thou hast

experimented, Isaac. But, mum.

SCENE IV.

FONDLEWIFE, LAETITIA.

LAET. I hope my dearest jewel is not going to leave me--are you, Nykin?

FOND. Wife--have you thoroughly considered how detestable, how heinous,

and how crying a sin the sin of adultery is? Have you weighed it, I say?

For it is a very weighty sin; and although it may lie heavy upon thee,

yet thy husband must also bear his part. For thy iniquity will fall upon

his head.

LAET. Bless me, what means my dear?

FOND. [_Aside_.] I profess she has an alluring eye; I am doubtful

whether I shall trust her, even with Tribulation himself. Speak, I say,

have you considered what it is to cuckold your husband?

LAET. [_Aside_.] I'm amazed. Sure he has discovered nothing. Who has

wronged me to my dearest? I hope my jewel does not think that ever I had

any such thing in my head, or ever will have.

FOND. No, no, I tell you I shall have it in my head--

LAET. [_Aside_.] I know not what to think. But I'm resolved to find

the meaning of it. Unkind dear! Was it for this you sent to call me? Is

it not affliction enough that you are to leave me, but you must study to

increase it by unjust suspicions? [_Crying_.] Well--well--you know my

fondness, and you love to tyrannise--Go on, cruel man, do: triumph over

my poor heart while it holds, which cannot be long, with this usage of

yours. But that's what you want. Well, you will have your ends soon.

You will--you will. Yes, it will break to oblige you. [_Sighs_.]

FOND. Verily, I fear I have carried the jest too far. Nay, look you now

if she does not weep--'tis the fondest fool. Nay, Cocky, Cocky, nay,

dear Cocky, don't cry, I was but in jest, I was not, ifeck.

LAET. [_Aside_.] Oh then, all's safe. I was terribly frighted. My

affliction is always your jest, barbarous man! Oh, that I should love to

this degree! Yet--

FOND. Nay, Cocky.

LAET. No, no, you are weary of me, that's it--that's all, you would get

another wife--another fond fool, to break her heart--Well, be as cruel as

you can to me, I'll pray for you; and when I am dead with grief, may you

have one that will love you as well as I have done: I shall be contented

to lie at peace in my cold grave--since it will please you. [_Sighs_.]

FOND. Good lack, good lack, she would melt a heart of oak--I profess I

can hold no longer. Nay, dear Cocky--ifeck, you'll break my heart--ifeck

you will. See, you have made me weep--made poor Nykin weep. Nay, come

kiss, buss poor Nykin--and I won't leave thee--I'll lose all first.

LAET. [_Aside_.] How! Heaven forbid! that will be carrying the jest

too far indeed.

FOND. Won't you kiss Nykin?

LAET. Go, naughty Nykin, you don't love me.

FOND. Kiss, kiss, ifeck, I do.

LAET. No, you don't. [_She kisses him_.]

FOND. What, not love Cocky!

LAET. No-h. [_Sighs_.]

FOND. I profess I do love thee better than five hundred pound--and so

thou shalt say, for I'll leave it to stay with thee.

LAET. No you sha'n't neglect your business for me. No, indeed, you

sha'n't, Nykin. If you don't go, I'll think you been dealous of me

still.

FOND. He, he, he, wilt thou, poor fool? Then I will go, I won't be

dealous. Poor Cocky, kiss Nykin, kiss Nykin, ee, ee, ee. Here will be

the good man anon, to talk to Cocky and teach her how a wife ought to

behave herself.

LAET. [_Aside_.] I hope to have one that will show me how a husband

ought to behave himself. I shall be glad to learn, to please my jewel.

[_Kiss_.]

FOND. That's my good dear. Come, kiss Nykin once more, and then get you

in. So--get you in, get you in. Bye, bye.

LAET. Bye, Nykin.

FOND. Bye, Cocky.

LAET. Bye, Nykin.

FOND. Bye, Cocky, bye, bye.

SCENE V.

VAINLOVE, SHARPER.

SHARP. How! Araminta lost!

VAIN. To confirm what I have said, read this. [_Gives a letter_.]

SHARP. [_Reads_.] Hum, hum! And what then appeared a fault, upon

reflection seems only an effect of a too powerful passion. I'm afraid I

give too great a proof of my own at this time. I am in disorder for what

I have written. But something, I know not what, forced me. I only beg a

favourable censure of this and your ARAMINTA.

SHARP. Lost! Pray heaven thou hast not lost thy wits. Here, here,

she's thy own, man, signed and sealed too. To her, man--a delicious

melon, pure and consenting ripe, and only waits thy cutting up: she has

been breeding love to thee all this while, and just now she's delivered

of it.

VAIN. 'Tis an untimely fruit, and she has miscarried of her love.

SHARP. Never leave this damned ill-natured whimsey, Frank? Thou hast a

sickly, peevish appetite; only chew love and cannot digest it.

VAIN. Yes, when I feed myself. But I hate to be crammed. By heaven,

there's not a woman will give a man the pleasure of a chase: my sport is

always balked or cut short. I stumble over the game I would pursue. 'Tis

dull and unnatural to have a hare run full in the hounds' mouth, and

would distaste the keenest hunter. I would have overtaken, not have met,

my game.

SHARP. However, I hope you don't mean to forsake it; that will be but a

kind of mongrel cur's trick. Well, are you for the Mall?

VAIN. No; she will be there this evening. Yes, I will go too, and she

shall see her error in--

SHARP. In her choice, I-gad. But thou canst not be so great a brute as

to slight her.

VAIN. I should disappoint her if I did not. By her management I should

think she expects it.

All naturally fly what does pursue:

'Tis fit men should be coy when women woo.

SCENE VI.

_A Room in Fondlewife's House_.

A SERVANT _introducing_ BELLMOUR, _in fanatic habit_, _with a patch upon

one eye and a book in his hand_.

SERV. Here's a chair, sir, if you please to repose yourself. My

mistress is coming, sir.

BELL. Secure in my disguise I have out-faced suspicion and even dared

discovery. This cloak my sanctity, and trusty Scarron's novels my prayer-

book; methinks I am the very picture of Montufar in the Hypocrites. Oh!

she comes.

SCENE VII.

BELLMOUR, LAETITIA.

So breaks Aurora through the veil of night,

Thus fly the clouds, divided by her light,

And every eye receives a new-born sight.

[_Throwing off his cloak_, _patch_, _etc._]

LAET. Thus strewed with blushes, like--Ah! Heaven defend me! Who's

this? [_Discovering him_, _starts_.]

BELL. Your lover.

LAET. Vainlove's friend! I know his face, and he has betrayed me to

him. [_Aside_.]

BELL. You are surprised. Did you not expect a lover, madam? Those eyes

shone kindly on my first appearance, though now they are o'ercast.

LAET. I may well be surprised at your person and impudence: they are

both new to me. You are not what your first appearance promised: the

piety of your habit was welcome, but not the hypocrisy.

BELL. Rather the hypocrisy was welcome, but not the hypocrite.

LAET. Who are you, sir? You have mistaken the house sure.

BELL. I have directions in my pocket which agree with everything but

your unkindness. [_Pulls out the letter_.]

LAET. My letter! Base Vainlove! Then 'tis too late to dissemble.

[_Aside_.] 'Tis plain, then, you have mistaken the person. [_Going_.]

BELL. If we part so I'm mistaken. Hold, hold, madam! I confess I have

run into an error. I beg your pardon a thousand times. What an eternal

blockhead am I! Can you forgive me the disorder I have put you into? But

it is a mistake which anybody might have made.

LAET. What can this mean? 'Tis impossible he should be mistaken after

all this. A handsome fellow if he had not surprised me. Methinks, now I

look on him again, I would not have him mistaken. [_Aside_.] We are all

liable to mistakes, sir. If you own it to be so, there needs no farther

apology.

BELL. Nay, faith, madam, 'tis a pleasant one, and worth your hearing.

Expecting a friend last night, at his lodgings, till 'twas late, my

intimacy with him gave me the freedom of his bed. He not coming home all

night, a letter was delivered to me by a servant in the morning. Upon

the perusal I found the contents so charming that I could think of

nothing all day but putting 'em in practice, until just now, the first

time I ever looked upon the superscription, I am the most surprised in

the world to find it directed to Mr. Vainlove. Gad, madam, I ask you a

million of pardons, and will make you any satisfaction.

LAET. I am discovered. And either Vainlove is not guilty, or he has

handsomely excused him. [_Aside_.]

BELL. You appear concerned, madam.

LAET. I hope you are a gentleman;--and since you are privy to a weak

woman's failing, won't turn it to the prejudice of her reputation. You

look as if you had more honour--

BELL. And more love, or my face is a false witness and deserves to be

pilloried. No, by heaven, I swear--

LAET. Nay, don't swear if you'd have me believe you; but promise--

BELL. Well, I promise. A promise is so cold: give me leave to swear, by

those eyes, those killing eyes, by those healing lips. Oh! press the

soft charm close to mine, and seal 'em up for ever.

LAET. Upon that condition. [_He kisses her_.]

BELL. Eternity was in that moment. One more, upon any condition!

LAET. Nay, now--I never saw anything so agreeably impudent. [_Aside_.]

Won't you censure me for this, now?--but 'tis to buy your silence.

[_Kiss_.] Oh, but what am I doing!

BELL. Doing! No tongue can express it--not thy own, nor anything, but

thy lips. I am faint with the excess of bliss. Oh, for love-sake, lead

me anywhither, where I may lie down --quickly, for I'm afraid I shall

have a fit.

LAET. Bless me! What fit?

BELL. Oh, a convulsion--I feel the symptoms.

LAET. Does it hold you long? I'm afraid to carry you into my chamber.

BELL. Oh, no: let me lie down upon the bed; the fit will be soon over.

SCENE VIII.

SCENE: _St. James's Park_.

ARAMINTA _and_ BELINDA _meeting_.

BELIN. Lard, my dear, I am glad I have met you; I have been at the

Exchange since, and am so tired--

ARAM. Why, what's the matter?

BELIN. Oh the most inhuman, barbarous hackney-coach! I am jolted to a

jelly. Am I not horribly touzed? [_Pulls out a pocket-glass_.]

ARAM. Your head's a little out of order.

BELIN. A little! O frightful! What a furious phiz I have! O most

rueful! Ha, ha, ha. O Gad, I hope nobody will come this way, till I

have put myself a little in repair. Ah! my dear, I have seen such unhewn

creatures since. Ha, ha, ha. I can't for my soul help thinking that I

look just like one of 'em. Good dear, pin this, and I'll tell you--very

well--so, thank you, my dear--but as I was telling you--pish, this is the

untowardest lock--so, as I was telling you--how d'ye like me now?

Hideous, ha? Frightful still? Or how?

ARAM. No, no; you're very well as can be.

BELIN. And so--but where did I leave off, my dear? I was telling you--

ARAM. You were about to tell me something, child, but you left off

before you began.

BELIN. Oh; a most comical sight: a country squire, with the equipage of

a wife and two daughters, came to Mrs. Snipwel's shop while I was

there--but oh Gad! two such unlicked cubs!

ARAM. I warrant, plump, cherry-cheeked country girls.

BELIN. Ay, o' my conscience, fat as barn-door fowl: but so bedecked, you

would have taken 'em for Friesland hens, with their feathers growing the

wrong way. O such outlandish creatures! Such Tramontanae, and

foreigners to the fashion, or anything in practice! I had not patience

to behold. I undertook the modelling of one of their fronts, the more

modern structure--

ARAM. Bless me, cousin; why would you affront anybody so? They might be

gentlewomen of a very good family--

BELIN. Of a very ancient one, I dare swear, by their dress. Affront!

pshaw, how you're mistaken! The poor creature, I warrant, was as full of

curtsies, as if I had been her godmother. The truth on't is, I did

endeavour to make her look like a Christian--and she was sensible of it,

for she thanked me, and gave me two apples, piping hot, out of her under-

petticoat pocket. Ha, ha, ha: and t'other did so stare and gape, I

fancied her like the front of her father's hall; her eyes were the two

jut-windows, and her mouth the great door, most hospitably kept open for

the entertainment of travelling flies.

ARAM. So then, you have been diverted. What did they buy?

BELIN. Why, the father bought a powder-horn, and an almanac, and a comb-

case; the mother, a great fruz-towr, and a fat amber necklace; the

daughters only tore two pairs of kid-leather gloves, with trying 'em on.

O Gad, here comes the fool that dined at my Lady Freelove's t'other day.

SCENE IX.

[_To them_] SIR JOSEPH _and_ BLUFFE.

ARAM. May be he may not know us again.

BELIN. We'll put on our masks to secure his ignorance. [_They put on

their masks_.]

SIR JO. Nay, Gad, I'll pick up; I'm resolved to make a night on't. I'll

go to Alderman Fondlewife by and by, and get fifty pieces more from him.

Adslidikins, bully, we'll wallow in wine and women. Why, this same

Madeira wine has made me as light as a grasshopper. Hist, hist, bully,

dost thou see those tearers? [_Sings_.] Look you what here is--look you

what here is--toll--loll--dera--toll--loll--agad, t'other glass of

Madeira, and I durst have attacked 'em in my own proper person, without

your help.

BLUFF. Come on then, knight. But do you know what to say to them?

SIR JO. Say: pooh, pox, I've enough to say--never fear it--that is, if I

can but think on't: truth is, I have but a treacherous memory.

BELIN. O frightful! cousin, what shall we do? These things come towards

us.

ARAM. No matter. I see Vainlove coming this way--and, to confess my

failing, I am willing to give him an opportunity of making his peace with

me--and to rid me of these coxcombs, when I seem opprest with 'em, will

be a fair one.

BLUFF. Ladies, by these hilts you are well met.

ARAM. We are afraid not.

BLUFF. What says my pretty little knapsack carrier. [_To_ BELINDA.]

BELIN. O monstrous filthy fellow! good slovenly Captain Huffe, Bluffe

(what is your hideous name?) be gone: you stink of brandy and tobacco,

most soldier-like. Foh. [_Spits_.]

SIR JO. Now am I slap-dash down in the mouth, and have not one word to

say! [_Aside_.]

ARAM. I hope my fool has not confidence enough to be troublesome.

[_Aside_.]

SIR JO. Hem! Pray, madam, which way is the wind?

ARAM. A pithy question. Have you sent your wits for a venture, sir,

that you enquire?

SIR JO. Nay, now I'm in, I can prattle like a magpie. [_Aside_.]

SCENE X.

[_To them_] SHARPER _and_ VAINLOVE _at some distance_.

BELIN. Dear Araminta, I'm tired.

ARAM. 'Tis but pulling off our masks, and obliging Vainlove to know us.

I'll be rid of my fool by fair means.--Well, Sir Joseph, you shall see my

face; but, be gone immediately. I see one that will be jealous, to find

me in discourse with you. Be discreet. No reply; but away. [_Unmasks_.]

SIR JO. The great fortune, that dined at my Lady Freelove's! Sir

Joseph, thou art a made man. Agad, I'm in love up to the ears. But I'll

be discreet, and hushed. [_Aside_.]

BLUFF. Nay, by the world, I'll see your face.

BELIN. You shall. [_Unmasks_.]

SHARP. Ladies, your humble servant. We were afraid you would not have

given us leave to know you.

ARAM. We thought to have been private. But we find fools have the same

advantage over a face in a mask that a coward has while the sword is in

the scabbard, so were forced to draw in our own defence.

BLUFF. My blood rises at that fellow: I can't stay where he is; and I

must not draw in the park. [_To_ SIR JOSEPH.]

SIR JO. I wish I durst stay to let her know my lodging.

SCENE XI.

ARAMINTA, BELINDA, VAINLOVE, SHARPER.

SHARP. There is in true beauty, as in courage, somewhat which narrow

souls cannot dare to admire. And see, the owls are fled, as at the break

of day.

BELIN. Very courtly. I believe Mr. Vainlove has not rubbed his eyes

since break of day neither, he looks as if he durst not approach. Nay,

come, cousin, be friends with him. I swear he looks so very simply--ha,

ha, ha. Well, a lover in the state of separation from his mistress is

like a body without a soul. Mr. Vainlove, shall I be bound for your good

behaviour for the future?

VAIN. Now must I pretend ignorance equal to hers, of what she knows as

well as I. [_Aside_.] Men are apt to offend ('tis true) where they find

most goodness to forgive. But, madam, I hope I shall prove of a temper

not to abuse mercy by committing new offences.

ARAM. So cold! [_Aside_.]

BELIN. I have broke the ice for you, Mr. Vainlove, and so I leave you.

Come, Mr. Sharper, you and I will take a turn, and laugh at the

vulgar--both the great vulgar and the small. O Gad! I have a great

passion for Cowley. Don't you admire him?

SHARP. Oh, madam! he was our English Horace.

BELIN. Ah so fine! so extremely fine! So everything in the world that I

like--O Lord, walk this way--I see a couple; I'll give you their history.

SCENE XII.

ARAMINTA, VAINLOVE.

VAIN. I find, madam, the formality of the law must be observed, though

the penalty of it be dispensed with, and an offender must plead to his

arraignment, though he has his pardon in his pocket.

ARAM. I'm amazed! This insolence exceeds t'other; whoever has

encouraged you to this assurance, presuming upon the easiness of my

temper, has much deceived you, and so you shall find.

VAIN. Hey day! Which way now? Here's fine doubling. [_Aside_.]

ARAM. Base man! Was it not enough to affront me with your saucy

passion?

VAIN. You have given that passion a much kinder epithet than saucy, in

another place.

ARAM. Another place! Some villainous design to blast my honour. But

though thou hadst all the treachery and malice of thy sex, thou canst not

lay a blemish on my fame. No, I have not erred in one favourable thought

of mankind. How time might have deceived me in you, I know not; my

opinion was but young, and your early baseness has prevented its growing

to a wrong belief. Unworthy and ungrateful! be gone, and never see me

more.

VAIN. Did I dream? or do I dream? Shall I believe my eyes, or ears? The

vision is here still. Your passion, madam, will admit of no farther

reasoning; but here's a silent witness of your acquaintance. [_Takes our

the letter_, _and offers it_: _she snatches it_, _and throws it away_.]

ARAM. There's poison in everything you touch. Blisters will follow--

VAIN. That tongue, which denies what the hands have done.

ARAM. Still mystically senseless and impudent; I find I must leave the

place.

VAIN. No, madam, I'm gone. She knows her name's to it, which she will

be unwilling to expose to the censure of the first finder.

ARAM. Woman's obstinacy made me blind to what woman's curiosity now

tempts me to see. [_Takes up the letter_.]

SCENE XIII.

BELINDA, SHARPER.

BELIN. Nay, we have spared nobody, I swear. Mr. Sharper, you're a pure

man; where did you get this excellent talent of railing?

SHARP. Faith, madam, the talent was born with me:--I confess I have

taken care to improve it, to qualify me for the society of ladies.

BELIN. Nay, sure, railing is the best qualification in a woman's man.

SCENE XIV.

[_To them_] FOOTMAN.

SHARP. The second best, indeed, I think.

BELIN. How now, Pace? Where's my cousin?

FOOT. She's not very well, madam, and has sent to know if your ladyship

would have the coach come again for you?

BELIN. O Lord, no, I'll go along with her. Come, Mr. Sharper.

SCENE XV.

SCENE: _A chamber in Fondlewife's house_.

LAETITIA and BELLMOUR, his cloak, hat, etc., lying loose about the

chamber.

BELL. Here's nobody, nor no noise--'twas nothing but your fears.

LAET. I durst have sworn I had heard my monster's voice. I swear I was

heartily frightened; feel how my heart beats.

BELL. 'Tis an alarm to love--come in again, and let us--

FOND. [_Without_.] Cocky, Cocky, where are you, Cocky? I'm come home.

LAET. Ah! There he is. Make haste, gather up your things.

FOND. Cocky, Cocky, open the door.

BELL. Pox choke him, would his horns were in his throat. My patch, my

patch. [_Looking about_, _and gathering up his things_.]

LAET. My jewel, art thou there?--No matter for your patch.--You s'an't

tum in, Nykin--run into my chamber, quickly, quickly--You s'an't tum in.

FOND. Nay, prithee, dear, i'feck I'm in haste.

LAET. Then I'll let you in. [_Opens the door_.]

SCENE XVI.

LAETITIA, FONDLEWIFE, SIR JOSEPH.

FOND. Kiss, dear--I met the master of the ship by the way, and I must

have my papers of accounts out of your cabinet.

LAET. Oh, I'm undone! [_Aside_.]

SIR JO. Pray, first let me have fifty pound, good Alderman, for I'm in

haste.

FOND. A hundred has already been paid by your order. Fifty? I have the

sum ready in gold in my closet.

SCENE XVII.

LAETITIA, SIR JOSEPH.

SIR JO. Agad, it's a curious, fine, pretty rogue; I'll speak to

her.--Pray, Madam, what news d'ye hear?

LAET. Sir, I seldom stir abroad. [_Walks about in disorder_.]

SIR JO. I wonder at that, Madam, for 'tis most curious fine weather.

LAET. Methinks 't has been very ill weather.

SIR JO. As you say, madam, 'tis pretty bad weather, and has been so a

great while.

SCENE XVIII.

[_To them_] FONDLEWIFE.

FOND. Here are fifty pieces in this purse, Sir Joseph; if you will tarry

a moment, till I fetch my papers, I'll wait upon you down-stairs.

LAET. Ruined, past redemption! what shall I do--ha! this fool may be of

use. (Aside.) [_As_ FONDLEWIFE _is going into the chamber_, _she runs

to_ SIR JOSEPH, _almost pushes him down_, _and cries out_.] Stand off,

rude ruffian. Help me, my dear. O bless me! Why will you leave me

alone with such a Satyr?

FOND. Bless us! What's the matter? What's the matter?

LAET. Your back was no sooner turned, but like a lion he came open

mouthed upon me, and would have ravished a kiss from me by main force.

SIR JO. O Lord! Oh, terrible! Ha, ha, ha. Is your wife mad, Alderman?

LAET. Oh! I'm sick with the fright; won't you take him out of my sight?

FOND. O traitor! I'm astonished. O bloody-minded traitor!

SIR JO. Hey-day! Traitor yourself. By the Lord Harry, I was in most

danger of being ravished, if you go to that.

FOND. Oh, how the blasphemous wretch swears! Out of my house, thou son

of the whore of Babylon; offspring of Bel and the Dragon.--Bless us!

ravish my wife! my Dinah! Oh, Shechemite! Begone, I say.

SIR JO. Why, the devil's in the people, I think.

SCENE XIX.

LAETITIA, FONDLEWIFE.

LAET. Oh! won't you follow, and see him out of doors, my dear?

FOND. I'll shut this door to secure him from coming back--Give me the

key of your cabinet, Cocky. Ravish my wife before my face? I warrant

he's a Papist in his heart at least, if not a Frenchman.

LAET. What can I do now! (Aside.) Oh! my dear, I have been in such a

fright, that I forgot to tell you, poor Mr. Spintext has a sad fit of the

colic, and is forced to lie down upon our bed--you'll disturb him; I can

tread softlier.

FOND. Alack, poor man--no, no--you don't know the papers--I won't

disturb him; give me the key. [_She gives him the key_, _goes to the

chamber door and speaks aloud_.]

LAET. 'Tis nobody but Mr. Fondlewife, Mr. Spintext, lie still on your

stomach; lying on your stomach will ease you of the colic.

FOND. Ay, ay, lie still, lie still; don't let me disturb you.

SCENE XX.

LAETITIA _alone_.

LAET. Sure, when he does not see his face, he won't discover him. Dear

fortune, help me but this once, and I'll never run in thy debt again. But

this opportunity is the Devil.

SCENE XXI.

FONDLEWIFE _returns with Papers_.

FOND. Good lack! good lack! I profess the poor man is in great torment;

he lies as flat--Dear, you should heat a trencher, or a napkin.--Where's

Deborah? Let her clap some warm thing to his stomach, or chafe it with a

warm hand rather than fail. What book's this? [_Sees the book that_

BELLMOUR _forgot_.]

LAET. Mr. Spintext's prayer-book, dear. Pray Heaven it be a

prayer-book. [_Aside_.]

FOND. Good man! I warrant he dropped it on purpose that you might take

it up and read some of the pious ejaculations. [_Taking up the book_.] O

bless me! O monstrous! A prayer-book? Ay, this is the devil's

paternoster. Hold, let me see: The Innocent Adultery.

LAET. Misfortune! now all's ruined again. [_Aside_.]

BELL. [_Peeping_]. Damned chance! If I had gone a-whoring with the

Practice of Piety in my pocket I had never been discovered.

FOND. Adultery, and innocent! O Lord! Here's doctrine! Ay, here's

discipline!

LAET. Dear husband, I'm amazed. Sure it is a good book, and only tends

to the speculation of sin.

FOND. Speculation! No no; something went farther than speculation when

I was not to be let in.--Where is this apocryphal elder? I'll ferret

him.

LAET. I'm so distracted, I can't think of a lie. [_Aside_.]

SCENE XXII.

LAETITIA _and_ FONDLEWIFE _haling out_ BELLMOUR.

FOND. Come out here, thou Ananias incarnate. Who, how now! Who have we

here?

LAET. Ha! [_Shrieks as surprised_.]

FOND. Oh thou salacious woman! Am I then brutified? Ay, I feel it

here; I sprout, I bud, I blossom, I am ripe-horn-mad. But who in the

devil's name are you? Mercy on me for swearing. But--

LAET. Oh! goodness keep us! Who are you? What are you?

BELL. Soh!

LAET. In the name of the--O! Good, my dear, don't come near it; I'm

afraid 'tis the devil; indeed, it has hoofs, dear.

FOND. Indeed, and I have horns, dear. The devil, no, I am afraid 'tis

the flesh, thou harlot. Dear, with the pox. Come Syren, speak, confess,

who is this reverend, brawny pastor.

LAET. Indeed, and indeed now, my dear Nykin, I never saw this wicked man

before.

FOND. Oh, it is a man then, it seems.

LAET. Rather, sure it is a wolf in the clothing of a sheep.

FOND. Thou art a devil in his proper clothing--woman's flesh. What, you

know nothing of him, but his fleece here! You don't love mutton? you

Magdalen unconverted.

BELL. Well, now, I know my cue.--That is, very honourably to excuse her,

and very impudently accuse myself. [_Aside_.]

LAET. Why then, I wish I may never enter into the heaven of your

embraces again, my dear, if ever I saw his face before.

FOND. O Lord! O strange! I am in admiration of your impudence. Look

at him a little better; he is more modest, I warrant you, than to deny

it. Come, were you two never face to face before? Speak.

BELL. Since all artifice is vain. And I think myself obliged to speak

the truth in justice to your wife.--No.

FOND. Humph.

LAET. No, indeed, dear.

FOND. Nay, I find you are both in a story; that I must confess. But,

what--not to be cured of the colic? Don't you know your patient, Mrs.

Quack? Oh, 'lie upon your stomach; lying upon your stomach will cure you

of the colic.' Ah! answer me, Jezebel?

LAET. Let the wicked man answer for himself: does he think I have

nothing to do but excuse him? 'tis enough if I can clear my own innocence

to my own dear.

BELL. By my troth, and so 'tis. I have been a little too backward;

that's the truth on't.

FOND. Come, sir, who are you, in the first place? And what are you?

BELL. A whore-master.

FOND. Very concise.

LAET. O beastly, impudent creature.

FOND. Well, sir, and what came you hither for?

BELL. To lie with your wife.

FOND. Good again. A very civil person this, and I believe speaks truth.

LAET. Oh, insupportable impudence.

FOND. Well, sir; pray be covered--and you have--Heh! You have finished

the matter, heh? And I am, as I should be, a sort of civil perquisite to

a whore-master, called a cuckold, heh? Is it not so? Come, I'm

inclining to believe every word you say.

BELL. Why, faith, I must confess, so I designed you; but you were a

little unlucky in coming so soon, and hindered the making of your own

fortune.

FOND. Humph. Nay, if you mince the matter once and go back of your word

you are not the person I took you for. Come, come, go on boldly.--What,

don't be ashamed of your profession.--Confess, confess; I shall love thee

the better for't. I shall, i'feck. What, dost think I don't know how to

behave myself in the employment of a cuckold, and have been three years

apprentice to matrimony? Come, come; plain dealing is a jewel.

BELL. Well, since I see thou art a good, honest fellow, I'll confess the

whole matter to thee.

FOND. Oh, I am a very honest fellow. You never lay with an honester

man's wife in your life.

LAET. How my heart aches! All my comfort lies in his impudence, and

heaven be praised, he has a considerable portion. [_Aside_.]

BELL. In short, then, I was informed of the opportunity of your absence

by my spy (for faith, honest Isaac, I have a long time designed thee this

favour). I knew Spintext was to come by your direction. But I laid a

trap for him, and procured his habit, in which I passed upon your

servants, and was conducted hither. I pretended a fit of the colic, to

excuse my lying down upon your bed; hoping that when she heard of it, her

good nature would bring her to administer remedies for my distemper. You

know what might have followed. But, like an uncivil person, you knocked

at the door before your wife was come to me.

FOND. Ha! This is apocryphal; I may choose whether I will believe it or

no.

BELL. That you may, faith, and I hope you won't believe a word on't--but

I can't help telling the truth, for my life.

FOND. How! would not you have me believe you, say you?

BELL. No; for then you must of consequence part with your wife, and

there will be some hopes of having her upon the public; then the

encouragement of a separate maintenance--

FOND. No, no; for that matter, when she and I part, she'll carry her

separate maintenance about her.

LAET. Ah, cruel dear, how can you be so barbarous? You'll break my

heart, if you talk of parting. [_Cries_.]

FOND. Ah, dissembling vermin!

BELL. How can'st thou be so cruel, Isaac? Thou hast the heart of a

mountain-tiger. By the faith of a sincere sinner, she's innocent for me.

Go to him, madam, fling your snowy arms about his stubborn neck; bathe

his relentless face in your salt trickling tears. [_She goes and hangs

upon his neck_, _and kisses him_. BELLMOUR _kisses her hand behind_

FONDLEWIFE'S _back_.] So, a few soft words, and a kiss, and the good man

melts. See how kind nature works, and boils over in him.

LAET. Indeed, my dear, I was but just come down stairs, when you knocked

at the door; and the maid told me Mr. Spintext was ill of the colic upon

our bed. And won't you speak to me, cruel Nykin? Indeed, I'll die, if

you don't.

FOND. Ah! No, no, I cannot speak, my heart's so full--I have been a

tender husband, a tender yoke-fellow; you know I have.--But thou hast

been a faithless Delilah, and the Philistines--Heh! Art thou not vile

and unclean, heh? Speak. [_Weeping_.]

LAET. No-h. [_Sighing_.]

FOND. Oh that I could believe thee!

LAET. Oh, my heart will break. [_Seeming to faint_.]

FOND. Heh, how! No, stay, stay, I will believe thee, I will. Pray bend

her forward, sir.

LAET. Oh! oh! Where is my dear?

FOND. Here, here; I do believe thee. I won't believe my own eyes.

BELL. For my part, I am so charmed with the love of your turtle to you,

that I'll go and solicit matrimony with all my might and main.

FOND. Well, well, sir; as long as I believe it, 'tis well enough. No

thanks to you, sir, for her virtue.--But, I'll show you the way out of my

house, if you please. Come, my dear. Nay, I will believe thee, I do,

i'feck.

BELL. See the great blessing of an easy faith; opinion cannot err.

No husband, by his wife, can be deceived;

She still is virtuous, if she's so believed.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

SCENE: _The Street_.

BELLMOUR _in fanatic habit_, SETTER, HEARTWELL, LUCY.

BELL. Setter! Well encountered.

SET. Joy of your return, sir. Have you made a good voyage? or have you

brought your own lading back?

BELL. No, I have brought nothing but ballast back--made a delicious

voyage, Setter; and might have rode at anchor in the port till this time,

but the enemy surprised us--I would unrig.

SET. I attend you, sir.

BELL. Ha! Is it not that Heartwell at Sylvia's door? Be gone quickly,

I'll follow you--I would not be known. Pox take 'em, they stand just in

my way.

SCENE II.

BELLMOUR, HEARTWELL, LUCY.

HEART. I'm impatient till it be done.

LUCY. That may be, without troubling yourself to go again for your

brother's chaplain. Don't you see that stalking form of godliness?

HEART. O ay; he's a fanatic.

LUCY. An executioner qualified to do your business. He has been

lawfully ordained.

HEART. I'll pay him well, if you'll break the matter to him.

LUCY. I warrant you.--Do you go and prepare your bride.

SCENE III.

BELLMOUR, LUCY.

BELL. Humph, sits the wind there? What a lucky rogue am I! Oh, what

sport will be here, if I can persuade this wench to secrecy!

LUCY. Sir: reverend sir.

BELL. Madam. [_Discovers himself_.]

LUCY. Now, goodness have mercy upon me! Mr. Bellmour! is it you?

BELL. Even I. What dost think?

LUCY. Think! That I should not believe my eyes, and that you are not

what you seem to be.

BELL. True. But to convince thee who I am, thou knowest my old token.

[_Kisses her_.]

LUCY. Nay, Mr. Bellmour: O Lard! I believe you are a parson in good

earnest, you kiss so devoutly.

BELL. Well, your business with me, Lucy?

LUCY. I had none, but through mistake.

BELL. Which mistake you must go through with, Lucy. Come, I know the

intrigue between Heartwell and your mistress; and you mistook me for

Tribulation Spintext, to marry 'em--Ha? are not matters in this posture?

Confess: come, I'll be faithful; I will, i'faith. What! diffide in me,

Lucy?

LUCY. Alas-a-day! You and Mr. Vainlove, between you, have ruined my

poor mistress: you have made a gap in her reputation; and can you blame

her if she make it up with a husband?

BELL. Well, is it as I say?

LUCY. Well, it is then: but you'll be secret?

BELL. Phuh, secret, ay. And to be out of thy debt, I'll trust thee with

another secret. Your mistress must not marry Heartwell, Lucy.

LUCY. How! O Lord!

BELL. Nay, don't be in passion, Lucy:--I'll provide a fitter husband for

her. Come, here's earnest of my good intentions for thee too; let this

mollify. [_Gives her money_.] Look you, Heartwell is my friend; and

though he be blind, I must not see him fall into the snare, and

unwittingly marry a whore.

LUCY. Whore! I'd have you to know my mistress scorns--

BELL. Nay, nay: look you, Lucy; there are whores of as good quality. But

to the purpose, if you will give me leave to acquaint you with it. Do

you carry on the mistake of me: I'll marry 'em. Nay, don't pause; if you

do, I'll spoil all. I have some private reasons for what I do, which

I'll tell you within. In the meantime, I promise--and rely upon me--to

help your mistress to a husband: nay, and thee too, Lucy. Here's my

hand, I will; with a fresh assurance. [_Gives her more money_.]

LUCY. Ah, the devil is not so cunning. You know my easy nature. Well,

for once I'll venture to serve you; but if you do deceive me, the curse

of all kind, tender-hearted women light upon you!

BELL. That's as much as to say, the pox take me. Well, lead on.

SCENE IV.

VAINLOVE, SHARPER, _and_ SETTER.

SHARP. Just now, say you; gone in with Lucy?

SET. I saw him, sir, and stood at the corner where you found me, and

overheard all they said: Mr. Bellmour is to marry 'em.

SHARP. Ha, ha; it will be a pleasant cheat. I'll plague Heartwell when

I see him. Prithee, Frank, let's tease him; make him fret till he foam

at the mouth, and disgorge his matrimonial oath with interest. Come,

thou'rt musty--

SET. [_To_ SHARPER.] Sir, a word with you. [_Whispers him_.]

VAIN. Sharper swears she has forsworn the letter--I'm sure he tells me

truth;--but I'm not sure she told him truth: yet she was unaffectedly

concerned, he says, and often blushed with anger and surprise: and so I

remember in the park. She had reason, if I wrong her. I begin to doubt.

SHARP. Say'st thou so?

SET. This afternoon, sir, about an hour before my master received the

letter.

SHARP. In my conscience, like enough.

SET. Ay, I know her, sir; at least, I'm sure I can fish it out of her:

she's the very sluice to her lady's secrets: 'tis but setting her mill

agoing, and I can drain her of 'em all.

SHARP. Here, Frank, your bloodhound has made out the fault: this letter,

that so sticks in thy maw, is counterfeit; only a trick of Sylvia in

revenge, contrived by Lucy.

VAIN. Ha! It has a colour; but how do you know it, sirrah?

SET. I do suspect as much; because why, sir, she was pumping me about

how your worship's affairs stood towards Madam Araminta; as, when you had

seen her last? when you were to see her next? and, where you were to be

found at that time? and such like.

VAIN. And where did you tell her?

SET. In the Piazza.

VAIN. There I received the letter--it must be so--and why did you not

find me out, to tell me this before, sot?

SET. Sir, I was pimping for Mr. Bellmour.

SHARP. You were well employed: I think there is no objection to the

excuse.

VAIN. Pox of my saucy credulity--if I have lost her, I deserve it. But

if confession and repentance be of force, I'll win her, or weary her into

a forgiveness.

SHARP. Methinks I long to see Bellmour come forth.

SCENE V.

SHARPER, BELLMOUR, SETTER.

SET. Talk of the devil: see where he comes.

SHARP. Hugging himself in his prosperous mischief--no real fanatic can

look better pleased after a successful sermon of sedition.

BELL. Sharper! Fortify thy spleen: such a jest! Speak when thou art

ready.

SHARP. Now, were I ill-natured would I utterly disappoint thy mirth:

hear thee tell thy mighty jest with as much gravity as a bishop hears

venereal causes in the spiritual court. Not so much as wrinkle my face

with one smile; but let thee look simply, and laugh by thyself.

BELL. Pshaw, no; I have a better opinion of thy wit. Gad, I defy thee.

SHARP. Were it not loss of time you should make the experiment. But

honest Setter, here, overheard you with Lucy, and has told me all.

BELL. Nay, then, I thank thee for not putting me out of countenance.

But, to tell you something you don't know. I got an opportunity after I

had married 'em, of discovering the cheat to Sylvia. She took it at

first, as another woman would the like disappointment; but my promise to

make her amends quickly with another husband somewhat pacified her.

SHARP. But how the devil do you think to acquit yourself of your

promise? Will you marry her yourself?

BELL. I have no such intentions at present. Prithee, wilt thou think a

little for me? I am sure the ingenious Mr. Setter will assist.

SET. O Lord, sir!

BELL. I'll leave him with you, and go shift my habit.

SCENE VI.

SHARPER, SETTER, SIR JOSEPH, and BLUFFE.

SHARP. Heh! Sure fortune has sent this fool hither on purpose. Setter,

stand close; seem not to observe 'em; and, hark ye. [_Whispers_.]

BLUFF. Fear him not. I am prepared for him now, and he shall find he

might have safer roused a sleeping lion.

SIR JO. Hush, hush! don't you see him?

BLUFF. Show him to me. Where is he?

SIR JO. Nay, don't speak so loud. I don't jest as I did a little while

ago. Look yonder! Agad, if he should hear the lion roar, he'd cudgel

him into an ass, and his primitive braying. Don't you remember the story

in AEsop's Fables, bully? Agad, there are good morals to be picked out

of AEsop's Fables, let me tell you that, and Reynard the Fox too.

BLUFF. Damn your morals.

SIR JO. Prithee, don't speak so loud.

BLUFF. Damn your morals; I must revenge the affront done to my honour.

[_In a low voice_.]

SIR JO. Ay; do, do, captain, if you think fitting. You may dispose of

your own flesh as you think fitting, d'ye see, but, by the Lord Harry,

I'll leave you. [_Stealing away upon his tip-toes_.]

BLUFF. Prodigious! What, will you forsake your friend in extremity? You

can't in honour refuse to carry him a challenge. [_Almost whispering_,

_and treading softly after him_.]

SIR JO. Prithee, what do you see in my face that looks as if I would

carry a challenge? Honour is your province, captain; take it. All the

world know me to be a knight, and a man of worship.

SET. I warrant you, sir, I'm instructed.

SHARP. Impossible! Araminta take a liking to a fool? [_Aloud_.]

SET. Her head runs on nothing else, nor she can talk of nothing else.

SHARP. I know she commanded him all the while we were in the Park; but I

thought it had been only to make Vainlove jealous.

SIR JO. How's this! Good bully, hold your breath and let's hearken.

Agad, this must be I.

SHARP. Death, it can't be. An oaf, an idiot, a wittal.

SIR JO. Ay, now it's out; 'tis I, my own individual person.

SHARP. A wretch that has flown for shelter to the lowest shrub of

mankind, and seeks protection from a blasted coward.

SIR JO. That's you, bully back. [BLUFFE _frowns upon_ SIR JOSEPH.]

SHARP. She has given Vainlove her promise to marry him before to-morrow

morning. Has she not? [_To_ SETTER.]

SET. She has, sir; and I have it in charge to attend her all this

evening, in order to conduct her to the place appointed.

SHARP. Well, I'll go and inform your master; and do you press her to

make all the haste imaginable.

SCENE VII.

SETTER, SIR JOSEPH, BLUFFE.

SET. Were I a rogue now, what a noble prize could I dispose of! A

goodly pinnace, richly laden, and to launch forth under my auspicious

convoy. Twelve thousand pounds and all her rigging, besides what lies

concealed under hatches. Ha! all this committed to my care! Avaunt,

temptation! Setter, show thyself a person of worth; be true to thy

trust, and be reputed honest. Reputed honest! Hum: is that all? Ay;

for to be honest is nothing; the reputation of it is all. Reputation!

what have such poor rogues as I to do with reputation? 'tis above us; and

for men of quality, they are above it; so that reputation is even as

foolish a thing as honesty. And, for my part, if I meet Sir Joseph with

a purse of gold in his hand, I'll dispose of mine to the best advantage.

SIR JO. Heh, heh, heh: Here 'tis for you, i'faith, Mr. Setter. Nay,

I'll take you at your word. [_Chinking a purse_.]

SET. Sir Joseph and the captain, too! undone! undone! I'm undone, my

master's undone, my lady's undone, and all the business is undone.

SIR JO. No, no; never fear, man; the lady's business shall be done.

What, come, Mr. Setter, I have overheard all, and to speak is but loss of

time; but if there be occasion, let these worthy gentlemen intercede for

me. [_Gives him gold_.]

SET. O lord, sir, what d'ye mean? Corrupt my honesty? They have indeed

very persuading faces. But--

SIR JO. 'Tis too little, there's more, man. There, take all. Now--

SET. Well, Sir Joseph, you have such a winning way with you--

SIR JO. And how, and how, good Setter, did the little rogue look when

she talked of Sir Joseph? Did not her eyes twinkle and her mouth water?

Did not she pull up her little bubbies? And--agad, I'm so overjoyed--And

stroke down her belly? and then step aside to tie her garter when she was

thinking of her love? Heh, Setter!

SET. Oh, yes, sir.

SIR JO. How now, bully? What, melancholy because I'm in the lady's

favour? No matter, I'll make your peace: I know they were a little smart

upon you. But I warrant I'll bring you into the lady's good graces.

BLUFF. Pshaw, I have petitions to show from other-guess toys than she.

Look here; these were sent me this morning. There, read. [_Shows

letters_]. That--that's a scrawl of quality. Here, here's from a

countess too. Hum--No, hold--that's from a knight's wife--she sent it me

by her husband. But here, both these are from persons of great quality.

SIR JO. They are either from persons of great quality, or no quality at

all, 'tis such a damned ugly hand. [_While_ SIR JOSEPH _reads_, BLUFFE

_whispers_ SETTER.]

SET. Captain, I would do anything to serve you; but this is so

difficult.

BLUFF. Not at all. Don't I know him?

SET. You'll remember the conditions?

BLUFF. I'll give it you under my hand. In the meantime, here's earnest.

[_Gives him money_.] Come, knight, I'm capitulating with Mr. Setter for

you.

SIR JO. Ah, honest Setter; sirrah, I'll give thee anything but a night's

lodging.

SCENE VIII.

SHARPER _tugging in_ HEARTWELL.

SHARP. Nay, prithee leave railing, and come along with me. May be she

mayn't be within. 'Tis but to yond corner-house.

HEART. Whither? Whither? Which corner-house.

SHARP. Why, there: the two white posts.

HEART. And who would you visit there, say you? (O'ons, how my heart

aches.)

SHARP. Pshaw, thou'rt so troublesome and inquisitive. My, I'll tell

you; 'tis a young creature that Vainlove debauched and has forsaken. Did

you never hear Bellmour chide him about Sylvia?

HEART. Death, and hell, and marriage! My wife! [_Aside_.]

SHARP. Why, thou art as musty as a new-married man that had found his

wife knowing the first night.

HEART. Hell, and the Devil! Does he know it? But, hold; if he should

not, I were a fool to discover it. I'll dissemble, and try him.

[_Aside_.] Ha, ha, ha. Why, Tom, is that such an occasion of

melancholy? Is it such an uncommon mischief?

SHARP. No, faith; I believe not. Few women but have their year of

probation before they are cloistered in the narrow joys of wedlock. But,

prithee, come along with me or I'll go and have the lady to myself. B'w'y

George. [_Going_.]

HEART. O torture! How he racks and tears me! Death! Shall I own my

shame or wittingly let him go and whore my wife? No, that's

insupportable. O Sharper!

SHARP. How now?

HEART. Oh, I am married.

SHARP. (Now hold, spleen.) Married!

HEART. Certainly, irrecoverably married.

SHARP. Heaven forbid, man! How long?

HEART. Oh, an age, an age! I have been married these two hours.

SHARP. My old bachelor married! That were a jest. Ha, ha, ha.

HEART. Death! D'ye mock me? Hark ye, if either you esteem my

friendship, or your own safety--come not near that house--that corner-

house--that hot brothel. Ask no questions.

SHARP. Mad, by this light.

Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure:

Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.

SCENE IX.

SHARPER, SETTER.

SET. Some by experience find these words misplaced:

At leisure married, they repent in haste.

As I suppose my master Heartwell.

SHARP. Here again, my Mercury!

SET. Sublimate, if you please, sir: I think my achievements do deserve

the epithet--Mercury was a pimp too, but, though I blush to own it, at

this time, I must confess I am somewhat fallen from the dignity of my

function, and do condescend to be scandalously employed in the promotion

of vulgar matrimony.

SHARP. As how, dear, dexterous pimp?

SET. Why, to be brief, for I have weighty affairs depending--our

stratagem succeeded as you intended--Bluffe turns errant traitor; bribes

me to make a private conveyance of the lady to him, and put a

shame-settlement upon Sir Joseph.

SHARP. O rogue! Well, but I hope--

SET. No, no; never fear me, sir. I privately informed the knight of the

treachery, who has agreed seemingly to be cheated, that the captain may

be so in reality.

SHARP. Where's the bride?

SET. Shifting clothes for the purpose, at a friend's house of mine.

Here's company coming; if you'll walk this way, sir, I'll tell you.

SCENE X.

BELLMOUR, BELINDA, ARAMINTA, _and_ VAINLOVE.

VAIN. Oh, 'twas frenzy all: cannot you forgive it? Men in madness have

a title to your pity. [_To_ ARAMINTA.]

ARAM. Which they forfeit, when they are restored to their senses.

VAIN. I am not presuming beyond a pardon.

ARAM. You who could reproach me with one counterfeit, how insolent would

a real pardon make you! But there's no need to forgive what is not worth

my anger.

BELIN. O' my conscience, I could find in my heart to marry thee, purely

to be rid of thee--at least thou art so troublesome a lover, there's

hopes thou'lt make a more than ordinary quiet husband. [_To_ BELLMOUR.]

BELL. Say you so? Is that a maxim among ye?

BELIN. Yes: you fluttering men of the _mode_ have made marriage a mere

French dish.

BELL. I hope there's no French sauce. [_Aside_.]

BELIN. You are so curious in the preparation, that is, your courtship,

one would think you meant a noble entertainment--but when we come to

feed, 'tis all froth, and poor, but in show. Nay, often, only remains,

which have been I know not how many times warmed for other company, and

at last served up cold to the wife.

BELL. That were a miserable wretch indeed, who could not afford one warm

dish for the wife of his bosom. But you timorous virgins form a dreadful

chimaera of a husband, as of a creature contrary to that soft, humble,

pliant, easy thing, a lover; so guess at plagues in matrimony, in

opposition to the pleasures of courtship. Alas! courtship to marriage,

is but as the music in the play-house, until the curtain's drawn; but

that once up, then opens the scene of pleasure.

BELIN. Oh, foh,--no: rather courtship to marriage, as a very witty

prologue to a very dull play.

SCENE XI.

[_To them_] SHARPER.

SHARP. Hist! Bellmour. If you'll bring the ladies, make haste to

Sylvia's lodgings, before Heartwell has fretted himself out of breath.

BELL. You have an opportunity now, madam, to revenge yourself upon

Heartwell, for affronting your squirrel. [_To_ BELINDA.]

BELIN. Oh, the filthy rude beast.

ARAM. 'Tis a lasting quarrel; I think he has never been at our house

since.

BELL. But give yourselves the trouble to walk to that corner-house, and

I'll tell you by the way what may divert and surprise you.

SCENE XII.

SCENE: _Sylvia's Lodgings_.

HEARTWELL _and_ BOY.

HEART. Gone forth, say you, with her maid?

BOY. There was a man too, that fetched them out--Setter, I think they

called him.

HEART. So-h--that precious pimp too--damned, damned strumpet! could she

not contain herself on her wedding-day? not hold out till night? Oh,

cursed state! how wide we err, when apprehensive of the load of life.

We hope to find

That help which Nature meant in womankind,

To man that supplemental self-designed;

But proves a burning caustic when applied,

And Adam, sure, could with more ease abide

The bone when broken, than when made a bride.

SCENE XIII.

[_To him_] BELLMOUR, BELINDA, VAINLOVE, ARAMINTA.

BELL. Now George, what, rhyming! I thought the chimes of verse were

past, when once the doleful marriage-knell was rung.

HEART. Shame and confusion, I am exposed. [VAINLOVE _and_ ARAMINTA

_talk apart_.]

BELIN. Joy, joy, Mr. Bridegroom; I give you joy, sir.

HEART. 'Tis not in thy nature to give me joy. A woman can as soon give

immortality.

BELIN. Ha, ha, ha! oh Gad, men grow such clowns when they are married.

BELL. That they are fit for no company but their wives.

BELIN. Nor for them neither, in a little time. I swear, at the month's

end, you shall hardly find a married man that will do a civil thing to

his wife, or say a civil thing to anybody else. How he looks already,

ha, ha, ha.

BELL. Ha, ha, ha!

HEART. Death, am I made your laughing-stock? For you, sir, I shall find

a time; but take off your wasp here, or the clown may grow boisterous; I

have a fly-flap.

BELIN. You have occasion for't, your wife has been blown upon.

BELL. That's home.

HEART. Not fiends or furies could have added to my vexation, or

anything, but another woman. You've racked my patience; begone, or by--

BELL. Hold, hold. What the devil--thou wilt not draw upon a woman?

VAIN. What's the matter?

ARAM. Bless me! what have you done to him?

BELIN. Only touched a galled beast until he winced.

VAIN. Bellmour, give it over; you vex him too much. 'Tis all serious to

him.

BELIN. Nay, I swear, I begin to pity him myself.

HEART. Damn your pity!--but let me be calm a little. How have I

deserved this of you? any of ye? Sir, have I impaired the honour of your

house, promised your sister marriage, and whored her? Wherein have I

injured you? Did I bring a physician to your father when he lay

expiring, and endeavour to prolong his life, and you one and twenty?

Madam, have I had an opportunity with you and baulked it? Did you ever

offer me the favour that I refused it? Or--

BELIN. Oh foh! what does the filthy fellow mean? Lord, let me be gone.

ARAM. Hang me, if I pity you; you are right enough served.

BELL. This is a little scurrilous though.

VAIN. Nay, 'tis a sore of your own scratching--well, George?

HEART. You are the principal cause of all my present ills. If Sylvia

had not been your mistress, my wife might have been honest.

VAIN. And if Sylvia had not been your wife, my mistress might have been

just. There, we are even. But have a good heart, I heard of your

misfortune, and come to your relief.

HEART. When execution's over, you offer a reprieve.

VAIN. What would you give?

HEART. Oh! Anything, everything, a leg or two, or an arm; nay, I would

be divorced from my virility to be divorced from my wife.

SCENE XIV.

[_To them_] SHARPER.

VAIN. Faith, that's a sure way: but here's one can sell you freedom

better cheap.

SHARP. Vainlove, I have been a kind of a godfather to you yonder. I

have promised and vowed some things in your name which I think you are

bound to perform.

VAIN. No signing to a blank, friend.

SHARP. No, I'll deal fairly with you. 'Tis a full and free discharge to

Sir Joseph Wittal and Captain Bluffe; for all injuries whatsoever, done

unto you by them, until the present date hereof. How say you?

VAIN. Agreed.

SHARP. Then, let me beg these ladies to wear their masks, a moment. Come

in, gentlemen and ladies.

HEART. What the devil's all this to me?

VAIN. Patience.

SCENE the Last

[_To them_] SIR JOSEPH, BLUFFE, SYLVIA, LUCY, SETTER.

BLUFF. All injuries whatsoever, Mr. Sharper.

SIR JO. Ay, ay, whatsoever, Captain, stick to that; whatsoever.

SHARP. 'Tis done, these gentlemen are witnesses to the general release.

VAIN. Ay, ay, to this instant moment. I have passed an act of oblivion.

BLUFF. 'Tis very generous, sir, since I needs must own--

SIR JO. No, no, Captain, you need not own, heh, heh, heh. 'Tis I must

own--

BLUFF.--That you are over-reached too, ha, ha, ha, only a little art

military used--only undermined, or so, as shall appear by the fair

Araminta, my wife's permission. Oh, the devil, cheated at last! [LUCY

_unmasks_.]

SIR JO. Only a little art-military trick, captain, only countermined, or

so. Mr. Vainlove, I suppose you know whom I have got--now, but all's

forgiven.

VAIN. I know whom you have not got; pray ladies convince him. [ARAM.

_and_ BELIN. _unmask_.]

SIR JO. Ah! oh Lord, my heart aches. Ah! Setter, a rogue of all sides.

SHARP. Sir Joseph, you had better have pre-engaged this gentleman's

pardon: for though Vainlove be so generous to forgive the loss of his

mistress, I know not how Heartwell may take the loss of his wife. [SYLVIA

_unmasks_.]

HEART. My wife! By this light 'tis she, the very cockatrice. O

Sharper! Let me embrace thee. But art thou sure she is really married

to him?

SET. Really and lawfully married, I am witness.

SHARP. Bellmour will unriddle to you. [HEARTWELL _goes to_ BELLMOUR.]

SIR JO. Pray, madam, who are you? For I find you and I are like to be

better acquainted.

SYLV. The worst of me is, that I am your wife--

SHARP. Come, Sir Joseph, your fortune is not so bad as you fear. A fine

lady, and a lady of very good quality.

SIR JO. Thanks to my knighthood, she's a lady--

VAIN. That deserves a fool with a better title. Pray use her as my

relation, or you shall hear on't.

BLUFF. What, are you a woman of quality too, spouse?

SET. And my relation; pray let her be respected accordingly. Well,

honest Lucy, fare thee well. I think, you and I have been play-fellows

off and on, any time this seven years.

LUCY. Hold your prating. I'm thinking what vocation I shall follow

while my spouse is planting laurels in the wars.

BLUFF. No more wars, spouse, no more wars. While I plant laurels for my

head abroad, I may find the branches sprout at home.

HEART. Bellmour, I approve thy mirth, and thank thee. And I cannot in

gratitude (for I see which way thou art going) see thee fall into the

same snare out of which thou hast delivered me.

BELL. I thank thee, George, for thy good intention; but there is a

fatality in marriage, for I find I'm resolute.

HEART. Then good counsel will be thrown away upon you. For my part, I

have once escaped; and when I wed again, may she be--ugly, as an old

bawd.

VAIN. Ill-natured, as an old maid--

BELL. Wanton, as a young widow--

SHARP. And jealous, as a barren wife.

HEART. Agreed.

BELL. Well; 'midst of these dreadful denunciations, and notwithstanding

the warning and example before me, I commit myself to lasting durance.

BELIN. Prisoner, make much of your fetters. [_Giving her hand_.]

BELL. Frank, will you keep us in countenance?

VAIN. May I presume to hope so great a blessing?

ARAM. We had better take the advantage of a little of our friend's

experience first.

BELL. O' my conscience she dares not consent, for fear he should recant.

[_Aside_.] Well, we shall have your company to church in the morning.

May be it may get you an appetite to see us fall to before you. Setter,

did not you tell me?--

SET. They're at the door: I'll call 'em in.

A DANCE.

BELL. Now set we forward on a journey for life. Come take your fellow-

travellers. Old George, I'm sorry to see thee still plod on alone.

HEART. With gaudy plumes and jingling bells made proud,

The youthful beast sets forth, and neighs aloud.

A morning-sun his tinselled harness gilds,

And the first stage a down-hill greensward yields.

But, oh--

What rugged ways attend the noon of life!

Our sun declines, and with what anxious strife,

What pain we tug that galling load, a wife.

All coursers the first heat with vigour run;

But 'tis with whip and spur the race is won.

[_Exeunt Omnes_.]

EPILOGUE.

Spoken by MRS. BARRY.

As a rash girl, who will all hazards run,

And be enjoyed, though sure to be undone,

Soon as her curiosity is over,

Would give the world she could her toy recover,

So fares it with our poet; and I'm sent

To tell you he already does repent:

Would you were all as forward to keep Lent.

Now the deed's done, the giddy thing has leisure

To think o' th' sting, that's in the tail of pleasure.

Methinks I hear him in consideration:

What will the world say? Where's my reputation?

Now that's at stake. No, fool, 'tis out o' fashion.

If loss of that should follow want of wit,

How many undone men were in the pit!

Why that's some comfort to an author's fears,

If he's an ass, he will be tryed by's peers.

But hold, I am exceeding my commission:

My business here was humbly to petition;

But we're so used to rail on these occasions,

I could not help one trial of your patience:

For 'tis our way, you know, for fear o' th' worst,

To be beforehand still, and cry Fool first.

How say you, sparks? How do you stand affected?

I swear, young Bays within is so dejected,

'Twould grieve your hearts to see him; shall I call him?

But then you cruel critics would so maul him!

Yet may be you'll encourage a beginner;

But how? Just as the devil does a sinner.

Women and wits are used e'en much at one,

You gain your end, and damn 'em when you've done.

THE DOUBLE-DEALER

A COMEDY

_Interdum tamen et vocem Comoedia tollit_.--HOR. _Ar. Po._

_Huic equidem consilio palmam do_: _hic me magnifice_

_effero_, _qui vim tantam in me et potestatem habeam_

_tantae astutiae_, _vera dicendo ut eos ambos fallam_.

SYR. in TERENT. _Heaut_.

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES MONTAGUE,

ONE OF THE LORDS OF THE TREASURY.

Sir,--I heartily wish this play were as perfect as I intended it, that it

might be more worthy your acceptance, and that my dedication of it to you

might be more becoming that honour and esteem which I, with everybody who

is so fortunate as to know you, have for you. It had your countenance

when yet unknown; and now it is made public, it wants your protection.

I would not have anybody imagine that I think this play without its

faults, for I am conscious of several. I confess I designed (whatever

vanity or ambition occasioned that design) to have written a true and

regular comedy, but I found it an undertaking which put me in mind of

_Sudet multum_, _frustraque laboret ausus idem_. And now, to make amends

for the vanity of such a design, I do confess both the attempt and the

imperfect performance. Yet I must take the boldness to say I have not

miscarried in the whole, for the mechanical part of it is regular. That

I may say with as little vanity as a builder may say he has built a house

according to the model laid down before him, or a gardener that he has

set his flowers in a knot of such or such a figure. I designed the moral

first, and to that moral I invented the fable, and do not know that I

have borrowed one hint of it anywhere. I made the plot as strong as I

could because it was single, and I made it single because I would avoid

confusion, and was resolved to preserve the three unities of the drama.

Sir, this discourse is very impertinent to you, whose judgment much

better can discern the faults than I can excuse them; and whose good

nature, like that of a lover, will find out those hidden beauties (if

there are any such) which it would be great immodesty for me to discover.

I think I don't speak improperly when I call you a _lover_ of poetry; for

it is very well known she has been a very kind mistress to you: she has

not denied you the last favour, and she has been fruitful to you in a

most beautiful issue. If I break off abruptly here, I hope everybody

will understand that it is to avoid a commendation which, as it is your

due, would be most easy for me to pay, and too troublesome for you to

receive.

I have since the acting of this play harkened after the objections which

have been made to it, for I was conscious where a true critic might have

put me upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack, and am pretty

confident I could have vindicated some parts and excused others; and

where there were any plain miscarriages, I would most ingenuously have

confessed 'em. But I have not heard anything said sufficient to provoke

an answer. That which looks most like an objection does not relate in

particular to this play, but to all or most that ever have been written,

and that is soliloquy. Therefore I will answer it, not only for my own

sake, but to save others the trouble, to whom it may hereafter be

objected.

I grant that for a man to talk to himself appears absurd and unnatural,

and indeed it is so in most cases; but the circumstances which may attend

the occasion make great alteration. It oftentimes happens to a man to

have designs which require him to himself, and in their nature cannot

admit of a confidant. Such for certain is all villainy, and other less

mischievous intentions may be very improper to be communicated to a

second person. In such a case, therefore, the audience must observe

whether the person upon the stage takes any notice of them at all or no.

For if he supposes any one to be by when he talks to himself, it is

monstrous and ridiculous to the last degree. Nay, not only in this case,

but in any part of a play, if there is expressed any knowledge of an

audience, it is insufferable. But otherwise, when a man in soliloquy

reasons with himself, and _pro's_ and _con's_, and weighs all his

designs, we ought not to imagine that this man either talks to us or to

himself; he is only thinking, and thinking such matter as were

inexcusable folly in him to speak. But because we are concealed

spectators of the plot in agitation, and the poet finds it necessary to

let us know the whole mystery of his contrivance, he is willing to inform

us of this person's thoughts; and to that end is forced to make use of

the expedient of speech, no other better way being yet invented for the

communication of thought.

Another very wrong objection has been made by some who have not taken

leisure to distinguish the characters. The hero of the play, as they are

pleased to call him (meaning Mellefont), is a gull, and made a fool, and

cheated. Is every man a gull and a fool that is deceived? At that rate

I'm afraid the two classes of men will be reduced to one, and the knaves

themselves be at a loss to justify their title. But if an open-hearted

honest man, who has an entire confidence in one whom he takes to be his

friend, and whom he has obliged to be so, and who, to confirm him in his

opinion, in all appearance and upon several trials has been so: if this

man be deceived by the treachery of the other, must he of necessity

commence fool immediately, only because the other has proved a villain?

Ay, but there was caution given to Mellefont in the first act by his

friend Careless. Of what nature was that caution? Only to give the

audience some light into the character of Maskwell before his appearance,

and not to convince Mellefont of his treachery; for that was more than

Careless was then able to do: he never knew Maskwell guilty of any

villainy; he was only a sort of man which he did not like. As for his

suspecting his familiarity with my Lady Touchwood, let 'em examine the

answer that Mellefont makes him, and compare it with the conduct of

Maskwell's character through the play.

I would beg 'em again to look into the character of Maskwell before they

accuse Mellefont of weakness for being deceived by him. For upon summing

up the enquiry into this objection, it may be found they have mistaken

cunning in one character for folly in another.

But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all the false

criticisms that are made upon me, and that is, some of the ladies are

offended. I am heartily sorry for it, for I declare I would rather

disoblige all the critics in the world than one of the fair sex. They

are concerned that I have represented some women vicious and affected.

How can I help it? It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices

and follies of humankind; and there are but two sexes, male and female,

_men_ and _women_, which have a title to humanity, and if I leave one

half of them out, the work will be imperfect. I should be very glad of

an opportunity to make my compliment to those ladies who are offended;

but they can no more expect it in a comedy than to be tickled by a

surgeon when he's letting 'em blood. They who are virtuous or discreet

should not be offended, for such characters as these distinguish _them_,

and make their beauties more shining and observed; and they who are of

the other kind may nevertheless pass for such, by seeming not to be

displeased or touched with the satire of this _comedy_. Thus have they

also wrongfully accused me of doing them a prejudice, when I have in

reality done them a service.

You will pardon me, sir, for the freedom I take of making answers to

other people in an epistle which ought wholly to be sacred to you; but

since I intend the play to be so too, I hope I may take the more liberty

of justifying it where it is in the right.

I must now, sir, declare to the world how kind you have been to my

endeavours; for in regard of what was well meant, you have excused what

was ill performed. I beg you would continue the same method in your

acceptance of this dedication. I know no other way of making a return to

that humanity you shewed, in protecting an infant, but by enrolling it in

your service, now that it is of age and come into the world. Therefore

be pleased to accept of this as an acknowledgment of the favour you have

shewn me, and an earnest of the real service and gratitude of,

Sir, your most obliged, humble servant,

WILLIAM CONGREVE.

TO MY DEAR FRIEND MR. CONGREVE,

ON HIS COMEDY CALLED

THE DOUBLE-DEALER.

Well then, the promised hour is come at last;

The present age of wit obscures the past.

Strong were our sires; and as they fought they writ,

Conqu'ring with force of arms and dint of wit.

Theirs was the giant race, before the flood;

And thus, when Charles returned, our empire stood.

Like Janus he the stubborn soil manured,

With rules of husbandry the rankness cured,

Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude,

And boist'rous English wit with art indued.

Our age was cultivated thus at length;

But what we gained in skill we lost in strength.

Our builders were with want of genius curst;

The second temple was not like the first:

Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length,

Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.

Firm Doric pillars found your solid base,

The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space;

Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.

In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise:

He moved the mind, but had no power to raise.

Great Johnson did by strength of judgment please

Yet doubling Fletcher's force, he wants ease.

In diff'ring talents both adorned their age;

One for the study, t'other for the stage.

But both to Congreve justly shall submit,

One matched in judgment, both o'er-matched in wit.

In him all beauties of this age we see,

Etherege his courtship, Southern's purity,

The satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherly.

All this in blooming youth you have achieved,

Nor are your foiled contemporaries grieved;

So much the sweetness of your manners move,

We cannot envy you, because we love.

Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw

A beardless consul made against the law,

And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome;

Though he with Hannibal was overcome.

Thus old Romano bowed to Raphael's fame,

And scholar to the youth he taught became.

O that your brows my laurel had sustained,

Well had I been deposed if you had reigned!

The father had descended for the son,

For only you are lineal to the throne.

Thus when the state one Edward did depose,

A greater Edward in his room arose.

But now, not I, but poetry is cursed;

For Tom the Second reigns like Tom the First.

But let 'em not mistake my patron's part,

Nor call his charity their own desert.

Yet this I prophesy: Thou shalt be seen

(Though with some short parenthesis between)

High on the throne of wit; and seated there,

Not mine (that's little) but thy laurel wear.

Thy first attempt an early promise made;

That early promise this has more than paid.

So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,

That your least praise is to be regular.

Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought,

But genius must be born, and never can be taught.

This is your portion, this your native store,

Heav'n, that but once was prodigal before,

To Shakespeare gave as much; she could not give him more.

Maintain your post: that's all the fame you need;

For 'tis impossible you should proceed.

Already I am worn with cares and age,

And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage:

Unprofitably kept at heav'n's expense,

I live a rent-charge on his providence.

But you, whom every muse and grace adorn,

Whom I foresee to better fortune born,

Be kind to my remains; and oh, defend,

Against your judgment, your departed friend!

Let not th' insulting foe my fame pursue;

But shade those laurels which descend to you:

And take for tribute what these lines express:

You merit more; nor could my love do less.

JOHN DRYDEN.

PROLOGUE

Spoken by MRS. BRACEGIRDLE.

Moors have this way (as story tells) to know

Whether their brats are truly got or no;

Into the sea the new-born babe is thrown,

There, as instinct directs, to swim or drown.

A barbarous device, to try if spouse

Has kept religiously her nuptial vows.

Such are the trials poets make of plays,

Only they trust to more inconstant seas;

So does our author, this his child commit

To the tempestuous mercy of the pit,

To know if it be truly born of wit.

Critics avaunt, for you are fish of prey,

And feed, like sharks, upon an infant play.

Be ev'ry monster of the deep away;

Let's have a fair trial and a clear sea.

Let nature work, and do not damn too soon,

For life will struggle long e'er it sink down:

And will at least rise thrice before it drown.

Let us consider, had it been our fate,

Thus hardly to be proved legitimate:

I will not say, we'd all in danger been,

Were each to suffer for his mother's sin:

But by my troth I cannot avoid thinking,

How nearly some good men might have 'scaped sinking.

But, heav'n be praised, this custom is confined

Alone to th' offspring of the muses kind:

Our Christian cuckolds are more bent to pity;

I know not one Moor-husband in the city.

I' th' good man's arms the chopping bastard thrives,

For he thinks all his own that is his wives'.

Whatever fate is for this play designed,

The poet's sure he shall some comfort find:

For if his muse has played him false, the worst

That can befall him, is, to be divorced:

You husbands judge, if that be to be cursed.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

MEN.

MASKWELL, a villain; pretended friend to Mellefont, gallant to Lady

Touchwood, and in love with Cynthia,--_Mr. Betterton_.

LORD TOUCHWOOD, uncle to Mellefont,--_Mr. Kynaston_.

MELLEFONT, promised to, and in love with Cynthia,--_Mr. Williams_.

CARELESS, his friend,--_Mr. Verbruggen_.

LORD FROTH, a solemn coxcomb,--_Mr. Bowman_.

BRISK, a pert coxcomb,--_Mr. Powell_.

SIR PAUL PLYANT, an uxorious, foolish old knight; brother to Lady

Touchwood, and father to Cynthia,--_Mr. Dogget_.

WOMEN.

LADY TOUCHWOOD, in love with Mellefont,--_Mrs. Barry_.

CYNTHIA, daughter to Sir Paul by a former wife, promised to

Mellefont,--_Mrs. Bracegirdle_.

LADY FROTH, a great coquette; pretender to poetry, wit, and

learning,--_Mrs. Mountfort_.

LADY PLYANT, insolent to her husband, and easy to any pretender,--_Mrs.

Leigh_.

CHAPLAIN, BOY, FOOTMEN, AND ATTENDANTS.

THE SCENE: A gallery in the Lord Touchwood's house, with chambers

adjoining.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

_A gallery in the Lord Touchwood's home_, _with chambers adjoining_.

_Enter_ CARELESS, _crossing the stage_, _with his hat_, _gloves_, _and

sword in his hands_; _as just risen from table_: MELLEFONT _following

him_.

MEL. Ned, Ned, whither so fast? What, turned flincher! Why, you wo'

not leave us?

CARE. Where are the women? I'm weary of guzzling, and begin to think

them the better company.

MEL. Then thy reason staggers, and thou'rt almost drunk.

CARE. No, faith, but your fools grow noisy; and if a man must endure the

noise of words without sense, I think the women have more musical voices,

and become nonsense better.

MEL. Why, they are at the end of the gallery; retired to their tea and

scandal, according to their ancient custom, after dinner. But I made a

pretence to follow you, because I had something to say to you in private,

and I am not like to have many opportunities this evening.

CARE. And here's this coxcomb most critically come to interrupt you.

SCENE II.

[_To them_] BRISK.

BRISK. Boys, boys, lads, where are you? What, do you give ground?

Mortgage for a bottle, ha? Careless, this is your trick; you're always

spoiling company by leaving it.

CARE. And thou art always spoiling company by coming in o't.

BRISK. Pooh, ha, ha, ha, I know you envy me. Spite, proud spite, by the

gods! and burning envy. I'll be judged by Mellefont here, who gives and

takes raillery better than you or I. Pshaw, man, when I say you spoil

company by leaving it, I mean you leave nobody for the company to laugh

at. I think there I was with you. Ha, Mellefont?

MEL. O' my word, Brisk, that was a home thrust; you have silenced him.

BRISK. Oh, my dear Mellefont, let me perish if thou art not the soul of

conversation, the very essence of wit and spirit of wine. The deuce take

me if there were three good things said, or one understood, since thy

amputation from the body of our society. He, I think that's pretty and

metaphorical enough; i'gad I could not have said it out of thy company.

Careless, ha?

CARE. Hum, ay, what is't?

BRISK. _O mon coeur_! What is't! Nay, gad, I'll punish you for want of

apprehension. The deuce take me if I tell you.

MEL. No, no, hang him, he has no taste. But, dear Brisk, excuse me, I

have a little business.

CARE. Prithee get thee gone; thou seest we are serious.

MEL. We'll come immediately, if you'll but go in and keep up good humour

and sense in the company. Prithee do, they'll fall asleep else.

BRISK. I'gad, so they will. Well, I will, I will; gad, you shall

command me from the Zenith to the Nadir. But the deuce take me if I say

a good thing till you come. But prithee, dear rogue, make haste, prithee

make haste, I shall burst else. And yonder your uncle, my Lord

Touchwood, swears he'll disinherit you, and Sir Paul Plyant threatens to

disclaim you for a son-in-law, and my Lord Froth won't dance at your

wedding to-morrow; nor, the deuce take me, I won't write your

Epithalamium--and see what a condition you're like to be brought to.

MEL. Well, I'll speak but three words, and follow you.

BRISK. Enough, enough. Careless, bring your apprehension along with

you.

SCENE III.

MELLEFONT, CARELESS.

CARE. Pert coxcomb.

MEL. Faith, 'tis a good-natured coxcomb, and has very entertaining

follies. You must be more humane to him; at this juncture it will do me

service. I'll tell you, I would have mirth continued this day at any

rate; though patience purchase folly, and attention be paid with noise,

there are times when sense may be unseasonable as well as truth. Prithee

do thou wear none to-day, but allow Brisk to have wit, that thou may'st

seem a fool.

CARE. Why, how now, why this extravagant proposition?

MEL. Oh, I would have no room for serious design, for I am jealous of a

plot. I would have noise and impertinence keep my Lady Touchwood's head

from working: for hell is not more busy than her brain, nor contains more

devils than that imaginations.

CARE. I thought your fear of her had been over. Is not to-morrow

appointed for your marriage with Cynthia, and her father, Sir Paul

Plyant, come to settle the writings this day on purpose?

MEL. True; but you shall judge whether I have not reason to be alarmed.

None besides you and Maskwell are acquainted with the secret of my Aunt

Touchwood's violent passion for me. Since my first refusal of her

addresses she has endeavoured to do me all ill offices with my uncle, yet

has managed 'em with that subtilty, that to him they have borne the face

of kindness; while her malice, like a dark lanthorn, only shone upon me

where it was directed. Still, it gave me less perplexity to prevent the

success of her displeasure than to avoid the importunities of her love,

and of two evils I thought myself favoured in her aversion. But whether

urged by her despair and the short prospect of time she saw to accomplish

her designs; whether the hopes of revenge, or of her love, terminated in

the view of this my marriage with Cynthia, I know not, but this morning

she surprised me in my bed.

CARE. Was there ever such a fury! 'Tis well nature has not put it into

her sex's power to ravish. Well, bless us, proceed. What followed?

MEL. What at first amazed me--for I looked to have seen her in all the

transports of a slighted and revengeful woman--but when I expected

thunder from her voice, and lightning in her eyes, I saw her melted into

tears and hushed into a sigh. It was long before either of us spoke:

passion had tied her tongue, and amazement mine. In short, the

consequence was thus, she omitted nothing that the most violent love

could urge, or tender words express; which when she saw had no effect,

but still I pleaded honour and nearness of blood to my uncle, then came

the storm I feared at first, for, starting from my bed-side like a fury,

she flew to my sword, and with much ado I prevented her doing me or

herself a mischief. Having disarmed her, in a gust of passion she left

me, and in a resolution, confirmed by a thousand curses, not to close her

eyes till they had seen my ruin.

CARE. Exquisite woman! But what the devil, does she think thou hast no

more sense than to get an heir upon her body to disinherit thyself? for

as I take it this settlement upon you is, with a proviso, that your uncle

have no children.

MEL. It is so. Well, the service you are to do me will be a pleasure to

yourself: I must get you to engage my Lady Plyant all this evening, that

my pious aunt may not work her to her interest. And if you chance to

secure her to yourself, you may incline her to mine. She's handsome, and

knows it; is very silly, and thinks she has sense, and has an old fond

husband.

CARE. I confess, a very fair foundation for a lover to build upon.

MEL. For my Lord Froth, he and his wife will be sufficiently taken up

with admiring one another and Brisk's gallantry, as they call it. I'll

observe my uncle myself, and Jack Maskwell has promised me to watch my

aunt narrowly, and give me notice upon any suspicion. As for Sir Paul,

my wise father-in-law that is to be, my dear Cynthia has such a share in

his fatherly fondness, he would scarce make her a moment uneasy to have

her happy hereafter.

CARE. So you have manned your works; but I wish you may not have the

weakest guard where the enemy is strongest.

MEL. Maskwell, you mean; prithee why should you suspect him?

CARE. Faith I cannot help it; you know I never liked him: I am a little

superstitious in physiognomy.

MEL. He has obligations of gratitude to bind him to me: his dependence

upon my uncle is through my means.

CARE. Upon your aunt, you mean.

MEL. My aunt!

CARE. I'm mistaken if there be not a familiarity between them you do not

suspect, notwithstanding her passion for you.

MEL. Pooh, pooh! nothing in the world but his design to do me service;

and he endeavours to be well in her esteem, that he may be able to effect

it.

CARE. Well, I shall be glad to be mistaken; but your aunt's aversion in

her revenge cannot be any way so effectually shown as in bringing forth a

child to disinherit you. She is handsome and cunning and naturally

wanton. Maskwell is flesh and blood at best, and opportunities between

them are frequent. His affection to you, you have confessed, is grounded

upon his interest, that you have transplanted; and should it take root in

my lady, I don't see what you can expect from the fruit.

MEL. I confess the consequence is visible, were your suspicions just.

But see, the company is broke up, let's meet 'em.

SCENE IV.

[_To them_] LORD TOUCHWOOD, LORD FROTH, SIR PAUL PLYANT, _and_ BRISK.

LORD TOUCH. Out upon't, nephew. Leave your father-in-law and me to

maintain our ground against young people!

MEL. I beg your lordship's pardon. We were just returning.

SIR PAUL. Were you, son? Gadsbud, much better as it is. Good, strange!

I swear I'm almost tipsy; t'other bottle would have been too powerful for

me,--as sure as can be it would. We wanted your company, but Mr.

Brisk--where is he? I swear and vow he's a most facetious person, and

the best company. And, my Lord Froth, your lordship is so merry a man,

he, he, he.

LORD FROTH. Oh, foy, Sir Paul, what do you mean? Merry! Oh, barbarous!

I'd as lieve you called me fool.

SIR PAUL. Nay, I protest and vow now, 'tis true; when Mr. Brisk jokes,

your lordship's laugh does so become you, he, he, he.

LORD FROTH. Ridiculous! Sir Paul, you're strangely mistaken, I find

champagne is powerful. I assure you, Sir Paul, I laugh at nobody's jest

but my own, or a lady's, I assure you, Sir Paul.

BRISK. How? how, my lord? what, affront my wit! Let me perish, do I

never say anything worthy to be laughed at?

LORD FROTH. Oh, foy, don't misapprehend me; I don't say so, for I often

smile at your conceptions. But there is nothing more unbecoming a man of

quality than to laugh; 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion;

everybody can laugh. Then especially to laugh at the jest of an inferior

person, or when anybody else of the same quality does not laugh with

one--ridiculous! To be pleased with what pleases the crowd! Now when I

laugh, I always laugh alone.

BRISK. I suppose that's because you laugh at your own jests, i'gad, ha,

ha, ha.

LORD FROTH. He, he, I swear though, your raillery provokes me to a

smile.

BRISK. Ay, my lord, it's a sign I hit you in the teeth, if you show 'em.

LORD FROTH. He, he, he, I swear that's so very pretty, I can't forbear.

CARE. I find a quibble bears more sway in your lordship's face than a

jest.

LORD TOUCH. Sir Paul, if you please we'll retire to the ladies, and

drink a dish of tea to settle our heads.

SIR PAUL. With all my heart. Mr. Brisk, you'll come to us, or call me

when you joke; I'll be ready to laugh incontinently.

SCENE V.

MELLEFONT, CARELESS, LORD FROTH, BRISK.

MEL. But does your lordship never see comedies?

LORD FROTH. Oh yes, sometimes; but I never laugh.

MEL. No?

LORD FROTH. Oh no; never laugh indeed, sir.

CARE. No! why, what d'ye go there for?

LORD FROTH. To distinguish myself from the commonalty and mortify the

poets; the fellows grow so conceited, when any of their foolish wit

prevails upon the side-boxes. I swear,--he, he, he, I have often

constrained my inclinations to laugh,--he, he, he, to avoid giving them

encouragement.

MEL. You are cruel to yourself, my lord, as well as malicious to them.

LORD FROTH. I confess I did myself some violence at first, but now I

think I have conquered it.

BRISK. Let me perish, my lord, but there is something very particular in

the humour; 'tis true it makes against wit, and I'm sorry for some

friends of mine that write; but, i'gad, I love to be malicious. Nay,

deuce take me, there's wit in't, too. And wit must be foiled by wit; cut

a diamond with a diamond, no other way, i'gad.

LORD FROTH. Oh, I thought you would not be long before you found out the

wit.

CARE. Wit! In what? Where the devil's the wit in not laughing when a

man has a mind to't?

BRISK. O Lord, why can't you find it out? Why, there 'tis, in the not

laughing. Don't you apprehend me? My lord, Careless is a very honest

fellow, but harkee, you understand me, somewhat heavy, a little shallow,

or so. Why, I'll tell you now, suppose now you come up to me--nay,

prithee, Careless, be instructed. Suppose, as I was saying, you come up

to me holding your sides, and laughing as if you would--well--I look

grave, and ask the cause of this immoderate mirth. You laugh on still,

and are not able to tell me, still I look grave, not so much as smile.

CARE. Smile, no, what the devil should you smile at, when you suppose I

can't tell you!

BRISK. Pshaw, pshaw, prithee don't interrupt me. But I tell you, you

shall tell me at last, but it shall be a great while first.

CARE. Well, but prithee don't let it be a great while, because I long to

have it over.

BRISK. Well then, you tell me some good jest or some very witty thing,

laughing all the while as if you were ready to die, and I hear it, and

look thus. Would not you be disappointed?

CARE. No; for if it were a witty thing I should not expect you to

understand it.

LORD FROTH. Oh, foy, Mr. Careless, all the world allows Mr. Brisk to

have wit; my wife says he has a great deal. I hope you think her a

judge.

BRISK. Pooh, my lord, his voice goes for nothing; I can't tell how to

make him apprehend. Take it t'other way. Suppose I say a witty thing to

you?

CARE. Then I shall be disappointed indeed.

MEL. Let him alone, Brisk, he is obstinately bent not to be instructed.

BRISK. I'm sorry for him, the deuce take me.

MEL. Shall we go to the ladies, my lord?

LORD FROTH. With all my heart; methinks we are a solitude without 'em.

MEL. Or what say you to another bottle of champagne?

LORD FROTH. Oh, for the universe not a drop more, I beseech you. Oh,

intemperate! I have a flushing in my face already. [_Takes out a pocket-

glass and looks in it_.]

BRISK. Let me see, let me see, my lord, I broke my glass that was in the

lid of my snuff-box. Hum! Deuce take me, I have encouraged a pimple

here too. [_Takes the glass and looks_.]

LORD FROTH. Then you must mortify him with a patch; my wife shall supply

you. Come, gentlemen, _allons_, here is company coming.

SCENE VI.

LADY TOUCHWOOD _and_ MASKWELL.

LADY TOUCH. I'll hear no more. You are false and ungrateful; come, I

know you false.

MASK. I have been frail, I confess, madam, for your ladyship's service.

LADY TOUCH. That I should trust a man whom I had known betray his

friend!

MASK. What friend have I betrayed? or to whom?

LADY TOUCH. Your fond friend Mellefont, and to me; can you deny it?

MASK. I do not.

LADY TOUCH. Have you not wronged my lord, who has been a father to you

in your wants, and given you being? Have you not wronged him in the

highest manner, in his bed?

MASK. With your ladyship's help, and for your service, as I told you

before. I can't deny that neither. Anything more, madam?

LADY TOUCH. More! Audacious villain! Oh, what's more, is most my

shame. Have you not dishonoured me?

MASK. No, that I deny; for I never told in all my life: so that

accusation's answered; on to the next.

LADY TOUCH. Death, do you dally with my passion? Insolent devil! But

have a care,--provoke me not; for, by the eternal fire, you shall not

'scape my vengeance. Calm villain! How unconcerned he stands,

confessing treachery and ingratitude! Is there a vice more black? Oh, I

have excuses thousands for my faults; fire in my temper, passions in my

soul, apt to ev'ry provocation, oppressed at once with love, and with

despair. But a sedate, a thinking villain, whose black blood runs

temperately bad, what excuse can clear?

MASK. Will you be in temper, madam? I would not talk not to be heard. I

have been [_she walks about disordered_] a very great rogue for your

sake, and you reproach me with it; I am ready to be a rogue still, to do

you service; and you are flinging conscience and honour in my face, to

rebate my inclinations. How am I to behave myself? You know I am your

creature, my life and fortune in your power; to disoblige you brings me

certain ruin. Allow it I would betray you, I would not be a traitor to

myself: I don't pretend to honesty, because you know I am a rascal; but I

would convince you from the necessity of my being firm to you.

LADY TOUCH. Necessity, impudence! Can no gratitude incline you, no

obligations touch you? Have not my fortune and my person been subjected

to your pleasure? Were you not in the nature of a servant, and have not

I in effect made you lord of all, of me, and of my lord? Where is that

humble love, the languishing, that adoration, which once was paid me, and

everlastingly engaged?

MASK. Fixt, rooted in my heart, whence nothing can remove 'em, yet you--

LADY TOUCH. Yet, what yet?

MASK. Nay, misconceive me not, madam, when I say I have had a gen'rous

and a faithful passion, which you had never favoured, but through revenge

and policy.

LADY TOUCH. Ha!

MASK. Look you, madam, we are alone,--pray contain yourself and hear me.

You know you loved your nephew when I first sighed for you; I quickly

found it: an argument that I loved, for with that art you veiled your

passion 'twas imperceptible to all but jealous eyes. This discovery made

me bold; I confess it; for by it I thought you in my power. Your

nephew's scorn of you added to my hopes; I watched the occasion, and took

you, just repulsed by him, warm at once with love and indignation; your

disposition, my arguments, and happy opportunity accomplished my design;

I pressed the yielding minute, and was blest. How I have loved you

since, words have not shown, then how should words express?

LADY TOUCH. Well, mollifying devil! And have I not met your love with

forward fire?

MASK. Your zeal, I grant, was ardent, but misplaced; there was revenge

in view; that woman's idol had defiled the temple of the god, and love

was made a mock-worship. A son and heir would have edged young Mellefont

upon the brink of ruin, and left him none but you to catch at for

prevention.

LADY TOUCH. Again provoke me! Do you wind me like a larum, only to

rouse my own stilled soul for your diversion? Confusion!

MASK. Nay, madam, I'm gone, if you relapse. What needs this? I say

nothing but what you yourself, in open hours of love, have told me. Why

should you deny it? Nay, how can you? Is not all this present heat

owing to the same fire? Do you not love him still? How have I this day

offended you, but in not breaking off his match with Cynthia? which, ere

to-morrow, shall be done, had you but patience.

LADY TOUCH. How, what said you, Maskwell? Another caprice to unwind my

temper?

MASK. By heav'n, no; I am your slave, the slave of all your pleasures;

and will not rest till I have given you peace, would you suffer me.

LADY TOUCH. O Maskwell! in vain I do disguise me from thee, thou know'st

me, knowest the very inmost windings and recesses of my soul. O

Mellefont! I burn; married to morrow! Despair strikes me. Yet my soul

knows I hate him too: let him but once be mine, and next immediate ruin

seize him.

MASK. Compose yourself, you shall possess and ruin him too,--will that

please you?

LADY TOUCH. How, how? Thou dear, thou precious villain, how?

MASK. You have already been tampering with my Lady Plyant.

LADY TOUCH. I have: she is ready for any impression I think fit.

MASK. She must be throughly persuaded that Mellefont loves her.

LADY TOUCH. She is so credulous that way naturally, and likes him so

well, that she will believe it faster than I can persuade her. But I

don't see what you can propose from such a trifling design, for her first

conversing with Mellefont will convince her of the contrary.

MASK. I know it. I don't depend upon it. But it will prepare something

else, and gain us leisure to lay a stronger plot. If I gain a little

time, I shall not want contrivance.

One minute gives invention to destroy,

What to rebuild will a whole age employ.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

LADY FROTH _and_ CYNTHIA.

CYNT. Indeed, madam! Is it possible your ladyship could have been so

much in love?

LADY FROTH. I could not sleep; I did not sleep one wink for three weeks

together.

CYNT. Prodigious! I wonder want of sleep, and so much love and so much

wit as your ladyship has, did not turn your brain.

LADY FROTH. Oh, my dear Cynthia, you must not rally your friend. But

really, as you say, I wonder too. But then I had a way. For, between

you and I, I had whimsies and vapours, but I gave them vent.

CYNT. How, pray, madam?

LADY FROTH. Oh, I writ, writ abundantly. Do you never write?

CYNT. Write what?

LADY FROTH. Songs, elegies, satires, encomiums, panegyrics, lampoons,

plays, or heroic poems?

CYNT. O Lord, not I, madam; I'm content to be a courteous reader.

LADY FROTH. Oh, inconsistent! In love and not write! If my lord and I

had been both of your temper, we had never come together. Oh, bless me!

What a sad thing would that have been, if my lord and I should never have

met!

CYNT. Then neither my lord nor you would ever have met with your match,

on my conscience.

LADY FROTH. O' my conscience, no more we should; thou say'st right. For

sure my Lord Froth is as fine a gentleman and as much a man of quality!

Ah! nothing at all of the common air. I think I may say he wants nothing

but a blue ribbon and a star to make him shine, the very phosphorus of

our hemisphere. Do you understand those two hard words? If you don't,

I'll explain 'em to you.

CYNT. Yes, yes, madam, I'm not so ignorant.--At least I won't own it, to

be troubled with your instructions. [_Aside_.]

LADY FROTH. Nay, I beg your pardon; but being derived from the Greek, I

thought you might have escaped the etymology. But I'm the more amazed to

find you a woman of letters and not write! Bless me! how can Mellefont

believe you love him?

CYNT. Why, faith, madam, he that won't take my word shall never have it

under my hand.

LADY FROTH. I vow Mellefont's a pretty gentleman, but methinks he wants

a manner.

CYNT. A manner! What's that, madam?

LADY FROTH. Some distinguishing quality, as, for example, the _bel air_

or _brillant_ of Mr. Brisk; the solemnity, yet complaisance of my lord,

or something of his own that should look a little _Je-ne-sais-quoish_; he

is too much a mediocrity, in my mind.

CYNT. He does not indeed affect either pertness or formality; for which

I like him. Here he comes.

LADY FROTH. And my lord with him. Pray observe the difference.

SCENE II.

[_To them_] LORD FROTH, MELLEFONT, _and_ BRISK.

CYNT. Impertinent creature! I could almost be angry with her now.

[_Aside_.]

LADY FROTH. My lord, I have been telling Cynthia how much I have been in

love with you; I swear I have; I'm not ashamed to own it now. Ah! it

makes my heart leap, I vow I sigh when I think on't. My dear lord! Ha,

ha, ha, do you remember, my lord? [_Squeezes him by the hand_, _looks

kindly on him_, _sighs_, _and then laughs out_.]

LORD FROTH. Pleasant creature! perfectly well, ah! that look, ay, there

it is; who could resist? 'twas so my heart was made a captive first, and

ever since t'has been in love with happy slavery.

LADY FROTH. Oh, that tongue, that dear deceitful tongue! that charming

softness in your mien and your expression, and then your bow! Good my

lord, bow as you did when I gave you my picture; here, suppose this my

picture. [_Gives him a pocket-glass_.] Pray mind, my lord; ah! he bows

charmingly; nay, my lord, you shan't kiss it so much; I shall grow

jealous, I vow now. [_He bows profoundly low_, _then kisses the glass_.]

LORD FROTH. I saw myself there, and kissed it for your sake.

LADY FROTH. Ah! Gallantry to the last degree. Mr. Brisk, you're a

judge; was ever anything so well bred as my lord?

BRISK. Never anything, but your ladyship; let me perish.

LADY FROTH. Oh, prettily turned again; let me die, but you have a great

deal of wit. Mr. Mellefont, don't you think Mr. Brisk has a world of

wit?

MEL. O yes, madam.

BRISK. O dear, madam--

LADY FROTH. An infinite deal!

BRISK. O heav'ns, madam--

LADY FROTH. More wit than anybody.

BRISK. I'm everlastingly your humble servant, deuce take me, madam.

LORD FROTH. Don't you think us a happy couple?

CYNT. I vow, my lord, I think you the happiest couple in the world, for

you're not only happy in one another, and when you are together, but

happy in yourselves, and by yourselves.

LORD FROTH. I hope Mellefont will make a good husband too.

CYNT. 'Tis my interest to believe he will, my Lord.

LORD FROTH. D'ye think he'll love you as well as I do my wife? I'm

afraid not.

CYNT. I believe he'll love me better.

LORD FROTH. Heav'ns! that can never be. But why do you think so?

CYNT. Because he has not so much reason to be fond of himself.

LORD FROTH. Oh, your humble servant for that, dear madam. Well,

Mellefont, you'll be a happy creature.

MEL. Ay, my lord, I shall have the same reason for my happiness that

your lordship has, I shall think myself happy.

LORD FROTH. Ah, that's all.

BRISK. [_To_ LADY FROTH.] Your ladyship is in the right; but, i'gad,

I'm wholly turned into satire. I confess I write but seldom, but when I

do--keen iambics, i'gad. But my lord was telling me your ladyship has

made an essay toward an heroic poem.

LADY FROTH. Did my lord tell you? Yes, I vow, and the subject is my

lord's love to me. And what do you think I call it? I dare swear you

won't guess--_The Sillabub_, ha, ha, ha.

BRISK. Because my lord's title's Froth, i'gad, ha, ha, ha, deuce take

me, very a propos and surprising, ha, ha, ha.

LADY FROTH. He, ay, is not it? And then I call my lord Spumoso; and

myself, what d'ye think I call myself?

BRISK. Lactilla, may be,--i'gad, I cannot tell.

LADY FROTH. Biddy, that's all; just my own name.

BRISK. Biddy! I'gad, very pretty. Deuce take me if your ladyship has

not the art of surprising the most naturally in the world. I hope you'll

make me happy in communicating the poem.

LADY FROTH. Oh, you must be my confidant, I must ask your advice.

BRISK. I'm your humble servant, let me perish. I presume your ladyship

has read Bossu?

LADY FROTH. Oh yes, and Racine, and Dacier upon Aristotle and Horace. My

lord, you must not be jealous, I'm communicating all to Mr. Brisk.

LORD FROTH. No, no, I'll allow Mr. Brisk; have you nothing about you to

shew him, my dear?

LADY FROTH. Yes, I believe I have. Mr. Brisk, come, will you go into

the next room? and there I'll shew you what I have.

LORD FROTH. I'll walk a turn in the garden, and come to you.

SCENE III.

MELLEFONT, CYNTHIA.

MEL. You're thoughtful, Cynthia?

CYNT. I'm thinking, though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it

leaves 'em still two fools; and they become more conspicuous by setting

off one another.

MEL. That's only when two fools meet, and their follies are opposed.

CYNT. Nay, I have known two wits meet, and by the opposition of their

wit render themselves as ridiculous as fools. 'Tis an odd game we're

going to play at. What think you of drawing stakes, and giving over in

time?

MEL. No, hang't, that's not endeavouring to win, because it's possible

we may lose; since we have shuffled and cut, let's even turn up trump

now.

CYNT. Then I find it's like cards, if either of us have a good hand it

is an accident of fortune.

MEL. No, marriage is rather like a game at bowls: fortune indeed makes

the match, and the two nearest, and sometimes the two farthest, are

together, but the game depends entirely upon judgment.

CYNT. Still it is a game, and consequently one of us must be a loser.

MEL. Not at all; only a friendly trial of skill, and the winnings to be

laid out in an entertainment. What's here, the music? Oh, my lord has

promised the company a new song; we'll get 'em to give it us by the way.

[_Musicians crossing the stage_.] Pray let us have the favour of you, to

practise the song before the company hear it.

SONG.

I.

Cynthia frowns whene'er I woo her,

Yet she's vext if I give over;

Much she fears I should undo her,

But much more to lose her lover:

Thus, in doubting, she refuses;

And not winning, thus she loses.

II.

Prithee, Cynthia, look behind you,

Age and wrinkles will o'ertake you;

Then too late desire will find you,

When the power must forsake you:

Think, O think o' th' sad condition,

To be past, yet wish fruition.

MEL. You shall have my thanks below. [_To the musicians_, _they go

out_.]

SCENE IV.

[_To them_] SIR PAUL PLYANT _and_ LADY PLYANT.

SIR PAUL. Gadsbud! I am provoked into a fermentation, as my Lady Froth

says; was ever the like read of in story?

LADY PLYANT. Sir Paul, have patience, let me alone to rattle him up.

SIR PAUL. Pray, your ladyship, give me leave to be angry. I'll rattle

him up, I warrant you, I'll firk him with a _certiorari_.

LADY PLYANT. You firk him, I'll firk him myself; pray, Sir Paul, hold

you contented.

CYNT. Bless me, what makes my father in such a passion? I never saw him

thus before.

SIR PAUL. Hold yourself contented, my Lady Plyant. I find passion

coming upon me by inflation, and I cannot submit as formerly, therefore

give way.

LADY PLYANT. How now! will you be pleased to retire and--

SIR PAUL. No, marry will I not be pleased: I am pleased to be angry,

that's my pleasure at this time.

MEL. What can this mean?

LADY PLYANT. Gads my life, the man's distracted; why, how now, who are

you? What am I? Slidikins, can't I govern you? What did I marry you

for? Am I not to be absolute and uncontrollable? Is it fit a woman of

my spirit and conduct should be contradicted in a matter of this concern?

SIR PAUL. It concerns me and only me. Besides, I'm not to be governed

at all times. When I am in tranquillity, my Lady Plyant shall command

Sir Paul; but when I am provoked to fury, I cannot incorporate with

patience and reason: as soon may tigers match with tigers, lambs with

lambs, and every creature couple with its foe, as the poet says.

LADY PLYANT. He's hot-headed still! 'Tis in vain to talk to you; but

remember I have a curtain-lecture for you, you disobedient, headstrong

brute.

SIR PAUL. No, 'tis because I won't be headstrong, because I won't be a

brute, and have my head fortified, that I am thus exasperated. But I

will protect my honour, and yonder is the violator of my fame.

LADY PLYANT. 'Tis my honour that is concerned, and the violation was

intended to me. Your honour! You have none but what is in my keeping,

and I can dispose of it when I please: therefore don't provoke me.

SIR PAUL. Hum, gadsbud, she says true. Well, my lady, march on; I will

fight under you, then: I am convinced, as far as passion will permit.

[LADY PLYANT _and_ SIR PAUL _come up to_ MELLEFONT.]

LADY PLYANT. Inhuman and treacherous--

SIR PAUL. Thou serpent and first tempter of womankind.

CYNT. Bless me! Sir, madam, what mean you?

SIR PAUL. Thy, Thy, come away, Thy; touch him not. Come hither, girl;

go not near him, there's nothing but deceit about him. Snakes are in his

peruke, and the crocodile of Nilus is in his belly; he will eat thee up

alive.

LADY PLYANT. Dishonourable, impudent creature!

MEL. For heav'n's sake, madam, to whom do you direct this language?

LADY PLYANT. Have I behaved myself with all the decorum and nicety

befitting the person of Sir Paul's wife? Have I preserved my honour as

it were in a snow-house for these three years past? Have I been white

and unsullied even by Sir Paul himself?

SIR PAUL. Nay, she has been an invincible wife, even to me; that's the

truth on't.

LADY PLYANT. Have I, I say, preserved myself like a fair sheet of paper

for you to make a blot upon?

SIR PAUL. And she shall make a simile with any woman in England.

MEL. I am so amazed, I know not what to say.

SIR PAUL. Do you think my daughter, this pretty creature--gadsbud, she's

a wife for a cherubim!--do you think her fit for nothing but to be a

stalking horse, to stand before you, while you take aim at my wife?

Gadsbud, I was never angry before in my life, and I'll never be appeased

again.

MEL. Hell and damnation! This is my aunt; such malice can be engendered

nowhere else. [_Aside_.]

LADY PLYANT. Sir Paul, take Cynthia from his sight; leave me to strike

him with the remorse of his intended crime.

CYNT. Pray, sir, stay, hear him; I dare affirm he's innocent.

SIR PAUL. Innocent! Why, hark'ee--come hither, Thy--hark'ee, I had it

from his aunt, my sister Touchwood. Gadsbud, he does not care a farthing

for anything of thee but thy portion. Why, he's in love with my wife. He

would have tantalised thee, and made a cuckold of thy poor father, and

that would certainly have broke my heart. I'm sure, if ever I should

have horns, they would kill me; they would never come kindly--I should

die of 'em like a child that was cutting his teeth--I should indeed,

Thy--therefore come away; but providence has prevented all, therefore

come away when I bid you.

CYNT. I must obey.

SCENE V.

LADY PLYANT, MELLEFONT.

LADY PLYANT. Oh, such a thing! the impiety of it startles me--to wrong

so good, so fair a creature, and one that loves you tenderly--'tis a

barbarity of barbarities, and nothing could be guilty of it--

MEL. But the greatest villain imagination can form, I grant it; and next

to the villainy of such a fact is the villainy of aspersing me with the

guilt. How? which way was I to wrong her? For yet I understand you not.

LADY PLYANT. Why, gads my life, cousin Mellefont, you cannot be so

peremptory as to deny it, when I tax you with it to your face? for now

Sir Paul's gone, you are _corum nobus_.

MEL. By heav'n, I love her more than life or--

LADY PLYANT. Fiddle faddle, don't tell me of this and that, and

everything in the world, but give me mathemacular demonstration; answer

me directly. But I have not patience. Oh, the impiety of it, as I was

saying, and the unparalleled wickedness! O merciful Father! How could

you think to reverse nature so, to make the daughter the means of

procuring the mother?

MEL. The daughter to procure the mother!

LADY PLYANT. Ay, for though I am not Cynthia's own mother, I am her

father's wife, and that's near enough to make it incest.

MEL. Incest! O my precious aunt, and the devil in conjunction.

[_Aside_.]

LADY PLYANT. Oh, reflect upon the horror of that, and then the guilt of

deceiving everybody; marrying the daughter, only to make a cuckold of the

father; and then seducing me, debauching my purity, and perverting me

from the road of virtue in which I have trod thus long, and never made

one trip, not one _faux pas_. Oh, consider it! What would you have to

answer for if you should provoke me to frailty? Alas! humanity is

feeble, heav'n knows! very feeble, and unable to support itself.

MEL. Where am I? is it day? and am I awake? Madam--

LADY PLYANT. And nobody knows how circumstances may happen together. To

my thinking, now I could resist the strongest temptation. But yet I

know, 'tis impossible for me to know whether I could or not; there's no

certainty in the things of this life.

MEL. Madam, pray give me leave to ask you one question.

LADY PLYANT. O Lord, ask me the question; I'll swear I'll refuse it, I

swear I'll deny it--therefore don't ask me; nay, you shan't ask me, I

swear I'll deny it. O Gemini, you have brought all the blood into my

face; I warrant I am as red as a turkey-cock. O fie, cousin Mellefont!

MEL. Nay, madam, hear me; I mean--

LADY PLYANT. Hear you? No, no; I'll deny you first and hear you

afterwards. For one does not know how one's mind may change upon

hearing. Hearing is one of the senses, and all the senses are fallible.

I won't trust my honour, I assure you; my honour is infallible and

uncomeatable.

MEL. For heav'n's sake, madam--

LADY PLYANT. Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of heav'n,

and have so much wickedness in your heart? May be you don't think it a

sin--they say some of you gentlemen don't think it a sin. May be it is

no sin to them that don't think it so; indeed, if I did not think it a

sin--But still my honour, if it were no sin. But then, to marry my

daughter for the conveniency of frequent opportunities, I'll never

consent to that; as sure as can be, I'll break the match.

MEL. Death and amazement! Madam, upon my knees--

LADY PLYANT. Nay, nay, rise up; come, you shall see my good-nature. I

know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. 'Tis not your

fault; nor, I swear, it is not mine. How can I help it, if I have

charms? And how can you help it, if you are made a captive? I swear it

is pity it should be a fault. But my honour,--well, but your honour,

too--but the sin!--well, but the necessity--O Lord, here's somebody

coming, I dare not stay. Well, you must consider of your crime; and

strive as much as can be against it,--strive, be sure. But don't be

melancholic; don't despair. But never think that I'll grant you

anything. O Lord, no. But be sure you lay aside all thoughts of the

marriage, for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only as a blind for

your passion to me, yet it will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say?

Jealous! no, no, I can't be jealous, for I must not love you; therefore

don't hope,--but don't despair neither. Oh, they're coming, I must fly.

SCENE VI.

MELLEFONT _alone_.

MEL. [_After a pause_.] So then, spite of my care and foresight, I am

caught, caught in my security. Yet this was but a shallow artifice,

unworthy of my Machiavellian aunt. There must be more behind: this is

but the first flash, the priming of her engine. Destruction follows

hard, if not most presently prevented.

SCENE VII.

[_To him_] MASKWELL.

MEL. Maskwell, welcome, thy presence is a view of land, appearing to my

shipwrecked hopes. The witch has raised the storm, and her ministers

have done their work: you see the vessels are parted.

MASK. I know it. I met Sir Paul towing away Cynthia. Come, trouble not

your head; I'll join you together ere to-morrow morning, or drown between

you in the attempt.

MEL. There's comfort in a hand stretched out to one that's sinking;

though ne'er so far off.

MASK. No sinking, nor no danger. Come, cheer up; why, you don't know

that while I plead for you, your aunt has given me a retaining fee. Nay,

I am your greatest enemy, and she does but journey-work under me.

MEL. Ha! how's this?

MASK. What d'ye think of my being employed in the execution of all her

plots? Ha, ha, ha, by heav'n, it's true: I have undertaken to break the

match; I have undertaken to make your uncle disinherit you; to get you

turned out of doors; and to--ha, ha, ha, I can't tell you for laughing.

Oh, she has opened her heart to me! I am to turn you a-grazing, and

to--ha, ha, ha, marry Cynthia myself. There's a plot for you.

MEL. Ha! Oh, see, I see my rising sun! Light breaks through clouds

upon me, and I shall live in day--Oh, my Maskwell! how shall I thank or

praise thee? Thou hast outwitted woman. But, tell me, how couldst thou

thus get into her confidence? Ha! How? But was it her contrivance to

persuade my Lady Plyant to this extravagant belief?

MASK. It was; and to tell you the truth, I encouraged it for your

diversion. Though it made you a little uneasy for the present, yet the

reflection of it must needs be entertaining. I warrant she was very

violent at first.

MEL. Ha, ha, ha, ay, a very fury; but I was most afraid of her violence

at last. If you had not come as you did, I don't know what she might

have attempted.

MASK. Ha, ha, ha, I know her temper. Well, you must know, then, that

all my contrivances were but bubbles, till at last I pretended to have

been long secretly in love with Cynthia; that did my business, that

convinced your aunt I might be trusted; since it was as much my interest

as hers to break the match. Then, she thought my jealousy might qualify

me to assist her in her revenge. And, in short, in that belief, told me

the secrets of her heart. At length we made this agreement, if I

accomplish her designs (as I told you before) she has engaged to put

Cynthia with all her fortune into my power.

MEL. She is most gracious in her favour. Well, and, dear Jack, how hast

thou contrived?

MASK. I would not have you stay to hear it now; for I don't know but she

may come this way. I am to meet her anon; after that, I'll tell you the

whole matter. Be here in this gallery an hour hence; by that time I

imagine our consultation may be over.

MEL. I will; till then success attend thee.

SCENE VIII.

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?

ACT III.

SCENE I.

LORD TOUCHWOOD _and_ LADY TOUCHWOOD.

LADY TOUCH. My lord, can you blame my brother Plyant if he refuse his

daughter upon this provocation? The contract's void by this unheard-of

impiety.

LORD TOUCH. I don't believe it true; he has better principles. Pho,

'tis nonsense. Come, come, I know my Lady Plyant has a large eye, and

would centre everything in her own circle; 'tis not the first time she

has mistaken respect for love, and made Sir Paul jealous of the civility

of an undesigning person, the better to bespeak his security in her

unfeigned pleasures.

LADY TOUCH. You censure hardly, my lord; my sister's honour is very well

known.

LORD TOUCH. Yes, I believe I know some that have been familiarly

acquainted with it. This is a little trick wrought by some pitiful

contriver, envious of my nephew's merit.

LADY TOUCH. Nay, my lord, it may be so, and I hope it will be found so.

But that will require some time; for in such a case as this,

demonstration is necessary.

LORD TOUCH. There should have been demonstration of the contrary too,

before it had been believed.

LADY TOUCH. So I suppose there was.

LORD TOUCH. How? Where? When?

LADY TOUCH. That I can't tell; nay, I don't say there was. I am willing

to believe as favourably of my nephew as I can.

LORD TOUCH. I don't know that. [_Half aside_.]

LADY TOUCH. How? Don't you believe that, say you, my lord?

LORD TOUCH. No, I don't say so. I confess I am troubled to find you so

cold in his defence.

LADY TOUCH. His defence! Bless me, would you have me defend an ill

thing?

LORD TOUCH. You believe it, then?

LADY TOUCH. I don't know; I am very unwilling to speak my thoughts in

anything that may be to my cousin's disadvantage: besides, I find, my

lord, you are prepared to receive an ill impression from any opinion of

mine which is not consenting with your own. But, since I am like to be

suspected in the end, and 'tis a pain any longer to dissemble, I own it

to you; in short I do believe it, nay, and can believe anything worse, if

it were laid to his charge. Don't ask me my reasons, my lord, for they

are not fit to be told you.

LORD TOUCH. I'm amazed: there must be something more than ordinary in

this. [_Aside_.] Not fit to be told me, madam? You can have no

interests wherein I am not concerned, and consequently the same reasons

ought to be convincing to me, which create your satisfaction or disquiet.

LADY TOUCH. But those which cause my disquiet I am willing to have

remote from your hearing. Good my lord, don't press me.

LORD TOUCH. Don't oblige me to press you.

LADY TOUCH. Whatever it was, 'tis past. And that is better to be

unknown which cannot be prevented; therefore let me beg you to rest

satisfied.

LORD TOUCH. When you have told me, I will.

LADY TOUCH. You won't.

LORD TOUCH. By my life, my dear, I will.

LADY TOUCH. What if you can't?

LORD TOUCH. How? Then I must know, nay, I will. No more trifling. I

charge you tell me. By all our mutual peace to come; upon your duty--

LADY TOUCH. Nay, my lord, you need say no more, to make me lay my heart

before you, but don't be thus transported; compose yourself. It is not

of concern to make you lose one minute's temper. 'Tis not, indeed, my

dear. Nay, by this kiss you shan't be angry. O Lord, I wish I had not

told you anything. Indeed, my lord, you have frighted me. Nay, look

pleased, I'll tell you.

LORD TOUCH. Well, well.

LADY TOUCH. Nay, but will you be calm? Indeed it's nothing but--

LORD TOUCH. But what?

LADY TOUCH. But will you promise me not to be angry? Nay, you must--not

to be angry with Mellefont? I dare swear he's sorry, and were it to do

again, would not--

LORD TOUCH. Sorry for what? 'Death, you rack me with delay.

LADY TOUCH. Nay, no great matter, only--well, I have your promise. Pho,

why nothing, only your nephew had a mind to amuse himself sometimes with

a little gallantry towards me. Nay, I can't think he meant anything

seriously, but methought it looked oddly.

LORD TOUCH. Confusion and hell, what do I hear?

LADY TOUCH. Or, may be, he thought he was not enough akin to me, upon

your account, and had a mind to create a nearer relation on his own; a

lover you know, my lord. Ha, ha, ha. Well, but that's all. Now you

have it; well remember your promise, my lord, and don't take any notice

of it to him.

LORD TOUCH. No, no, no. Damnation!

LADY TOUCH. Nay, I swear you must not. A little harmless mirth; only

misplaced, that's all. But if it were more, 'tis over now, and all's

well. For my part I have forgot it, and so has he, I hope,--for I have

not heard anything from him these two days.

LORD TOUCH. These two days! Is it so fresh? Unnatural villain! Death,

I'll have him stripped and turned naked out of my doors this moment, and

let him rot and perish, incestuous brute!

LADY TOUCH. Oh, for heav'n's sake, my lord, you'll ruin me if you take

such public notice of it; it will be a town talk. Consider your own and

my honour; nay, I told you you would not be satisfied when you knew it.

LORD TOUCH. Before I've done I will be satisfied. Ungrateful monster!

how long?

LADY TOUCH. Lord, I don't know; I wish my lips had grown together when I

told you. Almost a twelvemonth. Nay, I won't tell you any more till you

are yourself. Pray, my lord, don't let the company see you in this

disorder. Yet, I confess, I can't blame you; for I think I was never so

surprised in my life. Who would have thought my nephew could have so

misconstrued my kindness? But will you go into your closet, and recover

your temper. I'll make an excuse of sudden business to the company, and

come to you. Pray, good, dear my lord, let me beg you do now. I'll come

immediately and tell you all; will you, my lord?

LORD TOUCH. I will--I am mute with wonder.

LADY TOUCH. Well, but go now, here's somebody coming.

LORD TOUCH. Well, I go. You won't stay? for I would hear more of this.

LADY TOUCH. I follow instantly. So.

SCENE II.

LADY TOUCHWOOD, MASKWELL.

MASK. This was a masterpiece, and did not need my help, though I stood

ready for a cue to come in and confirm all, had there been occasion.

LADY TOUCH. Have you seen Mellefont?

MASK. I have; and am to meet him here about this time.

LADY TOUCH. How does he bear his disappointment?

MASK. Secure in my assistance, he seemed not much afflicted, but rather

laughed at the shallow artifice, which so little time must of necessity

discover. Yet he is apprehensive of some farther design of yours, and

has engaged me to watch you. I believe he will hardly be able to prevent

your plot, yet I would have you use caution and expedition.

LADY TOUCH. Expedition indeed, for all we do must be performed in the

remaining part of this evening, and before the company break up, lest my

lord should cool and have an opportunity to talk with him privately. My

lord must not see him again.

MASK. By no means; therefore you must aggravate my lord's displeasure to

a degree that will admit of no conference with him. What think you of

mentioning me?

LADY TOUCH. How?

MASK. To my lord, as having been privy to Mellefont's design upon you,

but still using my utmost endeavours to dissuade him, though my

friendship and love to him has made me conceal it; yet you may say, I

threatened the next time he attempted anything of that kind to discover

it to my lord.

LADY TOUCH. To what end is this?

MASK. It will confirm my lord's opinion of my honour and honesty, and

create in him a new confidence in me, which (should this design miscarry)

will be necessary to the forming another plot that I have in my head.--To

cheat you as well as the rest. [_Aside_.]

LADY TOUCH. I'll do it--I'll tell him you hindered him once from forcing

me.

MASK. Excellent! Your ladyship has a most improving fancy. You had

best go to my lord, keep him as long as you can in his closet, and I

doubt not but you will mould him to what you please; your guests are so

engaged in their own follies and intrigues, they'll miss neither of you.

LADY TOUCH. When shall we meet?--at eight this evening in my chamber?

There rejoice at our success, and toy away an hour in mirth.

MASK. I will not fail.

SCENE III.

MASKWELL _alone_.

I know what she means by toying away an hour well enough. Pox, I have

lost all appetite to her; yet she's a fine woman, and I loved her once.

But I don't know: since I have been in a great measure kept by her, the

case is altered; what was my pleasure is become my duty, and I have as

little stomach to her now as if I were her husband. Should she smoke my

design upon Cynthia, I were in a fine pickle. She has a damned

penetrating head, and knows how to interpret a coldness the right way;

therefore I must dissemble ardour and ecstasy; that's resolved. How

easily and pleasantly is that dissembled before fruition! Pox on't that

a man can't drink without quenching his thirst. Ha! yonder comes

Mellefont, thoughtful. Let me think. Meet her at eight--hum--ha! By

heav'n I have it.--If I can speak to my lord before. Was it my brain or

providence? No matter which--I will deceive 'em all, and yet secure

myself. 'Twas a lucky thought! Well, this double-dealing is a jewel.

Here he comes, now for me. [MASKWELL, _pretending not to see him_,

_walks by him_, _and speaks as it were to himself_.]

SCENE IV.

[_To him_] MELLEFONT, _musing_.

MASK. Mercy on us, what will the wickedness of this world come to?

MEL. How now, Jack? What, so full of contemplation that you run over?

MASK. I'm glad you're come, for I could not contain myself any longer,

and was just going to give vent to a secret, which nobody but you ought

to drink down. Your aunt's just gone from hence.

MEL. And having trusted thee with the secrets of her soul, thou art

villainously bent to discover 'em all to me, ha?

MASK. I'm afraid my frailty leans that way. But I don't know whether I

can in honour discover 'em all.

MEL. All, all, man! What, you may in honour betray her as far as she

betrays herself. No tragical design upon my person, I hope.

MASK. No, but it's a comical design upon mine.

MEL. What dost thou mean?

MASK. Listen and be dumb; we have been bargaining about the rate of your

ruin--

MEL. Like any two guardians to an orphan heiress. Well?

MASK. And whereas pleasure is generally paid with mischief, what

mischief I do is to be paid with pleasure.

MEL. So when you've swallowed the potion you sweeten your mouth with a

plum.

MASK. You are merry, sir, but I shall probe your constitution. In

short, the price of your banishment is to be paid with the person of--

MEL. Of Cynthia and her fortune. Why, you forget you told me this

before.

MASK. No, no. So far you are right; and I am, as an earnest of that

bargain, to have full and free possession of the person of--your aunt.

MEL. Ha! Pho, you trifle.

MASK. By this light, I'm serious; all raillery apart. I knew 'twould

stun you. This evening at eight she will receive me in her bedchamber.

MEL. Hell and the devil, is she abandoned of all grace? Why, the woman

is possessed.

MASK. Well, will you go in my stead?

MEL. By heav'n, into a hot furnace sooner.

MASK. No, you would not; it would not be so convenient, as I can order

matters.

MEL. What d'ye mean?

MASK. Mean? Not to disappoint the lady, I assure you. Ha, ha, ha, how

gravely he looks. Come, come, I won't perplex you. 'Tis the only thing

that providence could have contrived to make me capable of serving you,

either to my inclination or your own necessity.

MEL. How, how, for heav'n's sake, dear Maskwell?

MASK. Why, thus. I'll go according to appointment; you shall have

notice at the critical minute to come and surprise your aunt and me

together. Counterfeit a rage against me, and I'll make my escape through

the private passage from her chamber, which I'll take care to leave open.

'Twill be hard if then you can't bring her to any conditions. For this

discovery will disarm her of all defence, and leave her entirely at your

mercy--nay, she must ever after be in awe of you.

MEL. Let me adore thee, my better genius! By heav'n I think it is not

in the power of fate to disappoint my hopes--my hopes? My certainty!

MASK. Well, I'll meet you here, within a quarter of eight, and give you

notice.

MEL. Good fortune ever go along with thee.

SCENE V.

MELLEFONT, CARELESS.

CARE. Mellefont, get out o' th' way, my Lady Plyant's coming, and I

shall never succeed while thou art in sight. Though she begins to tack

about; but I made love a great while to no purpose.

MEL. Why, what's the matter? She's convinced that I don't care for her.

CARE. I can't get an answer from her, that does not begin with her

honour, or her virtue, her religion, or some such cant. Then she has

told me the whole history of Sir Paul's nine years courtship; how he has

lain for whole nights together upon the stairs before her chamber-door;

and that the first favour he received from her was a piece of an old

scarlet petticoat for a stomacher, which since the day of his marriage he

has out of a piece of gallantry converted into a night-cap, and wears it

still with much solemnity on his anniversary wedding-night.

MEL. That I have seen, with the ceremony thereunto belonging. For on

that night he creeps in at the bed's feet like a gulled bassa that has

married a relation of the Grand Signior, and that night he has his arms

at liberty. Did not she tell you at what a distance she keeps him? He

has confessed to me that, but at some certain times, that is, I suppose,

when she apprehends being with child, he never has the privilege of using

the familiarity of a husband with a wife. He was once given to

scrambling with his hands, and sprawling in his sleep, and ever since she

has him swaddled up in blankets, and his hands and feet swathed down, and

so put to bed; and there he lies with a great beard, like a Russian bear

upon a drift of snow. You are very great with him, I wonder he never

told you his grievances: he will, I warrant you.

CARE. Excessively foolish! But that which gives me most hopes of her is

her telling me of the many temptations she has resisted.

MEL. Nay, then you have her; for a woman's bragging to a man that she

has overcome temptations is an argument that they were weakly offered,

and a challenge to him to engage her more irresistibly. 'Tis only an

enhancing the price of the commodity, by telling you how many customers

have underbid her.

CARE. Nay, I don't despair. But still she has a grudging to you. I

talked to her t'other night at my Lord Froth's masquerade, when I'm

satisfied she knew me, and I had no reason to complain of my reception;

but I find women are not the same bare-faced and in masks, and a vizor

disguises their inclinations as much as their faces.

MEL. 'Tis a mistake, for women may most properly be said to be unmasked

when they wear vizors; for that secures them from blushing and being out

of countenance, and next to being in the dark, or alone, they are most

truly themselves in a vizor mask. Here they come: I'll leave you. Ply

her close, and by and by clap a _billet doux_ into her hand; for a woman

never thinks a man truly in love with her, till he has been fool enough

to think of her out of her sight, and to lose so much time as to write to

her.

SCENE VI.

CARELESS, SIR PAUL, _and_ LADY PLYANT.

SIR PAUL. Shan't we disturb your meditation, Mr. Careless? You would be

private?

CARE. You bring that along with you, Sir Paul, that shall be always

welcome to my privacy.

SIR PAUL. O sweet sir, you load your humble servants, both me and my

wife, with continual favours.

LADY PLYANT. Sir Paul, what a phrase was there? You will be making

answers, and taking that upon you which ought to lie upon me. That you

should have so little breeding to think Mr. Careless did not apply

himself to me. Pray what have you to entertain anybody's privacy? I

swear and declare in the face of the world I'm ready to blush for your

ignorance.

SIR PAUL. I acquiesce, my lady; but don't snub so loud. [_Aside to

her_.]

LADY PLYANT. Mr. Careless, if a person that is wholly illiterate might

be supposed to be capable of being qualified to make a suitable return to

those obligations, which you are pleased to confer upon one that is

wholly incapable of being qualified in all those circumstances, I'm sure

I should rather attempt it than anything in the world, [_Courtesies_] for

I'm sure there's nothing in the world that I would rather. [_Courtesies_]

But I know Mr. Careless is so great a critic, and so fine a gentleman,

that it is impossible for me--

CARE. O heavens! madam, you confound me.

SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, she's a fine person.

LADY PLYANT. O Lord! sir, pardon me, we women have not those advantages;

I know my imperfections. But at the same time you must give me leave to

declare in the face of the world that nobody is more sensible of favours

and things; for with the reserve of my honour I assure you, Mr. Careless,

I don't know anything in the world I would refuse to a person so

meritorious. You'll pardon my want of expression.

CARE. O, your ladyship is abounding in all excellence, particularly that

of phrase.

LADY PLYANT. You are so obliging, sir.

CARE. Your ladyship is so charming.

SIR PAUL. So, now, now; now, my lady.

LADY PLYANT. So well bred.

CARE. So surprising.

LADY PLYANT. So well dressed, so _bonne mine_, so eloquent, so

unaffected, so easy, so free, so particular, so agreeable.

SIR PAUL. Ay, so, so, there.

CARE. O Lord, I beseech you madam, don't.

LADY PLYANT. So gay, so graceful, so good teeth, so fine shape, so fine

limbs, so fine linen, and I don't doubt but you have a very good skin,

sir,

CARE. For heaven's sake, madam, I'm quite out of countenance.

SIR PAUL. And my lady's quite out of breath; or else you should

hear--Gads-bud, you may talk of my Lady Froth.

CARE. O fie, fie, not to be named of a day. My Lady Froth is very well

in her accomplishments. But it is when my Lady Plyant is not thought of.

If that can ever be.

LADY PLYANT. O, you overcome me. That is so excessive.

SIR PAUL. Nay, I swear and vow that was pretty.

CARE. O, Sir Paul, you are the happiest man alive. Such a lady! that is

the envy of her own sex, and the admiration of ours.

SIR PAUL. Your humble servant. I am, I thank heaven, in a fine way of

living, as I may say, peacefully and happily, and I think need not envy

any of my neighbours, blessed be providence. Ay, truly, Mr. Careless, my

lady is a great blessing, a fine, discreet, well-spoken woman as you

shall see, if it becomes me to say so, and we live very comfortably

together; she is a little hasty sometimes, and so am I; but mine's soon

over, and then I'm so sorry.--O Mr. Careless, if it were not for one

thing--

SCENE VII.

CARELESS, SIR PAUL, LADY PLYANT, BOY _with a letter_.

LADY PLYANT. How often have you been told of that, you jackanapes?

SIR PAUL. Gad so, gad's-bud. Tim, carry it to my lady, you should have

carried it to my lady first.

BOY. 'Tis directed to your worship.

SIR PAUL. Well, well, my lady reads all letters first. Child, do so no

more; d'ye hear, Tim.

BOY. No, and please you.

SCENE VIII.

CARELESS, SIR PAUL, LADY PLYANT.

SIR PAUL. A humour of my wife's: you know women have little fancies. But

as I was telling you, Mr. Careless, if it were not for one thing, I

should think myself the happiest man in the world; indeed that touches me

near, very near.

CARE. What can that be, Sir Paul?

SIR PAUL. Why, I have, I thank heaven, a very plentiful fortune, a good

estate in the country, some houses in town, and some money, a pretty

tolerable personal estate; and it is a great grief to me, indeed it is,

Mr. Careless, that I have not a son to inherit this. 'Tis true I have a

daughter, and a fine dutiful child she is, though I say it, blessed be

providence I may say; for indeed, Mr. Careless, I am mightily beholden to

providence. A poor unworthy sinner. But if I had a son! Ah, that's my

affliction, and my only affliction; indeed I cannot refrain tears when it

comes in my mind. [_Cries_.]

CARE. Why, methinks that might be easily remedied--my lady's a fine

likely woman--

SIR PAUL. Oh, a fine likely woman as you shall see in a summer's day.

Indeed she is, Mr. Careless, in all respects.

CARE. And I should not have taken you to have been so old--

SIR PAUL. Alas, that's not it, Mr. Careless; ah! that's not it; no, no,

you shoot wide of the mark a mile; indeed you do, that's not it, Mr.

Careless; no, no, that's not it.

CARE. No? What can be the matter then?

SIR PAUL. You'll scarcely believe me when I shall tell you--my lady is

so nice. It's very strange, but it's true; too true--she's so very nice,

that I don't believe she would touch a man for the world. At least not

above once a year; I'm sure I have found it so; and, alas, what's once a

year to an old man, who would do good in his generation? Indeed it's

true, Mr. Careless, it breaks my heart. I am her husband, as I may say;

though far unworthy of that honour, yet I am her husband; but alas-a-day,

I have no more familiarity with her person--as to that matter--than with

my own mother--no indeed.

CARE. Alas-a-day, this is a lamentable story. My lady must be told

on't. She must i'faith, Sir Paul; 'tis an injury to the world.

SIR PAUL. Ah! would to heaven you would, Mr. Careless; you are mightily

in her favour.

CARE. I warrant you, what! we must have a son some way or other.

SIR PAUL. Indeed I should be mightily bound to you if you could bring it

about, Mr. Careless.

LADY PLYANT. Here, Sir Paul, it's from your steward. Here's a return of

600 pounds; you may take fifty of it for the next half year. [_Gives him

the letter_.]

SCENE IX.

[_To them_] LORD FROTH, CYNTHIA.

SIR PAUL. How does my girl? Come hither to thy father, poor lamb:

thou'rt melancholic.

LORD FROTH. Heaven, Sir Paul, you amaze me, of all things in the world.

You are never pleased but when we are all upon the broad grin: all laugh

and no company; ah, then 'tis such a sight to see some teeth. Sure

you're a great admirer of my Lady Whifler, Mr. Sneer, and Sir Laurence

Loud, and that gang.

SIR PAUL. I vow and swear she's a very merry woman; but I think she

laughs a little too much.

LORD FROTH. Merry! O Lord, what a character that is of a woman of

quality. You have been at my Lady Whifler's upon her day, madam?

CYNT. Yes, my lord. I must humour this fool. [_Aside_.]

LORD FROTH. Well, and how? hee! What is your sense of the conversation?

CYNT. Oh, most ridiculous, a perpetual comfort of laughing without any

harmony; for sure, my lord, to laugh out of time, is as disagreeable as

to sing out of time or out of tune.

LORD FROTH. Hee, hee, hee, right; and then, my Lady Whifler is so

ready--she always comes in three bars too soon. And then, what do they

laugh at? For you know laughing without a jest is as impertinent, hee!

as, as--

CYNT. As dancing without a fiddle.

LORD FROTH. Just i'faith, that was at my tongue's end.

CYNT. But that cannot be properly said of them, for I think they are all

in good nature with the world, and only laugh at one another; and you

must allow they have all jests in their persons, though they have none in

their conversation.

LORD FROTH. True, as I'm a person of honour. For heaven's sake let us

sacrifice 'em to mirth a little. [_Enter_ BOY _and whispers_ SIR PAUL.]

SIR PAUL. Gads so.--Wife, wife, my Lady Plyant, I have a word.

LADY PLYANT. I'm busy, Sir Paul, I wonder at your impertinence.

CARE. Sir Paul, harkee, I'm reasoning the matter you know. Madam, if

your ladyship please, we'll discourse of this in the next room.

SIR PAUL. O ho, I wish you good success, I wish you good success. Boy,

tell my lady, when she has done, I would speak with her below.

SCENE X.

CYNTHIA, LORD FROTH, LADY FROTH, BRISK.

LADY FROTH. Then you think that episode between Susan, the dairy-maid,

and our coachman is not amiss; you know, I may suppose the dairy in town,

as well as in the country.

BRISK. Incomparable, let me perish. But then, being an heroic poem, had

you not better call him a charioteer? Charioteer sounds great; besides,

your ladyship's coachman having a red face, and you comparing him to the

sun--and you know the sun is called Heaven's charioteer.

LADY FROTH. Oh, infinitely better; I'm extremely beholden to you for the

hint; stay, we'll read over those half a score lines again. [_Pulls out

a paper_.] Let me see here, you know what goes before,--the comparison,

you know. [_Reads_.]

For as the sun shines ev'ry day,

So of our coachman I may say.

BRISK. I'm afraid that simile won't do in wet weather; because you say

the sun shines every day.

LADY FROTH. No; for the sun it won't, but it will do for the coachman,

for you know there's most occasion for a coach in wet weather.

BRISK. Right, right, that saves all.

LADY FROTH. Then I don't say the sun shines all the day, but that he

peeps now and then; yet he does shine all the day too, you know, though

we don't see him.

BRISK. Right, but the vulgar will never comprehend that.

LADY FROTH. Well, you shall hear. Let me see. [_Reads_.]

For as the sun shines ev'ry day,

So of our coachman I may say,

He shows his drunken fiery face,

Just as the sun does, more or less.

BRISK. That's right, all's well, all's well. 'More or less.'

LADY FROTH reads:

And when at night his labour's done,

Then too, like Heav'n's charioteer the sun:

Ay, charioteer does better.

Into the dairy he descends,

And there his whipping and his driving ends;

There he's secure from danger of a bilk,

His fare is paid him, and he sets in milk.

For Susan you know, is Thetis, and so--

BRISK. Incomparable well and proper, egad--but I have one exception to

make--don't you think bilk--(I know it's good rhyme)--but don't you think

_bilk_ and _fare_ too like a hackney coachman?

LADY FROTH. I swear and vow I'm afraid so. And yet our Jehu was a

hackney coachman, when my lord took him.

BRISK. Was he? I'm answered, if Jehu was a hackney coachman. You may

put that in the marginal notes though, to prevent criticism--only mark it

with a small asterism, and say, 'Jehu was formerly a hackney coachman.'

LADY FROTH. I will. You'd oblige me extremely to write notes to the

whole poem.

BRISK. With all my heart and soul, and proud of the vast honour, let me

perish.

LORD FROTH. Hee, hee, hee, my dear, have you done? won't you join with

us? We were laughing at my Lady Whifler and Mr. Sneer.

LADY FROTH. Ay, my dear, were you? Oh, filthy Mr. Sneer; he's a

nauseous figure, a most fulsamic fop, foh! He spent two days together in

going about Covent Garden to suit the lining of his coach with his

complexion.

LORD FROTH. O silly! yet his aunt is as fond of him as if she had

brought the ape into the world herself.

BRISK. Who, my Lady Toothless? Oh, she's a mortifying spectacle; she's

always chewing the cud like an old ewe.

CYNT. Fie, Mr. Brisk, eringo's for her cough.

LADY FROTH. I have seen her take 'em half chewed out of her mouth, to

laugh, and then put 'em in again. Foh!

LORD FROTH. Foh!

LADY FROTH. Then she's always ready to laugh when Sneer offers to speak,

and sits in expectation of his no jest, with her gums bare, and her mouth

open--

BRISK. Like an oyster at low ebb, egad. Ha, ha, ha!

CYNT. [_Aside_] Well, I find there are no fools so inconsiderable in

themselves but they can render other people contemptible by exposing

their infirmities.

LADY FROTH. Then that t'other great strapping lady--I can't hit of her

name; the old fat fool that paints so exorbitantly.

BRISK. I know whom you mean--but deuce take me, I can't hit of her name

neither. Paints, d'ye say? Why, she lays it on with a trowel. Then she

has a great beard that bristles through it, and makes her look as if she

were plastered with lime and hair, let me perish.

LADY FROTH. Oh, you made a song upon her, Mr. Brisk.

BRISK. He! egad, so I did. My lord can sing it.

CYNT. O good, my lord, let's hear it.

BRISK. 'Tis not a song neither, it's a sort of an epigram, or rather an

epigrammatic sonnet; I don't know what to call it, but it's satire. Sing

it, my lord.

LORD FROTH sings.

Ancient Phyllis has young graces,

'Tis a strange thing, but a true one;

Shall I tell you how?

She herself makes her own faces,

And each morning wears a new one;

Where's the wonder now?

BRISK. Short, but there's salt in't; my way of writing, egad.

SCENE XI.

[_To them_] FOOTMAN.

LADY FROTH. How now?

FOOT. Your ladyship's chair is come.

LADY FROTH. Is nurse and the child in it?

FOOT. Yes, madam.

LADY FROTH. O the dear creature! Let's go see it.

LORD FROTH. I swear, my dear, you'll spoil that child, with sending it

to and again so often; this is the seventh time the chair has gone for

her to-day.

LADY FROTH. O law! I swear it's but the sixth--and I haven't seen her

these two hours. The poor creature--I swear, my lord, you don't love

poor little Sapho. Come, my dear Cynthia, Mr. Brisk, we'll go see Sapho,

though my lord won't.

CYNT. I'll wait upon your ladyship.

BRISK. Pray, madam, how old is Lady Sapho?

LADY FROTH. Three-quarters, but I swear she has a world of wit, and can

sing a tune already. My lord, won't you go? Won't you? What! not to

see Saph? Pray, my lord, come see little Saph. I knew you could not

stay.

SCENE XII.

CYNTHIA _alone_.

CYNT. 'Tis not so hard to counterfeit joy in the depth of affliction, as

to dissemble mirth in company of fools. Why should I call 'em fools? The

world thinks better of 'em; for these have quality and education, wit and

fine conversation, are received and admired by the world. If not, they

like and admire themselves. And why is not that true wisdom? for 'tis

happiness: and for ought I know, we have misapplied the name all this

while, and mistaken the thing: since

If happiness in self-content is placed,

The wise are wretched, and fools only bless'd.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

MELLEFONT _and_ CYNTHIA.

CYNT. I heard him loud as I came by the closet-door, and my lady with

him, but she seemed to moderate his passion.

MEL. Ay, hell thank her, as gentle breezes moderate a fire; but I shall

counter-work her spells, and ride the witch in her own bridle.

CYNT. It's impossible; she'll cast beyond you still. I'll lay my life

it will never be a match.

MEL. What?

CYNT. Between you and me.

MEL. Why so?

CYNT. My mind gives me it won't, because we are both willing. We each

of us strive to reach the goal, and hinder one another in the race. I

swear it never does well when the parties are so agreed; for when people

walk hand in hand there's neither overtaking nor meeting. We hunt in

couples, where we both pursue the same game but forget one another; and

'tis because we are so near that we don't think of coming together.

MEL. Hum, 'gad I believe there's something in it. Marriage is the game

that we hunt, and while we think that we only have it in view, I don't

see but we have it in our power.

CYNT. Within reach; for example, give me your hand. You have looked

through the wrong end of the perspective all this while, for nothing has

been between us but our fears.

MEL. I don't know why we should not steal out of the house this very

moment and marry one another, without consideration or the fear of

repentance. Pox o' fortune, portion, settlements, and jointures.

CYNT. Ay, ay, what have we to do with 'em? You know we marry for love.

MEL. Love, love, downright, very villainous love.

CYNT. And he that can't live upon love deserves to die in a ditch. Here

then, I give you my promise, in spite of duty, any temptation of wealth,

your inconstancy, or my own inclination to change--

MEL. To run most wilfully and unreasonably away with me this moment and

be married.

CYNT. Hold. Never to marry anybody else.

MEL. That's but a kind of negative consent. Why, you won't baulk the

frolic?

CYNT. If you had not been so assured of your own conduct I would not.

But 'tis but reasonable that since I consent to like a man without the

vile consideration of money, he should give me a very evident

demonstration of his wit: therefore let me see you undermine my Lady

Touchwood, as you boasted, and force her to give her consent, and then--

MEL. I'll do't.

CYNT. And I'll do't.

MEL. This very next ensuing hour of eight o'clock is the last minute of

her reign, unless the devil assist her _in propria persona_.

CYNT. Well, if the devil should assist her, and your plot miscarry--

MEL. Ay, what am I to trust to then?

CYNT. Why, if you give me very clear demonstration that it was the

devil, I'll allow for irresistible odds. But if I find it to be only

chance, or destiny, or unlucky stars, or anything but the very devil, I'm

inexorable: only still I'll keep my word, and live a maid for your sake.

MEL. And you won't die one, for your own, so still there's hope.

CYNT. Here's my mother-in-law, and your friend Careless; I would not

have 'em see us together yet.

SCENE II.

CARELESS _and_ LADY PLYANT.

LADY PLYANT. I swear, Mr. Careless, you are very alluring, and say so

many fine things, and nothing is so moving to me as a fine thing. Well,

I must do you this justice, and declare in the face of the world, never

anybody gained so far upon me as yourself. With blushes I must own it,

you have shaken, as I may say, the very foundation of my honour. Well,

sure, if I escape your importunities, I shall value myself as long as I

live, I swear.

CARE. And despise me. [_Sighing_.]

LADY PLYANT. The last of any man in the world, by my purity; now you

make me swear. O gratitude forbid, that I should ever be wanting in a

respectful acknowledgment of an entire resignation of all my best wishes

for the person and parts of so accomplished a person, whose merit

challenges much more, I'm sure, than my illiterate praises can

description.

CARE. [_In a whining tone_.] Ah heavens, madam, you ruin me with

kindness. Your charming tongue pursues the victory of your eyes, while

at your feet your poor adorer dies.

LADY PLYANT. Ah! Very fine.

CARE. [_Still whining_.] Ah, why are you so fair, so bewitching fair? O

let me grow to the ground here, and feast upon that hand; O let me press

it to my heart, my trembling heart: the nimble movement shall instruct

your pulse, and teach it to alarm desire. (Zoons, I'm almost at the end

of my cant, if she does not yield quickly.) [_Aside_.]

LADY PLYANT. O that's so passionate and fine, I cannot hear. I am not

safe if I stay, and must leave you.

CARE. And must you leave me! Rather let me languish out a wretched

life, and breath my soul beneath your feet. (I must say the same thing

over again, and can't help it.) [_Aside_.]

LADY PLYANT. I swear I'm ready to languish too! O my honour! Whither

is it going? I protest you have given me the palpitation of the heart.

CARE. Can you be so cruel--

LADY PLYANT. O rise, I beseech you, say no more till you rise. Why did

you kneel so long? I swear I was so transported, I did not see it. Well,

to show you how far you have gained upon me, I assure you, if Sir Paul

should die, of all mankind there's none I'd sooner make my second choice.

CARE. O Heaven! I can't out-live this night without your favour; I feel

my spirits faint, a general dampness overspreads my face, a cold deadly

dew already vents through all my pores, and will to-morrow wash me for

ever from your sight, and drown me in my tomb.

LADY PLYANT. Oh, you have conquered, sweet, melting, moving sir, you

have conquered. What heart of marble can refrain to weep, and yield to

such sad sayings! [_Cries_.]

CARE. I thank Heaven, they are the saddest that I ever said. Oh! (I

shall never contain laughter.) [_Aside_.]

LADY PLYANT. Oh, I yield myself all up to your uncontrollable embraces.

Say, thou dear dying man, when, where, and how. Ah, there's Sir Paul.

CARE. 'Slife, yonder's Sir Paul, but if he were not come, I'm so

transported I cannot speak. This note will inform you. [_Gives her a

note_.]

SCENE III.

LADY PLYANT, SIR PAUL, CYNTHIA.

SIR PAUL. Thou art my tender lambkin, and shalt do what thou wilt. But

endeavour to forget this Mellefont.

CYNT. I would obey you to my power, sir; but if I have not him, I have

sworn never to marry.

SIR PAUL. Never to marry! Heavens forbid! must I neither have sons nor

grandsons? Must the family of the Plyants be utterly extinct for want of

issue male? O impiety! But did you swear, did that sweet creature

swear? ha! How durst you swear without my consent, ah? Gads-bud, who am

I?

CYNT. Pray don't be angry, sir, when I swore I had your consent; and

therefore I swore.

SIR PAUL. Why then the revoking my consent does annul, or make of none

effect your oath; so you may unswear it again. The law will allow it.

CYNT. Ay, but my conscience never will.

SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, no matter for that, conscience and law never go

together; you must not expect that.

LADY PLYANT. Ay, but, Sir Paul, I conceive if she has sworn, d'ye mark

me, if she has once sworn, it is most unchristian, inhuman, and obscene

that she should break it. I'll make up the match again, because Mr.

Careless said it would oblige him. [_Aside_.]

SIR PAUL. Does your ladyship conceive so? Why, I was of that opinion

once too. Nay, if your ladyship conceives so, I'm of that opinion again;

but I can neither find my lord nor my lady to know what they intend.

LADY PLYANT. I'm satisfied that my cousin Mellefont has been much

wronged.

CYNT. [_Aside_.] I'm amazed to find her of our side, for I'm sure she

loved him.

LADY PLYANT. I know my Lady Touchwood has no kindness for him; and

besides I have been informed by Mr. Careless, that Mellefont had never

anything more than a profound respect. That he has owned himself to be

my admirer 'tis true, but he was never so presumptuous to entertain any

dishonourable notions of things; so that if this be made plain, I don't

see how my daughter can in conscience, or honour, or anything in the

world--

SIR PAUL. Indeed if this be made plain, as my lady, your mother, says,

child--

LADY PLYANT. Plain! I was informed of it by Mr. Careless. And I assure

you, Mr. Careless is a person that has a most extraordinary respect and

honour for you, Sir Paul.

CYNT. [_Aside_.] And for your ladyship too, I believe, or else you had

not changed sides so soon; now I begin to find it.

SIR PAUL. I am much obliged to Mr. Careless really; he is a person that

I have a great value for, not only for that, but because he has a great

veneration for your ladyship.

LADY PLYANT. O las, no indeed, Sir Paul, 'tis upon your account.

SIR PAUL. No, I protest and vow, I have no title to his esteem, but in

having the honour to appertain in some measure to your ladyship, that's

all.

LADY PLYANT. O law now, I swear and declare it shan't be so; you're too

modest, Sir Paul.

SIR PAUL. It becomes me, when there is any comparison made between--

LADY PLYANT. O fie, fie, Sir Paul, you'll put me out of countenance.

Your very obedient and affectionate wife; that's all. And highly

honoured in that title.

SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, I am transported! Give me leave to kiss your

ladyship's hand.

CYNT. That my poor father should be so very silly! [_Aside_.]

LADY PLYANT. My lip indeed, Sir Paul, I swear you shall. [_He kisses

her_, _and bows very low_.]

SIR PAUL. I humbly thank your ladyship. I don't know whether I fly on

ground, or walk in air. Gads-bud, she was never thus before. Well, I

must own myself the most beholden to Mr. Careless. As sure as can be,

this is all his doing, something that he has said; well, 'tis a rare

thing to have an ingenious friend. Well, your ladyship is of opinion

that the match may go forward.

LADY PLYANT. By all means. Mr. Careless has satisfied me of the matter.

SIR PAUL. Well, why then, lamb, you may keep your oath, but have a care

about making rash vows; come hither to me, and kiss papa.

LADY PLYANT. I swear and declare, I am in such a twitter to read Mr.

Careless his letter, that I can't forbear any longer. But though I may

read all letters first by prerogative, yet I'll be sure to be unsuspected

this time, Sir Paul.

SIR PAUL. Did your ladyship call?

LADY PLYANT. Nay, not to interrupt you, my dear. Only lend me your

letter, which you had from your steward to-day; I would look upon the

account again, and may be increase your allowance.

SIR PAUL. There it is, madam, do you want a pen and ink? [_Bows and

gives the letter_.]

LADY PLYANT. No, no, nothing else, I thank you, Sir Paul. So, now I can

read my own letter under the cover of his. [_Aside_.]

SIR PAUL. He? And wilt thou bring a grandson at nine months end--he? A

brave chopping boy. I'll settle a thousand pound a year upon the rogue

as soon as ever he looks me in the face, I will, gads-bud. I'm overjoyed

to think I have any of my family that will bring children into the world.

For I would fain have some resemblance of myself in my posterity, he,

Thy? Can't you contrive that affair, girl? Do, gads-bud, think on thy

old father, heh? Make the young rogue as like as you can.

CYNT. I'm glad to see you so merry, sir.

SIR PAUL. Merry, gads-bud, I'm serious; I'll give thee five hundred

pounds for every inch of him that resembles me; ah, this eye, this left

eye! A thousand pounds for this left eye. This has done execution in

its time, girl; why, thou hast my leer, hussey, just thy father's leer.

Let it be transmitted to the young rogue by the help of imagination; why,

'tis the mark of our family, Thy; our house is distinguished by a

languishing eye, as the house of Austria is by a thick lip. Ah! when I

was of your age, hussey, I would have held fifty to one, I could have

drawn my own picture--gads-bud I could have done--not so much as you,

neither; but--nay, don't blush.

CYNT. I don't blush, sir, for I vow I don't understand.

SIR PAUL. Pshaw, pshaw, you fib, you baggage, you do understand, and you

shall understand; come, don't be so nice. Gads-bud, don't learn after

your mother-in-law my lady here. Marry, heaven forbid that you should

follow her example; that would spoil all indeed. Bless us! if you should

take a vagary and make a rash resolution on your wedding night, to die a

maid, as she did; all were ruined, all my hopes lost. My heart would

break, and my estate would be left to the wide world, he? I hope you are

a better Christian than to think of living a nun, he? Answer me?

CYNT. I'm all obedience, sir, to your commands.

LADY PLYANT. [_Having read the letter_.] O dear Mr. Careless, I swear

he writes charmingly, and he looks charmingly, and he has charmed me, as

much as I have charmed him; and so I'll tell him in the wardrobe when

'tis dark. O criminy! I hope Sir Paul has not seen both letters. [_Puts

the wrong letter hastily up_, _and gives him her own_.] Sir Paul, here's

your letter; to-morrow morning I'll settle accounts to your advantage.

SCENE IV.

[_To them_] BRISK.

BRISK. Sir Paul, gads-bud, you're an uncivil person, let me tell you,

and all that; and I did not think it had been in you.

SIR PAUL. O law, what's the matter now? I hope you are not angry, Mr.

Brisk.

BRISK. Deuce take me, I believe you intend to marry your daughter

yourself; you're always brooding over her like an old hen, as if she were

not well hatched, egad, he.

SIR PAUL. Good strange! Mr. Brisk is such a merry facetious person, he,

he, he. No, no, I have done with her, I have done with her now.

BRISK. The fiddles have stayed this hour in the hall, and my Lord Froth

wants a partner, we can never begin without her.

SIR PAUL. Go, go child, go, get you gone and dance and be merry; I'll

come and look at you by and by. Where's my son Mellefont?

LADY PLYANT. I'll send him to them, I know where he is.

BRISK. Sir Paul, will you send Careless into the hall if you meet him?

SIR PAUL. I will, I will, I'll go and look for him on purpose.

SCENE V.

BRISK _alone_.

BRISK. So now they are all gone, and I have an opportunity to practice.

Ah! My dear Lady Froth, she's a most engaging creature, if she were not

so fond of that damned coxcombly lord of hers; and yet I am forced to

allow him wit too, to keep in with him. No matter, she's a woman of

parts, and, egad, parts will carry her. She said she would follow me

into the gallery. Now to make my approaches. Hem, hem! Ah ma-

[_bows_.] dam! Pox on't, why should I disparage my parts by thinking

what to say? None but dull rogues think; witty men, like rich fellows,

are always ready for all expenses; while your blockheads, like poor needy

scoundrels, are forced to examine their stock, and forecast the charges

of the day. Here she comes, I'll seem not to see her, and try to win her

with a new airy invention of my own, hem!

SCENE VI.

[_To him_] LADY FROTH.

BRISK [_Sings_, _walking about_.] 'I'm sick with love,' ha, ha, ha,

'prithee, come cure me. I'm sick with,' etc. O ye powers! O my Lady

Froth, my Lady Froth, my Lady Froth! Heigho! Break heart; gods, I thank

you. [_Stands musing with his arms across_.]

LADY FROTH. O heavens, Mr. Brisk! What's the matter?

BRISK. My Lady Froth! Your ladyship's most humble servant. The matter,

madam? Nothing, madam, nothing at all, egad. I was fallen into the most

agreeable amusement in the whole province of contemplation: that's

all--(I'll seem to conceal my passion, and that will look like respect.)

[_Aside_.]

LADY FROTH. Bless me, why did you call out upon me so loud?

BRISK. O Lord, I, madam! I beseech your ladyship--when?

LADY FROTH. Just now as I came in, bless me, why, don't you know it?

BRISK. Not I, let me perish. But did I? Strange! I confess your

ladyship was in my thoughts; and I was in a sort of dream that did in a

manner represent a very pleasing object to my imagination, but--but did I

indeed?--To see how love and murder will out. But did I really name my

Lady Froth?

LADY FROTH. Three times aloud, as I love letters. But did you talk of

love? O Parnassus! Who would have thought Mr. Brisk could have been in

love, ha, ha, ha. O heavens, I thought you could have no mistress but

the Nine Muses.

BRISK. No more I have, egad, for I adore 'em all in your ladyship. Let

me perish, I don't know whether to be splenetic, or airy upon't; the

deuce take me if I can tell whether I am glad or sorry that your ladyship

has made the discovery.

LADY FROTH. O be merry by all means. Prince Volscius in love! Ha, ha,

ha.

BRISK. O barbarous, to turn me into ridicule! Yet, ha, ha, ha. The

deuce take me, I can't help laughing myself, ha, ha, ha; yet by heavens,

I have a violent passion for your ladyship, seriously.

LADY FROTH. Seriously? Ha, ha, ha.

BRISK. Seriously, ha, ha, ha. Gad I have, for all I laugh.

LADY FROTH. Ha, ha, ha! What d'ye think I laugh at? Ha, ha, ha.

BRISK. Me, egad, ha, ha.

LADY FROTH. No, the deuce take me if I don't laugh at myself; for hang

me if I have not a violent passion for Mr. Brisk, ha, ha, ha.

BRISK. Seriously?

LADY FROTH. Seriously, ha, ha, ha.

BRISK. That's well enough; let me perish, ha, ha, ha. O miraculous;

what a happy discovery. Ah my dear charming Lady Froth!

LADY FROTH. Oh my adored Mr. Brisk! [_Embrace_.]

SCENE VII.

[_To them_] LORD FROTH.

LORD FROTH. The company are all ready. How now?

BRISK. Zoons! madam, there's my lord. [_Softly to her_.]

LADY FROTH. Take no notice, but observe me. Now, cast off, and meet me

at the lower end of the room, and then join hands again; I could teach my

lord this dance purely, but I vow, Mr. Brisk, I can't tell how to come so

near any other man. Oh here's my lord, now you shall see me do it with

him. [_They pretend to practise part of a country dance_.]

LORD FROTH. Oh, I see there's no harm yet, but I don't like this

familiarity. [_Aside_.]

LADY FROTH. Shall you and I do our close dance, to show Mr. Brisk?

LORD FROTH. No, my dear, do it with him.

LADY FROTH. I'll do it with him, my lord, when you are out of the way.

BRISK. That's good, egad, that's good. Deuce take me, I can hardly hold

laughing in his face. [_Aside_.]

LORD FROTH. Any other time, my dear, or we'll dance it below.

LADY FROTH. With all my heart.

BRISK. Come, my lord, I'll wait on you. My charming witty angel! [_To

her_.]

LADY FROTH. We shall have whispering time enough, you know, since we are

partners.

SCENE VIII.

LADY PLYANT _and_ CARELESS.

LADY PLYANT. Oh, Mr. Careless, Mr. Careless, I'm ruined, I'm undone.

CARE. What's the matter, madam?

LADY PLYANT. Oh, the unluckiest accident, I'm afraid I shan't live to

tell it you.

CARE. Heaven forbid! What is it?

LADY PLYANT. I'm in such a fright; the strangest quandary and premunire!

I'm all over in a universal agitation; I dare swear every circumstance of

me trembles. O your letter, your letter! By an unfortunate mistake I

have given Sir Paul your letter instead of his own.

CARE. That was unlucky.

LADY PLYANT. Oh, yonder he comes reading of it; for heaven's sake step

in here and advise me quickly before he sees.

SCENE IX.

SIR PAUL _with the Letter_.

SIR PAUL. O Providence, what a conspiracy have I discovered. But let me

see to make an end on't. [_Reads_.] Hum--After supper in the wardrobe

by the gallery. If Sir Paul should surprise us, I have a commission from

him to treat with you about the very matter of fact. Matter of fact!

Very pretty; it seems that I am conducting to my own cuckoldom. Why,

this is the very traitorous position of taking up arms by my authority,

against my person! Well, let me see. Till then I languish in

expectation of my adored charmer.--Dying Ned Careless. Gads-bud, would

that were matter of fact too. Die and be damned for a Judas Maccabeus

and Iscariot both. O friendship! what art thou but a name? Henceforward

let no man make a friend that would not be a cuckold: for whomsoever he

receives into his bosom will find the way to his bed, and there return

his caresses with interest to his wife. Have I for this been pinioned,

night after night for three years past? Have I been swathed in blankets

till I have been even deprived of motion? Have I approached the marriage

bed with reverence as to a sacred shrine, and denied myself the enjoyment

of lawful domestic pleasures to preserve its purity, and must I now find

it polluted by foreign iniquity? O my Lady Plyant, you were chaste as

ice, but you are melted now, and false as water. But Providence has been

constant to me in discovering this conspiracy; still, I am beholden to

Providence. If it were not for Providence, sure, poor Sir Paul, thy

heart would break.

SCENE X.

[_To him_] LADY PLYANT.

LADY PLYANT. So, sir, I see you have read the letter. Well, now, Sir

Paul, what do you think of your friend Careless? Has he been

treacherous, or did you give his insolence a licence to make trial of

your wife's suspected virtue? D'ye see here? [_Snatches the letter as

in anger_.] Look, read it. Gads my life, if I thought it were so, I

would this moment renounce all communication with you. Ungrateful

monster! He? is it so? Ay, I see it, a plot upon my honour; your guilty

cheeks confess it. Oh, where shall wronged virtue fly for reparation?

I'll be divorced this instant.

SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, what shall I say? This is the strangest surprise.

Why, I don't know anything at all, nor I don't know whether there be

anything at all in the world, or no.

LADY PLYANT. I thought I should try you, false man. I, that never

dissembled in my life, yet to make trial of you, pretended to like that

monster of iniquity, Careless, and found out that contrivance to let you

see this letter, which now I find was of your own inditing--I do,

heathen, I do. See my face no more; I'll be divorced presently.

SIR PAUL. O strange, what will become of me? I'm so amazed, and so

overjoyed, so afraid, and so sorry. But did you give me this letter on

purpose, he? Did you?

LADY PLYANT. Did I? Do you doubt me, Turk, Saracen? I have a cousin

that's a proctor in the Commons; I'll go to him instantly.

SIR PAUL. Hold, stay, I beseech your ladyship. I'm so overjoyed, stay,

I'll confess all.

LADY PLYANT. What will you confess, Jew?

SIR PAUL. Why, now, as I hope to be saved, I had no hand in this

letter--nay, hear me, I beseech your ladyship. The devil take me now if

he did not go beyond my commission. If I desired him to do any more than

speak a good word only just for me; gads-bud, only for poor Sir Paul, I'm

an Anabaptist, or a Jew, or what you please to call me.

LADY PLYANT. Why, is not here matter of fact?

SIR PAUL. Ay, but by your own virtue and continency that matter of fact

is all his own doing. I confess I had a great desire to have some

honours conferred upon me, which lie all in your ladyship's breast, and

he being a well-spoken man, I desired him to intercede for me.

LADY PLYANT. Did you so? presumption! Oh, he comes, the Tarquin comes;

I cannot bear his sight.

SCENE XI.

CARELESS, SIR PAUL.

CARE. Sir Paul, I'm glad I've met with you, 'gad, I have said all I

could, but can't prevail. Then my friendship to you has carried me a

little farther in this matter.

SIR PAUL. Indeed; well sir, I'll dissemble with him a little. [_Aside_.]

CARE. Why, faith I have in my time known honest gentlemen abused by a

pretended coyness in their wives, and I had a mind to try my lady's

virtue. And when I could not prevail for you, gad, I pretended to be in

love myself; but all in vain, she would not hear a word upon that

subject. Then I writ a letter to her; I don't know what effects that

will have, but I'll be sure to tell you when I do, though by this light I

believe her virtue is impregnable.

SIR PAUL. O Providence! Providence! What discoveries are here made?

Why, this is better and more miraculous than the rest.

CARE. What do you mean?

SIR PAUL. I can't tell you, I'm so overjoyed; come along with me to my

lady, I can't contain myself; come, my dear friend.

CARE. So, so, so, this difficulty's over. [_Aside_.]

SCENE XII.

MELLEFONT, MASKWELL, _from different doors_.

MEL. Maskwell! I have been looking for you--'tis within a quarter of

eight.

MASK. My lady is just gone into my lord's closet, you had best steal

into her chamber before she comes, and lie concealed there, otherwise she

may lock the door when we are together, and you not easily get in to

surprise us.

MEL. He? You say true.

MASK. You had best make haste, for after she has made some apology to

the company for her own and my lord's absence all this while, she'll

retire to her chamber instantly.

MEL. I go this moment. Now, fortune, I defy thee.

SCENE XIII.

MASKWELL _alone_.

MASK. I confess you may be allowed to be secure in your own opinion; the

appearance is very fair, but I have an after-game to play that shall turn

the tables, and here comes the man that I must manage.

SCENE XIV.

[_To him_] LORD TOUCHWOOD.

LORD TOUCH. Maskwell, you are the man I wished to meet.

MASK. I am happy to be in the way of your lordship's commands.

LORD TOUCH. I have always found you prudent and careful in anything that

has concerned me or my family.

MASK. I were a villain else. I am bound by duty and gratitude, and my

own inclination, to be ever your lordship's servant.

LORD TOUCH. Enough. You are my friend; I know it. Yet there has been a

thing in your knowledge, which has concerned me nearly, that you have

concealed from me.

MASK. My lord!

LORD TOUCH. Nay, I excuse your friendship to my unnatural nephew thus

far. But I know you have been privy to his impious designs upon my wife.

This evening she has told me all. Her good nature concealed it as long

as was possible; but he perseveres so in villainy, that she has told me

even you were weary of dissuading him, though you have once actually

hindered him from forcing her.

MASK. I am sorry, my lord, I can't make you an answer; this is an

occasion in which I would not willing be silent.

LORD TOUCH. I know you would excuse him--and I know as well that you

can't.

MASK. Indeed I was in hopes it had been a youthful heat that might have

soon boiled over; but--

LORD TOUCH. Say on.

MASK. I have nothing more to say, my lord; but to express my concern;

for I think his frenzy increases daily.

LORD TOUCH. How! Give me but proof of it, ocular proof, that I may

justify my dealing with him to the world, and share my fortunes.

MASK. O my lord! consider; that is hard. Besides, time may work upon

him. Then, for me to do it! I have professed an everlasting friendship

to him.

LORD TOUCH. He is your friend; and what am I?

MASK. I am answered.

LORD TOUCH. Fear not his displeasure; I will put you out of his, and

fortune's power, and for that thou art scrupulously honest, I will secure

thy fidelity to him, and give my honour never to own any discovery that

you shall make me. Can you give me a demonstrative proof? Speak.

MASK. I wish I could not. To be plain, my lord, I intended this evening

to have tried all arguments to dissuade him from a design which I

suspect; and if I had not succeeded, to have informed your lordship of

what I knew.

LORD TOUCH. I thank you. What is the villain's purpose?

MASK. He has owned nothing to me of late, and what I mean now, is only a

bare suspicion of my own. If your lordship will meet me a quarter of an

hour hence there, in that lobby by my lady's bed-chamber, I shall be able

to tell you more.

LORD TOUCH. I will.

MASK. My duty to your lordship makes me do a severe piece of justice.

LORD TOUCH. I will be secret, and reward your honesty beyond your hopes.

SCENE XV.

_Scene opening_, _shows Lady Touchwood's chamber_.

MELLEFONT _solus_.

MEL. Pray heaven my aunt keep touch with her assignation. O that her

lord were but sweating behind this hanging, with the expectation of what

I shall see. Hist, she comes. Little does she think what a mine is just

ready to spring under her feet. But to my post. [_Goes behind the

hangings_.]

SCENE XVI.

LADY TOUCHWOOD.

LADY TOUCH. 'Tis eight o'clock; methinks I should have found him here.

Who does not prevent the hour of love, outstays the time; for to be dully

punctual is too slow. I was accusing you of neglect.

SCENE XVII.

LADY TOUCHWOOD, MASKWELL, MELLEFONT _absconding_.

MASK. I confess you do reproach me when I see you here before me; but

'tis fit I should be still behindhand, still to be more and more indebted

to your goodness.

LADY TOUCH. You can excuse a fault too well, not to have been to blame.

A ready answer shows you were prepared.

MASK. Guilt is ever at a loss, and confusion waits upon it; when

innocence and bold truth are always ready for expression.

LADY TOUCH. Not in love: words are the weak support of cold

indifference; love has no language to be heard.

MASK. Excess of joy has made me stupid! Thus may my lips be ever

closed. [_Kisses her_.] And thus--O who would not lose his speech, upon

condition to have joys above it?

LADY TOUCH. Hold, let me lock the door first. [_Goes to the door_.]

MASK. [_Aside_.] That I believed; 'twas well I left the private passage

open.

LADY TOUCH. So, that's safe.

MASK. And so may all your pleasures be, and secret as this kiss--

MEL. And may all treachery be thus discovered. [_Leaps out_.]

LADY TOUCH. Ah! [_Shrieks_.]

MEL. Villain! [_Offers to draw_.]

MASK. Nay, then, there's but one way. [_Runs out_.]

SCENE XVIII.

LADY TOUCHWOOD, MELLEFONT.

MEL. Say you so, were you provided for an escape? Hold, madam, you have

no more holes to your burrow; I'll stand between you and this sally-port.

LADY TOUCH. Thunder strike thee dead for this deceit, immediate

lightning blast thee, me, and the whole world! Oh! I could rack myself,

play the vulture to my own heart, and gnaw it piecemeal, for not boding

to me this misfortune.

MEL. Be patient.

LADY TOUCH. Be damned.

MEL. Consider, I have you on the hook; you will but flounder yourself a-

weary, and be nevertheless my prisoner.

LADY TOUCH. I'll hold my breath and die, but I'll be free.

MEL. O madam, have a care of dying unprepared, I doubt you have some

unrepented sins that may hang heavy, and retard your flight.

LADY TOUCH. O! what shall I do? say? Whither shall I turn? Has hell no

remedy?

MEL. None; hell has served you even as heaven has done, left you to

yourself.--You're in a kind of Erasmus paradise, yet if you please you

may make it a purgatory; and with a little penance and my absolution all

this may turn to good account.

LADY TOUCH. [_Aside_.] Hold in my passion, and fall, fall a little,

thou swelling heart; let me have some intermission of this rage, and one

minute's coolness to dissemble. [_She weeps_.]

MEL. You have been to blame. I like those tears, and hope they are of

the purest kind,--penitential tears.

LADY TOUCH. O the scene was shifted quick before me,--I had not time to

think. I was surprised to see a monster in the glass, and now I find

'tis myself; can you have mercy to forgive the faults I have imagined,

but never put in practice?--O consider, consider how fatal you have been

to me, you have already killed the quiet of this life. The love of you

was the first wandering fire that e'er misled my steps, and while I had

only that in view, I was betrayed into unthought of ways of ruin.

MEL. May I believe this true?

LADY TOUCH. O be not cruelly incredulous.--How can you doubt these

streaming eyes? Keep the severest eye o'er all my future conduct, and if

I once relapse, let me not hope forgiveness; 'twill ever be in your power

to ruin me. My lord shall sign to your desires; I will myself create

your happiness, and Cynthia shall be this night your bride. Do but

conceal my failings, and forgive.

MEL. Upon such terms I will be ever yours in every honest way.

SCENE XIX.

MASKWELL _softly introduces_ LORD TOUCHWOOD, _and retires_.

MASK. I have kept my word, he's here, but I must not be seen.

SCENE XX.

LADY TOUCHWOOD, LORD TOUCHWOOD, MELLEFONT.

LORD TOUCH. Hell and amazement, she's in tears.

LADY TOUCH. [_Kneeling_.] Eternal blessings thank you.--Ha! my lord

listening! O fortune has o'erpaid me all, all! all's my own! [_Aside_.]

MEL. Nay, I beseech you rise.

LADY TOUCH. [_Aloud_.] Never, never! I'll grow to the ground, be

buried quick beneath it, e'er I'll be consenting to so damned a sin as

incest! unnatural incest!

MEL. Ha!

LADY TOUCH. O cruel man, will you not let me go? I'll forgive all

that's past. O heaven, you will not ravish me?

MEL. Damnation!

LORD TOUCH. Monster, dog! your life shall answer this! [_Draws and runs

at_ MELLEFONT, _is held by_ LADY TOUCHWOOD.]

LADY TOUCH. O heavens, my lord! Hold, hold, for heaven's sake.

MEL. Confusion, my uncle! O the damned sorceress.

LADY TOUCH. Moderate your rage, good my lord! He's mad, alas, he's mad.

Indeed he is, my lord, and knows not what he does. See how wild he

looks.

MEL. By heaven, 'twere senseless not to be mad, and see such witchcraft.

LADY TOUCH. My lord, you hear him, he talks idly.

LORD TOUCH. Hence from my sight, thou living infamy to my name; when

next I see that face, I'll write villain in't with my sword's point.

MEL. Now, by my soul, I will not go till I have made known my wrongs.

Nay, till I have made known yours, which, if possible, are

greater,--though she has all the host of hell her servants.

LADY TOUCH. Alas, he raves! Talks very poetry! For heaven's sake away,

my lord, he'll either tempt you to extravagance, or commit some himself.

MEL. Death and furies, will you not hear me?--Why by heaven she laughs,

grins, points to your back; she forks out cuckoldom with her fingers, and

you're running horn-mad after your fortune. [_As she is going she turns

back and smiles at him_.]

LORD TOUCH. I fear he's mad indeed.--Let's send Maskwell to him.

MEL. Send him to her.

LADY TOUCH. Come, come, good my lord, my heart aches so, I shall faint

if I stay.

SCENE XXI.

MELLEFONT _alone_.

MEL. Oh, I could curse my stars, fate, and chance; all causes and

accidents of fortune in this life! But to what purpose? Yet, 'sdeath,

for a man to have the fruit of all his industry grow full and ripe, ready

to drop into his mouth, and just when he holds out his hand to gather it,

to have a sudden whirlwind come, tear up tree and all, and bear away the

very root and foundation of his hopes:--what temper can contain? They

talk of sending Maskwell to me; I never had more need of him. But what

can he do? Imagination cannot form a fairer and more plausible design

than this of his which has miscarried. O my precious aunt, I shall never

thrive without I deal with the devil, or another woman.

Women, like flames, have a destroying power,

Ne'er to be quenched, till they themselves devour.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

LADY TOUCHWOOD _and_ MASKWELL.

LADY TOUCH. Was't not lucky?

MASK. Lucky! Fortune is your own, and 'tis her interest so to be. By

heaven I believe you can control her power, and she fears it: though

chance brought my lord, 'twas your own art that turned it to advantage.

LADY TOUCH. 'Tis true it might have been my ruin. But yonder's my lord.

I believe he's coming to find you: I'll not be seen.