ACT THE FOURTH.
SCENE.—A Street.
Enter Captain Clerimont and Pounce.
Cler. Does she expect me then, at this very instant?
Pounce. I tell you, she ordered me to bring the painter at this very hour, precisely, to draw her niece; for, to make her picture peculiarly charming, she has now that downcast pretty shame, that warm cheek, glowing with the fear and hope of to-day's fate, with the inviting, coy affection of a bride, all in her face at once. Now I know you are a pretender that way.
Cler. Enough, I warrant, to personate the character on such an inspiring occasion.
Pounce. You must have the song I spoke of performed at this window, at the end of which I'll give you a signal. Everything is ready for you; your pencil, your canvas stretched, your——Be sure you play your part in humour. To be a painter for a lady, you're to have the excessive flattery of a lover, the ready invention of a poet, and the easy gesture of a player.
Cler. Come, come, no more instructions, my imagination out-runs all you can say. Be gone, be gone! [Exit Pounce.
A Song.
I.
Why, lovely charmer, tell me why,
So very kind, and yet so shy?
Why does that cold forbidding air
Give damps of sorrow and despair?
Or why that smile my soul subdue,
And kindle up my flames anew?
II.
In vain you strive with all your art,
By turns to freeze and fire my heart:
When I behold a face so fair,
So sweet a look, so soft an air,
My ravished soul is charmed all o'er,
I cannot love thee less nor more.
[After the song Pounce appears beckoning the Captain.]
Pounce. Captain, captain. [Exit Captain.
SCENE II.—Niece's Lodgings; two chairs and a table.
Enter Aunt and Niece.
Aunt. Indeed, niece, I am as much overjoyed to see your wedding day as if it were my own.
Niece. But why must it be huddled up so?
Aunt. Oh, my dear, a private wedding is much better; your mother had such a bustle at hers, with feasting and fooling. Besides, they did not go to bed till two in the morning.
Niece. Since you understand things so well, I wonder you never married yourself.
Aunt. My dear, I was very cruel thirty years ago, and nobody has asked me since.
Niece. Alas-a-day!
Aunt. Yet, I assure you, there was a great many matches proposed to me: There was Sir Gilbert Jolly, but he, forsooth, could not please; he drank ale and smoked tobacco, and was no fine gentleman, forsooth—But then, again, there was young Mr. Peregrine Shapely, who had travelled, and spoke French, and smiled at all I said; he was a fine gentleman—but then he was consumptive. And yet again, to see how one may be mistaken; Sir Jolly died in half-a-year, and my Lady Shapely has by that thin slip eight children, that should have been mine—but here's the bridegroom.—So, cousin Humphry!
Enter Humphry.
Hump. Your servant, ladies. So, my dear——
Niece. So, my savage—
Aunt. O fie, no more of that to your husband, Biddy.
Hump. No matter, I like it as well as duck or love; I know my cousin loves me as well as I do her.
Aunt. I'll leave you together; I must go and get ready an entertainment for you when you come home. [Exit.
Hump. Well, cousin, are you constant? Do you hate me still?
Niece. As much as ever.
Hump. What an happiness it is, when peoples' inclinations jump! I wish I knew what to do with you. Can you get nobody, d'ye think, to marry you?
Niece. Oh! Clerimont, Clerimont! Where art thou? [Aside.
Enter Aunt and Captain Clerimont, disguised.
Aunt. This, sir, is the lady whom you are to draw. You see, sir, as good flesh and blood as a man would desire to put in colours—I must have her maiden picture.
Hump. Then the painter must make haste. Ha, cousin!
Niece. Hold thy tongue, good savage.
Cler. Madam, I'm generally forced to new-mould every feature, and mend nature's handiwork; but here she has made so finished an original, that I despair of my copies coming up to it.
Aunt. Do you hear that, niece?
Niece. I don't desire you to make graces where you find none.
Cler. To see the difference of the fair sex! I protest to you, madam, my fancy is utterly exhausted with inventing faces for those that sit to me. The first entertainment I generally meet with, are complaints for want of sleep; they never looked so pale in their lives, as when they sit for their pictures. Then so many touches and retouches, when the face is finished. That wrinkle ought not to have been, those eyes are too languid, that colour's too weak, that side-look hides the mole on the left cheek. In short, the whole likeness is struck out—But in you, madam, the highest I can come up to will be but rigid justice.
Hump. A comical dog this!
Aunt. Truly, the gentleman seems to understand his business.
Niece. Sir,[95] if your pencil flatters like your tongue, you are going to draw a picture that won't be at all like me—Sure I have heard that voice somewhere. [Aside.
Cler. Madam, be pleased to place yourself near me; nearer still, madam, here falls the best light. You must know, madam, there are three kinds of airs which the ladies most delight in: There is your haughty, your mild, and your pensive air. The haughty may be expressed with the head a little more erect than ordinary, and the countenance with a certain disdain in it, so as she may appear almost, but not quite, inexorable. This kind of air is generally heightened with a little knitting of the brows—I gave my lady Scornwell the choice of a dozen frowns before she could find one to her liking.
Niece. But what's the mild air?
Cler. The mild air is composed of a languish, and a smile—But, if I might advise, I'd rather be a pensive beauty; the pensive usually feels her pulse, leans on one arm, or sits ruminating with a book in her hand; which conversation she is supposed to choose rather than the endless importunities of lovers.
Hump. A comical dog!
Aunt. Upon my word he understands his business well; I'll tell you, niece, how your mother was drawn: she had an orange in her hand,[96] and a nosegay in her bosom, but a look so pure and fresh-coloured you'd have taken her for one of the Seasons.
Cler. You seem indeed, madam, most inclined to the pensive. The pensive delights also in the fall of waters, pastoral figures, or any rural view suitable to a fair lady who, with a delicate spleen, has retired from the world, as sick of its flattery and admiration.
Niece. No; since there is room for fancy in a picture, I would be drawn like the amazon Thalestris, with a spear in my hand, and an helmet on a table before me. At a distance behind let there be a dwarf, holding by the bridle a milk-white palfrey.
Cler. Madam, the thought is full of spirit, and if you please, there shall be a Cupid stealing away your helmet, to show that love should have a part in all gallant actions.
Niece. That circumstance may be very picturesque.
Cler. Here, madam, shall be your own picture, here the palfrey, and here the dwarf—The dwarf must be very little, or we shan't have room for him.
Niece. A dwarf cannot be too little.
Cler. I'll make him a blackamoor to distinguish him from the other too powerful dwarf [Sighs]—the Cupid—I'll place that beauteous boy near you, 'twill look very natural—He'll certainly take you for his mother Venus.
Niece. I leave these particulars to your own fancy.
Cler.[97] Please, madam, to uncover your neck a little; a little lower still—a little, little lower.
Niece. I'll be drawn thus, if you please, sir.
Cler. Ladies, have you heard the news of a late marriage between a young lady of great fortune and a younger brother of a good family?
Aunt. Pray, sir, how is it?
Cler. This young gentleman, ladies, is a particular acquaintance of mine, and much about my age and stature (look me full in the face, madam); he accidentally met the young lady, who had in her all the perfections of her sex (hold up your head, madam, that's right); she let him know that his person and discourse were not altogether disagreeable to her. The difficulty was how to gain a second interview (your eyes full upon mine, madam); for never was there such a sigher in all the valleys of Arcadia as that unfortunate youth, during the absence of her he loved.
Aunt. Alack-a-day! poor young gentleman!
Niece. It must be he—what a charming amour is this! [Aside.
Cler. At length, ladies, he bethought himself of an expedient; he dressed himself just as I am now, and came to draw her picture (your eyes full upon mine, pray, madam).
Hump. A subtle dog, I warrant him.
Cler. And by that means found an opportunity of carrying her off, and marrying her.
Aunt. Indeed, your friend was a very vicious young man.
Niece. Yet perhaps the young lady was not displeased at what he had done.
Cler. But, madam, what were the transports of the lover when she made him that confession?
Niece. I daresay she thought herself very happy when she got out of her guardian's hands.
Aunt. 'Tis very true, niece; there are abundance of those headstrong young baggages about town.
Cler. The gentleman has often told me, he was strangely struck at first sight, but when she sat to him for her picture, and assumed all those graces that are proper for the occasion, his torment was so exquisite, his passion so violent, that he could not have lived a day, had he not found means to make the charmer of his heart his own.
Hump. 'Tis certainly the foolishest thing in the world to stand shilly-shally about a woman, when one has a mind to marry her.
Cler. The young painter turned poet on the subject; I believe I have the words by heart.
Niece. A sonnet! pray repeat it.[98]
I.
While gentle Parthenissa walks,
And sweetly smiles, and gaily talks,
A thousand shafts around her fly,
A thousand swains unheeded die.
II.
If then she labours to be seen,
With all her killing air and mien;
From so much beauty, so much art,
What mortal can secure his heart?
Hump. I fancy if 'twas sung, 'twould make a very pretty catch.
Cler. My servant has a voice; you shall hear it. [Here it is sung.
Aunt. Why this is pretty! I think a painter should never be without a good singer, it brightens the features strangely—I profess I'm mightily pleased. I'll but just step in, and give some orders, and be with you presently. [Exit.
Niece. Was not this adventurous painter called Clerimont?
Cler. It was Clerimont, the servant of Parthenissa; but let me beseech that beauteous maid to resolve, and make the incident I feigned to her a real one. Consider, madam, you are environed by cruel and treacherous guards, which would force you to a disagreeable marriage; your case is exactly the same with the princess of the Leontines in Clelia.
Niece. How can we commit such a solecism against all rules? What, in the first leaf of our history to have the marriage? You know it cannot be.
Cler. The pleasantest part of the history will be after marriage.
Niece. No! I never yet read of a knight that entered tilt or tournament after wedlock; 'tis not to be expected: when the husband begins, the hero ends; all that noble impulse to glory, all the generous passion for adventures, is consumed in the nuptial torch; I don't know how it is, but Mars and Hymen never hit it.
Hump. [Listening.] Consumed in the nuptial torch! Mars and Hymen! What can all this mean? I am very glad I can hardly read. They could never get these foolish fancies into my head, I had always a strong brain [Aside.]—Hark ye, cousin, is not this painter a comical dog?
Niece. I think he's very agreeable company.
Hump. Why then I tell you what: marry him—a painter's a very genteel calling. He's an ingenious fellow, and certainly poor. I fancy he'd be glad on't; I'll keep my aunt out of the room a minute or two, that's all the time you have to consider. [Exit.
Cler. Fortune points out to us this only occasion of our happiness: Love's of celestial origin, and needs no long acquaintance to be manifest. Lovers, like angels, speak by intuition; their souls are in their eyes.
Niece. Then I fear he sees mine. [Aside.]—But I can't think of abridging our amours, and cutting off all farther decoration of disguise, serenade, and adventure.
Cler. Nor would I willingly lose the merit of long services, midnight sighs, and plaintive solitudes, were there not a necessity.
Niece. Then to be seized by stealth!
Cler. Why, madam, you are a great fortune, and should not be married the common way. Indeed, madam, you ought to be stolen, nay, in strictness, I don't know but you ought to be ravished.
Niece. But then our history will be so short.
Cler. I grant it; but you don't consider there's a device in another's leading you instead of this person that's to have you; and, madam, though our amours can't furnish out a romance, they'll make a very pretty novel—Why smiles my fair?
Niece. I am almost of opinion that had Oroondates been as pressing as Clerimont, Cassandra had been but a pocket-book[99]; but it looks so ordinary, to go out at a door to be married. Indeed, I ought to be taken out of a window, and run away with.
Enter Humphry and Pounce.
Hump. Well, cousin, the coach is at the door. If you please I'll lead you.
Niece. I put myself into your hands, good savage; but you promise to leave me.
Hump. I tell you plainly, you must not think of having me.
Pounce. [To Cler.] You'll have opportunity enough to carry her off; the old fellows will be busy with me. I'll gain all the time I can, but be bold and prosper.
Niece. Clerimont, you follow us.
Cler. Upon the wings of love.