[Scene III.] Lady Youthly’s.
[Scene I.] Welborn’s Chamber.
[Scene II.] The Dressing-Room.
[Scene III.] A Chamber.
[Scene IV.] My Lady Youthly’s.
[Notes to The Younger Brother]
[ARGUMENT.]
Mirtilla, the Amorous Jilt, who had once been attached to George Marteen, the Younger Brother, married for a convenience the clownish Sir Morgan Blunder. Prince Frederick, who had seen and fallen in love with her during a religious ceremony in a Ghent convent, follows her to England. They meet accidentally and she promises him a private interview. George Marteen had recommended a page to Mirtilla, and the lad is his sister Olivia in disguise. Mirtilla, although she falls in love with her ‘smooth-chin’d boy’, receives Prince Frederick, but the house wherein she lodges catches fire that night, and it is George Marteen who, in spite of the fact that he knows his friend the Prince is with her, procures a ladder and rescues the lady at some danger to himself. The Prince is able to escape by the same way, and he then carries Mirtilla to his own lodgings, where feigning to be ill with fatigue and terror she begs her lover to leave her to repose. This is done with the idea of entertaining her page, and on Frederick’s approach she conceals Olivia, who thus creeps off unseen, beneath the train of her gown, whilst she herself retires with the amorous Prince. None the less, Mirtilla still pursues Olivia, and eventually Frederick discovers she is a wanton jilt, as he surprises her leading the page to her bed. He is, however, reconciled when Mirtilla discovering to her amaze that the lad is a woman reveals this fact to the Prince to confound him, but afterwards avowing her frailty, throws herself on Frederick’s generosity. Olivia has been promised by her old father, Sir Rowland Marteen, to Welborn, whom she has never seen. On meeting Welborn she falls in love with him, without knowing who he is, and he, also, whilst ignorant of her name, is soon enamoured of her in turn. Prince Frederick lodges in the same house as Welborn and it is hither that after the fire she attends Mirtilla. Welborn, supposing her to be Mirtilla’s page, out of kindness offers her half his bed, which for fear of arousing suspicion she is bound to accept. She slips away, however, before daybreak, leaving a letter for her companion, by which he learns that the page is none other than the lady whom he had seen in the Mall. Welborn and Olivia are eventually married. George Marteen’s elder brother, Sir Merlin, a boon companion of Sir Morgan Blunder, is a rakehelly dog, who leads a wild town life to the great anger of old Sir Rowland. George, who whilst secretly leading a gay life under the name of Lejere, appears before his father as a demure and sober young prentice, is designed for Lady Youthly, an ancient, toothless crone, palsied and blind with extreme old age, whose grand-daughter, Teresia, is to be married to Sir Rowland himself. George, however, falls in love with Teresia, who is also pursued by Sir Merlin, and finally weds her in despite of his father, brother and the beldame. But Sir Rowland shortly relents and even forgives his eldest son, who has married Diana, the cast off mistress of a gambler, whilst Lady Youthly is left to the tender consolations of her chaplain.