A Trip to Scarborough; and, The Critic

by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

SNEER.
Pray, what’s that for?

PUFF.
It shows that Tilburina is coming!—nothing introduces you a heroine like soft music. Here she comes!

DANGLE.
And her confidant, I suppose?

PUFF.
To be sure! Here they are—inconsolable to the minuet in Ariadne! [Soft music.] Enter TILNURINA and CONFIDANT.

TILNURINA.
Now has the whispering breath of gentle morn
Bid Nature’s voice and Nature’s beauty rise;
While orient Phoebus, with unborrow’d hues,
Clothes the waked loveliness which all night slept
In heavenly drapery I Darkness is fled.
Now flowers unfold their beauties to the sun,
And, blushing, kiss the beam he sends to wake them—
The striped carnation, and the guarded rose,
The vulgar wallflower, and smart gillyflower,
The polyanthus mean—the dapper daisy,
Sweet-William, and sweet marjoram—and all
The tribe of single and of double pinks!
Now, too, the feather’d warblers tune their notes
Around, and charm the listening grove. The lark!
The linnet! chaffinch! bullfinch! goldfinch! greenfinch!
But O, to me no joy can they afford!
Nor rose, nor wallflower, nor smart gillyflower,
Nor polyanthus mean, nor dapper daisy,
Nor William sweet, nor marjoram—nor lark,
Linnet nor all the finches of the grove!

PUFF.
Your white handkerchief, madam!—

TILNURINA.
I thought, sir, I wasn’t to use that till heart-rending woe.

PUFF.
O yes, madam, at the finches of the grove, if you please.

TILNURINA.
Nor lark,
Linnet, nor all the finches of the grove! [Weeps.]

PUFF.
Vastly well, madam! Dang.
Vastly well, indeed!