Teag.—I must take it first, and my master will pay you afterwards.
Book.—You must pay me now.
Teag.—Oh! that I will [Knocks him down]. Now you’re paid, you thief of the world. Here’s Covenants enough to poison the whole nation.
[Exit.
Book.—What a devil ails this fellow? [Crying]. He did not come to rob me, certainly; for he has not taken above two-pennyworth of lamentable ware away; but I feel the rascal’s fingers. I may light upon my wild Irishman again, and, if I do, I will fix him with some catchpole, that shall be worse than his own country bogs.
[Exit.
In the sequel, Teague is caught by the constables, and is liberated at the interference of his master, who pays twopence for the book. The plot of the comedy is but a simple one, and is neither skilfully nor naturally carried out. Colonel Blunt comes to London from Reading in the inside of a stage-coach, having for his travelling companions Mrs. Day, her supposed daughter Ruth, and Arabella, a young lady whose father is recently dead, leaving his estates in the hands of the committee of sequestrations. Ruth is, in truth, a young lady whose estates the Days have, under similar circumstances, robbed her of, and it is their design to treat Arabella in the same manner, under disguise of forcing her to marry their son Abel, a vain silly lad. To effect this, as the committee itself requires some influencing to engage them in the selfish plans of their chairman, Day and his wife forge a letter from the exiled king, complimenting the former on his great power and influence and talents as a statesman, and offering him great rewards if he will secretly promote his cause. Day communicates this to the committee under the pretext that it is his duty to make them acquainted with all such perfidious designs that might come to his knowledge, and they, convinced of his honesty and value to them, give up Arabella’s estates to the Days, and she falls entirely under their power. Meanwhile, on the one hand, Arabella has gained the confidence of Ruth, who makes her acquainted with the whole plot against her and her estates, and on the other, Ruth falls in love with colonel Careless, and colonel Blunt is smitten with the charms of Arabella, and all this takes place in the committee room. Various incidents follow, which seem not very much to the purpose, but at last, as the marriage of Arabella to Abel Day is pressed forward, the two young ladies, although as yet they have hardly had an interview with the colonels, resolve to make their escape from the house of the chairman of the committee, and fly to their lovers for protection. A short absence from the house of Mr. and Mrs. Day and their son together, presents the desired opportunity, and Day having accidentally left his keys behind him, the idea suggests itself to Ruth to open his cabinet, and gain possession of the deeds and papers of her own estates and those of Arabella. As she had before this secretly observed the private drawer in which they were placed, she met with no difficulty in effecting her purpose, and not only found these documents, but also with them the forged letter from the king, and some letters addressed to Day by young women whom he was secretly keeping, and who demanded money for the support of children they had by him, and alluded to matters of a still more serious character. Ruth takes possession of all these, and thus laden, the two damsels hurry away, and reach without interruption the house where they were to meet the colonels. The Days return home immediately after the departure of their wards, and at once suspect the real state of affairs, which is fully confirmed, when Mr. Day finds that his most private drawer has been opened, and his most important papers carried off. They immediately proceed in search of the fugitives, having sent orders for a detachment of soldiers to assist them, and the house in which the lovers have taken refuge is surrounded before they have had time to escape. Finding it useless to attempt resistance by force, the besieged call for a parley, and then Ruth frightens Day by acquainting him with the contents of the private letters she has become possessed of, and his wife by the knowledge she has obtained of the forged letter, which also she has in her possession. The Days are thus overreached, and the play ends with a general reconciliation. The ladies are left with the titles of their estates, and with their lovers, and we are left to suppose that they afterwards married, and were happy.
The plot of “The Committee,” it will be seen, is not a very capital one, but the manner in which it is worked out is still worse. The dialogue is extremely tame, and the incidents are badly interwoven. When I say that the example of wit given above is the best in the play, and that there are not many attempts at wit in it, it will hardly be thought that it could be amusing, and we cannot but feel astonished at the popularity which it once enjoyed. This popularity, indeed, is only explained by the fashion of ridiculing the Puritans, which then prevailed so strongly; and it perhaps retained its place on the stage during the last century chiefly from the circumstance of its wanting the objectionable qualities which characterised the written plays of the latter half of the seventeenth century.
“The Committee” is, after all, one of the very best comedies of the school of dramatists represented by the brothers Howard. Contemporary with this school of flat comedies, there was a school of equally inflated tragedy, and both soon became objects of ridicule to the satirists of the day. Of these, one of the boldest was George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, the son of the favourite of king James I., and equally celebrated for his talents and his profligacy. Buckingham is said to have planned and begun his satirical comedy of “The Rehearsal” as early as the year 1663, and to have had it ready for representation towards the December of 1665, when the breaking out of the great plague caused the theatres to be closed. After this interruption its author, who was a desultory writer, appears to have laid it aside for some time and then, new objects for satire having presented themselves, he altered and modified it, and it was finally completed in 1671, when it was brought out at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. It is said that Buckingham was assisted in the composition of this satire, but it is not stated in what manner, by Butler, and by Martin Clifford, of the Charter-house. It is understood that, in the first form of his satire, Buckingham had chosen the Hon. Edward Howard for its hero, and that he afterwards exchanged him for Sir William Davenant, but he finally fixed upon Dryden, whose tragedies and comedies are certainly not the best of his writings—possibly some personal pique may have had an influence in the selection. Nevertheless, with Dryden, the Howards, Davenant, and one or two other writers of comedy, come in for their share of ridicule. Dryden, under the name of Bayes, has composed a new drama, and a friend named Johnson goes to witness the rehearsal of this play, taking with him a country friend of the name of Smith. The play itself is a piece of mockery throughout, made up of parodies, often very happy, on the different play-writers of the day, and especially upon Dryden; and it is mixed up with a running conversation between Bayes, the author, and his two visitors, which is full of satirical humour. The first part of the prologue explains to us sufficiently the spirit in which this satire was written.
We might well call this short mock-play of ours