THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF RICHARD STEELE.

EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES,

By G. A. Aitken.

THE MERMAID SERIES.

THE BEST PLAYS OF THE OLD DRAMATISTS.

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

1894.

CONTENTS

[RICHARD STEELE.]

I.

It is as an essayist rather than a dramatist that men now think of Steele; and this is rightly so, for his best work is to be found in the periodical papers which he edited. There is, however, in his plays the same wit and humour that is to be found in the Tatler and Spectator, and his four comedies occupy an important position in the history of the English drama.

In this Introduction it will be sufficient to give a brief sketch of Steele's life, with especial reference to his relations with the theatre, which were intimate and varied.[1]

Richard Steele was born in Dublin in 1672; his father was an attorney who married a widow named Elinor Symes, but both his parents died while he was a child, and Steele passed into the care of a kind uncle, Henry Gascoigne, private secretary to the Duke of Ormond, and by his influence was placed upon the foundation of the Charterhouse in 1684. Two years later Joseph Addison, who was only a few weeks younger than Steele, entered that famous school, and the two boys formed the closest of friendships. In 1689 Steele followed Addison to Oxford, entering at Christ Church; but in 1691 he was made a post-master of Merton College. He would have many introductions, for his uncle was well known at the University, and his friend Addison was a distinguished scholar at Magdalen. We are told that he wrote a comedy while at college, but burned it on being told by a friend that it was worthless. When he left Oxford he took with him the love of "the whole society."

Steele enlisted in 1694 as a private in the Duke of Ormond's regiment of Guards. Private soldiers in the Guards were often gentlemen's sons, and Steele was in reality a cadet, looking forward to the position of ensign. When Queen Mary died in the following year he published an anonymous poem, The Procession, the work of "a gentleman of the army," and dedicated it to Lord Cutts, Colonel of the Coldstream Guards. He was rewarded by being made a confidential agent to Lord Cutts, who also obtained for him an ensign's commission in his own regiment. By 1700 we find Steele referred to as "Captain Steele," and in friendly intercourse with Sir Charles Sedley, Vanbrugh, Garth, Congreve, and other wits. In that year, too, he fought a duel with a Captain Kelly, "one or two of his acquaintances having," as he says, "thought fit to misuse him, and try their valour upon him." The event made a serious impression upon Steele, who, much in advance of his age, never ceased to remonstrate in his after writings against the "barbarous custom of duelling."

The life of a soldier stationed at the Tower was certain to lead a young man of Steele's sociable, hearty nature, into excesses. It was, as he says, "a life exposed to much irregularity"; and as he often did things of which he repented, he wrote, for his own use, a little book called The Christian Hero; and finding that this secret admonition was too weak he published the volume in 1701, with his name on the title-page. It was "an argument proving that no principles but those of religion are sufficient to make a great man." A second edition was called for in three months, but the only effect of the publication in the regiment was "that from being reckoned no undelightful companion he was soon reckoned a disagreeable fellow." Under these circumstances he says he felt it to be "incumbent upon him to enliven his character, for which reason he wrote the comedy called The Funeral, in which (though full of incidents that move laughter) virtue and vice appear just as they ought to do. Nothing can make the town so fond of a man as a successful play." Let us look for a moment at the condition of the drama at the opening of the eighteenth century.

II.

Dryden had died in 1700, and Congreve produced his last important play in that year. Wycherley, though still living, had long ceased to write, but Farquhar and Vanbrugh were busy about this time with their best work. Of other dramatists who were then writing there are none more important than Rowe, Dennis, Cibber, Gildon, D'Urfey, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Centlivre. The licentiousness of the Restoration plays had been fully equalled by the coarseness of many of those written under William III.; and at the end of the seventeenth century a determined protest had been made by men who realised the evil effect of what was acted for the amusement of the people. Jeremy Collier, a nonjuring clergyman, led the attack by publishing, in 1698, A Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage. Collier was intemperate, and there were numerous replies; but his main position was not shaken. In the meantime proclamations were issued against the acting of anything immoral or irreligious, and a Society for the Reformation of Manners was founded, which was soon followed by similar societies in various parts of the country.

In October, 1701, Steele, who says that he was "a great admirer" of Collier's work, arranged with Christopher Rich, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, for the production of his comedy, The Funeral, or Grief à-la-Mode, as soon as they could conveniently.[2] The play was acted shortly afterwards, and it was printed in December. In the prologue Steele said that he knew he had numerous friends present, and that they would show it, "and for the fellow-soldier save the poet." The very frankness of this half-serious appeal shows that the play did not need artificial support, and Cibber says that it met with "more than expected success." It is very sprightly, but Steele did not omit, by the legitimate use of satire, to attack the mockery of grief by his ridicule of the undertaker, and the mockery of justice in the person of Puzzle, the lawyer. As in all his writings, he shows, by the characters of Lady Sharlot and Lady Harriot, the respect he felt for true women. "He was," says Thackeray, in words which are certainly true of Steele's immediate predecessors, "the first of our writers who really seemed to admire and respect them." The contrast between virtue and vice, to the advantage of the former—an object which had not usually been aimed at by the preceding writers of comedies—was furnished by the character of Lady Brumpton, the widow, whose husband was not really dead. The description of her schemes, and her conversations with her woman Tattleaid and her lady friends, are admirable, and were not forgotten by Sheridan when writing the School for Scandal. Tattleaid says to the widow, "I warrant you, madam, I'll manage 'em all; and indeed, madam, the men are really very silly creatures, 'tis no such hard matter. They rulers! They governors! I warrant you, indeed!" Whereupon the widow observes, "Ay, Tattleaid, they imagine themselves mighty things, but government founded on force only is a brutal power. We rule them by their affections, which blinds them into belief that they rule us, or at least are in the government with us. But in this nation our power is absolute." The conversation in the last act, when the widow is preparing for the funeral, and Tattleaid has her mouth full of pins, is equally clever.

It would be difficult to find better comedy than the instructions of Sable, the undertaker, to his men: "Let's have no laughing, now, on any provocation [makes faces]. Look yonder, that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, now twenty shillings a week, to be sorrowful? and the more I give you, I think, the gladder you are." And again, "Look you, now, you are all upon the sneer; let me have none but downright stupid countenances.... Ye stupid rogues, whom I have picked out of all the rubbish of mankind, and fed for your eminent worthlessness, attend, and know that I speak you this moment stiff and immutable to all sense of noise, mirth, or laughter [makes mouths at them as they pass by him to bring them to a constant countenance]. So, they are pretty well—pretty well." Excellent, too, is the talk of the lawyer and his clerk: "I hope to see the day when the indenture shall be the exact measure of the land that passes by it; for 'tis a discouragement to the gown that every ignorant rogue of an heir should in a word or two understand his father's meaning, and hold ten acres of land by half an acre of parchment." There is an admirable dialogue about their lovers between Lady Sharlot and Lady Harriot, in the second act, and in the fourth act Steele's comrades would be delighted with the talk of the soldiers, one of whom had saved an officer's life, but had now been whipped from constable to constable all the way from Cornwall to London. "That's due by the courtesy of England to all that want in red coats; besides, there's an Act that makes us free of all Corporations, and that's the ceremony of it." When Tatter says, "In our last clothing in the regiment I served in afore, the colonel had one shirt afore, the agent one behind, and every captain of the regiment a button," Lord Hardy, smiling, replies, "Hush, you rogue, you talk mutiny," and his Lordship's man at once gives the soldier a blow on the head: "Ay, sirrah, what have you to do with more knowledge than that of your right hand from your left?" But later on Trim remarks that "after all, 'tis upon the neck of such scoundrels as these gentlemen that we great captains build our renown."

There are obvious weak points in the plot, notably the introduction of bigamy on Lady Brumpton's part, in order to remove the difficulty about the will made by Lord Brumpton in her favour. There was, of course, nothing to prevent the Earl executing a fresh will when he again came to life, after finding out his wife's true character. For the rest, we may refer to an interesting contemporary criticism in Charles Gildon's little book, A Comparison between the Two Stages, published in April, 1702, in the form of a dialogue between Ramble, Sullen, and Chagrin, a critic. When Ramble proposes to speak of The Funeral, Sullen says, "'Tis a dangerous matter to talk of this play; the Town has given it such applause, 'twill be an ungrateful undertaking to call their judgments in question." He agrees that it is diverting, and written with noble intentions. Ramble remarks, "I hear the gentleman is a fine companion, and passes for a wit of the first rank;" but Sullen and the Critic agree that The Funeral is not a just comedy, the principle being much amiss. They argue that Lord Brumpton could not, as was supposed, have lain dead in the house so long, and no one see him; while intrigues and amours were going on in the meantime in the house of death. It is farce, not comedy. Look at the manner of Lady Sharlot's escape in the coffin—a forced situation which was quite unnecessary. Is it likely that a man of Cabinet's wickedness would have been frightened into a confession by a ghost? The undertaker is not adequately punished; for he was paid anyhow. Nevertheless, the satire on some widows, and on undertakers, is happy. The Critic thinks the language "too concise and stiff" for comedy; see, for example, the scene between Lord Brumpton and Trusty in Act I., and that between Trusty and Cabinet in Act IV. There are difficult lines in the Preface, and long parentheses in the play. Ramble turns round and asks, "Did you ever read The Christian Hero?" The Critic says, "Yes; what do you mean by asking me?" Ramble replies, "Pray don't be angry. Is it not an extraordinary thing?" The answer is, "Look ye, Sir—to answer you dogmatically, and in a few words—No." Critic gives reasons: "Thus, then, briefly: 'Tis a chaos, 'tis a confusion of thoughts, rude and undigested; though he had the advice of an ingenious man to put it into method. 'Tis dated from the Tower-guard, as a present to his Colonel, that his Colonel might think him, even in time of duty, a very contemplative soldier, and, I suppose, by the roughness of the style, he writ it there, on the butt-end of a musket." Sullen replies, "Hush! no reproaches; the gentleman has done very well, and chose a worthy subject," and Ramble adds, "It bore two editions." The Critic rejoins, "It did not; it was but once printed, nor is all that impression sold; 'tis a trick of the booksellers to get it off."[3] Ramble, however, maintains his good opinion of the author. The discussion of The Funeral is then resumed; and Ramble suggests that, in the opening of Act III., Mademoiselle's "promises" is a mistake for "premises." The Critic objects, among other things, to the use of the word "bagatelle." And then Sullen turns to the merits of the play—the characters, the visiting scene, the incidents, all flowing naturally, and the moral, which is the true result of the piece. Ramble adds warm praises of the author—who is described as "indued with singular honesty, a noble disposition, and a conformity of good manners"—and his works, and the Critic hopes, if he will divert the town with another play, that it may be more "correct." The author does not want understanding.

III.

Steele says that The Funeral, "with some particulars enlarged upon to his advantage," had obtained for him the notice of the king, and that "his name, to be provided for, was in the last table-book ever worn by the glorious and immortal William the Third." He was, however, disappointed, for King William died in March, 1702. But about that time Steele was made a Captain of Foot in a new regiment whose Colonel was Lord Lucas, whom Steele had known at the Tower. Each officer raised a company, and Steele was sent to Landguard Fort, opposite Harwich, where he did everything in his power for the good of the men under him. At the end of the year, or at the beginning of 1703, he agreed to sell to Christopher Rich a comedy, which was nearly finished, called The Election of Gotham. Of that play nothing further is known; but Steele obtained £72 from Rich, to be repaid in March.[4] Rich said that Steele was in want of money and in danger of arrest, and it is a fact that the first of a long series of actions for debt had some time before been commenced against him. Steele, however, said that the money was paid to induce him to write more, and upon condition that he should bring his next play to Rich, whom he charged with oppression and extortion. We shall hear more of this quarrel.

Complaints against the immorality of the stage increased in number. In 1702 Queen Anne directed that certain actors at Lincoln's Inn Fields should be prosecuted, and they were found guilty of "uttering impious, lewd, and immoral expressions." Collier wrote A Dissuasive from the Play House, which was answered by Dennis, and the Lord Chamberlain ordered that all plays must be licensed by the Master of the Revels, who was not to pass anything not strictly agreeable to religion and good manners. At that time, it should be remembered, the play began about five, and ended at eight, "for the convenience of the Qualities resorting to the Park after." Such was the condition of affairs when Steele's second comedy, The Lying Lover, or the Ladies' Friendship, was produced, in December, 1703, to run for six nights.

In his Apology Steele afterwards wrote of the Lying Lover:—"Mr. Collier had, about the time wherein this was published, written against the immorality of the stage. I was (as far as I durst for fear of witty men, upon whom he had been too severe) a great admirer of his work, and took it into my head to write a comedy in the severity he required. In this play I make the spark or hero kill a man in his drink, and finding himself in prison the next morning, I give him the contrition which he ought to have on that occasion.... I can't tell, sir, what they would have me do to prove me a Churchman; but I think I have appeared one even in so trifling a thing as a comedy; and considering me as a comic poet, I have been a martyr and confessor for the Church; for this play was damned for its piety." In the Dedication of the play to the Duke of Ormond, he says, "The design of it is to banish out of conversation all entertainment which does not proceed from simplicity of mind, good nature, friendship, and honour;" and in the Preface he again refers to the manner in which the English stage had offended against the laws of morals and religion; "I thought, therefore, it would be an honest ambition to attempt a comedy which might be no improper entertainment in a Christian commonwealth." He admits that the anguish and sorrow in the prison scene "are, perhaps, an injury to the rules of comedy; but I am sure they are a justice to those of morality." It was to be hoped that wit would now recover from its apostacy, for the Queen had "taken the stage under her consideration."

The play was based upon Corneille's Le Menteur, but the latter and more serious portion is entirely Steele's. Alarcon, from whom Corneille borrowed, made his liar marry a girl he did not care for instead of the one he loved; Corneille made the liar's love change, so that his marriage met his wishes; while Steele represents Bookwit's inveterate love of romancing, generally in self-glorification, as leading to a duel with Penelope's lover, and to his own imprisonment in Newgate. This trouble teaches him the necessary lesson, and the hope is held out to him, at the end, of the hand of Penelope's friend, Victoria. "There is no gallantry in love but truth," are his last words.

There are many amusing passages in the Lying Lover, and young Bookwit is very entertaining in the earlier acts, especially in his boastful account to the ladies of his imaginary campaigns:—"There's an intimate of mine, a general officer, who has often said, 'Tom, if thou would'st but stick to any one application, thou might'st be anything.' 'Tis my misfortune, madam, to have a mind too extensive." In the second act there is a pleasant account of "the pretty merchants and their dealers" at the New Exchange, where Bookwit was bewildered by the darts and glances against which he was not impregnable; and in the third act, Penelope and Victoria, who are both fascinated by the young liar, be-patch and be-powder each other in the hope of making their rival ugly, while they profess—like their maids—to be on the closest terms of friendship. In the fourth act, after the duel, the constable remarks, "Sir, what were you running so fast for? There's a man killed in the garden, and you're a fine gentleman, and it must be you—for good honest people only beat one another." And there is an admirable scene in Newgate, where Bookwit is received with respect by highwaymen and others because he is supposed to have killed a man. An alchemist—"the ignorant will needs call it coining"—who is about to be hung, says, "Yet let me tell you, sir, because by secret sympathy I'm yours, I must acquaint you, if you can obtain the favour of an opportunity and a crucible, I can show projection—directly Sol, sir, Sol, sir, more bright than that high luminary the Latins called so—wealth shall be yours; we'll turn every bar about us into golden ingots.—Sir, can you lend me half-a-crown?"

It is only in the last act that art is sacrificed to the moral purpose that Steele had in his view. The ladies repent of their mutual plottings; and Bookwit, who believes that he has killed his opponent, looks forward to death, and makes many solemn speeches, printed in blank verse, which will to a great extent account for the failure of the piece. Bookwit's father is broken-hearted; and a friend heroically declares that it was he, and not Bookwit, who killed Lovemore; whereupon Lovemore says, "I can hold out no longer," and brings matters to a happy ending by explaining that he had in reality been only slightly wounded. Hazlitt's words respecting Steele's plays are truer of the Lying Lover than of the rest: "It is almost a misnomer to call them comedies; they are rather homilies in dialogues." But even in this piece there is, as we have seen, nothing that can properly be called homily except at the close. Ward has described the play more accurately, as "the first instance of sentimental comedy proper. It is attempted to produce an effect, not by making vice and folly ridiculous, but by moving compassion."

It was Steele, rather than young Bookwit, who says in the first scene, "I don't know how to express myself—but a woman, methinks, is a being between us and angels. She has something in her that at the same time gives awe and invitation; and I swear to you, I was never out in't yet, but I always judged of men as I observed they judged of women: there is nothing shows a man so much as the object of his affections."

IV.

The battle of Blenheim was won in August, 1704, and in December Addison obtained fame and office by his poem The Campaign. Steele, who was in constant intercourse with him, said in after years that Addison, in spite of his bashfulness and modesty, "was above all men in that talent we call humour." At the various coffee-houses, and especially at the Kitcat Club, the friends met all the famous wits of the day. Steele endeavoured, in 1704, without success, to increase his income by obtaining a troop in a regiment of Dragoons, which the Duke of Ormond was about to raise. Next year Lord Lucas died, and Steele's connection with the army appears to have been severed not long afterwards.

In March, 1705, Steele's third play, The Tender Husband; or, the Accomplished Fools, was given to Rich, and it was acted in April and published in May. The early writers on the subject constantly stated that The Tender Husband appeared in 1703, and was followed by The Lying Lover, and they then explained that the failure of the latter piece caused Steele to abandon play-writing for many years. In reality, however, The Lying Lover was the earlier play of the two by more than a year.[5]

The Tender Husband ran for five nights, but was not a financial success. Addison wrote the Prologue and assisted in the play itself, and to Addison it was dedicated, though, as Steele said, his friend would "be surprised, in the midst of a daily and familiar conversation, with an address which bears so distant an air as a public Dedication." "My purpose in this application is only to show the esteem I have for you, and that I look upon my intimacy with you as one of the most valuable enjoyments of my life." The reception given to the play was such "as to make me think it no improper Memorial of an inviolable friendship." In the last number of the original series of the Spectator, Steele afterwards wrote:—"I remember when I finished The Tender Husband, I told him there was nothing I so ardently wished as that we might sometime or other publish a work written by us both, which should bear the name of The Monument, in memory of our friendship. I heartily wish what I have done here were as honorary to that sacred name, as learning, wit, and humanity render those pieces which I have taught the reader how to distinguish for his. When the play above-mentioned was last acted, there were so many applauded strokes in it which I had from the same hand, that I thought very meanly of myself that I had never publicly acknowledged them."

Warned by the fate of The Lying Lover, Steele seems to have determined that there must be less sermonising in the new play. The result is that The Tender Husband is, as a whole, very amusing; but unfortunately a second plot—alluded to in the title—is woven into the story which gives to the play its interest; and as this account of the manner in which the "tender husband" tries the faithfulness of a foolish wife by means of his mistress, disguised as a man, is unwholesome in tone and unnatural, it spoils what would otherwise be an excellent farcical comedy, and at the same time has no real connection with the rest of the play. Fortunately, however, Mrs. Clerimont's weaknesses are hardly brought before the spectator except in the first scene and the last act. The rest of the piece describes the love affairs of Biddy Tipkin, a banker's niece—acted by the charming Mrs. Oldfield—whose head has been so completely filled with the romances which she has read that she begs to be called Parthenissa:—"If you ask my name, I must confess you put me upon revealing what I always keep as the greatest secret I have—for, would you believe it, they have called me—I don't know how to own it, but they have called me—Bridget." To her aunt she says, "Do you think that I can ever marry a man that's true and hearty? What a peasant-like amour do these coarse words impart?... Good madam, don't upbraid me with my mother Bridget, and an excellent housewife." She longs for a lover who will be associated with disguise, serenade, and adventure; and as she is an heiress, Captain Clerimont—the usual gentlemanly adventurer of seventeenth century comedy—is willing to humour her whims, and he is so successful that, though she is of opinion that "a lover should sigh in private, and languish whole years before he reveals his passion; he should retire into some solitary grove, and make the woods and wild beasts his confidants," yet she is soon able to admit "I am almost of opinion that had Oroondates been as pressing as Clerimont, Cassandra had been but a pocket-book: 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." Biddy Tipkin is the direct prototype of Sheridan's Lydia Languish, and Goldsmith was equally indebted to Biddy's cousin, Humphry Gubbin, for the idea of Tony Lumpkin. This booby son of an old-fashioned squire—the forerunner of Fielding's Squire Western—is as amusing as Biddy, whom his father wishes him to marry. Humphry, however, had scruples, and "boggled a little" at marrying so near a relation as a cousin. His father had been in the habit of beating him like a child, and it was not till he came to town that he knew he was of age, or what was his fortune. Mr. Pounce, a lawyer, anxious to secure Biddy for Captain Clerimont, advises Humphry not to be fooled any longer; and when Humphry remarks, "To tell you truly, I took an antipathy to my cousin ever since my father proposed her to me; and since everybody knows I came up to be married, I don't care to go down and look baulked," Pounce seizes the opportunity of providing for his sister Mrs. Fairlove, the mistress of the elder Clerimont. Biddy and Humphry having explained their feelings to each other, Humphry says, "I'll find out a way for us to get rid of one another, and deceive the old folks that would couple us;" but when Biddy replies, "This wears the face of an amour—there is something in that thought which makes thy presence less insupportable," he exclaims, "Nay, nay, now you're growing fond; if you come with these maids' tricks to say you hate at first and afterwards like me, you'll spoil the whole design."

Other characters, such as Biddy's "Urganda of an Aunt," who is not free from notions of romance on her own account, Pounce the disreputable lawyer, Sir Harry Gubbin, and Captain Clerimont, who obtains access to Biddy by disguising himself as a painter—an idea borrowed from Molière's Le Sicilien—add to the amusement of the piece; and then there are smart sayings in abundance, such as the elder Clerimont's: "I don't design you to personate a real man, but only a pretty gentleman;" or Pounce's: "Oh, dear sir, a fine lady's clothes are not old by being worn, but by being seen." These merits render the weakness of the ending the more regrettable. The moral is obvious: wife or son should be restrained only by generous bonds, for "wives to obey must love, children revere." If any one, after reading the episode of the elder Clerimont and his wife, is surprised at Steele's statement that he had "been very careful to avoid everything that might look ill-natured, immoral, or prejudicial to what the better part of mankind hold sacred and honourable," it should be remembered that in Steele's play a repentant wife is forgiven by her husband, whose own conduct was far from blameless, while in the comedies of his predecessors it was common for the wife to hoodwink her steadygoing husband triumphantly. Compared with such plays Steele's work is harmless, and even moral, in its intention.

It is impossible to say which were the "applauded strokes" contributed by Addison to The Tender Husband. Some writers, bearing in mind the Tory Foxhunter of the Freeholder, have attributed to Addison the character of Sir Harry Gubbin; others, remembering the description of a lady's library in the Spectator, have suggested that his hand is to be found in the description of Biddy Tipkin; and some, again, have thought that he was concerned rather in the serious portions of the play. Perhaps Addison's help consisted more in general hints given while the piece was under revision than in the contribution of any special portion. But speculation is vain in this matter. Addison and Steele were friends who were wont to work together without any jealous thought as to the exact share which each of them contributed.

It will be convenient to notice here a Chancery suit which arose out of Steele's arrangement with Christopher Rich, of the Drury Lane Theatre, respecting the production of his plays. Steele was the complainant, and in his bill, dated 1707, he said that about December, 1702, Rich paid him £72 on the understanding that Steele would write for him another play. Steele gave a bond of £144; and in 1705 furnished Rich with The Tender Husband, which was acted on the condition that the author was to have the profits of two days' acting in the autumn. The profits exceeded £72, but Rich would not pay over the balance, and commenced an action for the £144. Steele, therefore prayed that these proceedings might be stayed by injunction.

Rich, in his reply, said that the terms of the agreement for the production of The Funeral having been carried out to Steele's satisfaction, Steele agreed, in January, 1703, to give Rich a new play, and at the same time borrowed £72, to be repaid with interest in March, upon pain of the forfeiture of £144. Steele did not pay; but in 1705 he produced The Tender Husband. The profits, however, were so small that £10 8s. 2d. was all that, according to the agreement, Rich was called upon to pay as the result of the first four days' acting. Steele agreed that this sum should go to the use of the company, and that the play should be acted for his benefit once in the following winter. The performance took place in November, though Steele at the last objected that there would not be a sufficiently good audience. The treasurer was told to give Steele the balance £2 17s. 6d., which resulted from this performance, together with the £10 8s. 2d. already mentioned; but Steele neglected or refused to take the money. Rich added that the play had been acted several times at the Haymarket Theatre without his consent—which was quite true; and he prayed that this action might be dismissed, with costs.

There is no further record of the case until April 29, 1710, when Rich's counsel showed that his client had submitted an answer to the plaintiff's bill on January 27, 1708, and that Steele had since then taken no action. The Court thereupon ordered that the bill should be dismissed, with costs, which were to be taxed.[6] The pleadings, which contain much that is of interest to the student of theatrical history, are given in full in the Appendix.

V.

In the earlier part of 1705, probably soon after the production of The Tender Husband, Steele married a widow, Margaret Stretch, whose maiden name was Ford. This lady belonged to a good family in Barbados; and her brother, Major Robert Ford, who made his will in December, 1704, left to her the residue of his property. He was then about to sail for England, and within a few weeks he was taken prisoner by a French privateer, and died on the high seas. In March, 1705, his sister took out letters of administration, and soon afterwards she was married to Steele, who subsequently wrote to the mother of the lady who was to be his second wife: "My late wife had so extreme a value for me that she, by fine, conveyed to me her whole estate situate in Barbados, which, with the stock and slaves (proper security being given for the rent), is let at £850 per annum, at half yearly payments, that is to say, £425 each first of May, and £425 each first of December. This estate came to her encumbered with a debt of £3,000, by legacies and debts of her brother, whose executrix she was as well as heiress."

In January, 1707, we find Steele administering to the property of his wife, who had died in December. Mary Scurlock, of whom we shall hear immediately, was at the funeral. There is no source of information respecting the deceased lady, except the writings of the scandalous Mrs. Manley, who had quarrelled with Steele, but certainly knew something of the facts, if she chose to speak the truth. Her statement is that Steele had embarked in alchemy, and had been ruined by a rogue who cheated him, when he found an opportunity of repairing his fortunes by marrying a rich but elderly lady. Hints are thrown out that an odd misfortune, occasioned by Steele's sister, was the cause of his wife's death; and that he found consolation in "a younger wife, and a cry'd up beauty." It is true that Steele had a sister who was mad; but his second wife, who knew the facts, was willing to marry him in a few months, which she would hardly have done if there had been any suspicious circumstances connected with her friend's death. Possibly, however, the end was accelerated by some fright. There can be no doubt that Steele's sanguine nature had led him, at a period not exactly defined, to experiment with the crucible, in the hope of discovering the oft-sought-for aurum potabile. When he wrote the scene in the Lying Lover, in which Charcoal appears, he would seem to have discovered the absurdity of his study of occult science.

In a prologue to Vanbrugh's The Mistake, acted at the new theatre in the Haymarket on December 27, 1705, Steele satirised the popular demand for dresses, music, and dancing: "If 'tis a comedy, you ask—Who dance?" In August, 1706, he was appointed gentleman-writer to Prince George of Denmark, with a salary of £100 a year, "not subject to taxes." In the course of the following year he contributed verses to a new monthly paper called The Muses' Mercury, and the first number (January, 1707) contained a reference to Mrs. Steele:—"Had not the death of a dear friend hindered Captain Steele from finishing a comedy of his, it would also have been acted this season." We shall see that in the years that followed Steele often contemplated the production of another play, but was no doubt prevented by his numerous other occupations. He was appointed Gazetteer by Robert Harley, on Arthur Maynwaring's recommendation, in April or May, with a salary of £300, liable to a tax of £45, and he endeavoured to obey "the rule observed by all Ministries, to keep that paper very innocent and very insipid"; but, inevitably, there were often complaints either about what was inserted or what was omitted.

The Muses' Mercury for September contained the following paragraph:—"As for comedies, there's no great expectation of anything of that kind since Mr. Farquhar's death: the two gentlemen who could probably always succeed in the comic vein, Mr. Congreve and Captain Steele, having affairs of much greater importance to take up their time and thoughts." In that month Steele married Mary Scurlock, a lady of twenty-eight years of age, and heiress to the late Jonathan Scurlock, of Carmarthen, who was descended from an ancient Irish family. Her estate was worth £400 a year, but there was a demand upon it of £1,400. Mary Scurlock had, as we have seen, known her husband's first wife, but the courtship does not seem to have begun until August. The lady saved all Steele's letters, both then and during her married life. He begged that they might be shown to no man, as others could not judge of "so delicate a circumstance as the commerce between man and wife"; but half a century after his death the whole were published, and these letters form one of the most interesting studies in existence. The charming notes to "dear Prue"—often sent daily, and sometimes more frequently, from wherever he might happen to be engaged—show us the writer's inmost feelings, and in spite of his obvious weaknesses he comes well out of the ordeal. He loved his wife and children to the end, and if he was careless and constantly in debt, "Prue" was somewhat strait-laced and exacting. It should never be forgotten that we have but two or three of her replies. The letters written during the love-making are delightful, and Steele himself printed some of them in the Tatler and Spectator. The young lady was not without experience, for three years earlier a "wretched impudence," named Henry Owen, had brought an unsuccessful suit against her for breach of contract of marriage. That she was much in love with Steele is evident from a letter of hers to her mother, in which she praised his richly-endowed mind, his person, his temper, his understanding, and his morals. It was her "first and only inclination," and she was sure that she should "never meet with a prospect of happiness if this should vanish." Miss Scurlock, who had something of the prude in her, desired that the marriage should be secret, and would not have it known until her mother's consent had been received. Before the end of the year Steele had taken a house in Bury Street, which was conveniently near to St. James's church, whither his wife frequently resorted. Steele's own prayers, written before and after marriage for his private use, show the manly religion which was the foundation of his character.

Apologies for absence from home were soon necessitated by engagements of one kind or another. This was the kind of note which Steele often sent to his "absolute governess":—

"Devil Tavern, Temple Bar,
Jan. 3d. 1708.

"Dear Prue,

"I have partly succeeded in my business to-day, and enclose two guineas as an earnest of more. Dear Prue, I can't come home to dinner. I languish for your welfare, and will never be a moment careless more.

"Your faithful husband,

"R. Steele.

"Send me word you have received this."

The Barbados property, which was necessarily left to the care of an agent, gave much trouble, and it is clear that Steele's views as to the probable income to be derived from that and other sources was very rose-coloured. He was frequently embarrassed, but one debt usually arose from a habit of borrowing money to pay off another creditor, and the actual amount owing at any time seems never to have been very large. Mrs. Steele was not always on good terms with her mother, and on one occasion that lady proposed to settle a portion of her property on Steele and his wife jointly, and to make the whole estate liable to a charge in his favour in case he outlived his wife without issue. This Steele declined, begging that the whole of whatever was left to them might be fixed on his wife and her posterity.

VI.

Swift returned to England in November, 1707, and was soon in frequent intercourse with Steele and Addison. In March, 1708, he published his famous "Predictions for the year 1708, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.," an attack on an astrologer and almanack-maker, John Partridge. In this pamphlet Swift declared that he, unlike others, was a real astrologer, and prophesied that Partridge would die on March 29. On the 30th of that month another pamphlet appeared, giving a circumstantial account of Partridge's death. The almanack-maker protested that he was as well as ever; but Swift replied that it was evident that the man was dead, because no man living could write such rubbish as was contained in the new almanack for 1709. Other wits joined in the controversy, and when Steele began The Tatler he adopted the name of "Isaac Bickerstaff," which, he said, Swift had made famous through all parts of Europe.

Steele obtained a house at Hampton Wick, and there his "dear ruler" was established in 1708, with a chariot and two or four horses, a saddle-horse, a footman, a gardener, a boy Will, her own woman, and a boy who could speak Welsh. "I shall make it the business of my life," wrote Steele, "to make you easy and happy: consult your cool thoughts and you'll know that 'tis the glory of a woman to be her husband's friend and companion, and not his sovereign director." In another letter he said, "It is not in your power to make me otherwise than your affectionate, faithful, and tender husband." With yet another note he sent "seven pen'orth of walnuts at five a penny, which is the greatest proof I can give you at present of my being, with my whole heart, yours," &c. Outside the letter he added, below the address, "There are but 29 walnuts." In October he lost a place through the death of Prince George, but the Queen gave him a pension of £100 a-year. Debts, however, were numerous, and an execution was put in on account of arrears of rent for the house in Bury Street. When Addison was made Secretary to Lord Wharton, the new Viceroy of Ireland, Steele hoped to get an Under-secretaryship, but was disappointed. In March, 1709, his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was born, and had for godfathers Addison and Mr. Wortley Montagu. In the following month Steele began the great work of his life.

The periodical literature of the day was of little value. The few papers that existed were either brief news-sheets, or were repositories for questions and answers, supplied by the readers, and of feeble verse. The only periodical which was in any sense a forerunner of the Tatler was Defoe's Review, in which part of the space was set apart for "Advice from the Scandalous Club," where men, not parties, and things rather than persons, were censured. When the quantity of matter was too great for the available space, a monthly "Supplementary Journal" was published. Afterwards Defoe gave a friendly greeting to Steele's new work, which dealt with the social questions and follies of the day in a style that was more thorough, and at the same time more genial, than his own.

The first number of the Tatler was published on April 22, 1709, and it appeared three times a week. It was a single folio sheet, price one penny, and four numbers were given away gratuitously. The reader found there items of news, accounts of popular entertainments, poetry, and learning. As time went on the news articles were dropped, and each number was gradually confined to one subject. Isaac Bickerstaff was described as "an old man, a philosopher, a humourist, an astrologer, and a censor." The other characters described from time to time are not essential to the general plan of the paper. "The general purpose of the whole," as Steele wrote at the close, "has been to recommend truth, innocence, honour, and virtue, as the chief ornaments of life." He was satisfied if one vice had been destroyed, or a morning's cheerfulness given to an honest mind. As censor he thought fit to speak under a mask, because he knew that his own life was "at best but pardonable."

Addison rendered much valuable aid, which Steele acknowledged in such generous terms that some writers have represented that all that was valuable in the paper was by his friend. The fact, however, is that of the 271 numbers that appeared about 188 were by Steele, and only 42 by Addison, while 36 were written by them jointly. Steele started the paper, and Addison knew nothing of the authorship until six numbers had appeared, and did not render any material assistance during the early months of publication. The aid given by Swift and others is too slight to need mention. Steele had to write, whether he was prepared or not, whenever he had no paper by anyone else ready; but his most careless contributions are interesting, because he wrote from the heart, and was a man full of kindly impulse. It is sufficient to remark here that in the articles on public amusements he provided admirable criticisms, and was always ready to assist a good actor. Years afterwards Cibber wrote that during a season of depression excellent audiences had often been drawn together at a day's notice by the influence of a single Tatler. Steele was much in advance of his time in the way in which he quoted and appreciated Shakespeare and Milton. As Gay said, he rescued learning "out of the hands of pedants and fools, and discovered the true method of making it amiable and lovely to all mankind."

Steele's income was increased by £300 a year in January, 1710, when he was appointed a Commissioner of the Stamp Office. At that time there was great excitement about the pending trial of the Tory, Dr. Sacheverell, two of whose sermons were condemned as seditious libels, reflecting on the Queen, the Revolution, and the Protestant succession. Sacheverell was found guilty in March and forbidden to preach for three years, but the sentence was nominal, and the Tories were in reality triumphant. In June Sunderland, the Duke of Marlborough's son-in-law, was dismissed, and in August Godolphin was called upon to give up the seals, and Harley became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and practically head of the Government. Papers satirising Harley had appeared in the Tatler in July, and on September 10 Swift, who had just returned to England, wrote to Esther Johnson, "Steele will certainly lose his Gazetteer's place, all the world detesting his engaging in politics." A few days later Whig statesmen were turned out in favour of the Earl of Rochester, the Duke of Buckingham, and Henry St. John, and in October Steele was deprived of his place, or, as Swift afterwards stated, resigned to avoid being discarded.

The Tory Examiner had been established in August; in November Swift contributed his first paper. He still met Addison and Steele as friends, but not so often as formerly, and he says he intervened with Harley in favour of Steele's retention of his office of Commissioner. The Ministry were by no means desirous of quarrelling with a popular writer, and Steele kept this post until 1713. The Tatler came to a sudden end on January 2, 1711, perhaps as the result of a compact with the Government. Even Addison appears not to have been consulted when this step was taken.

VII.

It was commonly said that Steele had given up the Tatler through want of matter. How entirely erroneous this statement was is shown by the appearance, two months later (March 1, 1711), of the first number of the Spectator, which was issued daily until December 6, 1712. Addison commenced it with a description of the Spectator himself; in the second number Steele gave an account of the club where the plan of the work was supposed to be arranged, and drew the first sketch of its members—Sir Roger de Coverley, the country gentleman; Sir Andrew Freeport, the merchant; Captain Sentry, the soldier; Will Honeycomb, the fine gentleman about town; and the clergyman. The most important of the papers relating to Sir Roger de Coverley are by Addison, who was at his best in the Spectator, of which he wrote 274 numbers, while Steele was responsible for 236. The world, however, owes Addison to Steele, who rightly said, "I claim to myself the merit of having extorted excellent productions from a person of the greatest abilities, who would not have let them appear by any other means." Even Swift wrote that Steele seemed to have gathered new life, and to have a new fund of wit. Until the passing of the Stamp Act in August, 1712, when the price was necessarily raised, the circulation seems to have been nearly 4,000.

Among many other subjects Steele again wrote numerous excellent papers on the stage. There is the well-known account of Estcourt's death, and there are admirable criticisms. Of Etherege's popular play, Sir Foppling Flutter, he said that it was "a perfect contradiction to good manners, good sense, and common honesty"; and of Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, that no beauty would atone for the meanness of giving "a scandalous representation of what is reputable among men, that is to say, what is sacred." Elsewhere he remarked that "it is not to be imagined what effect a well-regulated stage would have upon men's manners," and that it is in the people themselves "to raise this entertainment to the greatest height."

Swift was now quite estranged from Addison and Steele, though of course they were civil when they met. In June, 1711, Steele appears to have become acquainted with Pope, and Addison wrote a flattering notice of the young poet's Art of Criticism in the Spectator. Party pamphleteering was now being carried to a hitherto unprecedented extent, and Swift wrote constantly himself, and supplied hints to others. Marlborough was dismissed, and the object of the Government was to bring the war to an end by persuading the people to agree to a treaty whose terms were less satisfactory than might have been expected. At the same time some of the party were secretly plotting for the restoration of the Stuarts, and among these appears to to have been Harley, now Earl of Oxford. Steele wrote a pamphlet in praise of Marlborough, for whom he always showed great admiration.

A son, Eugene, was born in March, 1712; Steele was then living in Brownlow Street, Holborn. In June he had a cottage on Haverstock Hill, and there the members of the Kitcat Club called for him on their way to the Upper Flask at Hampstead, where they met in the summer. In July he had taken a house in Bloomsbury Square, and next month he felt relieved by the renewal of his employments, and lived "in the handsomest manner." But all the time actions for debt were hanging over him, and he had hastily to withdraw a scheme which was found to be illegal, for "getting money" by means of a "Multiplication Table," to be worked in connection with the State Lottery.

The Spectator was brought to a close in December, 1712, and in the following month George Berkeley, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, but then a young man just arrived in London, wrote that Steele, who had been among the first to welcome him, was ill with gout, but was, "as I am informed, writing a play, since he gave over the Spectators." Steele was very hospitable to the young philosopher, and Berkeley remarks that there appeared "in his natural temper something very generous, and a great benevolence to mankind." By the death of Mrs. Scurlock, Steele had come into £500 a year, which made it more justifiable for him to maintain his "handsome and neatly furnished house," where the table, servants, coach, &c., were "very genteel."

A new periodical, The Guardian, was begun on March 12, 1713, and was issued daily until October. Steele wrote 82 of the 175 numbers, and Addison, Berkeley and Pope were among the contributors. The periodical was written on the same lines as the Spectator, and many of the papers are excellent, but with the fortieth number Steele was drawn into a political quarrel with the Examiner, and the Guardian lost its value as literature. Politics ran so high that the representatives of each party applied to themselves the noble sentiments in Addison's tragedy, Cato, which was produced on April 14, and thus united in applauding the piece. Steele had undertaken to fill the house, and he wrote verses, afterwards prefixed to the play, in which he alluded to the fact that he had once inscribed Addison's name to his own "light scenes"; they, however, would soon die, and he therefore wished to "live, joined to a work of thine."

Attacks in the Examiner led Steele to complain of articles by "an estranged friend or an exasperated mistress," i.e. Swift or Mrs. Manley. Swift denied that he had at this time any hand in the Examiner, and a bitter quarrel arose between the two men. In June Steele resigned his position as Commissioner of the Stamp Office, and soon afterwards gave up his pension as a servant of the late Prince. On August 25 he was elected M.P. for the borough of Stockbridge, Hampshire. In the Guardian Steele had insisted that as one of the conditions of the peace the nation expected the demolition of Dunkirk; and this was dwelt upon at greater length in a pamphlet called The Importance of Dunkirk considered. A storm of controversial literature followed these declarations, and, in October the Guardian gave place to the Englishman, which was devoted almost entirely to politics. Addison said he was "in a thousand troubles for poor Dick," and hoped that his zeal for the public would not be ruinous to himself. Swift wrote bitter attacks—The Importance of the Guardian considered and The First Ode of the Second Book of Horace Paraphrased and addressed to Richard St—le, Esq., in the latter of which he suggested that when Steele had settled the affairs of Europe he might turn to Drury Lane, and produce the play with which he had long threatened the town, and which had for plot—

"To make a pair of jolly fellows,
The son and father, join to tell us
How sons may safely disobey,
And fathers never should say nay;
By which wise conduct they grow friends
At last—and so the story ends."

In January, 1714, Steele brought out The Crisis, a widely read pamphlet which set forth the facts relating to the Hanoverian Succession, and among the replies was Swift's The Public Spirit of the Whigs. Steele defended himself in the last number of the Englishman, and next day Parliament met, and Steele spoke in support of the motion that Sir Thomas Hanmer should be Speaker. Complaint was soon made that his writings were seditious, and, in spite of the aid of Walpole, Stanhope, Addison, and others, a motion for his expulsion was carried by the Tory House, on March 18, after several debates. In the meantime, the Whig House of Lords had taken measures against the printer and publisher of Swift's Public Spirit of the Whigs, and had insisted upon a reward being offered for the discovery of the author.

About this time Steele produced short-lived periodicals called The Lover and The Reader, and several political pamphlets. Although £3,000 had been given him by some unknown friends, he was involved in money difficulties, and the house in Bloomsbury Square was given up. But with the end of July came the serious illness of Queen Anne, who died on August 1st. The hopes of Bolingbroke and others were thrown to the ground, and George I. was peacefully proclaimed king. Bothmar at once acquainted his royal master with Steele's services, and soon after the king's arrival in England Steele was made Deputy-Lieutenant for the County of Middlesex, Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court, a Justice of the Peace, and Supervisor of the Theatre Royal. He found time to publish, in October, an important pamphlet, Mr. Steele's Apology for Himself and his Writings, and The Ladies' Library, a compilation which he had revised, and which contained an admirable Dedication to his wife, concluding thus: "But I offend; and forget that what I say to you is to appear in public. You are so great a lover of home, that I know it will be irksome to you to go into the world even in an applause. I will end this without so much as mentioning your little flock, or your own amiable figure at the head of it. That I think them preferable to all other children, I know is the effect of passion and instinct. That I believe you to be the best of wives, I know proceeds from experience and reason."

VIII.

Until the death of the Queen, William Collier, M.P., who held a licence to act, in conjunction with Wilks, Cibber, Doggett, and Booth, had received a pension from those actors of £700 a year. At the accession of King George, as the pension could not be wholly got rid of, the four actors, as Colley Cibber tells us in his Apology, "imagined the merit of a Whig might now have as good a chance of getting into it, as that of a Tory had for being continued in it: having no obligations, therefore, to Collier, who had made the last penny of them, they applied themselves" to Steele, who had many pretensions to favour at Court. "We knew, too, the obligations the stage had to his writings; there being scarce a comedian of merit, in our whole company, whom his Tatlers had not made better by his public recommendation of them. And many days had our House been particularly filled by the influence and credit of his pen.... We therefore begged him to use his interest for the renewal of our licence, and that he would do us the honour of getting our names to stand with his, in the same Commission. This, we told him, would put it still further into his power of supporting the stage in that reputation to which his Lucubrations had already so much contributed; and that therefore we thought no man had better pretences to partake of its success." Steele was, of course, delighted at the offer. "It surprised him into an acknowledgment, that people, who are shy of obligations, are cautious of confessing. His spirits took such a lively turn upon it, that had we been all his own sons, no unexpected act of filial duty could have more endeared us to him." A new licence, upon the first mention of it, was obtained by Steele of the King, through the Duke of Marlborough, "the hero of his heart," who was now again Captain-General. According to a memorandum of Steele's he received a message from the King, "to know whether I was in earnest in desiring the Playhouse or that others thought of it for me. If I liked it I should have it as an earnest of His future favour."

The prosperity of the early part of the season of 1714-5 was checked by a renewal of the licence to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields and by the desertion to that house of seven or eight actors. The other managers of Drury Lane Theatre found it necessary to point out to Steele that he stood in the same position as Collier, and that his pension of £700 was liable to the same conditions as Collier's, namely, that it was to be paid only so long as there was but one company allowed to act, and that if a second company were set up, the pension was to be changed from a fixed payment to an equal share of the profits. To this Steele at once agreed. "While we were offering to proceed," says Cibber, "Sir Richard stopped us short by assuring us, that as he came among us by our own invitation, he should always think himself obliged to come into any measures for our ease and service; that to be a burden to our industry would be more disagreeable to him than it could be to us, and as he had always taken a delight in his endeavours for our prosperity, he should be still ready, on our own terms, to continue them." Every one who knew Steele in his prosperity, Cibber remarks, "knew that this was his manner of dealing with his friends in business." Steele, however, told Cibber and the others that he was advised to get their licence during pleasure enlarged into a more durable authority, and with this object he proposed that he should obtain a Patent for himself, for his life and three years after, which he would then assign over to them. To this the managers were only too glad to agree, for, among other benefits, it would free them from too great a dependency upon the Lord Chamberlain, or the officers under him, who, not having "the hearts of noblemen," often showed that insolence of office to which narrow minds are liable. Steele accordingly applied for a Patent, and his request was complied with on January 19, 1715. A week earlier he had received a gift of £500 from the King.

On the 20th of January, Steele left London for Boroughbridge, a place for which he was to be elected Member of Parliament on the 2nd of the following month. The Patent was only received on the 19th of January, and, therefore, as Cibber says, "We were forced that very night to draw up in a hurry (till our counsel might more advisably perfect it) his assignment to us of equal shares in the Patent, with farther conditions of partnership.... This assignment (which I had myself the hasty penning of) was so worded, that it gave Sir Richard as equal a title to our property as it had given us to his authority in the Patent. But Sir Richard, notwithstanding, when he returned to town, took no advantage of the mistake." Cibber adds that Steele's equity and honour proved as advantageous to himself as to them, for instead of £700, his income from the theatre, by his accepting a share instead of the fixed pension, was about £1,000 a year.

Steele was knighted, in company with two other Deputy-Lieutenants, in April, and in May he celebrated the King's birthday by a grand entertainment in the great room at York Buildings. This room he called the "Censorium," and it was intended for select assemblies of two hundred persons, "leaders in politeness, wit, and learning." The undertaking appears to have been successful, and it was carried on for some time.

The Englishman was revived in July, with the object of making good the accusations which had been levelled long before against Oxford, Bolingbroke, and other members of the late Government. Steele appears to have asked for £1,000 a year before undertaking this work,[7] and from the fact that he continued the paper after threatening to drop it when the third number had been published, it would seem that he was paid at least £500 by Walpole. Soon afterwards he applied, but without success, for the vacant Mastership of the Charterhouse. Of Steele's various publications in 1715-6 it is impossible to speak here; it will be enough to notice that Addison's comedy, The Drummer, was published by Steele on March 21, 1716, with a preface in which he said that the play had for some years been in the hands of the author, who had been persuaded by him to allow of its representation on the stage. In June he was appointed one of the thirteen Commissioners who were to deal with the estates forfeited by noblemen and gentlemen, chiefly Scottish, who had taken up arms on the side of the Pretender during the late rising. The salary was £1,000 a year.

Money difficulties made it necessary, in July, 1716, for Steele to mortgage his interest in the theatre to an Edward Minshull, M.P., who had on previous occasions lent him money. In January, 1717, further money was raised upon Steele's share of the scenery, clothes, and profits. This led to much trouble, and ultimately to a Chancery action, in 1722, which is described in the Appendix. In that same year, Minshull, who was a gambler, was found guilty of fraud, but he succeeded in escaping to Holland.

Lady Steele went to Carmarthenshire in November, 1716, and remained there till the end of the following year. When she left London one of her children was sickening for the smallpox, and, according to her husband, there was not "an inch of candle, a pound of coal, or a bit of meat in the house." The little girl recovered, however, and money came in; and, during the following weeks, Steele wrote some charming letters about his "dear innocents," full of good resolves for the future, which did not meet with any very hearty response from his ailing wife. In one letter he spoke of turning all his thoughts to finish his comedy, but he also had great hopes from a "Fish-pool scheme," the object of which was to bring fish alive to London. When his "dear little peevish, beautiful, wise governess" called him "good Dick," he said he was so enraptured that he could forget his miserable lameness—he was suffering from gout—and walk down to Wales.

After many delays, Steele set out, in October, to attend the meetings of the Forfeited Estates Commission at Edinburgh, where he was very well received. He was, however, soon back in London, and, in June, 1718, obtained Letters Patent for the Fish-pool, which was followed by much litigation on the part of a man named Sansome, who said he had rendered valuable aid in developing the scheme. In the autumn, Steele was again in Scotland, and in December he lost his "dear and honoured wife." She was buried in the south transept of Westminster Abbey.

The Peerage Bill was introduced by the Government in 1719, with a view of limiting the power of creating new peers. The real object was to prevent a growth of the influence either of king or people, in both of which the aristocratic Whigs saw danger to themselves. Steele did not agree on this question with the party leaders, and he was honest and bold enough to oppose their bill in a paper called the Plebeian. Addison replied in the Old Whig, and unfortunately the controversy led to the estrangement of the two friends. There was no opportunity for reconciliation, for Addison died shortly after the appearance of these pamphlets. The Peerage Bill was revived in November, but was thrown out in December, immediately after the publication of another pamphlet by Steele.

The Government at once took steps to punish their candid friend. As early as 1717, the Duke of Newcastle, who then became Lord Chamberlain, had requested the managers of the theatre to accept a licence in place of their patent. This Steele declined to do, and the matter dropped; but in the following year there was further friction, owing to the claim of the managers that they were exempt from the Duke's authority. The Attorney-General was consulted on this point, and upon the question whether Steele had power to sell or alienate his interest in the patent; but the result is not recorded. The first act of revenge was an order, on December 19, 1719, forbidding Cibber—who had dedicated his Ximena to Steele—to act or take part in the management of the theatre. Steele remonstrated, and commenced an interesting periodical called the Theatre, in vindication of himself and his fellow-managers. On January 23, 1720, the licence was revoked, and the Lord Chamberlain threatened to obtain a sign manual to silence the theatre. Steele petitioned the King, but on the 25th a warrant was issued forbidding any acting at Drury Lane until further order. On the 27th a licence, to be held during pleasure, was granted to Wilks, Cibber, and Booth; and on March 4, in spite of every effort of Steele's to obtain justice, the King's Company of Comedians were sworn at the office of the Lord Chamberlain, to whom they agreed to be subservient. Next month, in the last number of the Theatre, Steele alluded to the loss he had sustained in not being able to produce his own pieces advantageously, and stated that he would forthwith publish a new comedy, called Sir John Edgar. This agrees with letters from Dr. Rundle, who wrote that it was said that a most excellent comedy of Steele's was prevented being acted at the Haymarket Theatre, lest its wit and sense should spoil the relish for operas. This comedy, however, never saw the light.

Throughout 1720 the country was occupied with the fortunes of the South Sea Company and other schemes, by which people hoped to make rapid fortunes. Steele, both in and out of the House, again opposed the action of ministers, and his conduct was justified in the autumn, when the bubble burst. Aislabie, the elder Craggs, the Stanhopes, and Sunderland were all compromised; and Walpole became First Lord of the Treasury. Steele, as in the case of the 1715 Rebellion, advocated mercy towards the directors of the company as individuals, though he had fearlessly condemned their action while they had the power of doing harm. On the 2nd of May, 1721, through Walpole's influence, the Lord Chamberlain issued a warrant, ordering the managers of the theatre to account to Steele for his share of the profits, past and future. In the autumn he was again in Scotland.

Articles quadrupartite were entered into on September 19, between Steele, Wilks, Cibber, and Booth, by which it was agreed that Steele's executors should, for three years after his death, receive one-fourth part of the profits of the theatre, and should also have, at his death, £1,200 for his share in the patent, clothes, scenery, &c. Further articles were also signed, which had for their object the protection of the actors in case Steele were again deprived by order of the King or Lord Chamberlain of his interest in the theatre. These agreements did not prevent Steele having difficulty in getting from the other managers his share of the profits, though he had already given them £400 each, in consideration, as they said, of a fourth part of the scenery, &c., which belonged to them. At the close of the year Steele republished The Drummer, which had not been included by Tickell in the collected edition of Addison's works, and prefixed to it a vindication of himself from charges made by the editor. In March, 1722, he became Member of Parliament for Wendover.

IX.

As early as 1720 Steele spoke in the Theatre of "a friend of mine" who was lately preparing a comedy according to the just laws of the stage, and had introduced a scene in which the first character bore unprovoked wrong, denied a duel, and still appeared a man of honour and courage. This was clearly an allusion to the play eventually to be published as The Conscious Lovers. And in a paragraph in Mist's Weekly Journal for November 18, 1721, printed a year before the play appeared, readers were informed that "Sir Richard Steele proposes to represent a character upon the stage this season that was never seen there yet: His Gentleman has been two years a dressing, and we wish he may make a good appearance at last." In June, 1722, Vanbrugh, in a letter to Tonson, lamented the absence of new plays of any value. "Steele, however," he said, "has one to come on at winter, which they much commend." On September 22 the British Journal stated that a considerable number of new plays were promised at Drury Lane that season, and that Steele's new comedy would be set up immediately after Mrs. Centlivre's The Artifice. In October the newspapers announced that Steele's play would be called The Unfashionable Lovers, or as others said, The Fine Gentleman. When the play was produced, on November 7th, the title chosen was The Conscious Lovers.

Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Younger, Booth, Wilks, and Cibber took the principal parts in what was, in many respects, Steele's best play, and Benjamin Victor says that the author, with whom he sat at the first performance, was charmed with all the actors except Griffin, who represented Cimberton, a very ungrateful part. The play ran for eighteen nights, which at that time meant a great success, and there were eight further performances during the season. It was published in December,[8] with a dedication to the King, for which Steele appears to have received five hundred guineas.

In the Preface the success of the play was attributed to the excellent manner in which every part was acted; for a play is meant to be seen, not read. "The chief design of this was to be an innocent performance, and the audience have abundantly showed how ready they are to support what is visibly intended that way; nor do I make any difficulty to acknowledge that the whole was writ for the sake of the scene of the fourth act, wherein Mr Bevil evades the quarrel with his friend; and hope it may have some effect upon the Goths and Vandals that frequent the theatres, or a more polite audience may supply their absence." The general idea of the play was taken from Terence's Andria, but after the first two acts Steele's indebtedness to Terence is very slight. Cibber, however, rendered valuable assistance. "Mr. Cibber's zeal for the work," wrote Steele, "his care and application in instructing the actors, and altering the dispositions of the scenes, when I was, through sickness, unable to cultivate such things myself, has been a very obliging favour and friendship to me." Theophilus Cibber, who had a part in the original cast, says that when Steele finished the comedy, the parts of Tom and Phillis were not in it, and that Colley Cibber, when he heard it read, said he liked it upon the whole, but that it was rather too grave for an English audience, who think the end of a comedy is to make them laugh. Steele thereupon agreed to the introduction of some comic characters, and at his request the play received many additions by Cibber. The piece was, as Victor says, "the last blaze of Sir Richard's glory"; and it is probable that Cibber deserves all the thanks Steele gave him for preparing for the stage the manuscript which had for so long been in preparation, and which, without assistance, might never have been completed. It is difficult, however, to accept Theophilus Cibber's account in its entirety, because the germ of the delightful scene in which Tom, the gentleman's gentleman, describes how he fell in love with Phillis, is to be found in No. 87 of the Guardian, where Steele says he had in mind a scene which he had recently observed while passing a house. This is the form which the story ultimately took:—

Tom. Ah! Too well I remember when, and how, and on what occasion I was first surprised. It was on the first of April, one thousand seven hundred and fifteen, I came into Mr. Sealand's service; I was then a hobbledehoy, and you a pretty little tight girl, a favourite handmaid of the housekeeper. At that time we neither of us knew what was in us: I remember I was ordered to get out of the window, one pair of stairs, to rub the sashes clean; the person employed on the inner side was your charming self, whom I had never seen before.

Phillis. I think I remember the silly accident: What made ye, you oaf, ready to fall down into the street?

Tom. You know not, I warrant you—You could not guess what surprised me. You took no delight, when you immediately grew wanton, in your conquest, and put your lips close, and breathed upon the glass, and when my lips approached, a dirty cloth you rubbed against my face, and hid your beauteous form; when I again drew near, you spit, and rubbed, and smiled at my undoing.

Phillis. What silly thoughts you men have!

Tom. ... Oh, Phillis! Phillis! shorten my torment and declare you pity me.

Phillis. I believe it's very sufferable; the pain is not so exquisite but that you may bear it a little longer.

"If I were rich," said Phillis in another place, "I could twire and loll as well as the best of them. Oh, Tom! Tom! Is it not a pity that you should be so great a coxcomb, and I so great a coquette, and yet be such poor devils as we are?"

The names of some of the characters recall earlier writings, for Lucinda and her father, Mr. Sealand, Mr. Charles Myrtle, and Humphrey, the servant, had all appeared in the Theatre, while there was another Myrtle in the Lover. There are, too, passages which at once remind us of the style of the earlier periodicals; thus Bevil, after escorting a music-master to the door, says to Indiana, "You smile, madam, to see me so complaisant to one whom I pay for his visit: Now, I own, I think it is not enough barely to pay those whose talents are superior to our own (I mean such talents as would become our condition, if we had them). Methinks we ought to do something more than barely gratify them for what they do at our command, only because their fortune is below us"; to which Indiana replies, "You said, I smile; I assure you it was a smile of approbation; for, indeed, I cannot but think it the distinguishing part of a gentleman to make his superiority of fortune as easy to his inferiors as he can." Or, to take another passage in the conversation of these same "conscious lovers," Bevil remarks, "If pleasure be worth purchasing, how great a pleasure is it to him, who has a true taste of life, to ease an aching heart, to see the human countenance lighted up with smiles of joy on receipt of a bit of ore which is superfluous and otherwise useless in a man's own pocket." He even remembers to praise Addison: "The moral writers practise virtue after death: This charming Vision of Mirza! Such an author consulted in a morning sets the spirit for the vicissitudes of the day better than the glass does a man's person." And when Sir John Bevil observes that, "What might injure a citizen's credit may be no strain to a gentleman's honour," Mr. Sealand says, "Sir John, the honour of a gentleman is liable to be tainted by as small a matter as the credit of a trader." Much the same lesson is taught, less sententiously, when Phillis exclaims, "Oh, Tom! Tom! thou art as false and as base as the best gentleman of them all."

Parson Adams said that he thought The Conscious Lovers the only play fit for a Christian to see; "indeed," he added, "it contains some things almost solemn enough for a sermon." In this kindly satire Fielding indicated the weakness of the play. The chief interest of the piece is sentimental, and the hero is not always free from priggishness. Yet the duelling scene, for which, as Steele says, the whole was written, has much dramatic interest, and the protest against false ideas of honour—"decisions a tyrant custom has introduced, to the breach of all laws both divine and human"—was at that time courageous, and much needed. If some of the things expressed in this play are more suited for a paper in the Spectator, there is nothing in true comedy which makes it incongruous to convey, in a manner suited to that form of art, a serious lesson of life. If, again, as some say, there is more pathos than is allowable in the scene in which Sealand recovers his long-lost daughter and sister, the end is that of true comedy; the "pedantic coxcomb" Cimberton no longer wants Sealand's daughter when he finds that, by the discovery of Indiana, Lucinda's fortune will be halved; Bevil is able, in marrying Indiana, the lady he loves, to comply with his father's wish that he should be united to Sealand's daughter; and Bevil's friend, Myrtle, the true lover whose affection is not lessened by change in the lady's dowry, is rewarded with the hand of Lucinda. The friends, formerly supposed by one of them to be rivals, thus become brothers.

Steele alluded to current criticism when he said, in his Preface, that the incident of the threatened duel and the case of the father and daughter were thought by some to be no subjects of comedy; "but I cannot," he continued, "be of their mind, for anything that has its foundation in happiness and success must be allowed to be the object of comedy." His object, as Welsted said in the Prologue, was to

"please by wit that scorns the aid of vice;
The praise he seeks, from worthier motives springs,
Such praise, as praise to those that give, it brings."

It was for the audience

"To chasten wit, and moralise the stage."

If success is to be measured by the amount of discussion caused by a work, The Conscious Lovers was, indeed, fortunate. Dennis began the attack in a pamphlet before the play was publicly acted, and afterwards returned to the charge. Much of what he said was personal abuse, but some of his remarks are interesting, and show what were then held to be the weak points in the piece. He complained that Bevil was given the qualities of an old man, and maintained that the characters were not just images of their contemporaries, that patterns for imitation were set up instead of follies and vices being made ridiculous, and that the subject of the comedy was not by its constitution comical. Bevil's filial piety, he said, was carried too far, and his behaviour to Indiana was still more unaccountable, for though he had in one sense concealed his passion, there was no retreat with honour for him, because by his generosity and constant visits he had raised a passion for him in Indiana, and had compromised her. The catastrophe, he confessed, was very moving, but it might have been more surprising, if handled differently. The action in Terence's play was natural, as, for example, the conduct of Glycerium at the funeral of Chrysis; but the scene at the masquerade between Bevil and Indiana was an absurd imitation, for Indiana did not know that her affection was returned. As for Bevil, "this man of conscience and of religion is as arrant an hypocrite as a certain author," and was constantly dissimulating. Dennis concluded by saying that the sentiments were often frivolous, false, and absurd; the dialogue awkward, clumsy, and spiritless; the diction affected, barbarous, and too often Hibernian.

There were other pamphlets for and against the play, and the newspapers contained many articles on the subject. One writer remarked that a great part of Squire Cimberton's conversation, "some of which has since been omitted," could not be reconciled with rules often laid down by Steele. "He [Steele] must always be agreeable, till he ceases to be at all; and yet it has been always fashionable to use him ill: Blockheads of quality, who are scarce capable of reading his works, have affected a sort of ill-bred merit in despising 'em; and they who have no taste for his writings, have pretended to a displeasure at his conduct."

X.

The remaining years of Steele's life need not detain us long. In 1723 he wrote to his eldest daughter, Betty, "I have taken a great deal of pains to serve the world, and hope God will allow me some time to serve my own family. My good girl, employ yourself always in some good work, that you may be as good a woman as your mother." A few days later Vanbrugh wrote, "Happening to meet with Sir Richard Steele t'other day at Mr. Walpole's in town, he seemed to me to be (at least) in the declining way I had heard he was." The complications arising from the mortgage of Steele's interest in the theatre still troubled him, and from the 18th of June the other managers each took, for his own use, £1 13s. 4d. for every day upon which a play was acted, an arrangement from which Steele was excluded.

The success of The Conscious Lovers encouraged Steele to endeavour to finish another play; and the newspapers reported that it would be acted that winter. This was The School of Action, which has for its scene a theatre, mistaken by a lady's guardian for an inn; but the piece was left in a very incomplete condition. There is also a fragment of another play, The Gentleman; it was a dramatised version of a paper in the Spectator upon high life below stairs. In September illness forced Steele to go to Bath, and a few weeks later his only surviving son, Eugene, died. "Lord, grant me patience; pray write to me constantly," the father wrote to Betty: "Why don't you mention Molly? Is she dead, too?" In the spring of 1724 he was again in London, and in April a proposal for the payment of his debts was drawn up, from which it appears that, as he lived for more than five years afterwards, his liabilities were probably all met before his death. There was again reference to "a new play, which Sir Richard may produce next winter." In June an indenture quadrupartite was made between Steele, of the first part; Wilks, Cibber, and Booth, of the second part; a number of creditors, of the third part; and the Rev. David Scurlock, of the fourth part, to provide for the payment of debts out of Steele's share of the profits of the theatre. For this purpose Mr. Scurlock—Lady Steele's cousin—was appointed trustee.

The autumn of 1724 was spent at Carmarthen. In February, 1725, Steele was at Hereford, where he received £100 from the King's bounty; and in July he was again at Carmarthen. He retired to the country from "a principle of doing justice to his creditors," and not, as Swift said after his death, because of the "perils of a hundred gaols." In December, 1724, the other managers urged him to return to town at once; the audiences decreased daily, and it was impossible to contend against other forms of entertainment; the profits had fallen by more than a half. Nothing came of this application, and in September, 1725, protracted law proceedings were instituted in the Court of Chancery, by Steele and Scurlock, against Wilks, Cibber, Booth, Castleman, and Woolley. An abstract of the pleadings will be found in the Appendix. The Court gave judgment in February, 1728, confirming the allowance of £1 13s. 4d. a day to each of the three managers; but the case was not brought to a close until July, when, as Cibber says, "Sir Richard not being advised to appeal to the Lord Chancellor, both parties paid their own costs, and thought it their mutual interest to let this be the last of their law suits."

During the remaining three years of his life Steele lived chiefly at Tygwyn, a farm-house overlooking the Towy, and within sight of Carmarthen. There he had a stroke of paralysis, which was accompanied by a partial loss of speech, but he kept his sweetness of temper and kindliness towards others to the last. There is a pleasant anecdote, told by Victor, and fully confirmed elsewhere, that he "would often be carried out on a summer's evening, where the country lads and lasses were assembled at their rural sports, and, with his pencil, give an order on his agent, the mercer, for a new gown to the best dancer." By his will, made in 1727, and witnessed by John Dyer, the poet, he left the residue of his small property, after certain legacies, to his "dear and well-beloved daughters, Elizabeth and Mary." Elizabeth, who had many admirers, afterwards married Lord Trevor; Mary died shortly after her father. Before his death Steele was moved to a house in King Street, Carmarthen, where he passed away on September 1, 1729. On the 4th he was privately buried in the vault of the Scurlocks, in St. Peter's Church. This vault was accidentally opened in 1876, and Steele's remains exposed to view; but they were carefully re-interred, and the skull enclosed in a small lead coffin.

Steele's faults are apparent, and they have not been allowed to be forgotten by writers of his own day or of later times. That he was thriftless is manifest, but his income, though it came from various sources, was uncertain and irregular, and he had passed the prime of life before he had anything like handsome means. Many of his debts, too, are to be accounted for by the generosity and open-handedness which are a characteristic of the nation in which he was born. That he sometimes drank more than was wise is equally well known, but that fault does not strike us so much when we remember that hard drinking was then the common practice, and that many could consume, with impunity, an amount which would undoubtedly have upset Steele entirely.

Against these defects, and a certain general weakness of character to which they were due, we have to set his unselfish patriotism, the high aims of his writings, which had a most beneficial effect upon his own and future generations, his affection for wife and children, and his loyalty to his friends. Whatever there is to forgive is more than made up for by these qualities, which have made him, to this day, one of the best-loved characters of his time.

Steele's comedies were often reprinted in separate form during the century following their production, and there were about a dozen editions in which these separate plays were collected together, with a general title-page. The last of these bears the date 1761. In 1809 Nichols published the fragments of two unfinished comedies in his edition of Steele's Correspondence. In the present volume all Steele's dramatic works have for the first time been gathered together, and an attempt has been made to provide such annotation as seemed necessary. Changes of scene, sometimes not noticed in the old copies, have been indicated, and modern conventions respecting spelling and the like have been adopted, while punctuation, which was very erratic in the early issues, has, where necessary, been modified. The text has been collated with the first and later editions of each play.

G. A. Aitken.

[THE FUNERAL:]

OR

GRIEF À-LA-MODE.

"Ut qui conducti plorant in funere, dicunt,
Et faciunt propè plura dolentibus ex animo, sic
Derisor vero plus laudatore movetur."[9]
Horace, Ars. Poet. 431-3.

The Funeral: or, Grief à-la-Mode, a Comedy, was written in the summer of 1701, and given to Christopher Rich, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in October. Soon afterwards it was acted, and it was published by Jacob Tonson between December 18 and 20, with the date 1702 on the title-page. The music to the songs, by William Croft, appeared between December 16 and 18. The original cast included Cibber (Lord Hardy), Wilks (Campley), Mills (Trusty), Pinkethman (Trim), Norris (Mrs. Fardingale), and Bullock (Kate Matchlock); with Mrs. Verbruggen (Lady Brumpton), Mrs. Rogers (Lady Harriot), and Mrs. Oldfield (Lady Sharlot). The play was revived occasionally in most of the years between 1703 and 1734, and from time to time during the following half-century, the last date, apparently, being April 17, 1799. The plot is entirely original.

To the Right Honourable the

COUNTESS OF ALBEMARLE.[10]

Madam,

Among the many novelties with which your ladyship, a stranger in our nation, is daily entertained, you have not yet been made acquainted with the poetical English liberty, the right of dedication; which entitles us to a privilege of celebrating whatever for its native excellence is the just object of praise, and is an ancient charter, by which the Muses have always a free access to the habitation of the Graces.

Hence it is that this Comedy waits on your Ladyship, and presumes to welcome you amongst us; though indeed, madam, we are surprised to see you bring with you, what we thought was of our own growth only, an agreeable beauty; nay, we must assure you, that we cannot give up so dear an article of our glory, but assert it by our right in you: for if 'tis a maxim founded on the noblest human law, that of hospitality, that every soil is a brave man's country, England has a very just pretence of claiming as a native a daughter of Mr. Scravenmore.

But your Ladyship is not only endeared to us by the great services of your father, but also by the kind offices of your husband, whose frank carriage falls in with our genius, which is free, open, and unreserved. In this the generosity of your tempers makes you both excel in so peculiar a manner, that your good actions are their own reward; nor can they be returned with ingratitude, for none can forget the benefits you confer so soon as you do yourselves.

But ye have a more indisputable title to a dramatic performance than all these advantages; for you are yourselves, in a degenerate low age, the noblest characters which that fine passion that supports the stage has inspired; and as you have practised as generous a fidelity as the fancies of poets have ever drawn in their expecting lovers, so may you enjoy as high a prosperity as ever they have bestowed on their rewarded. This you may possess in an happy security, for your fortunes cannot move so much envy as your persons love.

I am, Madam,

Your Ladyship's most devoted

Humble Servant,

Richard Steele.

PREFACE.

The rehearsal of this Comedy was honoured with the presence of the Duke of Devonshire,[11] who is as distinguished by his fine understanding as high quality. The innocence of it moved him to the humanity of expressing himself in its favour. 'Tis his manner to be pleased where he is not offended; a condescension which delicate spirits are obliged to for their own ease, for they would have but a very ill time of it if they suffered themselves to be diverted with nothing but what could bear their judgment.

That elegant and illustrious person will, I hope, pardon my gratitude to the town, which obliges me to report so substantial a reason for their approbation of this play, as that he permitted it. But I know not in what words to thank my fellow-soldiers for their warmth and zeal in my behalf, nor to what to attribute their undeserved favour, except it be that 'tis habitual to 'em to run to the succour of those they see in danger.

The subject of the drama 'tis hoped will be acceptable to all lovers of mankind, since ridicule is partly levelled at a set of people who live in impatient hopes to see us out of the world, a flock of ravens that attend this numerous city for their carcases; but, indeed, 'tis not in the power of any pen to speak 'em better than they do themselves. As, for example, on a door I just now passed by, a great artist thus informs us of his cures upon the dead:—

W. W., known and approved for his art of embalming, having preserved the corpse of a gentlewoman, sweet and entire, thirteen years, without embowelling, and has reduced the bodies of several persons of quality to sweetness, in Flanders and Ireland, after nine months' putrefaction in the ground, and they were known by their friends in England. No man performeth the like.

He must needs be strangely in love with this life who is not touched with this kind invitation to be pickled; and the noble operator must be allowed a very useful person for bringing old friends together; nor would it be unworthy his labour to give us an account at large of the sweet conversation that arose upon meeting such an entire friend as he mentions.

But to be serious: Is there anything, but its being downright fact, could make a rational creature believe 'twere possible to arrive at this fantastic posthumous folly? Not at the same time but that it were buffoonery rather than satire to explode all funeral honours; but then it is certainly necessary to make 'em such that the mourners should be in earnest, and the lamented worthy of our sorrow. But this purpose is so far from being served, that it is utterly destroyed by the manner of proceeding among us, where the obsequies, which are due only to the best and highest of human race (to admonish their short survivors that neither wit, nor valour, nor wisdom, nor glory can suspend our fate), are prostituted and bestowed upon such as have nothing in common with men but their mortality.

But the dead man is not to pass off so easily, for his last thoughts are also to suffer dissection, and it seems there is an art to be earned to speak our own sense in other men's words, and a man in a gown that never saw his face shall tell you immediately the design of the deceased, better than all his old acquaintance; which is so perfect an hocus-pocus that, without you can repeat such and such words, you cannot convey what is in your hands into another's; but far be it from any man's thought to say there are not men of strict integrity of the long robe, though it is not everybody's good fortune to meet with 'em.

However, the daily legal villanies we see committed will also be esteemed things proper to be prosecuted by satire, nor could our ensuing Legislative do their country a more seasonable office than to look into the distresses of an unhappy people, who groan perhaps in as much misery under entangled as they could do under broken laws; nor could there be a reward high enough assigned for a great genius, if such may be found, who has capacity sufficient to glance through the false colours that are put upon us, and propose to the English world a method of making justice flow in an uninterrupted stream; there is so clear a mind in being, whom we will name in words that of all men breathing can be only said of him; 'tis he[12] that is excellent—

"Seu linguam causis acuit, seu civica jura
Responsare parat, seu condit amabile carmen."[13]

Other enemies that may arise against this poor play are indeed less terrible, but much more powerful than these, and they are the ladies; but if there is anything that argues a soured man, who lashes all for Lady Brumpton, we may hope there will be seen also a devoted heart that esteems all for Lady Sharlot.

PROLOGUE.

Spoken by Mr. Wilks.[14]

Nature's deserted, and dramatic art,
To dazzle now the eye, has left the heart;[15]
Gay lights and dresses, long extended scenes,
Demons and angels moving in machines,
All that can now, or please, or fright the fair,
May be performed without a writer's care,
And is the skill of carpenter, not player.
Old Shakespeare's days could not thus far advance;
But what's his buskin to our ladder dance?[16]
In the mid region a silk youth to stand,
With that unwieldly engine at command!
Gorged with intemperate meals while here you sit,
Well may you take activity for wit:
Fie, let confusion on such dulness seize;
Blush, you're so pleased, as we that so we please.
But we, still kind to your inverted sense,
Do most unnatural things once more dispense.
For since you're still preposterous in delight,
Our Author made, a full house to invite,
A funeral a Comedy to-night.
Nor does he fear that you will take the hint,
And let the funeral his own be meant;
No, in old England nothing can be won
Without a faction, good or ill be done;
To own this our frank Author does not fear;
But hopes for a prevailing party here;
He knows he's numerous friends; nay, knows they'll show it,
And for the fellow-soldier, save the poet.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Lord Brumpton.

Lord Hardy, Son to Lord Brumpton, in love with Lady Sharlot.

Mr. Campley, in love with Lady Harriot.

Mr. Trusty, Steward to Lord Brumpton.

Cabinet.

Mr. Sable, an Undertaker.

Puzzle, a Lawyer.

Trim, Servant to Lord Hardy.

Tom, the Lawyer's Clerk.

Lady Brumpton.

Lady Sharlot,
Lady Harriot,
Orphan Sisters, left in ward to Lord Brumpton.

Mademoiselle d'Epingle.

Tattleaid, Lady Brumpton's Woman.

Mrs. Fardingale.

Kate Matchlock.

Visitant Ladies, Sable's Servants, Recruits, &c.

SCENE.—Covent Garden.

THE FUNERAL: OR, GRIEF À-LA-MODE.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE—Covent Garden.

Enter Cabinet, Sable, and Campley.

Cab. I burst into laughter, I can't bear to see writ over an undertaker's door, "Dresses for the Dead, and Necessaries for Funerals!" Ha! ha! ha!

Sab. Well, gentlemen, 'tis very well; I know you are of the laughers, the wits that take the liberty to deride all things that are magnificent and solemn.

Cam. Nay, but after all, I can't but admire Sable's nice discerning on the superfluous cares of mankind, that could lead them to the thought of raising an estate by providing horses, equipage, and furniture, for those that no longer need 'em.

Cab. But is it not strangely contradictory, that men can come to so open, so apparent an hypocrisy, as in the face of all the world, to hire professed mourners to grieve, lament, and follow in their stead their nearest relations, and suborn others to do by art what they themselves should be prompted to by nature?

Sab. That's reasonably enough said, but they regard themselves only in all they act for the deceased, and the poor dead are delivered to my custody, to be embalmed, slashed, cut, and dragged about, not to do them honour, but to satisfy the vanity or interest of their survivors.

Cam. This fellow's every way an undertaker! How well and luckily he talks! His prating so aptly has methinks something more ridiculous in it than if he were absurd. [Aside to Cabinet.

Cab. But, as Mr. Campley says, how could you dream of making a fortune from so chimerical a foundation as the provision of things wholly needless and insignificant?

Sab. Alas, gentlemen, the value of all things under the sun is merely fantastic. We run, we strive, and purchase things with our blood and money, quite foreign to our intrinsic real happiness, and which have a being in imagination only, as you may see by the pudder[17] that is made about precedence, titles, court favour, maidenheads, and china-ware.

Cam. Ay, Mr. Sable, but all those are objects that promote our joy, are bright to the eye, or stamp upon our minds pleasure and self-satisfaction.

Sab. You are extremely mistaken, sir; for one would wonder to consider that after all our outcries against self-interested men, there are few, very few, in the whole world that live to themselves, but sacrifice their bosom-bliss to enjoy a vain show, and appearance of prosperity in the eyes of others; and there is often nothing more inwardly distressed than a young bride in her glittering retinue, or deeply joyful than a young widow in her weeds and black train; of both which, the lady of this house may be an instance, for she has been the one, and is, I'll be sworn, the other.

Cab. You talk, Mr. Sable, most learnedly!

Sab. I have the deepest learning, sir, experience. Remember your widow cousin that married last month.

Cab. Ay! But how could you imagine she was in all that grief an hypocrite? Could all those shrieks, those swoonings, that rising, falling bosom be constrained? You're uncharitable, Sable, to believe it——What colour, what reason had you for it?

Sab. First, sir, her carriage in her concerns with me, for I never yet could meet with a sorrowful relict, but was herself enough to make an hard bargain with me.[18]—Yet I must confess they have frequent interruptions of grief and sorrow when they read my bill—but as for her, nothing, she resolved, that looked bright or joyous should after her love's death approach her. All her servants that were not coal black must turn out; a fair complexion made her eyes and heart ache, she'd none but downright jet, and to exceed all example she hired my mourning furniture by the year, and in case of my mortality tied my son to the same article; so in six weeks' time ran away with a young fellow——Prithee push on briskly, Mr. Cabinet, now is your time to have this widow, for Tattleaid tells me she always said she'd never marry——

Cab. As you say, that's generally the most hopeful sign.

Sab. I tell you, sir, 'tis an infallible one; you know those professions are only to introduce discourse of matrimony and young fellows.

Cab. But I swear I could not have confidence even after all our long acquaintance, and the mutual love which his lordship (who indeed has now been so kind as to leave us) has so long interrupted, to mention a thing of such a nature so unseasonably——

Sab. Unseasonably! Why, I tell you 'tis the only season (granting her sorrow unfeigned): When would you speak of passion, but in the midst of passions? There's a what d'ye call, a crisis[19]—the lucky minute that's so talked of, is a moment between joy and grief, which you must take hold of and push your fortune——But get you in, and you'll best read your fate in the reception Mrs. Tattleaid gives you. All she says, and all she does, nay, her very love and hatred are mere repetition of her ladyship's passions. I'll say that for her, she's a true lady's woman, and is herself as much a second-hand thing as her clothes. But I must beg your pardon, gentlemen, my people are come I see——[Exeunt Cab. and Camp.

Enter Sable's Men.

Where in the name of goodness have you all been? Have you brought the sawdust and tar for embalming? Have you the hangings and the sixpenny nails, and my lord's coat-of-arms?

Enter Servant.

Ser. Yes, sir, and had come sooner, but I went to the Herald's for a coat for Alderman Gathergrease that died last night——He has promised to invent one against to-morrow.

Sab. Ah! Pox take some of our cits, the first thing after their death is to take care of their birth——Pox, let him bear a pair of stockings, he's the first of his family that ever wore one. Well, come you that are to be mourners in this house, put on your sad looks, and walk by me that I may sort you. Ha, you! a little more upon the dismal [forming their countenances]; this fellow has a good mortal look—place him near the corpse. That wainscot face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the entrance of the hall—so—but I'll fix you all myself——Let's have no laughing now on any provocation [makes faces]. Look yonder, that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, now twenty shillings a week, to be sorrowful? and the more I give you, I think, the gladder you are.

Enter a Boy.

Boy. Sir, the gravedigger of St. Timothy's-in-the-Fields would speak with you.

Sab. Let him come in.

Enter Gravedigger.

Grav. I carried home to your house the shroud the gentleman was buried in last night. I could not get his ring off very easily, therefore I brought the finger and all; and sir, the sexton gives his service to you, and desires to know whether you'd have any bodies removed or not. If not, he'll let 'em lie in their graves a week longer.

Sab. Give him my service, I can't tell readily; but our friend, tell him, Dr. Passeport, with the powder, has promised me six or seven funerals this week. I'll send to our country-farm at Kensington Gravel Pits, and our City-house in Warwick Lane for news; you shall know time enough. Harkee, be sure there's care taken to give my Lady Languishe's woman a fee to keep out that young fellow came last from Oxford; he'll ruin us all.

Enter Goody Trash.

I wonder, Goody Trash, you could not be more punctual, when I told you I wanted you, and your two daughters, to be three virgins to-night to stand in white about my Lady Katherine Grissel's body; and you know you were privately to bring her home from the man-midwife's, where she died in childbirth, to be buried like a maid; but there is nothing minded. Well, I have put off that till to-morrow; go and get your bag of brick-dust and your whiting. Go and sell to the cook-maids; know who has surfeited about town. Bring me no bad news, none of your recoveries again. And you, Mr. Blockhead, I warrant you have not called at Mr. Pestle's, the apothecary: Will that fellow never pay me? I stand bound for all the poison in that starving murderer's shop. He serves me just as Dr. Quibus did, who promised to write a treatise against water-gruel, a damned healthy slop, that has done me more injury than all the faculty. Look you now, you are all upon the sneer; let me have none but downright stupid countenances——I've a good mind to turn you all off, and take people out of the play-house; but, hang 'em, they are as ignorant of their parts as you are of yours, they never act but when they speak; when the chief indication of the mind is in the gesture, or indeed in case of sorrow in no gesture, except you were to act a widow, or so——But yours, you dolts, is all in dumb show; dumb show? I mean expressive eloquent show: As who can see such an horrid ugly phiz as that fellow's and not be shocked, offended, and killed of all joy while he beholds it? But we must not loiter——Ye stupid rogues, whom I have picked out of all the rubbish of mankind, and fed for your eminent worthlessness, attend, and know that I speak you this moment stiff and immutable to all sense of noise, mirth, or laughter [Makes mouths at them as they pass by him to bring them to a constant countenance]. So, they are pretty well—pretty well——

Enter Trusty and Lord Brumpton.

Tru. 'Twas fondness, sir, and tender duty to you, who have been so worthy and so just a master to me, made me stay near you; they left me so, and there I found you wake from your lethargic slumber; on which I will assume an authority to beseech you, sir, to make just use of your revived life, in seeing who are your true friends, and knowing her who has so wrought upon your noble nature as to make it act against itself in disinheriting your brave son.

Ld. B. Sure 'tis impossible she should be such a creature as you tell me——My mind reflects upon ten thousand endearments that plead unanswerably for her. Her chaste reluctant love, her easy observance of all my wayward humours, to which she would accommodate herself with so much ease, I could scarce observe it was a virtue in her; she hid her very patience.

Tru. It was all art, sir, or indifference to you, for what I say is downright matter of fact.

Ld. B. Why didst thou ever tell me it? or why not in my lifetime, for I must call it so, nor can I date a minute mine, after her being false; all past that moment is death and darkness: Why didst thou not tell me then, I say?

Tru. Because you were too much in love with her to be informed; nor did I ever know a man that touched on conjugal affairs could ever reconcile the jarring humours but in a common hatred of the intermeddler. But on this most extraordinary occasion, which seems pointed out by Heaven itself to disengage you from your cruelty and banishment of an innocent child, I must, I will conjure you to be concealed, and but contain yourself, in hearing one discourse with that cursed instrument of all her secrets, that Tattleaid, and you'll see what I tell you; you'll call me then your guardian and good genius.

Ld. B. Well, you shall govern me, but would I had died in earnest ere I'd known it; my head swims, as it did when I fell into my fit, at the thoughts of it——How dizzy a place is this world you live in! All human life's a mere vertigo!

Tru. Ay, ay, my lord, fine reflections—fine reflections,—but that does no business. Thus, sir, we'll stand concealed, and hear, I doubt not, a much sincerer dialogue than usual between vicious persons; for a late accident has given a little jealousy, which makes 'em over-act their love and confidence in each other. [They retire.

Enter Widow and Tattleaid meeting, and running to each other.

Wid. O, Tattleaid! His and our hour is come!

Tat. I always said, by his churchyard cough, you'd bury him, but still you were impatient——

Wid. Nay, thou hast ever been my comfort, my confidant, my friend, and my servant; and now I'll reward thy pains; for though I scorn the whole sex of fellows, I'll give 'em hopes for thy sake; every smile, every frown, every gesture, humour, caprice and whimsey of mine shall be gold to thee, girl; thou shalt feel all the sweet and wealth of being a fine rich widow's woman. Oh! how my head runs my first year out, and jumps to all the joys of widowhood! If thirteen months hence a friend should haul one to a play one has a mind to see, what pleasure 'twill be when my Lady Brumpton's footman's called (who kept a place for that very purpose) to make a sudden insurrection of fine wigs in the pit and side-boxes. Then, with a pretty sorrow in one's face and a willing blush for being stared at, one ventures to look round and bow to one of one's own quality. Thus [very directly] to a smug pretending fellow of no fortune: Thus [as scarce seeing him] to one that writes lampoons: Thus [fearfully] to one one really loves: Thus [looking down] to one's woman-acquaintance; from box to box thus [with looks differently familiar]: And when one has done one's part, observe the actors do their's, but with my mind fixed not on those I look at, but those that look at me——Then the serenades! The lovers!

Tat. O, madam, you make my heart bound within me. I'll warrant you, madam, I'll manage 'em all; and indeed, madam, the men are really very silly creatures, 'tis no such hard matter——They rulers! They governors! I warrant you indeed!

Wid. Ay, Tattleaid, they imagine themselves mighty things, but government founded on force only is a brutal power. We rule them by their affections, which blinds them into belief that they rule us, or at least are in the government with us——But in this nation our power is absolute. Thus, thus, we sway—[playing her fan]. A fan is both the standard and the flag of England. I laugh to see the men go on our errands; strut in great offices; live in cares, hazards, and scandals; to come home and be fools to us in brags of their dispatches, negotiations, and their wisdom—as my good, dear deceased used to entertain me; which I, to relieve myself from, would lisp some silly request, pat him on the face——He shakes his head at my pretty folly, calls me simpleton, gives me a jewel, then goes to bed so wise, so satisfied, and so deceived!

Tat. But I protest, madam, I've always wondered how you could accomplish my young lord's being disinherited.

Wid. Why, Tatty, you must know my late lord—how prettily that sounds, my late lord! But I say, my late Lord Frible was generosity—I pressed him there, and whenever you, by my order, had told him stories to my son-in-law's disadvantage, in his rage and resentment I (whose interest lay otherwise) always fell on my knees to implore his pardon, and with tears, sighs, and importunities for him, prevailed against him; besides this, you know, I had, when I pleased, fits—fits are a mighty help in the government of a good-natured man; but in an ill-natured fellow have a care of 'em—he'll hate you for natural infirmities, will remember your face in its distortion, and not value your return of beauty.

Tat. O rare madam! your ladyship's a great headpiece; but now, dear madam, is the hard task, if I may take the liberty to say it—to enjoy all freedoms, and seem to abstain, to manage the number of pretenders, and keep the disobliged from prating——

Wid. Never fear, Tattleaid; while you have riches, if you affront one to abuse, you can give hopes to another to defend you. These maxims I have been laying up all my husband's life-time, for we must provide against calamities.

Tat. But now, madam, a fine young gentleman with a red coat, that dances——

Wid. You may be sure the happy man (if it be in fate that there is an happy man to make me an unhappy woman) shall not be an old one again. Age and youth married, is the cruelty in Dryden's Virgil, where Mezentius ties the dead and living together. I'm sure I was tied to a dead man many a long day before I durst bury him——But the day is now my own. Yet now I think on't, Tattleaid, be sure to keep an obstinate shyness to all our old acquaintance. Let 'em talk of favours if they please; if we grant 'em, still they'll grow tyrants to us; if we discard 'em, the chaste and innocent will not believe we could have confidence to do it, were it so; and the wise, if they believe it, will applaud our prudence.

Tat. Ay, madam—I believe, madam—I speak, madam, but my humble sense—Mr. Cabinet would marry you.

Wid. Marry me! No, Tattleaid. He that is so mean as to marry a woman after an affair with her, will be so base as to upbraid that very weakness. He that marries his wench will use her like his wench.—Such a pair must sure live in a secret mutual scorn of each other; and wedlock is hell if at least one side does not love, as it would be Heaven if both did; and I believe it so much Heaven, as to think it was never enjoyed in this world.

Enter a Woman.

Wom. A gentleman to Mrs. Tattleaid——[Exit Tattleaid.

Wid. Go to him.—Bless me, how careless and open have I been to this subtle creature in the case of Cabinet; she's certainly in his interests——We people of condition are never guarded enough against those about us. They watch when our minds boil over with joy or grief, to come in upon us. How miserable it is to have one one hates always about one, and when one can't endure one's own reflection upon some actions, who can bear the thoughts of another upon 'em? But she has me by deep, deep secrets.—The Italians, they say, can readily remove the too much intrusted——Oh! their pretty scented gloves! This wench I know has played me false and horned me in my gallants. O Italy, I could resign all my female English liberty to thee, for thy much dearer female pleasure, revenge!

Enter Tattleaid.

Well, what's the matter, dear Tatty?

Tat. The matter, madam? why, madam, Counsellor Puzzle is come to wait on your ladyship about the will, and the conveyance of the estate. There must, it seems, be no time lost for fear of things. Fie, fie, madam, you a widow these three hours and not looked on a parchment yet——Oh, impious, to neglect the will of the dead!

Wid. As you say, indeed, there is no will of an husband's so willingly obeyed as his last. But I must go in and receive him in my formalities, leaning on a couch, as necessary a posture as his going behind his desk when he speaks to a client——But do you bring him in hither till I am ready. [Exit.

Tat. Mr. Counsellor, Mr. Counsellor——[Calling.

Enter Puzzle and Clerk.

Puz. 'Servant, good madam Tattleaid; my ancient friend is gone, but business must be minded——

Tat. I told my lady twice or thrice, as she lies in dumb grief on the couch within, that you were here, but she regarded me not; however, since you say 'tis of such moment, I'll venture to introduce you. Please but to repose here a little while I step in; for methinks I would a little prepare her.

Puz. Alas! alas! Poor lady! [Exit Tattleaid. Damned hypocrites! Well, this noble's death is a little sudden. Therefore, pray, let me recollect. Open the bag, good Tom. Now, Tom, thou art my nephew, my dear sister Kate's only son and my heir, therefore I will conceal from thee on no occasion anything, for I would enter thee into business as soon as possible. Know then, child, that the lord of this house was one of your men of honour and sense who lose the latter in the former, and are apt to take all men to be like themselves. Now this gentleman entirely trusted me, and I made the only use a man of business can of a trust—I cheated him. For I, imperceptibly, before his face, made his whole estate liable to an hundred per annum for myself, for good services, &c. As for legacies, they are good or not as I please; for, let me tell you, a man must take pen, ink, and paper, sit down by an old fellow, and pretend to take directions; but a true lawyer never makes any man's will but his own; and as the priest of old among us got near the dying man and gave all to the church, so now the lawyer gives all to the law.

Clerk. Ay, sir; but priests then cheated the nation by doing their offices in an unknown language.

Puz. True; but ours is a way much surer, for we cheat in no language at all, but loll in our own coaches, eloquent in gibberish, and learned in juggle——Pull out the parchment; there's the deed, I made it as long as I could. Well, I hope to see the day when the indenture shall be the exact measure of the land that passes by it; for 'tis a discouragement to the gown that every ignorant rogue of an heir should, in a word or two, understand his father's meaning, and hold ten acres of land by half-an-acre of parchment. Nay, I hope to see the time when that there is, indeed, some progress made in, shall be wholly effected, and by the improvement of the noble art of tautology every inn in Holborn an inn of court. Let others think of logic, rhetoric and I know not what impertinence, but mind thou tautology. What's the first excellence in a lawyer? Tautology. What the second? Tautology. What the third? Tautology—as an old pleader said of action. But turn to the deed [pulls out an immeasurable parchment], for the will is of no force if I please, for he was not capable of making one after the former—as I managed it; upon which account I now wait upon my lady. By the way, do you know the true meaning of the word, a deed?

Clerk. Ay, sir; a deed is as if a man should say the deed.

Puz. Right. 'Tis emphatically so-called because after it all deeds and actions are of no effect, and you have nothing to do but hang yourself, the only obliging thing you can then do——But I was telling you the use of tautology. Read toward the middle of that instrument.

Clerk [reads]. "I, the said Earl of Brumpton, do give, bestow, grant, and bequeath, over and above the said premises, all the site and capital messuage called by the name of Oatham, and all out-houses, barns, stables, and other edifices and buildings, yards, orchards, gardens, fields, arbours, trees, lands, earths, meadows, greens, pastures, feedings, woods, underwoods, ways, waters, watercourses, fishings, ponds, pools, commons, common of pasture, paths, heath-thickets, profits, commodities and emoluments, with their and every of their appurtenances [Puzzle nods and sneers as the synonimous words are repeating, whom Lord B. scornfully mimics] whatsoever, to the said capital messuage and site belonging, or in any wise appertaining, or with the same heretofore used, occupied or enjoyed, accepted, executed, known, or taken as part, parcel, or member of the same; containing in the whole, by estimation, four hundred acres of the large measure, or thereabouts, be the same more or less; all and singular, which the said site, capital messuage, and other the premises, with their and every of their appurtenances are situate, lying, and being——"

Puz. Hold, hold, good Tom; you do come on indeed in business, but don't use your nose enough in reading. [Reads in a ridiculous law-tone until out of breath.] Why, you're quite out—You read to be understood. Let me see it.—"I, the said Earl."—Now again, suppose this were to be in Latin. [Runs into Latin terminations.] Making Latin is only making it no English—"Ego predict—Comes de Brumpton—totas meas barnos—outhousas et stabulas—yardos"—But there needs no further perusal—I now recollect the whole. My lord, by this instrument, disinherits his son utterly, gives all to my lady, and moreover, grants the wards of two fortune-wards to her—id est, to be sold by her, which is the subject of my business to her ladyship, who, methinks, a little overdoes the affair of grief, in letting me wait thus long on such welcome articles. But here——

Enter Tattleaid, wiping her eyes.

Tat. I have in vain done all I can to make her regard me. Pray, Mr. Puzzle—you're a man of sense—come in yourself, and speak reason, to bring her to some consideration of herself, if possible.

Puz. Tom, I'll come down to the hall to you; dear madam, lead on.

[Ex. Clerk one way, Puzzle and Tattleaid another. Lord Brumpton and Trusty advance from their concealment, after a long pause, and staring at each other.

Ld. B. Trusty, on thy sincerity, on thy fidelity to me, thy friend, thy patron, and thy master, answer me directly to one question: am I really alive? Am I that identical, that numerical, that very same Lord Brumpton, that——

Tru. That very lord—that very Lord Brumpton, the very generous, honest, and good Lord Brumpton, who spent his strong and riper years with honour and reputation; but in his age of decay declined from virtue also. That very Lord Brumpton, who buried a fine lady who brought him a fine son, who is a fine gentleman; but in his age, that very man, unreasonably captivated with youth and beauty, married a very fine young lady, who has dishonoured his bed, disinherited his brave son, and dances o'er his grave.

Ld. B. Oh! that damned tautologist, too—that Puzzle and his irrevocable deed! [Pausing.] Well, I know I do not really live, but wander o'er the place where once I had a treasure. I'll haunt her, Trusty, gaze in that false beauteous face, till she trembles—till she looks pale—nay, till she blushes——

Tru. Ay, ay, my lord, you speak a ghost very much; there's flesh and blood in that expression, that false beauteous face!

Ld. B. Then since you see my weakness, be a friend, and arm me with all your care and all your reason——

Tru. If you'll condescend to let me direct you—you shall cut off this rotten limb, your false disloyal wife, and save your noble parts, your son, your family, your honour.

Short is the date in which ill acts prevail,
But honesty's a rock can never fail.

ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE I.—Lord Hardy's Lodgings.

Enter Lord Hardy.

Ld. H. Now, indeed, I am utterly undone; but to expect an evil softens the weight of it when it happens, and pain no more than pleasure is in reality so great as in expectation. But what will become of me? How shall I keep myself even above worldly want? Shall I live at home a stiff, melancholy, poor man of quality, grow uneasy to my acquaintance as well as myself, by fancying I'm slighted where I am not; with all the thousand particularities which attend those whom low fortune and high spirit make malcontents? No! We've a brave prince on the throne, whose commission I bear, and a glorious war in an honest cause approaching [clapping his hand on his sword], in which this shall cut bread for me, and may perhaps equal that estate to which my birth entitled me. But what to do in present pressures—Ha! Trim. [Calling.

Enter Trim.

Trim. My lord.

Ld. H. How do the poor rogues that are to recruit my Company?

Trim. Do, sir! They've ate you to your last guinea.

Ld. H. Were you at the agent's?

Trim. Yes.

Ld. H. Well? And how?

Trim. Why, sir, for your arrears, you may have eleven shillings in the pound; but he'll not touch your growing subsistence under three shillings in the pound interest; besides which you must let his clerk, Jonathan Item, swear the peace against you to keep you from duelling—or insure your life, which you may do for eight per cent. On these terms he'll oblige you, which he would not do for anybody else in the regiment; but he has a friendship for you.

Ld. H. Oh, I'm his humble servant; but he must have his own terms. We can't starve, nor must my fellows want. But methinks this is a calm midnight, I've heard no duns to-day——

Trim. Duns, my lord? Why now your father's dead, and they can't arrest you. I shall grow a little less upon the smooth with 'em than I have been. Why, friend, says I, how often must I tell you my lord is not stirring: His lordship has not slept well, you must come some other time; your lordship will send for him when you are at leisure to look upon money-affairs; or if they are so saucy, so impertinent as to press to a man of your quality for their own—there are canes, there's Bridewell, there's the stocks for your ordinary tradesmen. But to an haughty, thriving Covent Garden mercer, silk or laceman, your lordship gives your most humble service to him, hopes his wife's well. You have letters to write, or you'd see him yourself, but you desire he would be with you punctually such a day, that is to say the day after you are gone out of town.

Ld. H. Go, sirrah, you're scurrilous; I won't believe there are such men of quality. D'ye hear, give my service this afternoon to Mr. Cutpurse, the agent, and tell him I'm obliged to him for his readiness to serve me, for I'm resolved to pay my debts forthwith——

[A voice without. I don't know whether he is within or not. Mr. Trim, is my lord within?]

Ld. H. Trim, see who it is. I ain't within, you know. [Exit Trim.

Trim. [Without.] Yes, sir, my lord's above; pray walk up——

Ld. H. Who can it be? he owns me, too.

Enter Campley and Trim.

Dear Tom Campley, this is kind! You are an extraordinary man indeed, who in the sudden accession of a noble fortune can be still yourself, and visit your less happy friends.

Cam. No; you are, my lord, the extraordinary man, who, on the loss of an almost princely fortune, can be master of a temper that makes you the envy, rather than pity, of your more fortunate, not more happy friends.

Ld. H. O, sir, your servant—but let me gaze on thee a little, I han't seen thee since I came home into England—most exactly, negligently, genteelly dressed! I know there's more than ordinary in this [beating Campley's breast]. Come, confess, who shares with me here? I must have her real and poetical name. Come; she's in sonnet, Cynthia; in prose, mistress.

Cam. One you little dream of, though she is in a manner of your placing there.

Ld. H. My placing there?

Cam. Why, my lord, all the fine things you've said to me in the camp of my Lady Sharlot, your father's ward, ran in my head so very much, that I made it my business to become acquainted in that family, which I did by Mr. Cabinet's means, and am now in love in the same place with your lordship.

Ld. H. How? in love in the same place with me, Mr. Campley?

Cam. Ay, my lord, with t'other sister—with t'other sister.

Ld. H. What a dunce was I, not to know which, without your naming her! Why, thou art the only man breathing fit to deal with her. But my Lady Sharlot, there's a woman—so easily virtuous! So agreeably severe! Her motion so unaffected, yet so composed! Her lips breathe nothing but truth, good sense, and flowing wit.

Cam. Lady Harriot! there's the woman; such life, such spirit, such warmth in her eyes; such a lively commanding air in her glances; so spritely a mien, that carries in it the triumph of conscious beauty; her lips are made of gum and balm. There's something in that dear girl that fires my blood above—above—above——

Ld. H. Above what?

Cam. A grenadier's march.

Ld. H. A soft simile, I must confess! but oh that Sharlot! to recline this aching head, full of care, on that tender, snowy—faithful bosom!

Cam. O that Harriot! to embrace that beauteous[20]——

Ld. H. Ay, Tom; but methinks your head runs too much on the wedding night only, to make your happiness lasting; mine is fixed on the married state. I expect my felicity from Lady Sharlot, in her friendship, her constancy, her piety, her household cares, her maternal tenderness. You think not of any excellence of your mistress that is more than skin-deep——

Cam. When I know her further than skin-deep I'll tell you more of my mind.

Ld. H. O fie, Tom, how can you talk so lightly of a woman you love with honour.—But tell me, I wonder how you make your approaches in besieging such a sort of creature—she that loves addresses, gallantry, fiddles; that reigns and delights in a crowd of admirers. If I know her, she is one of those you may easily have a general acquaintance with, but hard to make particular.

Cam. You understand her very well. You must know I put her out of all her play by carrying it in a humourous manner. I took care in all my actions, before I discovered the lover, that she should in general have a good opinion of me; and have ever since behaved myself with all the good humour and ease I was able; so that she is now extremely at a loss how to throw me from the familiarity of an acquaintance into the distance of a lover; but I laugh her out of it. When she begins to frown and look grave at my mirth, I mimic her till she bursts out a-laughing.

Ld. H. That's ridiculous enough.

Cam. By Cabinet's interest over my Lady Brumpton, with gold and flattery to Mrs. Fardingale, an old maid her ladyship has placed about the young ladies, I have easy access at all times, and am this very day to be admitted by her into their apartment. I have found, you must know, that she is my relation.

Ld. H. Her ladyship has chose an odd companion for young ladies.

Cam. Oh, my lady's a politician. She told Tattleaid one day, that an old maid was the best guard for young ones, for they, like eunuchs in a seraglio, are vigilant out of envy of enjoyments they cannot themselves arrive at. But, as I was saying, I've sent my cousin Fardingale a song, which she and I are to practise to the spinet. The young ladies will be by; and I am to be left alone with Lady Harriot; then I design to make my grand attack, and to-day win or lose her. I know, sir, this is an opportunity you want. If you'll meet me at Tom's,[21] have a letter ready, I'll myself deliver it to your mistress, conduct you into the house, and tell her you are there—and find means to place you together. You must march under my command to-day, as I have many a one under yours.

Ld. H. But 'faith, Tom, I shall not behave myself with half the resolution you have under mine, for to confess my weakness, though I know she loves me, though I know she is as steadfastly mine as her heart can make her; I know not how, I have so sublime an idea of her high value, and such a melting tenderness dissolves my whole frame when I am near her, that my tongue falters, my nerves shake, and my heart so alternately sinks and rises, that my premeditated resolves vanish into confusion, down-cast eyes, and broken utterance——

Cam. Ha! ha! ha! this in a campaigner too! Why, my lord, that's the condition Harriot would have me in, and then she thinks she could have me; but I, that know her better than she does herself, know she'd insult me, and lead me a two years' dance longer, and perhaps in the end turn me into the herd of the many neglected men of better sense, who have been ridiculous for her sake. But I shall make her no such sacrifice. 'Tis well my Lady Sharlot's a woman of so solid an understanding; I don't know another that would not use you ill for your high value.

Ld. H. But, Tom, I must see your song you've sent your cousin Fardingale, as you call her.

Cam. This is lucky enough [Aside]. No; hang it, my lord, a man makes so silly a figure when his verses are reading. Trim—thou hast not left off thy loving and thy rhyming; Trim's a critic, I remember him a servitor at Oxon [Gives a paper to Trim]. I give myself into his hands, because you shan't see 'em till I'm gone. My lord, your servant, you shan't stir.

Ld. H. Nor you neither then. [Struggling.]

Cam. You will be obeyed. [Exeunt. Lord Hardy waits on him down.

Trim. What's in this song? Ha! don't my eyes deceive me—a bill of three hundred pounds——

"Mr. Cash,

"Pray pay to Mr. William Trim, or bearer, the sum of three hundred pounds, and place it to the account of,

"Sir,

"Your humble servant,

"Thomas Campley."

[Pulling off his hat and bowing.] Your very humble servant, good Mr. Campley. Ay, this is poetry—this is a song indeed! Faith, I'll set it, and sing it myself. Pray pay to Mr. William Trim—so far in recitativo—three hundred [singing ridiculously]—hun—dred—hundred—hundred thrice repeated, because 'tis three hundred pounds—I love repetitions in music, when there's a good reason for it,—po—unds after the Italian manner. If they'd bring me such sensible words as these, I'd outstrip all your composers for the music prize. This was honestly done of Mr. Campley, though I have carried him many a purse from my master when he was ensign to our Company in Flanders——

Enter Lord Hardy.

My lord, I am your lordship's humble servant.

Ld. H. Sir, your humble servant. But pray, my good familiar friend, how come you to be so very much my humble servant all of a sudden?

Trim. I beg pardon, dear sir, my lord, I am not your humble servant.

Ld. H. No!

Trim. Yes, my lord, I am, but not as you mean; but I am—I am, my lord—in short, I'm overjoyed.

Ld. H. Overjoyed! thou'rt distracted, what ails the fellow? Where's Campley's song?

Trim. Oh! my lord, one would not think 'twas in him. Mr. Campley's really a very great poet; as for the song, 'tis only as they all end in rhyme: Ow—woe—isses—kisses—boy—joy. But, my lord, the other in long heroic blank verse.

[Reading it with a great tone.

Pray pay to Mr. William Trim, or order, the sum of—How sweetly it runs! Pactolian guineas chink every line.

Ld. H. How very handsomely this was done in Campley! I wondered, indeed, he was so willing to show his verses. In how careless a manner that fellow does the greatest actions!

Trim. My lord, pray my lord, shan't I go immediately to Cutpurse's?

Ld. H. No, sirrah, now we have no occasion for it.

Trim. No, my lord, only to stare him full in the face after I have received this money, not say a word, but keep my hat on, and walk out. Or perhaps not hear, if any I meet with speak to me, but grow stiff, deaf, and shortsighted to all my old acquaintance, like a sudden rich man as I am. Or, perhaps, my lord, desire Cutpurse's clerk to let me leave fifty pounds at their house, payable to Mr. William Trim, or order, till I come that way, or, a month or two hence, may have occasion for it: I don't know what bills may be drawn upon me. Then when the clerk begins to stare at me, till he pulls the great goose-quill from behind his ear [Pulls a handfull of farthings out] I fall a-reckoning the pieces as I do these farthings.

Ld. H. Well, sirrah, you may have your humour, but be sure you take four score pounds, and pay my debts immediately. If you meet any officer you ever see me in company with, that looks grave at Cutpurse's house, tell him I'd speak with him: We must help our friends. But learn moderation, you rogue, in your good fortune; be at home all the evening after, while I wait at Tom's to meet Campley, in order to see Lady Sharlot.

My good or ill in her alone is found,
And in that thought all other cares are drowned.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.—Lord Brumpton's House.

Enter Sable, Lord Brumpton and Trusty.

Sab. Why, my lord, you can't in conscience put me off so. I must do according to my orders, cut you up, and embalm you, except you'll come down a little deeper than you talk of; you don't consider the charges I have been at already.

Ld. B. Charges! for what?

Sab. First, twenty guineas to my lady's woman for notice of your death (a fee I've, before now, known the widow herself go halves in), but no matter for that. In the next place, ten pounds for watching you all your long fit of sickness last winter.

Ld. B. Watching me? Why I had none but my own servants by turns.

Sab. I mean attending to give notice of your death. I had all your long fit of sickness last winter, at half-a-crown a day, a fellow waiting at your gate to bring me intelligence, but you unfortunately recovered, and I lost my obliging pains for your service.

Ld. B. Ha! ha! ha! Sable, thou art a very impudent fellow; half-a-crown a day to attend my decease, and dost thou reckon it to me?

Sab. Look you, gentlemen, don't stand staring at me. I have a book at home which I call my Doomsday book, where I have every man of quality's age and distemper in town, and know when you should drop. Nay, my lord, if you had reflected upon your mortality half so much as poor I have for you, you would not desire to return to life thus; in short, I cannot keep this a secret, under the whole money I am to have for burying you.

Ld. B. Trusty, if you think it safe in you to obey my orders after the deed Puzzle told his clerk of, pay it to him.

Tru. I should be glad to give it out of my own pocket, rather than be without the satisfaction of seeing you witness to it.

Ld. B. I heartily believe thee, dear Trusty.

Sab. Then, my lord, the secret of your being alive, is now safe with me.

Tru. I'll warrant I'll be revenged of this unconscionable dog [Aside]—My lord, you must to your closet, I fear somebody's coming. [Exeunt Sable one way, Ld. B. and Trusty another.]

SCENE III.—Lord Brumpton's House.

Lady Sharlot discovered reading at a table; Lady Harriot playing at a glass to and fro, and viewing herself.

L. Ha. Nay, good sage sister, you may as well talk to me [Looking at herself as she speaks], as sit staring at a book, which I know you can't attend. Good Dr. Lucas[22] may have writ there what he pleases, but there's no putting Francis Lord Hardy, now Earl of Brumpton, out of your head, or making him absent from your eyes; do but look at me now, and deny it if you can.

L. Sh. You are the maddest girl——[Smiling.

L. Ha. Look ye, I knew you could not say it and forbear laughing [Looking over Sharlot]. Oh, I see his name as plain as you do—F—r—a—n Fran, c—i—s cis, Francis, 'tis in every line of the book.

L. Sh. [Rising] 'Tis in vain, I see, to mind anything in such impertinent company, but granting 'twere as you say as to my Lord Hardy, 'tis more excusable to admire another than one's self.

L. Ha. No, I think not; yes, I grant you than really to be vain at one's person, but I don't admire myself. Pish! I don't believe my eyes have that softness [Looking in the glass], they ain't so piercing. No, 'tis only stuff the men will be talking. Some people are such admirers of teeth. Lord, what signifies teeth? [Showing her teeth.] A very black-a-moor has as white teeth as I. No, sister, I don't admire myself, but I've a spirit of contradiction in me; I don't know I'm in love myself, only to rival the men.

L. Sh. Ay, but Mr. Campley will gain ground even of that rival of his, your dear self.

L. Ha. Oh! what have I done to you, that you should name that insolent intruder, a confident opinionative fop. No indeed, if I am, as a poetical lover of mine sighed and sung of both sexes—

The public envy, and the public care,

I shan't be so easily catched—I thank him—I want but to be sure I should heartily torment him, by banishing him, and then consider whether he should depart this life, or not.

L. Sh. Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this vanity in your humour does not at all become you!

La. H. Vanity! All the matter is we gay people are more sincere than you wise folks: All your life's an art. Speak your soul—look you there—[Haling her to the glass] are not you struck with a secret pleasure, when you view that bloom in your looks, that harmony in your shape, that promptitude of your mien?

L. Sh. Well, simpleton, if I am at first so silly, as to be a little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and take pains to correct it.

L. Ha. Pshaw! pshaw! talk this musty tale to old Mrs. Fardingale, 'tis too soon for me to think at that rate.

L. Sh. They that think it too soon to understand themselves, will very soon find it too late. But tell me honestly, don't you like Campley?

L. Ha. The fellow is not to be abhorred, if the forward thing did not think of getting me so easily. Oh! I hate a heart I can't break when I please. What makes the value of dear china, but that 'tis so brittle? Were it not for that, you might as well have stone mugs in your closet.

L. Sh. Hist, hist, here's Fardingale.

Enter Fardingale.

Far. Lady Harriot, Lady Sharlot! I'll entertain you now, I've a new song just come hot out of the poet's brain. Lady Sharlot, my cousin Campley writ it, and 'tis set to a pretty air, I warrant you.

L. Ha. 'Tis like to be pretty indeed, of his writing. [Flings away.

Far. Come, come, this is not one of your tringham trangham witty things, that your poor poets write; no, 'tis well known my cousin Campley has two thousand pounds a year. But this is all dissimulation in you.

L. Sh. 'Tis so, indeed, for your cousin's song is very pretty, Mrs. Fardingale.

[Reads.]

Let not love on me bestow
Soft distress and tender woe;
I know none but substantial blisses,
Eager glances, solid kisses;
I know not what the lovers feign,
Of finer pleasure mixed with pain.
Then prithee give me, gentle boy,
None of thy grief, but all thy joy.[23]

But Harriot thinks that a little unreasonable, to expect one without enduring t'other.

Enter Servant.

Ser. There's your cousin Campley to wait on you without.

Far. Let him come in, we shall have the song now.

Enter Campley.

Cam. Ladies, your most obedient servant; your servant, Lady Sharlot—servant Lady Harriot—[Harriot looks grave upon him] What's the matter, dear Lady Harriot, not well? I protest to you I'm mightily concerned [Pulls out a bottle]. This is a most excellent spirit, snuff it up, madam.

L. Ha. Pish—the familiar coxcomb frets me heartily.

Cam. 'Twill over, I hope, immediately.

L. Sh. Your cousin Fardingale has shown us some of your poetry; there's the spinet, Mr. Campley, I know you're musical.

Cam. She should not have called it my poetry.

Far. No—who waits there—pray bring my lute out of the next room.

Enter Servant with a Lute.

You must know I conned this song before I came in, and find it will go to an excellent air of old Mr. Lawes's[24], who was my mother's intimate acquaintance; my mother's, what do I talk of? I mean my grandmother's. Oh, here's the lute; cousin Campley, hold the song upon your hat.—[Aside to him] 'Tis a pretty gallantry to a relation.

[Sings and Squalls.]

Let not love, &c.

Oh! I have left off these things many a day.

Cam. No; I profess, madam, you do it admirably, but are not assured enough. Take it higher [in her own squall]. Thus—I know your voice will bear it.

L. Ha. O hideous! O the gross flatterer—I shall burst. Mrs. Fardingale, pray go on, the music fits the words most aptly. Take it higher, as your cousin advises.

Far. Oh! dear madam, do you really like it? I do it purely to please you, for I can't sing, alas!

L. Sh. We know it, good madam, we know it. But pray——

Far. "Let not love," and "substantial blisses," is lively enough, and ran accordingly in the tune. [Curtsies to the company.] Now I took it higher.

L. Ha. Incomparably done! Nothing can equal it, except your cousin sang his own poetry.

Cam. Madam, from my Lord Hardy. [Delivers a letter to Lady Sharlot.]—How do you say, my Lady Harriot, except I sing it myself? Then I assure you I will——

L. Sh. I han't patience. I must go read my letter. [Exit.

Cam. [Sings] Let not love, &c.

Far. Bless me, what's become of Lady Sharlot? [Exit.

L. Ha. Mrs. Fardingale, Mrs. Fardingale, what, must we lose you? [Going after her.

Campley runs to the door, takes the key out, and locks her in.

What means this insolence? a plot upon me—Do you know who I am?

Cam. Yes, madam, you're my Lady Harriot Lovely, with ten thousand pounds in your pocket; and I am Mr. Campley, with two thousand a year, of quality enough to pretend to you. And I do design, before I leave this room, to hear you talk like a reasonable woman, as nature has made you. Nay, 'tis in vain to flounce, and discompose yourself and your dress.

L. Ha. If there are swords, if they are men of honour, and not all dastards, cowards that pretend to this injured person——[Running round the room.

Cam. Ay, ay, madam, let 'em come. That's putting me in my way, fighting's my trade; but you've used all mankind too ill to expect so much service. In short, madam, were you a fool I should not desire to expostulate with you. [Seizing her hand.] But——

L. Ha. Unhand me, ravisher. [Pulls her hand from him, chases round the room, Campley after her.

Cam. But madam, madam, madam, why madam!

Prithee Cynthia look behind you, [Sings.
Age and wrinkles will o'ertake you.

L. Ha. Age, wrinkles, small-pox, nay, anything that's most abhorrent to youth and bloom, were welcome in the place of so detested a creature.

Cam. No such matter, Lady Harriot. I would not be a vain coxcomb, but I know I am not detestable, nay, know where you've said as much before you understood me for your servant. Was I immediately transformed because I became your lover?

L. Ha. My lover, sir! did I ever give you reason to think I admitted you as such?

Cam. Yes, you did in your using me ill; for if you did not assume upon the score of my pretending to you, how do you answer to yourself some parts of your behaviour to me as a gentleman? 'Tis trivial, all this, in you, and derogates from the good sense I know you mistress of. Do but consider, madam, I have long loved you, bore with your fantastic humour through all its mazes. Nay, do not frown, for 'tis no better. I say I have bore with this humour, but would you have me with an unmanly servitude feed it? No, I love you with too sincere, too honest a devotion, and would have your mind as faultless as your person, which 'twould be, if you'd lay aside this vanity of being pursued with sighs, with flatteries, with nonsense [She walks about less violently, but more confused.]—Oh! my heart aches at the disturbance which I give her, but she must not see it. [Aside.]—Had I not better tell you of it now, than when your are in my power? I should be then too generous to thwart your inclination.

L. Ha. That is indeed very handsomely said. Why should I not obey reason as soon as I see it? [Aside.]—Since so, Mr. Campley, I can as ingenuously as I should then, acknowledge that I have been in an error. [Looking down on her fan.

Cam. Nay, that's too great a condescension. Oh! excellence! I repent! I see 'twas but justice in you to demand my knees [kneeling], my sighs, my constant, tenderest regard and service. And you shall have 'em, since you are above 'em.

L. Ha. Nay, Mr. Campley, you won't recall me to a fault you have so lately shown me. I will not suffer this—no more ecstasies! But pray, sir, what was't you did to get my sister out of the room?

Cam. You may know it, and I must desire you to assist my Lord Hardy there, who writ to her by me; for he is no ravisher, as you called me just now. He is now in the house, and I would fain gain an interview.

L. Ha. That they may have, but they'll make little use of it; for the tongue is the instrument of speech to us of a lower form: They are of that high order of lovers, who know none but eloquent silence, and can utter themselves only by a gesture that speaks their passion inexpressible, and what not fine things.

Cam. But pray let's go into your sister's closet while they are together.

L. Ha. I swear I don't know how to see my sister—she'll laugh me to death to see me out of my pantofles,[25] and you and I thus familiar. However, I know she'll approve it.

Cam. You may boast yourself an heroine to her, and the first woman that was ever vanquished by hearing truth, and had sincerity enough to receive so rough an obligation as being made acquainted with her faults. Come, madam, stand your ground bravely, we'll march in to her thus. [She leaning on Campley.

L. Ha. Who'll believe a woman's anger more? I've betrayed the whole sex to you, Mr. Campley. [Exeunt.

Re-enter Lord Hardy and Campley.

Cam. My lord, her sister, who now is mine, will immediately send her hither. But be yourself: Charge her bravely. I wish she were a cannon, an eighteen-pounder, for your sake. Then I know, were there occasion, you'd be in the mouth of her.

Ld. H. I long, yet fear to see her. I know I am unable to utter myself.

Cam. Come, retire here till she appears. [They go back to the door.

Enter Lady Sharlot.

L. Sh. Now is the tender moment now approaching. [Aside.] There he is. [They approach and salute each other trembling.] Your lordship will please to sit. [After a very long pause, stolen glances, and irresolute gesture.] Your lordship, I think, has travelled those parts of Italy where the armies are.

Ld. H. Yes, madam.

L. Sh. I think I have letters from you, dated Mantua.

Ld. H. I hope you have, madam, and that their purpose——

L. Sh. My lord? [Looking serious and confused.

Ld. H. Was not your ladyship going to say something?

L. Sh. I only attended to what your lordship was going to say—That is, my lord—But you were, I believe, going to say something of that garden of the world, Italy. I am very sorry your misfortunes in England are such as make you justly regret your leaving that place.

Ld. H. There is a person in England may make those losses insensible to me.

L. Sh. Indeed, my lord, there have so very few of quality attended his Majesty in the war, that your birth and merit may well hope for his favour.

Ld. H. I have, indeed, all the zeal in the world for his Majesty's service, and most grateful affection for his person, but did not then mean him.

L. Sh. But can you indeed impartially say that our island is really preferable to the rest of the world, or is it an arrogance only in us to think so?

Ld. H. I profess, madam, that little I have seen has but more endeared England to me; for that medley of humours which perhaps distracts our public affairs, does, methinks, improve our private lives, and makes conversation more various, and consequently more pleasing. Everywhere else both men and things have the same countenance. In France you meet much civility and little friendship; in Holland, deep attention, but little reflection; in Italy, all pleasure, but no mirth. But here with us, where you have everywhere pretenders or masters in everything, you can't fall into company wherein you shall not be instructed or diverted.

L. Sh. I never had an account of anything from you, my lord, but I mourned the loss of my brother; you would have been so happy a companion for him, with that right sense of yours. My lord, you need not bow so obsequiously, for I do you but justice. But you sent me word of your seeing a lady in Italy very like me. Did you visit her often?

Ld. H. Once or twice, but I observed her so loose a creature, that I could have killed her for having your person.

L. Sh. I thank you, sir; but Heaven that preserves me unlike her, will, I hope, make her more like me. But your fellow traveller—his relations themselves know not a just account of him.

Ld. H. The original cause of his fever was a violent passion for a fine young woman he had not power to speak to, but I told her his regard for her as passionately as possible.

L. Sh. You were to him what Mr. Campley has been to you—Whither am I running?—Poor, your friend—poor gentleman——

Ld. H. I hope then as Campley's eloquence is greater, so has been his success.

L. Sh. My lord?

Ld. H. Your ladyship's——

Enter Lady Harriot.

L. Ha. Undone! Undone! Tattleaid has found, by some means or other, that Campley brought my Lord Hardy hither; we are utterly ruined, my lady's coming.

Ld. H. I'll stay and confront her.

L. Sh. It must not be; we are too much in her power.

Enter Campley.

Cam. Come, come, my lord, we're routed horse and foot. Down the back stairs, and so out.

Ladies. Ay, ay. [Exeunt.

L. Ha. I tremble every joint of me.

L. Sh. I'm at a stand a little, but rage will recover me; she's coming in.

Enter Widow.

Wid. Ladies, your servant. I fear I interrupt you; have you company? Lady Harriot, your servant; Lady Sharlot, your servant. What, not a word? Oh, I beg your ladyship's pardon. Lady Sharlot, did I say? My young Lady Brumpton, I wish you joy.

L. Sh. Oh, your servant, Lady Dowager Brumpton. That's an appellation of much more joy to you.

Wid. So smart, madam! but you should, methinks, have made one acquainted—Yet, madam, your conduct is seen through.

L. Sh. My conduct, Lady Brumpton!

Wid. Your conduct, Lady Sharlot! [Coming up to each other.

L. Sh. Madam, 'tis you are seen through all your thin disguises.

Wid. I seen? By whom?

L. Sh. By an all-piercing eye, nay, by what you much more fear, the eye of the world. The world sees you, or shall see you. It shall know your secret intemperance, your public fasting—Loose poems in your closet, an homily on your toilet—Your easy, skilful, practised hypocrisy, by which you wrought upon your husband, basely to transfer the trust and ward of us, two helpless virgins, into the hands and care of—I cannot name it. You're a wicked woman.

L. Ha. [Aside.] O rare sister! 'Tis a fine thing to keep one's anger in stock by one. We that are angry and pleased every half-hour have nothing at all of all this high-flown fury! Why, she rages like a princess in a tragedy! Blessings on her tongue.

Wid. Is this the effect of your morning lectures, your self-examination, all this fury?

L. Sh. Yes it is, madam; if I take pains to govern my passions, it shall not give licence to others to govern them for me.

Wid. Well, Lady Sharlot, however you ill deserve it of me, I shall take care, while there are locks and bars, to keep you from Lord Hardy—from being a leager lady, from carrying a knapsack.

L. Sh. Knapsack! Do you upbraid the poverty your own wicked arts have brought him to? Knapsack! O grant me patience! Can I hear this of the man I love? Knapsack! I have not words. [Stamps about the room.

Wid. I leave you to cool upon it; love and anger are very warm passions. [Exit.

L. Ha. She has locked us in.

L. Sh. Knapsack? Well, I will break walls to go to him. I could sit down and cry my eyes out! Dear sister, what a rage have I been in? Knapsack! I'll give vent to my just resentment. Oh, how shall I avoid this base woman; how meet that excellent man! What an helpless condition are you and I in now! If we run into the world, that youth and innocence which should demand assistance does but attract invaders. Will Providence guard us? How do I see that our sex is naturally indigent of protection! I hope 'tis in fate to crown our loves; for 'tis only in the protection of men of honour that we are naturally truly safe—

And woman's happiness, for all her scorn,
Is only by that side whence she was born.

ACT THE THIRD.

SCENE I.—Lord Hardy's Lodgings.

Enter Lord Hardy, Campley, and Trim.

Ld. H. That jade Tattleaid saw me upon the stairs, for I had not patience to keep my concealment, but must peep out to see what was become of you.

Cam. But we have advice, however, it seems, from the garrison already—this mistress of Trim's is a mighty lucky accident.

Trim. Ay, gentlemen, she has free egress and regress, and you know the French are the best-bred people in the world—she'll be assistant. But, 'faith, I have one scruple that hangs about me; and that is, look you, my lord, we servants have no masters in their absence. In a word, when I am with mademoiselle I talk of your lordship as only a particular acquaintance; that I do business indeed for you sometimes. I must needs say, cries I, that indeed my Lord Hardy is really a person I have a great honour for.

Ld. H. Pish! is that all? I understand you; your mistress does not know that you do me the honour to clean my shoes or so, upon occasion. Pr'ythee, Will, make yourself as considerable as you please.

Trim. Well, then, your lesson is this. She, out of respect to me, and understanding Mr. Campley was an intimate of my friend, my Lord Hardy, and condescending (though she is of a great house in France) to make manteaus for the improvement of the English—which gives her easy admittance—she, I say, moved by these promises,[26] has vouchsafed to bring a letter from my Lady Harriot to Mr. Campley, and came to me to bring her to him. You are to understand also that she is dressed in the latest French cut; her dress is the model of their habit, and herself of their manners. For she is—but you shall see her. [Exit.

Ld. H. This gives me some life! Cheer up, Tom—but behold the solemnity. Do you see Trim's gallantry? I shall laugh out.

Enter Trim leading in Mademoiselle.

Trim. My dear Lord Hardy, this is Mademoiselle d'Epingle, whose name you've often heard me sigh. [Lord Hardy salutes her.] Mr. Campley—Mademoiselle d'Epingle. [Campley salutes her.]

Mad. Votre servante, gentlemen, votre servante.

Cam. I protest to you I never saw anything so becoming as your dress. Shall I beg the favour you'd condescend to let Mr. Trim lead you once round the room, that I may admire the elegance of your habit? [Trim leads her round.

Ld. H. How could you ask such a thing?

Cam. Pshaw, my lord, you are a bashful English fellow. You see she is not surprised at it, but thinks me gallant in desiring it. Oh, madam! your air! the negligence, the disengagement of your manner! Oh how delicate is your noble nation! I swear there's none but the clumsy Dutch and English would oppose such polite conquerors. When shall you see an Englishwoman so dressed?

Mad. De Englise! poor barbarians; poor savages; dey know no more of de dress but to cover dere nakedness [Glides along the room]. Dey be cloded, but no dressed—But, Monsieur Terim, which Monsieur Campley?

Trim. That's honest Tom Campley.

Cam. At your service, mademoiselle.

Mad. I fear I incur de censure [Pulling out the letter, and recollecting as loth to deliver it], but Mr. Terim being your intimate friend, and I designing to honour him in de way of an husband—so—so—how do I run away in discourse—I never make promise to Mr. Terim before, and now to do it par accident——

Cam. Dear Will Trim is extremely obliging in having prevailed upon you to do a thing that the severity of your virtue, and the greatness of your quality (though a stranger in the country you now honour by your dwelling in it) would not let you otherwise condescend to——

Mad. Oh, monsieur! oh, monsieur! you speak my very thoughts. Oh! I don't know how, pardon me, to give a billet—it so look! O fie! I can no stay after it. [Drops it, runs affectedly to the other end of the room, then quite out; re-enters.] I beg ten tousand pardons for go away to mal-propos. [Curtsies as going.

Ld. H. Your servant, good madam. Mr. Trim, you know you command here. Pray, if Madam d'Epingle will honour our cottage with longer stay, wait on her in and entertain her. Pray, sir, be free.

Trim. My lord, you know your power over me; I'm all complaisance. [Leads her out.

Cam. Now to my dear epistle—

"Sir,

"There is one thing which you were too generous to touch upon in our last conversation. We have reason to fear the Widow's practices in relation to our fortunes, if you are not too quick for her. I ask Lady Sharlot whether this is not her sense to Lord Hardy. She says nothing, but lets me write on. These people always have, and will have, admittance everywhere, therefore we may hear from you.

"I am, sir,

"Your most obedient servant,

"Harriot Lovely."

My obedient servant! Thy obedience shall ever be as voluntary as now—ten thousand thousand kisses on thee, thou dear paper. Look you, my lord, what a pretty hand it is?

Ld. H. Why, Tom, thou dost not give me leave to see it. You snatch it to your mouth so, you'll stifle the poor lady.

Cam. Look you, my lord, all along the lines here went the pen; and through them white intervals her snowy fingers. Do you see, this is her name?

Ld. H. Nay, there's Lady Sharlot's name, too, in the midst of the letter. Why, you'll not be so unconscionable; you're so greedy, you'll give me one kiss sure?

Cam. Well, you shall; but you're so eager. Don't bite me, for you shan't have it in your own hands. There, there, there: Let go my hand.

Ld. H. What an exquisite pleasure there is in this foolery—but what shall we do?

Cam. I have a thought; pry'thee, my lord, call Trim.

Ld. H. Ha, Trim——

Cam. Hold, Mr. Trim. You forget his mistress is there.

Ld. H. Gra'mercy! Dear Will Trim, step in hither.

Cam. Ay, that's something——

Enter Trim.

Trim, have not I seen a young woman sometimes carry Madam d'Epingle's trinkets for her, coming from my Lady Brumpton's?

Trim. Yes, you might have seen such a one; she waits for her now.

Cam. Do you think you could not prevail for me to be dressed in that wench's clothes, and attend your mistress in her stead thither? They'll not dream we should so soon attempt again——

Trim. Yes, I'll engage it.

Cam. Then we'll trust the rest to our good genius. I'll about it instantly—Harriot Lovely——[Exit, kissing the letter.

SCENE II.—Lady Brumpton's Room.

Enter Widow and Tattleaid.

Wid. This was well done of you; be sure you take care of their young ladyships; you shall, I promise you, have a snip in the sale of 'em.

Tat. I thank your good ladyship.

Wid. Is that the porter's paper of how d'ye's?

Tat. Yes, madam, he just sent it up. His general answer is, that you're as well as can be expected in your condition, but that you see nobody.

Wid. That's right. [Reading names.] Lady Riggle, Lady Formal—Oh! that Riggle, a pert ogler, an indiscreet silly thing, who is really known by no man, yet for her carriage, justly thought common to all; and as Formal has only the appearance of virtue, so she has only the appearance of vice. What chance, I wonder, put these contradictions to each other into the same coach, as you say they called? Mrs. Frances and Mrs. Winifred Glebe—who are they?

Tat. They are the country great fortunes have been out of town this whole year; they are those whom your ladyship said upon being very well born took upon 'em to be very ill bred.

Wid. Did I say so? really I think 'twas apt enough, now I remember 'em. Lady Wrinkle—oh, that smug old woman! There's no enduring her affectation of youth, but I plague her; I always ask whether her daughter in Wiltshire has a grandchild yet or not. Lady Worthy—I can't bear her company, she has so much of that virtue in her heart which I have in my mouth only. [Aside.] Mrs. After-Day—oh that's she that was the great beauty, the mighty toast about town—that's just come out of the small-pox; she's horribly pitted they say; I long to see her and plague her with my condolence. 'Tis a pure ill-natured satisfaction to see one that was a beauty unfortunately move with the same languor and softness of behaviour that once was charming in her—to see, I say, her mortify that used to kill—ha! ha! ha! The rest are a catalogue of mere names or titles they were born to, an insipid crowd of neither good nor bad; but you are sure these other ladies suspect not in the least that I know of their coming?

Tat. No, dear madam, they are to ask for me.

Wid. I hear a coach. [Exit Tat.] I've now an exquisite pleasure in the thought of surpassing my Lady Sly, who pretends to have out-grieved the whole town for her husband. They are certainly coming.—Oh no! here, let me—thus let me sit and think.

[Widow on her couch; while she is raving as to herself, Tattleaid softly brings in the ladies.]

Wretched, disconsolate as I am! Oh welcome, welcome, dear killing anguish! Oh, that I could lie down and die in my present heaviness—but what—how? Nay, my dear, dear lord, why do you look so pale, so ghastly at me? Wottoo, wottoo, fright thy own trembling, shivering wife——

Tat. Nay, good madam, be comforted.

Wid. Thou shalt not have me. [Pushes Tat.

Tat. Nay, good madam, 'tis I, 'tis I, your ladyship's own woman—'tis I, madam, that dress you, and talk to you, and tell you all that's done in the house every day; 'tis I——

Wid. Is it, then, possible? Is it, then, possible that I am left? Speak to me not—hold me not. I'll break the listening walls with my complaints. [Looks surprised at seeing company, then severely at Tattleaid.] Ah! Tattleaid——

1st La. Nay, madam, be not angry at her, we would come in in spite of her. We are your friends and are as concerned as you——

Wid. Ah! madam, madam, madam, madam, I am an undone woman. Oh me! Alas! Alas! Oh! Oh! [All join in her notes.] I swoon—I expire. [Faints.

2nd La. Pray, Mrs. Tattleaid, bring something that is cordial to her. [Exit Tattleaid.

3rd La. Indeed, madam, you should have patience. His lordship was old. To die is but going before in a journey we must all take.

Enter Tattleaid loaded with bottles. 3rd Lady takes a bottle from her and drinks.

4th La. Lord, how my Lady Fleer drinks; I've heard, indeed, but never could believe it of her. [Drinks also.

1st La. But, madam,[27] don't you hear what the town says of the jilt Flirt the men liked so much in the Park? Hark ye—was seen with him in an Hackney-coach—and silk stockings—key-hole—his wig—on the chair——[Whispers by interruptions.

2nd La. Impudent Flirt, to be found out!

3rd La. But I speak it only to you——

4th La. Nor I but to one more——[Whispers next woman.

5th La. I can't believe it; nay, I always thought it, madam——[Whispers the Widow.

Wid. Sure, 'tis impossible! the demure, prim thing! Sure all the world's hypocrisy. Well, I thank my stars, whatsoever sufferings I have, I've none in reputation. I wonder at the men; I could never think her handsome. She has really a good shape and complexion, but no mien; and no woman has the use of her beauty without mien! Her charms are dumb, they want utterance. But whither does distraction lead me—to talk of charms?

1st La. Charms? A chit's, a girl's charms. Come, let us widows be true to ourselves, keep our countenances and our characters, and a fig for the maids—I mean for the unmarried.

2nd La. Ay, since they will set up for our knowledge, why should not we for their ignorance?

3rd La. But, madam, on Sunday morning at church I curtsied to you, and looked at a great fuss in a glaring light dress next pew. That strong masculine thing is a knight's wife, pretends to all the tenderness in the world, and would fain put the unwieldy upon us for the soft, the languid! She has of a sudden left her dairy, and sets up for a fine town-lady, calls her maid Sisly her woman, speaks to her by her surname, Mrs. Cherryfist, and her great foot-boy of nineteen, big enough for a trooper, is striped into a lace coat, now Mr. Page forsooth.

4th La. Oh! I have seen her. Well, I heartily pity some people for their wealth, they might have been unknown else! You'd die, madam, to see her and her equipage. I thought the honest fat tits, her horses, were ashamed of their finery; they dragged on as if they were still at the plough, and a great bashful-looked booby behind grasped the coach as if he held one.

5th La. Alas! some people think there's nothing but being fine to be genteel; but the high prance of the horses, and the brisk insolence of the servants in an equipage of quality, are inimitable, but to our own beasts and servants.

1st La. Now you talk of equipage, I envy this lady the beauty she'll appear in in a mourning coach, 'twill so become her complexion; I confess I myself mourned two years for no other reason. Take up that hood there; Oh! that fair face with a veil. [They take up her hoods.

Wid. Fie, fie, ladies. But I've been told, indeed, black does become—

2nd La. Well, I'll take the liberty to speak it, there's young Nutbrain has long had (I'll be sworn) a passion for this lady; but I'll tell you one thing I fear she'll dislike, that is, he's younger than she is.

3rd La. No, that's no exception; but I'll tell you one, he's younger than his brother.

Wid. Ladies, talk not of such affairs. Who could love such an unhappy relict as I am? But, dear madam, what grounds have you for that idle story?

4th La. Why he toasts you, and trembles when you're spoke of; it must be a match.

Wid. Nay, nay; you rally, you rally; but I know you mean it kindly.

1st La. I swear we do. [Tattleaid whispers the Widow.

Wid. But I must beseech you, ladies, since you have been so compassionate as to visit and accompany my sorrow, to give me the only comfort I can now know, to see my friends cheerful, and to honour an entertainment Tattleaid has prepared within for you. If I can find strength enough I'll attend you; but I wish you'd excuse me, for I've no relish of food or joy, but will try to get a bit down in my own chamber.

All. No, no, you must go with us.

1st La. There's no pleasure without you.

Wid. But, madam, I must beg of your ladyship not to be so importune to my fresh calamity, as to mention Nutbrain any more; I'm sure there's nothing in it. In love with me, quoth a'. [Is helped off. Exeunt.

Enter Mademoiselle, and Campley in women's clothes carrying her things.

Mad. I very glad us be in de ladies' antichamber; I was shamed of you. You, you, such an impudent look; besides, me wonder you were not seized by the constable, when you pushed de man into de kennel.

Cam. Why, should I have let him kissed me?

Mad. No; but if you had hit him wit fan, and say, why sure saucy-box, it been enough; beside, what you hitted de gentleman for offer kiss me?

Cam. I beg pardon, I did not know you were pleased with it.

Mad. Please, no, but me rader be kiss den you, Mr. Terim's friend, be found out. Could not you say when he kiss me, sure saucy-box dat's meat for your master? Besides, you take such strides when you walk—walk—O fie; dese littil pette tiny bits a woman steps. [Showing her step.

Cam. But prithee, mademoiselle, why have you lost your English tongue all of a sudden? Methought when the fellow called us French whores, as we came along, and said we came to starve their own people, you gave him pretty plain English; he was a dog, a rascal, you'd send him to the stocks.

Mad. Ha! ha! ha! I was in a passion and betrayed myself, but you're my lover's friend, and a man of honour, therefore know you'll do nothing to injure us. Why, Mr. Campley, you must know I can speak as good English as you, but I don't for fear of losing my customers. The English will never give a price for anything they understand. Nay, I've known some of your fools pretend to buy with good breeding, and give any rate rather than not be thought to have French enough to know what they were doing; strange and far-fetched things they only like. Don't you see how they swallow gallons of the juice of tea, while their own dock-leaves are trod under foot? But mum; my Lady Harriot.

Enter Lady Harriot.

Madam, votre servante, servante——

L. Ha. Well, mademoiselle, did you deliver my letter?

Mad. Oui.

L. Ha. Well, and how—is that it in your hand?

Mad. Oui.

L. Ha. Well then, why don't you give it me?

Mad. O fie! lady, dat be so right Englise, de Englise mind only de words of de lovers, but de words of de lovers are often lie, but de action no lie.

L. Ha. What does the thing mean? Give me my letter.

Mad. Me did not deliver your letter.

L. Ha. No?

Mad. No, me tell you, me did drop it, to see Mr. Campley how cavalier to take it up. As dese me drop it so monsieur run take it up. [They both run to take it up, Mad. takes it.

L. Ha. Will you give me my letter or not?

Mad. Oui. But dus he do. Dere de letter—very well, very well. O l'amour! You act de manner Mr. Campley—take it up better den I, do' you no see it. [They both run, Harriot gets it.

L. Ha. [Reads.]

"Madam,

"I am glad you mentioned what indeed I did not at that time think of, nor if I had, should I have known how to have spoken of. But bless me more than fortune can, by turning those fair eyes upon, madam,

"Your most faithful,

"Most obedient humble servant,

"Tho. Campley."

What does he mean? "But bless me more—by turning"—Oh, 'tis he himself [Looking about observes Cam. smile]. Oh, the hoyden, the romp, I did not think anything could add to your native confidence, but you look so very bold in that dress, and your arms will fall off, and your petticoats how they hang!

Cam. Mademoiselle, voulez vous de Salville l'eau d'Hongrie, chez Monsieur Marchand de Montpelier—Dis for your teet [Showing his trinkets], de essence, a little book French for teach de elder broders make compliments. Will you, I say, have anything that I have, will you have all I have, madam?

L. Ha. Yes, and for humour's sake, will never part with this box, while I live, ha! ha! ha!

Cam. But, Lady Harriot, we must not stand laughing; as you observe in your letter, delays are dangerous in this wicked woman's custody of you; therefore I must, madam, beseech you, and pray stay not on niceties, but be advised.

L. Ha. Mr. Campley, I have no will but yours.

Cam. Thou dear creature, but [Kisses her hand] harkee then, you must change dresses with mademoiselle, and go with me instantly.

L. Ha. What you please.

Cam. Madam d'Epingle, I must desire you to comply with a humour of gallantry of ours—you may be sure I'll have an eye over the treatment you have upon my account—only to change habits with Lady Harriot, and let her go while you stay.

Mad. Wit all my heart.[28] [Offers to undress herself.

L. Ha. What, before Mr. Campley?

Mad. Oh, oh—very Anglaise! dat is so Englise, all women of quality in France are dress and undress by a valet de chambre; de man chamber-maid help complexion better den de woman. [Apart to L. Harriot.

L. Ha. Nay, that's a secret in dress, mademoiselle, I never knew before, and am so unpolished an English woman as to resolve never to learn even to dress before my husband. Oh! Indecency! Mr. Campley, do you hear what mademoiselle says?

Mad. Oh! Hist—bagatelle.

L. Ha. Well, we'll run in and be ready in an instant. [Exeunt L. Harriot and Mademoiselle.

Cam. Well, I like her every minute better and better. What a delicate chastity she has! There's something so gross in the carriage of some wives (though they're honest too) that they lose their husbands' hearts for faults which, if they had either good nature or good breeding, they know not how to tell 'em of. But how happy am I in such a friend as Hardy, such a mistress as Harriot!

Continue Heaven, a grateful heart to bless
With faith in friendship, and in love success.

ACT THE FOURTH.

SCENE I.—Lord Brumpton's House.

Enter Widow and Trusty.

Wid. Mr. Trusty, you have, I do assure you, the same place and power in the management of my Lord Brumpton's estate, as in his life-time. (I am reduced to a necessity of trusting him) [aside.] However Tattleaid dissembles the matter, she must be privy to Lady Harriot's escape, and Fardingale's as deep with 'em both, and I fear will be their ruin, which 'tis my care and duty to prevent. Be vigilant, and you shall be rewarded. I shall employ you wholly in Lady Sharlot's affairs, she is able to pay services done for her. You've sense, and understand me. [Exit Widow.

Tru. Yes, I do indeed understand you, and could wish another could with as much detestation as I do, but my poor old lord is so strangely, so bewitchedly enamoured of her, that even after this discovery of her wickedness, I see he could be reconciled to her, and though he is ashamed to confess to me, I know he longs to speak with her. If I tell Lord Hardy all to make his fortune, he would not let his father be dishonoured by a public way of separation. If things are acted privately, I know she'll throw us all; there's no middle-way, I must expose her to make a reunion impracticable. Alas, how is honest truth banished the world; when we must watch the seasons and soft avenues to men's hearts, to gain it entrance even for their own good and interest! [Exit.

SCENE II.—Lord Hardy's Lodgings.

Enter Lord Hardy, Campley, and Trim.

Ld. H. I forget my own misfortunes, dear Campley, when I reflect on your success.

Cam. I assure you, it moderates the swell of joy that I am in, to think of your difficulties. I hope my felicity is previous to yours; my Lady Harriot gives her service to you, and we both think it but decent to suspend our marriage 'till your and Lady Sharlot's affairs are in the same posture.

Ld. H. Where is my lady?

Cam. She's at my aunt's, my lord. But, my lord, if you don't interpose, I don't know how I shall adjust matters with Mr. Trim for leaving his mistress behind me: I fear he'll demand satisfaction of me.

Trim. No, sir, alas, I can know no satisfaction while she is in jeopardy. Therefore would rather be put in a way to recover her by storming the castle, or other feat of arms, like a true enamoured swain as I am.

Cam. Since we are all three then expecting lovers, my lord, prithee let's have that song of yours which suits our common purpose.

Ld. H. Call in the boy.

Boy sings.[29]

I.
Ye minutes bring the happy hour,
And Chloe blushing to the bower;
Then shall all idle flames be o'er,
Nor eyes or heart e'er wander more;
Both, Chloe, fixed for e'er on thee,
For thou art all thy sex to me.
II.
A guilty is a false embrace,
Corinna's love's a fairy-chace;
Begone, thou meteor, fleeting fire,
And all that can't survive desire.
Chloe my reason moves and awe,
And Cupid shot me when he saw.

Trim. Look you, gentlemen, since as you are pleased to say we're all lovers, and consequently poets, pray do me the honour to hear a little air of mine. You must know then, I once had the misfortune to fall in love below myself, but things went hard with us at that time, so that my passion, or as I may poetically speak, my fire was in the kitchen; 'twas towards a cook-maid, but before I ever saw Mrs. Deborah.

Ld. H. Come on then, Trim, let's have it.

Trim. I must run into next room for a lute. [Exit.

Cam. This must be diverting! can the rogue play?

Re-enter Trim, with a pair of Tongs.

Trim. Dear Cynderaxa herself very well understood this instrument, I therefore always sung this song to it, as thus—

I.
Cynderaxa kind and good,
Has all my heart and stomach too;
She makes me love, not hate, my food,
As other peevish wenches do.
II.
When Venus leaves her Vulcan's cell,
Which all but I a coal-hole call;
Fly, fly, ye that above stairs dwell,
Her face is washed, ye vanish all.
III.
And as she's fair, she can impart
That beauty, to make all things fine;
Brightens the floor with wondrous art,
And at her touch the dishes shine.

Ld. H. I protest, Will, thou art a poet indeed. "And at her touch the dishes shine"—and you touch your lute as finely.

Enter Boy.

Boy. There's one Mr. Trusty below would speak with my lord.

Ld. H. Mr. Trusty? My father's steward? What can he have to say to me?

Cam. He's very honest, to my knowledge.

Ld. H. I remember, indeed, when I was turned out of the house he followed me to the gate and wept over me, for which I've heard he'd like to have lost his place. But, however, I must advise with you a little about my behaviour to him; let's in. Boy, bring him up hither, tell him I'll wait on him presently. [Exit Boy.

I shall want you, I believe, here, Trim. [Exeunt.

Re-enter Boy and Trusty.

Boy. My lord will wait on you here immediately. [Exit Boy.

Tru. 'Tis very well, these lodgings are but homely for the Earl of Brumpton. Oh, that damned strumpet—that I should ever know my master's wife for such!—How many thousand things does my head run back to? After my poor father's death the good lord took me, because he was a captain in his regiment, and gave me education. I was, I think, three-and-twenty when this young lord within was christened; what a do there was about calling him Francis! [Wipes his eyes.] These are but poor lodgings for him. I cannot bear the joy, to think that I shall save the family from which I've had my bread.

Enter Trim.

Trim. Sir, my lord will wait you immediately.

Tru. Sir, 'tis my duty to wait him—[As Trim is going] but, sir, are not you the young man that attended him at Christchurch, in Oxford, and have followed him ever since?

Trim. Yes, sir, I am.

Tru. Nay, sir, no harm, but you'll thrive the better for it.

Trim. I like this old fellow; I smell more money. [Aside. Exit.

Tru. I think 'tis now eight years since I saw him—he was not then nineteen—when I followed him to the gate, and gave him fifty guineas, which I pretended his father sent after him.

Enter Lord Hardy.

Ld. H. Mr. Trusty, I'm very glad to see you look very hale and jolly; you wear well. I'm glad to see it—but your commands to me, Mr. Trusty.

Tru. Why, my lord, I presume to wait on your lordship. My lord, you're strangely grown; you're your father's very picture, you're he, my lord; you are the very man that looked so pleased to see me look so fine in my laced livery, to go to Court. I was his page when he was just such another as you. He kissed me afore a great many lords, and said I was a brave man's son, that taught him to exercise his arms. I remember he carried me to the great window, and bid me be sure to keep in your mother's sight in all my finery. She was the finest young creature; the maids of honour hated to see her at Court. My lord then courted my good lady. She was as kind to me on her death-bed; she said to me, Mr. Trusty, take care of my lord's second marriage for that child's sake. She pointed as well as she could to you. You fell a-crying, and said she should not die; but she did, my lord. She left the world, and no one like her in't. Forgive me, my honoured master. [Weeps, runs to my lord, and hugs him.] I've often carried you in these arms that grasp you; they were stronger then, but if I die to-morrow, you're worth five thousand pounds by my gift—'tis what I've got in the family, and I return it to you with thanks. But alas! do I live to see you want it?[30]

Ld. H. You confound me with all this tenderness and generosity.

Tru. I'll trouble you no longer, my lord, but——

Ld. H. Call it not a trouble, for——

Tru. My good lord, I will not, I say, indulge myself in talking fond tales that melt me, and interrupt my story. My business to your lordship, in one word, is this: I am in good confidence at present with my lady dowager, and I know she has some fears upon her, which depend upon the nature of the settlement to your disfavour, and under the rose—be yourself—I fear your father has not had fair play for his life—be composed, my lord. What is to be done is this: we'll not apply to public justice in this case, 'till we see farther; 'twill make it noisy, which we must not do, if I might advise. You shall, with a detachment of your Company, seize the corpse as it goes out of the house this evening to be interred in the country; 'twill only look like taking the administration upon yourself, and commencing a suit for the estate. She has put off the lying in state, and Lady Harriot's escape with Mr. Campley makes her fear he will prove a powerful friend, both to the young ladies and your lordship. She cannot, with decency, be so busy, as when the corpse is out of the house, therefore hastens it. I know your whole affair; leave the care of Lady Sharlot to me. I'll pre-acquaint her, that she mayn't be frightened, and dispose of her safely, to observe the issue.

Ld. H. I wholly understand you; it shall be done.

Tru. I'm sure I am wanted this moment for your interest at home. This ring shall be the passport of intelligence for whom you send to assault us, and the remittance of it sealed with this, shall be authentic from within the house.

Ld. H. 'Tis very well.

Tru. Hope all you can wish, my lord, from a certain secret relating to the estate, which I'll acquaint you with next time I see you. [Exit.

Ld. H. Your servant——This fellow's strangely honest——Ha! Will.

Enter Campley and Trim.

Will! don't the recruits wait for me to see 'em at their parade before this house?

Trim. Yes; and have waited these three hours.

Ld. H. Go to 'em; I'll be there myself immediately. We must attack with 'em, if the rogues are sturdy, this very evening.

Trim. I guess where——I'm overjoyed at it. I'll warrant you they do it, if I command in chief.

Ld. H. I design you shall. [Trim runs out jumping.

Cam. You seem, my lord, to be in deep meditation.

Ld. H. I am so, but not on anything that you may not be acquainted with. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.—Covent Garden.

Enter Trim, with a company of ragged fellows, with a cane.

1st Sol. Why then, I find, Mr. Trim, we shall come to blows before we see the French.

Trim. Harkee, friend, 'tis not your affair to guess or enquire what you're going to do; 'tis only for us commanders.

2nd Sol. The French? Pox! they are but a Company of scratching civet cats. They fight!

Trim. Harkee, don't bluster. Were not you a little mistaken in your facings at Steinkirk?

2nd Sol. I grant it; you know I have an antipathy to the French—I hate to see the dogs. Look you here, gentlemen, I was shot quite through the body, look you.

Trim. Prithee, look where it entered at your back.

2nd Sol. Look you, Mr. Trim, you will have your joke, we know you are a wit—but what's that to a fighting man?

Enter Kate.

Kate. Mr. Trim! Mr. Trim!

Trim. Things are not as they have been, Mrs. Kate. I now pay the Company, and we that pay money expect a little more ceremony.

Kate. Will your honour please to taste some right French brandy?

Trim. Art thou sure, good woman, 'tis right? [Drinks. How—French—pray—nay, if I find you deceive me, who pay the men——[Drinks.

Kate. Pray, good master, have you spoken to my lord about me?

Trim. I have, but you shall speak to him yourself. Thou hast been a true campaigner, Kate, and we must not neglect thee. Do you sell grey pease yet of an evening, Mrs. Matchlock? [Drinks again.

Kate. Anything to turn the penny, but I got more by crying pamphlets this year, than by anything I have done a great while. Now I am married into the Company again, I design to cross the seas next year. But, master, my husband, a Temple porter, and a Parliament man's footman, last night by their talk made me think there was danger of a peace; why, they said, all the prime people were against a war.

Trim. No, no, Kate, never fear; you know I keep great company. All men are for a war, but some would have it abroad, and some would have it at home in their own country.

Kate. Ay, say you so? Drink about, gentlemen, not a farthing to pay; a war is a war, be it where it will. But pray, Mr. Trim, speak to my lord, that when these gentlemen have shirts I may wash for 'em.

Trim. I tell you, if you behave well to-night, you shall have a fortnight's pay each man as a reward; but there's none of you industrious. There's a thousand things you might do to help out about this town, as to cry, puff, puff pies—have you any knives or scissors to grind? or, late in an evening, whip from Grub Street, strange and bloody news from Flanders—votes from the House of Commons—buns, rare buns—old silver lace, cloaks, suits, or coats—old shoes, boots, or hats—But here, here, here's my lord a-coming; here's the captain. Fall back into the rank there; move up in the centre.

Enter Lord Hardy and Campley.

Ld. H. Let me see whether my ragged friends are ready and about me.

Kate. Ensign Campley, Ensign Campley, I am overjoyed to see your honour; ha! the world's surely altered, ha!

Cam. 'Tis so, faith! Kate, why thou art true to the cause, with the Company still, honest amazon.

Kate. Dear soul, not a bit of pride in him; but won't your honour help in my business with my lord? Speak for me, noble ensign, do.

Cam. Speak to him yourself; I'll second you.

Kate. Noble captain, my lord! I suppose Mr. Trim has told your honour about my petition. I have been a great sufferer in the service. 'Tis hard for a poor woman to lose nine husbands in a war, and no notice taken; nay, three of 'em, alas, in the same campaign. Here the woman stands that says it. I never stripped a man 'till I first tried if he could stand on his legs, and, if not, I think 'twas fair plunder, except our adjutant, and he was a puppy, that made my eighth husband run the gauntlet for not turning his toes out.

Ld. H. Well, we'll consider thee, Kate, but fall back into the rear. A roll of what? Gentlemen soldiers?

Trim [To Pumkin]. Do you hear that? My lord himself can't deny but we are all gentlemen, as much as his honour.

Ld. H. [Reading]. Gentlemen soldiers quartered in and about Guy Court in Vinegar Yard, in Russel Court in Drury Lane, belonging to the honourable Captain Hardy's Company of Foot—So, answer to your names, and march off from the left. John Horseem, corporal, march easy, that I may view you as you pass by me. Drums Simon Ruffle, Darby Tattoo—there's a shilling for you—Tattoo be always so tight; how does he keep himself so clean?

Trim. Sir, he is a tragedy drum to one of the playhouses.

Ld. H. Private gentlemen: Alexander Cowitch, Humphrey Mundungus, William Faggot, Nicholas Scab, Timothy Megrim, Philip Scratch, Nehemiah Dust, Humphrey Garbage, Nathaniel Matchlock.

Cam. What! Is Matchlock come back to the Company? That's the fellow that brought me off at Steinkirk.

Ld. H. No, sir, 'tis I am obliged to him for that. [Offering to give him money.] There, friend, you shall want for nothing; I'll give thee a halbert too.

Kate. O brave me! Shall I be a sergeant's lady? I' faith, I'll make the drums, and the corporal's wives, and Company-keepers know their distance.

Cam. How far out of the country did you come to list? Don't you come from Cornwall? How did you bear your charges?

Match. I was whipped from constable to constable——

Trim. Ay, my lord, that's due by the courtesy of England to all that want in red coats; besides, there's an Act that makes us free of all corporations, and that's the ceremony of it.

Cam. But what pretence had they for using you so ill? You did not pilfer?

Match. I was found guilty of being poor.

Cam. Poor devil!

Ld. H. Timothy Ragg! O Ragg! I thought when I gave you your discharge, just afore the peace, we should never have had you again. How came you to list now?

Ragg. To pull down the French king.

Ld. H. Bravely resolved! But pull your shirt into your breeches in the mean time. Jeoffrey Tatter—What's become of the skirts and buttons of your coat?

Tatter. In our last clothing in the regiment I served in afore, the colonel had one skirt before, the agent one behind, and every captain of the regiment a button.

Ld. H. Hush, you rogue, you talk mutiny. [Smiling.

Trim. Ay, sirrah, what have you to do with more knowledge than that of your right hand from your left? [Hits him a blow on the head.]

Ld. H. Hugh Clump—Clump, thou growest a little too heavy for marching.

Trim. Ay, my lord, but if we don't allow him the pay he'll starve, for he's too lame to get into the hospital.

Ld. H. Richard Bumpkin! Ha! A perfect country hick. How came you, friend, to be a soldier?

Bump. An't please your honour, I have been crossed in love, and am willing to seek my fortune.

Ld. H. Well, I've seen enough of 'em. If you mind your affair, and act like a wise general, these fellows may do—come, take your orders. [Trim puts his hat on his stick, while my lord is giving him the ring, and whispers orders.] Well, gentlemen, do your business manfully, and nothing shall be too good for you.

All. Bless your honour. [Exeunt Hardy and Campley.

Trim. Now, my brave friends and fellow-soldiers—[Aside.] I must fellow-soldier 'em just afore a battle, like a true officer, though I cane 'em all the year round beside—[Strutting about.] Major-General Trim; no, pox, Trim sounds so very short and priggish—that my name should be a monosyllable! But the foreign news will write me, I suppose, Monsieur or Chevalier Trimont. Seigneur Trimoni, or Count Trimuntz, in the German Army, I shall perhaps be called; ay, that's all the plague and comfort of us great men, they do so toss our names about. But, gentlemen, you are now under my command—huzza! thrice—faith, this is very pleasing, this grandeur! Why, after all, 'tis upon the neck of such scoundrels as these gentlemen that we great captains build our renown. A million or two of these fellows make an Alexander, and as that my predecessor said in the tragedy of him on the very same occasion, going to storm for his Statira, so do I for my dear seamstress, Madam d'Epingle—

When I rush on, sure none will dare to stay;
'Tis beauty calls, and glory leads the way.[31]

ACT THE FIFTH.

SCENE I.—Lord Brumpton's House.

Enter Trusty and Lord Brumpton.

Tru. She knows no moderation in her good fortune; she has, out of impatience to see herself in her weeds, ordered her mantua woman to stitch up anything immediately. You may hear her and Tattleaid laugh aloud—she is so wantonly merry.

Ld. B. But this of Lady Sharlot is the very utmost of all ill. Pray read—but I must sit; my late fit of the gout makes me act with pain and constraint. Let me see——

Tru. She writ it by the page, who brought it me, as I had wheedled him to do all their passages.

Ld. B. [Reads.]

"You must watch the occasion of the servants being gone out of the house with the corpse; Tattleaid shall conduct you to my Lady Sharlot's apartment—away with her—and be sure you bed her——

"Your affectionate Sister,

"Mary Brumpton."

Brumpton? The creature! She called as Frank's mother was? Brumpton! The succuba! What a devil incarnate have I had in my bosom? Why, the common abandoned town women would scruple such an action as this. Though they have lost all regard to their own chastity, they would be tender of another's. Why, sure she had no infancy. She never had virginity, to have no compassion through memory of her own former innocence. This is to forget her very humanity—her very sex. Where is my poor boy? Where's Frank? Does not he want? How has he lived all this time? Not a servant, I warrant, to attend him—what company can he keep? What can he say of his father?

Tru. Though you made him not your heir, he is still your son, and has all the duty and tenderness in the world for your memory.

Ld. B. It is impossible, Trusty; it is impossible. I will not rack myself with the thought, that one I have injured can be so very good—keep me in countenance—tell me he hates my very name, would not assume my title because it descends from me. What's his company?

Tru. Young Tom Campley; they are never asunder.

Ld. B. I am glad he has my pretty tattler—the cheerful innocent Harriot. I hope he'll be good to her; he's good-natured and well-bred.

Tru. But, my lord, she was very punctual in ordering the funeral. She bid Sable be sure to lay you deep enough, she had heard such stories of the wicked sextons taking up people; but I wish, my lord, you would please to hear her and Tattleaid once more——

Ld. B. I know to what thy zeal tends; but I tell you, since you cannot be convinced but that I have still a softness for her—I say though I had so, it should never make me transgress that scrupulous honour that becomes a peer of England. If I could forget injuries done myself thus gross, I never will those done my friends. You knew Sharlot's worthy father—No, there's no need of my seeing more of this woman. I behold her now with the same eyes that you do; there's a meanness in all she says or does; she has a great wit but a little mind—something ever wanting to make her appear my Lady Brumpton. She has nothing natively great. You see I love her not; I talk with judgment of her.

Tru. I see it, my good lord, with joy I see it, nor care how few things I see more in this world. My satisfaction is complete. Welcome old age; welcome decay; 'tis not decay, but growth to a latter being. [Exit, leading Lord Brumpton.

Re-enter Trusty, meeting Cabinet.

Tru. I have your letter, Mr. Cabinet.

Cab. I hope, sir, you'll believe it was not in my nature to be guilty of so much baseness; but being born a gentleman, and bred out of all roads of industry in that idle manner too many are, I soon spent a small patrimony; and being debauched by luxury, I fell into the narrow mind to dread no infamy like poverty, which made me guilty, as that paper tells you; and had I not writ to you, I am sure I never could have told you of it.

Tru. It is an ingenious, pious penitence in you; my Lord Hardy (to whom this secret is inestimable) is a noble-natured man, and you shall find him such, I give you my word.

Cab. I know, sir, your integrity.

Tru. But pray be there; all that you have to do is to ask for the gentlewoman at the house at my Lord Hardy's; she'll take care of you. And pray have patience, where she places you, till you see me. [Exit Cab.] My Lord Hardy's being a house where they receive lodgers, has allowed me convenience to place everybody I think necessary to be by at her discovery. This prodigious welcome secret! I see, however impracticable honest actions may appear, we may go on with just hope—

All that is ours is to be justly bent,
And Heaven in its own cause will bless the event.
[Exit.

SCENE II.—Covent Garden.

Enter Trim and his party.

Trim. March up, march up. Now we are near the citadel, and halt only to give the necessary orders for the engagement. Ha! Clump, Clump! When we come to Lord Brumpton's door, and you see us conveniently disposed about the house, you are to wait till you see a corpse brought out of the house; then to go up to him you observe the director, and ask importunately for an alms to a poor soldier, for which you may be sure you shall have a good blow or two; but if you have not, be saucy till you have. Then when you see a file of men got between the house and the body—a file of men, Bumpkin, is six men—I say, when you see the file in such a posture, that half the file may face to the house, half to the body, you are to fall down, crying murder, that the half file faced to the body may throw it and themselves over you. I then march to your rescue. Then, Swagger, you and your party fall in to secure my rear, while I march off with the body. These are the orders; and this, with a little improvement of my own, is the same disposition Villeroy and Catinat made at Chiari. [Marches off with his party.

SCENE III.—Lord Brumpton's House.

Enter Widow, in deep mourning, with a dead squirrel on her arm, and Tattleaid.

Wid. It must be so; it must be your carelessness. What had the page to do in my bedchamber?

Tat. Indeed, madam, I can't tell. But I came in and catched him wringing round his neck——

Wid. Tell the rascal from me he shall romp with the footmen no more. No; I'll send the rogue in a frock to learn Latin among the dirty boys that come to good, I will. But 'tis ever so among these creatures that live on one's superfluous affections; a lady's woman, page, and squirrel are always rivals.

Poor harmless animal—pretty e'en in death:
Death might have overlooked thy little life—
How could'st thou, Robin, leave thy nuts and me?
How was't importunate, dearest, thou should'st die?
Thou never did'st invade thy neighbour's soils;
Never mad'st war with specious shows of peace;
Thou never hast depopulated regions,
But cheerfully did'st bear thy little chain,
Content—so I but fed thee with this hand.

Tat. Alas, alas! we are all mortal. Consider, madam, my lord's dead too. [Weeps.

Wid. Ay, but our animal friends do wholly die; an husband or relation, after death, is rewarded or tormented; that's some consolation—I know her tears are false, for she hated Robin always; but she's a well-bred, dishonest servant, that never speaks a painful truth. [Aside.]—But I'll resolve to conquer my affliction—never speak more of Robin—hide him there. But to my dress: How soberly magnificent is black—and the train—I wonder how widows came to wear such long tails?

Tat. Why, madam, the stateliest of all creatures has the longest tail; the peacock, nay, 't has of all creatures the finest mien too—except your ladyship, who are a Phœnix——

Wid. Ho! brave Tattleaid! But did not you observe what a whining my Lady Sly made when she had drank a little? Did you believe her? Do you think there are really people sorry for their husbands?

Tat. Really, madam, some men do leave their fortunes in such distraction that I believe it may be——[Speaks with pins in her mouth.

Wid. But I swear I wonder how it came up to dress us thus. I protest, when all my equipage is ready, and I move in full pageantry, I shall fancy myself an embassadress from the Commonwealth of Women, the distressed State of Amazonia—to treat for men. But I protest I wonder how two of us thus clad can meet with a grave face! Methinks they should laugh out like two fortune-tellers, or two opponent lawyers that know each other for cheats——

Tat. Ha! ha! ha! I swear to you, madam, your ladyship's wit will choke me one time or other. I had like to have swallowed all the pins in my mouth——

Wid. But, Tatty, to keep house six weeks, that's another barbarous custom; but the reason of it, I suppose, was that the base people should not see people of quality may be as afflicted as themselves.

Tat. No, 'tis because they should not see 'em as merry as themselves.

Wid. Ha! ha! ha! Hussy, you never said that you spoke last. Why, 'tis just—'tis satire—I'm sure you saw it in my face, that I was going to say it: 'Twas too good for you. Come, lay down that sentence and the pin-cushion, and pin up my shoulder. Harkee, hussy, if you should, as I hope you won't, outlive me, take care I ain't buried in flannel; 'twould never become me, I'm sure.[32] That they can be as merry: Well, I'll tell my new acquaintance—what's her name?—she that reads so much, and writes verses. Her husband was deaf the first quarter of a year; I forget her name. That expression she'll like. Well, that woman does divert me strangely; I'll be very great with her. She talked very learnedly of the ridicule till she was ridiculous; then she spoke of the decent, of the agreeable, of the insensible. She designs to print the discourse; but of all things, I like her notion of the insensible.

Tat. Pray, madam, how was that?

Wid. A most useful discourse to be inculcated in our teens. The purpose of it is to disguise our apprehension in this ill-bred generation of men, who speak before women what they ought not to hear. As now, suppose you were a spark in my company, and you spoke some double entendre, I look thus! But be a fellow, and you shall see how I'll use you. The insensible is useful upon any occasion where we seemingly neglect and secretly approve, which is our ordinary common case. Now, suppose a coxcomb, dancing, prating, and playing his tricks before me to move me, without pleasure or distaste in my countenance, I look at him, just thus; but——Ha! ha! ha! I have found out a supplement to this notion of the insensible, for my own use, which is infallible, and that is to have always in my head all that they can say or do to me. So never be surprised with laughter, the occasion of which is always sudden.

Tat. Oh! my Lady Brumpton [Tattleaid bows and cringes], my lady, your most obedient servant.

Wid. Look you, wench, you see by the art of insensibility I put you out of countenance, though you were prepared for an ill-reception.

Tat. Oh! madam, how justly are you formed for what is now fallen to you—the empire of mankind.

Wid. Oh! sir, that puts me out of all my insensibility at once; that was so gallant—Ha! what noise is that; that noise of fighting? Run, I say. Whither are you going? What, are you mad? Will you leave me alone? Can't you stir? What, you can't take your message with you? Whatever 'tis, I suppose you are not in the plot; not you—Nor that now they're breaking open my house for Sharlot—Not you—Go, see what's the matter, I say, I have nobody I can trust. [Exit Tattleaid] One minute I think this wench honest, and the next false. Whither shall I turn me?

Tat. Madam, madam. [Re-entering.

Wid. Madam, madam, will you swallow me gaping?

Tat. Pray, good my lady, be not so out of humour; but there is a company of rogues have set upon our servants and the burial man's, while others ran away with the corpse.

Wid. How, what can this mean? What can they do with it?—Well, 'twill save the charge of interment—But to what end?

Enter Trusty and a Servant, bloody and dirty, haling in Clump and Bumpkin.

Ser. I'll teach you better manners; I'll poor soldier you, you dog you, I will. Madam, here are two of the rascals that were in the gang of rogues that carried away the corpse.

Wid. We'll examine 'em apart. Well, sirrah, what are you? Whence came you? What's your name, sirrah? [Clump makes signs as a dumb man.

Ser. Oh, you dog, you could speak loud enough just now, sirrah, when your brother rogues mauled Mr. Sable. We'll make you speak, sirrah.

Wid. Bring the other fellow hither. I suppose you will own you knew that man before you saw him at my door?

Clump. I think I have seen the gentleman's face. [Bowing to Bumpkin.

Wid. The gentleman's! The villain mocks me. But friend, you look like an honest man—what are you? Whence came you? What are you, friend?

Bump. I'se at present but a private gentleman, but I was lifted to be a sergeant in my Lord Hardy's Company. I'se not ashamed of my name nor of my koptin.

Wid. Leave the room all. [Exeunt all but Trusty and Tattleaid.] Mr. Trusty—Lord Hardy! O, that impious young man, thus, with the sacrilegious hands of ruffians to divert his father's ashes from their urn and rest—I suspect this fellow [Aside.]—Mr. Trusty, I must desire you to be still near me. I'll know the bottom of this; and to Lord Hardy's lodgings as I am, instantly. 'Tis but the back side of this street, I think. Let a coach be called.—Tattleaid, as soon as I am gone, conduct my brother and his friends to Lady Sharlot. Away with her. Bring mademoiselle away to me, that she may not be a witness.—Come, good Mr. Trusty.

SCENE IV.—Lord Hardy's Lodgings.

Enter Lord Hardy, leading Harriot; Campley, and Trim.

L. Ha. Why, then I find this Mr. Trim is a perfect general; but I assure you, sir, I'll never allow you an hero, who could leave your mistress behind you. You should have broke the house down, but you should have mademoiselle with you.

Trim. No, really, madam, I have seen such strange fears come into the men's heads, and such strange resolutions into the women's upon the occasion of ladies following a camp, that I thought it more discreet to leave her behind me. My success will naturally touch her as much as if she were here.

L. Ha. A good, intelligent, arch fellow this [Aside.]—But were not you saying, my lord, you believed Lady Brumpton would follow hither? If so, pray let me be gone.

Ld. H. No, madam, I must beseech your ladyship to stay, for there are things alleged against her which you, who have lived in the family, may perhaps give light into, and which I can't believe even she could be guilty of.

L. Ha. Nay, my lord, that's generous to a folly, for even for her usage of you (without regard to myself), I am ready to believe she would do anything that can come into the head of a close, malicious, cruel, designing woman.

Enter Boy.

Boy. My Lady Brumpton's below.

L. Ha. I'll run, then.

Cam. No, no, stand your ground. You, a soldier's wife? Come, we'll rally her to death.

Ld. H. Prithee, entertain her a little, while I go in for a moment's thought on this occasion. [Exit.

L. Ha. She has more wit than us both.

Cam. Pshaw, no matter for that; be sure, as soon as the sentence is out of my mouth, to clap in with something else; and laugh at all I say. I'll be grateful, and burst myself at my pretty, witty wife. We'll fall in slap upon her; she shan't have time to say a word of the running away.

Enter Lady Brumpton and Trusty.

Oh, my Lady Brumpton, your ladyship's most obedient servant: This is my Lady Harriot Campley. Why, madam, your ladyship is immediately in your mourning. Nay, as you have more wit than anybody, so (what seldom wits have) you have more prudence, too. Other widows have nothing in a readiness but a second husband; but you, I see, had your very weeds and dress lying by you.

L. Ha. Ay, madam; I see your ladyship is of the Order of Widowhood, for you have put on the habit.

Wid. I see your ladyship is not of the profession of virginity, for you have lost the look on't.

Cam. You are in the habit—That was so pretty; nay, without flattery, Lady Harriot, you have a great deal of wit. Ha! ha! ha!

L. Ha. No, my Lady Brumpton here is the woman of wit; but, indeed, she has but little enough, considering how much her ladyship has to defend. Ha! ha! ha!

Wid. I am sorry, madam, your ladyship has not what's sufficient for your occasions, or that this pretty gentleman can't supply 'em——[Campley dancing about and trolling. Hey, day! I find, sir, your heels are a great help to your head. They relieve your wit, I see; and I don't question but ere now they have been as kind to your valour. Ha! ha!

Cam. Pox, I can say nothing; 'tis always thus with your endeavours to be witty [Aside.]—I saw, madam, your mouth go, but there could be nothing offered in answer to what my Lady Harriot said.—'Twas home—'Twas cutting satire.

L. Ha. Oh, Mr. Campley! But pray, madam, has Mr. Cabinet visited your ladyship since this calamity? How stands that affair now?

Wid. Nay, madam, if you already want instructions, I'll acquaint you how the world stands, if you are in distress—but I fear Mr. Campley overhears us.

Cam. And all the tune the pipers played was Toll-toll-doroll. I swear, Lady Harriot, were I not already yours, I could have a tender for this lady.

Wid. Come, good folks, I find we are very free with each other. What makes you two here? Do you board my lord, or he you? Come, come, ten shillings a head will go a great way in a family. What do you say, Mrs. Campley, is it so? Does your ladyship go to market yourself? Nay, you're in the right of it. Come, can you imagine what makes my lord stay? He is not now with his land-steward. Not signing leases, I hope? Ha! ha! ha!

Cam. Hang her, to have more tongue than a man and his wife too. [Aside.

Enter Lord Hardy.

Ld. H. Because your ladyship is, I know, in very much pain in company you have injured, I'll be short—Open those doors—There lies your husband's, my father's body; and by you stands the man accuses you of poisoning him.

Wid. Of poisoning him!

Tru. The symptoms will appear upon the corpse.

Ld. H. But I am seized by nature—How shall I view, a breathless lump of clay, him whose high veins conveyed to me this vital force and motion?
I cannot bear that sight—
I am as fixed and motionless as he—
[They open the coffin, out of which jumps Lady Sharlot.[33]
Art thou the ghastly shape my mind had formed?
Art thou the cold, inanimate—bright maid?
Thou giv'st new higher life to all around.
Whither does fancy, fired with love, convey me?
Whither transported by my pleasing fury?
The season vanishes at thy approach;
'Tis morn, 'tis spring—
Daisies and lillies strow thy flowery way.
Why is my fair unmoved—my heavenly fair?
Does she but smile at my exalted rapture?
L. Sh. Oh! sense of praise, to me unfelt before,
Speak on, speak on, and charm my attentive ear.
How sweet applause is from an honest tongue!
Thou lov'st my mind—hast well affection placed;
In what, nor time, nor age, nor care, nor want can alter.
Oh, how I joy in thee, my eternal lover;
Immutable as the object of thy flame!
I love, I am proud, I triumph that I love.
Pure, I approach thee; nor did I with empty shows,
Gorgeous attire, or studied negligence,
Or song, or dance, or ball, allure thy soul;
Nor want, or fear, such arts to keep or lose it:
Nor now with fond reluctance doubt to enter
My spacious, bright abode, this gallant heart.[34]
[Reclines on Hardy.

L. Ha. Ay, marry, these are high doings indeed; the greatness of the occasion has burst their passion into speech. Why, Mr Campley, when we are near these fine folks, you and I are but mere sweethearts. I protest I'll never be won so; you shall begin again with me.

Cam. Prithee, why dost name us poor animals? They have forgot there are such creatures as their old acquaintance Tom and Harriot.

Ld. H. So we did indeed, but you'll pardon us.

Cam. My lord, I never thought to see the minute wherein I should rejoice at your forgetting me, but now I do heartily. [Embracing.

L. Sh. Harriot.}
}[Embracing.]
L. Ha. Sharlot.}

Wid. Sir, you're at the bottom of all this; I see you're skilled at close conveyances. I'll know the meaning instantly of these intricacies. 'Tis not your seeming honesty and gravity shall save you from your deserts. My husband's death was sudden. You and the burial fellow were observed very familiar. Produce my husband's body, or I'll try you for his murder; which I find you'd put on me, thou hellish engine!

Tru. Look you, madam, I could answer you, but I scorn to reproach people in misery. You're undone, madam.

Wid. What does the dotard mean? Produce the body, villain, or the law shall have thine for it. [Trusty exit hastily.]—Do you design to let the villain escape? How justly did your father judge, that made you a beggar with that spirit! You meant just now you could not bear the company of those you'd injured.

Ld. H. You are a woman, madam, and my father's widow. But sure you think you've highly injured me.

[Here Lord Brumpton and Trusty half enter and observe.

Wid. No, sir, I have not, will not, injure you. I must obey the will of my deceased lord to a tittle; I must justly pay legacies. Your father, in consideration that you were his blood, would not wholly alienate you. He left you, sir, this shilling, with which estate you now are Earl of Brumpton.

Ld. H. Insolent woman! it was not me my good father disinherited; 'twas him you represented. The guilt was thine; he did an act of justice.

Lord Brumpton, entering with Trusty.

Ld. B. Oh, unparalleled goodness!

Tattleaid and Mademoiselle at the other door entering.

Tru. Oh! Tattleaid, his and our hour is come.

Wid. What do I see? My lord, my master, husband, living?

Ld. B. [Turning from her, running to his son.] Oh, my boy, my son. Mr. Campley, Sharlot, Harriot! [All kneeling to him.] Oh, my children! Oh, oh! These passions are too strong for my old frame. Oh, the sweet torture! my son! my son! I shall expire in the too mighty pleasure! my boy!

Ld. H. A son, an heir, a bridegroom in one hour! Oh! grant me, Heaven, grant me moderation!

Wid. A son, an heir! Am I neglected then?
What? can my lord revive, yet dead to me?
Only to me deceased—to me alone,
Deaf to my sighs, and senseless to my moan?

Ld. B. 'Tis so long since I have seen plays, good madam, that I know not whence thou dost repeat, nor can I answer.

Wid. You can remember, though, a certain settlement, in which I am thy son and heir. Great noble, that's I suppose not taken from a play? That's as irrevocable as law can make it, that if you scorn me, your death and life are equal; or I'll still wear my mourning 'cause you're living.

Tru. Value her not, my lord; a prior obligation made you incapable of settling on her, your wife.

Ld. B. Thy kindness, Trusty, does distract thee. I would indeed disengage myself by any honest means, but, alas, I know no prior gift that avoids this to her—Oh, my child!

Tru. Look you, madam, I'll come again immediately. Be not troubled, my dear lords——[Exit.

Cam. Trusty looks very confident; there is some good in that.

Re-enter Trusty with Cabinet.

Cab. What, my Lord Brumpton living? nay then——

Tru. Hold, sir, you must not stir, nor can you, sir, retract this for your hand-writing.—My lord, this gentleman, since your supposed death, has lurked about the house to speak with my lady, or Tattleaid, who upon your decease have shunned him, in hopes, I suppose, to buy him off for ever. Now, as he was prying about, he peeped into your closet, where he saw your lordship reading. Struck with horror, and believing himself (as well he might) the disturber of your ghost for alienation of your fortune from your family, he writ me this letter, wherein he acknowledges a private marriage with this lady, half a year before you ever saw her.

All. How? [All turn upon her disdainfully.

Wid. No more a widow then, but still a wife.
[Recovering from her confusion.
I am thy wife—thou author of my evil
Thou must partake with me an homely board,
An homely board that never shall be cheerful;
But every meal embittered with upbraidings.
Thou that could'st tell me, good and ill were words,
When thou could'st basely let me to another,
Yet could'st see sprights, great unbeliever!
Coward! Bug-beared penitent——
Stranger henceforth to all my joys, my joys
To thy dishonour; despicable thing,
Dishonour thee? Thou voluntary cuckold.
[Cabinet sneaks off, Widow flings after him, Tattleaid following.

Ld. B. I see you're all confused as well as I. Ye are my children, I hold you all so; and for your own use will speak plainly to you. I cannot hate that woman; nor shall she ever want. Though I scorn to bear her injuries, yet had I ne'er been roused from that low passion to a worthless creature, but by disdain of her attempt on my friend's child. I am glad that scorn's confirmed by her being that fellow's, whom, for my own sake, I only will contemn. Thee, Trusty, how shall we prosecute with equal praise and thanks for this great revolution in our house?

Tru. Never to speak on't more, my lord.

Ld. B. You are now, gentlemen, going into cares at a crisis[35] in your country.
And on this great occasion, Tom, I'll mount
Old Campley which thy father gave me,
And attend thee a cheerful gay old man,
Into the field to represent our county.
My rough plebeian Britons, not yet slaves
To France, shall mount thy father's son
Upon their shoulders. Echo loud their joy,
While I and Trusty follow weeping after:
But be thou honest, firm, impartial,
Let neither love, nor hate, nor faction move thee,[36]
Distinguish words from things, and men from crimes;
Punctual be thou in payments, nor basely
Screen thy faults 'gainst law, behind the
Laws thou makest
But thou against my death, must learn a supererogatory morality.
[To Lord Hardy.
As he is to be just, be generous thou:
Nor let thy reasonable soul be struck
With sounds and appellations; title is
No more, if not significant
Of something that's superior in thyself
To other men, of which thou may'st be
Conscious, yet not proud—But if you swerve
From higher virtue than the crowd possess,
Know, they that call thee honourable mock thee.
You are to be a Peer, by birth a judge
Upon your honour, of others' lives and fortunes;
Because that honour's dearer than your own.
Be good, my son, and be a worthy lord
For when our shining virtues bless mankind,
We disappoint the livid malcontents,
Who long to call our noble Order useless.
Our all's in danger, sir, nor shall you dally
Your youth away with your fine wives.
No, in your country's cause you shall meet death,
While feeble we with minds resigned do wait it.
Not but I intend your nuptials as soon as possible, to draw entails and settlements. How necessary such things are, I had like to have been a fatal instance.

Cam. But, my lord, here are a couple that need not wait such ceremonies. Please but to sit; you've been extremely moved, and must be tired. You say we must not spend our time in dalliance; you'll see, my lord, the entertainment reminds us also of nobler things, and what I designed for my own wedding I'll compliment the general with. The bride dances finely. Trim, will you dance with her?

Trim. I will, but I can't. There's a countryman of hers without, by accident.

Cam. Ay, but is he a dancer?

Trim. Is a Frenchman a dancer? Is a Welshman a gentleman? I'll bring him in.

[Here a dance and the following songs.

Set by Mr. Daniel Purcell.[37]
Sung by Jemmie Bowin.

I.
On yonder bed supinely laid,
Behold thy loved expecting maid:
In tremor, blushes, half in tears,
Much, much she wishes, more she fears.
Take, take her to thy faithful arms,
Hymen bestows thee all her charms.
II.
Heaven to thee bequeaths the fair,
To raise thy joy, and lull thy care;
Heaven made grief, if mutual, cease,
But joy, divided, to increase:
To mourn with her exceeds delight,
Darkness with her, the joys of light.

Sung by Mr. Pate.

I.
Arise, arise, great dead, for arms renowned,
Rise from your urns, and save your dying story,
Your deeds will be in dark oblivion drowned,
For mighty William seizes all your glory.
II.
Again the British trumpet sounds,
Again Britannia bleeds;
To glorious death, or comely wounds,
Her godlike monarch leads.
III.
Pay us, kind fate, the debt you owe,
Celestial minds from clay untie,
Let coward spirits dwell below,
And only give the brave to die.

Ld. B. Now, gentlemen, let the miseries which I have but miraculously escaped, admonish you to have always inclinations proper for the stage of life you're in. Don't follow love when nature seeks but ease; otherwise you'll fall into a lethargy of your dishonour, when warm pursuits of glory are over with you; for fame and rest are utter opposites.

You who the path of honour make your guide,
Must let your passion with your blood subside;
And no untimed ambition, love, or rage
Employ the moments of declining age;
Else boys will in your presence lose their fear,
And laugh at the grey-head they should revere.

EPILOGUE.

Spoken by Lord Hardy.

Love, hope and fear, desire, aversion, rage,
All that can move the soul, or can assuage,
Are drawn in miniature of life, the stage.
Here you can view yourselves, and here is shown
To what you're born in sufferings not your own.
The stage to wisdom's no fantastic way,
Athens herself learned virtue at a play.
Our author me to-night a soldier drew,
But faintly writ, what warmly you pursue:
To his great purpose, had he equal fire,
He'd not aim to please only, but inspire;
He'd sing what hovering fate attends our isle,
And from base pleasure rouse to glorious toil:
Full time the earth to a new decision brings;
While William gives the Roman eagle wings:
With arts and arms shall Britain tamely end,
Which naked Picts so bravely could defend?
The painted heroes on th' invaders press,
And think their wounds addition to their dress;
In younger years we've been with conquest blest,
And Paris has the British yoke confessed;
Is't then in England, in lost England, known,
Her kings are named from a revolted throne?
But we offend—You no examples need,
In imitation of yourselves proceed;
'Tis you your country's honour must secure,
By all your actions worthy of Namur:
With gentle fires your gallantry improve,
Courage is brutal, if untouched with love:
If soon our utmost bravery's not displayed,
Think that bright circle must be captives made;
Let thoughts of saving them our toils beguile,
And they reward our labours with a smile.

THE LYING LOVER:

OR

THE LADIES' FRIENDSHIP.

"Hæc nôsse salus est adolescentulis."[38]—Tertullian.

The Lying Lover: or the Ladies' Friendship, a Comedy, was acted at Drury Lane Theatre on December 2, 1703, and ran for six nights. It was published by Bernard Lintot on January 26, 1704. Wilks (Bookwit, jun.), Mills (Lovemore), Cibber (Latine), Pinkethman (Storm), and Bullock (Charcoal), together with Mrs. Oldfield (Victoria), and Mrs. Rogers (Penelope), acted in this piece, which, so far as is known, has been revived only once (April 4, 1746) since it was originally produced. The plot was taken from Le Menteur, by Corneille, who had borrowed from Ruiz de Alarcon's Verdad Sospechosa. Steele is, of course, solely responsible for the scenes in Newgate towards the end of the piece. Samuel Foote afterwards made much use of Steele's play in his Liar.

To His Grace the

DUKE OF ORMOND.[39]

My Lord,

Out of gratitude to the memorable and illustrious patron of my infancy,[40] your Grace's grandfather, I presume to lay this Comedy at your feet. The design of it is to banish out of conversation all entertainment which does not proceed from simplicity of mind, good-nature, friendship, and honour. Such a purpose will not, I hope, be unacceptable to so great a lover of mankind as your Grace; and if your patronage can recommend it to all who love and honour the Duke of Ormond, its reception will be as extensive as the world itself.

'Twas the irresistible force of this humanity in your temper that has carried you through the various successes of war, with the peculiar and undisputed distinction that you have drawn your sword without other motive than a passionate regard for the glory of your country; since before you entered into its service, you were possessed of its highest honours, but could not be contented with the illustrious rank your birth gave you, without repeating the glorious actions by which it was acquired.

But there cannot be less expected from the son of an Ossory, than to contemn life, to adorn it, and with munificence, affability, scorn of gain, and passion for glory, to be the honour and example to the profession of arms; all which engaging qualities your noble family has exerted with so steadfast a loyalty, that in the most adverse fortune of our monarchy, popularity, which in others had been invidious, was a security to the Crown, when lodged in the House of Ormond.

Thus your Grace entered into the business of the world with so great an expectation, that it seemed impossible there could be anything left which might still conduce to the honour of your name. But the most memorable advantage your country has gained this century was obtained under your command; and Providence thought fit to give the wealth of the Indies into his hands, who only could despise it; while, with a superior generosity, he knows no reward but in opportunities of bestowing. The great personage whom you succeed in your honours, made me feel, before I was sensible of the benefit, that this glorious bent of mind is hereditary to you. I hope, therefore, you will pardon me, that I take the liberty of expressing my veneration for his remains, by assuring your Grace that I am,

My Lord,

Your Grace's most obedient

And most devoted

Humble Servant,

Richard Steele.

THE PREFACE.

Though it ought to be the care of all Governments that public representations should have nothing in them but what is agreeable to the manners, laws, religion, and policy of the place or nation in which they are exhibited; yet is it the general complaint of the more learned and virtuous amongst us, that the English stage has extremely offended in this kind. I thought, therefore, it would be an honest ambition to attempt a Comedy which might be no improper entertainment in a Christian commonwealth.

In order to this, the spark of this play is introduced with as much agility and life as he brought with him from France, and as much humour as I could bestow upon him in England. But he uses the advantages of a learned education, a ready fancy, and a liberal fortune, without the circumspection and good sense which should always attend the pleasures of a gentleman; that is to say, a reasonable creature.

Thus he makes false love, gets drunk, and kills his man; but in the fifth Act awakes from his debauch, with the compunction and remorse which is suitable to a man's finding himself in a gaol for the death of his friend, without his knowing why.

The anguish he there expresses, and the mutual sorrow between an only child and a tender father in that distress, are, perhaps, an injury to the rules of comedy, but I am sure they are a justice to those of morality. And passages of such a nature being so frequently applauded on the stage, it is high time that we should no longer draw occasions of mirth from those images which the religion of our country tells us we ought to tremble at with horror.

But her Most Excellent Majesty has taken the stage into her consideration;[41] and we may hope, by her gracious influence on the Muses, wit will recover from its apostasy; and that, by being encouraged in the interests of virtue, it will strip vice of the gay habit in which it has too long appeared, and clothe it in its native dress of shame, contempt, and dishonour.

PROLOGUE.

All the commanding powers that awe mankind
Are in a trembling poet's audience joined,
Where such bright galaxies of beauty sit,
And at their feet assembled men of wit:
Our author, therefore, owns his deep despair
To entertain the learned or the fair;
Yet hopes that both will so much be his friends,
To pardon what he does, for what he intends;
He aims to make the coming action move
On the dread laws of friendship and of love;
Sure then he'll find but very few severe,
Since there's of both so many objects here.
He offers no gross vices to your sight,
Those too much horror raise for just delight;
And to detain the attentive knowing ear,
Pleasure must still have something that's severe.[42]
If then you find our author treads the stage
With just regard to a reforming age;
He hopes, he humbly hopes, you'll think there's due
Mercy to him, for justice done to you.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Old Bookwit.

Young Bookwit, the "Lying Lover."

Lovemore, in love with Penelope.

Frederick, Friend to Lovemore.

Latine, Friend to Young Bookwit.

Storm, a Highwayman.

Charcoal, an Alchemist and Coiner.

Simon, Servant to Penelope.

Penelope.

Victoria, Friend to Penelope.

Betty, Victoria's Woman.

Lettice, Penelope's Woman.

Constables, Watch, Turnkey, Cookmaid, and several Gaol-birds.

SCENE—London.

THE LYING LOVER: OR, THE LADIES' FRIENDSHIP.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.—St. James's Park.

Enter Young Bookwit and Latine.

Latine. But have you utterly left Oxford?

Y. Book. For ever, sir, for ever; my father has given me leave to come to town, and I don't question but will let my return be in my own choice. But Jack, you know we were talking in Maudlen Walks last week of the necessity, in intrigues, of a faithful, yet a prating servant. We agreed, therefore, to cast lots who should be the other's footman for the present expedition. Fortune, that's always blind, gave me the superiority.

Lat. She shall be called no more so, for that one action. And I am, sir, in a literal sense, your very humble servant.

Y. Book. Begin, then, the duty of a useful valet, and flatter me egregiously. Has the fellow fitted me? How is my manner? my mien? Do I move freely? Have I kicked off the trammels of a gown? or does not the tail on't seem still tucked under my arm, where my hat is, with a pert jerk forward, and little hitch in my gait like a scholastic beau? This wig, I fear, looks like a cap.

Lat. No, faith, it looks like a cap and gown too; though at the same time you look as if you ne'er had worn either.

Y. Book. But my sword, does it hang careless? Do I look bold, negligent, and erect? that is, do I look as if I could kill a man without being out of humour? I horridly mistrust myself. Am I military enough in my air? I fancy people see I understand Greek. Don't I pore a little in my visage? Han't I a down bookish lour, a wise sadness? I don't look gay enough and unthinking, I fancy.

Lat. I protest you wrong yourself. You look very brisk and very ignorant.

Y. Book. O fie! I am afraid you flatter me.

Lat. I don't indeed; I'll be hanged if my tutor would know either of us. But, good master, to what use do you design to put the noble arts and sciences he taught us? The conduct of our lives, the government of our passions, were his daily talk to us, good man!

Y. Book. Good man! Why I'll obey his precepts, but abridge 'em. For as he used to advise me, I'll contract my thoughts, as I'll tell you, Jack:—for the passions, I'll turn 'em all into that one dear passion, love; and when that's the only torture of my heart, I'll give that tortured heart quite away; deny there's any such thing as pain, and turn stoic a shorter way than e'er thy tutor taught thee. This is the new philosophy, you rogue you.

Lat. But you would not in earnest be thought wholly illiterate?

Y. Book. No; for as when I walk, I'd have you know by my motion I can dance; so when I speak, I'd have you see I read: yet would ordinarily neither cut capers nor talk sentences. But you prate as if I came to town to get an employment. No; hang business, hang care; let it live and prosper among the men; I'll ne'er go near the solemn ugly things again. I'll keep company with none but ladies—bright ladies. O London! London! O woman! woman! I am come where thou livest, where thou shinest.

Lat. Hey day! why, were there no women in Oxford?

Y. Book. No, no; why, do you think a bed-maker's a woman?

Lat. Yes, and thought you knew it.

Y. Book. No, no, 'tis no such thing. As he that is not honest or brave is no man; so she that is not witty or fair is no woman. No, no, Jack, to come up to that high name and object of desire, she must be gay and chaste, she must at once attract, and banish you. I don't know how to express myself, but a woman, methinks, is a being between us and angels. She has something in her that at the same time gives awe and invitation; and I swear to you I was never out in't yet, but I always judged of men as I observed they judged of women. There's nothing shows a man so much as the object of his affections.—But what do you stare at so considerately?

Lat. Faith, sir, I am wondering at you—how 'tis possible you could be so jaunty a town-spark in a moment, and have so easy a behaviour. I look, methinks, to you, as if I were really your footman.

Y. Book. Why, if you're serious in what you say, I owe it wholly to the indulgence of an excellent father, in whose company I was always free and unconstrained. But what's this to ladies, Jack, to ladies? I was going to tell you I had studied 'em, and know how to make my approaches to 'em by contemplating their frame, their inmost temper. I don't ground my hopes on the scandalous tales and opinions your wild fellows have of 'em—fellows that are but mere bodies, machines—which at best can but move gracefully. No; I draw my pretences from philosophy—from nature.

Lat. You'll give us by-and-by a lecture over your mistress: you can dissect her.

Y. Book. That I can, indeed, and have so accurately observed on woman, that I can know her mind by her eye as well as her doctor shall her health by her pulse; I can read approbation through a glance of disdain; can see when the soul is divided by a sparkling tear that twinkles and betrays the heart. A sparkling tear's the dress and livery of love—of love made up of hope and fear, of joy and grief.

Lat.[43] But what have the wars to do with all this? Why must you needs commence soldier all of a sudden?

Y. Book. Were't not a taking compliment with my college face and phrase to accost a lady:—"Madam, I bring your ladyship a learned heart, one newly come from the University. If you want definitions, axioms, and arguments, I am an able schoolman. I've read Aristotle twice over, compared his jarring commentators too, examined all the famous peripatetics, know where the Scotists and the Nominals differ:"—this, certainly, must needs enchant a lady.

Lat. This is too much on th' other side.

Y. Book. The name of soldier bids you better welcome. 'Tis valour and feats done in the field a man should be cried up for; nor is't so hard to achieve.

Lat. The fame of it, you mean?

Y. Book. Yes; and that will serve. 'Tis but looking big, bragging with an easy grace, and confidently mustering up an hundred hard names they understand not: Thunder out Villeroy, Catinat, and Boufflers; speak of strange towns and castles, whose barbarous names, the harsher they're to the ear, the rarer and more taking; still running over lines, trenches, outworks, counterscarps, and forts, citadels, mines, countermines, pickeering, pioneers, sentinels, patrols, and others, without sense or order; that matters not, the women are amazed, they admire to hear you rap 'em out so readily; and many a one that went no farther for it, retailing handsomely some warlike terms, passes for a brave fellow. Don't stand gaping, but live and learn, my lad. I can tell thee ten thousand arts to make thee known and valued in these regions of wit and gallantry—the park, the playhouse.

Lat. Now you put me in mind where we are. What have we to do here thus early, now there's no company?

Y. Book. Oh! sir, I have put on so much of the soldier with my red coat, that I came here to observe the ground I am to engage upon. Here must I act, I know, some lover's part, and therefore came to view this pleasant walk. I privately rambled to town last November. Here, ay here, I stood and gazed at high Mall, till I forgot it was winter, so many pretty shes marched by me. Oh! to see the dear things trip, trip along, and breathe so short, nipt with the season! I saw the very air not without force leave their dear lips. Oh! they were intolerably handsome.

Lat. You'll see, perhaps, such to-day; but how to come at 'em?

Y. Book. Ay, there's it, how to come at 'em.

Lat.[44] Are you generous?

Y. Book. I think I am no niggard.

Lat. You must entertain them high, and bribe all about them. They talk of Ovid and his Art of Loving; be liberal, and you outdo his precepts. The art of love, sir, is the art of giving. Be free to women, they'll be free to you. Not every open-handed fellow hits it neither. Some give by lapfulls, and yet ne'er oblige. The manner, you know, of doing a thing is more than the thing itself. Some drop a jewel, which had been refused if bluntly offered.

Y. Book. Some lose at play what they design a present.

Lat. Right; the skill is to be generous, and seem not to know it of yourself, 'tis done with so much ease; but a liberal blockhead presents his mistress as he'd give an alms.

Y. Book. Leaving such blockheads to their deserved ill-fortune, tell me if thou know'st these ladies?

Lat. No, not I, sir; they are above an academic converse many degrees. I've seen ten thousand verses writ in the University on wenches not fit to be either of their handmaids. I never spoke to such a fine thing as either in my whole life—I'm downright asleep o' sudden. I must fall back, and glad it is my place to do so; yet I can get you intelligence perhaps. I'll to the footman.

Y. Book. Do you think he'll tell?

Lat. He would not to you, perhaps, but to a brother footman. Do but listen at the entrance of the Mall at noon, and you'll have all the ladies' characters in town among their lackeys. You know all fame begins from our domestics.

Y. Book. That was a wise man's observation. Follow him, and know what you can. [Exit Latine.

Enter Penelope, Victoria, Simon, and Lettice.

Pen. A walk round would be too much for us; we'll keep the Mall.—But to our talk: I must confess I have terrors when I think of marrying Lovemore. He is, indeed, a man of an honest character. He has my good opinion, but love does not always follow that. He is so wise a fellow, always so precisely in the right, so observing and so jealous; he's blameless indeed, but not to be commended. What good he has, has no grace in it; he's one of those who's never highly moved, except to anger. Give me a man that has agreeable faults rather than offensive virtues.

Vict. Offensive virtues, madam?

Pen. Yes, I don't know how—there's a sort of virtue, or prudence, or what you'll call it, that we can but just approve. That does not win us. Lovemore wants that fire, that conversation-spirit I would have. They say he's learned as well as discreet, but I'm no judge of that. I'm sure he's no woman's scholar; his wisdom he should turn into wit, and his learning into poetry or humour.

Vict. Well, I'm not so much of your mind; I like a sober passion.

Pen. A sober passion! you took me up just now when I said an offensive virtue.—Bless me! [Stumbling almost to a fall.

Y. Book.[45] [Catching her.] How much am I indebted to an accident, that favours me with an occasion of this small service! for 'tis to me an happiness beyond expression thus to kiss your hand.

Pen. The occasion, methinks, is not so obliging, nor the happiness you mention worth that name, sir.

Y. Book. 'Tis true, madam, I owe it all to fortune; neither your kindness nor my industry had any share in't. Thus am I still as wretched as I was, for this happiness I so much prize had doubtless been refused my want of merit.

Pen. It has very soon, you see, lost what you valued in it; but I find you and I, sir, have a different sense; for, in my opinion, we enjoy with most pleasure what we attain with least merit. Merit is a claim, and may pretend justly to favour; when without it what's conferred is more unexpected, and therefore more pleasing.

Y. Book. You talk very well, madam, of an happiness you can't possibly be acquainted with, the enjoying without desert. But indeed you have done me a very singular good office, in letting me know myself very much qualified for felicity.