Love for Love, by William Congreve

Published：2026-08-02 16:32:53 Source: best durable stacking blocks Author: Building Sets

Transcribed from the 1895 Methuen and counting toys for boysCo. edition (Comediesof William Congreve, Volume2) by David Price, [email protected]

LOVE FOR LOVE
A COMEDY

Nudus agris, nudus nummispaternis,
Insanire parat certa ratione modoque.

—Hor.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
CHARLES, EARL OF DORSET AND MIDDLESEX,
LORD CHAMBERLAIN OF HIS MAJESTY’SHOUSEHOLD,
AND KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THEGARTER, ETC.

My Lord,—A young poet isliable to the same vanity and indiscretion with a young lover;and the great man who smiles upon one, and the fine woman wholooks kindly upon t’other, are both of ’em in dangerof having the favour published with the first opportunity.

But there may be a different motive, which will a littledistinguish the offenders.  For though one should have avanity in ruining another’s reputation, yet the other mayonly have an ambition to advance his own.  And I beg leave,my lord, that I may plead the latter, both as the cause andexcuse of this dedication.

Whoever is king is also the father of his country; and asnobody can dispute your lordship’s monarchy in poetry, soall that are concerned ought to acknowledge your universalpatronage.  And it is only presuming on the privilege of aloyal subject that I have ventured to make this, my address ofthanks, to your lordship, which at the same time includes aprayer for your protection.

I am not ignorant of the common form of poetical dedications,which are generally made up of panegyrics, where the authorsendeavour to distinguish their patrons, by the shining charactersthey give them, above other men.  But that, my lord, is notmy business at this time, nor is your lordship nowto bedistinguished.  I am contented with the honour I do myselfin this epistle without the vanity of attempting to add to orexplain your Lordships character.

I confess it is not without some struggling that I behavemyself in this case as I ought: for it is very hard to be pleasedwith a subject, and yet forbear it.  But I choose rather tofollow Pliny’s precept, than his example, when, in hispanegyric to the Emperor Trajan, he says:—

Nec minus considerabo quid aures ejus patipossint, quam quid virtutibus debeatur.

I hope I may be excused the pedantry of a quotation when it isso justly applied.  Here are some lines in the print (andwhich your lordship read before this play was acted) that wereomitted on the stage; and particularly one whole scene in thethird act, which not only helps the design forward with lessprecipitation, but also heightens the ridiculous character ofForesight, which indeed seems to be maimed without it.  ButI found myself in great danger of a long play, and was glad tohelp it where I could.  Though notwithstanding my care andthe kind reception it had from the town, I could heartily wish ityet shorter: but the number of different characters representedin it would have been too much crowded in less room.

This reflection on prolixity (a fault for which scarce any onebeauty will atone) warns me not to be tedious now, and detainyour lordship any longer with the trifles of, my lord, yourlordship’s most obedient and most humble servant,

WILLIAM CONGREVE.

PROLOGUE.

Spoken, at the opening of the newhouse, by Mr. Betterton.

The husbandman invain renews his toil
To cultivate each year a hungry soil;
And fondly hopes for rich and generous fruit,
When what should feed the tree devours the root;
Th’ unladen boughs, he sees, bode certain dearth,
Unless transplanted to more kindly earth.
So the poor husbands of the stage, who found
Their labours lost upon ungrateful ground,
This last and only remedy have proved,
And hope new fruit from ancient stocks removed.
Well may they hope, when you so kindly aid,
Well plant a soil which you so rich have made.
As Nature gave the world to man’s first age,
So from your bounty, we receive this stage;
The freedom man was born to, you’ve restored,
And to our world such plenty you afford,
It seems like Eden, fruitful of its own accord.
But since in Paradise frail flesh gave way,
And when but two were made, both went astray;
Forbear your wonder, and the fault forgive,
If in our larger family we grieve
One falling Adam and one tempted Eve.
We who remain would gratefully repay
What our endeavours can, and bring this day
The first-fruit offering of a virgin play.
We hope there’s something that may please each taste,
And though of homely fare we make the feast,
Yet you will find variety at least.
There’s humour, which for cheerful friends we got,
And for the thinking party there’s a plot.
We’ve something, too, to gratify ill-nature,
(If there be any here), and that is satire.
Though satire scarce dares grin, ’tis grown so mild
Or only shows its teeth, as if it smiled.
As asses thistles, poets mumble wit,
And dare not bite for fear of being bit:
They hold their pens, as swords are held by fools,
And are afraid to use their own edge-tools.
Since the Plain-Dealer’s scenes of manly rage,
Not one has dared to lash this crying age.
This time, the poet owns the bold essay,
Yet hopes there’s no ill-manners in his play;
And he declares, by me, he has designed
Affront to none, but frankly speaks his mind.
And should th’ ensuing scenes not chance to hit,
He offers but this one excuse, ’twas writ
Before your late encouragement of wit.

EPILOGUE.

Spoken, at the opening of the new house, by Mrs. Bracegirdle.

Sure Providence atfirst designed this place
To be the player’s refuge in distress;
For still in every storm they all run hither,
As to a shed that shields ’em from the weather.
But thinking of this change which last befel us,
It’s like what I have heard our poets tell us:
For when behind our scenes their suits are pleading,
To help their love, sometimes they show their reading;
And, wanting ready cash to pay for hearts,
They top their learning on us, and their parts.
Once of philosophers they told us stories,
Whom, as I think, they called—Py—Pythagories,
I’m sure ’tis some such Latin name they give’em,
And we, who know no better, must believe ’em.
Now to these men, say they, such souls were given,
That after death ne’er went to hell nor heaven,
But lived, I know not how, in beasts; and then
When many years were past, in men again.
Methinks, we players resemble such a soul,
That does from bodies, we from houses stroll.
Thus Aristotle’s soul, of old that was,
May now be damned to animate an ass,
Or in this very house, for ought we know,
Is doing painful penance in some beau;
And thus our audience, which did once resort
To shining theatres to see our sport,
Now find us tossed into a tennis-court.
These walls but t’other day were filled with noise
Of roaring gamesters and your dam’me boys;
Then bounding balls and rackets they encompast,
And now they’re filled with jests, and flights, andbombast!
I vow, I don’t much like this transmigration,
Strolling from place to place by circulation;
Grant heaven, we don’t return to our first station!
I know not what these think, but for my part
I can’t reflect without an aching heart,
How we should end in our original, a cart.
But we can’t fear, since you’re so good to saveus,
That you have only set us up, to leave us.
Thus from the past we hope for future grace,
I beg it—
And some here know I have a begging face.
Then pray continue this your kind behaviour,
For a clear stage won’t do, without your favour.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

A Steward, Officers, Sailors, and SeveralServants.

The Scene in London.

ACT I.—SCENE I.

Valentine in his chamberreading.  Jeremywaiting.

Several books upon thetable.

VAL.  Jeremy.

JERE.  Sir?

VAL.  Here, take away.  I’ll walk a turn anddigest what I have read.

JERE.  You’ll grow devilish fat upon this paperdiet.  [Aside, and taking away the books.]

VAL.  And d’ye hear, go you to breakfast. There’s a page doubled down in Epictetus, that is a feastfor an emperor.

JERE.  Was Epictetus a real cook, or did he only writereceipts?

VAL.  Read, read, sirrah, and refine your appetite; learnto live upon instruction; feast your mind and mortify your flesh;read, and take your nourishment in at your eyes; shut up yourmouth, and chew the cud of understanding.  So Epictetusadvises.

JERE.  O Lord!  I have heard much of him, when Iwaited upon a gentleman at Cambridge.  Pray what was thatEpictetus?

VAL.  A very rich man.—Not worth a groat.

JERE.  Humph, and so he has made a very fine feast, wherethere is nothing to be eaten?

VAL.  Yes.

JERE.  Sir, you’re a gentleman, and probablyunderstand this fine feeding: but if you please, I had rather beat board wages.  Does your Epictetus, or your Seneca here,or any of these poor rich rogues, teach you how to pay your debtswithout money?  Will they shut up the mouths of yourcreditors?  Will Plato be bail for you?  Or Diogenes,because he understands confinement, and lived in a tub, go toprison for you?  ’Slife, sir, what do you mean, to mewyourself up here with three or four musty books, in commendationof starving and poverty?

VAL.  Why, sirrah, I have no money, you know it; andtherefore resolve to rail at all that have.  And in that Ibut follow the examples of the wisest and wittiest men in allages, these poets and philosophers whom you naturally hate, forjust such another reason; because they abound in sense, and youare a fool.

JERE.  Ay, sir, I am a fool, I know it: and yet, heavenhelp me, I’m poor enough to be a wit.  But I wasalways a fool when I told you what your expenses would bring youto; your coaches and your liveries; your treats and your balls;your being in love with a lady that did not care a farthing foryou in your prosperity; and keeping company with wits that caredfor nothing but your prosperity; and now, when you are poor, hateyou as much as they do one another.

VAL.  Well, and now I am poor I have an opportunity to berevenged on them all.  I’ll pursue Angelica with morelove than ever, and appear more notoriously her admirer in thisrestraint, than when I openly rivalled the rich fops that madecourt to her.  So shall my poverty be a mortification to herpride, and, perhaps, make her compassionate the love which hasprincipally reduced me to this lowness of fortune.  And forthe wits, I’m sure I am in a condition to be even withthem.

JERE.  Nay, your condition is pretty even with theirs,that’s the truth on’t.

VAL.  I’ll take some of their trade out of theirhands.

JERE.  Now heaven of mercy continue the tax uponpaper.  You don’t mean to write?

VAL.  Yes, I do.  I’ll write a play.

JERE.  Hem!  Sir, if you please to give me a smallcertificate of three lines—only to certify those whom itmay concern, that the bearer hereof, Jeremy Fetch by name, hasfor the space of seven years truly and faithfully servedValentine Legend, Esq., and that he is not now turned away forany misdemeanour, but does voluntarily dismiss his master fromany future authority over him—

VAL.  No, sirrah; you shall live with me still.

JERE.  Sir, it’s impossible.  I may die withyou, starve with you, or be damned with your works.  But tolive, even three days, the life of a play, I no more expect itthan to be canonised for a muse after my decease.

VAL.  You are witty, you rogue.  I shall want yourhelp.  I’ll have you learn to make couplets to tag theends of acts.  D’ye hear?  Get the maids toCrambo in an evening, and learn the knack of rhyming: you mayarrive at the height of a song sent by an unknown hand, or achocolate-house lampoon.

JERE.  But, sir, is this the way to recover yourfather’s favour?  Why, Sir Sampson will beirreconcilable.  If your younger brother should come fromsea, he’d never look upon you again.  You’reundone, sir; you’re ruined; you won’t have a friendleft in the world if you turn poet.  Ah, pox confound thatWill’s coffee-house: it has ruined more young men than theRoyal Oak lottery.  Nothing thrives that belongsto’t.  The man of the house would have been analderman by this time, with half the trade, if he had set up inthe city.  For my part, I never sit at the door that Idon’t get double the stomach that I do at a horserace.  The air upon Banstead-Downs is nothing to it for awhetter; yet I never see it, but the spirit of famine appears tome, sometimes like a decayed porter, worn out with pimping, andcarrying billet douxand songs: not like other porters,for hire, but for the jests’ sake.  Now like a thinchairman, melted down to half his proportion, with carrying apoet upon tick, to visit some great fortune; and his fare to bepaid him like the wages of sin, either at the day of marriage, orthe day of death.

VAL.  Very well, sir; can you proceed?

JERE.  Sometimes like a bilked bookseller, with a meagreterrified countenance, that looks as if he had written forhimself, or were resolved to turn author, and bring the rest ofhis brethren into the same condition.  And lastly, in theform of a worn-out punk, with verses in her hand, which hervanity had preferred to settlements, without a whole tatter toher tail, but as ragged as one of the muses; or as if she werecarrying her linen to the paper-mill, to be converted into foliobooks of warning to all young maids, not to prefer poetry to goodsense, or lying in the arms of a needy wit, before the embracesof a wealthy fool.

SCENE II.

Valentine, Scandal, Jeremy.

SCAN.  What, Jeremy holding forth?

VAL.  The rogue has (with all the wit he could muster up)been declaiming against wit.

SCAN.  Ay?  Why, then, I’m afraid Jeremy haswit: for wherever it is, it’s always contriving its ownruin.

JERE.  Why, so I have been telling my master, sir: Mr.Scandal, for heaven’s sake, sir, try if you can dissuadehim from turning poet.

SCAN.  Poet!  He shall turn soldier first, andrather depend upon the outside of his head than the lining. Why, what the devil, has not your poverty made you enemiesenough?  Must you needs shew your wit to get more?

JERE.  Ay, more indeed: for who cares for anybody thathas more wit than himself?

SCAN.  Jeremy speaks like an oracle.  Don’tyou see how worthless great men and dull rich rogues avoid awitty man of small fortune?  Why, he looks like a writ ofenquiry into their titles and estates, and seems commissioned byheaven to seize hte better half.

VAL.  Therefore I would rail in my writings, and berevenged.

SCAN.  Rail?  At whom?  The whole world? Impotent and vain!  Who would die a martyr to sense in acountry where the religion is folly?  You may stand at bayfor a while; but when the full cry is against you, youshan’t have fair play for your life.  If youcan’t be fairly run down by the hounds, you will betreacherously shot by the huntsmen.  No, turn pimp,flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, orstallion to an old woman, anything but poet.  A modern poetis worse, more servile, timorous, and fawning, than any I havenamed: without you could retrieve the ancient honours of thename, recall the stage of Athens, and be allowed the force ofopen honest satire.

VAL.  You are as inveterate against our poets as if yourcharacter had been lately exposed upon the stage.  Nay, I amnot violently bent upon the trade.  [Oneknocks.]  Jeremy, see who’s there.  [Jer. goes to the door.]  Buttell me what you would have me do?  What do the world say ofme, and my forced confinement?

SCAN.  The world behaves itself as it uses to do on suchoccasions; some pity you, and condemn your father; others excusehim, and blame you; only the ladies are merciful, and wish youwell, since love and pleasurable expense have been your greatestfaults.

VAL.  How now?

JERE.  Nothing new, sir; I have despatched some half adozen duns with as much dexterity as a hungry judge does causesat dinner-time.

VAL.  What answer have you given ’em?

SCAN.  Patience, I suppose, the old receipt.

JERE.  No, faith, sir; I have put ’em off so longwith patience and forbearance, and other fair words, that I wasforced now to tell ’em in plain downrightEnglish—

VAL.  What?

JERE.  That they should be paid.

VAL.  When?

JERE.  To-morrow.

VAL.  And how the devil do you mean to keep yourword?

JERE.  Keep it?  Not at all; it has been so verymuch stretched that I reckon it will break of course byto-morrow, and nobody be surprised at the matter. [Knocking.]  Again!  Sir, if you don’tlike my negotiation, will you be pleased to answer theseyourself?

VAL.  See who they are.

SCENE III.

Valentine, Scandal.

VAL.  By this, Scandal, you may see what it is to begreat; secretaries of state, presidents of the council, andgenerals of an army lead just such a life as I do; have just suchcrowds of visitants in a morning, all soliciting of pastpromises; which are but a civiller sort of duns, that lay claimto voluntary debts.

SCAN.  And you, like a true great man, having engagedtheir attendance, and promised more than ever you intended toperform, are more perplexed to find evasions than you would be toinvent the honest means of keeping your word, and gratifying yourcreditors.

VAL.  Scandal, learn to spare your friends, and do notprovoke your enemies; this liberty of your tongue will one daybring a confinement on your body, my friend.

SCENE IV.

Valentine, Scandal, Jeremy.

JERE.  O sir, there’s Trapland the scrivener, withtwo suspicious fellows like lawful pads, that would knock a mandown with pocket-tipstaves.  And there’s yourfather’s steward, and the nurse with one of your childrenfrom Twitnam.

VAL.  Pox on her, could she find no other time to flingmy sins in my face?  Here, give her this, [givesmoney] and bid her trouble me no more; a thoughtlesstwo-handed whore, she knows my condition well enough, and mighthave overlaid the child a fortnight ago, if she had had anyforecast in her.

SCAN.  What, is it bouncing Margery, with my godson?

JERE.  Yes, sir.

SCAN.  My blessing to the boy, with this token [givesmoney] of my love.  And d’ye hear, bid Margery putmore flocks in her bed, shift twice a week, and not work so hard,that she may not smell so vigorously.  I shall take the airshortly.

VAL.  Scandal, don’t spoil my boy’smilk.  Bid Trapland come in.  If I can give thatCerberus a sop, I shall be at rest for one day.

SCENE V.

Valentine, Scandal, Trapland, Jeremy.

VAL.  Oh, Mr. Trapland!  My old friend! Welcome.  Jeremy, a chair quickly: a bottle of sack and atoast—fly—a chair first.

TRAP.  A good morning to you, Mr. Valentine, and to you,Mr. Scandal.

SCAN.  The morning’s a very good morning, if youdon’t spoil it.

VAL.  Come, sit you down, you know his way.

TRAP.  [sits.]  There is a debt, Mr.Valentine, of £1500 of pretty long standing—

VAL.  I cannot talk about business with a thirstypalate.  Sirrah, the sack.

TRAP.  And I desire to know what course you have takenfor the payment?

VAL.  Faith and troth, I am heartily glad to seeyou.  My service to you.  Fill, fill to honest Mr.Trapland—fuller.

TRAP.  Hold, sweetheart: this is not to ourbusiness.  My service to you, Mr. Scandal. [Drinks.]  I have forborne as long—

VAL.  T’other glass, and then we’lltalk.  Fill, Jeremy.

TRAP.  No more, in truth.  I have forborne, Isay—

VAL.  Sirrah, fill when I bid you.  And how doesyour handsome daughter?  Come, a good husband to her. [Drinks.]

TRAP.  Thank you.  I have been out of thismoney—

VAL.  Drink first.  Scandal, why do you notdrink?  [They drink.]

TRAP.  And, in short, I can be put off no longer.

VAL.  I was much obliged to you for your supply.  Itdid me signal service in my necessity.  But you delight indoing good.  Scandal, drink to me, my friendTrapland’s health.  An honester man lives not, nor onemore ready to serve his friend in distress: though I say it tohis face.  Come, fill each man his glass.

SCAN.  What, I know Trapland has been a whoremaster, andloves a wench still.  You never knew a whoremaster that wasnot an honest fellow.

TRAP.  Fie, Mr. Scandal, you never knew—

SCAN.  What don’t I know?  I know the buxomblack widow in the Poultry.  £800 a year jointure, and£20,000 in money.  Aha! old Trap.

VAL.  Say you so, i’faith?  Come, we’llremember the widow.  I know whereabouts you are; come, tothe widow—

TRAP.  No more, indeed.

VAL.  What, the widow’s health; give ithim—off with it.  [They drink.]  A lovelygirl, i’faith, black sparkling eyes, soft pouting rubylips!  Better sealing there than a bond for a million,ha?

TRAP.  No, no, there’s no such thing; we’dbetter mind our business.  You’re a wag.

VAL.  No, faith, we’ll mind the widow’sbusiness: fill again.  Pretty round heaving breasts, aBarbary shape, and a jut with her bum would stir an anchoret: andthe prettiest foot!  Oh, if a man could but fasten his eyesto her feet as they steal in and out, and play at bo-peep underher petticoats, ah!  Mr. Trapland?

TRAP.  Verily, give me a glass.  You’re awag,—and here’s to the widow. [Drinks.]

SCAN.  He begins to chuckle; ply him close, orhe’ll relapse into a dun.

SCENE VI.

[To them] Officer.

OFF.  By your leave, gentlemen: Mr. Trapland, if we mustdo our office, tell us.  We have half a dozen gentlemen toarrest in Pall Mall and Covent Garden; and if we don’t makehaste the chairmen will be abroad, and block up thechocolate-houses, and then our labour’s lost.

TRAP.  Udso that’s true: Mr. Valentine, I lovemirth, but business must be done.  Are you readyto—

JERE.  Sir, your father’s steward says he comes tomake proposals concerning your debts.

VAL.  Bid him come in: Mr. Trapland, send away yourofficer; you shall have an answer presently.

TRAP.  Mr. Snap, stay within call.

SCENE VII.

Valentine, Scandal, Trapland, Jeremy,
Steward who whispersValentine.

SCAN.  Here’s a dog now, a traitor in his wine:sirrah, refund the sack.—Jeremy, fetch him some warm water,or I’ll rip up his stomach, and go the shortest way to hisconscience.

TRAP.  Mr. Scandal, you are uncivil; I did not value yoursack; but you cannot expect it again when I have drunk it.

SCAN.  And how do you expect to have your money againwhen a gentleman has spent it?

VAL.  You need say no more, I understand the conditions;they are very hard, but my necessity is very pressing: I agree to’em.  Take Mr. Trapland with you, and let him draw thewriting.  Mr. Trapland, you know this man: he shall satisfyyou.

TRAP.  Sincerely, I am loth to be thus pressing, but mynecessity—

VAL.  No apology, good Mr. Scrivener, you shall bepaid.

TRAP.  I hope you forgive me; my businessrequires—

SCENE VIII.

Valentine, Scandal.

SCAN.  He begs pardon like a hangman at an execution.

VAL.  But I have got a reprieve.

SCAN.  I am surprised; what, does your father relent?

VAL.  No; he has sent me the hardest conditions in theworld.  You have heard of a booby brother of mine that wassent to sea three years ago?  This brother, my father hears,is landed; whereupon he very affectionately sends me word; if Iwill make a deed of conveyance of my right to his estate, afterhis death, to my younger brother, he will immediately furnish mewith four thousand pounds to pay my debts and make myfortune.  This was once proposed before, and I refused it;but the present impatience of my creditors for their money, andmy own impatience of confinement, and absence from Angelica,force me to consent.

SCAN.  A very desperate demonstration of your love toAngelica; and I think she has never given you any assurance ofhers.

VAL.  You know her temper; she never gave me any greatreason either for hope or despair.

SCAN.  Women of her airy temper, as they seldom thinkbefore they act, so they rarely give us any light to guess atwhat they mean.  But you have little reason to believe thata woman of this age, who has had an indifference for you in yourprosperity, will fall in love with your ill-fortune; besides,Angelica has a great fortune of her own; and great fortuneseither expect another great fortune, or a fool.

SCENE IX.

[To them] Jeremy.

JERE.  More misfortunes, sir.

VAL.  What, another dun?

JERE.  No, sir, but Mr. Tattle is come to wait uponyou.

VAL.  Well, I can’t help it, you must bring him up;he knows I don’t go abroad.

SCENE X.

Valentine, Scandal.

SCAN.  Pox on him, I’ll be gone.

VAL.  No, prithee stay: Tattle and you should never beasunder; you are light and shadow, and show one another; he isperfectly thy reverse both in humour and understanding; and asyou set up for defamation, he is a mender of reputations.

SCAN.  A mender of reputations!  Ay, just as he is akeeper of secrets, another virtue that he sets up for in the samemanner.  For the rogue will speak aloud in the posture of awhisper, and deny a woman’s name while he gives you themarks of her person.  He will forswear receiving a letterfrom her, and at the same time show you her hand in thesuperscription: and yet perhaps he has counterfeited the handtoo, and sworn to a truth; but he hopes not to be believed, andrefuses the reputation of a lady’s favour, as a Doctor saysno to a Bishopric only that it may be granted him.  Inshort, he is public professor of secrecy, and makes proclamationthat he holds private intelligence.—He’s here.

SCENE XI.

[To them] Tattle.

TATT.  Valentine, good morrow; Scandal, I amyours:—that is, when you speak well of me.

SCAN.  That is, when I am yours; for while I am my own,or anybody’s else, that will never happen.

TATT.  How inhuman!

VAL.  Why Tattle, you need not be much concerned atanything that he says: for to converse with Scandal, is to playat losing loadum; you must lose a good name to him before you canwin it for yourself.

TATT.  But how barbarous that is, and how unfortunate forhim, that the world shall think the better of any person for hiscalumniation!  I thank heaven, it has always been a part ofmy character to handle the reputations of others very tenderlyindeed.

SCAN.  Ay, such rotten reputations as you have to dealwith are to be handled tenderly indeed.

TATT.  Nay, but why rotten?  Why should you sayrotten, when you know not the persons of whom you speak? How cruel that is!

SCAN.  Not know ’em?  Why, thou neverhad’st to do with anybody that did not stink to all thetown.

TATT.  Ha, ha, ha; nay, now you make a jest of itindeed.  For there is nothing more known than that nobodyknows anything of that nature of me.  As I hope to be saved,Valentine, I never exposed a woman, since I knew what womanwas.

VAL.  And yet you have conversed with several.

TATT.  To be free with you, I have.  I don’tcare if I own that.  Nay more (I’m going to say a boldword now) I never could meddle with a woman that had to do withanybody else.

SCAN.  How?

VAL.  Nay faith, I’m apt to believe him. Except her husband, Tattle.

TATT.  Oh, that—

SCAN.  What think you of that noble commoner, Mrs.Drab?

TATT.  Pooh, I know Madam Drab has made her brags inthree or four places, that I said this and that, and writ to her,and did I know not what—but, upon my reputation, she did mewrong—well, well, that was malice—but I know thebottom of it.  She was bribed to that by one we allknow—a man too.  Only to bring me into disgrace with acertain woman of quality—

SCAN.  Whom we all know.

TATT.  No matter for that.  Yes, yes, everybodyknows.  No doubt on’t, everybody knows mysecrets.  But I soon satisfied the lady of my innocence; forI told her: Madam, says I, there are some persons who make ittheir business to tell stories, and say this and that of one andt’other, and everything in the world; and, says I, if yourgrace—

SCAN.  Grace!

TATT.  O Lord, what have I said?  My unluckytongue!

VAL.  Ha, ha, ha.

SCAN.  Why, Tattle, thou hast more impudence than one canin reason expect: I shall have an esteem for thee, well, and, ha,ha, ha, well, go on, and what did you say to her grace?

VAL.  I confess this is something extraordinary.

TATT.  Not a word, as I hope to be saved; an errantlapsus linguæ.  Come, let’s talk ofsomething else.

VAL.  Well, but how did you acquit yourself?

TATT.  Pooh, pooh, nothing at all; I only rallied withyou—a woman of ordinary rank was a little jealous of me,and I told her something or other, faith I know notwhat.—Come, let’s talk of something else. [Hums a song.]

SCAN.  Hang him, let him alone, he has a mind we shouldenquire.

TATT.  Valentine, I supped last night with your mistress,and her uncle, old Foresight: I think your father lies atForesight’s.

VAL.  Yes.

TATT.  Upon my soul, Angelica’s a fine woman. And so is Mrs. Foresight, and her sister, Mrs. Frail.

SCAN.  Yes, Mrs. Frail is a very fine woman, we all knowher.

TATT.  Oh, that is not fair.

SCAN.  What?

TATT.  To tell.

SCAN.  To tell what?  Why, what do you know of Mrs.Frail?

TATT.  Who, I?  Upon honour I don’t knowwhether she be man or woman, but by the smoothness of her chinand roundness of her hips.

SCAN.  No?

TATT.  No.

SCAN.  She says otherwise.

TATT.  Impossible!

SCAN.  Yes, faith.  Ask Valentine else.

TATT.  Why then, as I hope to be saved, I believe a womanonly obliges a man to secrecy that she may have the pleasure oftelling herself.

SCAN.  No doubt on’t.  Well, but has she doneyou wrong, or no?  You have had her?  Ha?

TATT.  Though I have more honour than to tell first, Ihave more manners than to contradict what a lady hasdeclared.

SCAN.  Well, you own it?

TATT.  I am strangely surprised!  Yes, yes, Ican’t deny’t if she taxes me with it.

SCAN.  She’ll be here by and by, she sees Valentineevery morning.

TATT.  How?

VAL.  She does me the favour, I mean, of a visitsometimes.  I did not think she had granted more toanybody.

SCAN.  Nor I, faith.  But Tattle does not use tobely a lady; it is contrary to his character.  How one maybe deceived in a woman, Valentine?

TATT.  Nay, what do you mean, gentlemen?

SCAN.  I’m resolved I’ll ask her.

TATT.  O barbarous!  Why did you not tell me?

SCAN.  No; you told us.

TATT.  And bid me ask Valentine?

VAL.  What did I say?  I hope you won’t bringme to confess an answer when you never asked me the question?

TATT.  But, gentlemen, this is the most inhumanproceeding—

VAL.  Nay, if you have known Scandal thus long, andcannot avoid such a palpable decoy as this was, the ladies have afine time whose reputations are in your keeping.

SCENE XII.

[To them] Jeremy.

JERE.  Sir, Mrs. Frail has sent to know if you arestirring.

VAL.  Show her up when she comes.

SCENE XIII.

Valentine, Scandal, Tattle.

TATT.  I’ll be gone.

VAL.  You’ll meet her.

TATT.  Is there not a back way?

VAL.  If there were, you have more discretion than togive Scandal such an advantage.  Why, your running away willprove all that he can tell her.

TATT.  Scandal, you will not be so ungenerous.  Oh,I shall lose my reputation of secrecy for ever.  I shallnever be received but upon public days, and my visits will neverbe admitted beyond a drawing-room.  I shall never see abed-chamber again, never be locked in a closet, nor run behind ascreen, or under a table: never be distinguished among thewaiting-women by the name of trusty Mr. Tattle more.  Youwill not be so cruel?

VAL.  Scandal, have pity on him; he’ll yield to anyconditions.

TATT.  Any, any terms.

SCAN.  Come, then, sacrifice half a dozen women of goodreputation to me presently.  Come, where are youfamiliar?  And see that they are women of quality,too—the first quality.

TATT.  ’Tis very hard.  Won’t abaronet’s lady pass?

SCAN.  No, nothing under a right honourable.

TATT.  Oh, inhuman!  You don’t expect theirnames?

SCAN.  No, their titles shall serve.

TATT.  Alas, that’s the same thing.  Prayspare me their titles.  I’ll describe theirpersons.

SCAN.  Well, begin then; but take notice, if you are soill a painter that I cannot know the person by your picture ofher, you must be condemned, like other bad painters, to write thename at the bottom.

TATT.  Well, first then—

SCENE XIV.

[To them] Mrs. Frail.

TATT.  Oh, unfortunate!  She’s come already;will you have patience till another time?  I’ll doublethe number.

SCAN.  Well, on that condition.  Take heed youdon’t fail me.

MRS. FRAIL.  I shall get a fine reputation by coming tosee fellows in a morning.  Scandal, you devil, are you heretoo?  Oh, Mr. Tattle, everything is safe with you, weknow.

SCAN.  Tattle—

TATT.  Mum.  O madam, you do me too much honour.

VAL.  Well, Lady Galloper, how does Angelica?

MRS. FRAIL.  Angelica?  Manners!

VAL.  What, you will allow an absent lover—

MRS. FRAIL.  No, I’ll allow a lover present withhis mistress to be particular; but otherwise, I think his passionought to give place to his manners.

VAL.  But what if he has more passion than manners?

MRS. FRAIL.  Then let him marry and reform.

VAL.  Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of hispassion, but it very rarely mends a man’s manners.

MRS. FRAIL.  You are the most mistaken in the world;there is no creature perfectly civil but a husband.  For ina little time he grows only rude to his wife, and that is thehighest good breeding, for it begets his civility to otherpeople.  Well, I’ll tell you news; but I suppose youhear your brother Benjamin is landed?  And my brotherForesight’s daughter is come out of the country: I assureyou, there’s a match talked of by the old people. Well, if he be but as great a sea-beast as she is a land-monster,we shall have a most amphibious breed.  The progeny will beall otters.  He has been bred at sea, and she has never beenout of the country.

VAL.  Pox take ’em, their conjunction bodes me nogood, I’m sure.

MRS. FRAIL.  Now you talk of conjunction, my brotherForesight has cast both their nativities, and prognosticates anadmiral and an eminent justice of the peace to be the issue maleof their two bodies; ’tis the most superstitious oldfool!  He would have persuaded me that this was an unluckyday, and would not let me come abroad.  But I invented adream, and sent him to Artimedorus for interpretation, and sostole out to see you.  Well, and what will you give menow?  Come, I must have something.

VAL.  Step into the next room, and I’ll give yousomething.

SCAN.  Ay, we’ll all give you something.

MRS. FRAIL.  Well, what will you all give me?

VAL.  Mine’s a secret.

MRS. FRAIL.  I thought you would give me something thatwould be a trouble to you to keep.

VAL.  And Scandal shall give you a good name.

MRS. FRAIL.  That’s more than he has forhimself.  And what will you give me, Mr. Tattle?

TATT.  I?  My soul, madam.

MRS. FRAIL.  Pooh!  No, I thank you, I have enoughto do to take care of my own.  Well, but I’ll come andsee you one of these mornings.  I hear you have a great manypictures.

TATT.  I have a pretty good collection, at your service,some originals.

SCAN.  Hang him, he has nothing but the Seasons and theTwelve Cæsars—paltry copies—and the FiveSenses, as ill-represented as they are in himself, and he himselfis the only original you will see there.

MRS. FRAIL.  Ay, but I hear he has a closet ofbeauties.

SCAN.  Yes; all that have done him favours, if you willbelieve him.

MRS. FRAIL.  Ay, let me see those, Mr. Tattle.

TATT.  Oh, madam, those are sacred to love andcontemplation.  No man but the painter and myself was everblest with the sight.

MRS. FRAIL.  Well, but a woman—

TATT.  Nor woman, till she consented to have her picturethere too—for then she’s obliged to keep thesecret.

SCAN.  No, no; come to me if you’d seepictures.

MRS. FRAIL.  You?

SCAN.  Yes, faith; I can shew you your own picture, andmost of your acquaintance to the life, and as like as atKneller’s.

MRS. FRAIL.  O lying creature!  Valentine, does nothe lie?  I can’t believe a word he says.

VAL.  No indeed, he speaks truth now.  For as Tattlehas pictures of all that have granted him favours, he has thepictures of all that have refused him: if satires, descriptions,characters, and lampoons are pictures.

SCAN.  Yes; mine are most in black and white.  Andyet there are some set out in their true colours, both men andwomen.  I can shew you pride, folly, affectation,wantonness, inconstancy, covetousness, dissimulation, malice andignorance, all in one piece.  Then I can shew you lying,foppery, vanity, cowardice, bragging, lechery, impotence, andugliness in another piece; and yet one of these is a celebratedbeauty, and t’other a professed beau.  I havepaintings too, some pleasant enough.

MRS. FRAIL.  Come, let’s hear ’em.

SCAN.  Why, I have a beau in a bagnio, cupping fora complexion, and sweating for a shape.

MRS. FRAIL.  So.

SCAN.  Then I have a lady burning brandy in a cellar witha hackney coachman.

MRS. FRAIL.  O devil!  Well, but that story is nottrue.

SCAN.  I have some hieroglyphics too; I have a lawyerwith a hundred hands, two heads, and but one face; a divine withtwo faces, and one head; and I have a soldier with his brains inhis belly, and his heart where his head should be.

MRS. FRAIL.  And no head?

SCAN.  No head.

MRS. FRAIL.  Pooh, this is all invention.  Have younever a poet?

SCAN.  Yes, I have a poet weighing words, and sellingpraise for praise, and a critic picking his pocket.  I haveanother large piece too, representing a school, where there arehuge proportioned critics, with long wigs, laced coats, Steinkirkcravats, and terrible faces; with cat-calls in their hands, andhorn-books about their necks.  I have many more of thiskind, very well painted, as you shall see.

MRS. FRAIL.  Well, I’ll come, if it be but todisprove you.

SCENE XIV.

[To them] Jeremy.

JERE.  Sir, here’s the steward again from yourfather.

VAL.  I’ll come to him—will you give meleave?  I’ll wait on you again presently.

MRS. FRAIL.  No; I’ll be gone.  Come, whosquires me to the Exchange?  I must call my sister Foresightthere.

SCAN.  I will: I have a mind to your sister.

MRS. FRAIL.  Civil!

TATT.  I will: because I have a tendre for yourladyship.

MRS. FRAIL.  That’s somewhat the better reason, tomy opinion.

SCAN.  Well, if Tattle entertains you, I have the betteropportunity to engage your sister.

VAL.  Tell Angelica I am about making hard conditions tocome abroad, and be at liberty to see her.

SCAN.  I’ll give an account of you and yourproceedings.  If indiscretion be a sign of love, you are themost a lover of anybody that I know: you fancy that parting withyour estate will help you to your mistress.  In my mind heis a thoughtless adventurer

Who hopes to purchase wealth by sellingland;
Or win a mistress with a losing hand.

ACT II.—SCENE I.

A room inForesight’s house.

Foresight andServant.

FORE.  Hey day!  What, are all the women of myfamily abroad?  Is not my wife come home?  Nor mysister, nor my daughter?

SERV.  No, sir.

FORE.  Mercy on us, what can be the meaning of it? Sure the moon is in all her fortitudes.  Is my nieceAngelica at home?

SERV.  Yes, sir.

FORE.  I believe you lie, sir.

SERV.  Sir?

FORE.  I say you lie, sir.  It is impossible thatanything should be as I would have it; for I was born, sir, whenthe crab was ascending, and all my affairs go backward.

SERV.  I can’t tell indeed, sir.

FORE.  No, I know you can’t, sir: but I can tell,and foretell, sir.

SCENE II.

[To them] Nurse.

FORE.  Nurse, where’s your young mistress?

NURSE.   Wee’st heart, I know not,they’re none of ’em come home yet.  Poor child,I warrant she’s fond o’ seeing the town.  Marry,pray heaven they ha’ given her any dinner.  Goodlack-a-day, ha, ha, ha, Oh, strange!  I’ll vow andswear now, ha, ha, ha, marry, and did you ever see the like!

FORE.  Why, how now, what’s the matter?

NURSE.  Pray heaven send your worship good luck, marry,and amen with all my heart, for you have put on one stocking withthe wrong side outward.

FORE.  Ha, how?  Faith and troth I’m glad ofit; and so I have: that may be good luck in troth, in troth itmay, very good luck.  Nay, I have had some omens: I got outof bed backwards too this morning, without premeditation; prettygood that too; but then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met aweasel; bad omens those: some bad, some good, our lives arechequered.  Mirth and sorrow, want and plenty, night andday, make up our time.  But in troth I am pleased at mystocking; very well pleased at my stocking.  Oh,here’s my niece!  Sirrah, go tell Sir Sampson LegendI’ll wait on him if he’s at leisure:—’tisnow three o’clock, a very good hour for business: Mercurygoverns this hour.

SCENE III.

Angelica, Foresight, Nurse.

ANG.  Is it not a good hour for pleasure too,uncle?  Pray lend me your coach; mine’s out oforder.

FORE.  What, would you be gadding too?  Sure, allfemales are mad to-day.  It is of evil portent, and bodesmischief to the master of a family.  I remember an oldprophecy written by Messahalah the Arabian, and thus translatedby a reverend Buckinghamshire bard:—

‘When housewives all the houseforsake,
And leave goodman to brew and bake,
Withouten guile, then be it said,
That house doth stand upon its head;
And when the head is set in grond,
Ne marl, if it be fruitful fond.’

Fruitful, the head fruitful, that bodes horns; the fruit ofthe head is horns.  Dear niece, stay at home—for bythe head of the house is meant the husband; the prophecy needs noexplanation.

ANG.  Well, but I can neither make you a cuckold, uncle,by going abroad, nor secure you from being one by staying athome.

FORE.  Yes, yes; while there’s one woman left, theprophecy is not in full force.

ANG.  But my inclinations are in force; I have a mind togo abroad, and if you won’t lend me your coach, I’lltake a hackney or a chair, and leave you to erect a scheme, andfind who’s in conjunction with your wife.  Whydon’t you keep her at home, if you’re jealous of herwhen she’s abroad?  You know my aunt is a littleretrograde (as you call it) in her nature.  Uncle, I’mafraid you are not lord of the ascendant, ha, ha, ha!

FORE.  Well, Jill-flirt, you are very pert, and alwaysridiculing that celestial science.

ANG.  Nay, uncle, don’t be angry—if you are,I’ll reap up all your false prophecies, ridiculous dreams,and idle divinations.  I’ll swear you are a nuisanceto the neighbourhood.  What a bustle did you keep againstthe last invisible eclipse, laying in provision as ’twerefor a siege.  What a world of fire and candle, matches andtinder-boxes did you purchase!  One would have thought wewere ever after to live under ground, or at least making a voyageto Greenland, to inhabit there all the dark season.

FORE.  Why, you malapert slut—

ANG.  Will you lend me your coach, or I’ll goon—nay, I’ll declare how you prophesied popery wascoming only because the butler had mislaid some of the apostlespoons, and thought they were lost.  Away went religion andspoon-meat together.  Indeed, uncle, I’ll indite youfor a wizard.

FORE.  How, hussy!  Was there ever such a provokingminx?

NURSE.  O merciful father, how she talks!

ANG.  Yes, I can make oath of your unlawful midnightpractices, you and the old nurse there—

NURSE.  Marry, heaven defend!  I at midnightpractices?  O Lord, what’s here to do?  I inunlawful doings with my master’s worship—why, did youever hear the like now?  Sir, did ever I do anything of yourmidnight concerns but warm your bed, and tuck you up, and set thecandle and your tobacco-box and your urinal by you, and now andthen rub the soles of your feet?  O Lord, I!

ANG.  Yes, I saw you together through the key-hole of thecloset one night, like Saul and the witch of Endor, turning thesieve and shears, and pricking your thumbs, to write poorinnocent servants’ names in blood, about a little nutmeggrater which she had forgot in the caudle-cup.  Nay, I knowsomething worse, if I would speak of it.

FORE.  I defy you, hussy; but I’ll remember this,I’ll be revenged on you, cockatrice.  I’llhamper you.  You have your fortune in your own hands, butI’ll find a way to make your lover, your prodigalspendthrift gallant, Valentine, pay for all, I will.

ANG.  Will you?  I care not, but all shall outthen.  Look to it, nurse: I can bring witness that you havea great unnatural teat under your left arm, and he another; andthat you suckle a young devil in the shape of a tabby-cat, byturns, I can.

NURSE.  A teat, a teat—I an unnatural teat! Oh, the false, slanderous thing; feel, feel here, if I haveanything but like another Christian.  [Crying.]

FORE.  I will have patience, since it is the will of thestars I should be thus tormented.  This is the effect of themalicious conjunctions and oppositions in the third house of mynativity; there the curse of kindred was foretold.  But Iwill have my doors locked up;—I’ll punish you: not aman shall enter my house.

ANG.  Do, uncle, lock ’em up quickly before my auntcome home.  You’ll have a letter for alimony to-morrowmorning.  But let me be gone first, and then let no mankindcome near the house, but converse with spirits and the celestialsigns, the bull and the ram and the goat.  Bless me! There are a great many horned beasts among the twelve signs,uncle.  But cuckolds go to heaven.

FORE.  But there’s but one virgin among the twelvesigns, spitfire, but one virgin.

ANG.  Nor there had not been that one, if she had had todo with anything but astrologers, uncle.  That makes my auntgo abroad.

FORE.  How, how?  Is that the reason?  Come,you know something; tell me and I’ll forgive you.  Do,good niece.  Come, you shall have my coach andhorses—faith and troth you shall.  Does my wifecomplain?  Come, I know women tell one another.  She isyoung and sanguine, has a wanton hazel eye, and was born underGemini, which may incline her to society.  She has a moleupon her lip, with a moist palm, and an open liberality on themount of Venus.

ANG.  Ha, ha, ha!

FORE.  Do you laugh?  Well, gentlewoman,I’ll—but come, be a good girl, don’t perplexyour poor uncle, tell me—won’t you speak?  Odd,I’ll—

SCENE IV.

[To them] Servant.

SERV.  Sir Sampson is coming down to wait upon you.

ANG.  Good-bye, uncle—call me a chair. I’ll find out my aunt, and tell her she must not comehome.

FORE.  I’m so perplexed and vexed, I’m notfit to receive him; I shall scarce recover myself before the hourbe past.  Go nurse, tell Sir Sampson I’m ready to waiton him.

NURSE.  Yes, sir,

FORE.  Well—why, if I was born to be a cuckold,there’s no more to be said—he’s herealready.

SCENE V.

Foresight, andSir Sampson Legend with a paper.

SIR SAMP.  Nor no more to be done, old boy; that’splain—here ’tis, I have it in my hand, old Ptolomey,I’ll make the ungracious prodigal know who begat him; Iwill, old Nostrodamus.  What, I warrant my son thoughtnothing belonged to a father but forgiveness and affection; noauthority, no correction, no arbitrary power; nothing to be done,but for him to offend and me to pardon.  I warrant you, ifhe danced till doomsday he thought I was to pay the piper. Well, but here it is under black and white, signatum,sigillatum, and deliberatum; that as soon as my sonBenjamin is arrived, he’s to make over to him his right ofinheritance.  Where’s my daughter that is tobe?—Hah! old Merlin! body o’ me, I’m so gladI’m revenged on this undutiful rogue.

FORE.  Odso, let me see; let me see the paper.  Ay,faith and troth, here ’tis, if it will but hold.  Iwish things were done, and the conveyance made.  When wasthis signed, what hour?  Odso, you should have consulted mefor the time.  Well, but we’ll make haste—

SIR SAMP.  Haste, ay, ay; haste enough.  My son Benwill be in town to-night.  I have ordered my lawyer to drawup writings of settlement and jointure—all shall be doneto-night.  No matter for the time; prithee, brotherForesight, leave superstition.  Pox o’ the time;there’s no time but the time present, there’s no moreto be said of what’s past, and all that is to come willhappen.  If the sun shine by day, and the stars by night,why, we shall know one another’s faces without the help ofa candle, and that’s all the stars are good for.

FORE.  How, how?  Sir Sampson, that all?  Giveme leave to contradict you, and tell you you are ignorant.

SIR SAMP.  I tell you I am wise; and sapiensdominabitur astris; there’s Latin for you to prove it,and an argument to confound your Ephemeris.—Ignorant! I tell you, I have travelled old Fircu, and know the globe. I have seen the antipodes, where the sun rises at midnight, andsets at noon-day.

FORE.  But I tell you, I have travelled, and travelled inthe celestial spheres, know the signs and the planets, and theirhouses.  Can judge of motions direct and retrograde, ofsextiles, quadrates, trines and oppositions, fiery-trigons andaquatical-trigons.  Know whether life shall be long orshort, happy or unhappy, whether diseases are curable orincurable.  If journeys shall be prosperous, undertakingssuccessful, or goods stolen recovered; I know—

SIR SAMP.  I know the length of the Emperor ofChina’s foot; have kissed the Great Mogul’s slippers,and rid a-hunting upon an elephant with a Cham of Tartary. Body o’ me, I have made a cuckold of a king, and thepresent majesty of Bantam is the issue of these loins.

FORE.  I know when travellers lie or speak truth, whenthey don’t know it themselves.

SIR SAMP.  I have known an astrologer made a cuckold inthe twinkling of a star; and seen a conjurer that could not keepthe devil out of his wife’s circle.

FORE.  What, does he twit me with my wife too?  Imust be better informed of this.  [Aside.]  Doyou mean my wife, Sir Sampson?  Though you made a cuckold ofthe king of Bantam, yet by the body of the sun—

SIR SAMP.  By the horns of the moon, you would say,brother Capricorn.

FORE.  Capricorn in your teeth, thou modern Mandeville;Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of thefirst magnitude.  Take back your paper of inheritance; sendyour son to sea again.  I’ll wed my daughter to anEgyptian mummy, e’er she shall incorporate with a contemnerof sciences, and a defamer of virtue.

SIR SAMP.  Body o’ me, I have gone too far; I mustnot provoke honest Albumazar:—an Egyptian mummy is anillustrious creature, my trusty hieroglyphic; and may havesignifications of futurity about him; odsbud, I would my son werean Egyptian mummy for thy sake.  What, thou art not angryfor a jest, my good Haly?  I reverence the sun, moon andstars with all my heart.  What, I’ll make thee apresent of a mummy: now I think on’t, body o’ me, Ihave a shoulder of an Egyptian king that I purloined from one ofthe pyramids, powdered with hieroglyphics, thou shalt have itbrought home to thy house, and make an entertainment for all thephilomaths, and students in physic and astrology in and aboutLondon.

FORE.  But what do you know of my wife, Sir Sampson?

SIR SAMP.  Thy wife is a constellation of virtues;she’s the moon, and thou art the man in the moon. Nay, she is more illustrious than the moon; for she has herchastity without her inconstancy: ’sbud I was but injest.

SCENE VI.

[To them] Jeremy.

SIR SAMP.  How now, who sent for you?  Ha! What would you have?

FORE.  Nay, if you were but in jest—who’sthat fellow?  I don’t like his physiognomy.

SIR SAMP.  My son, sir; what son, sir?  My sonBenjamin, hoh?

JERE.  No, sir, Mr. Valentine, my master; ’tis thefirst time he has been abroad since his confinement, and he comesto pay his duty to you.

SIR SAMP.  Well, sir.

SCENE VII.

Foresight, SirSampson, Valentine, Jeremy.

JERE.  He is here, sir.

VAL.  Your blessing, sir.

SIR SAMP.  You’ve had it already, sir; I think Isent it you to-day in a bill of four thousand pound: a great dealof money, brother Foresight.

FORE.  Ay, indeed, Sir Sampson, a great deal of money fora young man; I wonder what he can do with it!

SIR SAMP.  Body o’ me, so do I.  Hark ye,Valentine, if there be too much, refund the superfluity; dosthear, boy?

VAL.  Superfluity, sir?  It will scarce pay mydebts.  I hope you will have more indulgence than to obligeme to those hard conditions which my necessity signed to.

SIR SAMP.  Sir, how, I beseech you, what were you pleasedto intimate, concerning indulgence?

VAL.  Why, sir, that you would not go to the extremity ofthe conditions, but release me at least from some part.

SIR SAMP.  Oh, sir, I understand you—that’sall, ha?

VAL.  Yes, sir, all that I presume to ask.  But whatyou, out of fatherly fondness, will be pleased to add, shall bedoubly welcome.

SIR SAMP.  No doubt of it, sweet sir; but your filialpiety, and my fatherly fondness would fit like two tallies. Here’s a rogue, brother Foresight, makes a bargain underhand and seal in the morning, and would be released from it inthe afternoon; here’s a rogue, dog, here’s conscienceand honesty; this is your wit now, this is the morality of yourwits!  You are a wit, and have been a beau, and may bea—why sirrah, is it not here under hand and seal—canyou deny it?

VAL.  Sir, I don’t deny it.

SIR SAMP.  Sirrah, you’ll be hanged; I shall liveto see you go up Holborn Hill.  Has he not a rogue’sface?  Speak brother, you understand physiognomy, a hanginglook to me—of all my boys the most unlike me; he has adamned Tyburn face, without the benefit o’ the clergy.

FORE.  Hum—truly I don’t care to discourage ayoung man,—he has a violent death in his face; but I hopeno danger of hanging.

VAL.  Sir, is this usage for your son?—For that oldweather-headed fool, I know how to laugh at him; but you,sir—

SIR SAMP.  You, sir; and you, sir: why, who are you,sir?

VAL.  Your son, sir.

SIR SAMP.  That’s more than I know, sir, and Ibelieve not.

VAL.  Faith, I hope not.

SIR SAMP.  What, would you have your mother awhore?  Did you ever hear the like?  Did you ever hearthe like?  Body o’ me—

VAL.  I would have an excuse for your barbarity andunnatural usage.

SIR SAMP.  Excuse!  Impudence!  Why, sirrah,mayn’t I do what I please?  Are not you myslave?  Did not I beget you?  And might not I havechosen whether I would have begot you or no?  ’Oons,who are you?  Whence came you?  What brought you intothe world?  How came you here, sir?  Here, to standhere, upon those two legs, and look erect with that audaciousface, ha?  Answer me that!  Did you come a volunteerinto the world?  Or did I, with the lawful authority of aparent, press you to the service?

VAL.  I know no more why I came than you do why youcalled me.  But here I am, and if you don’t mean toprovide for me, I desire you would leave me as you found me.

SIR SAMP.  With all my heart: come, uncase, strip, and gonaked out of the world as you came into ’t.

VAL.  My clothes are soon put off.  But you mustalso divest me of reason, thought, passions, inclinations,affections, appetites, senses, and the huge train of attendantsthat you begot along with me.

SIR SAMP.  Body o’ me, what a manyheaded monsterhave I propagated!

VAL.  I am of myself, a plain, easy, simple creature, andto be kept at small expense; but the retinue that you gave me arecraving and invincible; they are so many devils that you haveraised, and will have employment.

SIR SAMP.  ’Oons, what had I to do to getchildren,—can’t a private man be born without allthese followers?  Why, nothing under an emperor should beborn with appetites.  Why, at this rate, a fellow that hasbut a groat in his pocket may have a stomach capable of a tenshilling ordinary.

JERE.  Nay, that’s as clear as the sun; I’llmake oath of it before any justice in Middlesex.

SIR SAMP.  Here’s a cormorant too. ’S’heart this fellow was not born with you?  Idid not beget him, did I?

JERE.  By the provision that’s made for me, youmight have begot me too.  Nay, and to tell your worshipanother truth, I believe you did, for I find I was born withthose same whoreson appetites too, that my master speaks of.

SIR SAMP.  Why, look you there, now.  I’llmaintain it, that by the rule of right reason, this fellow oughtto have been born without a palate.  ’S’heart,what should he do with a distinguishing taste?  I warrantnow he’d rather eat a pheasant, than a piece of poor John;and smell, now, why I warrant he can smell, and loves perfumesabove a stink.  Why there’s it; and music, don’tyou love music, scoundrel?

JERE.  Yes; I have a reasonable good ear, sir, as to jigsand country dances, and the like; I don’t much matter yoursolos or sonatas, they give me the spleen.

SIR SAMP.  The spleen, ha, ha, ha; a pox confoundyou—solos or sonatas?  ’Oons, whose son areyou?  How were you engendered, muckworm?

JERE.  I am by my father, the son of a chair-man; mymother sold oysters in winter, and cucumbers in summer; and Icame upstairs into the world; for I was born in a cellar.

FORE.  By your looks, you should go upstairs out of theworld too, friend.

SIR SAMP.  And if this rogue were anatomized now, anddissected, he has his vessels of digestion and concoction, and soforth, large enough for the inside of a cardinal, this son of acucumber.—These things are unaccountable andunreasonable.  Body o’ me, why was not I a bear, thatmy cubs might have lived upon sucking their paws?  Naturehas been provident only to bears and spiders; the one has itsnutriment in his own hands; and t’other spins hishabitation out of his own entrails.

VAL.  Fortune was provident enough to supply all thenecessities of my nature, if I had my right of inheritance.

SIR SAMP.  Again!  ’Oons, han’t you fourthousand pounds?  If I had it again, I would not give thee agroat.—What, would’st thou have me turn pelican, andfeed thee out of my own vitals?  S’heart, live by yourwits: you were always fond of the wits, now let’s see, ifyou have wit enough to keep yourself.  Your brother will bein town to-night or to-morrow morning, and then look you performcovenants, and so your friend and servant:—come, brotherForesight.

SCENE VIII.

Valentine, Jeremy.

JERE.  I told you what your visit would come to.

VAL.  ’Tis as much as I expected.  I did notcome to see him, I came to see Angelica: but since she was goneabroad, it was easily turned another way, and at least lookedwell on my side.  What’s here?  Mrs. Foresightand Mrs. Frail, they are earnest.  I’ll avoid’em.  Come this way, and go and enquire when Angelicawill return.

SCENE IX.

Mrs.Foresight andMrs.Frail.

MRS. FRAIL.  What have you to do to watch me? ’S’life I’ll do what I please.

MRS. FORE.  You will?

MRS. FRAIL.  Yes, marry will I.  A great piece ofbusiness to go to Covent Garden Square in a hackney coach, andtake a turn with one’s friend.

MRS. FORE.  Nay, two or three turns, I’ll take myoath.

MRS. FRAIL.  Well, what if I took twenty—I warrantif you had been there, it had been only innocentrecreation.  Lord, where’s the comfort of this life ifwe can’t have the happiness of conversing where welike?

MRS. FORE.  But can’t you converse at home?  Iown it, I think there’s no happiness like conversing withan agreeable man; I don’t quarrel at that, nor Idon’t think but your conversation was very innocent; butthe place is public, and to be seen with a man in a hackney coachis scandalous.  What if anybody else should have seen youalight, as I did?  How can anybody be happy whilethey’re in perpetual fear of being seen and censured? Besides, it would not only reflect upon you, sister, but me.

MRS. FRAIL.  Pooh, here’s a clutter: why should itreflect upon you?  I don’t doubt but you have thoughtyourself happy in a hackney coach before now.  If I had goneto Knight’s Bridge, or to Chelsea, or to Spring Garden, orBarn Elms with a man alone, something might have been said.

MRS. FORE.  Why, was I ever in any of those places? What do you mean, sister?

MRS. FRAIL.  Was I?  What do you mean?

MRS. FORE.  You have been at a worse place.

MRS. FRAIL.  I at a worse place, and with a man!

MRS. FORE.  I suppose you would not go alone to theWorld’s End.

MRS. FRAIL.  The World’s End!  What, do youmean to banter me?

MRS. FORE.  Poor innocent!  You don’t knowthat there’s a place called the World’s End? I’ll swear you can keep your countenance purely:you’d make an admirable player.

MRS. FRAIL.  I’ll swear you have a great deal ofconfidence, and in my mind too much for the stage.

MRS. FORE.  Very well, that will appear who has most; younever were at the World’s End?

MRS. FRAIL.  No.

MRS. FORE.  You deny it positively to my face?

MRS. FRAIL.  Your face, what’s your face?

MRS. FORE.  No matter for that, it’s as good a faceas yours.

MRS. FRAIL.  Not by a dozen years’ wearing. But I do deny it positively to your face, then.

MRS. FORE.  I’ll allow you now to find fault withmy face; for I’ll swear your impudence has put me out ofcountenance.  But look you here now, where did you lose thisgold bodkin?  Oh, sister, sister!

MRS. FRAIL.  My bodkin!

MRS. FORE.  Nay, ’tis yours, look at it.

MRS. FRAIL.  Well, if you go to that, where did you findthis bodkin?  Oh, sister, sister!  Sister everyway.

MRS. FORE.  Oh, devil on’t, that I could notdiscover her without betraying myself.  [Aside.]

MRS. FRAIL.  I have heard gentlemen say, sister, that oneshould take great care, when one makes a thrust in fencing, notto lie open oneself.

MRS. FORE.  It’s very true, sister.  Well,since all’s out, and as you say, since we are both wounded,let us do what is often done in duels, take care of one another,and grow better friends than before.

MRS. FRAIL.  With all my heart: ours are but slight fleshwounds, and if we keep ’em from air, not at alldangerous.  Well, give me your hand in token of sisterlysecrecy and affection.

MRS. FORE.  Here ’tis, with all my heart.

MRS. FRAIL.  Well, as an earnest of friendship andconfidence, I’ll acquaint you with a design that Ihave.  To tell truth, and speak openly one to another,I’m afraid the world have observed us more than we haveobserved one another.  You have a rich husband, and areprovided for.  I am at a loss, and have no great stockeither of fortune or reputation, and therefore must look sharplyabout me.  Sir Sampson has a son that is expected to-night,and by the account I have heard of his education, can be noconjurer.  The estate you know is to be made over tohim.  Now if I could wheedle him, sister, ha?  Youunderstand me?

MRS. FORE.  I do, and will help you to the utmost of mypower.  And I can tell you one thing that falls out luckilyenough; my awkward daughter-in-law, who you know is designed tobe his wife, is grown fond of Mr. Tattle; now if we can improvethat, and make her have an aversion for the booby, it may go agreat way towards his liking you.  Here they come together;and let us contrive some way or other to leave ’emtogether.

SCENE X.

[To them] Tattle andMissPrue.

MISS.  Mother, mother, mother, look you here!

MRS. FORE.  Fie, fie, Miss, how you bawl!  Besides,I have told you, you must not call me mother.

MISS.  What must I call you then, are you not myfather’s wife?

MRS. FORE.  Madam; you must say madam.  By my soul,I shall fancy myself old indeed to have this great girl call memother.  Well, but Miss, what are you so overjoyed at?

MISS.  Look you here, madam, then, what Mr. Tattle hasgiven me.  Look you here, cousin, here’s a snuff-box;nay, there’s snuff in’t.  Here, will you haveany?  Oh, good!  How sweet it is.  Mr. Tattle isall over sweet, his peruke is sweet, and his gloves are sweet,and his handkerchief is sweet, pure sweet, sweeter thanroses.  Smell him, mother—madam, I mean.  He gaveme this ring for a kiss.

TATT.  O fie, Miss, you must not kiss and tell.

MISS.  Yes; I may tell my mother.  And he sayshe’ll give me something to make me smell so.  Oh, praylend me your handkerchief.  Smell, cousin; he sayshe’ll give me something that will make my smocks smell thisway.  Is not it pure?  It’s better than lavender,mun.  I’m resolved I won’t let nurse put anymore lavender among my smocks—ha, cousin?

MRS. FRAIL.  Fie, Miss; amongst your linen, you mustsay.  You must never say smock.

MISS.  Why, it is not bawdy, is it, cousin?

TATT.  Oh, madam; you are too severe upon Miss; you mustnot find fault with her pretty simplicity: it becomes herstrangely.  Pretty Miss, don’t let ’em persuadeyou out of your innocency.

MRS. FORE.  Oh, demm you toad.  I wish youdon’t persuade her out of her innocency.

TATT.  Who, I, madam?  O Lord, how can your ladyshiphave such a thought?  Sure, you don’t know me.

MRS. FRAIL.  Ah devil, sly devil.  He’s asclose, sister, as a confessor.  He thinks we don’tobserve him.

MRS. FORE.  A cunning cur, how soon he could find out afresh, harmless creature; and left us, sister, presently.

TATT.  Upon reputation

MRS. FORE.  They’re all so, sister, thesemen.  They love to have the spoiling of a young thing, theyare as fond of it, as of being first in the fashion, or of seeinga new play the first day.  I warrant it would break Mr.Tattle’s heart to think that anybody else should bebeforehand with him.

TATT.  O Lord, I swear I would not for theworld—

MRS. FRAIL.  O hang you; who’ll believe you? You’d be hanged before you’d confess.  We knowyou—she’s very pretty!  Lord, what pure red andwhite!—she looks so wholesome; ne’er stir: Idon’t know, but I fancy, if I were a man—

MISS.  How you love to jeer one, cousin.

MRS. FORE.  Hark’ee, sister, by my soul the girl isspoiled already.  D’ee think she’ll ever endurea great lubberly tarpaulin?  Gad, I warrant you shewon’t let him come near her after Mr. Tattle.

MRS. FRAIL.  O my soul, I’m afraidnot—eh!—filthy creature, that smells all of pitch andtar.  Devil take you, you confounded toad—why did yousee her before she was married?

MRS. FORE.  Nay, why did we let him—my husband willhang us.  He’ll think we brought ’emacquainted.

MRS. FRAIL.  Come, faith, let us be gone.  If mybrother Foresight should find us with them, he’d think so,sure enough.

MRS. FORE.  So he would—but then leaving themtogether is as bad: and he’s such a sly devil, he’llnever miss an opportunity.

MRS. FRAIL.  I don’t care; I won’t be seenin’t.

MRS. FORE.  Well, if you should, Mr. Tattle, you’llhave a world to answer for; remember I wash my hands of it. I’m thoroughly innocent.

SCENE XI.

Tattle,Miss Prue.

MISS.  What makes ’em go away, Mr. Tattle? What do they mean, do you know?

TATT.  Yes my dear; I think I can guess, but hang me if Iknow the reason of it.

MISS.  Come, must not we go too?

TATT.  No, no, they don’t mean that.

MISS.  No!  What then?  What shall you and I dotogether?

TATT.  I must make love to you, pretty Miss; will you letme make love to you?

MISS.  Yes, if you please.

TATT.  Frank, i’Gad, at least.  What a poxdoes Mrs. Foresight mean by this civility?  Is it to make afool of me?  Or does she leave us together out of goodmorality, and do as she would be done by?—Gad, I’llunderstand it so.  [Aside.]

MISS.  Well; and how will you make love to me—come,I long to have you begin,—must I make love too?  Youmust tell me how.

TATT.  You must let me speak, Miss, you must not speakfirst; I must ask you questions, and you must answer.

MISS.  What, is it like the catechism?  Come then,ask me.

TATT.  D’ye think you can love me?

MISS.  Yes.

TATT.  Pooh, pox, you must not say yes already; Ishan’t care a farthing for you then in a twinkling.

MISS.  What must I say then?

TATT.  Why you must say no, or you believe not, or youcan’t tell—

MISS.  Why, must I tell a lie then?

TATT.  Yes, if you’d be well bred.  All wellbred persons lie.—Besides, you are a woman, you must neverspeak what you think: your words must contradict your thoughts;but your actions may contradict your words.  So when I askyou if you can love me, you must say no, but you must love metoo.  If I tell you you are handsome, you must deny it, andsay I flatter you.  But you must think yourself morecharming than I speak you: and like me, for the beauty which Isay you have, as much as if I had it myself.  If I ask youto kiss me, you must be angry, but you must not refuse me. If I ask you for more, you must be more angry,—but morecomplying; and as soon as ever I make you say you’ll cryout, you must be sure to hold your tongue.

MISS.  O Lord, I swear this is pure.  I like itbetter than our old-fashioned country way of speaking one’smind;—and must not you lie too?

TATT.  Hum—yes—but you must believe I speaktruth.

MISS.  O Gemini!  Well, I always had a great mind totell lies; but they frighted me, and said it was a sin.

TATT.  Well, my pretty creature; will you make me happyby giving me a kiss?

MISS.  No, indeed; I’m angry at you.  [Runsand kisses him.]

TATT.  Hold, hold, that’s pretty well, but youshould not have given it me, but have suffered me to have takenit.

MISS.  Well, we’ll do it again.

TATT.  With all my heart.—Now then, my littleangel.  [Kisses her.]

MISS.  Pish.

TATT.  That’s right,—again, my charmer. [Kisses again.]

MISS.  O fie, nay, now I can’t abide you.

TATT.  Admirable!  That was as well as if you hadbeen born and bred in Covent Garden.  And won’t youshew me, pretty miss, where your bed-chamber is?

MISS.  No, indeed won’t I; but I’ll runthere, and hide myself from you behind the curtains.

TATT.  I’ll follow you.

MISS.  Ah, but I’ll hold the door with both hands,and be angry;—and you shall push me down before you comein.

TATT.  No, I’ll come in first, and push you downafterwards.

MISS.  Will you?  Then I’ll be more angry andmore complying.

TATT.  Then I’ll make you cry out.

MISS.  Oh, but you shan’t, for I’ll hold mytongue.

TATT.  O my dear apt scholar!

MISS.  Well, now I’ll run and make more haste thanyou.

TATT.  You shall not fly so fast, as I’llpursue.

ACT III.—SCENE I.

Nursealone.

NURSE.  Miss, Miss, Miss Prue!  Mercy on me, marryand amen.  Why, what’s become of the child?  WhyMiss, Miss Foresight!  Sure she has locked herself up in herchamber, and gone to sleep, or to prayers: Miss, Miss,—Ihear her.—Come to your father, child; open the door. Open the door, Miss.  I hear you cry husht.  O Lord,who’s there? [peeps]  What’s here todo?  O the Father!  A man with her!  Why, miss, Isay; God’s my life, here’s fine doingstowards—O Lord, we’re all undone.  O you youngharlotry [knocks].  Od’s my life, won’tyou open the door?  I’ll come in the back way.

SCENE II.

Tattle,Miss Prue.

MISS.  O Lord, she’s coming, and she’ll tellmy father; what shall I do now?

TATT.  Pox take her; if she had stayed two minuteslonger, I should have wished for her coming.

MISS.  O dear, what shall I say?  Tell me, Mr.Tattle, tell me a lie.

TATT.  There’s no occasion for a lie; I could nevertell a lie to no purpose.  But since we have done nothing,we must say nothing, I think.  I hear her,—I’llleave you together, and come off as you can.  [Thrustsher in, and shuts the door.]

SCENE III.

Tattle,Valentine, Scandal, Angelica.

ANG.  You can’t accuse me of inconstancy; I nevertold you that I loved you.

VAL.  But I can accuse you of uncertainty, for nottelling me whether you did or not.

ANG.  You mistake indifference for uncertainty; I neverhad concern enough to ask myself the question.

SCAN.  Nor good-nature enough to answer him that did askyou; I’ll say that for you, madam.

ANG.  What, are you setting up for good-nature?

SCAN.  Only for the affectation of it, as the women dofor ill-nature.

ANG.  Persuade your friend that it is allaffectation.

SCAN.  I shall receive no benefit from the opinion; for Iknow no effectual difference between continued affectation andreality.

TATT.  [coming up].   Scandal, are youin private discourse?  Anything of secrecy?  [AsidetoScandal.]

SCAN.  Yes, but I dare trust you; we were talking ofAngelica’s love to Valentine.  You won’t speakof it.

TATT.  No, no, not a syllable.  I know that’sa secret, for it’s whispered everywhere.

SCAN.  Ha, ha, ha!

ANG.  What is, Mr. Tattle?  I heard you saysomething was whispered everywhere.

SCAN.  Your love of Valentine.

ANG.  How!

TATT.  No, madam, his love for your ladyship.  Gadtake me, I beg your pardon,—for I never heard a word ofyour ladyship’s passion till this instant.

ANG.  My passion!  And who told you of my passion,pray sir?

SCAN.  Why, is the devil in you?  Did not I tell ityou for a secret?

TATT.  Gadso; but I thought she might have been trustedwith her own affairs.

SCAN.  Is that your discretion?  Trust a woman withherself?

TATT.  You say true, I beg your pardon.  I’llbring all off.  It was impossible, madam, for me to imaginethat a person of your ladyship’s wit and gallantry couldhave so long received the passionate addresses of theaccomplished Valentine, and yet remain insensible; therefore youwill pardon me, if, from a just weight of his merit, with yourladyship’s good judgment, I formed the balance of areciprocal affection.

VAL.  O the devil, what damned costive poet has giventhee this lesson of fustian to get by rote?

ANG.  I dare swear you wrong him, it is his own. And Mr. Tattle only judges of the success of others, from theeffects of his own merit.  For certainly Mr. Tattle wasnever denied anything in his life.

TATT.  O Lord!  Yes, indeed, madam, severaltimes.

ANG.  I swear I don’t think ’tispossible.

TATT.  Yes, I vow and swear I have; Lord, madam,I’m the most unfortunate man in the world, and the mostcruelly used by the ladies.

ANG.  Nay, now you’re ungrateful.

TATT.  No, I hope not, ’tis as much ingratitude toown some favours as to conceal others.

VAL.  There, now it’s out.

ANG.  I don’t understand you now.  I thoughtyou had never asked anything but what a lady might modestlygrant, and you confess.

SCAN.  So faith, your business is done here; now you maygo brag somewhere else.

TATT.  Brag!  O heavens!  Why, did I nameanybody?

ANG.  No; I suppose that is not in your power; but youwould if you could, no doubt on’t.

TATT.  Not in my power, madam!  What, does yourladyship mean that I have no woman’s reputation in mypower?

SCAN.  ’Oons, why, you won’t own it, willyou?  [Aside.]

TATT.  Faith, madam, you’re in the right; no more Ihave, as I hope to be saved; I never had it in my power to sayanything to a lady’s prejudice in my life.  For as Iwas telling you, madam, I have been the most unsuccessfulcreature living, in things of that nature; and never had the goodfortune to be trusted once with a lady’s secret, notonce.

ANG.  No?

VAL.  Not once, I dare answer for him.

SCAN.  And I’ll answer for him; for I’m sureif he had, he would have told me; I find, madam, you don’tknow Mr. Tattle.

TATT.  No indeed, madam, you don’t know me at all,I find.  For sure my intimate friends would haveknown—

ANG.  Then it seems you would have told, if you had beentrusted.

TATT.  O pox, Scandal, that was too far put.  Neverhave told particulars, madam.  Perhaps I might have talkedas of a third person; or have introduced an amour of my own, inconversation, by way of novel; but never have explainedparticulars.

ANG.  But whence comes the reputation of Mr.Tattle’s secrecy, if he was never trusted?

SCAN.  Why, thence it arises—the thing isproverbially spoken; but may be applied to him—as if weshould say in general terms, he only is secret who never wastrusted; a satirical proverb upon our sex.  There’sanother upon yours—as she is chaste, who was never askedthe question.  That’s all.

VAL.  A couple of very civil proverbs, truly. ’Tis hard to tell whether the lady or Mr. Tattle be themore obliged to you.  For you found her virtue upon thebackwardness of the men; and his secrecy upon the mistrust of thewomen.

TATT.  Gad, it’s very true, madam, I think we areobliged to acquit ourselves.  And for my part—but yourladyship is to speak first.

ANG.  Am I?  Well, I freely confess I have resisteda great deal of temptation.

TATT.  And i’Gad, I have given some temptation thathas not been resisted.

VAL.  Good.

ANG.  I cite Valentine here, to declare to the court, howfruitless he has found his endeavours, and to confess all hissolicitations and my denials.

VAL.  I am ready to plead not guilty for you; and guiltyfor myself.

SCAN.  So, why this is fair, here’s demonstrationwith a witness.

TATT.  Well, my witnesses are not present.  But Iconfess I have had favours from persons.  But as the favoursare numberless, so the persons are nameless.

SCAN.  Pooh, this proves nothing.

TATT.  No?  I can show letters, lockets, pictures,and rings; and if there be occasion for witnesses, I can summonthe maids at the chocolate-houses, all the porters at Pall Malland Covent Garden, the door-keepers at the Playhouse, the drawersat Locket’s, Pontack’s, the Rummer, Spring Garden, myown landlady and valet de chambre; all who shall make oaththat I receive more letters than the Secretary’s office,and that I have more vizor-masks to enquire for me, than everwent to see the Hermaphrodite, or the Naked Prince.  And itis notorious that in a country church once, an enquiry being madewho I was, it was answered, I was the famous Tattle, who hadruined so many women.

VAL.  It was there, I suppose, you got the nickname ofthe Great Turk.

TATT.  True; I was called Turk-Tattle all over theparish.  The next Sunday all the old women kept theirdaughters at home, and the parson had not half hiscongregation.  He would have brought me into the spiritualcourt, but I was revenged upon him, for he had a handsomedaughter whom I initiated into the science.  But I repentedit afterwards, for it was talked of in town.  And a lady ofquality that shall be nameless, in a raging fit of jealousy, camedown in her coach and six horses, and exposed herself upon myaccount; Gad, I was sorry for it with all my heart.  Youknow whom I mean—you know where we raffled—

SCAN.  Mum, Tattle.

VAL.  ’Sdeath, are not you ashamed?

ANG.  O barbarous!  I never heard so insolent apiece of vanity.  Fie, Mr. Tattle; I’ll swear I couldnot have believed it.  Is this your secrecy?

TATT.  Gadso, the heat of my story carried me beyond mydiscretion, as the heat of the lady’s passion hurried herbeyond her reputation.  But I hope you don’t know whomI mean; for there was a great many ladies raffled.  Poxon’t, now could I bite off my tongue.

SCAN.  No, don’t; for then you’ll tell us nomore.  Come, I’ll recommend a song to you upon thehint of my two proverbs, and I see one in the next room that willsing it.  [Goes to the door.]

TATT.  For heaven’s sake, if you do guess, saynothing; Gad, I’m very unfortunate.

SCAN.  Pray sing the first song in the last new play.

SONG.
Set by Mr. John Eccles.

I.

A nymph and a swain to Apollo once prayed,
The swain had been jilted, the nymph been betrayed:
Their intent was to try if his oracle knew
E’er a nymph that was chaste, or a swain that was true.

II.

Apollo was mute, and had like t’have beenposed,
But sagely at length he this secret disclosed:
He alone won’t betray in whom none will confide,
And the nymph may be chaste that has never been tried.

SCENE IV.

[To them] Sir Sampson, Mrs.Frail, Miss Prue, andServant.

SIR SAMP.  Is Ben come?  Odso, my son Bencome?  Odd, I’m glad on’t.  Where ishe?  I long to see him.  Now, Mrs. Frail, you shall seemy son Ben.  Body o’ me, he’s the hopes of myfamily.  I han’t seen him these three years—Iwarrant he’s grown.  Call him in, bid him makehaste.  I’m ready to cry for joy.

MRS. FRAIL.  Now Miss, you shall see your husband.

MISS.  Pish, he shall be none of my husband. [Aside to Frail.]

MRS. FRAIL.  Hush.  Well he shan’t; leave thatto me.  I’ll beckon Mr. Tattle to us.

ANG.  Won’t you stay and see your brother?

VAL.  We are the twin stars, and cannot shine in onesphere; when he rises I must set.  Besides, if I shouldstay, I don’t know but my father in good nature may pressme to the immediate signing the deed of conveyance of my estate;and I’ll defer it as long as I can.  Well,you’ll come to a resolution.

ANG.  I can’t.  Resolution must come to me, orI shall never have one.

SCAN.  Come, Valentine, I’ll go with you;I’ve something in my head to communicate to you.

SCENE V.

Angelica, SirSampson, Tattle, Mrs. Frail, MissPrue.

SIR SAMP.  What, is my son Valentine gone?  What, ishe sneaked off, and would not see his brother? There’s an unnatural whelp!  There’s anill-natured dog!  What, were you here too, madam, and couldnot keep him?  Could neither love, nor duty, nor naturalaffection oblige him?  Odsbud, madam, have no more to say tohim, he is not worth your consideration.  The rogue has nota drachm of generous love about him—all interest, allinterest; he’s an undone scoundrel, and courts your estate:body o’ me, he does not care a doit for your person.

ANG.  I’m pretty even with him, Sir Sampson; for ifever I could have liked anything in him, it should have been hisestate too; but since that’s gone, the bait’s off,and the naked hook appears.

SIR SAMP.  Odsbud, well spoken, and you are a wiser womanthan I thought you were, for most young women now-a-days are tobe tempted with a naked hook.

ANG.  If I marry, Sir Sampson, I’m for a goodestate with any man, and for any man with a good estate;therefore, if I were obliged to make a choice, I declareI’d rather have you than your son.

SIR SAMP.  Faith and troth, you’re a wise woman,and I’m glad to hear you say so; I was afraid you were inlove with the reprobate.  Odd, I was sorry for you with allmy heart.  Hang him, mongrel, cast him off; you shall seethe rogue show himself, and make love to some desponding Cadua offourscore for sustenance.  Odd, I love to see a youngspendthrift forced to cling to an old woman for support, like ivyround a dead oak; faith I do, I love to see ’em hug andcotton together, like down upon a thistle.

SCENE VI.

[To them] Ben Legend andServant.

BEN.  Where’s father?

SERV.  There, sir, his back’s toward you.

SIR SAMP.  My son Ben!  Bless thee, my dearbody.  Body o’ me, thou art heartily welcome.

BEN.  Thank you, father, and I’m glad to seeyou.

SIR SAMP.  Odsbud, and I’m glad to see thee; kissme, boy, kiss me again and again, dear Ben.  [Kisseshim.]

BEN.  So, so, enough, father, Mess, I’d rather kissthese gentlewomen.

SIR SAMP.  And so thou shalt.  Mrs. Angelica, my sonBen.

BEN.  Forsooth, if you please.  [Salutesher.]  Nay, mistress, I’m not for dropping anchorhere; about ship, i’faith.  [KissesFrail.]  Nay, and you too, my little cock-boat—so[Kisses Miss].

TATT.  Sir, you’re welcome ashore.

BEN.  Thank you, thank you, friend.

SIR SAMP.  Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben, sinceI saw thee.

BEN.  Ay, ay, been!  Been far enough, an’ thatbe all.  Well, father, and how do all at home?  Howdoes brother Dick, and brother Val?

SIR SAMP.  Dick—body o’ me—Dick hasbeen dead these two years.  I writ you word when you were atLeghorn.

BEN.  Mess, that’s true; marry!  I hadforgot.  Dick’s dead, as you say.  Well, andhow?  I have a many questions to ask you.  Well, youben’t married again, father, be you?

SIR SAMP.  No; I intend you shall marry, Ben; I would notmarry for thy sake.

BEN.  Nay, what does that signify?  An’ youmarry again—why then, I’ll go to sea again, sothere’s one for t’other, an’ that be all. Pray don’t let me be your hindrance—e’en marrya God’s name, an the wind sit that way.  As for mypart, mayhap I have no mind to marry.

FRAIL.  That would be pity—such a handsome younggentleman.

BEN.  Handsome! he, he, he! nay, forsooth, an you be forjoking, I’ll joke with you, for I love my jest, an’the ship were sinking, as we sayn at sea.  But I’lltell you why I don’t much stand towards matrimony.  Ilove to roam about from port to port, and from land to land; Icould never abide to be port-bound, as we call it.  Now, aman that is married has, as it were, d’ye see, his feet inthe bilboes, and mayhap mayn’t get them out again when hewould.

SIR SAMP.  Ben’s a wag.

BEN.  A man that is married, d’ye see, is no morelike another man than a galley-slave is like one of us freesailors; he is chained to an oar all his life, and mayhap forcedto tug a leaky vessel into the bargain.

SIR SAMP.  A very wag—Ben’s a very wag; onlya little rough, he wants a little polishing.

MRS. FRAIL.  Not at all; I like his humour mightily:it’s plain and honest—I should like such a humour ina husband extremely.

BEN.  Say’n you so, forsooth?  Marry, and Ishould like such a handsome gentlewoman for a bed-fellowhugely.  How say you, mistress, would you like going tosea?  Mess, you’re a tight vessel, an well rigged, anyou were but as well manned.

MRS. FRAIL.  I should not doubt that if you were masterof me.

BEN.  But I’ll tell you one thing, an you come tosea in a high wind, or that lady—you may’nt carry somuch sail o’ your head—top and top gallant, by themess.

MRS. FRAIL.  No, why so?

BEN.  Why, an you do, you may run the risk to be overset,and then you’ll carry your keels above water, he, he,he!

ANG.  I swear, Mr. Benjamin is the veriest wag innature—an absolute sea-wit.

SIR SAMP.  Nay, Ben has parts, but as I told you before,they want a little polishing.  You must not take anythingill, madam.

BEN.  No, I hope the gentlewoman is not angry; I mean allin good part, for if I give a jest, I’ll take a jest, andso forsooth you may be as free with me.

ANG.  I thank you, sir, I am not at all offended. But methinks, Sir Sampson, you should leave him alone with hismistress.  Mr. Tattle, we must not hinder lovers.

TATT.  Well, Miss, I have your promise.  [Asideto Miss.]

SIR SAMP.  Body o’ me, madam, you say true. Look you, Ben, this is your mistress.  Come, Miss, you mustnot be shame-faced; we’ll leave you together.

MISS.  I can’t abide to be left alone; mayn’tmy cousin stay with me?

SIR SAMP.  No, no.  Come, let’s away.

BEN.  Look you, father, mayhap the young womanmayn’t take a liking to me.

SIR SAMP.  I warrant thee, boy: come, come, we’llbe gone; I’ll venture that.

SCENE VII.

Ben,andMiss Prue.

BEN.  Come mistress, will you please to sit down? for anyou stand a stern a that’n, we shall never grappletogether.  Come, I’ll haul a chair; there, an youplease to sit, I’ll sit by you.

MISS.  You need not sit so near one, if you have anythingto say, I can hear you farther off, I an’t deaf.

BEN.  Why that’s true, as you say, nor I an’tdumb, I can be heard as far as another,—I’ll heaveoff, to please you.  [Sits farther off.]  An wewere a league asunder, I’d undertake to hold discourse withyou, an ’twere not a main high wind indeed, and full in myteeth.  Look you, forsooth, I am, as it were, bound for theland of matrimony; ’tis a voyage, d’ye see, that wasnone of my seeking.  I was commanded by father, and if youlike of it, mayhap I may steer into your harbour.  How sayyou, mistress?  The short of the thing is, that if you likeme, and I like you, we may chance to swing in a hammocktogether.

MISS.  I don’t know what to say to you, nor Idon’t care to speak with you at all.

BEN.  No?  I’m sorry for that.  But praywhy are you so scornful?

MISS.  As long as one must not speak one’s mind,one had better not speak at all, I think, and truly I won’ttell a lie for the matter.

BEN.  Nay, you say true in that, it’s but a follyto lie: for to speak one thing, and to think just the contraryway is, as it were, to look one way, and to row another. Now, for my part, d’ye see, I’m for carrying thingsabove board, I’m not for keeping anything underhatches,—so that if you ben’t as willing as I, say soa God’s name: there’s no harm done; mayhap you may beshame-faced; some maidens thof they love a man well enough, yetthey don’t care to tell’n so to’s face. If that’s the case, why, silence gives consent.

MISS.  But I’m sure it is not so, for I’llspeak sooner than you should believe that; and I’ll speaktruth, though one should always tell a lie to a man; and Idon’t care, let my father do what he will; I’m toobig to be whipt, so I’ll tell you plainly, I don’tlike you, nor love you at all, nor never will, that’s more:so there’s your answer for you; and don’t trouble meno more, you ugly thing.

BEN.  Look you, young woman, you may learn to give goodwords, however.  I spoke you fair, d’ye see, andcivil.  As for your love or your liking, I don’t valueit of a rope’s end; and mayhap I like you as little as youdo me: what I said was in obedience to father.  Gad, I feara whipping no more than you do.  But I tell you one thing,if you should give such language at sea, you’d have a cato’ nine tails laid cross your shoulders.  Flesh! whoare you?  You heard t’other handsome young woman speakcivilly to me of her own accord.  Whatever you think ofyourself, gad, I don’t think you are any more to compare toher than a can of small-beer to a bowl of punch.

MISS.  Well, and there’s a handsome gentleman, anda fine gentleman, and a sweet gentleman, that was here that lovesme, and I love him; and if he sees you speak to me any more,he’ll thrash your jacket for you, he will, you greatsea-calf.

BEN.  What, do you mean that fair-weather spark that washere just now?  Will he thrash my jacket? Let’n,—let’n.  But an he comes near me,mayhap I may giv’n a salt eel for’s supper, for allthat.  What does father mean to leave me alone as soon as Icome home with such a dirty dowdy?  Sea-calf?  Ian’t calf enough to lick your chalked face, you cheese-curdyou:—marry thee?  Oons, I’ll marry a Laplandwitch as soon, and live upon selling contrary winds and wreckedvessels.

MISS.  I won’t be called names, nor I won’tbe abused thus, so I won’t.  If I were a man[cries]—you durst not talk at his rate.  No,you durst not, you stinking tar-barrel.

SCENE VIII.

[To them] Mrs. Foresight andMrs. Frail.

MRS. FORE.  They have quarrelled, just as we couldwish.

BEN.  Tar-barrel?  Let your sweetheart there call meso, if he’ll take your part, your Tom Essence, andI’ll say something to him; gad, I’ll lace hismusk-doublet for him, I’ll make him stink: he shall smellmore like a weasel than a civet-cat, afore I ha’ done with’en.

MRS. FORE.  Bless me, what’s the matter,Miss?  What, does she cry?  Mr. Benjamin, what have youdone to her?

BEN.  Let her cry: the more she cries the lessshe’ll—she has been gathering foul weather in hermouth, and now it rains out at her eyes.

MRS. FORE.  Come, Miss, come along with me, and tell me,poor child.

MRS. FRAIL.  Lord, what shall we do?  There’smy brother Foresight and Sir Sampson coming.  Sister, do youtake Miss down into the parlour, and I’ll carry Mr.Benjamin into my chamber, for they must not know that they arefallen out.  Come, sir, will you venture yourself withme?  [Looking kindly on him.]

BEN.  Venture, mess, and that I will, though ’twereto sea in a storm.

SCENE IX.

SirSampson andForesight.

SIR SAMP.  I left ’em together here; what, are theygone?  Ben’s a brisk boy: he has got her into acorner; father’s own son, faith, he’ll touzle her,and mouzle her.  The rogue’s sharp set, coming fromsea; if he should not stay for saving grace, old Foresight, butfall to without the help of a parson, ha?  Odd, if he shouldI could not be angry with him; ’twould be but like me, achip of the old block.  Ha! thou’rt melancholic, oldPrognostication; as melancholic as if thou hadst spilt the salt,or pared thy nails on a Sunday.  Come, cheer up, look aboutthee: look up, old stargazer.  Now is he poring upon theground for a crooked pin, or an old horse-nail, with the headtowards him.

FORE.  Sir Sampson, we’ll have the weddingto-morrow morning.

SIR SAMP.  With all my heart.

FORE.  At ten a’clock, punctually at ten.

SIR SAMP.  To a minute, to a second; thou shalt set thywatch, and the bridegroom shall observe its motions; they shallbe married to a minute, go to bed to a minute; and when the alarmstrikes, they shall keep time like the figures of St.Dunstan’s clock, and consummatum estshall ring allover the parish.

SCENE X.

[To them] Scandal.

SCAN.  Sir Sampson, sad news.

FORE.  Bless us!

SIR SAMP.  Why, what’s the matter?

SCAN.  Can’t you guess at what ought to afflict youand him, and all of us, more than anything else?

SIR SAMP.  Body o’ me, I don’t know anyuniversal grievance, but a new tax, or the loss of the Canaryfleet.  Unless popery should be landed in the West, or theFrench fleet were at anchor at Blackwall.

SCAN.  No.  Undoubtedly, Mr. Foresight knew allthis, and might have prevented it.

FORE.  ’Tis no earthquake!

SCAN.  No, not yet; nor whirlwind.  But wedon’t know what it may come to.  But it has had aconsequence already that touches us all.

SIR SAMP.  Why, body o’ me, out with’t.

SCAN.  Something has appeared to your sonValentine.  He’s gone to bed upon’t, and veryill.  He speaks little, yet he says he has a world tosay.  Asks for his father and the wise Foresight; talks ofRaymond Lully, and the ghost of Lilly.  He has secrets toimpart, I suppose, to you two.  I can get nothing out of himbut sighs.  He desires he may see you in the morning, butwould not be disturbed to-night, because he has some business todo in a dream.

SIR SAMP.  Hoity toity, what have I to do with his dreamsor his divination?  Body o’ me, this is a trick todefer signing the conveyance.  I warrant the devil will tellhim in a dream that he must not part with his estate.  ButI’ll bring him a parson to tell him that the devil’sa liar:—or if that won’t do, I’ll bring alawyer that shall out-lie the devil.  And so I’ll trywhether my blackguard or his shall get the better of the day.

SCENE XI.

Scandal,Foresight.

SCAN.  Alas, Mr. Foresight, I’m afraid all is notright.  You are a wise man, and a conscientious man, asearcher into obscurity and futurity, and if you commit an error,it is with a great deal of consideration, and discretion, andcaution—

FORE.  Ah, good Mr. Scandal—

SCAN.  Nay, nay, ’tis manifest; I do not flatteryou.  But Sir Sampson is hasty, very hasty.  I’mafraid he is not scrupulous enough, Mr. Foresight.  He hasbeen wicked, and heav’n grant he may mean well in hisaffair with you.  But my mind gives me, these things cannotbe wholly insignificant.  You are wise, and should not beover-reached, methinks you should not—

FORE.  Alas, Mr. Scandal,—humanum esterrare.

SCAN.  You say true, man will err; mere man willerr—but you are something more.  There have been wisemen; but they were such as you, men who consulted the stars, andwere observers of omens.  Solomon was wise, buthow?—by his judgment in astrology.  So says Pineda inhis third book and eighth chapter—

FORE.  You are learned, Mr. Scandal.

SCAN.  A trifler—but a lover of art.  And theWise Men of the East owed their instruction to a star, which isrightly observed by Gregory the Great in favour ofastrology.  And Albertus Magnus makes it the most valuablescience, because, says he, it teaches us to consider thecausation of causes, in the causes of things.

FORE.  I protest I honour you, Mr. Scandal.  I didnot think you had been read in these matters.  Few young menare inclined—

SCAN.  I thank my stars that have inclined me.  ButI fear this marriage and making over this estate, thistransferring of a rightful inheritance, will bring judgments uponus.  I prophesy it, and I would not have the fate ofCassandra not to be believed.  Valentine is disturbed; whatcan be the cause of that?  And Sir Sampson is hurried on byan unusual violence.  I fear he does not act wholly fromhimself; methinks he does not look as he used to do.

FORE.  He was always of an impetuous nature.  But asto this marriage, I have consulted the stars, and all appearancesare prosperous—

SCAN.  Come, come, Mr. Foresight, let not the prospect ofworldly lucre carry you beyond your judgment, nor against yourconscience.  You are not satisfied that you act justly.

FORE.  How?

SCAN.  You are not satisfied, I say.  I am loth todiscourage you, but it is palpable that you are notsatisfied.

FORE.  How does it appear, Mr. Scandal?  I think Iam very well satisfied.

SCAN.  Either you suffer yourself to deceive yourself, oryou do not know yourself.

FORE.  Pray explain yourself.

SCAN.  Do you sleep well o’ nights?

FORE.  Very well.

SCAN.  Are you certain?  You do not look so.

FORE.  I am in health, I think.

SCAN.  So was Valentine this morning; and looked justso.

FORE.  How?  Am I altered any way?  Idon’t perceive it.

SCAN.  That may be, but your beard is longer than it wastwo hours ago.

FORE.  Indeed!  Bless me!

SCENE XII.

[To them] Mrs. Foresight.

MRS. FORE.  Husband, will you go to bed?  It’sten a’clock.  Mr. Scandal, your servant.

SCAN.  Pox on her, she has interrupted mydesign—but I must work her into the project.  You keepearly hours, madam.

MRS. FORE.  Mr. Foresight is punctual; we sit up afterhim.

FORE.  My dear, pray lend me your glass, your littlelooking-glass.

SCAN.  Pray lend it him, madam.  I’ll tell youthe reason.

[She gives him the glass: Scandal and she whisper.]  Mypassion for you is grown so violent, that I am no longer masterof myself.  I was interrupted in the morning, when you hadcharity enough to give me your attention, and I had hopes offinding another opportunity of explaining myself to you, but wasdisappointed all this day; and the uneasiness that has attendedme ever since brings me now hither at this unseasonable hour.

MRS. FORE.  Was there ever such impudence, to make loveto me before my husband’s face?  I’ll swearI’ll tell him.

SCAN.  Do.  I’ll die a martyr rather thandisclaim my passion.  But come a little farther this way,and I’ll tell you what project I had to get him out of theway; that I might have an opportunity of waiting upon you. [Whisper.  Foresightlooking in the glass.]

FORE.  I do not see any revolution here; methinks I lookwith a serene and benign aspect—pale, a littlepale—but the roses of these cheeks have been gathered manyyears;—ha!  I do not like that sudden flushing. Gone already! hem, hem, hem! faintish.  My heart is prettygood; yet it beats; and my pulses, ha!—I havenone—mercy on me—hum.  Yes, here theyare—gallop, gallop, gallop, gallop, gallop, gallop,hey!  Whither will they hurry me?  Now they’regone again.  And now I’m faint again, and pale again,and hem! and my hem! breath, hem! grows short; hem! hem! he, he,hem!

SCAN.  It takes: pursue it in the name of love andpleasure.

MRS. FORE.  How do you do, Mr. Foresight!

FORE.  Hum, not so well as I thought I was.  Lend meyour hand.

SCAN.  Look you there now.  Your lady says yoursleep has been unquiet of late.

FORE.  Very likely.

MRS. FORE.  Oh, mighty restless, but I was afraid to tellhim so.  He has been subject to talking and starting.

SCAN.  And did not use to be so?

MRS. FORE.  Never, never, till within these three nights;I cannot say that he has once broken my rest since we have beenmarried.

FORE.  I will go to bed.

SCAN.  Do so, Mr. Foresight, and say your prayers. He looks better than he did.

MRS. FORE.  Nurse, nurse!

FORE.  Do you think so, Mr. Scandal?

SCAN.  Yes, yes.  I hope this will be gone bymorning, taking it in time.

FORE.  I hope so.

SCENE XIII.

[To them] Nurse.

MRS. FORE.  Nurse; your master is not well; put him tobed.

SCAN.  I hope you will be able to see Valentine in themorning.  You had best take a little diacodion andcowslip-water, and lie upon your back: maybe you may dream.

FORE.  I thank you, Mr. Scandal, I will.  Nurse, letme have a watch-light, and lay the Crumbs of Comfort by me.

NURSE.  Yes, sir.

FORE.  And—hem, hem!  I am very faint.

SCAN.  No, no, you look much better.

FORE.  Do I?  And, d’ye hear, bring me, let mesee—within a quarter of twelve, hem—he,hem!—just upon the turning of the tide, bring me theurinal; and I hope, neither the lord of my ascendant, nor themoon will be combust; and then I may do well.

SCAN.  I hope so.  Leave that to me; I will erect ascheme; and I hope I shall find both Sol and Venus in the sixthhouse.

FORE.  I thank you, Mr. Scandal, indeed that would be agreat comfort to me.  Hem, hem! good night.

SCENE XIV.

Scandal,Mrs. Foresight.

SCAN.  Good night, good Mr. Foresight; and I hope Marsand Venus will be in conjunction;—while your wife and I aretogether.

MRS. FORE.  Well; and what use do you hope to make ofthis project?  You don’t think that you are ever liketo succeed in your design upon me?

SCAN.  Yes, faith I do; I have a better opinion both ofyou and myself than to despair.

MRS. FORE.  Did you ever hear such a toad? Hark’ee, devil: do you think any woman honest?

SCAN.  Yes, several, very honest; they’ll cheat alittle at cards, sometimes, but that’s nothing.

MRS. FORE.  Pshaw! but virtuous, I mean?

SCAN.  Yes, faith, I believe some women are virtuous too;but ’tis as I believe some men are valiant, throughfear.  For why should a man court danger or a woman shunpleasure?

MRS. FORE.  Oh, monstrous!  What are conscience andhonour?

SCAN.  Why, honour is a public enemy, and conscience adomestic thief; and he that would secure his pleasure must pay atribute to one and go halves with t’other.  As forhonour, that you have secured, for you have purchased a perpetualopportunity for pleasure.

MRS. FORE.  An opportunity for pleasure?

SCAN.  Ay, your husband, a husband is an opportunity forpleasure: so you have taken care of honour, and ’tis theleast I can do to take care of conscience.

MRS. FORE.  And so you think we are free for oneanother?

SCAN.  Yes, faith I think so; I love to speak mymind.

MRS. FORE.  Why, then, I’ll speak my mind. Now as to this affair between you and me.  Here you makelove to me; why, I’ll confess it does not displeaseme.  Your person is well enough, and your understanding isnot amiss.

SCAN.  I have no great opinion of myself, but I thinkI’m neither deformed nor a fool.

MRS. FORE.  But you have a villainous character: you area libertine in speech, as well as practice.

SCAN.  Come, I know what you would say: you think it moredangerous to be seen in conversation with me than to allow someother men the last favour; you mistake: the liberty I take intalking is purely affected for the service of your sex.  Hethat first cries out stop thief is often he that has stol’nthe treasure.  I am a juggler, that act by confederacy; andif you please, we’ll put a trick upon the world.

MRS. FORE.  Ay; but you are such an universal juggler,that I’m afraid you have a great many confederates.

SCAN.  Faith, I’m sound.

MRS. FORE.  Oh, fie—I’ll swear you’reimpudent.

SCAN.  I’ll swear you’re handsome.

MRS. FORE.  Pish, you’d tell me so, though you didnot think so.

SCAN.  And you’d think so, though I should not tellyou so.  And now I think we know one another prettywell.

MRS. FORE.  O Lord, who’s here?

SCENE XV.

[To them] Mrs. Frail andBen.

BEN.  Mess, I love to speak my mind.  Father hasnothing to do with me.  Nay, I can’t say that neither;he has something to do with me.  But what does thatsignify?  If so be that I ben’t minded to be steeredby him; ’tis as thof he should strive against wind andtide.

MRS. FRAIL.  Ay, but, my dear, we must keep it secrettill the estate be settled; for you know, marrying without anestate is like sailing in a ship without ballast.

BEN.  He, he, he; why, that’s true; just so for allthe world it is indeed, as like as two cable ropes.

MRS. FRAIL.  And though I have a good portion, you knowone would not venture all in one bottom.

BEN.  Why, that’s true again; for mayhap one bottommay spring a leak.  You have hit it indeed: mess,you’ve nicked the channel.

MRS. FRAIL.  Well, but if you should forsake me afterall, you’d break my heart.

BEN.  Break your heart?  I’d rather theMary-goldshould break her cable in a storm, as well as Ilove her.  Flesh, you don’t think I’mfalse-hearted, like a landman.  A sailor will be honest,thof mayhap he has never a penny of money in his pocket. Mayhap I may not have so fair a face as a citizen or a courtier;but, for all that, I’ve as good blood in my veins, and aheart as sound as a biscuit.

MRS. FRAIL.  And will you love me always?

BEN.  Nay, an I love once, I’ll stick like pitch;I’ll tell you that.  Come, I’ll sing you a songof a sailor.

MRS. FRAIL.  Hold, there’s my sister, I’llcall her to hear it.

MRS. FORE.  Well; I won’t go to bed to my husbandto-night, because I’ll retire to my own chamber, and thinkof what you have said.

SCAN.  Well; you’ll give me leave to wait upon youto your chamber door, and leave you my last instructions?

MRS. FORE.  Hold, here’s my sister coming towardsus.

MRS. FRAIL.  If it won’t interrupt you I’llentertain you with a song.

BEN.  The song was made upon one of ourship’s-crew’s wife.  Our boatswain made thesong.  Mayhap you may know her, sir.  Before she wasmarried she was called buxom Joan of Deptford.

SCAN.  I have heard of her.

BEN.  [Sings]:—

BALLAD.
Set by Mr. John Eccles.

I.

A soldier and a sailor,
A tinker and a tailor,
Had once a doubtful strife, sir,
To make a maid a wife, sir,
   Whose name was buxom Joan.
For now the time was ended,
When she no more intended
To lick her lips at men, sir,
And gnaw the sheets in vain, sir,
      And lie o’ nights alone.

II.

The soldier swore like thunder,
He loved her more than plunder,
And shewed her many a scar, sir,
That he had brought from far, sir,
   With fighting for her sake.
The tailor thought to please her
With offering her his measure.
The tinker, too, with mettle
Said he could mend her kettle,
   And stop up ev’ry leak.

III.

But while these three were prating,
The sailor slyly waiting,
Thought if it came about, sir,
That they should all fall out, sir,
   He then might play his part.
And just e’en as he meant, sir,
To loggerheads they went, sir,
And then he let fly at her
A shot ’twixt wind and water,
   That won this fair maid’s heart.

BEN.  If some of our crew that came to see me are notgone, you shall see that we sailors can dance sometimes as wellas other folks.  [Whistles.]  I warrant thatbrings ’em, an they be within hearing.  [Enterseamen].   Oh, here they be—and fiddles alongwith ’em.  Come, my lads, let’s have a round,and I’ll make one.  [Dance.]

BEN.  We’re merry folks, we sailors: we han’tmuch to care for.  Thus we live at sea; eat biscuit, anddrink flip, put on a clean shirt once a quarter; come home andlie with our landladies once a year, get rid of a little money,and then put off with the next fair wind.  How d’yelike us?

MRS. FRAIL.  Oh, you are the happiest, merriest menalive.

MRS. FORE.  We’re beholden to Mr. Benjamin for thisentertainment.  I believe it’s late.

BEN.  Why, forsooth, an you think so, you had best go tobed.  For my part, I mean to toss a can, and remember mysweet-heart, afore I turn in; mayhap I may dream of her.

MRS. FORE.  Mr. Scandal, you had best go to bed and dreamtoo.

SCAN.  Why, faith, I have a good lively imagination, andcan dream as much to the purpose as another, if I set aboutit.  But dreaming is the poor retreat of a lazy, hopeless,and imperfect lover; ’tis the last glimpse of love toworn-out sinners, and the faint dawning of a bliss to wishinggirls and growing boys.

There’s nought but willing, waking love,that can
Make blest the ripened maid and finished man.

ACT IV.—SCENE I.

Valentine’slodging.

ScandalandJeremy.

SCAN.  Well, is your master ready? does he look madly andtalk madly?

JERE.  Yes, sir; you need make no great doubt ofthat.  He that was so near turning poet yesterday morningcan’t be much to seek in playing the madman to-day.

SCAN.  Would he have Angelica acquainted with the reasonof his design?

JERE.  No, sir, not yet.  He has a mind to trywhether his playing the madman won’t make her play thefool, and fall in love with him; or at least own that she hasloved him all this while and concealed it.

SCAN.  I saw her take coach just now with her maid, andthink I heard her bid the coachman drive hither.

JERE.  Like enough, sir, for I told her maid thismorning, my master was run stark mad only for love of hermistress.—I hear a coach stop; if it should be she, sir, Ibelieve he would not see her, till he hears how she takes it.

SCAN.  Well, I’ll try her:—’tisshe—here she comes.

SCENE II.

[To them] Angelica withJenny.

ANG.  Mr. Scandal, I suppose you don’t think it anovelty to see a woman visit a man at his own lodgings in amorning?

SCAN.  Not upon a kind occasion, madam.  But when alady comes tyrannically to insult a ruined lover, and makemanifest the cruel triumphs of her beauty, the barbarity of itsomething surprises me.

ANG.  I don’t like raillery from a seriousface.  Pray tell me what is the matter?

JERE.  No strange matter, madam; my master’s mad,that’s all.  I suppose your ladyship has thought himso a great while.

ANG.  How d’ye mean, mad?

JERE.  Why, faith, madam, he’s mad for want of hiswits, just as he was poor for want of money; his head ise’en as light as his pockets, and anybody that has a mindto a bad bargain can’t do better than to beg him for hisestate.

ANG.  If you speak truth, your endeavouring at wit isvery unseasonable.

SCAN.  She’s concerned, and loves him. [Aside.]

ANG.  Mr. Scandal, you can’t think me guilty of somuch inhumanity as not to be concerned for a man I must ownmyself obliged to?  Pray tell me truth.

SCAN.  Faith, madam, I wish telling a lie would mend thematter.  But this is no new effect of an unsuccessfulpassion.

ANG.  [Aside.]  I know not what tothink.  Yet I should be vexed to have a trick put uponme.  May I not see him?

SCAN.  I’m afraid the physician is not willing youshould see him yet.  Jeremy, go in and enquire.

SCENE III.

Scandal,Angelica, Jenny.

ANG.  Ha!  I saw him wink and smile.  I fancy’tis a trick—I’ll try.—I would disguiseto all the world a failing which I must own to you: I fear myhappiness depends upon the recovery of Valentine.  ThereforeI conjure you, as you are his friend, and as you have compassionupon one fearful of affliction, to tell me what I am to hopefor—I cannot speak—but you may tell me, tell me, foryou know what I would ask?

SCAN.  So, this is pretty plain.  Be not too muchconcerned, madam; I hope his condition is not desperate.  Anacknowledgment of love from you, perhaps, may work a cure, as thefear of your aversion occasioned his distemper.

ANG.  [Aside.]  Say you so; nay, then,I’m convinced.  And if I don’t play trick fortrick, may I never taste the pleasure ofrevenge.—Acknowledgment of love!  I find you havemistaken my compassion, and think me guilty of a weakness I am astranger to.  But I have too much sincerity to deceive you,and too much charity to suffer him to be deluded with vainhopes.  Good nature and humanity oblige me to be concernedfor him; but to love is neither in my power nor inclination, andif he can’t be cured without I suck the poison from hiswounds, I’m afraid he won’t recover his senses till Ilose mine.

SCAN.  Hey, brave woman, i’faith—won’tyou see him, then, if he desire it?

ANG.  What signify a madman’s desires? Besides, ’twould make me uneasy:—if I don’t seehim, perhaps my concern for him may lessen.  If I forgethim, ’tis no more than he has done by himself; and now thesurprise is over, methinks I am not half so sorry as I was.

SCAN.  So, faith, good nature works apace; you wereconfessing just now an obligation to his love.

ANG.  But I have considered that passions areunreasonable and involuntary; if he loves, he can’t helpit; and if I don’t love, I can’t help it; no morethan he can help his being a man, or I my being a woman: or nomore than I can help my want of inclination to stay longerhere.  Come, Jenny.

SCENE IV.

Scandal,Jeremy.

SCAN.  Humh!  An admirable composition, faith, thissame womankind.

JERE.  What, is she gone, sir?

SCAN.  Gone?  Why, she was never here, nor anywhereelse; nor I don’t know her if I see her, nor youneither.

JERE.  Good lack!  What’s the matternow?  Are any more of us to be mad?  Why, sir, mymaster longs to see her, and is almost mad in good earnest withthe joyful news of her being here.

SCAN.  We are all under a mistake.  Ask noquestions, for I can’t resolve you; but I’ll informyour master.  In the meantime, if our project succeed nobetter with his father than it does with his mistress, he maydescend from his exaltation of madness into the road of commonsense, and be content only to be made a fool with otherreasonable people.  I hear Sir Sampson.  You know yourcue; I’ll to your master.

SCENE V.

Jeremy,Sir Sampson Legend, with aLawyer.

SIR SAMP.  D’ye see, Mr. Buckram, here’s thepaper signed with his own hand.

BUCK.  Good, sir.  And the conveyance is ready drawnin this box, if he be ready to sign and seal.

SIR SAMP.  Ready, body o’ me?  He must beready.  His sham-sickness shan’t excuse him.  Oh,here’s his scoundrel.  Sirrah, where’s yourmaster?

JERE.  Ah sir, he’s quite gone.

SIR SAMP.  Gone!  What, he is not dead?

JERE.  No, sir, not dead.

SIR SAMP.  What, is he gone out of town, run away, ha?has he tricked me?  Speak, varlet.

JERE.  No, no, sir, he’s safe enough, sir, an hewere but as sound, poor gentleman.  He is indeed here, sir,and not here, sir.

SIR SAMP.  Hey day, rascal, do you banter me? Sirrah, d’ye banter me?  Speak, sirrah, where is he?for I will find him.

JERE.  Would you could, sir, for he has losthimself.  Indeed, sir, I have a’most broke my heartabout him—I can’t refrain tears when I think of him,sir: I’m as melancholy for him as a passing-bell, sir, or ahorse in a pound.

SIR SAMP.  A pox confound your similitudes, sir. Speak to be understood, and tell me in plain terms what thematter is with him, or I’ll crack your fool’sskull.

JERE.  Ah, you’ve hit it, sir; that’s thematter with him, sir: his skull’s cracked, poor gentleman;he’s stark mad, sir.

SIR SAMP.  Mad!

BUCK.  What, is he non compos?

JERE.  Quite non compos, sir.

BUCK.  Why, then, all’s obliterated, Sir Sampson,if he be non compos mentis; his act and deed will be of noeffect, it is not good in law.

SIR SAMP.  Oons, I won’t believe it; let me seehim, sir.  Mad—I’ll make him find hissenses.

JERE.  Mr. Scandal is with him, sir; I’ll knock atthe door.

[Goes to the scene, which opens.]

SCENE VI.

SirSampson, Valentine, Scandal, Jeremy,andLawyer.  Valentine upon a couch disorderlydressed.

SIR SAMP.  How now, what’s here to do?

VAL.  Ha!  Who’s that? [Starting.]

SCAN.  For heav’n’s sake softly, sir, andgently; don’t provoke him.

VAL.  Answer me: who is that, and that?

SIR SAMP.  Gads bobs, does he not know me?  Is hemischievous?  I’ll speak gently.  Val, Val, dostthou not know me, boy?  Not know thy own father, Val? I am thy own father, and this is honest Brief Buckram, thelawyer.

VAL.  It may be so—I did not know you—theworld is full.  There are people that we do know, and peoplethat we do not know, and yet the sun shines upon all alike. There are fathers that have many children, and there are childrenthat have many fathers.  ’Tis strange!  But I amTruth, and come to give the world the lie.

SIR SAMP.  Body o’ me, I know not what to say tohim.

VAL.  Why does that lawyer wear black?  Does hecarry his conscience withoutside?  Lawyer what artthou?  Dost thou know me?

BUCK.  O Lord, what must I say?  Yes, sir,

VAL.  Thou liest, for I am Truth.  ’Tis hard Icannot get a livelihood amongst you.  I have been sworn outof Westminster Hall the first day of every term—let mesee—no matter how long.  But I’ll tell you onething: it’s a question that would puzzle an arithmetician,if you should ask him, whether the Bible saves more souls inWestminster Abbey, or damns more in Westminster Hall.  Formy part, I am Truth, and can’t tell; I have very fewacquaintance.

SIR SAMP.  Body o’ me, he talks sensibly in hismadness.  Has he no intervals?

JERE.  Very short, sir.

BUCK.  Sir, I can do you no service while he’s inthis condition.  Here’s your paper, sir—he maydo me a mischief if I stay.  The conveyance is ready, sir,if he recover his senses.

SCENE VII.

SirSampson, Valentine, Scandal, Jeremy.

SIR SAMP.  Hold, hold, don’t you go yet.

SCAN.  You’d better let him go, sir, and send forhim if there be occasion; for I fancy his presence provokes himmore.

VAL.  Is the lawyer gone?  ’Tis well, then wemay drink about without going together by the ears—heighho!  What a’clock is’t?  My fatherhere!  Your blessing, sir.

SIR SAMP.  He recovers—bless thee, Val; how dostthou do, boy?

VAL.  Thank you, sir, pretty well.  I have been alittle out of order, Won’t you please to sit, sir?

SIR SAMP.  Ay, boy.  Come, thou shalt sit down byme.

VAL.  Sir, ’tis my duty to wait.

SIR SAMP.  No, no; come, come, sit thee down, honestVal.  How dost thou do?  Let me feel thy pulse. Oh, pretty well now, Val.  Body o’ me, I was sorry tosee thee indisposed; but I’m glad thou art better, honestVal.

VAL.  I thank you, sir.

SCAN.  Miracle!  The monster grows loving. [Aside.]

SIR SAMP.  Let me feel thy hand again, Val.  It doesnot shake; I believe thou canst write, Val.  Ha, boy? thoucanst write thy name, Val.  Jeremy, step and overtake Mr.Buckram, bid him make haste back with the conveyance; quick,quick.  [In whisper toJeremy.]

SCENE VIII.

SirSampson, Valentine, Scandal.

SCAN.  That ever I should suspect such a heathen of anyremorse!  [Aside.]

SIR SAMP.  Dost thou know this paper, Val?  I knowthou’rt honest, and wilt perform articles.  [Showshim the paper, but holds it out of his reach.]

VAL.  Pray let me see it, sir.  You hold it so faroff that I can’t tell whether I know it or no.

SIR SAMP.  See it, boy?  Ay, ay; why, thou dost seeit—’tis thy own hand, Vally.  Why, let me see, Ican read it as plain as can be.  Look you here. [Reads.]  The condition of thisobligation—Look you, as plain as can be, so itbegins—and then at the bottom—As witness myhand, VALENTINE LEGEND, in greatletters.  Why, ’tis as plain as the nose inone’s face.  What, are my eyes better thanthine?  I believe I can read it farther off yet; let mesee.  [Stretches his arm as far as he can.]

VAL.  Will you please to let me hold it, sir?

SIR SAMP.  Let thee hold it, sayest thou?  Ay, withall my heart.  What matter is it who holds it?  Whatneed anybody hold it?  I’ll put it up in my pocket,Val, and then nobody need hold it.  [Puts the paper inhis pocket.]  There, Val; it’s safe enough,boy.  But thou shalt have it as soon as thou hast set thyhand to another paper, little Val.

SCENE IX.

[To them] Jeremy withBuckram.

VAL.  What, is my bad genius here again!  Oh no,’tis the lawyer with an itching palm; and he’s cometo be scratched.  My nails are not long enough.  Let mehave a pair of red-hot tongs quickly, quickly, and you shall seeme act St. Dunstan, and lead the devil by the nose.

BUCK.  O Lord, let me begone: I’ll not venturemyself with a madman.

SCENE X.

SirSampson, Valentine, Scandal, Jeremy.

VAL.  Ha, ha, ha; you need not run so fast, honesty willnot overtake you.  Ha, ha, ha, the rogue found me out to bein forma pauperispresently.

SIR SAMP.  Oons!  What a vexation is here!  Iknow not what to do, or say, nor which way to go.

VAL.  Who’s that that’s out of his way? I am Truth, and can set him right.  Harkee, friend, thestraight road is the worst way you can go.  He that followshis nose always, will very often be led into a stink. Probatum est.  But what are you for? religion orpolitics?  There’s a couple of topics for you, no morelike one another than oil and vinegar; and yet those two, beatentogether by a state-cook, make sauce for the whole nation.

SIR SAMP.  What the devil had I to do, ever to begetsons?  Why did I ever marry?

VAL.  Because thou wert a monster, old boy!  The twogreatest monsters in the world are a man and a woman! What’s thy opinion?

SIR SAMP.  Why, my opinion is, that those two monstersjoined together, make yet a greater, that’s a man and hiswife.

VAL.  Aha!  Old True-penny, say’st thouso?  Thou hast nicked it.  But it’s wonderfulstrange, Jeremy.

JERE.  What is, sir?

VAL.  That gray hairs should cover a green head—andI make a fool of my father.  What’s here! Erra Pater: or a bearded sibyl?  If Prophecy comes,Truth must give place.

SCENE XI.

SirSampson, Scandal, Foresight, MissForesight, Mrs. Frail.

FORE.  What says he?  What, did he prophesy? Ha, Sir Sampson, bless us!  How are we?

SIR SAMP.  Are we?  A pox o’ yourprognostication.  Why, we are fools as we use to be. Oons, that you could not foresee that the moon would predominate,and my son be mad.  Where’s your oppositions, yourtrines, and your quadrates?  What did your Cardan and yourPtolemy tell you?  Your Messahalah and your Longomontanus,your harmony of chiromancy with astrology.  Ah! poxon’t, that I that know the world and men and manners, thatdon’t believe a syllable in the sky and stars, and sun andalmanacs and trash, should be directed by a dreamer, anomen-hunter, and defer business in expectation of a lucky hour,when, body o’ me, there never was a lucky hour after thefirst opportunity.

SCENE XII.

Scandal,Foresight, Mrs.Foresight, Mrs. Frail.

FORE.  Ah, Sir Sampson, heav’n help yourhead.  This is none of your lucky hour; Nemo omnibushoris sapit.  What, is he gone, and in contempt ofscience?  Ill stars and unconvertible ignorance attendhim.

SCAN.  You must excuse his passion, Mr. Foresight, for hehas been heartily vexed.  His son is non composmentis, and thereby incapable of making any conveyance inlaw; so that all his measures are disappointed.

FORE.  Ha! say you so?

MRS. FRAIL.  What, has my sea-lover lost his anchor ofhope, then?  [Aside toMrs.Foresight.]

MRS. FORE.  O sister, what will you do with him?

MRS. FRAIL.  Do with him?  Send him to sea again inthe next foul weather.  He’s used to an inconstantelement, and won’t be surprised to see the tide turned.

FORE.  Wherein was I mistaken, not to foresee this? [Considers.]

SCAN.  Madam, you and I can tell him something else thathe did not foresee, and more particularly relating to his ownfortune.  [Aside toMrs.Foresight.]

MRS. FORE.  What do you mean?  I don’tunderstand you.

SCAN.  Hush, softly,—the pleasures of last night,my dear, too considerable to be forgot so soon.

MRS. FORE.  Last night!  And what would yourimpudence infer from last night?  Last night was like thenight before, I think.

SCAN.  ’Sdeath, do you make no difference betweenme and your husband?

MRS. FORE.  Not much,—he’s superstitious, andyou are mad, in my opinion.

SCAN.  You make me mad.  You are not serious. Pray recollect yourself.

MRS. FORE.  Oh yes, now I remember, you were veryimpertinent and impudent,—and would have come to bed tome.

SCAN.  And did not?

MRS. FORE.  Did not!  With that face can you ask thequestion?

SCAN.  This I have heard of before, but neverbelieved.  I have been told, she had that admirable qualityof forgetting to a man’s face in the morning that she hadlain with him all night, and denying that she had done favourswith more impudence than she could grant ’em.  Madam,I’m your humble servant, and honour you.—You lookpretty well, Mr. Foresight: how did you rest last night?

FORE.  Truly, Mr. Scandal, I was so taken up with brokendreams and distracted visions that I remember little.

SCAN.  ’Twas a very forgetting night.  Butwould you not talk with Valentine?  Perhaps you mayunderstand him; I’m apt to believe there is somethingmysterious in his discourses, and sometimes rather think himinspired than mad.

FORE.  You speak with singular good judgment, Mr.Scandal, truly.  I am inclining to your Turkish opinion inthis matter, and do reverence a man whom the vulgar thinkmad.  Let us go to him.

MRS. FRAIL.  Sister, do you stay with them; I’llfind out my lover, and give him his discharge, and come toyou.  O’ my conscience, here he comes.

SCENE XIII.

Mrs.Frail, Ben.

BEN.  All mad, I think.  Flesh, I believe all thecalentures of the sea are come ashore, for my part.

MRS. FRAIL.  Mr. Benjamin in choler!

BEN.  No, I’m pleased well enough, now I have foundyou.  Mess, I have had such a hurricane upon your accountyonder.

MRS. FRAIL.  My account; pray what’s thematter?

BEN.  Why, father came and found me squabbling with yonchitty-faced thing as he would have me marry, so he asked whatwas the matter.  He asked in a surly sort of a way—itseems brother Val is gone mad, and so that put’n into apassion; but what did I know that? what’s that tome?—so he asked in a surly sort of manner, and gad Ianswered ’n as surlily.  What thof he be my father, Ian’t bound prentice to ’n; so faith I told ’nin plain terms, if I were minded to marry, I’d marry toplease myself, not him.  And for the young woman that heprovided for me, I thought it more fitting for her to learn hersampler and make dirt-pies than to look after a husband; for mypart I was none of her man.  I had another voyage to make,let him take it as he will.

MRS. FRAIL.  So, then, you intend to go to sea again?

BEN.  Nay, nay, my mind run upon you, but I would nottell him so much.  So he said he’d make my heart ache;and if so be that he could get a woman to his mind, he’dmarry himself.  Gad, says I, an you play the fool and marryat these years, there’s more danger of your head’saching than my heart.  He was woundy angry when Igave’n that wipe.  He hadn’t a word to say, andso I left’n, and the green girl together; mayhap the beemay bite, and he’ll marry her himself, with all myheart.

MRS. FRAIL.  And were you this undutiful and gracelesswretch to your father?

BEN.  Then why was he graceless first?  If I amundutiful and graceless, why did he beget me so?  I did notget myself.

MRS. FRAIL.  O impiety!  How have I beenmistaken!  What an inhuman, merciless creature have I set myheart upon?  Oh, I am happy to have discovered the shelvesand quicksands that lurk beneath that faithless, smilingface.

BEN.  Hey toss!  What’s the matter now? Why, you ben’t angry, be you?

MRS. FRAIL.  Oh, see me no more,—for thou wert bornamongst rocks, suckled by whales, cradled in a tempest, andwhistled to by winds; and thou art come forth with fins andscales, and three rows of teeth, a most outrageous fish ofprey.

BEN.  O Lord, O Lord, she’s mad, poor young woman:love has turned her senses, her brain is quite overset. Well-a-day, how shall I do to set her to rights?

MRS. FRAIL.  No, no, I am not mad, monster; I am wiseenough to find you out.  Hadst thou the impudence to aspireat being a husband with that stubborn and disobedienttemper?  You that know not how to submit to a father,presume to have a sufficient stock of duty to undergo awife?  I should have been finely fobbed indeed, very finelyfobbed.

BEN.  Harkee, forsooth; if so be that you are in yourright senses, d’ye see, for ought as I perceive I’mlike to be finely fobbed,—if I have got anger here uponyour account, and you are tacked about already.  Whatd’ye mean, after all your fair speeches, and stroking mycheeks, and kissing and hugging, what would you sheer offso?  Would you, and leave me aground?

MRS. FRAIL.  No, I’ll leave you adrift, and gowhich way you will.

BEN.  What, are you false-hearted, then?

MRS. FRAIL.  Only the wind’s changed.

BEN.  More shame for you,—the wind’schanged?  It’s an ill wind blows nobodygood,—mayhap I have a good riddance on you, if these beyour tricks.  What, did you mean all this while to make afool of me?

MRS. FRAIL.  Any fool but a husband.

BEN.  Husband!  Gad, I would not be your husband ifyou would have me, now I know your mind: thof you had your weightin gold and jewels, and thof I loved you never so well.

MRS. FRAIL.  Why, can’st thou love, Porpuss?

BEN.  No matter what I can do; don’t callnames.  I don’t love you so well as to bear that,whatever I did.  I’m glad you show yourself,mistress.  Let them marry you as don’t know you. Gad, I know you too well, by sad experience; I believe he thatmarries you will go to sea in a hen-pecked frigate—Ibelieve that, young woman—and mayhap may come to an anchorat Cuckolds-Point; so there’s a dash for you, take it asyou will: mayhap you may holla after me when I won’t cometo.

MRS. FRAIL.  Ha, ha, ha, no doubt on’t.—Mytrue love is gone to sea.  [Sings]

SCENE XIV.

Mrs.Frail, Mrs. Foresight.

MRS. FRAIL.  O sister, had you come a minute sooner, youwould have seen the resolution of a lover:—honest Tar and Iare parted;—and with the same indifference that wemet.  O’ my life I am half vexed at the insensibilityof a brute that I despised.

MRS. FORE.  What then, he bore it most heroically?

MRS. FRAIL.  Most tyrannically; for you see he has gotthe start of me, and I, the poor forsaken maid, am leftcomplaining on the shore.  But I’ll tell you a hintthat he has given me: Sir Sampson is enraged, and talksdesperately of committing matrimony himself.  If he has amind to throw himself away, he can’t do it more effectuallythan upon me, if we could bring it about.

MRS. FORE.  Oh, hang him, old fox, he’s toocunning; besides, he hates both you and me.  But I have aproject in my head for you, and I have gone a good way towardsit.  I have almost made a bargain with Jeremy,Valentine’s man, to sell his master to us.

MRS. FRAIL.  Sell him?  How?

MRS. FORE.  Valentine raves upon Angelica, and took mefor her, and Jeremy says will take anybody for her that heimposes on him.  Now, I have promised him mountains, if inone of his mad fits he will bring you to him in her stead, andget you married together and put to bed together; and afterconsummation, girl, there’s no revoking.  And if heshould recover his senses, he’ll be glad at least to makeyou a good settlement.  Here they come: stand aside alittle, and tell me how you like the design.

SCENE XV.

Mrs.Foresight, Mrs. Frail, Valentine, Scandal, Foresight, andJeremy.

SCAN.  And have you given your master a hint of theirplot upon him?  [ToJeremy.]

JERE.  Yes, sir; he says he’ll favour it, andmistake her for Angelica.

SCAN.  It may make us sport.

FORE.  Mercy on us!

VAL.  Husht—interrupt me not—I’llwhisper prediction to thee, and thou shalt prophesy.  I amTruth, and can teach thy tongue a new trick.  I have toldthee what’s past,—now I’ll tell what’s tocome.  Dost thou know what will happento-morrow?—Answer me not—for I will tell thee. To-morrow, knaves will thrive through craft, and fools throughfortune, and honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summersuit.  Ask me questions concerning to-morrow.

SCAN.  Ask him, Mr. Foresight.

FORE.  Pray what will be done at court?

VAL.  Scandal will tell you.  I am Truth; I nevercome there.

FORE.  In the city?

VAL.  Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at theusual hours.  Yet you will see such zealous faces behindcounters, as if religion were to be sold in every shop.  Oh,things will go methodically in the city: the clocks will striketwelve at noon, and the horned herd buzz in the exchange attwo.  Wives and husbands will drive distinct trades, andcare and pleasure separately occupy the family. Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem.  And thecropt prentice, that sweeps his master’s shop in themorning, may ten to one dirty his sheets before night.  Butthere are two things that you will see very strange: which arewanton wives with their legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds withchains about their necks.  But hold, I must examine youbefore I go further.  You look suspiciously.  Are you ahusband?

FORE.  I am married.

VAL.  Poor creature!  Is your wife of Covent Gardenparish?

FORE.  No; St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.

VAL.  Alas, poor man; his eyes are sunk, and his handsshrivelled; his legs dwindled, and his back bowed: pray, pray,for a metamorphosis.  Change thy shape and shake off age;get thee Medea’s kettle and be boiled anew; come forth withlab’ring callous hands, a chine of steel, and Atlasshoulders.  Let Taliacotius trim the calves of twentychairmen, and make thee pedestals to stand erect upon, and lookmatrimony in the face.  Ha, ha, ha!  That a man shouldhave a stomach to a wedding supper, when the pigeons ought ratherto be laid to his feet, ha, ha, ha!

FORE.  His frenzy is very high now, Mr. Scandal.

SCAN.  I believe it is a spring tide.

FORE.  Very likely, truly.  You understand thesematters.  Mr. Scandal, I shall be very glad to confer withyou about these things which he has uttered.  His sayingsare very mysterious and hieroglyphical.

VAL.  Oh, why would Angelica be absent from my eyes solong?

JERE.  She’s here, sir.

MRS. FORE.  Now, sister.

MRS. FRAIL.  O Lord, what must I say?

SCAN.  Humour him, madam, by all means.

VAL.  Where is she?  Oh, I see her—she comes,like riches, health, and liberty at once, to a despairing,starving, and abandoned wretch.  Oh, welcome, welcome.

MRS. FRAIL.  How d’ye, sir?  Can I serveyou?

VAL.  Harkee; I have a secret to tell you: Endymion andthe moon shall meet us upon Mount Latmos, and we’ll bemarried in the dead of night.  But say not a word. Hymen shall put his torch into a dark lanthorn, that it may besecret; and Juno shall give her peacock poppy-water, that he mayfold his ogling tail, and Argus’s hundred eyes be shut,ha!  Nobody shall know but Jeremy.

MRS. FRAIL.  No, no, we’ll keep it secret, it shallbe done presently.

VAL.  The sooner the better.  Jeremy, comehither—closer—that none may overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you news: Angelica is turned nun, and I amturning friar, and yet we’ll marry one another in spite ofthe pope.  Get me a cowl and beads, that I may play mypart,—for she’ll meet me two hours hence in black andwhite, and a long veil to cover the project, and we won’tsee one another’s faces, till we have done something to beashamed of; and then we’ll blush once for all.

SCENE XVI.

[To them] Tattle andAngelica.

JERE.  I’ll take care, and—

VAL.  Whisper.

ANG.  Nay, Mr. Tattle, if you make love to me, you spoilmy design, for I intend to make you my confidant.

TATT.  But, madam, to throw away your person—such aperson!—and such a fortune on a madman!

ANG.  I never loved him till he was mad; but don’ttell anybody so.

SCAN.  How’s this!  Tattle making love toAngelica!

TATT.  Tell, madam?  Alas, you don’t knowme.  I have much ado to tell your ladyship how long I havebeen in love with you—but encouraged by the impossibilityof Valentine’s making any more addresses to you, I haveventured to declare the very inmost passion of my heart.  Omadam, look upon us both.  There you see the ruins of a poordecayed creature—here, a complete and lively figure, withyouth and health, and all his five senses in perfection, madam,and to all this, the most passionate lover—

ANG.  O fie, for shame, hold your tongue.  Apassionate lover, and five senses in perfection!  When youare as mad as Valentine, I’ll believe you love me, and themaddest shall take me.

VAL.  It is enough.  Ha!  Who’s here?

FRAIL.  O Lord, her coming will spoil all. [ToJeremy.]

JERE.  No, no, madam, he won’t know her; if heshould, I can persuade him.

VAL.  Scandal, who are these?  Foreigners?  Ifthey are, I’ll tell you what I think,—get away allthe company but Angelica, that I may discover my design toher.  [Whisper.]

SCAN.  I will—I have discovered something of Tattlethat is of a piece with Mrs. Frail.  He courts Angelica; ifwe could contrive to couple ’emtogether.—Hark’ee—[Whisper.]

MRS. FORE.  He won’t know you, cousin; he knowsnobody.

FORE.  But he knows more than anybody.  O niece, heknows things past and to come, and all the profound secrets oftime.

TATT.  Look you, Mr. Foresight, it is not my way to makemany words of matters, and so I shan’t say much,—butin short, d’ye see, I will hold you a hundred pounds now,that I know more secrets than he.

FORE.  How!  I cannot read that knowledge in yourface, Mr. Tattle.  Pray, what do you know?

TATT.  Why, d’ye think I’ll tell you,sir?  Read it in my face?  No, sir, ’tis writtenin my heart; and safer there, sir, than letters writ in juice oflemon, for no fire can fetch it out.  I am no blab, sir.

VAL.  Acquaint Jeremy with it, he may easily bring itabout.  They are welcome, and I’ll tell ’em somyself.  [ToScandal.]  What, do you look strangeupon me?  Then I must be plain.  [Coming up tothem.]  I am Truth, and hate an old acquaintance with anew face.  [Scandal goes asidewithJeremy.]

TATT.  Do you know me, Valentine?

VAL.  You?  Who are you?  No, I hope not.

TATT.  I am Jack Tattle, your friend.

VAL.  My friend, what to do?  I am no married man,and thou canst not lie with my wife.  I am very poor, andthou canst not borrow money of me.  Then what employmenthave I for a friend?

TATT.  Ha! a good open speaker, and not to be trustedwith a secret.

ANG.  Do you know me, Valentine?

VAL.  Oh, very well.

ANG.  Who am I?

VAL.  You’re a woman.  One to whomheav’n gave beauty, when it grafted roses on a briar. You are the reflection of heav’n in a pond, and he thatleaps at you is sunk.  You are all white, a sheet of lovely,spotless paper, when you first are born; but you are to bescrawled and blotted by every goose’s quill.  I knowyou; for I loved a woman, and loved her so long, that I found outa strange thing: I found out what a woman was good for.

TATT.  Ay, prithee, what’s that?

VAL.  Why, to keep a secret.

TATT.  O Lord!

VAL.  Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for though sheshould tell, yet she is not to be believed.

TATT.  Hah! good again, faith.

VAL.  I would have music.  Sing me the song that Ilike.

SONG
Set by Mr. Finger.

I tell thee, Charmion, could I timeretrieve,
And could again begin to love and live,
To you I should my earliest off’ring give;
   I know my eyes would lead my heart to you,
   And I should all my vows and oaths renew,
   But to be plain, I never would be true.

II.

For by our weak and weary truth, I find,
Love hates to centre in a point assign’d?
But runs with joy the circle of the mind.
   Then never let us chain what should be free,
   But for relief of either sex agree,
   Since women love to change, and so do we.

No more, for I am melancholy.  [Walks musing.]

JERE.  I’ll do’t, sir.  [ToScandal.]

SCAN.  Mr. Foresight, we had best leave him.  He maygrow outrageous, and do mischief.

FORE.  I will be directed by you.

JERE.  [ToMrs.Frail.]  You’ll meet, madam?  I’lltake care everything shall be ready.

MRS. FRAIL.  Thou shalt do what thou wilt; in short, Iwill deny thee nothing.

TATT.  Madam, shall I wait upon you?  [ToAngelica.]

ANG.  No, I’ll stay with him; Mr. Scandal willprotect me.  Aunt, Mr. Tattle desires you would give himleave to wait on you.

TATT.  Pox on’t, there’s no coming off, nowshe has said that.  Madam, will you do me the honour?

MRS. FORE.  Mr. Tattle might have used less ceremony.

SCENE XVII.

Angelica, Valentine, Scandal.

SCAN.  Jeremy, follow Tattle.

ANG.  Mr. Scandal, I only stay till my maid comes, andbecause I had a mind to be rid of Mr. Tattle.

SCAN.  Madam, I am very glad that I overheard a betterreason which you gave to Mr. Tattle; for his impertinence forcedyou to acknowledge a kindness for Valentine, which you denied toall his sufferings and my solicitations.  So I’llleave him to make use of the discovery, and your ladyship to thefree confession of your inclinations.

ANG.  O heav’ns!  You won’t leave mealone with a madman?

SCAN.  No, madam; I only leave a madman to hisremedy.

SCENE XVIII.

Angelica, Valentine.

VAL.  Madam, you need not be very much afraid, for Ifancy I begin to come to myself.

ANG.  Ay, but if I don’t fit you, I’ll behanged.  [Aside.]

VAL.  You see what disguises love makes us put on. Gods have been in counterfeited shapes for the same reason; andthe divine part of me, my mind, has worn this mask of madness andthis motley livery, only as the slave of love and menial creatureof your beauty.

ANG.  Mercy on me, how he talks!  PoorValentine!

VAL.  Nay, faith, now let us understand one another,hypocrisy apart.  The comedy draws toward an end, and let usthink of leaving acting and be ourselves; and since you haveloved me, you must own I have at length deserved you shouldconfess it.

ANG.  [Sighs.]  I would I had lovedyou—for heav’n knows I pity you, and could I haveforeseen the bad effects, I would have striven; but that’stoo late.  [Sighs.]

VAL.  What sad effects?—what’s toolate?  My seeming madness has deceived my father, andprocured me time to think of means to reconcile me to him, andpreserve the right of my inheritance to his estate; whichotherwise, by articles, I must this morning have resigned. And this I had informed you of to-day, but you were gone before Iknew you had been here.

ANG.  How!  I thought your love of me had causedthis transport in your soul; which, it seems, you onlycounterfeited, for mercenary ends and sordid interest.

VAL.  Nay, now you do me wrong; for if any interest wasconsidered it was yours, since I thought I wanted more than loveto make me worthy of you.

ANG.  Then you thought me mercenary.  But how am Ideluded by this interval of sense to reason with a madman?

VAL.  Oh, ’tis barbarous to misunderstand melonger.

SCENE XIX.

[To them] Jeremy.

ANG.  Oh, here’s a reasonable creature—surehe will not have the impudence to persevere.  Come, Jeremy,acknowledge your trick, and confess your master’s madnesscounterfeit.

JERE.  Counterfeit, madam!  I’ll maintain himto be as absolutely and substantially mad as any freeholder inBethlehem; nay, he’s as mad as any projector, fanatic,chymist, lover, or poet in Europe.

VAL.  Sirrah, you be; I am not mad.

ANG.  Ha, ha, ha! you see he denies it.

JERE.  O Lord, madam, did you ever know any madman madenough to own it?

VAL.  Sot, can’t you apprehend?

ANG.  Why, he talked very sensibly just now.

JERE.  Yes, madam; he has intervals.  But you see hebegins to look wild again now.

VAL.  Why, you thick-skulled rascal, I tell you the farceis done, and I will be mad no longer.  [Beatshim.]

ANG.  Ha, ha, ha! is he mad or no, Jeremy?

JERE.  Partly, I think,—for he does not know hisown mind two hours.  I’m sure I left him just now inthe humour to be mad, and I think I have not found him very quietat this present.  Who’s there?  [Oneknocks.]

VAL.  Go see, you sot.—I’m very glad that Ican move your mirth though not your compassion.

ANG.  I did not think you had apprehension enough to beexceptions.  But madmen show themselves most byover-pretending to a sound understanding, as drunken men do byover-acting sobriety.  I was half inclining to believe you,till I accidently touched upon your tender part: but now you haverestored me to my former opinion and compassion.

JERE.  Sir, your father has sent to know if you are anybetter yet.  Will you please to be mad, sir, or how?

VAL.  Stupidity!  You know the penalty of allI’m worth must pay for the confession of my senses;I’m mad, and will be mad to everybody but this lady.

JERE.  So—just the very backside oftruth,—but lying is a figure in speech that interlards thegreatest part of my conversation.  Madam, yourladyship’s woman.

SCENE XX.

Valentine, Angelica, Jenny.

ANG.  Well, have you been there?—Come hither.

JENNY.  Yes, madam; Sir Sampson will wait upon youpresently.  [Aside toAngelica.]

VAL.  You are not leaving me in this uncertainty?

ANG.  Would anything but a madman complain ofuncertainty?  Uncertainty and expectation are the joys oflife.  Security is an insipid thing, and the overtaking andpossessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase. Never let us know one another better, for the pleasure of amasquerade is done when we come to show our faces; but I’lltell you two things before I leave you: I am not the fool youtake me for; and you are mad and don’t know it.

SCENE XXI.

Valentine, Jeremy.

VAL.  From a riddle you can expect nothing but ariddle.  There’s my instruction and the moral of mylesson.

JERE.  What, is the lady gone again, sir?  I hopeyou understood one another before she went?

VAL.  Understood!  She is harder to be understoodthan a piece of Egyptian antiquity or an Irish manuscript: youmay pore till you spoil your eyes and not improve yourknowledge.

JERE.  I have heard ’em say, sir, they read hardHebrew books backwards; maybe you begin to read at the wrongend.

VAL.  They say so of a witch’s prayer, and dreamsand Dutch almanacs are to be understood by contraries.  Butthere’s regularity and method in that; she is a medalwithout a reverse or inscription, for indifference has both sidesalike.  Yet, while she does not seem to hate me, I willpursue her, and know her if it be possible, in spite of theopinion of my satirical friend, Scandal, who says—

That women are like tricks by sleight ofhand,
Which, to admire, we should not understand.

ACT V.—SCENE I.

A room in Foresight’shouse.

AngelicaandJenny.

ANG.  Where is Sir Sampson?  Did you not tell me hewould be here before me?

JENNY.  He’s at the great glass in the dining-room,madam, setting his cravat and wig.

ANG.  How!  I’m glad on’t.  If hehas a mind I should like him, it’s a sign he likes me; andthat’s more than half my design.

JENNY.  I hear him, madam.

ANG.  Leave me; and, d’ye hear, if Valentine shouldcome, or send, I am not to be spoken with.

SCENE II.

Angelica, SirSampson.

SIR SAMP.  I have not been honoured with the commands ofa fair lady a great while,—odd, madam, you have revivedme,—not since I was five-and-thirty.

ANG.  Why, you have no great reason to complain, SirSampson, that is not long ago.

SIR SAMP.  Zooks, but it is, madam, a very great while:to a man that admires a fine woman as much as I do.

ANG.  You’re an absolute courtier, Sir Sampson.

SIR SAMP.  Not at all, madam,—odsbud, you wrongme,—I am not so old neither, to be a bare courtier, only aman of words.  Odd, I have warm blood about me yet, and canserve a lady any way.  Come, come, let me tell you, youwomen think a man old too soon, faith and troth you do. Come, don’t despise fifty; odd, fifty, in a haleconstitution, is no such contemptible age.

ANG.  Fifty a contemptible age!  Not at all; a veryfashionable age, I think.  I assure you, I know veryconsiderable beaus that set a good face upon fifty. Fifty!  I have seen fifty in a side box by candle-lightout-blossom five-and-twenty.

SIR SAMP.  Outsides, outsides; a pize take ’em,mere outsides.  Hang your side-box beaus; no, I’m noneof those, none of your forced trees, that pretend to blossom inthe fall, and bud when they should bring forth fruit: I am of along-lived race, and inherit vigour; none of my ancestors marriedtill fifty, yet they begot sons and daughters till fourscore: Iam of your patriarchs, I, a branch of one of your antedeluvianfamilies, fellows that the flood could not wash away.  Well,madam, what are your commands?  Has any young rogueaffronted you, and shall I cut his throat?  Or—

ANG.  No, Sir Sampson, I have no quarrel upon myhands.  I have more occasion for your conduct than yourcourage at this time.  To tell you the truth, I’mweary of living single and want a husband.

SIR SAMP.  Odsbud, and ’tis pity you should. Odd, would she would like me, then I should hamper my youngrogues.  Odd, would she would; faith and troth she’sdevilish handsome.  [Aside.]  Madam, you deservea good husband, and ’twere pity you should be thrown awayupon any of these young idle rogues about the town.  Odd,there’s ne’er a young fellow worth hanging—thatis a very young fellow.  Pize on ’em, they never thinkbeforehand of anything; and if they commit matrimony, ’tisas they commit murder, out of a frolic, and are ready to hangthemselves, or to be hanged by the law, the next morning. Odso, have a care, madam.

ANG.  Therefore I ask your advice, Sir Sampson.  Ihave fortune enough to make any man easy that I can like: ifthere were such a thing as a young agreeable man, with areasonable stock of good nature and sense—for I wouldneither have an absolute wit nor a fool.

SIR SAMP.  Odd, you are hard to please, madam: to find ayoung fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool inthe eye of the world, is a very hard task.  But, faith andtroth, you speak very discreetly; for I hate both a wit and afool.

ANG.  She that marries a fool, Sir Sampson, forfeits thereputation of her honesty or understanding; and she that marriesa very witty man is a slave to the severity and insolent conductof her husband.  I should like a man of wit for a lover,because I would have such an one in my power; but I would no morebe his wife than his enemy.  For his malice is not a moreterrible consequence of his aversion than his jealousy is of hislove.

SIR SAMP.  None of old Foresight’s sibyls everuttered such a truth.  Odsbud, you have won my heart; I hatea wit: I had a son that was spoiled among ’em, a goodhopeful lad, till he learned to be a wit; and might have risen inthe state.  But, a pox on’t, his wit run him out ofhis money, and now his poverty has run him out of his wits.

ANG.  Sir Sampson, as your friend, I must tell you youare very much abused in that matter: he’s no more mad thanyou are.

SIR SAMP.  How, madam!  Would I could prove it.

ANG.  I can tell you how that may be done.  But itis a thing that would make me appear to be too much concerned inyour affairs.

SIR SAMP.  Odsbud, I believe she likes me. [Aside.]  Ah, madam, all my affairs are scarce worthyto be laid at your feet; and I wish, madam, they were in a betterposture, that I might make a more becoming offer to a lady ofyour incomparable beauty and merit.  If I had Peru in onehand, and Mexico in t’other, and the Eastern Empire undermy feet, it would make me only a more glorious victim to beoffered at the shrine of your beauty.

ANG.  Bless me, Sir Sampson, what’s the matter?

SIR SAMP.  Odd, madam, I love you.  And if you wouldtake my advice in a husband—

ANG.  Hold, hold, Sir Sampson.  I asked your advicefor a husband, and you are giving me your consent.  I wasindeed thinking to propose something like it in jest, to satisfyyou about Valentine: for if a match were seemingly carried onbetween you and me, it would oblige him to throw off his disguiseof madness, in apprehension of losing me: for you know he haslong pretended a passion for me.

SIR SAMP.  Gadzooks, a most ingeniouscontrivance—if we were to go through with it.  But whymust the match only be seemingly carried on?  Odd, let it bea real contract.

ANG.  Oh, fie, Sir Sampson, what would the world say?

SIR SAMP.  Say?  They would say you were a wisewoman and I a happy man.  Odd, madam, I’ll love you aslong as I live, and leave you a good jointure when I die.

ANG.  Ay; but that is not in your power, Sir Sampson: forwhen Valentine confesses himself in his senses, he must make overhis inheritance to his younger brother.

SIR SAMP.  Odd, you’re cunning, a warybaggage!  Faith and troth, I like you the better.  But,I warrant you, I have a proviso in the obligation in favour ofmyself.  Body o’ me, I have a trick to turn thesettlement upon the issue male of our two bodies begotten. Odsbud, let us find children and I’ll find an estate!

ANG.  Will you?  Well, do you find the estate andleave t’other to me.

SIR SAMP.  O rogue!  But I’ll trust you. And will you consent?  Is it a match then?

ANG.  Let me consult my lawyer concerning thisobligation, and if I find what you propose practicable,I’ll give you my answer.

SIR SAMP.  With all my heart: come in with me, andI’ll lend you the bond.  You shall consult yourlawyer, and I’ll consult a parson.  Odzooks, I’ma young man—odzooks, I’m a young man, and I’llmake it appear,—odd, you’re devilish handsome. Faith and troth, you’re very handsome, and I’m veryyoung and very lusty.  Odsbud, hussy, you know how tochoose, and so do I.  Odd, I think we are very wellmet.  Give me your hand, odd, let me kiss it; ’tis aswarm and as soft—as what?  Odd, as t’otherhand—give me t’other hand, and I’ll mumble’em and kiss ’em till they melt in my mouth.

ANG.  Hold, Sir Sampson.  You’re profuse ofyour vigour before your time.  You’ll spend yourestate before you come to it.

SIR SAMP.  No, no, only give you a rent-roll of mypossessions.  Ah, baggage, I warrant you for littleSampson.  Odd, Sampson’s a very good name for an ablefellow: your Sampsons were strong dogs from the beginning.

ANG.  Have a care and don’t over-act yourpart.  If you remember, Sampson, the strongest of the name,pulled an old house over his head at last.

SIR SAMP.  Say you so, hussy?  Come, let’s gothen; odd, I long to be pulling too; come away.  Odso,here’s somebody coming.

SCENE III.

Tattle,Jeremy.

TATT.  Is not that she gone out just now?

JERE.  Ay, sir; she’s just going to the place ofappointment.  Ah, sir, if you are not very faithful andclose in this business, you’ll certainly be the death of aperson that has a most extraordinary passion for yourhonour’s service.

TATT.  Ay, who’s that?

JERE.  Even my unworthy self, sir.  Sir, I have hadan appetite to be fed with your commands a great while; and now,sir, my former master having much troubled the fountain of hisunderstanding, it is a very plausible occasion for me to quenchmy thirst at the spring of your bounty.  I thought I couldnot recommend myself better to you, sir, than by the delivery ofa great beauty and fortune into your arms, whom I have heard yousigh for.

TATT.  I’ll make thy fortune; say no more. Thou art a pretty fellow, and canst carry a message to a lady, ina pretty soft kind of phrase, and with a good persuadingaccent.

JERE.  Sir, I have the seeds of rhetoric and oratory inmy head: I have been at Cambridge.

TATT.  Ay; ’tis well enough for a servant to bebred at an university: but the education is a little too pedanticfor a gentleman.  I hope you are secret in your nature:private, close, ha?

JERE.  Oh, sir, for that, sir, ’tis my chieftalent: I’m as secret as the head of Nilus.

TATT.  Ay?  Who’s he, though?  A privycounsellor?

JERE.  O ignorance!  [Aside.]  A cunningEgyptian, sir, that with his arms would overrun the country, yetnobody could ever find out his head-quarters.

TATT.  Close dog!  A good whoremaster, I warranthim:—the time draws nigh, Jeremy.  Angelica will beveiled like a nun, and I must be hooded like a friar, ha,Jeremy?

JERE.  Ay, sir; hooded like a hawk, to seize at firstsight upon the quarry.  It is the whim of my master’smadness to be so dressed, and she is so in love with himshe’ll comply with anything to please him.  Poor lady,I’m sure she’ll have reason to pray for me, when shefinds what a happy exchange she has made, between a madman and soaccomplished a gentleman.

TATT.  Ay, faith, so she will, Jeremy: you’re agood friend to her, poor creature.  I swear I do it hardlyso much in consideration of myself as compassion to her.

JERE.  ’Tis an act of charity, sir, to save a finewoman with thirty thousand pound from throwing herself away.

TATT.  So ’tis, faith; I might have saved severalothers in my time, but, i’gad, I could never find in myheart to marry anybody before.

JERE.  Well, sir, I’ll go and tell her mymaster’s coming, and meet you in half a quarter of an hourwith your disguise at your own lodgings.  You must talk alittle madly: she won’t distinguish the tone of yourvoice.

TATT.  No, no; let me alone for a counterfeit. I’ll be ready for you.

SCENE IV.

Tattle,Miss Prue.

MISS.  O Mr. Tattle, are you here?  I’m glad Ihave found you; I have been looking up and down for you likeanything, till I’m as tired as anything in the world.

TATT.  Oh, pox, how shall I get rid of this foolishgirl?  [Aside.]

MISS.  Oh, I have pure news, I can tell you, purenews.  I must not marry the seaman now—my father saysso.  Why won’t you be my husband?  You say youlove me, and you won’t be my husband.  And I know youmay be my husband now, if you please.

TATT.  Oh, fie, miss; who told you so, child?

MISS.  Why, my father.  I told him that you lovedme.

TATT.  Oh, fie, miss; why did you do so?  And whotold you so, child?

MISS.  Who?  Why, you did; did not you?

TATT.  Oh, pox, that was yesterday, miss, that was agreat while ago, child.  I have been asleep since; slept awhole night, and did not so much as dream of the matter.

MISS.  Pshaw—oh, but I dreamt that it was so,though.

TATT.  Ay, but your father will tell you that dreams comeby contraries, child.  Oh, fie; what, we must not love oneanother now.  Pshaw, that would be a foolish thingindeed.  Fie, fie, you’re a woman now, and must thinkof a new man every morning and forget him every night.  No,no, to marry is to be a child again, and play with the samerattle always.  Oh, fie, marrying is a paw thing.

MISS.  Well, but don’t you love me as well as youdid last night then?

TATT.  No, no, child, you would not have me.

MISS.  No?  Yes, but I would, though.

TATT.  Pshaw, but I tell you you would not.  Youforget you’re a woman and don’t know your ownmind.

MISS.  But here’s my father, and he knows mymind.

SCENE V.

[To them] Foresight.

FORE.  O Mr. Tattle, your servant, you are a close man;but methinks your love to my daughter was a secret I might havebeen trusted with.  Or had you a mind to try if I coulddiscover it by my art?  Hum, ha!  I think there issomething in your physiognomy that has a resemblance of her; andthe girl is like me.

TATT.  And so you would infer that you and I arealike?  What does the old prig mean?  I’ll banterhim, and laugh at him, and leave him.  [Aside.] I fancy you have a wrong notion of faces.

FORE.  How?  What?  A wrong notion?  Howso?

TATT.  In the way of art: I have some taking features,not obvious to vulgar eyes, that are indications of a sudden turnof good fortune in the lottery of wives, and promise a greatbeauty and great fortune reserved alone for me, by a privateintrigue of destiny, kept secret from the piercing eye ofperspicuity, from all astrologers, and the stars themselves.

FORE.  How!  I will make it appear that what you sayis impossible.

TATT.  Sir, I beg your pardon, I’m inhaste—

FORE.  For what?

TATT.  To be married, sir, married.

FORE.  Ay, but pray take me along with you,sir—

TATT.  No, sir; ’tis to be done privately.  Inever make confidants.

FORE.  Well, but my consent, I mean.  Youwon’t marry my daughter without my consent?

TATT.  Who?  I, sir?  I’m an absolutestranger to you and your daughter, sir.

FORE.  Hey day!  What time of the moon is this?

TATT.  Very true, sir, and desire to continue so.  Ihave no more love for your daughter than I have likeness of you,and I have a secret in my heart which you would be glad to knowand shan’t know, and yet you shall know it, too, and besorry for’t afterwards.  I’d have you to know,sir, that I am as knowing as the stars, and as secret as thenight.  And I’m going to be married just now, yet didnot know of it half an hour ago; and the lady stays for me, anddoes not know of it yet.  There’s a mystery for you: Iknow you love to untie difficulties.  Or, if you can’tsolve this, stay here a quarter of an hour, and I’ll comeand explain it to you.

SCENE VI.

Foresight, MissPrue.

MISS.  O father, why will you let him go? Won’t you make him to be my husband?

FORE.  Mercy on us, what do these lunacies portend? Alas! he’s mad, child, stark wild.

MISS.  What, and must not I have e’er a husband,then?  What, must I go to bed to nurse again, and be a childas long as she’s an old woman?  Indeed but Iwon’t.  For now my mind is set upon a man, I will havea man some way or other.  Oh, methinks I’m sick when Ithink of a man; and if I can’t have one, I would go tosleep all my life: for when I’m awake it makes me wish andlong, and I don’t know for what.  And I’d ratherbe always asleep than sick with thinking.

FORE.  Oh, fearful!  I think the girl’sinfluenced too.  Hussy, you shall have a rod.

MISS.  A fiddle of a rod, I’ll have a husband; andif you won’t get me one, I’ll get one formyself.  I’ll marry our Robin the butler; he says heloves me, and he’s a handsome man, and shall be my husband:I warrant he’ll be my husband, and thank me too, for hetold me so.

SCENE VII.

[To them] Scandal, Mrs.Foresight, andNurse.

FORE.  Did he so?  I’ll dispatch himfor’t presently.  Rogue!  O nurse, comehither.

NURSE.  What is your worship’s pleasure?

FORE.  Here, take your young mistress and lock her uppresently, till farther orders from me.  Not a word, Hussy;do what I bid you, no reply, away.  And bid Robin make readyto give an account of his plate and linen, d’ye hear:begone when I bid you.

MRS. FORE.  What’s the matter, husband?

FORE.  ’Tis not convenient to tell you now. Mr. Scandal, heav’n keep us all in our senses—I fearthere is a contagious frenzy abroad.  How doesValentine?

SCAN.  Oh, I hope he will do well again.  I have amessage from him to your niece Angelica.

FORE.  I think she has not returned since she went abroadwith Sir Sampson.  Nurse, why are you not gone?

SCENE VIII.

Foresight, Scandal, Mrs.Foresight, Ben.

MRS. FORE.  Here’s Mr. Benjamin, he can tell us ifhis father be come home.

BEN.  Who?  Father?  Ay, he’s come homewith a vengeance.

MRS. FORE.  Why, what’s the matter?

BEN.  Matter!  Why, he’s mad.

FORE.  Mercy on us, I was afraid of this.  Andthere’s the handsome young woman, she, as they say, brotherVal went mad for, she’s mad too, I think.

FORE.  Oh, my poor niece, my poor niece, is she gonetoo?  Well, I shall run mad next.

MRS. FORE.  Well, but how mad?  How d’yemean?

BEN.  Nay, I’ll give you leave to guess. I’ll undertake to make a voyage to Antegoa—no, hold;I mayn’t say so, neither.  But I’ll sail as faras Leghorn and back again before you shall guess at the matter,and do nothing else.  Mess, you may take in all the pointsof the compass, and not hit right.

MRS. FORE.  Your experiment will take up a little toomuch time.

BEN.  Why, then, I’ll tell you; there’s a newwedding upon the stocks, and they two are a-going to be marriedto rights.

SCAN.  Who?

BEN.  Why, father and—the young woman.  Ican’t hit of her name.

SCAN.  Angelica?

BEN.  Ay, the same.

MRS. FORE.  Sir Sampson and Angelica? Impossible!

BEN.  That may be—but I’m sure it is as Itell you.

SCAN.  ’Sdeath, it’s a jest.  Ican’t believe it.

BEN.  Look you, friend, it’s nothing to me whetheryou believe it or no.  What I say is true, d’ye see,they are married, or just going to be married, I know notwhich.

FORE.  Well, but they are not mad, that is, notlunatic?

BEN.  I don’t know what you may call madness. But she’s mad for a husband, and he’s horn mad, Ithink, or they’d ne’er make a match together. Here they come.

SCENE IX.

[To them] Sir Sampson, Angelica, Buckram.

SIR SAMP.  Where is this old soothsayer, this uncle ofmine elect?  Aha, old Foresight, Uncle Foresight, wish mejoy, Uncle Foresight, double joy, both as uncle and astrologer;here’s a conjunction that was not foretold in all yourEphemeris.  The brightest star in the bluefirmament—is shot from above, in a jelly oflove, and so forth; and I’m lord of theascendant.  Odd, you’re an old fellow, Foresight;uncle, I mean, a very old fellow, Uncle Foresight: and yet youshall live to dance at my wedding; faith and troth, youshall.  Odd, we’ll have the music of thesphere’s for thee, old Lilly, that we will, and thou shaltlead up a dance in Via Lactea.

FORE.  I’m thunderstruck!  You are not marriedto my niece?

SIR SAMP.  Not absolutely married, uncle; but very nearit, within a kiss of the matter, as you see.  [KissesAngelica.]

ANG.  ’Tis very true, indeed, uncle.  I hopeyou’ll be my father, and give me.

SIR SAMP.  That he shall, or I’ll burn hisglobes.  Body o’ me, he shall be thy father,I’ll make him thy father, and thou shalt make me a father,and I’ll make thee a mother, and we’ll beget sons anddaughters enough to put the weekly bills out of countenance.

SCAN.  Death and hell!  Where’s Valentine?

SCENE X.

SirSampson, Angelica, Foresight, Mrs.Foresight, Ben, Buckram.

MRS. FORE.  This is so surprising.

SIR SAMP.  How!  What does my aunt say? Surprising, aunt?  Not at all for a young couple to make amatch in winter: not at all.  It’s a plot to underminecold weather, and destroy that usurper of a bed called awarming-pan.

MRS. FORE.  I’m glad to hear you have so much firein you, Sir Sampson.

BEN.  Mess, I fear his fire’s little better thantinder; mayhap it will only serve to light up a match forsomebody else.  The young woman’s a handsome youngwoman, I can’t deny it: but, father, if I might be yourpilot in this case, you should not marry her.  It’sjust the same thing as if so be you should sail so far as theStraits without provision.

SIR SAMP.  Who gave you authority to speak, sirrah? To your element, fish, be mute, fish, and to sea, rule your helm,sirrah, don’t direct me.

BEN.  Well, well, take you care of your own helm, or youmayn’t keep your new vessel steady.

SIR SAMP.  Why, you impudent tarpaulin!  Sirrah, doyou bring your forecastle jests upon your father?  But Ishall be even with you, I won’t give you a groat.  Mr.Buckram, is the conveyance so worded that nothing can possiblydescend to this scoundrel?  I would not so much as have himhave the prospect of an estate, though there were no way to cometo it, but by the North-East Passage.

BUCK.  Sir, it is drawn according to your directions;there is not the least cranny of the law unstopt.

BEN.  Lawyer, I believe there’s many a cranny andleak unstopt in your conscience.  If so be that one had apump to your bosom, I believe we should discover a foulhold.  They say a witch will sail in a sieve: but I believethe devil would not venture aboard o’ yourconscience.  And that’s for you.

SIR SAMP.  Hold your tongue, sirrah.  How now,who’s here?

SCENE XI.

[To them] Tattle andMrs.Frail.

MRS. FRAIL.  O sister, the most unlucky accident.

MRS. FORE.  What’s the matter?

TATT.  Oh, the two most unfortunate poor creatures in theworld we are.

FORE.  Bless us!  How so?

MRS. FRAIL.  Ah, Mr. Tattle and I, poor Mr. Tattle and Iare—I can’t speak it out.

TATT.  Nor I.  But poor Mrs. Frail and Iare—

MRS. FRAIL.  Married.

MRS. FORE.  Married!  How?

TATT.  Suddenly—before we knew where wewere—that villain Jeremy, by the help of disguises, trickedus into one another.

FORE.  Why, you told me just now you went hence in hasteto be married.

ANG.  But I believe Mr. Tattle meant the favour to me: Ithank him.

TATT.  I did, as I hope to be saved, madam; my intentionswere good.  But this is the most cruel thing, to marry onedoes not know how, nor why, nor wherefore.  The devil takeme if ever I was so much concerned at anything in my life.

ANG.  ’Tis very unhappy, if you don’t carefor one another.

TATT.  The least in the world—that is for my part:I speak for myself.  Gad, I never had the least thought ofserious kindness.—I never liked anybody less in mylife.  Poor woman!  Gad, I’m sorry for her too,for I have no reason to hate her neither; but I believe I shalllead her a damned sort of a life.

MRS. FORE.  He’s better than no husband atall—though he’s a coxcomb.  [ToFrail.]

MRS. FRAIL [to her].  Ay, ay, it’s wellit’s no worse.—Nay, for my part I always despised Mr.Tattle of all things; nothing but his being my husband could havemade me like him less.

TATT.  Look you there, I thought as much.  Poxon’t, I wish we could keep it secret; why, I don’tbelieve any of this company would speak of it.

MRS. FRAIL.  But, my dear, that’s impossible: theparson and that rogue Jeremy will publish it.

TATT.  Ay, my dear, so they will, as you say.

ANG.  Oh, you’ll agree very well in a little time;custom will make it easy to you.

TATT.  Easy!  Pox on’t, I don’t believeI shall sleep to-night.

SIR SAMP.  Sleep, quotha!  No; why, you would notsleep o’ your wedding-night?  I’m an olderfellow than you, and don’t mean to sleep.

BEN.  Why, there’s another match now, as thof acouple of privateers were looking for a prize and should fallfoul of one another.  I’m sorry for the young man withall my heart.  Look you, friend, if I may advise you, whenshe’s going—for that you must expect, I haveexperience of her—when she’s going, let her go. For no matrimony is tough enough to hold her; and if shecan’t drag her anchor along with her, she’ll breakher cable, I can tell you that.  Who’s here?  Themadman?

SCENE the Last.

Valentine, Scandal, SirSampson, Angelica, Foresight, Mrs.Foresight, Tattle, Mrs. Frail, Ben,Jeremy, Buckram.

VAL.  No; here’s the fool, and if occasion be,I’ll give it under my hand.

SIR SAMP.  How now?

VAL.  Sir, I’m come to acknowledge my errors, andask your pardon.

SIR SAMP.  What, have you found your senses at lastthen?  In good time, sir.

VAL.  You were abused, sir: I never was distracted.

FORE.  How!  Not mad!  Mr. Scandal—

SCAN.  No, really, sir.  I’m his witness; itwas all counterfeit.

VAL.  I thought I had reasons—but it was a poorcontrivance, the effect has shown it such.

SIR SAMP.  Contrivance!  What, to cheat me? to cheatyour father?  Sirrah, could you hope to prosper?

VAL.  Indeed, I thought, sir, when the father endeavouredto undo the son, it was a reasonable return of nature.

SIR SAMP.  Very good, sir.  Mr. Buckram, are youready?  Come, sir, will you sign and seal?

VAL.  If you please, sir; but first I would ask this ladyone question.

SIR SAMP.  Sir, you must ask me leave first.  Thatlady?  No, sir, you shall ask that lady no questions tillyou have asked her blessing, sir: that lady is to be my wife.

VAL.  I have heard as much, sir; but I would have it fromher own mouth.

SIR SAMP.  That’s as much as to say I lie, sir, andyou don’t believe what I say.

VAL.  Pardon me, sir.  But I reflect that I verylately counterfeited madness; I don’t know but the frolicmay go round.

SIR SAMP.  Come, chuck, satisfy him, answer him. Come, come, Mr. Buckram, the pen and ink.

BUCK.  Here it is, sir, with the deed; all isready.  [Valentine goes toAngelica.]

ANG.  ’Tis true, you have a great while pretendedlove to me; nay, what if you were sincere?  Still you mustpardon me if I think my own inclinations have a better right todispose of my person than yours.

SIR SAMP.  Are you answered now, sir?

VAL.  Yes, sir.

SIR SAMP.  Where’s your plot, sir? and yourcontrivance now, sir?  Will you sign, sir?  Come, willyou sign and seal?

VAL.  With all my heart, sir.

SCAN.  ’Sdeath, you are not mad indeed, to ruinyourself?

VAL.  I have been disappointed of my only hope, and hethat loses hope may part with anything.  I never valuedfortune but as it was subservient to my pleasure, and my onlypleasure was to please this lady.  I have made many vainattempts, and find at last that nothing but my ruin can effectit; which, for that reason, I will sign to—give me thepaper.

ANG.  Generous Valentine!  [Aside.]

BUCK.  Here is the deed, sir.

VAL.  But where is the bond by which I am obliged to signthis?

BUCK.  Sir Sampson, you have it.

ANG.  No, I have it, and I’ll use it as I wouldeverything that is an enemy to Valentine.  [Tears thepaper.]

SIR SAMP.  How now?

VAL.  Ha!

ANG.  Had I the world to give you, it could not make meworthy of so generous and faithful a passion.  Here’smy hand:—my heart was always yours, and struggled very hardto make this utmost trial of your virtue.  [ToValentine.]

VAL.  Between pleasure and amazement I am lost.  Buton my knees I take the blessing.

SIR SAMP.  Oons, what is the meaning of this?

BEN.  Mess, here’s the wind changed again. Father, you and I may make a voyage together now.

ANG.  Well, Sir Sampson, since I have played you a trick,I’ll advise you how you may avoid such another.  Learnto be a good father, or you’ll never get a secondwife.  I always loved your son, and hated your unforgivingnature.  I was resolved to try him to the utmost; I havetried you too, and know you both.  You have not more faultsthan he has virtues, and ’tis hardly more pleasure to methat I can make him and myself happy than that I can punishyou.

VAL.  If my happiness could receive addition, this kindsurprise would make it double.

SIR SAMP.  Oons, you’re a crocodile.

FORE.  Really, Sir Sampson, this is a sudden eclipse.

SIR SAMP.  You’re an illiterate old fool, andI’m another.

TATT.  If the gentleman is in disorder for want of awife, I can spare him mine.—Oh, are you there, sir? I’m indebted to you for my happiness.  [ToJeremy.]

JERE.  Sir, I ask you ten thousand pardons: ’twasan errant mistake.  You see, sir, my master was never mad,nor anything like it.  Then how could it be otherwise?

VAL.  Tattle, I thank you; you would have interposedbetween me and heaven, but Providence laid purgatory in yourway.  You have but justice.

SCAN.  I hear the fiddles that Sir Sampson provided forhis own wedding; methinks ’tis pity they should not beemployed when the match is so much mended.  Valentine,though it be morning, we may have a dance.

VAL.  Anything, my friend, everything that looks like joyand transport.

SCAN.  Call ’em, Jeremy.

ANG.  I have done dissembling now, Valentine; and if thatcoldness which I have always worn before you should turn to anextreme fondness, you must not suspect it.

VAL.  I’ll prevent that suspicion: for I intend todote to that immoderate degree that your fondness shall neverdistinguish itself enough to be taken notice of.  If everyou seem to love too much, it must be only when I can’tlove enough.

ANG.  Have a care of promises; you know you are apt torun more in debt than you are able to pay.

VAL.  Therefore I yield my body as your prisoner, andmake your best on’t.

SCAN.  The music stays for you.  [Dance.]

SCAN.  Well, madam, you have done exemplary justice inpunishing an inhuman father and rewarding a faithful lover. But there is a third good work which I, in particular, must thankyou for: I was an infidel to your sex, and you have convertedme.  For now I am convinced that all women are not likefortune, blind in bestowing favours, either on those who do notmerit or who do not want ’em.

ANG.  ’Tis an unreasonable accusation that you layupon our sex: you tax us with injustice, only to cover your ownwant of merit.  You would all have the reward of love, butfew have the constancy to stay till it becomes your due. Men are generally hypocrites and infidels: they pretend toworship, but have neither zeal nor faith.  How few, likeValentine, would persevere even to martyrdom, and sacrifice theirinterest to their constancy!  In admiring me, you misplacethe novelty.

The miracle to-day is, that we find
A lover true; not that a woman’s kind.

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