■ ■ ■ m i.\-V fur U I ■1 ■ (tos Pi?3foR2- Book L_^ CQPm'GHT DEPOSm / SHERIDAN'S COMEDIES THE RIVALS AND THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES TO EACH PLAY & ptfflmpfeicaX ^fejefccft of J>fejeviflatx BY BRANDER MATTHEWS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY £. A. ABBEY, FRED. BARNARD, R. BLUM, C. S. REIN HART, ETC. BOSTON JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 1885 . . Face page 278 (Mr. Henry Irving as Joseph Surface. ) Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Teazle . . enry Irving as Joseph Surface Drawn from life by Fred. Barnard. Engraved by the Photo-Engraving Company. 13. Mrs. G. H. Gilbert as Mrs. Candour .... Face page 296 Drawn from life by E. A. Abbey. Engraved by Miss C. A. Powell. [The editor desires to thank the Century Company for the loan of the emblematic vignettes by R. Bkennan and G. R. Halm, pp. 12, 62, and iSS.] RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. T3ICHARD BRINSLEY BUTLER SHERIDAN, dramatist, ■^■^ orator, and wit, was born at No. 12 Dorset Street, Dublin, Ireland, in September, 175 1. He died in Saville Row, London, England, July 7, 18 16, and was buried in the Poet's Corner of West- minster Abbey. " Most men," says Saint Beuve, " have not read those whom they judge ; they have a ready-made opinion got by word of mouth, one scarcely knows how." No one has suffered more from these off-hand judgments than Richard Brinsley Sheridan. A ready-made opinion of a man who found so many and such various means of expressing himself, an opinion got by word of mouth, one hardly knows how, can scarcely be other than unjust. The case against Sheridan, as a man of letters, may be briefly stated. It is substantially, that he stole the characters and the plots of his plays, that he pilfered the points of his speeches, and that he prepared his jokes in advance, appropriating to his own use any jest he found ready to his hand. The counsel for the prosecution got access to an English review a few years ago, and declared with forensic emphasis that Sheridan was "a plodding and heavy Beaumarchais, with all the tricks, but without the genuine brightness and originality of the Frenchman." 13 14 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. When one reads a solemn statement like this, the question forms itself of its own accord : Was he really plodding and heavy and without brightness ? Had he no originality of his own ? Was he a wit, or had he none ? To a question put thus bluntly the answer is easy. Sheridan was a wit ; and he was but little else. As far as mere wit could carry him, Sheridan went, and but little further. He had wit raised to the zenith, and he could bend it to his bidding. In his early youth poetry of the Pope period was in fashion; Sheridan set his wits to work and brought forth Papal verse, quite as infallible as any made in his time. A little later he saw that through the stage- door lay the shortest way to fame and fortune ; and he wrote plays brimful of a wit which even now, after the lapse of a century and more, is well nigh as fresh as when it was first penned. When in after years he went to Parliament and needs must be an orator, again his wit was equal to the task, and he delivered orations which the great speakers, in that time of great speakers, declared to be unsur- passed. Had any other call been made on his wits, they would have done their best, and their best would have been good indeed. What- ever he produced, poem, or play, or speech, was but the chameleon expression of his wit. If in intellectual quality any of his work was thin, in quantity it was full beyond all cavil. No one ever more truly — to use the phrase with no invidious intent — no one ever more truly lived on his wits than Sheridan, not even the arch wit, M. de Voltaire, or the Caron de Beaumarchais to whom the stolid British reviewer deemed him inferior. I. Richard Brinsley Sheridan was the son of Thomas and Frances Sheridan, and the grandson of Dr. Sheridan, the friend and corre- spondent of Swift. Thomas Sheridan was a teacher of elocution, a A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 1 5 player, a manager, a lexicographer, and altogether an odd character. He thought himself a greater actor than David Garrick, and the author of a better dictionary than Samuel Johnson's. He seems to have had no great love for Richard Brinsley, and to have given him little care. Frances Sheridan was a woman of singular gifts and singular charm. Garrick and Johnson liked her, although they did not like her husband; and they appreciated her remarkable literary merits. Garrick brought out and acted in the ' Discovery/ a comedy of her's; and Dr. Johnson praised her novel, the 'Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph,' saying he knew not if she had a right, on moral principles, to make her readers suffer so much. It can scarcely be doubted that her influence upon her son's character would have been highly beneficial, but unfortunately he was not always with her, and she died in 1766, when he was only fifteen years old. The absence of parental care left a fatal impress on his character, and it is to his unregulated youth that we may ascribe most of the wanderings, the mis-steps, and the mishaps of his manhood. When Sheridan was seven years of age he was placed at school with Mr. Thomas Whyte, who was afterward the teacher of Sheri- dan's biographer, Moore. Here he was considered a dunce. The next year, in 1759, they removed to England; and in 1762 Richard Brinsley was sent to Harrow, where he remained for about three years, unwillingly picking up such crumbs of learning as might suffice to sustain life. He was popular with his school-fellows, and his teachers believed in his ability despite his deficient scholarship. He showed already the indolence which was always one of his most marked characteristics, and which he possessed in conjunction, curiously enough, with an extraordinary power of application when- ever he was aroused by an adequate motive. He seems to have \6 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. acquired some understanding of Latin and Greek. He formed many friendships at Harrow. The chief partner of his youthful sports and studies was Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, with whom he translated the seventh idyl of Theocritus and many of the minor poems credited to that " singer of the field and fold." In T769 the elder Sheridan returned to London from France with his favorite son, Charles ; and calling Richard to his side, he began to instruct both boys in English grammar and in oratory. " They attended also the fencing and riding schools of Mr. Angelo," who has recorded the fretful dignity of Thomas Sheridan, and the genial- ity and good humor of his younger son. In the middle of 1770 the Sheridans moved to Bath, a hot-bed of fast and fashionable society, and about as unsuitable and unwholesome a place as could be imag- ined for a young man of eighteen with Richard Brinsley Sheridan's lack of training and want of prospects. He kept up a lively corres- pondence with Halhed, who was then at Oxford. The friends were ambitious and hopeful; and they determined to attempt literature together, fondly dreaming that they might awake one morning and find themselves famous. They planned a play and a periodical paper; Halhed wrote most of the former, and Sheridan sketched out the only number of the latter which Moore could discover. Then they attempted a metrical version of the love-epistles credited to the Greek sophist, Aristsenetus. It is to be noted that Le Sage also began his literary life by translating Aristcenetus. In Novem- ber, 1770, Halhed had done his share of this; it was not until December that Sheridan, in his usual dilatory way, set about his task, aided by a Greek dictionary. There is a French version (Poic- tiers, 1597), but Sheridan had not gone to France in 1764 with the family, and he knew little French, and came in time to hate the language. He took several months over his work, and though A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 17 the completed manuscript was to have been given to the publisher in March, it was not received by him until May ; and it was only in August, 1 77 1, that there appeared for sale "The Love Epistles of Aristsenetus, Translated from the Greek into English metre." "Love refines The thoughts, and heart enlarges ; hath his seat In reason, and is judicious." — Milt. Par. Lost, B. 8. "London: Printed for J. Wilkie, No. 71 St. Paul's Churchyard. MDCCLXXI." The quotation from Milton we may credit to Sheridan ; it is impudently humorous in the eyes of those who know how light and lively are some of the love-passages related by the Greek tale-teller. The translation was anonymous, and the preface was signed with the joint initials of the young poets, H. S. It is highly comic to read that one of the reviews fathered it on " Mr. Johnson, author of the English Dictionary, etc." Moore and Sheridan's other biogra- phers agree in calling the translation a failure in that it met with no favor from the public. It may be that the authors made no money by it ; but it succeeded at least in getting itself into a second edition, which does not look exactly like flat failure. It has since been reprinted with Propertius, Petronius Arbiter, and Johannes Secun- dus, in a volume of Bonn's Classical Library. Halhed soon after went to India, where he wrote a volume of imitations of Martial, and began to be known as a distinguished Orientalist. Two original poems of Sheridan's were published in the Bath Chronicle, during this year. One was a description of the principal beauties of. Bath, called ' Clio's Protest ; or the Picture Varnished,' being an answer to some verses called the ' Bath Picture ; ' and the second was a humorous description of the opening of the new Assembly Rooms, ' An Epistle from Timothy Screw, to his brother Henry, Waiter at Almack's.' 1 8 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. There was at Bath at this time a family of Linleys, all musicians of marked ability. The eldest daughter, Miss Elizabeth Linley, was as beautiful to see as to hear. She was between sixteen and seven- teen when Sheridan first met her. She was sought by many suitors, good and evil, young and old. Among them were Sheridan's elder brother Charles, Halhed, a Mr. Long, to whom her parents engaged her, and a Captain Mathews, who happened to have a wife already. Charles Sheridan gave up the struggle and wrote Miss Linley a letter of farewell. Halhed soon sailed for India. To Mr. Long she secretly represented that she could never be happy as his wife, and he magnanimously took on himself the blame of breaking off the match and appeased her parents by settling three thousand pounds on her. Captain Mathews was not as generous or as readily got rid of ; he persecuted her incessantly ; until at last she confided in Sheri- dan, who expostulated in vain with the married rake. To avoid him she resolved to take refuge in a convent in France : this was early in 1772. Sheridan offered to accompany her; and when they had reached France he persuaded her to marry him. After the idle ceremony he placed her in a convent at Lisle, where she fell sick, and where her father found her. It was known at Bath that Miss Linley and Sheridan had dis- appeared together; one rumor had it that they had "set off on a matrimonial expedition to Scotland." The baffled Captain Mathews blustered boldly during Sheridan's absence, and even published an abusive advertisement. When Sheridan returned to England with Miss Linley and her father, he called Mathews out at once. The elder Angelo had instructed Sheridan in "the use of the small sword, and it was in consequence of the skill acquired under this tuition that he acquitted himself with so much address when opposed to the captain, whose reputation was well known in the A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 1 9 circles of fashion as an experienced swordsman." Despite this repu- tation, Captain Mathews seems t-e have been a coward as well as a bully. At first he dodged the duel ; and when it was fought he begged his life and wrote an ample apology. Immediately after he lied about the affair. At last things were so hot around about him, that he was constrained to challenge Sheridan to a second meeting, at which Sheridan was badly wounded. Angelo notes that Mathews had learned fencing in France and was considered very skilful; and he recollected " Dick Sheridan (his appellation then) shewing me a wound in his neck, then in a sore state, which he told me he had received from his antagonist on the ground" Plainly enough Mathews had the best of the second duel, although Sheri- dan's courage was beyond question, and he refused to beg his life. After his recovery he was sent into the country, where he remained until the spring of the next year, 1773. During all this time his father and Miss Linley's were determined to keep them apart. Moore tells us, that Sheridan contrived many stratagems "for the purpose of exchanging a few words with her, and that he more than once disguised himself as a hackney-coachman, and drove her home from the theatre," where she had been singing. At last Mr. Linley yielded, and they were married by license, April 13, 1773, after a courtship as romantic in its vicissitudes as Miss Lydia Languish or Miss Blanche Amory could possibly wish. Mrs. Sheridan was perhaps the most gifted of a gifted family. Dr. Burney refers to the Linleys "as a nest of singing-birds"; and Michael Kelly records that Mozart spoke in high terms of the talents of Mrs. Sheridan's brother. Her services were in good demand as a singer of oratorios, and might have been rewarded sufficiently to support the young couple in ease, if not in affluence. But Sheridan was not a man to live at his wife's apron-strings, or to 20 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. grow fat on the money she earned. With manly pride he refused all offers, and declined even to allow her to fulfil the engagements made for her by her father before the marriage. This was honorable and high-minded, but it deprived them of a certain income. Dr. Johnson's praise might please Sheridan's heart, — if it was reported to him, — but it could not fill his stomach. With abundant belief in himself, Sheridan meant to make his own way in the world and to owe his support to his own hand. He had nothing, not even a serious education. He had been entered a student of the Middle Temple just before his marriage, but he had not pursued the law further. Without money, and without a profession, but with a full confidence in himself, and a hereditary connection with the theatre, it is no wonder that Sheridan determined to write for the stage. His father was an actor and a manager, and had written one play ; and his mother had written several. With these antecedents and the repu- tation of ability which he had already achieved somehow, he was asked by Harris, the manager of Covent Garden Theatre, to write a comedy. II. The time was most propitious for the appearance of a new comic author. The works of Wycherley, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, and Con- greve, were falling, or had already fallen, out of the list of acting plays. Evelina blushed at the dialogue of Congreve's * Love for Love,' and was ashamed at the plot. Only Sheridan himself could make Vanbrugh's ' Relapse ' presentable. Farquhar and Wycherley fared but little better, though the 'Country Wife' of the latter, deodorized into something like decency by the skilful touch of Garrick, retained sufficient vitality to linger on the stage, under the name of the ' Country Girl,' until the end of the century. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 21 There were many symptoms of a rapid improvement in virtue and of an evolution in morals, and thisjielped to make the way straight before the feet of a new dramatist who could keep his eye on the signs of the times. The comedies of Congreve and Wycherley, Far- quhar and Vanbrugh, seem to have been written to show that the true road to happiness was to hate your neighbor and to love your neighbor's wife. Sydney Smith said that their morality was " that every witty man may transgress the seventh commandment, which was never meant for the protection of husbands who labor under the incapacity of making repartees." M. Taine, with all his French tolerance for wit, is disgusted with the indecency of the comic writers of the Restoration, and says, " We hold our nose and read on." These old-fashioned plays were beginning to be unpalatable to a new-fangled taste. The times were ripe for a new writer. Few of the dramatists of the day were formidable rivals. The one man who might have been a competitor to be feared, a fellow- Irishman — for, as Latin comedy was imitated from the Greek, and as French comedy was modelled upon the Italian, so English comedy has in great part been written by Irishmen — the author of the 'Good-natured Man,' Oliver Goldsmith, died in 1774. 'She Stoops to Conquer,' produced the year before, had scotched senti- mental comedy, an imported French fashion, which was slowly strangling the life out of the comic muse ; and although Sheridan, in the ' Rivals,' might choose to do obeisance to this passing fancy by the introduction of those two most tedious persons, Faulkland and Julia, he was soon to repent him of his sins, and in the ' School for Scandal' deal it a final and fatal blow. Cumberland, the sole survivor of the school, had but little life left in him after the appearance of the ' Critic ' ; and no life is now left in his plays, which have hardly seen the light of the lamps these fifty years. Better luck has attended 22 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. the more worthy work of George Colman the elder, the author of the 'Jealous Wife,' and of David Garrick, the author probably of ' High Life Below Stairs,' who had also collaborated in the ' Clandes- tine Marriage'; these three plays keep the stage to this day. But in 1775 both Colman and Garrick had ceased to write for the thea- tre. The coarse, vigorous, hardy satires of Samuel Foote, and the namby-pamby tragedies and wishy-washy comedies — " not transla- tions only, taken from the French" — of Arthur Murphy, were alike beginning to pall upon playgoers. Among all these dramatists, and greater than any of them, appeared the author of the 'Rivals.' Although written hastily at the request of Harris, the manager of Covent Garden Theatre, the ' Rivals ' was not wholly a new compo- sition ; it is rather an elaboration of earlier sketches and inchoate memorandums jotted down by Sheridan at various times after he was seventeen years old, when the hope of gaining independence by writing for the stage first flitted before his eyes. And this rework- ing of accumulated old material was characteristic of Sheridan throughout life, and in whatever department of literature he might venture himself. His poems, his plays, his jests, and his speeches abound in phrases and suggestions set down years before. Sheri- dan must needs have had aid from earlier work, since we find him telling his father-in-law, November 17, 1774, that he would have the comedy in rehearsal in a few days, and that he had not written a line of it two months before, " except a scene or two, which I believe you have seen in an odd act of a little farce." Haste of composi- tion is shown in the inordinate bulk of the play, which was at least double the length of any acting comedy — so Sheridan tells us in the preface — when he put it into Harris's hands. "I profited by his judgment and experience in the curtailing of it, till, I believe, his feeling for the vanity of a young author got the better of his desire A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 23 for correctness, and he left many excrescences remaining because he had assisted in priming so many more. Hence, though I was not uninformed that the acts were still too long, I flattered myself that, after the first trial, I might with safer judgment proceed to remove what should appear to have been most dissatisfactory." The ' Rivals ' was first acted at Covent Garden Theatre on the evening of January 17, 1775, and it was damned out of hand. It was repeated the next night, and then withdrawn for repairs. A change of front in the face of the enemy is always a risky experi- ment, but Sheridan operated it successfully. Lightened of the feebler scenes by condensation, and strengthened by the substitution of Clinch as Sir Lucius 0' Trigger for Lee, who had acted the part very badly, the ' Rivals ' was again offered to the public, and was acted fourteen or fifteen times before the season closed on June 1st. On the tenth night a new prologue was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley, in which Sheridan made adroit use of the figures of Comedy and Tragedy, which stood on each side of the stage, and defended his use of broader comic effects than the partisans of sentimental comedy could tolerate. After the first few nights, however, the ' Rivals ' picked up and held its own. Its brisk and bristling action, its highly ingenious equivoque, its broadly limned and sharply con- trasted characters, its close sequence of highly comic situations — all these soon began to tell with the public, and the piece became one of the first favorites of the play-goer. As Goldsmith had shown his gratitude to Quick, who acted Tony Lumpkin to his satisfaction, by signing the ' Grumbler,' an adapta- tion of the 'Grondeur' of Brueys, acted for Quick's benefit, so Sheridan, in gratitude to Clinch, who had bravely lent his aid to pluck the flower success from the nettle danger, wrote * St. Patrick's Day ; or the Scheming Lieutenant/ a farce in two acts, produced for •| RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Clinch's benefit, May 2, 1775, and acted six times before the close of the .season at the end of the month. ' St. Patrick's Day' is a lively enough little play, of no great consequence or merit, owing some- thing in the conduct of its plot and the comicality of its situations to Mohcie, and containing only a few of the brilliant flashes of wit which we are wont to consider as Sheridan's especial property. Sheridan devoted the summer to the writing of a comic opera, the music for which was selected ami composed by his father-in-law, Mr. Linley, "We owe to Gay," said \)\\ Johnson, "the ballad-opera — a mode oi comedy which at first was supposed to delight only by its novelty, but has now, by the experience of half a century, been so well accommodated to the disposition of a popular audience that it is likely to keep long possession of the Stage." And of all ballad- operas, Gay's first was easily the foremost until this of Sheridan's ; the 'Beggar's Opera' had no real rival until the production of the ' Duenna.' While, however, the 'Beggar's Opera' owed part of its extraordinary vogue to its personal and political satire, the 'Duenna' had no politieal purport ; its only aim was to please, and in this it succeeded abundantly. Brought out original!)" at Covent Garden on November 21, 1775, it was performed seventy-five times during the ensuing season — an extraordinary number in those days — twelve more than the 'Beggar's Opera' had achieved. In order to counteract this great success of the rival house, Garrick, then the manager of Drury Lane, as Moore tells us, " iound it necessary to bring forward all the weight of his own best characters, and even had recourse to the expedient of playing off the mother against the son, by reviving Mrs. Frances Sheridan's coined)- of the ' Discover),' and acting the principal part in it himself. In allusion to the increased fatigue which this competition with the ' Duenna ' brought upon Garrick, who was then entering on his sixtieth year, it was said A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 25 by an actor of the day that ' the old woman would be the death of the old man."' The success of Sheridan's opera was not confined to one season ; it lasted nearly fifty years. The plot, suggested perhaps by an episode in the * Country Wife ' of Wycherley, or perhaps by the ' Sicilien ' of Moliere, and not owing very much to either source, lends itself to several amusing scenes of equivoke and cross-purpose. But the characters in the 'Duenna' have far less strength, as well as far less originality, than their brothers and sisters in the 'Rivals,' in the ' School for Scandal,' and in the 'Critic.' There is no Sir Anthony Absolute, or Mrs. Malaprop, no Sir Peter or Lady Teazle, no Mr. Puff or Sir Fretful Plagiary ; there is for the most part nothing but half a dozen of the usual types — the young lover, the romantic girl, the jealous rival, the lively coquette, the arbitrary father, the intriguing old woman. Among all these, the character of the little Portuguese Jew, Isaac Mcndoza, stands out in bold relief as the only figure in the play really worthy of its illustrious authorship. He is knavish, and always overreaches himself; like Dickens's Joey Bagstock, who was "sly, devilish sly, sir," he is "a cunning dog, ain't I? A sly little villain, eh ? . . . Roguish, you'll say, but keen, hey? — Devilish keen?" Did Dickens, who wrote a comic opera at the very beginning of his literary career, — did Dickens remember this passage, I wonder? Not only in the drawing of character, but also in dialogue, is the 'Duenna' inferior to Sheridan's better-known plays. In spite of all its brightness and lightness, it i^ impossible not to acknowledge that it does not contain his best work. It has few specimens of the recondite wit and quaint fancy which make the ' School for Scandal ' so brilliant and unequalled a comedy. If Sheridan's wit, like quick- silver, is always glistening, perhaps at times, like mercury, it seems a little heavy. Now and again the dialogue vies in sparkle and point 26 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. with the talk of its author's other plays, but not as often as might be wished. It seems hastier, at once less happy and less polished. One thing to be remarked about all of Sheridan's plays is that the dialogue is easy to speak. The son of an elocutionist and lecturer and himself an orator, Sheridan worked his words until they fell trippingly from the tongue. And the songs in the 'Duenna' have a quality not as common as might be thought ; they are all singable. The words of many songs and especially of many modern songs, are so loaded with harsh consonants and combinations of consonants, and with sounds which shut instead of opening the mouth, that they are very difficult to sing. But the songs of the ' Duenna,' like the songs of all true songsters — Moore, for instance, and Lover, and a few other poets who have sung their verses into being — are as easy to sing as they are appropriate to music. And they sang themselves at once into popularity. Moore refers to them fifty years after they were first heard in public as though they were then known to all his readers. Here is one of Don Antonio s I ne'er could any lustre see In eyes that would not look on me ; I ne'er saw nectar on a lip But where my own did hope to sip. Has the maid who seeks my heart Cheeks of rose, untouched by art, I will oAvn the color true, When yielding blushes aid their hue. Is her hand so soft and pure? I must press it to be sure ; Nor can I be certain then Till it, grateful, press again. Must I with attentive eye Watch her heaving bosom sigh? I will do so when I see That heaving bosom sigh for me." A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 27 From the correspondence between Sheridan and Linley, it is evi- dent that the symmetry and the success of the 'Duenna' was due largely to the high confidence the composer had in the author ; and to the perfect accord between them, Linley nowhere seeking to display himself, but only to second Sheridan as best he might. In an opera the music should fit the words as the words fit the music, until they both seem to be the result of a single inspiration and to have only one body — just as the Aztecs, on first beholding the Spanish troopers, mistook horse and man for a single being. Sheridan had no voice ; he could not sing ; and he knew nothing about music. But he was a born dramatist, and he had a keen ear for what was likely to be most effective in a given situation ; and Linley was intelligent enough to take every hint, and to turn it to best advan- tage. Many years after the ' Duenna,' when Sheridan brought out his last play, ' Pizarro,' Michael Kelly, was required to compose the music it needed, for it was a sort of melodrama, in the early sense of the word as well as the later : and in his reminiscences Kelly records the conversation he had with Sheridan in regard to it. " My aim was to discover the situations of the different choruses and the marches, and Mr. Sheridan's ideas on the subject ; and he gave them in the following manner : ' In the Temple of the Sun,' said he, ' I want the Virgins of the Sun and their High-Priest to chant a solemn invoca- tion to their Deity.' I sang two or three bars of music to him, which I thought corresponded with what he wished, and marked them down. He then made a sort of rumbling noise with his voice (for he had not the smallest idea of turning a tune), resembling a deep, gruff, bow, wow, wow ; but though there was not the slightest resemblance of an air in the noise he made, yet so clear were his ideas of effect that I perfectly understood his meaning, though conveyed through the medium of a bow, wow, wow." A story not 28 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. unlike this is told of Victor Hugo, who is equally unmusical and who outlined or hinted at the kind of tune he needed for a song in one of his plays. The 'Rivals,' 'St. Patrick's Day,' and the 'Duenna,' — a comedy in five acts, a farce in two acts, and a comic opera in three acts,— - were all produced in the year 1775 at Covent Garden Theatre.- Before the run of the ' Duenna ' was ended, Sheridan was in negotia- tion with Garrick for the purchase, in conjunction with Linley and Dr. Ford, of the great actor's half of Drury Lane Theatre. Although Garrick and Thomas Sheridan were rival actors and never exactly hit it off together, the former always had a cordial esteem for Mrs. Sheridan, and he was prepared to carry this over to her son. So when he made up his mind to give up acting and to abandon management, he was ready to think well of Sheridan's offer to buy him out. Colman, to whom the management was first offered, would purchase solely on condition that he could buy the whole ; Garrick was only half owner, and young Lacey, who had the other half, refused to sell. While Garrick was giving his farewell perform- ances,, the negotiations with Sheridan were pending. The great actor — probably the greatest who ever trod the stage — spoke his last speech and made his last exit on June 10, 1776; and on June 24, so Davies tells us, he signed the contract of sale to Sheridan, Linley and Ford. By twenty-eight years of good management the value of Drury Lane Theatre had been trebled, and the selling price was fixed at ,£70,000, or .£35,000 for Garrick's. half. Sheridan and Linley were to find £"10,000 each, and their friend Dr. Ford was to supply the remaining £15,000. Where Sheridan raised the money for his share has been one of the mighty mysteries of theatrical history. There is a general belief that he borrowed it — but from whom ? Watkins, his first biographer, mentions a mortgage to Dr. • A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 29 Ford, and suggests that Garrick stood behind Ford. Moore, his second biographer, disbelieves inland discredits any loan from either Ford or Garrick. So far as I know, nobody has yet cited the evidence of Sydney Smith, who said that Creevy told him that once when dining with Sheridan, after the ladies had departed, Sheridan drew his chair to the fire and confided to Creevy that they had just had a fortune left to them. "Mrs. Sheridan and I," said he, "have made the solemn vow to each other to mention it to no one, and nothing induces me now to confide it to you but the absolute conviction that Mrs. Sheridan is at this moment confiding it to Mrs. Creevy upstairs." Now, this may be nothing more than the exaggeration of a humorist reported with exaggeration by another humorist. And then, again, it may be true; it is not at all impossible, or even improbable, that a fortune had been left suddenly and unexpectedly to Sheridan, or, more likely, to his wife ; but I have been able to find no other reference to this wealth from the skies ; and I fear the story is not to be taken seriously. The wonder as to where Sheridan got the money to pay for one-seventh of Drury Lane Theatre is augmented and completed by wonder as to how two years or so later he got money to buy out Lacey's half of the theatre. What was a wonder to Sheridan's contemporaries, has been also a wonder to all his biogra- phers. His later critics make no attempt whatever to find an answer to the enigma. It is with great diffidence therefore that I venture to express a belief, that I have plucked out the heart of the mystery: it must be admitted, I think, that I have at least made out a plausible case. Here, then, is my explanation : Of the original £35,000 paid Garrick, Sheridan was to find ,£10,000. Dr. Watkins. asserts that he raised .£8,700 of this £10,000 by two mortgages, one of £1,000 to a Mr. 30 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Wallis, and another of £7,700 to Dr. Forcl. If we accept this asser- tion, — and I can see no reason why we should not, — all that Sheridan had to make up was £1,300, a sum he could easily compass after the success of the 'Rivals' and the 'Duenna,' even supposing that he did not encroach on, or had already exhausted, the .£3,000 settled on his wife by Mr. Long. Before the end of 1776, dissensions arose between Sheridan, Linley and Ford, on one side, and Lacey on the other, in the course of which Lacey sought to sell part of his half to two friends. But these dissensions were ended in 1778 by Sheridan's pur- chase of Lacey's half. A note in Sheridan's handwriting, quoted by Moore, says that Lacey was paid "a price exceeding £45,000," — which would go to show that the total value of the property had risen in two years from £70,000 to £90,000. Most writers on the subject have taken this note of Sheridan's to mean that he paid at least £45,000 in cash, and they have all exhausted their efforts in guessing where he got the money. But if we compare Moore's statement with Watkins's, we get nearer a solution of the difficulty. Watkins says that Lacey's share was already mortgaged for £31,500, and that Sheridan assumed this mortgage, and agreed further to pay in re- turn for the equity of redemption, two annuities of £500 each. This double obligation, (the mortgage for £31,500 and the annuities) rep- resents "a price exceeding £"45,000;" but it did not call for the expenditure of a single penny in cash. On the contrary the purchase of Lacey's half of the theatre, actually put money into Sheridan's pocket, for he at once divided his original one-seventh between Linley and Dr. Ford, making each of their shares up to one-fourth ; and even if they paid him no increase on the original price, he would have been enabled to pay off the £8,700 mortgages to Dr. Ford, and to Mr. Wallis, and to get back the .£1,300 which he seems to have advanced himself. In fact, it appears that Sheridan invested only £1,300 in A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 3 1 cash when he bought one-seventh of Drury Lane Theatre, in 1776, and that he received this back when- he became possessed of one-half of Drury Lane Theatre, in 1778, then valued at ,£90,000. Sheridan afterward bought Dr. Ford's one-fourth for .£17,000; and Moore found among Sheridan's papers, letters of remonstrance from Dr. Ford's son, indicating that this debt had not been paid promptly. Richard Brinsley Sheridan succeeded David Garrick as the man- ager of Drury Lane in the middle of 1776. A sharp contrast was at once visible between the care and frugality of the old management, and the reckless carelessness of the new. Garrick planned everything in advance with the utmost skill and forethought, and was never taken unawares. Sheridan trusted to luck and to prompt action on the spur of the moment. The elder Sheridan be- came acting manager, a post for which his somewhat doubtful temper more or less unfitted him. Garrick continued to advise with Sheri- dan, and probably helped him in the first important production of the new management, the revival with judicious omissions of Con- greve's ' Old Bachelor,' which had not been acted for sixteen years. The ' Rivals ' originally performed at Covent Garden, was now brought out at the theatre of which its author was manager. Early in 1777, on February 24, Sheridan produced his first new play at his own house. This was 'A Trip to Scarborough,' and its chief fault was that it was neither new nor Sheridan's, being in fact a deodorized adaptation of Vanbrugh's 'Relapse.' As an incident in the 'Country Wife' of Wycherley — whom Sheridan denied ever having read — may have suggested a chief scene of the • Duenna,' and as more than one scene of the forthcoming ' School for Scandal,' was to recall Con- greve, it was only fair that Vanbrugh should have his turn. Oddly enough, Farquhar is the only one of the four foremost dramatists of the Restoration from whom Sheridan did not borrow directly, and it 32 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. is Farquhar with whom he has the most intellectu.il sympathy. Sir Walter Scott compares Sheridan with Vanbrugh, and Congreve, and Lord Macaulay, classes together Congreve and Sheridan — and yet it is Farquhar whose influence over him is greatest, and whom he imitated from afar, much as Thackeray imitated Fielding, and Dick- ens, Smollett. Vanbrugh's ( Relapse ' is hopelessly unfit for the modern stage. Moore wonders that Sheridan could have hoped to defecate the play and leave any of the wit. But Vanbrugh differs from Congreve. Of all attempts to deodorize Congreve, Sheridan said, " Impossible ! he is like a horse, — deprive him of his vice and you rob him of his vigor." The merit of Congreve's comedy lies in the dialogue, while the merit of Vanbrugh's play lies rather in the situations ; and a cleansing of the conversation of Vanburgh's play, although it scoured off many spangles, still left the stuff strong enough for ordinary wear. And it is a fact that although in the beginning, the ' Trip to Scarborough ' was a great disappointment to those who had hoped much from the new manager's first play, it was not at all a failure, for it soon recovered its ground and held its own for years. Genest^ accepts it as one of the very best adaptations of old comedy, and declares that " Sheridan has retained everything in the original that was worth retaining, has omitted what was exceptionable, and has improved it by what he has added." Much of its success was due, no doubt, to the skill with which it was fitted to the chief actors of the company, Lord Foppington being played by Dodd, Miss Hoyden by Mrs. Abington, and Amanda by Mrs. Robinson, the beautiful Perdita, whom Sheridan had coaxed back to the stage. Like Shakspere and like Moliere, Sheridan was both author and manager, and like them he wrote parts to suit his players. Of this the ' School for Scandal ' is a far better instance than the ' Trip to A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 33 Scarborough.' Made out of two earlier drafts of plays, condensed by infinite labor from a mass of inchoate material, toiled over inces- santly, polished and burnished until it shone again, the ' School for Scandal ' was at last announced before the whole play was in the hands of the actors — an incident repeated with the 'Critic,' and again with 'Pizarro.' At the end of the hurriedly-finished rough draft of the fifth act, Moore found a " curious specimen of doxology, written hastily, in the handwriting of the respective parties : " " Finished at last, thank God! "R. B. Sheridan." " Amen ! "W. Hopkins" [the prompter]. The 'School for Scandal' was first performed May 8th, 1777, a little less than a year after the purchase from Garrick. The acting of the comedy was beyond all praise. Geneste remarks that u no new performer has ever appeared in any one of the principal characters, that was not inferior to the person who acted it originally." The success of the comedy itself was instant, and it has been lasting. It is at once Sheridan's masterpiece, and the chief English comedy of the eighteenth century. So far at least, in the nineteenth century, it has had no equal. It was acted twenty times till the end of the season, and the next year sixty-five. It drew better houses than any other piece ; indeed, it killed all competition. Dr. Johnson recom- mended Sheridan for membership in The Club, as the author of the best modern comedy. Lord Byron, in like manner, called it the best comedy. Garrick's opinion of it was equally emphatic ; he was proud of the success of his successor both as author and manager; and when one of his many flatterers said that, though this piece was very good, still it was but one piece, and asked what would become of the 34 RICHARD BRIXSLEY SHERIDAX. theatre, now the Atlas that propped the stage had left his station, Garrick retorted quickly that, if that were the case, he had found another Hercules to succeed to the office. Cumberland was the only one dissatisfied. It is related that he took his children to see it, and when they screamed with delight their irritable father pinched them, exclaiming : "What are you laugh- ing at, my dear little folks ? You should not laugh, my angels, there is nothing to laugh at;" adding in an undertone, "Keep still, you little dunces !" When this was reported to Sheridan, he said, "It was ungrateful of Cumberland to have been displeased with his chil- dren for laughing at my comedy, for, when I went to see his tragedy, I laughed from beginning to end." But even Cumberland, in his memoirs, when defending his own use of a screen in the ' West- Indian,' took occasion to praise the ' School for Scandal.' "I could name one now living," said he, "who has made such a happy use of his screen in a comedy of the very first merit, that if Aristotle him- self had written a whole chapter professedly against screens, and Jerry Collier had edited it, with notes and illustrations, I would not have placed Lady Teazle out of ear-shot to have saved their ears from the pillory." Sir Walter Scott found in the 'School for Scan- dal' the gentlemanlike ease of Farquhar united to the wit of Con- greve. Hazlitt held it to be "the most finished and faultless comedy we have." The verdict of the public did not change as Scott and Hazlitt came to the front, and Garrick and Johnson slowly faded away ; it did not change when Scott and Hazlitt in their turn departed ; it has not changed since. A few years ago, an American critic of the highest culture and the widest experience, Mr. Henry James, referred to the Old Comedies only to declare that, "for real intellectual effort, the literary atmosphere and tone of society, there has long been nothing like the ' School for Scandal.' It has been A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 35 played in every English-speaking quarter of the globe, and has helped English wit and taste to make a figure where they would otherwise, perhaps, have failed to excite observation." During the next season (on October 15, 1778), there was acted a temporary trifle called the 'Camp,' often credited to Sheridan, and even rashly admitted into several editions of his works ; in reality it was written by Tickell, who had married Mrs. Sheridan's sister. On January 20, 1779, David Garrick died, and Sheridan was a chief mourner at the splendid funeral. And on March 2d, the monody which Sheridan wrote to Garrick's memory was recited at Drury Lane Theatre by Mrs. Yates, to the accompaniment of appropriate music. This monody is the longest of Sheridan's serious poetic pro- ductions, and it is the least interesting and the least satisfactory.. He could write a song as well as any one ; and he could turn the sharp lines of satire ; but a sustained and elevated strain seems too high an effort for his nimble wit. It is written in "the straight- backed measure, with its stately stride," which, as Dr. Holmes reminds us, " Gave the mighty voice of Drvden scope : It sheathed the steel-bright epigrams of Pope." Now, Sheridan had not a mighty voice ; and steel-bright epigrams would have been out of place over the grave of Garrick. There is a want of real feeling in these verses ; there is no depth in them, and little heart. There is cleverness, of course, and in plenty ; but even of this not as much as might have been expected. One looks in vain for some characterization of Garrick himself, or for some apt allusion to his chief parts, to his private character, to his writings, to his position as a man of the world and as a man of letters. Instead, we have cold and elaborate declamation on the transitory nature of the actor's art. This comparison of the histrionic with other arts, 3^ RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. pictorial and plastic, had been made in verse by Garrick himself in the prologue to the ' Clandestine Marriage' : " The painter 's dead, jet still he charms the eye, While England lives his fame can never die; But he who struts his hour upon the stage Can scarce protract his fame through half an age; Nor pen, nor pencil can the actor save; The art and artist have one common grave." It is this assertion of Garrick's and Sheridan's, it may be, that Campbell answered in his verses to Kemble : " For ill can Poetry express Full many a tone of thought sublime; And Painting, mute and motionless, Steals but a glance of time. But by the mighty actor brought, Illusion's perfect triumphs come ; Verse ceases to be airy thought, And Sculpture to be dumb." Although the ' Monody on Garrick ' is somewhat labored, it does not lack fine lines. Especially good is Sheridan's use of a chance remark made by Burke at Garrick's funeral, that the statue of Shak- spere looked toward Garrick's grave. On this stray hint Sheridan hung this couplet : "While Shakspere's image, from its hallowed base, Seemed to prescribe the grave, and point the place." After the death of Garrick, Sheridan made only one important contribution to dramatic literature, the farce of the ' Critic ; or a Tragedy Rehearsed,' produced October 30, 1779. It shows great versatility of wit in a diamatist to have written three plays strong enough to last a hundred years and more, and as unlike one another as the 'Rivals,' the 'School for Scandal,' and the 'Critic' As different from its two predecessors as they are from each other, the A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 37 ' Critic ' is frankly a farce ; it has something of the breadth of the 'Rivals/ and not a little of the -point of the ' School for Scandal* ; it sets the model of high-class farce ; and as a farce it has but two rivals in our drama — one, the ' Katherine and Petruchio/ which David Garrick made out of Shakspere's ' Taming of the Shrew/ and the other, 'High Life Below Stairs' (probably Garrick's own handiwork, although problematically ascribed to a Rev. James Townley). It is idle to deny the indebtedness of the ' Critic ' to the ' Rehearsal ' of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham ; it is, however, charitable to believe that those who have gone so far as to call the ' Critic ' a mere adaptation of the ' Rehearsal/ have never read Buckingham's piece or seen Sheridan's. The one obvious resemblance between the two farces is in the rehearsal of a play, directed by its author, who interrupts with comment and suggestion. But this is a commonplace of the stage ; it has been used and abused time and again both before and since Buck- ingham and Sheridan. The real similarity is in the signal success of the ' Rehearsal ' and of the ' Critic,' casting into the shade all other plays on the same subject ; and the real grievance of Buck- ingham is that the ' Critic ' supplanted the ' Rehearsal ' in popular favor. Buckingham's farce, originally acted in 1672, was in the main a personal attack on Dryden, satirized in the character of Bayes, the whimsical poet. Garrick had given the play a new lease of life by the use he made of Bayes to give imitations of the more prominent of his fellow-actors ; but Garrick's successor as manager of Drury Lane killed the old farce with his new one ; and Mr. Puff nailed the centenarian Bayes in his coffin at last. The idea of writing a comic play about a rehearsal was not new to Sheridan. Moore quotes from his first attempt a mythological bur- lesque on the celestial intrigues of Ixion, written in imitation of the 38 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. burletta of ' Midas.' It is a little curious to note that this same sub- ject was afterward treated in an early novelette, ' Ixion in Heaven/ by Benjamin Disraeli, the only man in the history of England whose career can fairly be compared with Sheridan's. This 'Jupiter' was sketched out by Sheridan in collaboration with Halhed in 1770, about the time they were at work on their joint version of Aristaenetus. The burlesque itself, a rather clever mingling of the Ixion-Juno legend with the Jupiter-Alcmena intrigue, seems to have been Hal- hed's work, while the rehearsal scenes in which it was set are Sheridan's. The MS. is now in the British Museum, and the cata- logue credits it to Sheridan, despite Moore's disclaimer. After an examination of this MS. I can say that the ' Critic ' owes very little to its elder brother ; whatever has been carried over from one play into the other is greatly benefitted by the journey. For example, the drama to be rehearsed in ' Ixion,' being in itself avowedly comic, does not afford a tithe of the opportunity of jocular comment and satiric remark offered by the more serious tragedy rehearsed in the 'Critic' The success of the 'Critic' was indisputable. We have not the contemporary tributes to the representation of the 'Critic' which we have to the marvellously fine performance of the 'School for Scandal,' but doubtless the manager's play was as well acted in the one case as in the other. The company of Drury Lane was very nearly the same in October, 1779, as it was in May, 1777, and many of the same names are to be seen in the cast of both pieces. When Mr. Puff in the first act repeats an imaginary theatrical criticism of his to Dangle and Sneer, the actor begins by praising his two fellow-players then on the stage with him, and ends by a humorously extravagant eulogy on himself. "Mr. Dodd," says Mr. Puff, "was astonishingly great in the character of Sir Harry. That universal and judicious actor, A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 39 Mr. Palmer, perhaps never appeared to more advantage than in the Colonel. But it is not in the powder of language to do justice to Mr. King ; indeed, he more than merited those repeated bursts of ap- plause which he drew from a most brilliant and judicious audience/' Mr. Puff was of course King himself : he had filled the important part of Sir Peter Teazle in the ' School for Scandal.' Dodd, who had been Sir Benjamin Backbite, was now Dangle, and Palmer was Sneer, after having played Joseph Surface to the satisfaction even of the fastidious author. Parsons, once Crabtree, now took the wholly dissimilar part of Sir FretfiU Plagiary. In later clays Charles Mathews doubled the parts of Mr. Puff and Sir Fretful, and was followed in the attempt by his son, the late Charles James Mathews, an actor who had just the alert brilliancy needed to keep alive and lively the accumulating humors of the rehearsal scenes. The ' Critic ' was the fifth and last play of its author. It had been preceded by the 'Rivals,' 'St. Patrick's Day,' the 'Duenna,' and the 'School for Scandal ;' and with these it constitutes Sheridan's title to fame as a dramatist. Afterward he put his name to 'Pizarro,' and the public chose to attach it to the ' Camp,' to the ' Stranger,' to ' Robinson Crusoe,' and to the ' Forty Thieves.' But he was not the author of any one of these in the same sense that he was the author of the 'Critic' and of its predecessors, or, indeed, in any strict sense of the word whatever. ' Pizarro ' was avowedly an adaptation from the German of Kotzebue ; as Sheridan knew no German, his share of the work at best was but the altering of the ready-made translation, and the strengthening of Rollas part by the addition of patriotic harangues taken from Sheridan's own political speeches. It is to be noted, however, that ' Pizarro ' was perhaps the most profitable play produced during Sheridan's management of Drury Lane. It was first acted May 24, 1799; it was performed thirty-one times in 40 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. less than six weeks ; it took the King to the theatre for the first time in years ; nineteen editions of a thousand copies each were sold in rapid succession ; and Sheridan got two thousand guineas for the copyright. The ' Camp,' although printed among his works, was not his, as we have seen. Sheridan's share in the ' Stranger ' was but little more than a very careful shaping of the somewhat redundant and exuberant prose of the translator, Benjamin Thompson, to the exigencies of the stage. His contributions to the spectacular and very successful ' Forty Thieves,' and to the pantomime of ' Robinson Crusoe,' were confined to a hasty sketch of the plot ; as manager of the theatre he knew what he wanted, and he drafted his suggestions on paper, leaving to other hands the drudgery of elaboration. Thus, the ' Critic' remains really Sheridan's latest contribution to the stage. While retaining his vast pecuniary interest in Drury Lane Theatre and keeping up an active interest in the drama, he longed for a larger stage on which to show his brilliant abilities in the eyes of all his countrymen. He was not desirous of wholly giving up literature for politics. He intended, rather — like Canning in the next generation and Disraeli in ours — to use literature as a stepping- stone to politics, and as a support after he had taken the decisive step. His time soon came. His 'Critic' was brought out near the end of October, 1779, and before the end of October, 1780, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, as one of the members for Stafford, had taken his seat in Parliament by the side of his friends Charles Fox and Edmund Burke. Before leaving Sheridan the dramatist, to consider briefly the career of Sheridan the politician, mention must be made of projected and unfinished dramas he left behind him. In 1768, when he was only seventeen, he planned a play out of the 'Vicar of Wakefield.' Among his papers Moore found the rough draft of three acts of A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 4* a musical drama, wild in subject and apparently satiric in intent, and he quotes several pages of it, including one song which was suggested by a sonnet of Sir Philip Sidney's ; the general scheme seems to be borrowed from the ' Goblins ' of Sir John Suckling. Later than this unfinished opera-book, and apparently evolved from it with much modification, was a play called the 'Foresters.' Moore could find only crude fragments of this piece, yet the Octogenarian who has since written Sheridan's life, asserts that at least two acts were wholly completed, having been read both to him and by him. This later biographer it is who fixes the date of this piece as just after his second marriage, 1795. Most to be regretted, however, is the comedy of 'Affectation,' in the composition of which he had advanced no further than the jotting down of many memorandums. These stray notes do not preserve a single scene or any vestige of a plot; they record only a few embryos of character, and germs of jests and jokes. Affectation was a subject as fertile as Scandal, and as suitable to Sheridan's gifts ; he excelled in the art of setting up a profile figure and sending successive bullets through its heart. With a target like Affectation he could have been relied on, to ring the bell every time off-hand. Yet it may be questioned whether Sheri- dan, even under other circumstances, would ever have taken heart and given his mind to the finishing of this comedy. Moliere used to turn aside compliments on his work with a "Wait until you see my 'Homme de Cour.' " So Sheridan used to say, "Wait till you see my 'Foresters.' " But we may well doubt whether he ever really intended to finish and polish and produce either the 'Fores- ters' or 'Affectation.' Like Rossini after 'William Tell/ Sheridan, after the ' School for Scandal ' was content to quit work and to bask lazily in the sunshine of his reputation. As Scott said of Campbell, Sheridan was " afraid of the shadow that his own fame cast before 4^ RICHARD BRLXSLEY SHERIDAN. him." And Michael Kelly records that when he heard that Sheridan had told the Queen he had a new comedy in preparation, he, Kelly, took occasion to say to him, Sheridan, " You will never write again ; you are afraid to write." Sheridan fixed his penetrating eye on Kelly and asked, " Of whom am I afraid ? " And Kelly retorted quickly : "You are afraid of the author of the ' School for Scandal.' " III. When Sheridan entered the House of Commons in 1780, the chosen representative of the independent borough of Stafford, as Mr. Rae reminds us, " William Pitt took his seat for the first time as the nominee of Sir James Lowther, for the pocket-borough of Appleby." Pitt's first speech was well received. Sheridan's was not. It is easier for an unknown man to succeed in Parliament than a celeb- rity ; for the House is jealous of all reputation got elsewhere. Addison kept silent; Steele was greeted with shouts of "Tatler," " Tatler ; " Erskine and Jeffrey and Mackintosh barely held their own in the House ; 'Macaulay and Lytton did little more; Disraeli like Sheridan, failed at first, and at last became the favorite speaker of the Commons. Sheridan's first speech was made November 20, 1780, and he was heard with great attention. The impression he made was not favorable ; to Woodfall, who confessed this to him, he exclaimed vehemently, "It is in me, however, and by God, it shall come out ! " It will be remembered that Disraeli was ill received, and that he told the stormy House a time would come when they should hear him. Sheridan kept very quiet for a year or more, speaking little, and always precisely and to the point, with no attempt at display. After A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 43 he had been in Parliament some sixteen months, Lord North's administration was turned out* and the change of ministry which gave peace and independence to these United States of America also gave his first seat in office to Sheridan, who was appointed one of the Under Secretaries of State. The death of the Marquis of Rockingham broke up the new cabinet after a brief life of four months, and although he disapproved of the step, Sheridan loyally followed Fox in resigning:. The unwise coalition of Fox with Lord North succeeded in driving Lord Shelburne out of office ; and in the new government, Sheridan was Secretary of the Treasury. But in December, 1783, the ministry fell, and Sheridan left office, not to return for nearly twenty years. In 1784, he was re-elected for Staf- ford, although the unpopularity of the Coalition was so great that no less than one hundred and sixty of its followers were defeated and left with only the barren consolation of calling themselves " Fox's Martyrs." In June, 1785, Burke gave notice that he would, at a future day, make a motion respecting the conduct of a gentleman just returning from India; and in 1786, he formally impeached Warren Hastings for high crimes and misdemeanors during his rule over hapless India. While it was Burke who, moved by the deepest moral revolt against wrong, inspired and animated the prosecution against Hastings, it was perhaps more due to Sheridan, who had been gaining steadily as an orator, than to Burke, that public opinion, at first favorable to the defendant, soon shifted against him. Sheridan was a popular speaker ; he spoke well and he was listened to with expectation and pleasure. Burke spoke ill ; and with so little effect that his oppo- nents thought it needless to answer some of the orations to which men now refer as storehouses of political wisdom. Any comparison of Sheridan's political understanding with Burke's is unkind to the 44 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. dramatist, who was not a statesman by instinct or by training. But that Sheridan was a better speaker than Burke admits of little doubt. Burke bored his audience ; Sheridan charmed, captivated, converted. It may be that Burke's eloquence was too fine and too good for human creature's daily food. Sheridan's was not ; it was direct, clear, convincing. Burke had. a depth and an elevation that Sheridan had not ; but Sheridan had the commonplace which is needed for popular consumption, and the common sense which Burke not infrequently lacked. It was noted that Burke's notes for the speeches against Hastings were dates, facts, figures ; and that Sheri- dan's were bits of ornamental rhetoric, illustrations, and witticisms. This is not to Sheridan's discredit ; each orator had set down what he most needed. Burke could rely on his exuberant imagination and his burning indignation to furnish him with figures of speech ; and Sheridan treasured up carefully prepared literary ornaments, sure of himself in any treatment of the facts which his clear mind had once fully mastered by dint of hard labor. It was on February 7, 1787, that Sheridan, following Burke, brought forward against Hastings the charge relative to the Prin- cesses of Oude, in the speech whose effect upon its hearers, Moore considers to have "no parallel in the annals of ancient or modern eloquence." Burke, enthusiastic for his cause, and generous in his praise, although already and always jealous of Sheridan, declared it to be " the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or tradition." Fox said, " that all he had ever heard, all that he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapor before the sun." And Pitt acknowledged, "that it surpassed all the eloquence of an- cient and modern times, and possessed everything that genius or art could furnish to agitate and control the human mind." Immediately A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 45 after the delivery of the speech, an adjournment of the House was moved, on the ground that Sheridan's speech had left such an impres- sion that it was impossible to arrive at a determinate opinion. Un- fortunately, no report of this speech exists. There is a wretched summary, with an attempt here and there to record a few of Sheri- dan's actual words, but the speech itself has not come down to us ; and it is unfair to attempt to judge it by the feeble and twisted fragments which remain. It was this speech which made Sheridan's fame as an orator. The impeachment of Warren Hastings having been voted, Sheri- dan was appointed one of the managers of the trial before the House of Lords. On June 3, 1787, he began a speech of four days on the charge he had presented in the earlier oration. No harder test of a man's ability could well be devised, than the making of a second speech on a subject which had already called forth the utmost exer- tion of his powers. Hopeless of the success of a second attempt to hit the midday sun with the same arrow, Fox advised a revision and repetition of the first speech. Sheridan was not the man thus to confess feebleness and exhaustion. He girded himself for the combat, and was again victorious. Yet, as Walpole explains, he " did not quite satisfy the passionate expectation that had been raised ; but it was impossible he could, when people had worked themselves into an enthusiasm of offering fifty guineas for a ticket to hear him." But Burke declared that "of all the various species of ora- tory that had ever been heard, either in ancient or modern times, whatever the acuteness of the bar, the dignity of the senate, or the morality of the pulpit, could furnish, had not been equal to what that House had heard that day in Westminster Hall." Burke was then Sheridan's political friend ; but Wraxall, who was his political oppo- nent and who had heard his speech, records, "that the most ardent 46 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. admirers of Burke, of Fox, and of Pitt, allowed that they had been outdone as orators by Sheridan." This speech has fortunately been preserved to us in the shorthand report of the trial, taken by Mr. Gurney's reporters and published at the suggestion of the late Sir George Cornwall Lewis. Unfortu- nately, an earlier perversion of the oration, due to the imaginative inaccuracy of a reporter of the old school of Dr. Johnson, has gained almost universal acceptance, to the lowering of Sheridan's reputation as an orator. It is this ludicrously inexact report which figures as the real oration in both of the collections of Sheridan's speeches. True it is, that Sheridan was artificial and that he was frequently guilty of the oratorical and architectural fault of constructing his ornament instead of ornamenting his construction. But he was wholly incapable of the bathos and bombast of the speech which is only too often quoted as his. The prime quality of his oratory was its common sense. The prime defect was its exuberance of rhetoric : it might be said of him as Joubert said of a French orator, that " his speech is flowery, but his flowers are not a natural growth; they are rather like the paper-flowers one finds in shops." This seems a minor failing when we recall Sheridan's possession of the one absolute essential of the orator — he was persuasive. Sir Gilbert Minto records that Pitt was waked up at seven in the morning to see a man who was supposed to be bringing news of a victory, but who " told Mr. Pitt that he had travelled all night from Brighton, that his name was Jenkins and his business not about the navy, but the army, which he had a plan for recruiting. He had been reading ' Pizarro,' and was persuaded that Rolla s first speech was irresistible ; that he had read it to numbers at Brighton, and to all he met in the way. Every soul felt its power, and had enlisted. Here he produced a list of all their names, and insisted that if empowered, he could soon raise A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 47 two hundred thousand men." Now, Rollas first speech was a recast- ing of one of Sheridan's own speeches in the House. Sheridan was not only a born orator ; he was a very carefully trained speaker ; one may say almost, that he had been bred to the trade. His father taught him oratory when he was a boy ; and Dr. Parr bears witness to his school-boy knowledge of Cicero and Demosthenes. From the time he first came before the public as a speaker, to the end of his career as a politician, he spared no pains to make the best possible appearance. As oratory is an art, Sheridan's careful preparation should be counted for him, not against him. Most extempore speakers have accumulated a fund of phrases and figures, on which they can draw at will. When Daniel Webster was complimented on the admirable description of the British drum-tap circling the world with the rising sun, a description seemingly the inspiration of the moment, and called out in an unexpected debate, he confessed frankly that he had first thought of it one morning in a Canadian citadel, and that, taking his seat on a cannon, he had at once given it shape on paper, and then committed it to his capacious memory, where it was stored up, ready for instant use. Sheridan in this, as in more than one other thing, was like Webster. He set clown every chance sug- gestion, and sought to be prepared against the moment of clanger. But, however carefully elaborated his epigram might be, there was no trace of the workshop ; all the tools were put away, and the shav- ings swept up. His wit, whether old or new, had always the appear- ance of spontaneity. It could not be said of him, as Joubert said of a would-be French wit, who was ever trying to entice you into the ambuscade of a ready-made joke, and whose jests had no trace of inspiration, "77 ne sert pas chaud" Sheridan always served piping hot. No one ever saw the trains which fired the confiscating wheel. 48 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Had it not been for Moore's indiscretion, no one would ever have suspected the workshop, the kitchen, or the quick match. And it must be remembered that very few of Sheridan's strokes of wit, and not at all his best ones, could have been considered in advance. When taken unawares he was as ready as when armed for the encounter. There are instances, almost without number, in which the steel of Sheridan's wit struck fire from the chance flint of the moment. To say that because Sheridan sometimes used the wit of others, he had none of his own; and that because he always prepared, when possible, he could do naught impromptu, is absurd — although it is said, now and again. Strike out of his comedies all the jests he may have lifted from his predecessors, and the loss would scarcely be noticed, — we doubt, in fact, whether it would be detected at all, except by professed students of dramatic literature. Strike out of his record as a speaker in public and in private, all the suggestions derived from others, and again the loss is scarcely to be seen. Sheri- dan gave to his work the labor of the artist who knows the value of his conception, and seeks to bring out the final perfection. The care he bestowed on the polishing of his diamond till it should be as brilliant and as cutting as possible, led him at times to repeat him- self; indeed, in later life he reverted so often to his earlier and easier writings for stones to set more elaborately, that he incurred the reproach of borrowing from himself. Even in the ' Duenna,' more than one song was taken from this or that copy of verses written to Miss Linley, or some other fair lady, during his bachelor days in Bath. The curt assertion that a political opponent relied on his imagination for his facts, and on his memory for his wit, he tried in several forms before he was finally satisfied with it. It is difficult to say whether this repetition of what he had used once already A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 49 came more from a desire to leave all his wit in the best shape for posterity, lightened of superfluity, or whether it sprang from his natural laziness, which led him always to fall back on what he had on hand when it was possible to avoid the exertion of originality. So far did he carry this, not only in public but in private, that, as Mr. Harness tells us, he endangered the peace of his household ; his second wife was found one day walking up and down her drawing- room, apparently in a frantic state of mind, calling her husband a villain, because, as she explained after some hesitation, she had just discovered that the love letters he sent her were the very same as those which he had written to his first wife. As a writer in the Quarterly Review has remarked, " It is singular enough that the treasures of wit which Sheridan was thought to possess in such profusion, should have been the only species of wealth which he ever dreamt of economizing." To the quick wit and good humor of Sheridan's conversation we have the testimony of well-nigh all who met him. An easy nature, an unfailing readiness, and an innocent delight in the exercise of his powers, made him a most enjoyable companion, and therefore to be bidden to every conviviality. It is true that Byron tells us that " Sheridan's humor, or rather wit, was always saturnine and some- times savage. He never laughed, at least that I saw, and I watched him." But Byron only saw him in his soured and tormented age. In his youth, and in early manhood, he was lively and full of fun, abundant in boyish pranks and practical jokes. With Tickell, who had married Mrs. Sheridan's sister, he was ever ready for a fantastic freak, only too often of the practical sort. One Saturday night he volunteered to write a sermon to be preached by a reverend friend visiting him, and it was only months after the clergyman had delivered the admirable discourse on The Abuse of Riches, which 50 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Sheridan had spent the evening in composing, that he discovered it to be a covert attack on a local magnate generally accused of ill- treating the poor. In later life, in his sad decadence, after unchecked conviviality had done its work, coming one night very late out of a tavern, he was so overtaken with liquor as to need the aid of passers, who asked his name and abode, and to whom he gravely made answer, " Gentlemen, I am not often in this way ; my name is Wilberforce." This is a reckless jest, at which even M. Taine, nowhere disposed to be over-amiable to Sheridan, smiles perforce. A man capable of practical jokes like these, even in his saddest age, is as far removed as may be from moroseness. Sydney Smith's opinion lies directly across Byron's; "the charm of Sheridan's speak- ing," said he, "was his multifariousness of style." Now, a man savage, saturnine, or morose can hardly have a multifariousness of style in speaking ; and one is at a loss to account for Byron's assertion. Sydney Smith has been cited, because, like Byron, he met Sheridan only when the author of the ' School for Scandal ' was old and worn and wearied. In his bright and brilliant youth, after he had suddenly from nothing sprung to the front, and the ball lay at his feet, he was everywhere hailed as a wit of the first water. Lord John Townshend made a dinner party for Fox to meet Sheridan ; and he records : " The first interview between them I shall never forget. Fox told me, after breaking up from dinner, that he had always thought Hare, after my uncle Charles Townshend, the wittiest man he ever met with, but that Sheridan surpassed them both infinitely." And this, let it be noted, was after the host had specially raised Fox's expectations by dwelling at length on Sheridan's extraordinary powers. Unless Sheridan's manner when Byron was present was unusual, or unless he had changed unaccountably with the thickening years, A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 5 1 Sydney Smith's opinion is more to be relied on than the poet's. And Sydney Smith, it is to be remembered, is one who had wit enough of his own to appreciate Sheridan's. There is indeed one quality in which the dramatist and the Dean were alike. Lord Dudley said to the latter, — " You have been laughing at me constantly, Sydney, for the last seven years, and yet in all that time, you never said a single thing to me that I wished unsaid." In like manner, Sheridan was ever girding at Michael Kelly — "Composer of Wines and Importer of Music" — and yet his cuts were kindly and left no scar, and nowhere is Sheridan treated with more honest affection than in Kelly's recollections. Sydney Smith's wit has been compared to "summer lightning, that never harmed the object illumined by its flash " ; and to continue the parallel, in the verses Moore wrote just after Sheridan's death, he declared him one "Whose humor, as gay as the fire-fly's light, Played round every subject, and shone as it played ; Whose wit, in the combat as gentle as bright, Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade." Even in political debate, however sharp or acrimonious, Sheridan seems ever to have been courteous to his adversary; and although every shot hit its mark with fatal effect, there was no mangling of the corpse ; he never made use of explosive bullets. However keen his thrust and his enjoyment of it, there was nothing vindictive or malignant to be detected. Even when his great rival, Burke, moved partly, it may be, by jealousy, but mainly, no doubt, by growing political distrust, broke with his friends and crossed over to the ministerial benches, with the cry, " I quit the camp,"— Sheridan did not hasten to seize the occasion for taunting invective ; he only hoped that as the Honorable Gentleman had quitted the camp as a deserter, he would never attempt to return as a spy. 52 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Again when Pitt chose to taunt him with his theatrical triumphs, he retorted with a stroke sharp and swift, but in no way passing the limits of friendly debate. The good-humored point of Sheridan's parry is evident even from the imperfect parliamentary reports of those days. Mr. Pitt said that no man admired more than he did "the abilities of that Right Honorable Gentleman, the elegant sallies of his thought, the gay effusions of his fancy, his dramatic turns and his epigrammatic point ; and if they were reserved for the proper stage, they would, no doubt, receive what the Honorable Gentleman's abilities always did receive, the plaudits of the audience, .... But this was not the proper scene for the display of these elegancies." Sheridan, rising to reply, calmly left the question of the taste of Pitt's personality to the House; and then went on. "But let me assure the Right Honorable Gentleman, that I do now, and will, at any time he chooses to repeat this sort of allusion, meet it with the most sincere good-humor. Nay, I will say more — flattered and encour- aged by the Right Honorable Gentleman's panegyric on my talents, if ever I again engage in the compositions he alludes to, I may be tempted to an act of presumption — to attempt an improvement on one of Ben Jonson's best characters, the character of the Angry Boy, in the 'Alchemist.'" Recondite as this allusion seems now, it was not so then, for Garrick's performance of Abel Drugger was one of his best; and the play kept the stage till the beginning of this century. Sheridan's oratory was like his dramatic writing and his poetry, in that all three things, speeches, plays, poems, are only varied forms of expression for the wit which was his chief characteristic. After he entered public life, and until he fell under the evil influence of the Prince of Wales, his wit and his oratory were always used in the good cause. Like Burke, Sheridan was at once a true Irishman A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 53 and an English patriot. In the preface of the 'Rivals,' he declares his attachment to Ireland ; and N at all times throughout his career he could be relied on to do whatever in him lay for the greater honor, dignity, and peace of the British empire. When the French Revo- lution came and "the great army of the indolent good, the people who lead excellent lives and never use their reason, took violent alarm," and when in 1793 Pitt, to use Mr. Morley's apt expression, "lost his feet, though he did not lose his head," Sheridan stood with Fox by "the old flag of freedom and generous common-sense." When the country really was in danger from French aggression in 1799, Sheridan did not falter; and, as we have, seen, 'Pizarro' was worth many a recruit. And when the mutiny at the Nore broke out, Sheridan sacrificed party to patriotism, and gave prompt aid to the putting down of the revolt in a manner creditable alike to his heart and his head, and in marked contrast with the conduct of other politicians then, like him, in opposition. IV. From his marriage and the production of the ' Rivals,' to the trial of Warren Hastings, Sheridan's position and reputation had been steadily rising. For a while they maintained themselves at the exalted level to which they had attained. But slowly the good for- tune which had waxed began in time to wane. In 1788, Sheridan's father died, and in 1792 Sheridan's wife died also, to his great grief. Moore and Smythe bear witness to the strength of Sheridan's love for his wife, and to the depth of his sorrow at her loss. Had she lived, perhaps Sheridan's later life would have been other than it was ; one may at least hazard this suggestion. While she was yet alive, Sheridan had begun to yield to the temptations of society, to live beyond his means, and to neglect the business of the theatre. 54 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. After her death these bad habits grew on him, and became inveter- ate. Unfortunately there was never greater need of exactness and economy than then for the Drury Lane theatre was condemned by the architects and torn down, and the money to erect a new theatre had to be raised by the issue of ,£150,000 in debentures of ,£500 each. Pending the rebuilding, the company performed at the Opera- House, and later at the Haymarket. Unexpected delay in the completion of the new theatre caused great loss, and began that accumulation of indebtedness which was not to be cleared off during Sheridan's life. At last the theatre was complete, and on April 2 1 st, 1794, it was opened with a performance of 'Macbeth.' A few weeks later, on the receipt of the news of Lord Howe's victory, Sheridan brought out an occasional piece, called 'The Glo- rious First of June," sketched by himself, written, rehearsed, and produced in three days. In the spring the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, and in the spring of 1795, Sheridan, a young man of forty- four, was married to Miss Ogle, a young daughter of the Dean of Winchester, having settled upon her, as a condition precedent to the wedding, a sum of £"15,000, raised by debentures on the theatre. During the next few years his difficulties increased. At last, in 1802, came a final blow. The theatre was burnt to the ground. As the glare of the burning building lighted up the House of Commons where Sheridan sat in silence, a motion was made to adjourn, out of regard for Sheridan, who opposed it, hoping that whatever might be the extent of his private calamity it would not interfere with the public business of the country. There seems to be a doubt whether he remained thereafter at his post in the House, or whether he went to the scene of his loss and the theatre of his triumphs. After the destruction of Drury Lane, Sheridan was a ruined man. Mr. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 55 Whitbread took charge of the erection of the new theatre ; an act of Parliament was passed enabling it to be rebuilt by subscriptions ; Sheridan was paid ,£28,000 for his interest in the property, and his son Thomas ;£ 12,000 for his quarter share. But this was conditional on Sheridan's absolute abandonment of all connection with the theatre ; and Whitbread enforced this stipulation with pitiless exactness. Whitbread was the one man whose heart was too hard even for Sheridan to soften. It was three years before Sheridan set foot in the theatre he had ruled for twenty-five of the most prosper- ous and glorious years of its career. Deprived of the revenues of the theatre, and sinking deeper into embarrassment, he was at last unable to raise the money needed for his election at Stafford. In 181 2 he made his final speech in the House of Commons ; it was a warning against the rapacious designs of Napoleon. From this time, Moore tells us, "the distresses of Sheridan now increased every day, and through the short remainder of his life it is a melancholy task to follow him." He was forced to sell his books, his plate, his pictures, and even to part with the portrait of Mrs. Sheridan by Sir Joshua Reynolds. In the spring of 181 5 came " one of the most humiliating trials of his pride ; " " he was arrested and carried to a sponging-house, where he remained two or three days." That Sheridan should have been neglected in this condition by the Prince whom he had served to his own discredit, is only what one might have expected from the First Gentleman in Europe ; but there are those who declare that a sum of money, about £3,000, was sent Sheridan by the Prince, although it was " either attached by his , creditors, or otherwise dissipated in such manner that very little of it actually reached its destination." It is to be remembered that he had no pension like Burke, and that no public or private subscription was ever taken up for Sheridan as it was for Pitt and Fox, for 56 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Lamartine and for Daniel Webster. It must be remembered, too, that the settlement on the second Mrs. Sheridan was ,£15,000, and that Sheridan's debts at his death were found to be less than £5,000 — far less than the debts of Fox or Pitt. The anonymous ''Octoge- narian," in whose biography is to be found the best account of Sheridan's last hours, describes Mrs. Sheridan's grief and her constant attention in his last days. Peter Moore, Dr. Bain, and Samuel Rogers were also true to their fast failing friend. None the less is it a fact, that he was under arrest when he was dying, "on a writ issued at a time when the invalid was in a state of unconsciousness." Fortunately, the sheriff's officer had a kind heart, and, as the custodian of the dying man, he protected him against any other suit which might be urged against him. Mrs. Sheridan sent for the Bishop of London to read prayers for him, but Sheridan was wholly insensible. At nine o'clock on the morning of Sunday, July 7, 1816, he said "Good-bye;" these were his last words. He sank rapidly, and died at twelve noon. On the following Saturday, July 13, the body of the man who had died in neglect was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, with Dukes and Earls as pall-bearers, and with a long string of Royal and Noble mourners. Sheridan's character is enigmatic ; it is not to be read off-hand and at random ; it is complicated and unequal ; and it is to be under- stood and explained only at the cost of effort. Sheridan was good- natured and warm hearted ; he never did any one any intentional injury ; but he brought trouble on all who trusted him. While he was gentle, kind and affectionate, his wife had reason to feel neglected, and his father parted from him in anger. He earned IB \ ■K ) * K ■^ \ \ vj v. & Fac-simile of Autograph Letter of Sheridan. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 57 enormous sums of money, and his advice to others was always admi- rable, but his own affairs wereMn ever-increasing confusion. He was always involved in debt ; yet his accounts as a government officer were scrupulously accurate. To continue the antitheses would be easy, for the story of his life is a series of antithesis ; but to suggest a clue to the labyrinth of his character is not so easy. Briefly, I am inclined to think that it is to be sought iii the uncommon conjunction in Sheridan of two irreconcilable things, a very high standard of morals with an absence of training and discipline. The latter failing vitiated the former virtue. Incapable of keeping himself up in the clear air and on the high level of exalted principle to which he aspired, he was far less careful in the ordinary duties of life than are those whose aim is not so lofty. When he found that he could not attain the high standard he had set before him, he cared little how much he fell short of it — and so sank below the ethical mean of ordinary mortals. There was nothing venal or sordid about him ; he was liked by all, though all who liked him did not respect him ; he was a humorist even in his code of morality. He always meant well, but while the spirit might be willing the flesh was often weak. He intended to be not merely generous with everybody, but also, abso- lutely honest and upright ; his heart was in the right place, as the saying is, but his views were too magnificent for his means ; and he had neither self-denial nor self-discipline ; when, therefore, he had once put himself in a position where he was unable to do exactly what he had agreed to do, and what he always desired to do, he ceased to care whether or not he did all he could do. In time this habit grew upon him, and the frequency of failure to accomplish what he had intended, blunted his aspirations. He always meant well, as I have said, and as time went on people had to be content to take the will for the deed. This type of char- 58 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. acter is not as uncommon as it may seem at first sight. Substan- tially it does not differ greatly from the Therhe of 'Elle et Lui' which George Sand's latest biographer declares to be "a faithful picture of a woman not quite up to the level of her own principles, which are so high that any lapse from them on her part brings down more disasters on herself and on others than the misdemeanors of avowedly unscrupulous persons." In Sheridan this type was modified for the worse by an ambition perilously akin to vanity, and by an indolence accompanied by an extraordinary power of hard work when- ever spurred to it by an extraordinary motive. This vanity and this indolence were the contending evil spirits who strove for the mastery in Sheridan's later days. The indolence encouraged his carelessness in money matters, and the vanity or ambition or pride stiffened his impracticably high code of morality. He was always paying his debts in a large-handed, reckless way, but he was never out of debt. He scorned to examine an account or to catechize a claimant ; when he had money he paid, and when he had none he promised to pay — and he kept his word, if reminded of it when money came in. All, or nearly all, of his shares in the rebuilt theatre were given to creditors without any question as to their claims. Sheridan stripped himself and died in poverty and left but few creditors unpaid. From sheer heedlessness he probably had paid far more than he actually owed, but he never made an effort to investigate his liabilities, or to set them off against his assets to see the exact state of his affairs. He had not the mercantile morality, as he had not the mercantile training, which would have stood him in good stead so often in his checkered career. But he had personal morality in money mat- ters, and he had political morality. His nice sense of honor led him to withdraw his wife from the concert-stage as soon as they were married. He told a creditor who had his bond, and who found him A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 59 in unexpected possession of money, that he had to use the money to meet a debt of honor, whereupbn the creditor burnt his bond before his face and declared his debt was thereafter a debt of honor, and Sheridan paid it at once. In his political career he more than once sacrificed place to principle. As Carlyle says of Schiller, " we should not lightly think of com- prehending the very simplest character in all its bearings; and it might well argue vanity to boast of even a common acquaintance with one like" Sheridan's, which was even more complex and prob- lematic than Schiller's. "Such men as he are misunderstood by their daily companions, much more by the distant observer, who gleans his information from scanty records and casual notices of characteristic events, which biographers are often too indolent or injudicious to collect, and which the peaceful life of a man of letters usually supplies in little abundance." From this injudicious indolence of biographers no man has suffered more than Richard Brinsley Sheridan. And for this there is no better corrective than a reading of the 'Monody on the Death of Sheridan,' which Byron wrote, to be delivered at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre in the autumn. Two extracts from Byron's poem may serve fitly to close this brief and hasty summary of Sheridan's career and character : — " But should there be to whom the fatal blight Of failing wisdom yields a base delight — Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone Jar in the music which was born their own — Still let them pause — at little do they know That what to them seemed vice might be but woe." " Long shall we seek his likeness, long in vain, And turn to all of him which may remain, Sighing that nature formed but one such man, And broke the die, in moulding Sheridan!" THE RIVALS. Mr. Joseph Jefferson as Bob Acres. THE RIVALS. TN the days now departed, and perhaps forever, when every town ■*• in this broad land had its theatre, with its own stock-company of actors and actresses, the manager was wont once and away to announce, with more or less flourish of trumpets, and as though he were doing a most meritorious thing, a series of old-comedy revivals. And the custom still obtains in two or three of the larger cities, notably in New York and Boston. Whenever the announcement was put forth, the regular playgoer retired within himself, and made ready for an intellectual treat. To the regular playgoer the old comedies were a most important part of the Legitimate Drama. Just what the Legitimate Drama is I have never been able to get defined exactly ; nor can I see why one play, any more than another, should bear the bar sinister; to me a play of one kind is as legiti- mate as a play of another kind, each in its place. But, whatever the Legitimate Drama might be, there was no doubt in the mind of the regular playgoer that the Old Comedies were an integral part of it. If you asked the regular playgoer for a list of the Old Comedies, it was odds that he rattled off, glibly enough, first, the ' School for Scandal,' second, 'She Stoops to Conquer,' and third, the 'Rivals.' After these he might hesitate, but if you pushed him to the wall, he would name a few more plays, of which ' A New Way to Pay Old 63 64 THE RIVALS. Debts ' was the oldest, and ' Money ' the youngest. Leaving the regular playgoer, and investigating for yourself, you will find that the Old Comedies are mostly those which, in spite of their being more than a hundred years old, are yet lively and sprightly enough to amuse a modern audience. The life of a drama, even of a successful drama, is rarely three- score years and ten ; and the number of dramas which live to be cen- tenarians is small indeed. In the last century the case was different ; and a hundred years ago the regular playgoer had a chance to see frequently eight or ten pieces by Massinger, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Shirley. Nowadays, Shakspere's are the only Elizabethan plays which keep the stage, with one solitary exception — Massinger' s 'A New Way to Pay Old Debts.' The ' Chances,' of Beaumont and Fletcher ; the ' City Madam,' of Massinger ; and 1 Every Man in his Humor,' of Ben Jonson — these have all, one after another, dropped out of sight. The comedies of the last century have now in their turn become centenarians ; of these there are half a score which have a precarious hold on the theatre, and are seen at lengthening intervals ; and there are half a dozen which hold their own firmly. Of this scant half-dozen, the ' School for Scandal ' is, perhaps, in the greatest request, followed closely by ' She Stoops to Conquer," and by the ' Rivals.' Of late the ' Rivals' has been seen most often in these United States, since Mr. Joseph Jefferson, laying aside the accent and the tatters of that ne'er-do-weel, Rip Van Winkle^ has taken on the counterfeit presentment of Bob Acres, full of strange oaths and of a most valiant bearing ; and he has been aided and abetted by that sterling artist, Mrs. John Drew, as the voluble Mrs. Malaprop. The ' Rivals ' was Sheridan's first play ; it , was produced at Covent Garden, January 17, 1775. Like the first plays of many INTRODUCTION. 65 another dramatist who has afterward succeeded abundantly, it failed dismally on its first performance, and again on the second, the night after. It was immediately withdrawn ; in all probability, it was somewhat rewritten ; and of a certainty it was very much shortened. Then, on January 28, after a ten days' absence from the bills, it reappeared, with Mr. Clinch in the place of Mr. Lee, as Sir Lucius O' Trigger. Moore remarks that as comedy, more than any other species of composition, requires " that knowledge of human nature and the world which experience alone can give, — it seems not a little extra- ordinary that nearly all our first-rate comedies should have been the productions of very young men." Moore then cites Farquhar^ and Vanbrugh, and especially Congreve, all of whose comedies were written before he was twenty-five. It is these three writers who gave the stamp to English comedy ; and Sheridan's die was not unlike theirs. Now, a consideration of the fact that English comedy is thus, in a measure, the work of young men, may tend to explain at once its failings and its force. As Lessing says : " Who has nothing can give nothing. A young man, just entering upon the world him- self, cannot possibly know and depict the world." And this is just the weak point of English comedy ; it is brilliant and full of dash, and it carries itself bravely, but it does not show an exact knowledge of the world, and it does not depict with precision. " The greatest comic genius," Lessing adds, "shows itself empty and hollow in its youthful works." Empty and hollow are harsh words to apply to English comedy, but I think it easy to detect, behind all its glitter and sparkle, a want of depth, a superficiality, which is not far from the emptiness and hollowness of which Lessing speaks. Compare this English comedy of Congreve and of Sheridan, which is a battle of the wits, with the broader and more human comedy of Moliere 66 THE RIVALS. and of Shakspere, and it is easy to see what Lessing means. In place of a broad humanity, is an exuberance of youthful fancy and wit, delighting in its exercise. What gives value to these early plays, and especially to Sheridan's, is the touch of the true dramatist to be seen in them ; and the dramatist is like the poet in so far that he is born, not made. " A dramatic author," says M. Alexandre Dumas, fits, " as he advances in life, can acquire higher thoughts, can develop a higher philosophy, can conceive and execute works of stronger tissue, than when he began ; in a word, the matter he can cast into his mold will be nobler and richer, but the mold will be the same." M. Dumas proceeds to show how the first plays of Corneille, of Moliere, and of Racine, from a technical point of view, are as well constructed as the latest. So it is with Congreve, and Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, and Sheridan; they gave up the stage before they had great experience of the world ; but they were born dramatists. All their comedies were made in the head, not in the heart. But made where or hour you please, they are well made. It is impossible to deny that the * Rivals,' however hollow or empty it may appear on minute critical inspection, is a very extraordinary production for a young man of twenty-three. Humor ripens slowly, but in the case of Sheridan some forcing- house of circumstance seems to have brought it to an early maturity, not as rich, perhaps, or as mellow as it might have become with time, and yet full of a flavor of its own. Strangely enough, the early ' Rivals ' is more humorous and less witty than the later * School for Scandal,' — perhaps because the humor of the 4 Rivals' is rather the frank feeling tor fun and appreciation of the incongruous (both of which may be youthful qualities) than the deeper and broader humor which we see at its full in Moliere and Shakspere. INTRODUCTION. 6? So we have the bold outlines of Mrs. Malaprop and Bob Acres, personages having only a slight likeness to nature, and not always even consistent to their own projection, but strong in comic effect and abundantly laughter-compelling. They are caricatures, if you will, but caricatures of great force, full of robust fun, tough in texture, and able to stand by themselves, in spite of any artistic inequality. Squire Acres is a country gentleman of limited intelligence, inca- pable of acquiring, even by contagion, the curious system of referen- tial swearing by which he gives variety to his speech. But " odds, bullets, and blades ! " as he says, his indeterminate valor is so aptly utilized, and his ultimate poltroonry in the duel scene is so whimsically developed, and so sharply contrasted with the Irish assur- ance and ease of Sir Lucius (J Trigger, that he would be a hard- hearted critic indeed who could taunt Mr. Acres with his artistic short-comings. And it surely takes a very acute mind to blunder so happily in the "derangement of epitaphs" as does Mrs. Malaprop; she must do it with malice prepense, and as though she, and not her niece, were as "headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile." It is only a sober second thought, however, which allows us to "cast aspersions on her parts of speech." While Bob Acres and Mrs. Malaprop are before us we accept them as they are ; and here we touch what was at once Sheridan's weakness and his strength, which lay side by side. He sought, first of all, theatrical effect ; dramatic excellence was a secondary and subservient consideration. On the stage, where all goes with a snap, consistency t of character is not as important as distinctness of drawing. The attributes of a character may be incongruous if they make the character itself more readily recognizable ; and the attention of the spectator may be taken from the incongruity by humor of situation and quickness of dialogue. Acres' s odd oaths are no great strain on consistency, and they help 6S THE RIVALS. to fix him in our memory. Mrs. Malapropos ingenuity in dislocating the dictionary is very amusing, and Sheridan did not hesitate to invent extravagant blunders for her, any more than he hesitated to lend his own wit to Fag and Davta 7 , the servants, who were surely as incapable of appreciating it as they were of inventing it. After all, Sheridan had to live on his wit ; and he wrote his plays to make money by its display. And the more of himself he put into each ot his characters, the more brilliant the play. To say this is, of course, to say that Sheridan belongs in the second rank of comedy writers, with Congreve and Regnard, and not in the class with Shakspere and Moliere. But humor and an insight into human nature are not found united with the play-making faculty once in a century ; there is only one Shakspere, and only one Moliere. It is well that a quick wit and a lively fancy can amuse us not unsatisfactorily, and that, in default of Shakspere and Moliere, we have at least Beaumarchais and Sheridan. It is well that Sheridan wrote the ' Rivals' just when he did, or else both wit and humor might have been banished from the English stage for years. That there was ever any danger of English comedy stiffening itself into prudish priggishness it is not easy now to credit ; but a hundred and ten years ago the danger was real. A school of critics had arisen who prescribed that comedy should be gen- teel, and that it should eschew all treatment of ordinary human nature, confining itself chiefly to sentiment in high life. A school of drama- tists, beginning with Steele (whom it is sad to see in such company), and including Cumberland and Hugh Kelly, taught by example what these critics set forth by precept. The bulk of playgoers were never converted to these principles, but they obtained in literary society and were, for the moment, fashionable. There were not lacking those who protested. Fielding, who had studied out something of INTRODUCTION. 69 the secret of Moliere's humor in the adaptations he made from the author of the ' Miser,' had no sympathy with the new school ; and when he came to write his great novel, ' Tom Jones,' he had a sly thrust or two at the fashion. He introduces to us, for example, a puppet-show which was performed " with great regularity and decency. It was called the fine and serious part of the ' Provoked Husband,' and it was indeed a very grave and solemn entertainment, without any low wit, or humor, or jests ; or, to do it no more than justice, anything which could provoke a laugh. The audience were all highly pleased." 'Tom Jones' was published in 1749, and in 1773 sentimental comedy still survived, and was ready to sneer at Goldsmith's ' She Stoops to Conquer,' and to call its hearty and almost boisterous humor "low." But Tony Lumpkin s country laugh cleared the atmosphere. Genteel comedy had received a death-blow. Some months before ' She Stoops to Conquer ' was brought out, Foote had helped to make the way straight for a revival of true comedy, whereat a man might venture to laugh, by announcing a play for his "Primitive Puppet-show," called the 'Handsome Housemaid, or Piety in Pattens,' which was to illustrate how a maiden of low degree, by the mere effects of her morality and virtue, raised herself to honor and riches. In his life of Garrick, Tom Davies tells us that ' Piety in Pattens ' killed sentimental comedy, although until then Hugh Kelly's 'False Delicacy' had been the favorite play of the times. It is, perhaps, true that Foote scotched the snake ; it is certain, however, that it was Sheridan who killed it. Two years after Goldsmith and Foote came Sheridan; and after the 'Rivals' there was little chance for genteel comedy. Moore prints passages from an early sketch of a farce, from which we can see that Sheridan never took kindly to the sentimental school. Yet so anxious was he 70 THE RIVALS. for the success of the i Rivals,' and so important was this success to him, that he attempted to conciliate the wits and fine ladies who were bitten by the current craze ; at least it is difficult to see any other reason for the characters oi Julia and Faulkland, so different from all Sheridan's other work, and so wholly wanting in the sparkle in which he excelled. And the calculation was seemingly not unwise ; the scenes between Julia and Faulkland, to which we now listen with dumb impatience, and which Mr. Jefferson, in his version of the piece, has trimmed away, were received with delight. John Ber- nard, who was at one time secretary of the Beefsteak Club, and afterward one of the first of American managers, records in his amus- ing ' Retrospections ' that the audience at the first performance of the 'Rivals' contained "two parties — those supporting the pre- vailing taste, and those who were indifferent to it, and liked nature. On the first night of a new play it was very natural that the former should predominate, and what was the consequence ? Why, that Faulkland and Julia (which Sheridan had obviously introduced to conciliate the sentimentalists, but which, in the present day, are con- sidered incumbrances) were the characters most favorably received, whilst Sir Anthony Absolute, Bob Acres, and Lydia, those faithful and diversified pictures of life, were barely tolerated." But the sentimentalists were afterward present in diminishing force ; and the real success of the comedy came from those who could appreciate its fun and who were not too moral to laugh. So Sheri- dan, writing a new prologue to be spoken on the tenth night, drew attention to the figure of Comedy (which stood on one side of the stage, as Tragedy did on the other), and bade the audience " Look on her well — does she seem form'd to teach? Should you expect to hear this lady — preach? Is gray experience suited to her youth ? Do solemn sentiments become that mouth? INTRODUCTION. 7 1 Yet, thus adorned with every graceful art To charm the fancy and to reach the heart, Must we displace her? and instead advance The goddess of the woful countenance? — The Sentimental Muse! — Her emblems view — The ' Pilgrim's Progress ' and a spring of rue ! There fixed in usurpation should she stand, She'll snatch the dagger from her sister's hand; And having made her votaries iveep a flood, Good heaven ! she'll end her comedies in blood ! " Sheridan's use of the figures of Comedy and Tragedy is charac- teristic of his aptness in turning to his own advantage any accident upon which his quick wit could seize. Characteristic, too, is the wil- lingness to borrow a hint from another. Sheridan was not above taking his matter wherever he found it. Indeed, there are not want- ing those who say that Sheridan had nothing of his own, and was barely able to cover his mental nakedness with rags stolen every- where. Mr. John Forster declared that Lydia Languish and her lover owed something to Steele's 'Tender Husband.' Mr. Dibdin, in his " History of the Stage," says that Lydia is stolen from Colman's Polly Honey combe. Mr. E. P. Whipple finds that Sir Anthony Abso- lute is suggested by Smollett's Matthew Bramble ; and, improving on this, Mr. T. Arnold, in the article on English Literature in the new Encyclopedia Britannica, speaks of the ' Rivals ' as dug out of ' Hum- phrey Clinker.' Watkins, Sheridan's first biographer, had already pretended to trace Mrs. Malaprop to a waiting-woman in Fielding's 'Joseph Andrews;' other critics had called her a reproduction of Mrs. Heidelberg, in Colman and Garrick's ' Clandestine Marriage.' And a more recent writer spoke of Theodore Hook's ' Ramsbottom Papers ' as containing the original of all the Mrs. Malaprops and Mrs. Partingtons. Not only were the characters thus all copied here and there, but the incidents also are stolen. Moore and Mrs. Inch- 72 THE RIVALS. bald point out that Falkland's trial of Julia's affection by a pretended danger and need of instant flight, is anticipated both in Prior's ' Nut- brown Maid,' and in Smollett's ' Peregrine Pickle ; ' and Boaden, in his biography of Kemble, finds the same situation in the ' Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph/ a novel by Sheridan's mother, which was once very popular, but which Sheridan told Rogers he had never read. Not content with thus robbing Sheridan of the constituent parts of his play, an attempt has been made to deprive him of the play itself. Under the head of Literary Gossip, the " Athenoeum " of January I, 1876, had this paragraph : — "A very curious and most interesting fact has come to light at the British Museum. Among the collection of old plays (presented to that institution by Mr. Coventry Patmore in 1864) which formerly belonged to Richard Brinsley Sheridan, has been found the holograph original of the comedy 'The Trip to Bath,' written in 1749, by Mrs. Frances Sheridan, his mother, and which, it is said in Moore's ' Life of Sheridan,' was the source of his play of the ' Rivals.' A very slight comparison of the two plays leaves no doubt whatever of the fact ; and in the character of Mrs. Malaprop, Sheridan has actually borrowed some of her amusing blunders from the original Mrs. Tryfort without any alteration whatever/' I have massed these accusations together to meet them with a general denial. I have compared Sheridan's characters and inci- dents with the so-called originals ; and I confess that I can see very little likeness in any case, and no ground at all for a charge of plagi- arism. It is not that Sheridan was at all above borrowing from his neighbor ; it is that in the ' Rivals ' he did not so borrow, or that his borrowings are trifling and trivial both in quantity and quality. Polly Honeycombe, for example, is like Lydia Languish in her taste for novel-reading, in her romantic notions, and in nothing else ; Polly figures in farce, and Lydia in high comedy ; Polly is a shop-keeper's INTRODUCTION. 73 daughter, and Lydia has the fine airs of good society. It is as hard to see a likeness between Polly and Lydia, as it is to see just what Sheridan owes to Steele's 'Tender Husband.' The accusation that the ' Rivals' is indebted to " Humphrey Clinker" is absurd; Sir Anthony ■Absolute is not at all like Mr. Matthew Bramble ; indeed, in all of Smollett's novel, of which the humor is so rich, not to say oily, there is nothing which recalls Sheridan's play, save possibly Mistress Tabitha Bramble, who is an old woman, anxious to marry, and mis- taking a proposal for her niece to be one for her own hand, and who blunders in her phrases. How far, however, from Sheridan's neat touch is Smollett's coarse stroke ! " Mr. Gwynn," says Mistress Tabitha to Quin the actor, " I was once vastly entertained with your playing the ' Ghost of Gimlet ' at Drury Lane, when you rose up through the stage with a white face and red eyes, and spoke of quails upon the frightful porcupine." Mrs. Slipslop, in ' Joseph Andrews,' has also a misapplication of words, but never so aptly incongruous and so exactly inaccurate as Mrs. Malaprop. This trick of speech is all either Mistress Bramble or Mrs. Slipslop have in common with Mrs. Malaprop ; and Mrs. Heidelberg has not even this. The charge that Mrs. Malaprop owes aught to Theodore Hook is highly comic and preposterous, as Hook was born in 1788, and published the 'Ramsbottom Papers" between 1824 and 1828 — say half a century after Mrs. Malaprop has proved her claim to immortality. And it is scarcely less comic and preposterous to imagine that Sheridan could have derived the scene between Julia and Faulkland from Prior's ' Nut-brown Maid,' and from Smollett's 'Peregrine Pickle,' and from Mrs. Sheridan's 'Sydney Biddulph'; the situation in the play differs materially from those in the three other productions. Remains only the sweeping charge of the "Athe- naeum;" and this well nigh as causeless as the rest. The manuscript 74 THE RIVALS. of which the "Athenaeum " speaks is No. 25,975, and it is called 'A Journey to Bath ' ; it ends with the third act, and two more are evi- dently wanting. It is only "a very slight comparison " of this comedy of Mrs. Sheridan's with her son's 'Rivals,' which " leaves no doubt whatever " of the taking of the latter from the former. I have read the 'Journey to Bath ' very carefully ; it is a rather lively comedy, such as were not uncommon in 1750 ; and it is wholly unlike the ' Rivals.' The characters of the 'Journey to Bath' are: Lord Hewkly ; Sir Jeremy Bull, Bart.; Sir Jonathan Bull, his brother, a city knight; Edward, son to Sir Jonathan ; Champignon ; Stapleton ; Lady Fil- mot ; Lady Bel Aircastle ; Mrs. Try fort, a citizen's widow; Lticy, her daughter ; Mrs. Surface, one who keeps a lodging-house at Bath. Mrs. Surface, it may be noted, is a scandalmonger, who hates scan- dal ; and Sheridan used both the name and the character in his later and more brilliant comedy. In the 'Journey to Bath' and the ' Rivals,' the scenes are laid at Bath ; and here the likeness ends — except that Mrs. Tryfort seems to be a sort of first draft of Mrs. Malaprop. It is difficult to doubt that Sheridan had read his mother's comedy and had claimed as his by inheritance this Mrs. Tryfort, who is described by one of the other characters as the " vainest poor creature, and the fondest of hard words, which, with- out miscalling, she always takes care to misapply." None of her misapplications, however, are as happy as those of Mrs. Malaprop. After all, the invention is rather Shakspere's than Mrs. Sheri- dan's. Mrs. Malaprop is but Dogberry in petticoats. And the fault of which Mr. Whipple accuses Sheridan may be laid at Shakspere's door also. Mr. Whipple calls Mrs. Malaprop' s mistakes " too felici- tously infelicitous to be natural," and declares them "character- istics, not of a mind flippantly stupid, but curiously acute," and that we laugh at her as we should at an acquaintance "who was exercising INTRODUCTION. 75 his ingenuity, instead of exposing his ignorance." This is all very true, but true it is also that Dogberry asked, "Who think you to be the most desertless man to be constable?" And again, "Is our whole dissembly appeared ? And "O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this ! " Sheridan has blundered in good company, at all events. Not content with finding suggestions for Sheridan's work in various fictions, his earliest biographer, Dr. Watkins, suggests that the plot of the ' Rivals ' was taken from life, having been suggested by his own courtship of Miss Linley and the ensuing duel with Cap- tain Mathews. And his latest biographer, Mrs. Oliphant, chooses to identify Miss Lydia Languish with Mrs. Sheridan. Both sugges- tions are absurd. There is no warrant whatever for the assumption that any similarity existed between Miss Linley and Miss Languish) and the incidents of Sheridan's comedy do not at all coincide with the incidents of Sheridan's biography. Already, in his 'Maid of Bath,' had Foote set Miss Linley and one of her suitors on the stage ; and surely Sheridan, who would not let his wife sing in public, would shrink from putting the story of their courtship into a comedy. It has been suggested, though, that in the duel scene Sheridan profited by his own experience on the field of honor; and also, that in the character of Faulk land ho, sketched his own state of mind during the long days of waiting, when he was desperately in love, and saw little hope of marital happiness ; in the days when he had utilized the devices of the stage, and for the sake of getting near to her for a few minutes, he had disguised himself as the coach- man who drove her at night to her father's house. This may be true ; but it is as dangerous as it is easy to apply the speeches of a dramatist, speaking in many a feigned voice, to the circumstances of his own life. Jb THE RIVALS. The ' Rivals,' as a play, has suffered the usual vicissitudes of all old favorites. Although never long forgotten, it has been now and again neglected and now and again harshly treated. Of late years the parts of Faulkland and Julia have been much curtailed when the comedy has been acted in England ; and in the admirable revival effected in 1880 by Mr. Joseph Jefferson in the United States, Julia was wholly omitted and Faulkland was suffered to remain only that he might serve as a foil to Bob Acres. It is pleasant to note that when the play was produced at the Haymarket Theatre in London by Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft, the parts of Julia and Faulkland were restored to their pristine importance. In the Haymarket revival of 1884, as in a highly successful revival at the Vaudeville Theatre (where in 1882-3 the comedy was acted more than two hundred times), the part of Mrs. Malaprop was performed by Mrs. Sterling, whose reading of the part, although more conscious and affected than Mrs. Drew's, was as effective as any author could desire. In the United States we are fortunate in the possession of Mr. John Gilbert, whose Sir Anthony Absolute may be matched with the great Sir Anthonys of the past. We may be sure that Mr. Gilbert's fine artistic conscience would forbid his repetition of a freak of Dowton's, who once for a benefit, gave up Sir Anthony to appear as Mrs. Malaprop. Nor was this the only occasion when a man played a woman's part in this comedy. In his autobiography, Kotzebue (from whom the author of the ' Rivals' was afterward to borrow 'Pizarro'), records the performance of the English comedy in German in the cloister of the Minoret's Convent, a performance in which the future German dramatist, then a mere youth, doubled the parts of Julia and Acres ! In German as in French, there is more than one translation or adaptation of the ' Rivals ; ' and some of them are not without INTRODUCTION. 77 a comicality of their own. It is to be remembered, also, that on the celebrated visit of the English actors to Paris, in 1827, — a visit which had great influence on the development of French dramatic literature, and which may, indeed, be called the exciting cause of the Romantic movement, — the first play presented to the Parisian public by the English actors was the ' Rivals.' AUTHOR'S PREFACE, A PREFACE to a play seems generally to be considered as a ^*^ kind of closet-prologue, in which — if his piece has been suc- cessful — the author solicits that indulgence from the reader which he had before experienced from the audience ; but as the scope and immediate object of a play is to please a mixed assembly in represen- tation (whose judgment in the theatre at least is decisive), its degree of reputation is usually as determined as public, before it can be prepared for the cooler tribunal of the study. Thus any farther solicitude on the part of the writer becomes unnecessary at least, if not an intrusion ; and if the piece has been condemned in the per- formance, I fear an address to the closet, like an appeal to posterity, is constantly regarded as the procrastination of a suit, from a con- sciousness of the weakness of the cause. From these considerations, the following comedy would certainly have been submitted to the reader, without any farther introduction than what it had in the rep- resentation, but that its success has probably been founded on a circumstance which the author is informed has not before attended a theatrical trial, and which consequently ought not to pass unnoticed. I need scarcely add, that the circumstance alluded to was the withdrawing of the piece, to remove those imperfections in the first representation which were too obvious to escape reprehension, and too 79 80 THE RIVALS. numerous to admit of a hasty correction. There are few writers, I believe, who, even in the fullest consciousness of error, do not wish to palliate the faults which they acknowledge ; and, however trifling the performance, to second their confession of its deficiencies, by whatever plea seems least disgraceful to their ability. In the present instance, it cannot be said to amount either to candor or modesty in me, to acknowledge an extreme inexperience and want of judgment on matters, in which, without guidance from, practice, or spur from success, a young man should scarcely boast of being an adept. If it be said, that under such disadvantages no one should attempt to write a play, I must beg leave to dissent from the position, while the first point of experience that I have gained on the subject is, a knowledge of the candor and judgment with which an impartial public distinguishes between the errors of inexperience and inca- pacity, and the indulgence which it shows even to a disposition to remedy the defects of either. It were unnecessary to enter into any further extenuation of what was thought exceptionable in this play, but that it has been said, that the managers should have prevented some of the defects before its appearance to the public — and in particular the uncommon length of the piece as represented the first night. It were an ill return for the most liberal and gentlemanly conduct on their side, to suffer any censure to rest where none was deserved. Hurry in writing has long been exploded as an excuse for an author ; — however, in the dra- matic line, it may happen, that both an author and a manager may wish to fill a chasm in the entertainment of the public with a hasti- ness not altogether culpable. The season was advanced when I first put the play into Mr. Harris's hands ; it was at that time at least double the length of any acting comedy. I profited by his judgment and experience in the curtailing of it — till, I believe, his feeling for AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 8 1 the vanity of a young author got the better of his desire for correct- ness, and he left many excrescences remaining, because he had assisted in pruning so many more. Hence, though I was not unin- formed that the acts were still too long, I flattered myself that, after the first trial, I might with safer judgment proceed to remove what should appear to have been most dissatisfactory. Many other errors there were, which might in part have arisen from my being by no means conversant with plays in general, either in reading or at the theatre. Yet I own that, in one respect, I did not regret my ignorance ; for as my first wish in attempting a play was to avoid every appearance of plagiary, I thought I should stand a better chance of effecting this from being in a walk which I had not frequented, and where, consequently, the progress of invention was less likely to be interrupted by starts of recollection ; for on subjects on which the mind has been much informed, invention is slow of exerting itself. Faded ideas float in the fancy like half-forgotten dreams ; and the imagination in its fullest enjoyments becomes sus- picious of its offspring, and doubts whether it has created or adopted. With regard to some particular passages which on the first night's representation seemed generally disliked, I confess, that if I felt any emotion of surprise at the disapprobation, it was not that they were disapproved of, but that I had not before perceived that they deserved it. As some part of the attack on the piece was begun too early to pass for the sentence of judgment, which is ever tardy in condemning, it has been suggested to me, that much of the disappro- bation must have arisen from virulence of malice, rather than severity of criticism ; but as I was more apprehensive of there being just grounds to excite the latter than conscious of having deserved the former, I continue not to believe that probable, which I am sure must 82 THE RIVALS. have been unprovoked. However, if it was so, and I could even mark the quarter from whence it came, it would be ungenerous to retort ; for no passion suffers more than malice from disappointment. For my own part, I see no reason why the author of a play should not regard a first night's audience as a candid and judicious friend attending, in behalf of the public, at his last rehearsal. If he can dispense with flattery, he is sure at least of sincerity, and even though the annotation be rude, he may rely upon the justness of the comment. Considered in this light, that audience, whose fiat is essential to the poet's claim, whether his object be fame or profit, has surely a right to expect some deference to its opinion, from principles of politeness at least, if not from gratitude. As for the little puny critics, who scatter their peevish strictures in private circles, and scribble at every author who has the eminence of being unconnected with them, as they are usually spleen-swoln from a vain idea of increasing their consequence, there will always be found a petulance and illiberality in their remarks, which should place them as far beneath the notice of a gentleman, as their original dulness had sunk them from the level of the most unsuccessful author. It is not without pleasure that I catch at an opportunity of justi- fying myself from the charge of intending any national reflection in the character of Sir Lucius O'Trigger. If any gentlemen opposed the piece from that idea, I thank them sincerely for their opposition ; and if the condemnation of this comedy (however misconceived the provocation), could have added one spark to the decaying flame of national attachment to the country supposed to be reflected on, I should have been happy in its fate ; and might with truth have boasted, that it had done more real service in its failure than the successful morality of a thousand stage-novels will ever effect. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 83 It is usual, I believe, to thank the performers in a new play, for the exertion of their several abilities. But where (as in this instance) their merit has been so striking and uncontroverted, as to call for the warmest and truest applause from a number of judicious audi-, ences, the poet's after-praise comes like the feeble acclamation of a child to close the shouts of a multitude. The conduct, however, of the principals in a theatre cannot be so apparent to the public. I think it, therefore, but justice to declare that from this theatre (the only one I can speak of from experience) those writers who wish to try the dramatic line will meet with that candor and liberal attention which are generally allowed to be better calculated to lead genius into excellence, than either the precepts of judgment, or the guidance of experience. The Author. DRAMATIS PERSONS, AS ORIGINALLY ACTED AT COVENT-GARDEN THEATRE IN 1775. {' Sir Anthony Absolute ....... Mr. Shuter. Captain Absolute Mr. Woodward. Falkland Mr. Lewis. v Acres . Mr. Quick. Sir Lucius O'Trigger . Mr. Lee* Fag Mr. Lee Lewes. David Mr. Dunstal. Thomas Mr. Fearon. Mrs. Malaprop Mrs. Green. Lydia Languish Miss Barsanti. Julia Mrs. Bulkley. Lucy Mrs. Lessingham. Maid, Boy, Servants, etc. SCENE — Bath. Time of Action — Five Llours. * Afterwards by Mr. Clinch. PROLOGUE. BY THE AUTHOR. SPOKEN BY MR. WOODWARD AND MR. QUICK. Enter Serjeant-at-law, and Attorney following and giving a paper. Serf. What 's here ! — a vile cramp hand ! I cannot see Without my spectacles. Att. He means his fee. Nay, Mr. Serjeant, good sir, try again. {Gives money. ; Serf. The scrawl improves ! \inore~\ O come, 't is pretty plain. Hey ! how 's this ? Dibble ! — sure it cannot be ! A poet's brief ! a poet and a fee ! Att. Yes, sir ! though you without reward, I know, Would gladly plead the Muse's cause. Serj. So ! — so ! Att. And if the fee offends, your wrath should fall On me. Serj. Dear Dibble, no offence at all. Att. Some sons of Phoebus in the courts we meet, Serj. And fifty sons of Phoebus in the Fleet ! Att. Nor pleads he worse, who with a decent sprig Of bays adorns his legal waste of wig. Serj. Full-bottom'd heroes thus, on signs, unfurl A leaf of laurel in a grove of curl ! 85 86 THE RIVALS. Yet tell your client that, in adverse days, This wig is warmer than a bush of bays. Att. Do you, then, sir, my client's place supply, Profuse of robe and prodigal of tie Do you, with all those blushing powers of face, And wonted bashful hesitating grace, Rise in the court, and flourish on the case. [Exit. Serf. For practice then suppose — this brief will show it, — Me, Serjeant Woodward, — counsel for the poet. Used to the ground, I know, 't is hard to deal With this dread court, from whence there 's no appeal ; No tricking here, to blunt the edge of law. Or, damned in equity, escape by flaw: But judgment given, yotir sentence must remain ; No writ of error lies — to Dmry-lane ! Yet when so kind you seem, 't is past dispute We gain some favor, if not costs of suit. No spleen is here ! I see no hoarded fury ; — — I think I never faced a milder jury ! Sad else our plight ! where frowns are transportation, A hiss the gallows, and a groan damnation ! But such the public candor, without fear My client waves all right of challenge here. No newsman from our session is dismiss'd, Nor wit nor critic we scratch off the list ; His faults can never hurt another's ease, His crime, at worst, a bad attempt to please : Thus, all respecting, he appeals to all, And by the general voice will stand ox fall. PROLOGUE. BY THE AUTHOR. SPOKEN ON THE TENTH NIGHT, BY MRS. BULKLEY. Granted our cause, our suit and trial o'er, The worthy Serjeant need appear no more : In pleasing I a different client choose, He served the Poet — I would serve the Muse : Like him, I '11 try to merit your applause, A female counsel in a female's cause. Look on this form,* — where Humor, quaint and sly, Dimples the cheek, and points the beaming eye ; Where gay Invention seems to boast its wiles In amorous hint, and half-triumphant smiles ; While her light mask or covers Satire's strokes, Or hides the conscious blush her wit provokes. — Look on her well — does she seem form'd to teach ? Should you expect to hear this lady preach ? Is gray experience suited to her youth ? Do solemn sentiments become that mouth ? Bid her be grave, those lips should rebel prove To every theme that slanders mirth or love. * Pointing to the figure of Comedy. 87 88 THE RIVALS. Yet, thus adorn'd with every graceful art To charm the fancy and yet reach the heart Must we displace her ? And instead advance The Goddess of the woful countenance — The sentimental Muse ! — Her emblems view, The Pilgrim's Progress, and a sprig of rue ! View her — too chaste to look like flesh and blood - Primly portrayed on emblematic wood ! There, fix'd in usurpation, should she stand, She '11 snatch the dagger from her sister's hand : And having made her votaries weep a flood, Good heaven ! she'll end her comedies in blood — Bid Harry Woodward break poor Dunstal's crown ; Imprison Quick, and knock Ned Shuter down ; While sad Barsanti, weeping o'er the scene, Shall stab herself — or poison Mrs. Green. — Such dire encroachments to prevent in time, Demands the critic's voice — the poet's rhyme. Can our light scenes add strength to holy laws ? Such puny patronage but hurts the cause : Fair Virtue scorns our feeble aid to ask ; And moral Truth disdains the trickster's mask. For here their fav'rite stands,* whose brow, severe And sad, claims Youth's respect, and Pity's tear; Who, when oppress'd by foes her worth creates, Can point a poniard at the Guilt she hates. * Pointing to Tragedy. THE RIVALS A COMEDY. ACT I. Scene I. — A Street in Bath. Enter Thomas ; he crosses the Stage ; F ag follows, looking after him. Fag. What ! Thomas ! — Sure 't is he ! — What ! Thomas ! Thomas ! Thos. Hey ! — Odd's life ! Mr. Fag ! — give us your hand, my old fellow-servant. Fag. Excuse my glove, Thomas : — I'm devilish glad to see you, my lad. Why, my prince of charioteers, you look as hearty ! — but who the deuce thought of seeing you in Bath ? Thos. Sure, master, Madam Julia, Harry, Mrs. Kate, and the postillion, be all come. Fag. Indeed ! Thos. Ay, master thought another fit of the gout was coming to make him a visit ; — so he 'd a mind to gi't the slip, and whip ! we were all off at an hour's warning. Fag. Ay, ay, hasty in everything, or it would not be Sir Anthony Absolute ! Thos. But tell us, Mr. Fag, how does young master ? Odd ! Sir Anthony will stare to see the Captain here ! 89 90 THE RIVALS. Fag. I do not serve Captain Absolute now. Thos. Why sure ! Fag. At present I am employed by Ensign Beverley. Thos. I doubt, Mr. Fag, you ha'n't changed for the better. Fag. I have not changed, Thomas. Thos. No ! Why did n't you say you had left young master ? Fag. No. — Well, honest Thomas, I must puzzle you no farther: — briefly then — Captain Absolute and Ensign Beverley are one and the same person. Thos. The devil they are ! Fag. So it is indeed, Thomas ; and the ensign half of my master being on guard at present — the captain has nothing to do with me. Thos. So, so ! — What, this is some freak, I warrant ! — Do tell us, Mr. Fag, the meaning o't — you know I ha' trusted you. Fag. You '11 be secret, Thomas ? Thos. As a coach-horse. Fag. Why then the cause of all this is — Love. — Love, Thomas, who (as you may get read to you) has been a masquerader ever since the days of Jupiter. Thos. Ay, ay ; — I guessed there was a lady in the case : — but pray, why does your master pass only for ensign? — Now if he had shammed general indeed Fag. Ah ! Thomas, there lies the mystery o' the matter. Hark'ee, Thomas, my master is in love with a lady of a very singular taste ; a lady who likes him better as a half-pay ensign than if she knew he was son and heir to Sir Anthony Absolute, a baronet of three thou- sand a year. Thos. That is an odd taste indeed ! — But has she got the stuff, Mr. Fag ? Is she rich, hey ? Fag. Rich ! Why, I believe she owns half the stocks 1 Zounds 1 A COMEDY. 91 Thomas, she could pay the national debt as easily as I could my washerwoman! She has a lapdog that eats out of gold, — she feeds her parrot with small pearls, — and all her thread-papers are made of bank-notes ! T/ios. Bravo, faith ! — Odd ! I warrant she has a set of thousands at least : but does she draw kindly with the captain ? Fag. As fond as pigeons. Thos. May one hear her name ? Fag. Miss Lydia Languish. — But there is an old tough aunt in the way; — though, by the by, she has never seen my master — for we got acquainted with miss while on a visit in Gloucestershire. Thos. Well — I wish they were once harnessed together in matri- mony. — But pray, Mr. Fag, what kind of a place is this Bath? — I ha' heard a deal of it — here 's a mort o' merry-making, hey ? Fag. Pretty well, Thomas, pretty well — 't is a good lounge ; in the morning we go to the pump-room (though neither my master nor I drink the waters) ; after breakfast we saunter on the parades, or play a game at billiards ; at night we dance ; but damn the place, I 'm tired of it ; their regular hours stupefy me — not a fiddle nor a card after eleven ! — However, Mr. Faulkland's gentleman and I keep it up a little in private parties — I'll introduce you there, Thomas — you '11 like him much. Thos. Sure I know Mr. Du-Peigne — you know his master is to marry Madam Julia. Fag. I had forgot. — But, Thomas, you must polish a little — indeed you must. — Here now — this wig ! — What the devil do you do with a wig, Thomas ? — None of the London whips of any degree of ton wear wigs now. Thos. More 's the pity ! more 's the pity, I say. — Odd's life ! when I heard how the lawyers and doctors had took to their own hair, 92 THE RIVALS. I thought how 't would go next: — Odd rabbit it! when the fashion had got foot on the bar, I guessed 'twould mount to the box! — but 't is all out of character, believe me, Mr. Fag : and look'ee, I '11 never gi' up mine — the lawyers and doctors may do as they will. Fag. Well, Thomas, we '11 not quarrel about that. TJios. Why, bless you, the gentlemen of .they professions ben't all of a mind — for in our village now, thoff Jack Gauge, the exciseman has ta'en to his carrots, there's little Dick the farrier swears he'll never forsake his bob, though all the college should appear with their own heads ! Fag. Indeed ! well said, Dick ! — But hold ! — mark ! — mark ! Thomas. Thos. Zooks ! 't is the captain. — Is that the lady with him ? Fag. No, no, that is Madam Lucy, my master's mistress's maid. They lodge at that house — but I must after him to tell him the news. Thos. Odd ! he 's giving her money ! — Well, Mr. Fag Fag. Good-bye, Thomas. I have an appointment in Gyde's Porch this evening at eight ; meet me there, and we '11 make a little party. \Exeunt severally. Scene II. — A Dtessing-room in Mrs. Malaprop's Lodgings. Lydia sitting on a sofa, with a book in her hand. Lucy, as just returned from a message. Lucy. Indeed, ma'am, I traversed half the town in search of it ; I don't believe there 's a circulating library in Bath I ha'n't been at. Lyd. And could not you get The Reward of Constancy? Lucy. No, indeed, ma'am. Lyd. Nor The Fatal Connection ? A COMEDY. 93 Lucy. No, indeed, ma'am. Lyd. Nor The Mistakes of the Heart f Lucy. Ma'am, as ill luck would have it, Mr. Bull said Miss Sukey Saunter had just fetched it away. Lyd. Heigh-ho ! — Did you inquire for The Delicate Distress ? Lucy. Or, The Memoirs of Lady Woodford? Yes, indeed, ma'am. I asked everywhere for it ; and I might have brought it from Mr. Frederick's, but Lady Slattern Lounger, who had just sent it home, had so soiled and dog's-eared it, it wa'n't fit for a Christian to read. Lyd. Heigh-ho! — Yes, I always know when Lady Slattern has been before me. She has a most observing thumb ; and, I believe, cherishes her nails for the convenience of making marginal notes. — Well, child, what have you brought me ? Lucy. Oh! here, ma'am. — [Taking books from wider her cloak, and from her pockets .] This is The Gordian Knot, — and this Pere- grine Pickle. Here are The Tears of Sensibility and Humphrey Clinker. This is The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality, written by herself, and here the second volume of The Sentimental Journey. Lyd. Heigh-ho ! — What are those books by the glass ? Lucy. The great one is only The Whole Duty of Man, where I press a few blonds, ma'am. Lyd. Very well — give me the sal volatile. Lucy. Is it in a blue cover, ma'am ? Lyd. My smelling-bottle, you simpleton ! Lucy. Oh, the drops ; — here, ma'am. Lyd. Hold ! — here 's some one coming — quick, see who it is. — Exit Lucy.]. Surely I heard my cousin Julia's voice. Re- Enter Lucy. Lucy. Lud ! ma'am, here is Miss Melville. Lyd. Is it possible ! — [Exit Lucy. 94 THE RIVALS. Enter Julia. Lyd. My dearest Julia, how delighted am I! — [Embrace.'] How unexpected was this happiness ! ////. True, Lydia, and our pleasure is the greater. — But what has been the matter ? — you were denied to me at first ! Lyd. Ah, Julia, I have a thousand things to tell you ! — But first inform me what has conjured you to Bath ? Is Sir Anthony here ? Jul. He is — we are arrived within this hour — and I suppose he will be here to wait on Mrs. Malaprop as soon as he is dressed. Lyd. Then before we are interrupted, let me impart to you some of my distress ! — I know your gentle nature will sympathize with me, though your prudence may condemn me ! My letters have in- formed you of my whole connection with Beverley ! but I have lost him, Julia ! My aunt has discovered our intercourse by a note she intercepted, and has confined me ever since ! Yet, would you believe it ? she has absolutely fallen in love with a tall Irish baronet she met one night since we have been here, at Lady Macshuffle's rout. Jul. You jest, Lydia ! Lyd. No, upon my word. She really carries on a kind of corre- spondence with him, under a feigned name though, till she chooses to be known to him ; — but it is a Delia or a Celia, I assure you. Jul. Then, surely, she is now more indulgent to her niece. Lyd. Quite the contrary. Since she has discovered her own frailty, she is become more suspicious of mine. Then I must inform you of another plague ! — That odious Acres is to be in Bath to-day ; so that I protest I shall be teased out of all spirits ! Jul. Come, come, Lydia, hope for the best. — Sir Anthony" shall use his interest with Mrs. Malaprop. Lyd. But you have not heard the worst. Unfortunately I had A COMEDY. 95 quarrelled with my poor Beverley, just before my aunt made the discovery, and I have not seen him since, to make it up. Jul What was his offence ? Lyd. Nothing at all ! — But I don't know how it was, as often as we had been together, we had never had a quarrel, and, somehow, I was afraid he would never give me an opportunity. So, last Thurs- day, I wrote a letter to myself, to inform myself that Beverley was at that time paying -his addresses to another woman. I signed it your friend unknown, showed it to Beverley, charged him with his false- hood, put myself in a violent passion, and vowed 1 'd never see him more. Jul. And you let him depart so, and have not seen him since ? Lyd. 'T was the next day my aunt found the matter out. I intended only to have teased him three days and a half, and now I 've lost him forever. Jul. If he is as deserving and sincere as you have represented him to me, he will never give you up so. Yet consider, Lydia, you tell me he is but an ensign, and you have thirty thousand pounds. Lyd. But you know I lose most of my fortune if I marry without my aunt's consent, till of age ; and that is what I have determined to do, ever since I knew the penalty. Nor could I love the man, who would wish to wait a day for the alternative. Jul. Nay, this is caprice ! Lyd. What, does Julia tax me with caprice ? — I thought her lover Faulkland had inured her to it. Jul. I do not love even his faults. Lyd. But apropos — you have sent to him, I suppose ? Jul. Not yet, upon my word — nor has he the least idea of my being in Bath. Sir Anthony's resolution was so sudden, I could not inform him of it. 96 THE RIVALS. Lyd. Well, Julia, you are your own mistress (though under the protection of Sir Anthony), yet have you, for this long year, been a slave to the caprice, the whim, the jealousy of this ungrateful Faulk- land, who will ever delay assuming the right of a husband, while you suffer him to be equally imperious as a lover. Jul. Nay, you are wrong entirely. We were contracted before my father's death. That, and some consequent embarrassments, have delayed what I know to be my Faulkland's most ardent wish. He is too generous to trifle on such a point : — and for his character, you wrong him there too. No, Lydia, he is too proud, too ngble to be jealous ; if he is captious, 't is without dissembling ; if fretful, without rudeness. Unused to the fopperies of love, he is negligent of the little duties expected from a lover — but being unhackneyed in the passion, his affection is ardent and sincere ; and as it engrosses his whole soul, he expects every thought and emotion of his mistress to move in unison with his. Yet, though his pride calls for this full return, his humility makes him undervalue those qualities in him which would entitle him to it ; and not feeling why he should be loved to the degree he wishes, he still suspects that he is not loved enough. This temper, I must own, has cost me many unhappy hours ; but I have learned to think myself his debtor for those imperfections which arise from the ardor of his attachment. Lyd. Well, I cannot blame you for defending him. But tell me candidly, Julia, had he never saved your life, do you think you should have been attached to him as you are ? — Believe me, the rude blast that overset your boat was a prosperous gale of love to him. Jul. Gratitude may have strengthened my attachment to Mr. Faulkland, but I loved him before he had preserved me ; yet surely that alone were an obligation sufficient. Lyd. Obligation ! why a water-spaniel would have done as much ! A COMEDY. 97 -^Well, I should never think of giving my heart to a man because he could swim. Jul. Come, Lydia, you are too inconsiderate. Lyd. Nay, I do but jest. — What 's here ? Re-Enter Lucy in a Jiurry. Lucy. O ma'am, here is Sir Anthony Absolute just come home with your aunt. Lyd. They'll not come here. — Lucy, do you watch. [Exit Lucy. Jul. Yet I must go. Sir Anthony does not know I am here, and if we meet, he '11 detain me, to show me the town. I '11 take another opportunity of paying my respects to Mrs. Malaprop, when she shall treat me, as long as she chooses, with her select words so ingeniously misapplied, without being mispronounced. Re-Enter Lucy. Lucy. O Lud ! ma'am, they are both coming up stairs. Lyd. Well, I '11 not detain you, coz. — Adieu, my dear Julia, I'm sure you are in haste to send to Faulkland. — There — through my room you '11 find another staircase. Jul. Adieu ! [Embraces Lydia, and exit. Lyd. Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, quick. — Fling Peregrine Pickle under the toilet — throw Roderick Random into the closet — put The Innocent Adultery into The Whole Duty of Man — thrust Lord Aimzvorth under the sofa — cram Ovid behind the bolster — there — put the Man of Feeling into your pocket — so, so — now lay Mrs. Chapone in sight, and leave Fordyce s Sermons open on the table. Lucy. Oh burn it, ma'am ! the hair-dresser has torn away as far as Proper Pride. Lyd. Never mind — open at Sobriety. — Fling me Lord Chester- field's Letters. — Now for 'em. [Exit Lucy. 98 THE RIVALS. Enter Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute. Mrs. Mai. There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deliberate simple- ton who wants to disgrace her family, and lavish herself on a fellow not worth a shilling. Lyd. Madam, I thought you once Mrs. Mai. You thought, miss ! I don't know any business you have to think at all — thought does not become a young woman. But the point we would request of you is, that you will promise to forget this fellow — to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory. Lyd. Ah, madam! our memories are independent of our wills. It is not so easy to forget. Mrs. Mai. But I say it is, miss ; there is nothing on earth so easy as to forget \ if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor dear uncle as if he had never existed — and I thought it my duty so to do ; and let me tell you, Lydia, these violent memories don't become a young woman. Sir Anth. Why sure she wont pretend to remember what she's ordered not ! — ay, this comes of her reading ! Lyd. What crime, madam, have I committed, to be treated thus ? Mrs. Mai. Now don't attempt to extirpate yourself from the matter ; you know I have proof controvertible of it. — But tell me, Will you promise to do as you 're bid ? Will you take a husband of your friends' choosing ? Lyd. Madam, I must tell you plainly, that had I no preference for any one else, the choice you have made would be my aversion. Mrs. Mai. What business have you, miss, with preference and aversion ! They don't become a young woman ; and you ought to know, that as both always wear off, 't is safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle before A COMEDY. marriage as if he'd been a blackamoor — and yet, miss, you are sible what a wife I made ! — and when it pleased Heaven to me from him, 'tis unknown what tears I shed! — But suppose wo were going to give you another choice, will you promise us to give up this Beverley ? Lyd. Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that promise, my actions would certainly as far belie my words. Mrs. Mai. Take yourself to your room. — You are fit company for nothing but your own ill-humors. Lyd. Willingly, ma'am. — I cannot change for the worse. [Exit. Mrs. Mai. There 's a little intricate hussy for you ! Sir Antk. It is not to be wondered at, ma'am, — all this is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. Had I a thousand daughters, by Heaven ! I 'd as soon have them taught the black art as their alphabet ! Mrs. Mai. Nay, nay, Sir Anthony, you are an absolute misan- thropy. Sir Anth. In my way hither, Mrs. Malaprop, I observed your niece's maid coming forth from a circulating library ! — She had a book in each hand — they were half-bound volumes, with marble covers ! — from that moment I guessed how full of duty I should see her mistress ! Mrs. Mai. Those are vile places, indeed ! Sir Anth. Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an ever- green tree of diabolical knowledge ! It blossoms through the year ! — and depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves will long for the fruit at last. Mrs. Mai. Fy, fy, Sir Anthony ! you surely speak laconically. Sir Anth. Why, Mrs. Malaprop, in moderation, now, what would you have a woman know ? IOC THE RIVALS. Mrs. Mai. Observe me, Sir Anthony. I would by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning; I don't think so much learning becomes a young woman ; for instance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or Algebra, or Simony, or Fluxions, or Paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches of learning — neither would it be necessary for her to handle any of your mathe- matical, astronomical, diabolical instruments. — But, Sir Anthony, I would send her, at nine years old, to a boarding-school, in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice. Then, sir, she should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts ; — and as she grew up, I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries; — but above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of orthodoxy, that she might not mis-spell, and mis-pro- nounce words so shamefully as girls usually do ; and likewise that she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying. This, Sir Anthony, is what I would have a woman know; — and I don't think there is a superstitious article in it. Sir Anth. Well, well, Mrs. Malaprop, I will dispute the point no further with you ; though I must confess that you are a truly moderate and polite arguer, for almost every third word you say is on my side of the question. But, Mrs. Malaprop, to the more important point in debate — you say you have no objection to my proposal? Mrs. Mai. None, I assure you. I am under no positive engage- ment with Mr. Acres, and as Lydia is so obstinate against him, perhaps your son may have better success. Sir Anth. Well, madam, I will write for the boy directly. He knows not a syllable of this yet, though I have for some time had the proposal in my head. He is at present with his regiment. Mrs. Mai. We have never seen your son, Sir Anthony ; but I hope no objection on his side. A COMEDY. IOI Sir Anth. Objection! — let him object if he dare! — No, no, Mrs. Malaprop, Jack knows that the least demur puts me in a frenzy directly. My process was always very simple — in their younger days 't was "Jack, do this ; " — if he demurred, I knocked him down — and if he grumbled at that, I always sent him out of the room. Mrs. Mai. Ay, and the properest way, o' my conscience ! — nothing is so conciliating to young people as severity. — Well, Sir Anthony, I shall give Mr. Acres his discharge, and prepare Lydia to receive your son's, invocations ; — and I hope you will represent Jier to the captain as an object not altogether illegible. Sir Anth. Madam, I will handle the subject prudently. — Well, I must leave you ; and let me beg you, Mrs. Malaprop, to enforce this matter roundly to the girl. — Take my advice — keep a tight hand : if she rejects this proposal, clap her under lock and key ; and if you were just to let the servants forget to bring her dinner for three or four days, you can't conceive how she 'd come about. [Exit Sir Anth. Mrs. Mai. Well, at any rate I shall be glad to iget her from under my intuition. She has somehow discovered my partiality for Sir Lucius O'Trigger — sure, Lucy can't have betrayed me ! — No, the girl is such a simpleton, I should have made her confess it. — Lucy ! — Lucy! — [Calls.'] Had she been one of your artificial ones, I should never have trusted her. Re-Enter Lucy. Lucy. Did you call, ma'am ? Mrs. Mai. Yes, girl. — Did you see Sir Lucius while you was out? Lucy. No, indeed, ma'am, not a glimpse of him. Mrs. Mai. You are sure, Lucy, that you never mentioned 102 THE Lucy. Oh Gemini ! I 'd soone Mrs. Mai. Well, don't let yoi icity be imposed on. Lucy. No, ma'am. . Mrs. Mai. So, come to me presently, and I '11 give you another letter to Sir Lucius ; but mind, Lucy — if ever you betray what you are entrusted with (unless it be other people's secrets to me), you forfeit my malevolence forever ; and your being a simpleton shall be no excuse for your locality. [Exit Mrs. Mal. Lucy. Ha ! ha ! ha ! — So, my dear Simplicity, let me give you a little respite. — [Altering her manner ?[ Let girls in my station be as fond as they please of appearing expert, and knowing in their trusts ; commend me to a mask of silliness and a pair of sharp eyes for my own interest under it ! — Let me see to what account have I turned my simplicity lately. — [Looks at a paper .] For abetting Miss Lydia Languish in a design of running aivay with an ensign ! — in money, sundry times, twelve pounds twelve ; gowns, five ; hats, ruffles, caps, &c. &c, numberless ! — From the said ensign, within this last month, six guineas and a half. — about a quarter's pay ! — Item, from Mrs. Malaprop, for betraying the young people to her — when I found matters were likely to be discovered — two guineas, and a black padusoy. — Item, from Mr. Acres, for carrying divers letters — which I never delivered — two guineas, and a pair of buckles. — Item, from Sir Lucius O' Tiigger, three crowns, two gold pocket-pieces, and a silver snuff-box ! — Well done, Simplicity ! — Yet I was forced to make my Hibernian believe that he was corresponding, not with the aunt, but with the niece : for though not over rich, I found he had too much pride and delicacy to sacrifice the feelings of a gentleman to the necessities of his fortune. [Exit. A COMEDY. 103 ACT II. Scene I. — Captain Absolute's Lodgings. Captain Absolute and Fag. Fag. Sir, while I was there Sir Anthony came in : I told him, you had sent me to inquire after his health, and to know if he was at leisure to see you. Abs. And what did he say, on hearing that I was at Bath ? Fag. Sir, in my life I never saw an elderly gentleman more astonished ! He started back two or three paces, rapped out a dozen interjectural oaths, and asked what the devil had brought you here. Abs. Well, sir, and what did you say ? Fag. Oh, I lied, sir — I forget the precise lie ; but you may depend on't, he got no truth from me. Yet, with submission, for fear of blunders in future, I should be glad to fix what has brought us to Bath ; in order that we may lie a little consistently. Sir Anthony's servants were curious, sir, very curious indeed. Abs. You have said nothing to them ? Fag. Oh, not a word, sir, — not a word! Mr. Thomas, indeed, the coachman (whom I take to be the discreetest of whips) Abs. 'Sdeath ! — r you rascal ! you have not trusted him ! Fag. Oh, no> sir — no — no — not a syllable, upon my veracity ! — he was, indeed, a little inquisitive; but I was sly, sif — devilish sly! My master (said I), honest Thomas, (you know, sir, one says honest to one's inferiors,) is come to Bath to recruit — yes sir, I said to recruit — and whether for men, money, or constitution, you know, sir, is nothing to him, nor anyone else. 104 THE RIVALS. Abs. Well, recruit will do — let it be so. Fag. Oh, sir, recruit will do surprisingly — indeed, to give the thing an air, I told Thomas, that your honor had already enlisted five disbanded chairmen, seven minority waiters, and thirteen billiard- markers. Abs. You blockhead, never say more than is necessary. Fag. I beg pardon, sir — I beg pardon — but, with submission, a lie is nothing unless one supports it. Sir, whenever I draw on my invention for a good current lie, I always forge indorsements as well as the bill. Abs. Well, take care you don't hurt your credit, by offering too much security. — Is Mr. Faulkland returned ? Fag. He is above, sir, changing his dress. Abs. Can you tell whether he has been informed of Sir Anthony's and Miss Melville's arrival ? Fag. I fancy not, sir ; he has seen no one since he came in but his gentleman, who was with him at Bristol. — I think, sir, I hear Mr. Faulkland coming down Abs. Go tell him I am here. Fag. Yes, sir. — [Going.'] I beg pardon, sir, but should Sir Anthony call, you will do me the favor to remember that we are recruiting, if you please. Abs. Well, well. Fag. And, in tenderness to my character, if your honor could bring in the chairmen and waiters, I should esteem it as an obliga- tion ; for though I never scruple to lie to serve my master, yet it hurts one's conscience to be found out. [Exit. Abs. Now for my whimsical friend — if he does not know that his mistress is here, I'll tease him a little before I tell him — A COMEDY. 105 Enter Faulkland. Faulkland, you're welcome to Bath again ; you are punctual in your return. Faulk. Yes ; I had nothing to detain me, when I had finished the business I went on. Well, what news since I left you ? How stand matters between you and Lydia ? Ads. Faith, much as they were ; I have not seen her since our quarrel ; however, I expect to be recalled every hour. Faulk. Why don't you persuade her to go off with you at once ? Ads. What, and lose two-thirds of her fortune ? you forget that, my friend. — No, no, I could have brought her to that long ago. Faulk. Nay then, you trifle too long — if you are sure of her, propose to the aunt in your own character, and write to Sir Anthony for his consent. Abs. Softly, softly ; for though I am convinced my little Lydia would elope with me as Ensign Beverley, yet I am by no means cer- tain that she would take me with the impediment of our friends' consent, a regular humdrum wedding, and the reversion of a good fortune on my side: no, no; I must prepare her gradually for the discovery, and make myself necessary to her, before I risk it. — Well, but Faulkland, you '11 dine with us to-day at the hotel ? Faulk. Indeed I cannot ; I am not in spirits to be of such a party. Abs. By heavens ! I shall forswear your company. You are the most teasing, captious, incorrigible lover ! — Do love like a man. Faulk. I own I am unfit for company. Abs. Am not / a lover ; ay, and a romantic one too ? Yet do I carry everywhere with me such a confounded farrago of doubts, fears, hopes, wishes, and all the flimsy furniture of a country miss's brain ! 106 THE RIVALS. Faulk. Ah ! Jack, your heart and soul are not, like mine, fixed immutably on one only object. You throw for a large stake, but losing, you could stake and throw again : — but I have set my sum of happiness on this cast, and not to succeed were to be stripped of all. Ads. But, for Heaven's sake ! what grounds for apprehension can your whimsical brain conjure up at present ? Faulk. What grounds for apprehension, did you say ? Heavens ! are there not a thousand ! I fear for her spirits — her health — '■ her life. — My absence may fret her ; her anxiety for my return, her fears for me may oppress her gentle temper : and for her health, does not every hour bring me cause to be alarmed ? If it rains, some shower may even then have chilled her delicate frame ! If the wind be keen, some rude blast may have affected her ! The heat of noon, the dews of the evening, may endanger the life of her, for whom only I value mine. O Jack ! when delicate and feeling souls are separated, there is not a feature in the sky, not a movement of the elements, not an aspiration of the breeze, but hints some cause for a lover's apprehension ! Ads. Ay, but we may choose whether we will take the hint or not. — So, then, Faulkland, if you were convinced that Julia were well and in spirits, you would be entirely content ? Faulk. I should be happy beyond measure — I am anxious only for that. Ads. Then to cure your anxiety at once — Miss Melville is in perfect health, and is at this moment in Bath. Faulk. Nay, Jack — don't trifle with me. Ads. She is arrived here with my father within this hour. Faulk. Can you be serious ? Ads. I thought you knew Sir Anthony better than to be sur- A COMEDY, 107 prised at a sudden whim of this kind. — Seriously, then, it is as I tell you — upon my honor. Faulk. My dear friend ! — Hollo, Du Peigne ! my hat. — My dear Jack — now nothing on earth can give me a moment's uneasiness. Re-Enter Fag. Fag. Sir, Mr. Acres, just arrived, is below. Abs. Stay, Faulkland, this Acres lives within a mile of Sir Anthony, and he shall tell you how your mistress has been ever since you left her. — Fag, show the gentleman up. [Exit Fag. Faulk. What, is he much acquainted in the family ? Abs. Oh, very intimate : I insist on your not going : besides, his character will divert you. Faulk. Well, I should like to ask him a few questions. Abs. He is likewise a rival of mine — that is, of my other self's for he does not think his friend Captain Absolute ever saw the lady in question ; and it is ridiculous enough to hear him complain to me of one Beverley ', a concealed skulking rival, who Faulk. Hush ! — he 's here. Enter Acres. Acres. Ha ! my dear friend, noble captain, and honest Jack, how do'st thou? just arrived, faith, as you see. — Sir, your humble ser- vant. — Warm work on the roads, Jack ! — Odds whips and wheels ! I 've travelled like a comet, with a tail of dust all the way as long as the Mall. Abs. Ah ! Bob, you are indeed an eccentric planet, but we know your attraction, hither. — Give me leave to introduce Mr. Faulkland to you ; Mr. Faulkland, Mr. Acres. Acres. Sir, I am most heartily glad to see you : sir, I solicit your connections. — Hey, Jack — what, this is Mr. Faulkland, who 108 THE RIVALS. Ads. Ay, Bob, Miss Melville's Mr. Faulkland. Acres. Od'so ! she and your father can be but just arrived before me: — I suppose you have seen them. Ah! Mr. Faulkland, you are indeed a happy man. Faulk. I have not seen Miss Melville yet, sir ; — I hope she enjoyed full health and spirits in Devonshire ? Acres. Never knew her better in my life, sir, — never better. Odds blushes and blooms ! she has been as healthy as the German Spa. Faulk. Indeed! — I did hear that she had been a little indisposed. Acres. False, false, sir — only said to vex you : quite the reverse, I assure you. Faulk. There, Jack, you see she has the advantage of me ; I had almost fretted myself ill. Ads. Now are you angry with your mistress for not having been sick ? Faulk. No, no, you misunderstand me : yet surely a little trifling- indisposition is not an unnatural consequence of absence from those we love. — Now confess — is n't there something unkind in this violent, robust, unfeeling health ? Ads. Oh, it was very unkind of her to be well in your absence, to be sure ! Acres. Good apartments, Jack. Faulk. Well, sir, but you were saying that Miss Melville has been so exceedingly well — what then, she has been merry and gay, I suppose ? — Always in spirits — hey ? Acres. Merry, odds crickets ! she has been the belle and spirit of the company wherever she has been — so lively and entertaining ! so full of wit and humor ! Faulk. There, Jack, there. — Oh, by my soul ! there is an innate A COMEDY. 109 levity in woman, that nothing can overcome. — What ! happy, and I away ! Abs. Have done ! — How foolish this is ! just now you were only apprehensive for your mistress's spirits. Faulk. Why, Jack, have I been the joy and spirit of the com- pany ? Abs. No indeed, you have not. Faulk. Have I been lively and entertaining ? Abs. Oh, upon my word, I acquit you. Faulk. Have I been full of wit and humor ? Abs. No, faith, to do you justice, you have been confoundedly stupid indeed. Acres. What 's the matter with the gentleman ? Abs. He is only expressing his great satisfaction at hearing that Julia has been so well and happy — that's all — hey, Faulkland ? Faulk. Oh! I am rejoiced to hear it — yes, yes, she has a happy disposition ! Acres. That she has indeed — then she is so accomplished — so sweet a voice — so expert at her harpsichord, — such a mistress of flat and sharp, squallante, rumblante, and quiverante ! — There was this time month — Odds minims and crotchets ! how she did chirrup at Mrs. Piano's concert ! Faulk. There again, what say you to this ? you see she has been all mirth and song — not a thought of me ! Abs. Pho ! man, is not music the food of love ? Faulk. Well, well, it may be so. — Pray, Mr. , what 's his damned name ? — Do you remember what songs Miss Melville sung ? Acres. Not I indeed. Abs. Stay, now, they were some pretty melancholy purling- HO THE RIVALS. stream airs, I warrant; perhaps you may recollect; — did she sing, When absent from my soul's delight? Acres. No, that wa'n't it. Ads. Or, Go, gentle gales ! — Go, gentle gales ! \Sings. Acres. Oh, no ! nothing like it. Odds ! now I recollect one of them — My Jieart 's my own, my will is free. [Sings. Faulk. Fool ! fool that I am ! to fix all my happiness on such a trifler ! 'Sdeath ! to make herself the pipe and ballad-monger of a circle ! to soothe her light heart with catches and glees ! — What can you say to this, sir ? Abs. Why, that I should be glad to hear my mistress had been so merry, sir. Faulk. Nay, nay, nay — I'm not sorry that she has been happy — no, no, I am glad of that — I would not have had her sad or sick — yet surely a sympathetic heart would have shown itself even in the choice of a song — she might have been temperately healthy, and somehow, plaintively gay ; — but she has been danc- ing too, I doubt not ! Acres. What does the gentleman say about dancing ? Abs. He says the lady we speak of dances as well as she sings. Acres. Ay, truly, does she — there was at our last race ball Faulk. Hell and the devil ! There ! there — I told you so ! I told you so ! Oh ! she thrives in my absence ! — Dancing ! but her whole feelings have been in opposition with mine; — I have been anxious, silent, pensive, sedentary — my days have been hours of care, my nights of watchfulness. — She has been all health ! spirit ! laugh ! song ! dance ! — Oh ! damned, damned levity ! Abs. For Heaven's sake, Faulkland, don't expose yourself so ! — Suppose she has danced, what then ? — does not the ceremony of society often oblige A COMEDY. Ill Faulk. Well, well, I '11 contain myself — perhaps as you say — for form sake. — What, Mr. Acres, you were praising Miss Melville's manner of dancing a minuet — hey ? Acres. Oh, I dare insure her for that — but what I was going to speak of was her country-dancing. Odds swimmings ! she has such an air with her ! Faulk. Now disappointment on her ! — Defend this, Absolute ; why don't you defend this? — Country-dances! jigs and reels! am I to blame now ? A minuet I could have forgiven — I should not have minded that — I say I should not have regarded a minuet — but country -dances ! — Zounds ! had she made one in a cotillion — I believe I could have forgiven even that — but to be monkey-led for a night ! — to run the gauntlet through a string of amorous palming puppies ! — to show paces like a managed filly ! — Oh, Jack, there never can be but one man in the world whom a truly modest and delicate woman ought to pair with in a country-dance ; and, even then, the rest of the couples should be her great-uncles and aunts ! Ads. Ay, to be sure ! — grandfathers and grandmothers ! Faulk. If there be but one vicious mind in the set 't will spread like a contagion — the action of their pulse beats to the lascivious movement of the jig — their quivering, warm-breathed sighs impreg- nate the very air — the atmosphere becomes electrical to love, and each amorous spark darts through every link of the chain ! — I must leave you — I own I am somewhat flurried — and that confounded looby has perceived it. [Going. Ads. Nay, but stay, Faulkland, and thank Mr. Acres for his good news. Faulk. Damn his news ! [Exit Abs. Ha ! ha ! ha ! poor Faulkland, five minutes since ■ — " noth- ing on earth could give him a moment's uneasiness ! " 112 THE RIVALS. Acres. The gentleman wa'n't angry at my praising his mistress, was he ? Abs. A little jealous, I believe, Bob. Acres. You don't say so? Ha, ha! jealous of me — that's a good joke. Abs. There 's nothing strange in that, Bob ; let me tell you, that sprightly grace and insinuating manner of yours will do some mis- chief among the girls here. Acres. Ah ! you joke — ha ! ha ! mischief ! — ha ! ha ! but you know I am not my own property, my dear Lydia has forestalled me. She could never abide me in the country, because I used to dress so badly — but odds frogs and tambours ! I shan't take matters so here, now ancient madam has no voice in it: I'll make my old clothes know who 's master. I shall straightway cashier the hunting-frock, and render my leather breeches incapable. My hair has been in training some time. Abs. Indeed ! Acres. Ay — and tho'ff the side curls are a little restive, my hind-part takes it very kindly. Abs. Oh, you '11 polish, I doubt not. Acres. Absolutely I propose so — then if I can find out this Ensign Beverley, odds triggers and flints ! I '11 make him know the difference o't. Abs. Spoke like a man ! But pray, Bob, I observe you have got an odd kind of a new method of swearing Acres. Ha ! ha ! you Ve taken notice of it — 't is genteel is n't it ? — I did n't invent it myself though ; but a commander in our militia, a great scholar, I assure you, says that there is no meaning in the common oaths, and that nothing but their antiquity makes them respectable ; — because, he says, the ancients would never stick to A COMEDY. 1 13 an oath or two, but would say, by Jove ! or by Bacchus ! or by Mars ! or by Venus ! or by Pallas ! according to the sentiment : so that td swear with propriety, says my little major, the oath should be an echo to the sense ; and this we call the oath referential or sentimen- tal swearing — ha ! ha ! 't is genteel, is n't it ? Ads. Very genteel, and very new, indeed ! — and I dare say will supplant all other figures of imprecation. Acres. Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete. — Damns have had their day. Re-Enter Fag. Fag. Sir, there is a gentleman below desires to see you. — Shall I show him into the parlor ? Ads. Ay — you may. Acres. Well, I must be gone Ads. Stay ; who is it, Fag ? Fag. Your father, sir. Ads. You puppy, why did n't you show him up directly ? [Exit Fag. Acres. You have business with Sir Anthony. — I expect a mes- sage from Mrs. Malaprop at my lodgings. I have sent also to my dear friend Sir Lucius O'Trigger. Adieu, Jack ! we must meet at night, when- you shall give me a dozen bumpers to little Lydia. Ads. That I will with all my heart. — [Exit Acres.] Now for a parental lecture — I hope he has heard nothing of the business that has brought me here — I wish the gout had held him fast in Devon- shire, with all my soul ! Enter Sir Anthony Absolute. Sir, I am delighted to see you here : looking so well ! your sudden arrival at Bath made me apprehensive for your health. 114 THE RIVALS. Sir AntJi. Very apprehensive, I dare say, Jack — What, you are recruiting here, hey ? Ads. Yes, sir, I am on duty. Sir Anth. Well, Jack, I am glad to see you, though I did not expect it, for I was going to write you on a little matter of business. — Jack, I have been considering that I grew old and infirm, and shall probably not trouble you long. Ads. Pardon me, sir, I never saw you look more strong and hearty ; and I pray frequently that you may continue so. Sir Anth. I hope your prayers may be heard, with all my heart. Well then, Jack, I have been considering that I am so strong and hearty I may continue to plague you a long time. — Now, Jack, I am sensible that the income of your commission, and what I have hitherto allowed you, is but a small pittance for a lad of your spirit. Ads. Sir, you are very good. Sir Anth. And it is my wish, while yet I live, to have my boy make some figure in the world. I have resolved, therefore, to fix you at once in a noble independence. Ads. Sir, your kindness overpowers me — such generosity makes the gratitude of reason more lively than the sensations even of filial affection. Sir Anth. I am glad you are so sensible of my attention — and you shall be master of a large estate in a few weeks. Ads. Let my future life, sir, speak my gratitude ; I cannot express the sense I have of your munificence. — Yet, sir, I presume you would not wish me to quit the army ? Sir Anth. Oh, that shall be as your wife chooses. Ads. My wife, sir ! Sir Anth. Ay, ay, settle that between you — settle that be- tween vou. A COMEDY. 115 Abs. A mfe, sir, did you say ? Sir Anth. Ay, a wife — why, did not I mention her before ? Abs. Not a word of her, sir. Sir Anth. Odd so ! — I must n't forget her though. — Yes, Jack, the independence I was talking of is by marriage — the fortune is saddled with a wife — but I suppose that makes no difference. Abs. Sir ! sir ! — you amaze me ! Sir Anth. Why, what the devil 's the matter with the fool ? Just now you were all gratitude and duty. Abs. I was, sir, — you talked to me of independence and a for- tune, but not a word of a wife. Sir Anth. Why — what difference does that make? Odds life, sir! if you have the estate, you must take it with the live-stock on it, as it stands. Abs. If my happiness is to be the price, I must beg leave to decline the purchase. — Pray, sir, who is the lady ? Sir Anth. What 's that to you, sir ? Come, give me your promise to love, and to marry her directly. Abs. Sure, sir, this is not very reasonable to summon my affec- tions for a lady I know nothing of ! Sir Anth. I am sure, sir, 't is more unreasonable in you to object to a lady you know nothing of. Abs. Then, sir, I must tell you plainly that my inclinations are fixed on another — my heart is engaged to an angel. Sir Anth. Then pray let it send an excuse. It is very sorry — but business prevents its waiting on her. Abs. But my vows are pledged to her. Sir Anth. Let her foreclose, Jack ; let her foreclose ; they are not worth redeeming ; besides, you have the angel's vows in ex- change, I suppose ; so there can be no loss there. 116 THE RIVALS. Abs. You must excuse me, sir, if I tell you, once for all, that in this point I cannot obey you. Sir AntJi. Hark'ee, Jack ; — I have heard you for some time with patience — I have been coal — quite cool; but take care — you know I am compliance itself — when I am not thwarted; — no one more easily led — when I have my own way ; — but don't put me in a frenzy. Abs. Sir, I must repeat it — in this I cannot obey you. Sir Anth. Now damn me ! if ever I call you Jack again while I live ! Abs. Nay, sir, but hear me. Sir Anth. Sir, I won't hear a word — not a word! not one word! so give me your promise by a nod — and I '11 tell you what, Jack — I mean, you dog — if you don't, by Abs. What, sir, promise to link myself to some mass of ugliness ! to Sir Anth. Zounds ! sirrah ! the lady shall be as ugly as I choose : she shall have a hump on each shoulder ! she shall be as crooked as the Crescent ; her one eye shall roll like the bull's in Cox's Museum ; she shall have a skin like a mummy, and the beard of a Jew — she shall be all this, sirrah ! — yet I will make you ogle her all day, and sit up all night to write sonnets on her beauty. Abs. This is reason and moderation indeed ! Sir Anth. None of your sneering, puppy ! no grinning, jacka- napes ! Abs. Indeed, sir, I never was in a worse humor for mirth in my life. Sir Anth. 'T is false, sir, I know you are laughing in your sleeve ; I know you '11 grin when I am gone, sirrah ! Abs. Sir, I hope I know my duty better. A COMEDY. Ii; Sir Anth. None of your passion, sir ! none of your violence, if you please ! — It won't do with me, I promise you. Abs. Indeed, sir, I never was cooler in my life. Sir Anth. Tis a confounded lie! — I know you are in a passion in your heart ; I know you are, you hypocritical young dog ! but it won't do. Abs. Nay, sir, upon my word Sir Anth. So you will fly out ! can't you be cool like me ? What the devil good can passion do? — Passion is of no service, you impudent, insolent, overbearing reprobate ! — There, you sneer again! — don't provoke me! — but you rely upon the mildness of my temper — you do, you dog ! you play upon the meekness of my disposition! — Yet take care — the patience of a saint may be overcome at last! — but mark ! I give you six hours and a half to consider of this : if you then agree, without any condition, to do everything on earth that I choose, why — confound you! I may in time forgive you. — If not, zounds ! don't enter the same hemisphere with me ! don't dare to breathe the same air or use the same light with me ; but get an atmosphere and sun of your own ! I '11 strip you of your commission ; I '11 lodge a five-and-threepence in the hands of trustees, and you shall live on the interest. — I '11 disown you, I '11 disinherit you, I '11 unget you ! and damn me ! if ever I call you Jack again ! [Exit Sir Anth. Abs. Mild, gentle, considerate father — I kiss your hands! — - What a tender method of giving his opinion in these matters Sir Anthony has ! I dare not trust him with the truth. — I wonder what old wealthy hag it is that he wants to bestow on me ! — Yet he mar- ried himself for love ! and was in his youth a bold intriguer, and a gay companion ! U8 THE RIVALS. Re-Enter Fag. Fag. Assuredly, sir, your father is wrath to a degree; he comes down stairs eight or ten steps at a time — muttering, growling, and thumping the banisters all the way : I and the cook's dog stand bowing at the door — rap! he gives me a stroke on the head with his cane ; bids me carry that to my master ; then kicking the poor turnspit into the area, damns us all, for a puppy triumvirate! — Upon my credit, sir, were I in your place, and found my father such very bad company, I should certainly drop his acquaintance. Ads. Cease your impertinence, sir, at present. — Did you come in for nothing more ? — Stand out of the way. [Pits lies him aside, and exit. Fag. Soh ! Sir Anthony trims my master : he is afraid to reply to his father — then vents his spleen on poor Fag! — When one is vexed by one person, to revenge one's self on another, who happens to come in the way, is the vilest injustice ! Ah ! it shows the worst temper — the basest Enter Errand Boy. Boy. Mr. Fag ! Mr. Fag ! your master calls you. Fag. Well, you little dirty puppy, you need not bawl so ! — The meanest disposition ! the Boy. Quick, quick, Mr. Fag ! Fag. Quick ! quick ! you impudent jackanapes ! am I to be commanded by you too ? you little impertinent, insolent, kitchen- bred [Exit kicking and beating Jiim. A COMEDY. 119 Scene II. — The North Parade. Enter Lucy. Lucy. So — I shall have another rival to add to my mistress's list — Captain Absolute. However, I shall not enter his name till my purse has received notice in form. Poor Acres is dismissed ! — Well, I have done him a last friendly office, in letting him know that Beverley was here before him. — Sir Lucius is generally more punc- tual, when he expects to hear from his dear Dalia y as he calls her : I wonder he 's not here ! — I have a little scruple of conscience from this deceit ; though I should not be paid so well, if my hero knew that Delia was near fifty, and her own mistress. Enter Sir Lucius O'Trigger. Sir Luc. Ha ! my little ambassadress — upon my conscience, I have been looking for you ; I have been on the South Parade this half hour. Lucy. [Speaking simply.] O gemini ! and I have been waiting for your worship here on the North. Sir Luc. Faith ! — may be that was the reason we did not meet ; and it 's very comical too, how you could go out and I not see you — for I was only taking a nap at the Parade Coffee-house, and I chose the window on purpose that I might not miss you. Lucy. My stars ! Now I 'd wager a sixpence I went by while you were asleep. Sir Luc. Sure enough it must have been so — and I never dreamt it was so late, till I waked. Well, but my little girl, have you got nothing for me ? Lucy. Yes, but I have — I 've got a letter for you in my pocket. Sir Luc. faith! I guessed you were n't come empty-handed — well — let me see what the dear creature says. 120 THE RIVALS. Lucy. There, Sir Lucius. [Gives him a letter. Sir Luc. [Reads.] Sir — tiiere is of ten a sudden incentive impulse in love, that has a greater induction than years of domestic combina- tion : such was the commotion I felt at t lie first superfluous view of Sir Lucius 0' Trigger. — Very pretty, upon my word. — Female punctu- ation forbids me to say more, yet let me add, that it will give me joy infallible to find Sir Lucius worthy the last criterion of my affections. Delia. Upon my conscience ! Lucy, your lady is a great mistress of language. Faith, she 's quite the queen of the dictionary ! — for the devil a word dare refuse coming to her call — though one would think it was quite out of hearing. Lucy. Ay, sir, a lady of her experience Sir Luc. Experience ? what, at seventeen ? Lucy. O true, sir — but then she reads so — my stars! how she will read off hand ! Sir Luc. Faith, she must be very deep read to write this way — though she is rather an arbitrary writer too — for here are a great many poor words pressed into the service of this note that would get their habeas corpus from any court in Christendom. Lucy. Ah ! Sir Lucius, if you were to hear how she talks of you ! Sir Luc. Oh, tell her I'll make her the best husband in the world, and Lady O'Trigger into the bargain ! — But we must get the old gentlewoman's consent — and do everything fairly. Lucy. Nay, Sir Lucius, I thought you wa'n't rich enough to be so nice ! Sir Luc. Upon my word, young woman, you have hit it : — I am so poor, that I can't afford to do a dirty action. — If I did not want money, I VI steal your mistress and her fortune with a great deal of pleasure. — However, my pretty girl, {Gives her money] A COMEDY. 121 here 's a little something to buy you a ribbon ; and meet me in the evening, and I '11 give you an answer to this. So, hussy, take a kiss beforehand to put you in mind. [Kisses her. Lucy. O Lud ! Sir Lucius — - 1 never seed such a gemman. My lady won't like you if you 're so impudent. Sir Luc. Faith she will, Lucy ! — That same — pho ! what 's the name of it? — modesty — is a quality in a lover more praised by the women than liked ; so, if your mistress asks you whether Sir Lucius ever gave you a kiss, tell her fifty — my dear. Lucy. What, would you have me tell her a lie ? Sir Luc. Ah, then, you baggage ! I '11 make it a truth presently. Lucy. For shame now ! here is some one coming. Sir Luc. Oh, faith, I '11 quiet your conscience ! [Sees Fag. — Exit, humming a tune. Enter Fag. Fag. So, so, ma'am ! I humbly beg pardon. Lucy. O Lud ! now Mr. Fag — you flurry one so. Fag. Come, come, Lucy, here 's no one by — so a little less sim- plicity, with a grain or two more sincerity, if you please. — You play false with us, madam. — I saw you give the baronet a letter. — My master shall know this — and if he don't call him out, I will. Lucy. Ha ! ha ! ha ! you gentlemen's gentlemen are so hasty. — That letter was from Mrs. Malaprop, simpleton. — She is taken with Sir Lucius's address. Fag. How ! what tastes some people have ! — Why, I suppose I have walked by her window a hundred times. — But what says our young lady ? any message to my master ? Lucy. Sad news, Mr. Fag. — A worse rival than Acres! Sir Anthony Absolute has proposed his son. Fag. What, Captain Absolute ? 122 THE RIVALS. Lucy. Even so — I overheard it all. Fag. Ha ! ha ! ha ! very good, faith. Good- bye, Lucy, I must away with this news. Lucy. Well, you may laugh — but it is true, I assure you. — [Going.] But, Mr. Fag, tell your master not to be cast down by this. Fag. Oh, he '11 be so disconsolate ! Lucy. And charge him not to think of quarrelling with young Absolute. Fag. Never fear ! never fear ! Lucy. Be sure — bid him keep up his spirits. Fag. We will — we will. {Exeunt severally. A COMEDY. 123 ACT III. Scene I. — The North Parade. Enter Captain Absolute. Abs. 'T is just as Fag told me, indeed. Whimsical enough, faith ! My father wants to force me to marry the very girl I am plotting to run away with ! He must not know of my connection with her yet awhile. He has too summary a method of proceeding in these mat- ters. However, I '11 read my recantation instantly. My conversion is something sudden, indeed — but I can assure him it is very sincere. So, so — here he comes. He looks plaguy gruff. [Steps aside. Enter Sir Anthony Absolute. Sir Anth. No — I '11 die sooner than forgive him. Die, did I say ? I '11 live these fifty years to plague him. At our last meeting, his impudence had almost put me out of temper. An obstinate, passionate, self-willed boy ! Who can he take after ? This is my return for getting him before all his brothers and sisters! — for putting him, at twelve years old, into a marching regiment, and allowing him fifty pounds a year, besides his pay, ever since ! But I have done with him ; he 's anybody's son for me. I never will see him more, never — never — never. Ads. [Aside, coming forzvard.~\ Now for a penitential face. Sir Anth. Fellow, get out of my way ! Abs. Sir, you see a penitent before you. Sir Anth. I see an impudent scoundrel before me. Abs. A sincere penitent. I am come, sir, to acknowledge my error, and to submit entirely to your will. 124 THE RIVALS. Sir Anth. What 's that ? Abs. I have been revolving, and reflecting, and considering on your past goodness, and kindness, and condescension to me. Sir Anth. Well, sir ? Abs. I have been likewise weighing and balancing what you were pleased to mention concerning duty, and obedience, and authority. Sir Anth. Well, puppy ? Abs. Why then, sir, the result of my reflections is — a resolution to sacrifice every inclination of my own to your satisfaction. Sir Anth. Why now you talk sense — absolute sense — I never heard anything more sensible in my life. Confound you ! you shall be Jack again. Abs. I am happy in the appellation. Sir Anth. W T hy then Jack, my dear Jack, I will now inform you who the lady really is. Nothing but your passion and violence, you silly fellow, prevented my telling you at first. Prepare, Jack, for wonder and rapture — prepare. What think you of Miss Lydia Languish ? Abs. Languish ! W 7 hat, the Languishes of Worcestershire ? Sir Anth. Worcestershire ! no. Did you never meet Mrs. Mala- prop and her niece, Miss Languish, who came into our country just before you were last ordered to your regiment ? Abs. Malaprop ! Languish ! I don't remember ever to have heard the names before. Yet, stay — I think I do recollect some- thing. Languish ! Languish ! She squints, don't she ? A little red-haired girl ? Sir Anth. Squints ! A red-haired girl ! Zounds ! no. Abs. Then I must have forgot ; it can't be the same person. Sir Anth. Jack ! Jack ! what think you of blooming, love-breath- ing seventeen ? A COMEDY. 125 Abs. As to that, sir, I am quite indifferent. If I can please you in the matter, 't is all I desire. Sir Anth. Nay, but Jack, such eyes ! such eyes ! so innocently wild ! so bashfully irresolute ! not a glance but speaks and kindles some thought of love ! Then, Jack, her cheeks ! her cheeks, Jack ! so deeply blushing at the insinuations of her tell-tale eyes! Then, Jack, her lips ! O Jack, lips smiling at their own discretion ; and if not smiling, more sweetly pouting ; more lovely in sullenness ! Abs. That 's she indeed. Well clone, old gentleman. [Aside. Sir Anth. Then, Jack, her neck ! O Jack ! Jack ! Abs. And which is to be mine, sir, the niece or the aunt ? Sir Anth. Why, you unfeeling, insensible puppy, I despise you! When I was of your age, such a description would have made me fly like a rocket ! The aunt, indeed ! Odds life ! when I ran away with your mother, I would not have touched anything old or ugly to gain an empire. Abs. Not to please your father, sir ? Sir Anth. To please my father ! zounds ! not to please — O, my father — odd so! — yes — yes; if my father indeed had desired — that 's quite another matter. Though he wa'n't the indulgent father that I am, Jack. Abs. I dare say not, sir. Sir Anth. But, Jack, you are not sorry to find your mistress is so beautiful ? Abs. Sir, I repeat it — if I please you in this affair, 't is all I desire. Not that I think a woman the worse for being handsome ; but, sir, if you please to recollect, you before hinted something about a hump or two, one eye, and a few more graces of that kind — now, without being very nice, I own I should rather choose a wife of mine to have the usual number of limbs, and a limited quantity of back : 126 THE RIVALS. and though one eye may be very agreeable, yet as the prejudice has always run in favor of two, I would not wish to affect a singularity in that article. Sir Anth. What a phlegmatic sot it is ! Why, sirrah, you Ye an anchorite! — a vile, insensible stock. You a soldier! — you're a walking block, fit only to dust the company's regimentals on ! Odds life ! I have a great mind to marry the girl myself. Abs. I am entirely at your disposal, sir : if you should think of addressing Miss Languish yourself, I suppose you would have me marry the aunt ; or if you should change your mind and take the old lady — 't is the same to me — I '11 marry the niece. Sir Anth. Upon my word, Jack, thou 'rt either a very great hypo- crite, or — but come, I know your indifference on such a subject must be all a lie — I'm sure it must — come, now — damn your demure face! — come, confess, Jack — you have been lying — ha'n't you ? You have been playing the hypocrite, hey ! — I '11 never forgive you, if you ha'n't been lying and playing the hypocrite. Ads. I 'm sorry, sir, that the respect and duty which I bear to you should be so mistaken. Sir Anth. Hang your respect and duty ! But come along with me, I '11 write a note to Mrs. Malaprop, and you shall visit the lady directly. Her eyes shall be the Promethean torch to you — come along, I '11 never forgive you, if you don't come back stark mad with rapture and impatience — if you don't, egad, I will marry the girl myself 1 [Exeunt. A COMEDY. 127 Scene II. — Julia's Dressing-room. Faulkland discovered alone. Faulk. They told me Julia would return directly ; I wonder she is not yet come ! How mean does this captious, unsatisfied temper of mine appear to my cooler judgment ! Yet I know not that I indulge it in any other point ; but on this one subject, and to this one subject, whom I think I love beyond my life, I am ever ungen- erously fretful and madly capricious! I am conscious of it — yet I cannot correct myself ! What tender, honest joy sparkled in her eyes when we met ! how delicate was the warmth of her expressions ! I was ashamed to appear less happy — though I had come resolved to wear a face of coolness and upbraiding. Sir Anthony's presence prevented my proposed expostulations : yet I must be satisfied that she has not been so very happy in my absence. She is coming ! Yes ! — I know the nimbleness of her tread, when she thinks her impatient Faulkland counts the moments of her stay. Enter Julia. Jul. I had not hoped to see you again so soon. Faulk. Could I, Julia, be contented with my first welcome — restrained as we were by the presence of a third person ? Jul. O Faulkland, when your kindness can make me thus happy, let me not think that I discovered something of coldness in your first salutation. Faulk. 'Twas but your fancy, Julia. I was rejoiced to see you — to see you in such health. Sure I had no cause for coldness ? Jul. Nay, then, I see you have taken something ill. You must not conceal from me what it is. Faulk. Well, then, shall I own to you that my joy at hearing of your health and arrival here, by your neighbor Acres, was somewhat 128 THE RIVALS. damped by his dwelling much on the high spirits you had enjoyed in Devonshire — on your mirth — your singing — dancing, and I know not what ? For such is my temper, Julia, that I should regard every mirthful moment in your absence as a treason to constancy. The mutual tear that steals down the cheek of parting lovers is a com- pact that no smile shall live there till they meet again. Jul. Must I never cease to tax my Faulkland with this teasing minute caprice ? Can the idle reports of a silly boor weigh in your breast against my tried affection ? Faulk. They have no weight with me, Julia : no, no — I am happy if you have been so — yet only say that you did not sing with mirth — say that you thought of Faulkland in the dance. Jul. I never can be happy in your absence. If I wear a counte- nance of content, it is to show that my mind holds no doubt of my Faulkland's truth. If I seemed sad, it were to make malice tri- umph ; and say that I had fixed my heart on one who left me to lament his roving and my own credulity. Believe me, Faulkland, I mean not to upbraid you when I say that I have often dressed sorrow in smiles, lest my friends should guess whose unkindness had caused my tears. Faulk. You were ever all goodness to me. Oh, I am a brute, when I but admit a doubt of your true constancy ! Jul. If ever without such cause from you, as I will not suppose possible, you find my affections veering but a point, may I become a proverbial scoff for levity and base ingratitude. Faulk. Ah ! Julia, that last word is grating to me. I would I had no title to your gratitude ! Search your heart, Julia ; perhaps what you have mistaken for love is but the warm effusion of a too thank- ful heart. Jul, Fcr what quality must I love you ? A COMEDY. 129 Faulk. For no quality ! To regard me for any quality of mind or understanding were only to esteem me. And for person — I have often wished myself deformed, to be convinced that I owed no obli- gation there for any part of your affection. Jul. Where nature has bestowed a show of nice attention in the features of a man, he should laugh at it as misplaced. I have seen men, who in this vain article, perhaps, might rank above you ; but my heart has never asked my eyes if it were so or not. Faulk. Now this is not well from you, Julia — I despise person in a man — yet if you loved me as I wish, though I were an ^Ethiop, you 'd think none so fair. Jul. I see you are determined to be unkind ! The contract which my poor father bound us in gives you more than a lover's privilege. . Faulk. Again, Julia, you raise ideas that feed and justify my doubts. I would not have been more free — no — I am proud of my restraint. Yet — yet — perhaps your high respect alone for this solemn compact has fettered your inclinations, which else had made a worthier choice. How shall I be sure, had you remained unbound in thought and promise, that I should still have been the object of your persevering love ? Jul. Then try me now. Let us be free as strangers as to what is past : my heart will not feel more liberty ! Faulk. There now ! so hasty, Julia ! so anxious to be free ! If your love for me were fixed and ardent, you would not lose your hold even though I wished it ! Jul. Oh ! you torture me to the heart ! I cannot bear it ! Faulk. I do not mean to distress you. If I loved you less I should never give you an uneasy moment. But hear me. All my fretful doubts arise from this. Women are not used to weigh and separate the motives of their affections : the cold dictates of pru- 130 THE RIVALS. dence, gratitude, or filial duty, may sometimes be mistaken for the pleadings of the heart. I would not boast — yet let me say that I have neither age, person, nor character, to found dislike on; my fortune such as few ladies could be charged with indiscretion in the match. O Julia ! when love receives such countenance from pru- dence, nice minds will be suspicious of its birth. Jul. I know not whither your insinuations would tend : — but as they seem pressing to insult me, I will spare you the regret of having done so. I have given you no cause for this ! [Exit in tears. Faulk. In tears ! Stay, Julia : stay but for a moment. — The door is fastened! — Julia! — ! my soul — but for one moment ! — I hear her sobbing — 'Sdeath ! — what a brute am I to use her thus ! Yet stay. — Ay — she is coming now : — how little resolution there is in woman ! — how a few soft words can turn them ! — No, faith ! — she is not coming either. — Why, Julia — my love — say but that you forgive me — • come but to tell me that — now this is being too resentful. Stay! she is coming too — I thought she would — no steadiness in anything : her going away must have been a mere trick then — she sha'n't see that I was hurt by it. — I '11 affect indif- ference — [Hums a tune: then listens .] No — zounds! she's not coming ! — nor don't intend it, I suppose. — This is not steadiness, but obstinacy ! Yet I deserve it. — What, after so long an absence to quarrel with her tenderness ! — *t was barbarous and unmanly ! — I should be ashamed to see her now. — I '11 wait till her just resent- ment is abated — and when I distress her so again, may I lose her forever ! and be linked instead to some antique virago, whose gnaw- ing passions and long-hoarded spleen shall make me curse my folly half the day and all the night. [Exit. A COMEDY. 131 Scene III. — Mrs. Malaprop's Lodgings. Mrs. Malaprop, with a letter in her hand, and Captain Absolute. Mrs. Mai. Your being Sir Anthony's son, captain, would itself be a sufficient accommodation ; but from the ingenuity of your appear- ance, I am convinced you deserve the character here given of you. Ads. Permit me to say, madam, that as I never yet have had the pleasure of seeing Miss Languish, my principal inducement in this affair at present is the honor of being allied to Mrs. Malaprop, of whose intellectual accomplishments, elegant manners, and unaffected learning, no tongue is silent. Mrs. Mai. Sir, you do me infinite honor ! I beg, captain, you '11 be seated. — {They sit.] Ah ! few gentlemen, now-a-days, know how to value the ineffectual qualities in a woman ! few think how a little knowledge becomes a gentlewoman ! — Men have no sense now but for the worthless flower of beauty ! Abs. It is but too true, indeed, ma'am ; — yet I fear our ladies should share the blame — they think our admiration of beauty so great that knowledge in them would be superfluous. Thus, like garden-trees, they seldom show fruit till time has robbed them of the more specious blossom. — Few, like Mrs. Malaprop and the orange-tree, are rich in both at once ! Mrs. Mai. Sir, you overpower me with good-breeding. — He is the very pine-apple of politeness! — You are not ignorant, captain, that this giddy girl has somehow contrived to fix her affections on a beggarly, strolling, eaves-dropping ensign, whom none of us have seen, and nobody knows anything of. Abs. Oh, I have heard the silly affair before. — I 'm not at all prejudiced against her on that account. 132 THE RIVALS. Mrs. Mai. You are very good and very considerate, captain. I am sure I have done everything in my power since I exploded the affair ; long ago I laid my positive conjunctions on her, never to think on the fellow again ; — I have since laid Sir Anthony's preposition before her ; but, I am sorry to say she seems resolved to decline every particle that I enjoin her. Ads. It must be very distressing, indeed, ma'am. Mrs. Mai. Oh, it gives me the hydrostatics to such a degree. — I thought she had persisted from corresponding with him ; but, behold, this very day, I have interceded another letter from the fellow ; I believe I have it in my pocket. Ads. Oh, the devil ! my last note. [Aside. Mrs. Mai. Ay, here it is. Ads. Ay, my note indeed ! O the little traitress Lucy. [Aside. Mrs. Mai. There, perhaps you may know the writing. [Gives Jiim the letter. Ads. I think I have seen the hand before — yes, I certainly must have seen this hand before — ■ Mrs. Mai. Nay, but read it, captain. Ads. [Reads.] My soul's idol, my adored Lydia ! — Very tender indeed ! Mrs. Mai. Tender ! ay, and profane too, o' my conscience. Ads. [Reads.] / am excessively alarmed at the intelligence yon send me, the more so as my new rival Mrs. Mai. That 's you, sir. Ads. [Reads.] Has universally the character of deing an accom- plished gentleman and a man of Jwnor. — Well, that 's handsome enough. Mrs. Mai. Oh, the fellow has some design in writing so. Ads. That he had, I '11 answer for him, ma'am. A COMEDY. 133 Mrs. Mai. But go on, sir — you '11 see presently. Ads. [Reads.] As for the old weather-beaten she-dragon who guards yon — Who can he mean by that ? Mrs. Mai. Me, sir — me ! — he means me ! — There — what do you think now ? — but go on a little further. Abs. Impudent scoundrel ! — .[Reads.] it shall go hard but I will elude her vigilance, as I am told that the same ridiculous vanity which makes her dress up her coarse features and deck Jier dull chat with hard ivords which she don't understand Mrs. Mai. There, sir, an attack upon my language ! What do you think of that ? -r- an aspersion upon my parts of speech ! was ever such a brute ! Sure, if I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs ! Abs. He deserves to be hanged and quartered ! let me see — [Reads.] same ridiculous vanity Mrs. Mai. You need not read it again, sir. Abs. I beg pardon, ma'am. — [Reads.] does also lay her open to the grossest deceptions from flattery and pretended admiration — an impudent coxcomb — so that I have a scheme to see you shortly with the old harridan's consent, and even to make her a go-betiveen in our interview. — Was ever such assurance ! Mrs. Mai. Did you ever hear anything like it ? — he '11 elude my vigilance, will he — yes, yes ! ha ! ha ! he 's very likely to enter these doors ; — we '11 try who can plot best ! Abs. So we will, ma'am — so we will ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! a conceited puppy, ha ! ha ! ha ! — Well, but Mrs, Malaprop, as the girl seems so infatuated by this fellow, suppose you were to wink at her corre- sponding with him for a little time — let her even plot an elopement with him — then do you connive at her escape — while I, just in the 134 THE RIVALS. nick, will have the fellow laid by the heels, and fairly contrive to carry her off in his stead. Mrs. Mai. I am delighted with the scheme ; never was anything better perpetrated ! Abs. But, pray, could not I see the lady for a few minutes now ? — I should like to try her temper a little. Mrs. Mai. Why, I don't know — I doubt she is not prepared for a visit of this kind. There is a decorum in these matters. Abs. O Lord ! she won't mind me — only tell her Beverley Mrs. Mai. Sir ! Abs. Gently, good tongue. [Aside. Mrs. Mai. What did you say of Beverley ? Abs. Oh, I was going to propose that you should tell her, by way of jest, that it was Beverley who was below; she 'd come down fast enough then — ha ! ha ! ha ! Mrs. Mai. 'T would be a trick she well deserves ; besides, you know the fellow tells her he '11 get my consent to see her — ha ! ha ! Let him if he can, I say again. Lydia, come down here! — [Calling^ He '11 make me a go-between in their interviews ! — ha ! ha ! ha ! Come down, I say, Lydia ! I don't wonder at your laughing, ha ! ha ! ha ! his impudence is truly ridiculous. Abs. 'T is very ridiculous, upon my soul, ma'am, ha ! ha ! ha ! Mrs. Mai. The little hussy won't hear. Well, I '11 go and tell her at once who it is — she shall know that Captain Absolute is come to wait on her. And I '11 make her behave as becomes a young woman. Abs. As you please, ma'am. Mrs. Mai. For the present, captain, your servant. Ah ! you 've not done laughing yet, I see — elude my vigilance; yes, yes; ha! ha! ha! [Exit. A COMEDY, 135 Ads. Ha ! ha ! ha ! one would think now that I might throw off all disguise at once, and seize my prize with security ; but such is Lydia's caprice, that to undeceive were probably to lose her. I '11 see whether she knows me. [ Walks aside y and seems engaged in looking at the pictures .] Enter Lydia. Lyd. What a scene am I now to go through ! surely nothing can be more dreadful than to be obliged to listen to the loathsome addresses of a stranger to one's heart. I have heard of girls perse- cuted as I am who have appealed in behalf of their favored lover to the generosity of his rival ; suppose I were to try it — there stands the hated rival — an officer too ! — but oh, how unlike my Bever- ley ! I wonder he don't begin — truly he seems a very negligent wooer! — quite at his ease, upon my word! — I'll speak first — Mr. Absolute. Abs. Ma'am. [Tunis round. Lyd. O heavens ! Beverley ! Abs. Hush ! — hush, my life ! softly ! be not surprised ! Lyd. I am so astonished ! and so terrified ! and so overjoyed! for Heaven's sake ! how came you here ? Abs. Briefly, I have deceived your aunt — I was informed that my new rival was to visit here this evening, and, contriving to have him kept away, have passed myself on her for Captain Absolute. Lyd. O charming ! And she really takes you for young Abso- lute ? Abs. Oh, she 's convinced of it. Lyd. Ha ! ha ! ha ! I can't forbear laughing to think how her sagacity is overreached ! Abs. But we trifle with our precious moments — such another opportunity may not occur ; then let me now conjure my kind, my 136 THE RIVALS. condescending angel, to fix the time when I may rescue her from undeserving persecution, and with a licensed warmth plead for my reward. Lyd. Will you, then, Beverley, consent to forfeit that portion of my paltry wealth ? that burden on the wings of love ? Abs. Oh, come to me — rich only thus — in loveliness ! Bring no portion to me but thy love — 'twill be generous in you, Lydia — for well you know, it is the only dower your poor Beverley can repay. Lyd. How persuasive are his words ! — how charming will poverty be with him ! [Aside, Abs. Ah ! my soul, what a life will we then live ! love shall be our idol and support ! we will worship him with a monastic strict- ness ; abjuring all worldly toys, to centre every thought and action there. Proud of calamity, we will enjoy the wreck of wealth ; while the surrounding gloom of adversity shall make the flame of our pure love show doubly bright. By Heavens ! I would fling all goods of fortune from me with a prodigal hand, to enjoy the scene where I might clasp my Lydia to my bosom, and say, the world affords no smile to me but here — {Embracing her.'] If she holds out now, the devil is in it ! [Aside. Lyd. Now could I fly with him to the antipodes ! but my perse- cution is not yet come to a crisis. [Aside. Re-Enter Mrs. Malaprop. listening. Mrs. Mai. I am impatient to know how the little hussy deports herself. [Aside. Abs. So pensive, Lydia ! — is then your warmth abated ? Mrs. Mai. Warmth abated ! — so ! — she has been in a passion, I suppose. [Aside. Lyd. No — nor ever can while I have life. A COMEDY. 137 Mrs. Mai. An ill-temperecl little devil ! she '11 be in a passion all her life — will she ? [Aside. Lyd. Think not the idle threats of my ridiculous aunt can ever have any weight with me. Mrs. Mai. Very dutiful, upon my word ! {Aside. Lyd. Let her choice be Captain Absolute, but Beverley is mine. Mrs. Mai. I am astonished at her assurance ! — to his face — this is to his face ! {Aside. Ab*. Thus then let me enforce my suit. {Kneeling. Mrs. Mai. {Aside.'] Ay, poor young man! — down on his knees entreating for pity ! — I can contain no longer. — {Coming forzuard.] Why, thou vixen ! I have overheard you. Abs. Oh, confound her vigilance ! {Aside. Mrs. Mai. Captain Absolute, I know not how to apologize for her shocking rudeness. Abs. {Aside.] So — all's safe, I find. — {Aloud.] I have hopes, madam, that time will bring the young lady Mrs. Mai. Oh, there 's nothing to be hoped for from her ! she 's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile. Lyd. Nay, madam, what do you charge me with now ? Mrs. Mai. Why, thou unblushing rebel — did n't you tell this gentleman to his face that you loved another better? — didn't you say you never would be his ? Lyd. No, madam — I did not. Mrs. Mai. Good Heavens ! what assurance ! — Lydia, Lydia, you ought to know that lying don't become a young woman ! — Did n't you boast that Beverley, that stroller Beverley, possessed your heart? — Tell me that, I say. Lyd. 'Tis true, ma'am, and none but Beverley- Mrs. Mai. Hold ! hold, Assurance ! — you shall not be so rude. 138 THE RIVALS. Abs. Nay, pray, Mrs. Malaprop, don't stop the young lady's speech : — she 's very welcome to talk thus — it does not hurt me in the least, I assure you. Mrs. Mai. You are too good, captain — too amiably patient — but come with me, miss. — Let us see you again soon, captain — remember what we have fixed. Abs. I shall ma'am. Mrs. Mai. Come, take a graceful leave of the gentleman. Lyd. May every blessing wait on my Beverley, my loved Bev Mrs. Mai. Hussy ! I '11 choke the word in your throat ! — come along — come along. \Exeunt severally, Captain Absolute kissing his hand to Lyd 1 a — Mrs. Malaprop stopping her from speaking. Scene IV. — Acres's Lodgings. Acres, as just dressed, and David. Acres. Indeed, David — do you think I become it so ? Dav. You are quite another creature, believe me, master, by the mass ! an' we 've any luck we shall see the Devon monkerony in all the print-shops in Bath ! Acres. Dress does make a difference, David. Dav. 'T is all in all, I think. — Difference ! why, an' you were to go now to Clod-Hall, I am certain the old lady would n't know you : Master Butler would n't believe his own eyes, and Mrs. Pickle would cry, ' Lard presarve me ! ' our dairy-maid would come giggling to the door, and I warrant Dolly Tester, your honor's favorite, would blush like my waistcoat. — Oons! I 'll hold a gallon, there a'nt a dog in the A COMEDY. 139 house but would bark, and I question whether Phillis would wag a hair of her tail ! Acres. Ay, David, there -s nothing like polishing. Dav. So I says of your honor's boots ; but the boy never heeds me ! Acres. But, David, has Mr. De- la-grace been here ? I must rub up my balancing, and chasing, and boring. Dav. I '11 call again, sir. Acres. Do — and see if there are any letters for me at the post- office. Dav. I will. — By the mass, I can't help looking at your head ! — if I had n't been by at the cooking, I wish I may die if I should have known the dish again myself ! [Exit. Acres. [Comes forward^ practising a dancing step .] Sink, slide — coupee. — Confound the first inventors of cotillons! say I — they are as bad as algebra to us country gentlemen — I can walk a minuet easy enough when I am forced ! — and I have been accounted a good stick in a couniry dance. — Odds jigs and tabors ! I never valued your cross-over to couple — figure in — right and left — and I'd foot it with e'er a captain in the county!-— but these outlandish heathen allemandes and cotillons are quite beyond me ! — I shall never prosper at 'em, that's sure — mine are true-born English legs — they don't understand their curst French lingo! — their pas this,' and pas that, and pas t'other! — damn me! my feet don't like to be called paws ! no 't is certain I have most Antigallican toes ! Enter Servant. Serv. Here is Sir Lucius O'Trigger to wait on you, sir. Acres. Show him in ! [Exit Servant. Enter Sir Lucius O'Trigger. Sir Luc. Mr. Acres, I am delighted to embrace you. Acres. My dear Sir Lucius, I kiss your hands. 140 THE RIVALS. Sir Luc. Pray, my friend, what has brought you so suddenly to Bath ? Acres. Faith ! I have followed Cupid's Jack-a-lantern, and find myself in a quagmire at last. — In short, I have been very ill used Sir Lucius. — I don't choose to mention names, but look on me as on a very ill used gentleman. Sir Luc. Pray what is the case ? — I ask no names. Acres. Mark me, Sir Lucius, I fall as deep as need be in love with a young lady — her friends take my part — I follow her to Bath — send word of my arrival ; and receive answer, that the lady is to be otherwise disposed of. — This, Sir Lucius, I call being ill used. Sir Luc. Very ill, upon my conscience. — Pray, can you divine the cause of it ? Acres. Why, there 's the matter ; she has another lover, one Bev- erley, who, I am told, is now in Bath. — Odds slanders and lies! he must be at the bottom of it. Sir Luc. A rival in the case, is there? — and you think he has supplanted you unfairly ? Acres. Unfairly ! to be sure he has. He never could have done it fairly. Sir Lttc. Then sure you know what is to be done ! Acres. Not I, upon my soul ! Sir Luc. We wear no swords here, but you understand me. Acres. What ! fight him ! Sir Luc. Ay, to be sure : what can I mean else ? Acres. But he has given me no provocation. Sir Luc. Now, I think he has given you the greatest provocation in the world. Can a man commit a more heinous offence against another than to fall in love with the same woman ? Oh, by my soul ! it is the most unpardonable breach of friendship. A COMEDY. 141 Acres. Breach of friendship ! Ay, ay ; but I have no acquaintance with this man. I never saw him in my life. Sir Luc. That's no argument at all— 7 he has the less right then to take such a liberty. Acres. Gad, that's true — I grow full of anger, Sir Lucius! I fire apace ! Odds hilts and blades ! I find a man may have a deal of valor in him, and not know it ! But could n't I contrive to have a little right of my side ? Sir Luc. What the devil signifies right t when your honor is con- cerned ? Do you think Achilles or my little Alexander the Great ever inquired where the right lay? No, by my soul, they drew their broadswords, and left the lazy sons of peace to settle the justice of it. Acres. Your words are a grenadier's march to my heart ; I be- lieve courage must be catching ! I certainly do feel a kind of valor rising as it were — a kind of courage, as I may say. — Odds flints, pans, and triggers ! I '11 challenge him directly. Sir Luc. Ah, my little friend ! if I had Blunderbuss-Hall here, I could show you a range of ancestry, in the O'Triggcr line, that would furnish the new room ; every one of whom had killed his man ! — For though the mansion-house and dirty acres have slipped through my fingers, I thank heaven our honor and the family pictures are as fresh as ever. Acres. O, Sir Lucius! I have had ancestors too! — every man of 'em colonel or captain in the militia! — Odds balls and barrels! — say no more — I'm braced for it. The thunder of your words has soured the milk of human kindness in my breast; — Zounds! as the man in the play says, ' / could do such deeds ! ' Sir L71C. Come, come, there must be no passion at all in the case — these things should always be done civilly. 142 • THE RIVALS. Acres. I must be in a passion, Sir Lucius — I must be in a rage. — Dear Sir Lucius, let me be in a rage, if you love me. Come, here 's pen and paper. — [Sits down to write.'] I would the ink were red ! — Indite, I say indite ! — How shall I begin ? Odds bullets and blades ! I '11 write a good bold hand, however. Sir Luc. Pray compose yourself. Acres. Come — now, shall I begin with an oath? Do, Sir Lucius, let me begin with a damme. Sir Luc. Pho ! pho ! do the thing decently, and like a Christian. Begin now — Sir Acres. That 's too civil by half. Sir Luc. To prevent tJie confusion that might arise Acres. Well Sir Luc. From our both addressing the same lady Acres. Ay, there 's the reason — same lady — well Sir Ltic. I shall expect the honor of your company Awes. Zounds ! I 'm not asking him to dinner. Sir Luc. Pray be easy. Acres. Well then, honor of your company Sir Luc. To settle our pretensions Acres. Well. Sir Luc. Let me see, ay, King's-Mead-Field will do — in Kings- Mead-Fields. Acres. So, that 's done — Well, I '11 fold it up presently ; my own crest — a hand and dagger shall be the seal. Sir Lac. You see now this little explanation will put a stop .at once to all confusion or misunderstanding that might arise between you. Acres. Ay, we fight to prevent any misunderstanding. Sir Luc. Now, I'll leave you to fix your own time. — Take my A COMEDY. 143 advice, and you '11 decide it this evening if you can ; then let the worst come of it, 't will be off your mind to-morrow. Acres. Very true. Sir Luc. So I shall see nothing more of you, unless it be by letter, till the evening. — I would do myself the honor to carry your message ; but, to tell you a secret, I believe I shall have just such another affair on my own hands. There is a gay captain here, who put a jest on me lately at the expense of my country, and I only want to fall in with the gentleman to call him out. Acres. By my valor, I should like to see you fight first ! Odds life ! I should like to see you kill him if it was only to get a little lesson. Sir Luc. I shall be very proud of instructing you. — Well for the present — but remember now, when you meet your antagonist, do everything in a mild and agreeable manner. — Let your courage be as keen, but at the same time as polished, as your sword. \Exeuiit severally. 144 THE RIVALS. ACT IV. Scene I. — Acres's Lodgings. Acres and David. Dav. Then, by the mass, sir ! I would do no such thing — ne'er a Sir Lucius O'Trigger in the kingdom should make me fight, when I wa'n't so minded. Oons ! what will the old lady say, when she hears o't? Acres. Ah ! David, if you had heard Sir Lucius ! — Odds sparks and flames ! 'he would have roused your valor. Dav. Not he, indeed. I hates such bloodthirsty cormorants. Look'ee, master, if you 'd wanted a bout at boxing, quarter-staff, or short-staff, I should never be the man to bid you cry off : but for your curst sharps and snaps, I never knew any good come of 'em. Acres. But my honor, David, my honor ! I must be very careful of my honor. Dav. Ay, by the mass ! and I would be very careful of it ; and I think in return my honor could n't do less than to be very careful of me. Acres. Odds blades ! David, no gentleman will ever risk the loss of his honor ! Dav. I say then, it would be but civil in honor never to risk the loss of a gentleman. — Look'ee, master, this honor seems to me to be a marvellous false friend : ay, truly, a very courtier-like servant. — Put the case, I was a gentleman (which, thank God, no one can say of me) ; well — my honor makes me quarrel with another gentleman A COMEDY. 145 of my acquaintance. — So — we fight. (Pleasant enough that !) Boh ! — I kill him — (the more 's my luck.) Now, pray who gets the profit of it ? — Why, my honor. But put the case that he kills me ! — by the mass ! I go to the worms, and my honor whips over to my enemy. Acres. No, David — in that case ! — Odds crowns and laurels ! your honor follows you to the grave. Dav. Now that 's just the place where I could make a shift to do without it. Acres. Zounds ! David, you are a coward ! — It does n't become my valor to listen to you. — What, shall I disgrace my ancestors ? — Think of that, David — think what it would be to disgrace my ancestors ! Dav. Under favor, the surest way of not disgracing them is to keep as long as you can out of their company. Look'ee now, master, to go to them in such haste — with an ounce of lead in your brains — I should think might as well be let alone. Our ancestors are very good kind of folks ; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with. Acres. But, David, now, you don't think there is such very, very, very great danger, hey ? — Odds life ! people often fight without any mischief done ! Dav. By the mass, I think 't is ten to one against you ! — Oons ! here to meet some lion-headed fellow, I warrant, with his damned double-barrelled swords, and cut-and-thrust pistols! — Lord bless us ! it makes me tremble to think o't ! — Those be such desperate bloody-minded weapons ! Well, I never could abide 'em — from a child I never could fancy 'em I — I suppose there a'n't been so mer- ciless a beast in the world as your loaded pistol i Acres. Zounds ! I ivorit be afraid I — Odds fire and fury ! you 146 THE RIVALS. shan't make me afraid. — Here is the challenge, and I have sent for my dear friend Jack Absolute to carry it for me. Dav. Ay, i' the name of mischief, let him be the messenger. — For my part, I would n't lend a hand to it for the best horse in your stable. By the mass ! it don't look like another letter ! It is, as I may say, a designing and malicious-looking letter; — and I warrant smells of gunpowder like a soldier's pouch ! — Oons ! I would n't swear it may n't go off ! Acres, Out, you poltroon ! you ha'n't the valor of a grasshopper. Dav. Well, I say no more — 'twill be sad news, to be sure, at Clod-Hall ! but I ha' done. — How Phillis will howl when she hears of it ! — Ay, poor bitch, she little thinks what shooting her master 's going after ! — And I warrant old Crop, w T ho has carried your honor, field and road, these ten years, will curse the hour he was born. [ Whimpering. Acres. It won't do, David — I am determined to fight — so get along, you coward, while I 'm in the mind. Enter Servant. Ser. Captain Absolute, sir. Acres. Oh ! show him up. [Exit Servant. Dav. Well, Heaven send we be all alive this time to-morrow. Acres. What ; s that ? — Don't provoke me, David ! Dav. Good-by, master. [ Whimpering. Acres. Get along, you cowardly, dastardly, croaking raven ! [Exit David. Enter Captain Absolute. Ads. What 's the matter, Bob ? Acres. A vile, sheep-hearted blockhead ! — If I had n't the valor of St. George and the dragon to boot Abs. But what did you want with me, Bob? A COMEDY. 147 Acres. Oh ! — there [Gives him the challenge. Ads. [Aside.] To Ensign Beverley. — So, what 's going on now ? — [Aloud.] Well, what 's this ? Acres. A challenge ! Ads. Indeed ! Why, you won't fight him ; will you, Bob ? Acres. Egad, but I will, Jack. Sir Lucius has wrought me to it. He has left me full of rage — and I '11 fight this evening, that so much good passion may n't be wasted. Ads. But what have I to do with this ? Acres. Why, as I think you know something of this fellow, I want you to find him out for me, and give him this mortal defiance. Ads. Well, give it to me, and trust me he gets it. Acres. Thank you, my dear friend, my dear Jack ; but it is giving you a great deal of trouble. Ads. Not in the least — I beg you won't mention it. — No trouble in the world, I assure you. Acres. You are very kind. — What it is to have a friend ! — You could n't be my second, could you, Jack ? Ads. Why no, Bob — not in this affair — it would not be quite so proper. Acres. Well, then, I must get my friend Sir Lucius. I shall have your good wishes, however, Jack ? Ads. Whenever he meets you, believe me. Re-Enter Servant. Ser. Sir Anthony Absolute is below, inquiring for the captain. Ads. I'll come instantly. — [Exit Servant.] Well, my little hero, success attend you. [Going. Acres. Stay — stay, Jack. — If Beverley should ask you what kind of a man your friend Acres is, do tell him I am a devil of a fellow — will you, Jack ? 148 THE RIVALS. Abs. To be sure I shall. I'll say you are a determined dog — hey, Bob ! Acres. Ay, do, do— and if that frightens him, egad, perhaps he may n't come. So tell him I generally kill a man a week ; will you, Jack ? Ads. I will, I will ; I '11 say you are called in the country Fighting Bob. Acres. Right — right — 't is all to prevent mischief ; for I don't want to take his life if I clear my honor, Abs. No ! — that 's very kind of you. Acres. Why, you don't wish me to kill him — do you, Jack ? Abs. No, upon my soul, I do not. — But a devil of a fellow, hey? [Going. Acres. True, true — but stay — stay, Jack — you may add that you never saw me in such a rage before — a most devouring rage ! Abs. I will, I will. Acres. Remember, Jack — a determined dog ! Abs. Ay, ay, Fighting Bob ! [Exeunt severally. Scene II. — Mrs. Malaprop's Lodgings. Mrs. Malaprop and Lydia. Mrs. Mai. Why, thou perverse one ! — tell me what you can object to him? Isn't he a handsome man? — tell me that. A genteel man ? a pretty figure of a man ? Lyd. [Aside.] She little thinks whom she is praising ! — [Aloud.'] So is Beverley, ma'am. Mrs. Mai. No caparisons, miss, if you please. Caparisons don't Mrs. John Drew as Mrs. Malaprop. A COMEDY. 149 become a young woman. No ! Captain Absolute is indeed a fine gentleman ! Lyd. Ay, the Captain Absolute you have seen. [Aside. Mrs. Mai. Then ,he 's so well bred ; — so full of alacrity, and adulation ! — and has so much to say for himself : — in such good language too ! — His physiognomy so grammatical ! — Then his pres- ence is so noble ! — I protest, when I saw him, I thought of what Hamlet says in the play : — ,( Hesperian curls — the front of Job himself ! — An eye, like March, to threaten at command ! — A sta- tion, like Harry Mercury, new — " Something about kissing — on a hill — however, the similitude struck me directly. Lyd. How enraged she'll be presently, when she discovers her mistake ! [Aside. Enter Servant. Ser., Sir Anthony and Captain Absolute are below, ma'am. Mrs. Mai. Show them up here. — {Exit Servant.] Now, Lydia, I insist on your behaving as becomes a young woman. Show your good breeding, at least, though you have forgot your duty. Lyd. Madam, I have told you my resolution ! — I shall not only give him no encouragement, but I won't even speak to or look at him. [Flings herself into a cJiair,, with her face from the door. Enter Sir Anthony Absolute and Captain Absolute. Sir Anth. Here we are, Mrs. Malaprop ; come to mitigate the frowns of unrelenting beauty, — and difficulty enough I had to bring this fellow. — I don't know what 's the matter ; but if I had not held him by force, he 'd have given me the slip. Mrs. Mai. You have infinite trouble, Sir Anthony, in the affair. I am ashamed for the cause ! — [Aside to Lydia.] Lydia, Lydia, rise, I beseech you ! — pay your respects ! 150 THE RIVALS. Sir Anth. I hope, madam, that Miss Languish has reflected on the worth of this gentleman, and the regard due to her aunt's choice and my alliance. — [Aside to Captain Absolute.] Now, Jack, speak to her. Abs. [Aside.] What the devil shall I do!— [Aside to Sir Anthony.] You see, sir, she won't even look at me whilst you are here. — I knew she wouldn't! — J told you so. — Let me entreat you, sir, to leave us together ! [Seems to expostidate with his father. Lyd. [Aside.] I wonder I h' an't heard my aunt exclaim yet ! sure she can't have looked at him ! — perhaps their regimentals are alike, and she is something blind. Sir Anth. I say, sir, I won't stir a foot yet ! Mrs. Mai. I am sorry to say, Sir Anthony, that my affluence over my niece is very small. — [Aside to Lydia.] Turn round, Lydia : I blush for you ! Sir Anth. May I not flatter myself that Miss Languish will assign what cause of dislike she can have to my son ! — [Aside to Captain Absolute.] Why don't you begin, Jack ? — Speak, you puppy — speak. Mrs. Mai. It is impossible, Sir Anthony, she can have any. She will not say she has. — [Aside to Lydia.] Answer, hussy ! why don't you answer ? Sir Anth. Then, madam, I trust that a childish and hasty pre- dilection will be no bar to Jack's happiness. — [Aside to Captain Absolute.] — Zounds ! sirrah ! why don't you speak ! Lyd. [Aside.] I think my lover seems as little inclined to conversation as myself. — How strangely blind my aunt must be! Abs. Hem! hem! madam — hem! — [Attempts to speak, then returns to Sir Anthony.] Faith ! sir, I am so confounded ! — and — A COMEDY. 151 so — so — confused ! — I told you I should be so, sir — I knew it. — The — the — tremor of my passion entirely takes away my presence of mind. Sir Anth. But it don't take away your voice, fool, does it? — Go up, and speak to her directly ! [Captain Absolute makes signs to Mrs. Malaprop to leave them together. Mrs. Mai. Sir Anthony, shall we leave them together ? — {Aside to Lydia.] Ah ! you stubborn little vixen ! Sir Anth. Not yet, ma'am, not yet ! — [Aside to Captain Absolute.] What the devil are you at ? unlock your jaws, sirrah, or Ads. [Aside.] Now Heaven send she may be too sullen to look round! — I must disguise my voice. — [Draws near Lydia, and speaks in a low hoarse tone.] Will not Miss Languish lend an ear to the mild accents of true love ? Will not Sir Anth. What the devil ails the fellow ? Why don't you speak out? — not stand croaking like a frog in a quinsy! Abs. The — the — excess of' my awe, and my — my — my mod- esty, quite choke me ! Sir Anth. Ah ! your modesty again ! — I '11 tell you what, Jack ; if you don't speak out directly, and glibly too, I shall be in such a rage ! — Mrs. Malaprop, I wish the lady would favor us with something more than a side-front. [Mrs. Malaprop seems to chide Lydia. Abs. [Aside?] So all will out, I see! — [Goes up to Lydia, speaks softly?] Be not surprised, my Lydia, suppress all surprise at present. Lyd. [Aside?] Heavens ! 't is Beverley's voice ! Sure he can't have imposed on Sir Anthony too ! — [Looks round by degrees, then 152 THE RIVALS. starts up.} Is this possible ! — my Beverley! —how can this be ? — my Beverley ? Abs. Ah ! 't is all over. [Aside. Sir Anth. Beverley ! — the devil — Beverley ! — What can the girl mean? — This is my son, Jack Absolute. Mrs. Mai. For shame, hussy ! for shame ! your head runs so on that fellow, that you have him always in your eyes ! — beg Captain Absolute's pardon directly. Lyd. I see no Captain Absolute, but my loved Beverley ! Sir Anth, Zounds! the girl's mad! — her brain 's turned by reading. Mrs. Mai. O' my conscience, I believe so ! — What do you mean by Beverley, hussy ? — You saw Captain Absolute before to-day; there he is — your husband that shall be. Lyd. With all my soul, ma'am — when I refuse my Beverley Sir Anth. Oh ! she 's as mad as Bedlam ! — or has this fellow been playing us a rogue's trick ! — Come here, sirrah, who the devil are you ? Abs. Faith, sir, I am not quite clear myself ; but I '11 endeavor to recollect. Sir Anth. Are you my son or not? — answer for your mother, you dog, if you won't for me. Mrs. Mai. Ay, sir, who are you ? Oh, mercy ! I begin to suspect ! — Abs. [Aside.] Ye powers of Impudence, befriend me! — [Aloud.] Sir Anthony, most assuredly I am your wife's son ; and that I sin- cerely believe myself to be yours also, I hope my duty has always shown. — Mrs. Malaprop, I am your most respectful admirer, and shall be proud to add affectionate nephew. — I need not tell my Lydia that she sees her faithful Beverley, who, knowing the singu- A COMEDY. 153 lar generosity of her temper, assumed that name and station, which has proved a test of the most disinterested love, which he now hopes to enjoy in a more elevated character. Lyd. So! — there will be no elopement after all! [Sullenly. Sir Anth. Upon my soul, Jack, thou art a very impudent fellow ! to do you justice, I think I never saw a piece of more consummate assurance ! Abs. Oh, you flatter me, sir — you compliment — 'tis my mod- esty, you know, sir — my modesty, that has stood in my way. Sir Anth. Well, I am glad you are not the dull, insensible varlet you pretended to be, however ! — I 'm glad you have made a fool of your father, you dog — I am. — So this was your penitence, your duty and obedience ! — I thought it was damned sudden! — You never heard their names before, not you ! — what the Languishes #/" Worcestershire, hey? — if you could please me in the affair it was all y oil desired! — Ah! you dissembling villain! — What! — [Pointing to Lydia] she squints, don't she? — a little red-haired girl! — hey? — Why, you hypocritical young rascal! — I wonder you an't ashamed to hold up your head ! Abs. 'T is with difficulty, sir. — I a?n confused — very much con- fused, as you must perceive. Mrs. Mai. O Lud ! Sir Anthony ! — a new light breaks in upon me ! — hey ! — how ! what ! captain, did you write the letters then ? — What — am I to thank you for the elegant compilation of an old weather-beaten she-dragon — hey! — Oh, mercy! — was it you that reflected on my parts of speech ? Abs. Dear sir ! my modesty will be overpowered at last, if you don't assist me — I shall certainly not be able to stand it! Sir Anth. Come, come, Mrs. Malaprop, we must forget and forgive; — odds life! matters have taken so clever a turn all of a 154 THE RIVALS. sudden, that I could find in my heart to be so good-humored ! and so gallant ! hey ! Mrs. Malaprop ! Mrs. Mai. Well, Sir Anthony, since you desire it, we will not anticipate the past ! — so mind, young people — our retrospection will be all to the future. Sir Anth. Come, we must leave them together; Mrs. Malaprop, they long to fly into each other's arms, I warrant! — Jack — isn't the cheek as I said, hey? — and the eye, you rogue! — and the lip — hey? Come, Mrs. Malaprop, we'll not disturb their tender- ness — theirs is the time of life for happiness! — Youth's the season made for joy — [Sings] — hey! — Odds life! I'm in such spirits, — I don't know what I could not do ! — Permit me, ma'am — [Gives his hand to Mrs. Malaprop.] [Si?igs.] Tol-de-rol — 'gad, I should like to have a little fooling myself — Tol-de-rol! de-rol. [Exit, singing and handing Mrs. Malaprop. — Lydia sits sulleutly in her chair. Abs. [Aside.] So much thought bodes me no good. — [Aloud.] So grave, Lydia ! Lyd. Sir! Abs. [Aside.] So! — egad! I thought as much! — that damned monosyllable has froze me ! — [Aloud.] What, Lydia, now that we are as happy in our friends' consent, as in our mutual vows Lyd. m Friends % consent indeed ! [Peevishly. Abs. Come, come, we must lay aside some of our romance — a little wealth and comfort may be endured after all. And for your fortune, the lawyers shall make such settlements as Lyd. Lawyers ! I hate lawyers ! Abs. Nay, then, we will not wait for their lingering forms, but instantly procure the licence, and Lyd. The licence I — I hate licence ! A COMEDY. 155 Abs. Oh, my love ! be not so unkind ! — thus let me en- treat [Kneeling. Lyd. Psha ! — what signifies kneeling, when you know I must have you ? Abs. [Rising.] Nay, madam, there shall be no constraint upon your inclinations, I promise you. — If I have lost your heart — I resign the rest — [Aside.] 'Gad, I must try what a little spirit will do. Lyd. [Rising.] Then, sir, let me tell you, the interest you had there was acquired by a mean, unmanly imposition, and deserves the punishment of fraud. — What, you have been treating me like a child ! — humoring my romance ! and laughing, I suppose, at your success ! Abs. You wrong me, Lydia, you wrong me — only hear Lyd. So, while / fondly imagined we were deceiving my rela- tions, and flattered myself that I should outwit and incense them all — behold my hopes are to be crushed at once, by my aunt's consent and approbation — and / am myself the only dupe at last ! — [ Walking about in a heat.] But here, sir, here is the pic- ture — Beverley's picture ! [taking a miniature from her bosom] which I have worn, night and day, in spite of threats and entreaties! — There, sir, [flings it to him] and be assured I throw the original from my heart as easily. Abs. Nay, nay, ma'am, we will not differ as to that. — Here, [taking out a picture] here is Miss Lydia Languish. — What a dif- ference! — ay, there is the heavenly assenting smile that first gave soul and spirit to my hopes ! — those are the lips which sealed a vow, as yet scarce dry in Cupid's calendar ! and there the half- resentful blush, that would have checked the ardor of my thanks ! — Well, all that 's past ! — all over indeed ! — There, madam — 156 THE RIVALS. in beauty, that copy is not equal to you, but in my mind its merit over the original, in being still the same, is such — ■ that — I cannot find in my heart to part with it. [Puts it up again. Lyd. [Softening?^ 'T is your oivn doing, sir — I — I — I suppose you are perfectly satisfied. Abs. Oh, most certainly — sure, now, this is much better than being in love ! — ha ! ha ! ha ! — there 's some spirit in this ! — What signifies breaking some scores of solemn promises: — all that's of no consequence, you know. — To be sure people will say that miss don't know her own mind — but never mind that! Or, perhaps, they may be ill-natured enough to hint that the gentle- man grew tired of the lady and forsook her — but don't let that fret you. Lyd. There is no bearing his insolence. [Bursts into tears. Re-Enter Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute. Mrs. Mai. [Entering.] Come, we must interrupt your billing and cooing awhile. Lyd. This is worse than your treachery and deceit, you base ingrate ! [Sobbing. Sir Anth. What the devil 's the matter now ! — Zounds. Mrs. Malaprop, this is the oddest billing and cooing I ever heard ! — but what the deuce is the meaning of it? — lam quite astonished! Abs. Ask the lady, sir. Mrs. Mai. Oh mercy ! — I 'm quite analyzed, for my part ! — Why, Lydia, what is the reason of this ? Lyd. Ask the gentleman, ma'am. Sir Anth. Zounds! I shall be in a frenzy! — Why, Jack, you are not come out to be any one else, are you ? Mrs. Mai. Ay, sir, there 's no more trick, is there ? — you are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, arc you ? A COMEDY. 157 Ads. You'll not let me speak — I say the lady can account for this much better than I can. Lyd. Ma'am, you once commanded me never to think of Beverley again — there is the man — I now obey you : for, from this moment, I renounce him for ever. {Exit Lydia. Mrs. Mai. Oh, mercy ! and miracles ! what a turn here is — why sure, captain, you have n't behaved disrespectfully to my niece. Sir Anth. Ha ! ha ! ha ! — ha ! ha ! ha ! — now I see it. Ha ! ha ! ha ! — now I see it — you have been too lively, Jack. Abs. Nay, sir, upon my word Sir Anth. Come, no lying, Jack — I 'm sure 'twas so. Mrs. Mai. O Lud ! Sir Anthony ! — Oh, fie, captain ! Abs. Upon my soul, ma'am Sir Anth. Come, no excuses, Jack ; why, your father, you rogue, was so before you : — the blood of the Absolutes was always im- patient. — Ha! ha! ha! poor little Lydia! why, you've frightened her, you dog, you have. Abs. By all that 's good, sir Sir Anth. Zounds! say no more, I tell you — Mrs. Malaprop shall make your peace. — You must make his peace, Mrs. Mala- prop : — you must tell her 't is Jack's way — tell her 't is all our ways — it runs in the blood of our family! — Come away, Jack — Ha ! ha ! ha ! Mrs. Malaprop — a young villain ! [Pushes him out. Mrs. Mai. O ! Sir Anthony ! — Oh, fie, captain ! \Exeiint severally. 15^ THE RIVALS. Scene III. — The North Parade. Enter Sir Lucius O'Trigger. Sir Lite. I wonder where this Captain Absolute hides himself ! Upon my conscience ! these officers are always in one's way in love affairs : — I remember I might have married Lady Dorothy Carmine, if it had not been for a little rogue of a major, who ran away with her before she could get a sight of me ! And I wonder too what it is the ladies can see in them to be so fond of them — unless it be a touch of the old serpent in 'em, that makes the little creatures be caught, like vipers, with a bit of red cloth. Ha! isn't this the captain coming ? — faith it is ! — There is a probability of succeeding about that fellow that is mighty provoking ! Who the devil is he talking to ? {Steps aside. Enter Captain Absolute. Abs. {Aside.] To what fine purpose I have been plotting ! a noble reward for all my schemes, upon my soul ! — a little gypsy ! — I did not think her romance could have made her so damned absurd either. 'Sdeath, I never was in a worse humor in my life ! — I could cut my own throat, or any other person's, with the greatest pleasure in the world ! Sir Luc. Oh, faith ! I'm in the luck of it. I never could have found him in a sweeter temper for my purpose — to be sure I 'm just come in the nick ! Now to enter into conversation with him, and so quarrel genteelly. — {Goes tip to Captain Absolute.] — With regard to that matter, captain, I must beg leave to differ in opinion with you. Abs. Upon my word, then, you must be a very subtle disputant : — because, sir, I happened just then to be giving no opinion at all. A COMEDY. 159 Sir Luc. That 's no reason. For, give me leave to tell you, a man may think an untruth as well as speak one. Abs. Very true, sir ; but if a man never utters his thoughts, I should think they might stand a chance of escaping con- troversy. Sir Luc. Then, sir, you differ in opinion with me, which amounts to the same thing. Abs. Hark'ee, Sir Lucius; if I had not before known you to be a gentleman, upon my soul, I should not have discovered it at this interview : for what you can drive at, unless you mean to quar- rel with me, I cannot conceive ! Sir Luc. I humbly thank you, sir, for the quickness of your apprehension. — \Bowing?[ You have named the very thing I would be at. Abs. Very well, sir ; I shall certainly not balk your inclinations. — But I should be glad you would please to explain your motives. Sir Luc. Pray sir, be easy ; — the quarrel is a very pretty quarrel as it stands ; — we should only spoil it by trying to explain it. — However, your memory is very short, or you could not have forgot an affront you passed on me within this week. — So, no more, but name your time and place. Abs. Well, sir, since you are so bent on it, the sooner the better ; let it be this evening — here by the Spring Gardens. — We shall scarcely be interrupted. Sir Luc. Faith ! that same interruption in affairs of this nature shows very great ill-breeding. — I don't know what 's the reason, but in England, if a thing of this kind gets wind, people make such a pother, that a gentleman can never fight in peace and quietness. However, if it 's the same to you, captain, I should take it as a par- ticular kindness if you 'd let us meet in King's-Mead-Fields, as a little 160 THE RIVALS. business will call me there about six o'clock, and I may despatch both matters at once. Abs. 'T is the same to me exactly. — A little after six, then, we will discuss this matter more seriously. Sir Luc. If you please, sir; there will be very pretty small-sword light, though it won't do for a long shot. — So that matter 's settled, and my mind 's at ease. [Exit Sir Lucius. Enter Faulkland, meeting Absolute. Abs. Well met ! I was going to look for you. — O Faulkland ! all the demons of spite and disappointment have conspired against me ! I 'm so vexed, that if I had not the prospect of a resource in being knocked o' the head by-and-by, I should scarce have spirits to tell you the cause. Faulk. What can you mean ? — Has Lydia changed her mind ? — I should have thought her duty and inclination would now have pointed to the same object. Abs. Ay, just as the eyes do of a person who squints : when her love-eye was fixed on me, t 'other, her eye of duty, was finely obliqued : but when duty bid her point that the same way, off t'other turned on a swivel, and secured its retreat with a frown ! Faulk. But what 's the resource you Abs. Oh, to wind up the whole, a good-natured Irishman here has — {Mimicking Sir Lucius] — begged leave to have the pleasure of cutting my throat : and I mean to indulge him — that 's all. Faulk. Prithee, be serious ! Abs. Tis fact, upon my soul ! Sir Lucius O'Trigger — you know him by sight — for some affront, — which I am sure I never in- tended, has obliged me to meet him this evening at six o'clock : 't is on that account I wished to see you ; — you must go with me. Faulk. Nay, there must be some mistake, sure. Sir Lucius shall A COMEDY. l6l explain himself, and I dare say matters may be accommodated. But this evening did you say ? I wish it had been any other time. Abs. Why ? there will be light enough : there will (as Sir Lucius says), " be very pretty small-sword light, though it will not do for a long shot." Confound his long shots! Faulk. But I am myself a good deal ruffled by a difference I have had with Julia — my vile tormenting temper has made me treat her so cruelly, that I shall not be myself till we are reconciled. Abs. By heavens ! Faulkland, you don't deserve her ! Enter Servant, gives Faulkland a letter, and exit. Faulk. O Jack ! this is from Julia. I dread to open it ! I fear it maybe to take a last leave! — perhaps to bid me return her letters, and restore oh, how I suffer for my folly ! Abs. Here, let me see. — [Takes the letter and opens it.] Ay, a final sentence, indeed ! — 'tis all over with you, faith ! Faulk. Nay, Jack, don't keep me in suspense ! Abs. Hear then. — [Reads.] As I am convinced that my dear Faulkland *s own reflections have already upbraided him for his last unkindncss to me, I will not add a word on the subject. I zvish to speak with you as soon as possible. Yours ever and truly, Julia. There 's stubbornness and resentment for you ! — [Gives him the letter.] Why, man, you don't seem one whit the happier at this ! Faulk. Oh, yes, I am : but — but Abs. Confound your buts ! you never hear anything that would make another man bless himself, but you immediately damn it with a but ! Faulk. Now, Jack, as you are my friend, own honestly — don't you think there is something forward, something indelicate in this haste to forgive ? Women should never sue for reconciliation : that should always come from us. They should retain their coldness till 162 THE RIVALS. wooed to kindness; and their pardon, like their love, should "not unsought be won." Abs. I have not patience to listen to you! thou'rt incorrigible! so say no more on the subject. I must go to settle a few matters. Let me see you before six, remember, at my lodgings. A poor industrious devil like me, who have toiled, and drudged, and plotted to gain my ends, and am at last disappointed by other people's folly, may in pity be allowed to swear and grumble a little ; but a captious sceptic in love, a slave to fretfulness and whim, who has no difficul- ties but of his own creating, is a subject more fit for ridicule than compassion ! [Exit Absolute. Faulk. I feel his reproaches ; yet I would not change this too exquisite nicety for the gross content with which lie tramples on the thorns of love ! — His engaging me in this duel has started an idea in my head, which I will instantly pursue. I '11 use it as the touch- stone of Julia's sincerity and disinterestedness. If her love prove pure and sterling ore, my name will rest on it with honor ; and once I 've stamped it there, I lay aside my doubts forever ! But if the dross of selfishness, the alloy of pride, predominate, 'twill be best to leave her as a toy for some less cautious fool to sigh for ! [Exit Faulkland. A COMEDY. 163 ACT. V. Scene I. — Julia's Dressing-Room. Julia discovered alone. Jul. How this message has alarmed me ! what dreadful accident can he mean ? why such charge to be alone ? — O Faulkland ! — how many unhappy moments — how many tears have you cost me. Enter Faulkland. Jul. What means this ? — why this caution, Faulkland ? Faulk. Alas ! Julia, I am come to take a long farewell. Jul. Heavens ! what do you mean ? Faulk. You see before you a wretch whose life is forfeited. Nay, start not ! — the infirmity of my temper has drawn all this misery on me. I left you fretful and passionate — an untoward accident drew me into a quarrel — the event is, that I must fly this kingdom instantly. O Julia, had I been so fortunate as to have called you mine entirely, before this mischance had fallen on me, I should not so deeply dread my banishment ! Jul. My soul is oppressed with sorrow at the nature of your mis- fortune : had these adverse circumstances arisen from a less fatal cause, I should have felt strong comfort in the thought that I could now chase from your bosom every doubt of the warm sincerity of my love. My heart has long known no other guardian — I now entrust my person to your honor — we will fly together. When safe from pursuit, my father's will may be fulfilled — and I receive a legal claim to be the partner of your sorrows and tenderest comforter. Then on the bosom of your wedded Julia, you may lull your keen 1 64 THE RIVALS. regret to slumbering ; while virtuous love, with a cherub's hand, shall smooth the brow of upbraiding thought, and pluck the thorn from compunction. Faulk. O Julia ! I am bankrupt in gratitude ! but the time is so pressing, it calls on you for so hasty a resolution. — Would you not wish some hours to weigh the advantages you forego, and what little compensation poor Faulkland can make you beside his solitary love ? Jul. I ask not a moment. No, Faulkland, I have loved you for yourself : and if I now, more than ever, prize the solemn engagement which so long has pledged us to each other, it is because it leaves no room for hard aspersions on my fame, and puts the seal of duty to an act of love. But let us not linger. Perhaps this delay Faulk. 'Twill be better I should not venture out again till dark. Yet am I grieved to think what numberless distresses will press heavy on your gentle disposition ! Jul. Perhaps your fortune may be forfeited by this unhappy act. — I know not whether 't is so ; but sure that alone can never make us unhappy. The little I have will be sufficient to support us ; and exile never should be splendid. Faulk. Ay, but in such an abject state of life, my wounded pride perhaps may increase the natural fretf illness of my temper, till I become a rude, morose companion, beyond your patience to endure. Perhaps the recollection of a deed my conscience cannot justify may haunt me in such gloomy and unsocial fits, that I shall hate the tenderness that would relieve me, break from your arms, and quarrel with your fondness ! Jul. If your thoughts should assume so unhappy a bent, you will the more want some mild and affectionate spirit to watch over and console you : one who, by bearing your infirmities with gentleness and resignation, may teach you so to bear the evils of your fortune. A COMEDY. 165 Faulk. Julia, I have proved you to the quick ! and with this use- less device I throw away all my doubts. How shall I plead to be forgiven this last unworthy effect of my restless, unsatisfied dis- position ? Jul. Has no such disaster happened as you related ? Faulk. I am ashamed to own that it was pretended ; yet in pity, Julia, do not kill me with resenting a fault which never can be repeated : but sealing, this once, my pardon, let me to-morrow, in the face of Heaven, receive my future guide and monitress, and expiate my past folly by years of tender adoration. Jul. Hold, Faulkland ! — that you are free from a crime, which I before feared to name, Heaven knows how sincerely I rejoice ! These are tears of thankfulness for that ! But that your cruel doubts should have urged you to an imposition that has wrung my heart gives me now a pang more keen than I can express ! Faulk. By Heavens ! Julia Jul. Yet hear me. — My father loved you, Faulkland ! and you preserved the life that tender parent gave me ; in his presence I pledged my hand — joyfully pledged it — where before I had given my heart. When, soon after, I lost that parent, it seemed to me that Providence had, in Faulkland, shown me whither to transfer, without a pause, my grateful duty, as well as my affection : hence I have been content to bear from you what pride and delicacy would have forbid me from another. I will not upbraid you by repeating how you have trifled with my sincerity Faulk. I confess it all ! yet hear Jul. After such a year of trial, I might have flattered myself that I should not have been insulted with a new probation of my sin- cerity, as cruel as unnecessary ! I now see it is not in your nature to be content or confident in love. With this conviction — I never 166 THE RIVALS. will be yours. While I had hopes that my persevering attention and unreproaching kindness might in time reform your temper, I should have been happy to have gained a dearer influence over you ; but I will not furnish you with a licensed power to keep alive an incorrigible fault at the expense of one who never would contend with you. Faulk. Nay, but Julia, by my soul and honor, if after this Jul. But one word more. — As my faith has once been given to you, I never will barter it with another. — I shall pray for your happiness with the truest sincerity ; and the dearest blessing I can ask of Heaven to send you will be to charm you from that unhappy temper which alone has prevented the performance of our solemn engagement. — All I request of you is, that ycu will yourself reflect upon this infirmity, and when you number up the many true delights it has deprived you of, let it not be your least regret, that it lost you the love of one — -who would have followed you in beggary through the world ! [Exit. Faulk. She's gone — forever! — There was an awful resolution in her manner, that riveted me to my place. — O fool! — dolt! — barbarian ! Cursed as I am, with more imperfections than my fellow wretches, kind fortune sent a heaven-gifted cherub to my aid, and, like a ruffian, I have driven her from my side ! — I must now haste to my appointment. Well, my mind is tuned for such a scene. I shall wish only to become a principal in it, and reverse the tale my cursed folly put me upon forging here. — O Love ! — tormentor! — fiend! — whose influence, like the moon's, acting on men of dull souls, makes idiots of them, but, meeting subtler spirits, betrays their course and urges sensibility to madness ! [Exit A COMEDY. 167 Enter Lydia and Maid. Maid. My mistress, ma'am, I know, was just here now — perhaps she is only in the next room. [Exit Maid. Lyd. Heigh-ho ! Though he has used me so, this fellow runs strangely in my head. I believe one lecture from my grave cousin will make me recall him. [Re-enter Julia.] O Julia, I am come to you with such an appetite for consolation. — Lud ! child, what 's the matter with you ? You have been crying ! — I '11 be hanged if that Faulkland has not been tormenting you ! Jul. You mistake the cause of my uneasiness! — Something has flurried me a little. Nothing that you can guess at. — [Aside.] I would not accuse Faulkland to a sister ! Lyd. Ah ! whatever vexations you may have, I can assure you mine surpass them. You know who Beverley proves to be ? Jul. I will now own to you, Lydia, that Mr. Faulkland had before informed me of the whole affair. Had young Absolute been the person you took him for I should not have accepted your confi- dence on the subject, without a serious endeavor to counteract your caprice. Lyd. So, then, I see I have been deceived by every one! But I don't care — I '11 never have him. Jul. Nay, Lydia Lyd. Why, is it not provoking ? when I thought we were coming to the prettiest distress imaginable, to find myself made a mere Smithfield bargain of at last ! There, had I projected one of the most sentimental elopements! — so becoming a disguise! — so ami- able a ladder of ropes! — Conscious moon — four horses — Scotch parson — with such surprise to Mrs. Malaprop — and such para- graphs in the newspapers ! — Oh, I shall die with disappointment. Jul. I don't wonder at it ! 1 68 THE RIVALS. Lyd. Now — sad reverse ! — what have I to expect, but, after a deal of flimsy preparations with a bishop's licence, and my aunt's blessing, to go simpering up to the altar ; or perhaps be cried three times in a country church, and have an unmannerly fat clerk ask the consent of every butcher in the parish to join John Absolute and Lydia Languish, spinster ! Oh that I should live to hear myself called Spinster ! Jul. Melancholy indeed ! Lyd. How mortifying, to remember the dear delicious shifts I used to be put to, to gain half a minute's conversation with this fellow ! — How often have I stole forth, in the coldest night in January, and found him in the garden, stuck like a dripping statue ! There would he kneel to me in the snow, and sneeze and cough so pathetically ! he shivering with cold and I with apprehension ! and while the freezing blast numbed our joints, how warmly would he press me to pity his flame, and glow with mutual ardor! — Ah, Julia, that was something like being in love. Jul. If I were in spirits, Lydia, I should chide you only by laugh- ing heartily at you ; but it suits more the situation of my mind, at present, earnestly to entreat you not to let a man, who loves you with sincerity, suffer that unhappiness from your caprice, which I know too well caprice can inflict. Lyd. O Lud ! what has brought my aunt here ? Enter Mrs. Malaprop, Fag, and David. Mrs. Mai. So! so! here's fine work! — here's fine suicide, par- ricide, and simulation, going on in the fields! and Sir Anthony not to be found to prevent the antistrophe ! Jul, For Heaven's sake, madam, what 's the meaning of this ? Mrs. Mai. That gentleman can tell you — 't was he enveloped the affair to me. A COMEDY. 169 Lyd. Do, sir, will you, inform us ? [To Fag. Fag. Ma'am, I should hold myself very deficient in every requi- site that forms the man of breeding, if I delayed a moment to give all the information in my power to a lady so deeply interested in the affair as you are. Lyd. But quick ! quick, sir ! Fag. True, ma'am, as you say, one should be quick in divulging matters of this nature ; for should we be tedious, perhaps while we are flourishing on the subject, two or three lives may be lost ! Lyd. O patience ! — Do, ma'am, for Heaven's sake ! tell us what is the matter ? Mrs. Mai. Why, murder 's the matter ! slaughter 's the matter ! killing 's the matter ! — but he can tell you the perpendiculars. Lyd. Then, prithee, sir, be brief. Fag. Why then, ma'am, as to murder — I cannot take upon me to say — and as to slaughter, or manslaughter, that will be as the jury finds it. Lyd. But who, sir — who are engaged in this ? Fag. Faith, ma'am, one is a young gentleman whom I should be very sorry anything was to happen to — a very pretty behaved gentleman ! We have lived much together, and always on terms. Lyd. But who is this ? who ? who ? who ? Fag. My master, ma'am — my master — I speak of my master. Lyd. Heavens ! What, Captain Absolute ! Mrs. Mai. Oh, to be sure, you are frightened now ! Jul. But who are with him, sir ? Fag. As to the rest, ma'am, this gentleman can inform you better than I. Jul. Do speak, friend. [To David. Dav. Look'ee, my lady — by the mass! there's mischief going 170 THE RIVALS. on. Folks don't use to meet for amusement with firearms, firelocks, fire-engines, fire-screens, fire-office, and the devil knows what other crackers beside ! — This, my lady, I say, has an angry favor. Jul. But who is there beside Captain Absolute, friend ? Dav. My poor master — under favor for mentioning him first. You know me, my lady — I am David — and my master of course, is, or was, Squire Acres. Then comes Squire Faulkland. Jul. Do, ma'am, let us instantly endeavor to prevent mischief. Mrs. Mai O fie ! — it would be very inelegant in us : — we should only participate things. Dav. Ah ! do, Mrs. Aunt, save a few lives — they are desperately given, believe me. — Above all, there is that blood-thirsty Philistine, Sir Lucius O'Trigger. Mrs. Mai Sir Lucius O'Trigger ? O mercy ! have they drawn poor little dear Sir Lucius into the scrape? — Why, how you stand, girl ! you have no more feeling than one of the Derbyshire petri- factions ! Lyd. What are we to do, madam ? Mrs. Mai. Why fly with the utmost felicity, to be sure, to prevent mischief! — Here, friend, you can show us the place? Fag. If you please, ma'am, I will conduct you. — David, do you look for Sir Anthony. [Exit David, Mrs. Mai. Come, girls ! this gentleman will exhort us. — Come, sir, you 're our envoy — lead the way, and w r e '11 precede. Fag. Not a step before the ladies for the world ! Mrs. Mai You 're sure you know the spot ? Fag. I think I can find it, ma'am ; and one good thing is, we shall hear the report of the pistols as we draw near, so we can't well miss them ; — never fear, ma'am, never fear. [Exeunt, he talking. A COMEDY. 171 Scene II. — The South Parade. Enter Captain Absolute, putting his sword under his great coat. Ads. A sword seen in the streets of Bath would raise as great an alarm as a mad dog. — How provoking this is in Faulkland ! — never punctual ! I shall be obliged to go without him at last. — Oh, the devil ! here 's Sir Anthony ! — how shall I escape him ? {Muffles up his face, and takes a circle to go off. Enter Sir Anthony Absolute. Sir Anth. How one may be deceived at a little distance ! only that I see he don't know me, I could have sworn that was Jack ! — Hey ! Gad's life ! it is. — Why, Jack, what are you afraid of ? hey ! — sure I 'm right. — Why Jack, — Jack Absolute ! [Goes up to him. Ads. Really, sir, you have the advantage of me: — I don't remember ever to have had the honor — my name is Saunderson, at your service. Sir Anth. Sir, I beg your pardon — I took you — hey? — why, zounds ! it is — Stay — [Looks up to his face .] So, so — your humble servant, Mr. Saunderson ! — Why you scoundrel, what tricks are you after now ? Ads. Oh, a joke, sir, a joke ! — I came here on purpose to look for you, sir. Sir Anth. You did! well, I am glad you were so lucky: — but what are you muffled up so for ? — what 's this for ? — hey ! Ads. 'Tis cool sir; isn't it? — rather chilly somehow — but I shall be late — I have a particular engagement. Sir Anth. Stay! — Why, I thought you were looking for me? — Pray, Jack, where is 't you are going ? Ads. Going, sir ! Sir Anth. Ay, — where are you going ? 172 THE RIVALS. Abs. Where am I going ? Sir Anth. You unmannerly puppy ! Abs. I was going, sir, to — to — to — to Lydia — sir, to Lydia — to make matters up if I could ; — and I was looking for you, sir, to — to — Sir AntJi. To go with you, I suppose. — Well, come along. Abs. Oh! Zounds! no, sir, not for the world! — I wished to meet with you, sir, — to — to — to — You find it cool, I'm sure, sir — you'd better not stay out. Sir Anth. Cool! — not at all. — Well, Jack — and what will you say to Lydia? Abs. Oh, sir, beg her pardon, humor her — promise and vow: but I detain you, sir — consider the cold air on your gout. Sir Anth. Oh, not at all ! — not at all ! I'm in no hurry. — Ah ! Jack, you youngsters, when once you are wounded here {Pitt- ting his hand to Captain Absolute's breast.'] Hey ! what the deuce have you got here? Abs. Nothing, sir — nothing. Sir Anth. "What 's this ? — here *s something damned hard. Abs. Oh, trinkets, sir! trinkets! — a bauble for Lydia! Sir Anth. Nay, let me see your taste. — [Pnlls his coat open, the sword falls .] Trinkets! — a bauble for Lydia! — Zounds! sirrah, you are not going to cut her throat, are you ? Abs. Ha! ha! ha! — I thought it would divert you, sir, though I did n't mean to tell you till afterwards. Sir Anth. You didn't? — Yes, this is a very diverting trinket, truly! Abs. Sir, I'll explain to you. — You know, sir, Lydia is roman- tic, devilish romantic, and very absurd of course : now, sir, I intend, if she refuses to forgive me, to unsheath this sword, and swear — I '11 fall upon its point, and expire at her feet ! A COMEDY. 173 Sir Anth. Fall upon a fiddlestick's end! — why, I suppose it is the very thing that would please her. — Get along, you fool ! Abs. Well, sir, you shall hear of my success — you shall hear. — O Lydia ! — forgive me, or this pointed steel — says I. Sir Anth. O, booby! stab away and welcome — says she. — Get along and damn your trinkets ! {Exit Captain Absolute. Enter David, running. Dav. Stop him ! stop him ! Murder ! Thief ! Fire ! — Stop fire! Stop fire! — O Sir Anthony — call! call! bid 'm stop! Mur- der ! fire ! Sir Anth. Fire ! Murder ! — Where ? Dav. Oons ! he's out of sight! and I'm out of breath! for my part ! O Sir Anthony, why did n't you stop him ? why did n't you stop him ? Sir Anth. Zounds ! the fellow 's mad ! — Stop whom ? stop Jack ? Dav. Ay, the captain, sir! — there's murder and slaughter Sir Anth. Murder! Dav. Ay, please you, Sir Anthony, there 's all kinds of mur- der, all sorts of slaughter to be seen in the fields : there's fighting going on, sir — bloody sword-and-gun fighting! Sir Anth. Who are going to fight, dunce ? Dav. Everybody that I know of, Sir Anthony : — everybody is going to fight, my poor master, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, your son, the captain Sir Anth. Oh, the dog ! — I see his tricks. — Do you know the place? Dav. King's-Mead-Fields. Sir Anth. You know the way ? Dav. Not an inch; but I '11 call the mayor — aldermen — consta- 174 THE RIVALS. bles — churchwardens — and beadles — we can't be too many to part them. Sir AntJi. Come along — give me your shoulder! we'll get assistance as we go — the lying villain — Well, I shall be in such a frenzy ! — So — this was the history of his trinkets ! I '11 bauble him ! [Exeunt. Scene III. — King s-Mead-Fields. Enter Sir Lucius O'Trigger and Acres, with pistols. Acres. By my valor ! then, Sir Lucius, forty yards is a good distance. Odds levels and aims ! — I say it is a good distance. Sir Ltic. Is it for muskets or small field-pieces? Upon my con- science, Mr. Acres, you must leave those things to me. — Stay now — I'll show you. — {Measures paces along the stage.] There now, that is a very pretty distance — a pretty gentleman's distance. Acres. Zounds ! we might as well fight in a sentry-box ! I tell you, Sir Lucius, the farther he is off, the cooler I shall take my aim. Sir Luc. Faith ! then I suppose you would aim at him best of all if he was out of sight ! Acres. No, Sir Lucius ; but I should think forty or eight-and- thirty yards Sir Luc. Fho ! pho ! nonsense ! three or four feet between the mouths of your pistols is as good as a mile. Acres. Odds bullets, no! — by my valor! there is no merit in killing him so near : do, my dear Sir Lucius, let me bring him down at a long shot : — a long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love me ! Sir Luc. Well, the gentleman's friend and I must settle that. — But tell me now, Mr. Acres, in case of an accident, is there any little will or commission I could execute for you ? t< A COMEDY. 175 Acres. I am much obliged to you, Sir Lucius — but I don't under- stand Sir Luc. Why, you may think there 's no being shot at without a little risk — and if an unlucky bullet should carry a quietus with it — I say it will be no time then to be bothering you about family matters. Acres. A quietus ! Sir Lite. For instance, now — if that should be the case — would you choose to be pickled and sent home? — or would it be the same to you to lie here in the Abbey ? — I 'm told there is very snug lying in the Abbey. Acres. Pickled ! — Snug lying in the Abbey ! — Odds, tremors ! Sir Lucius, don't talk so ! Sir Luc. I suppose, Mr. Acres, you never were engaged in an affair of this kind before ? Acres. No, Sir Lucius, never before. Sir Luc. Ah ! that 's a pity — there 's nothing like being used to a thing. — Pray now, how would you receive the gentleman's shot ? Acres. Odds files! — I've practised that — there, Sir Lucius — ■ there. — [Puts himself in an attitude.'] A side-front, hey ? Odd ! I '11 make myself small enough : I '11 stand edgeways. Sir Luc. Now — you're quite out — for if you stand so when I take my aim [Levelling at him. Acres. Zounds ! Sir Lucius — are you sure it is not cocked ? Sir Luc. Never fear. Acres. But — but — you don't know — it may go off of its own head ! Sir Luc. Pho ! be easy. — Well, now if I hit you in the body my bullet has a double chance — for if it misses a vital part of your right side — 't will be very hard if it don't succeed on the left ! 176 THE RIVALS. Acres. A vital part ! Sir Luc. But, there — fix yourself so — {placing him] — let him see the broadside of your full front — there — now a ball or two may pass clean through your body, and never do any harm at all. Acres. Clean through me ! — a ball or two clean through me ! Sir Luc. Ay — may they — and it is much the genteelest atti- tude into the bargain. ■ Acres. Look'ee ! Sir Lucius — I'd just as lieve be shot in an awkward posture as a genteel one — so, by my valor! I will stand edgeways. Sir Luc. {Looking at Ids watch.'] Sure they don't mean to disap- point us — Hah ! — no, faith — I think I see them coming. Acres. Hey ! — what ! — coming ! Sir Luc. Ay. — Who are those yonder getting over the stile ? Acres. There are two of them indeed ! — well — let them come — hey, Sir Lucius ! — we — we — we — we — won't run. Sir Luc. Run ! Acres. No — I say — we won't run, by my valor ! Sir Luc. What the devil 's the matter with you ? Acres. Nothing — nothing — my dear friend — my dear Sir Lucius — but I — I — I don't feel quite so bold, somehow, as I did. Sir Luc. O fie ! — consider your honor. Acres. Ay — true — my honor. Do, Sir Lucius, edge in a word or two every now and then about my honor. Sir Luc. Well, here they're coming. [Looking. Acres. Sir Lucius — if I wa'n't with you, I should almost think I was afraid. — If my valor should leave me! — Valor will come and go. Sir Luc. Then pray keep it fast, while you have it. Acres. Sir Lucius — I doubt it is going — yes — my valor is cer- A COMEDY. . 177 tainly going ! — it is sneaking off ! — I feel it oozing out as it were, at the palms of my hands ! Sir Luc. Your honor — your honor. — Here they are. Acres. O mercy ! — now — that I was safe at Clod- Hall ! or could be shot before I was aware ! Enter Faulkland and Captain Absolute. Sir Lztc. Gentlemen, your most obedient. — Hah! — what, Cap- tain Absolute! — So, I suppose, sir, you are come here, just like myself — to do a kind office, first for your friend — then to proceed to business on your own account. Acres. What, Jack ! — my dear Jack ! — my dear friend ! Abs. Hark'ee, Bob, Beverley 's at hand. Sir Luc. Well, Mr. Acres, — I don't blame your saluting the gen- tleman civilly. — [To Faulkland.] So, Mr. Beverley, if you '11 choose your weapons, the captain and I will measure the ground. Fan Ik. My weapons, sir. Acres. Odds life ! Sir Lucius, I 'm not going to fight Mr. Faulk- land ; these are my particular friends. Sir Luc. What, sir, did you not come here to fight Mr. Acres? Faulk. Not I, upon my word, sir. Sir Luc. Well, now, that 's mighty provoking ! But I hope, Mr. Faulkland, as there are three of us come on purpose for the game — you won't be so cantankerous as to spoil the party by sitting out. Abs. O pray, Faulkland, fight to oblige Sir Lucius. Fanlk. Nay, if Mr. Acres is so bent on the matter ■ Acres. No, no, Mr. Faulkland ; — I '11 bear my disappointment like a Christian. — Look'ee, Sir Lucius, there 's no occasion at all for me to fight ; and if it is the same to you, I 'd as lieve let it alone. Sir Luc. Observe me, Mr. Acres — I must not be trifled with. 178 THE RIVALS. You have — certainly challenged somebody — and you came here to fight him. — Now, if that gentleman is willing to represent him — I can't see, for my soul, why it is n't just the same thing. Acres. Why no — Sir Lucius — I tell you 't is one Beverley I 've challenged — a fellow, you see, that dare not show his face ! — If he were here, I 'd make him give up his pretensions directly ! Abs. Hold, Bob —let me set you right — there is no such man as Beverley in the case. — The person who assumed that name is before you; and as his pretensions are the same in both characters, he is ready to support them in whatever way you please. Sir Luc. Well, this is lucky. — Now you have an opportunity Acres. What, quarrel with my dear friend Jack Absolute ? not if he were fifty Beverleys ! Zounds ! Sir Lucius, you would not have me so unnatural. Sir Lite. Upon my conscience, Mr. Acres, your valor has oozed away with a vengeance. Acres. Not in the least ! Odds backs and abettors ! I '11 be your second with all my heart — and if you should get a quietus you may command me entirely. I'll get you snug lying in the Abbey here ; or pickle you, and send you over to Blunderbuss-Hall, or anything of the kind, with the greatest pleasure. Sir Luc. Pho ! pho ! you are little better than a coward. Acres. Mind, gentlemen, he calls me a coward; coward was the word, by my valor. Sir Luc. Well, sir ? Acres. Look 'ee, Sir Lucius, 't is n't that I mind the word coward — coivard may be said in joke — But if you had called me a poltroon, odds daggers and balls Sir Luc. Well, sir ? Acres. 1 should have thought you a very ill-bred man. A COMEDY. 179 Sir Luc. Pho ! you are beneath my notice. Ads. Nay, Sir. Lucius, you can't have a better second than my friend Acres — He is a most determined dog — called in the country Fighting Bob. — He generally kills a man a week — don't you, Bob ? Acres. Ay — at home ! Sir Luc. Well, then, captain, 'tis we must begin — so come out, my little counsellor — [Draws his sword] — and ask the gentleman whether he will resign the lady without forcing you to proceed against him ? Ads. Come on then, sir — [Draws] ; since you won't let it be an amicable suit, here 's my reply. Enter Sir Anthony Absolute, David, Mrs. Malaprop, Lydia, and Julia. Dav. Knock 'em all down, sweet Sir Anthony ; knock down my master in particular ; and bind his hands over to their good behavior! Sir Anth. Put up, Jack, put up, or I shall be in a frenzy — how came you in a duel, sir ? Ads. Faith, sir, that gentleman can tell you better than I ; 't was he called on me, and you know, sir, I serve his majesty. Sir Anth. Here 's a pretty fellow ; I catch him going to cut a man's throat, and he tells me he serves his majesty! — Zounds! sirrah, then how durst you draw the king's sword against one of his subjects. Ads. Sir, I tell you ! that gentleman called me out, without explaining his reasons. Sir Anth. Gad ! sir, how came you to call my son out, without explaining your reasons? Sir Luc. Your son, sir, insulted me in a manner which my honor could not brook. 1 80 THE RIVALS. Sir AntJi. Zounds ! Jack, how durst you insult the gentleman in a manner which his honor could not brook ? Mrs. Mai. Come, come, let's have no honor before ladies — Captain Absolute, come here — How could you intimidate us so? — Here 's Lydia has been terrified to death for you. Abs. For fear I should be killed, or escape, ma'am ? Mrs. Mai. Nay, no delusions to the past — Lydia is convinced; speak, child. Sir Luc. With your leave, ma'am, I must put in a word here — I believe I could interpret the young lady's silence. — Now mark Lyd. What is it you mean, sir ? Sir Luc. Come, come, Delia, we must be serious now — this is no time for trifling. Lyd. 'T is true, sir ; and your reproof bids me offer this gentle- man my hand, and solicit the return of his affections. Abs. O! my little angel, say you so? — Sir Lucius — I perceive there must be some mistake here, with regard to the affront which you affirm I have given you. I can only say that it could not have been intentional. And as you must be convinced that I should not fear to support a real injury — you shall now see that I am not ashamed to atone for an inadvertency — I ask your pardon. — But for this lady, while honored with her approbation, I will support my claim against any man whatever. Sir Anth. Well said, Jack, and I '11 stand by you, my boy. Acres. Mind, I give up all my claim — I make no pretensions to anything in the world — and if I can't get a wife without fighting for her, by my valor ! I '11 live a bachelor. Sir Luc. Captain, give me your hand — an affront handsomely acknowledged becomes an obligation ; — and as for the lady — if she chooses to deny her own handwriting, here [Takes out letters. A COMEDY. l8l Mrs. Mai. O, he will dissolve my mystery! — Sir Lucius, per- haps there's some mistake, — perhaps I can illuminate Sir Luc. Pray, old gentlewoman, don't interfere where you have no business. — Miss Languish, are you my Delia, or not ? Lyd. Indeed, Sir Lucius, I am not. [ Walks aside with Captain Absolute. Mrs. Mai. Sir Lucius O'Trigger — ungrateful as you are — I own the soft impeachment — pardon my blushes, I am Delia. Sir Luc. You Delia — pho ! pho ! be easy. Mrs. Mai. Why, thou barbarous Vandyke — those letters are mine — When you are more sensible of my benignity — perhaps I may be brought to encourage your addresses. Sir Luc. Mrs. Malaprop, I am extremely sensible of your conde- scension; and whether you or Lucy have put this trick on me, I am equally beholden to you. — And to show you I am not ungrateful, Captain Absolute, since you have taken that lady from me, I '11 give you my Delia into the bargain. Abs. I am much obliged to you, Sir Lucius ; but here 's my friend, Fighting Bob, unprovided for. Sir Luc. Hah ! little Valor — here, will you make your for- tune ? Acres. Odds wrinkles ! No. — But give me your hand, Sir Lucius, forget and forgive ; but if ever I give you a chance of pickling me again, say Bob Acres is a dunce, that 's all. Sir Anth. Come, Mrs. Malaprop, don't be cast down — you are in your bloom yet. Mrs. Mai. O Sir Anthony — men are all barbarians. [All retire but Julia and Faulkland. Jul. [Aside.] He seems dejected and unhappy — not sullen; there was some foundation, however, for the tale he told me — O woman ! 1 82 THE RIVALS. how true should be your judgment, when your resolution is so weak ! Faulk. Julia ! — how can I sue for what I so little deserve ? I dare not presume — yet Hope is the child of Penitence. ////. Oh ! Faulkland, you have not been more faulty in your unkind treatment of me, than I am now in wanting inclination to resent it. As my heart honestly bids me place my weakness to the account of love, I should be ungenerous not to admit the same plea for yours. Faulk. Now I shall be blest indeed ! Sir Auth. [Coming forward.] What's going on here? — So you have been quarrelling too, I warrant ! — Come, Julia, I never inter- fered before ; but let me have a hand in the matter at last. — All the fault I have ever seen in my friend Faulkland seemed to proceed from what he calls the delicacy and warmth of his affection for you. — There, marry him directly, Julia; you'll find he'll mend surpris- ingly ! [The rest come forward. Sir Luc. Come, now, I hope there is no dissatisfied person, but what is content ; for as I have been disappointed myself, it will be very hard if I have not the satisfaction of seeing other people suc- ceed better Acres. You are right, Sir Lucius. — So Jack, I wish you joy — Mr. Faulkland the same. — Ladies, — come now, to show you I'm neither vexed nor angry, odds tabors and pipes ! I '11 order the fiddles in half an hour to the New Rooms — and I insist on your all meeting me there. Sir Auth. 'Gad ! sir, I like your spirit ; and at night we single lads will drink a health to the young couples, and a husband to Mrs. Malaprop. Faulk. Our partners are stolen from us, Jack — I hope to be con- A COMEDY. 183 gratulated by each o\h^_; Miss Ellen Terry and Mr. Henry Irving as Lady Teazle and Joseph Surface. A COMEDY. 279 Sir Peter. 'T is very neat indeed. — Well, well, that's proper; and you can make even your screen a source of knowledge — ■ hung, I perceive, with maps. Jos. Surf. Oh, yes, I find great use in that screen. Sir Peter. I dare say you must, certainly, when you want to find anything in a hurry. Jos. Surf. Ay, or to hide anything in a hurry either. [Aside. Sir Peter. Well, I have a little private business Jos. Surf. You need not stay. [To Servant. Ser. No, sir. [Exit. Jos. Surf. Here 's a chair, Sir Peter — I beg Sir Peter. Well, now we are alone, there is a subject, my dear friend, on which I wish to unburden my mind to you — a point of the greatest moment to my peace; in short, my good friend, Lady Teazle's conduct of late has made me very unhappy. Jos. Surf. Indeed ! I am very sorry to hear it. Sir Peter. Yes, 't is but too plain she has not the least regard for me ; but, what 's worse, I have pretty good authority to suppose she has formed an attachment to another. Jos. Surf. Indeed ! you astonish me ! Sir Peter. Yes ! and, between ourselves, I think I 've discovered the person. Jos. Surf. How ! you alarm me exceedingly. Sir Peter. Ay, my dear friend, I knew you would sympathize with me ! Jos. Surf. Yes, believe me, Sir Peter, such a discovery would hurt me just as much as it would you. Sir Peter. I am convinced of it. — Ah ! it is a happiness to have a friend whom we can trust even with one's family secrets. But have you no guess who I mean ? Z&0 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Jos. Surf. I have n't the most distant idea. It can't be Sir Benjamin Backbite ! Sir Peter. Oh, no! What say you to Charles? Jos. Surf. My brother! impossible! Sir Peter. Oh, my dear friend, the goodness of your own heart misleads you. You judge of others by yourself. Jos. Surf. Certainly, Sir Peter, the heart that is conscious of its own integrity is ever slow to credit another's treachery. Sir Peter. True ; but your brother has no sentiment — you never hear him talk so. Jos. Surf. Yet I can't but think Lady Teazle herself has too much principle. Sir Peter. Ay ; but what is principle against the flattery cf a handsome, lively young fellow? Jos. Surf. That 's very true. Sir Peter. And then, you know, the difference of our ages makes it very improbable that she should have any great affection for me; and if she were to be frail, and I were to make it public, why the town would only laugh at me, the foolish old bachelor, who had married a girl. Jos. Surf. That 's true, to be sure — they would laugh. Sir Peter. Laugh ! ay, and make ballads, and paragraphs, and the devil knows what of me. Jos. Surf. No, — you must never make it public. Sir Peter. But then again — that the nephew of my old friend, Sir Oliver, should be the person to attempt such a wrong, hurts me more nearly. Jos. Surf. Ay, there 's the point. When ingratitude barbs the dart of injury, the wound has double danger in it. Sir Peter. Ay — I, thac was, in a manner, left his guardian : A COMEDY. 28l in whose house he had been so often entertained ; who never in my life denied him — my advice ! Jos. Surf. Oh, 't is not to be credited ! There may be a man capable of such baseness, to be sure ; but, for my part, till you can give me positive proofs, I cannot but doubt it. However, if it should be proved on him, he is no longer a brother of mine — I disclaim kindred with him : for the man who can break the laws of hospitality, and tempt the wife of his friend, deserves to be branded as the pest of society. Sir Peter. What a difference there is between you ! What noble sentiments ! Jos. Surf. Yet I cannot suspect Lady Teazle's honor. Sir Peter. I am sure I wish to think well of her, and to re- move all ground of quarrel between us. She has lately reproached me more than once with having made no settlement on her ; and, in our last quarrel, she almost hinted that she should not break her heart if I was dead. Now, as we seem to differ in our ideas of expense, I have resolved she shall have her own way, and be her own mistress in that respect for the future ; and, if I were to die, she will find I have not been inattentive to her interest while living. Here, my friend, are the drafts of two deeds, which I wish to have your opinion on. — By one, she will enjoy eight hundred a year independent while -I live ; and by the other, the bulk of my fortune at my death. Jos. Surf This conduct, Sir Peter, is indeed truly generous. — [Aside.] I wish it may not corrupt my pupil. Sir Peter. Yes, I am determined she shall have no cause to complain, though I would not have her acquainted with the latter instance of my affection yet awhile. Jos. Surf. Nor I, if I could help it. [Aside. 282 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Sir Peter. And now, my dear friend, if you please, we will talk over the situation of your hopes with Maria. Jos. Surf. [Softly.] Oh, no, Sir Peter; another time, if you please. Sir Peter. I am sensibly chagrined at the little progress you seem to make in her affections. Jos. Surf. [Softly.] I beg you will not mention it. What are my disappointments when your happiness is in debate ! — [Aside.] 'Sdeath, I shall be ruined every way ! Sir Peter. And though you are so averse to my acquainting Lady Teazle with your passion for Maria, I 'm sure she 's not your enemy in the affair. Jos. Surf. Pray, Sir Peter, now oblige me. I am really too much affected by the subject we have been speaking of, to bestow a thought on my own concerns. The man who is entrusted with his friend's distresses can never Re Enter Servant. Well, sir ? Ser. Your brother, sir, is speaking to a gentleman in the street, and says he knows you are within. Jos. Surf. 'Sdeath, blockhead, I 'm not within — I 'm out for the day. Sir Peter. Stay — hold — a thought has struck me : — you shall be at home. Jos. Surf. Well, well, let him up. — [Exit Servant.] He '11 interrupt Sir Peter, however. [Aside. Sir Peter. Now, my good friend, oblige me, I entreat you. — Before Charles comes, let me conceal myself somewhere, — then do you tax him on the point we have been talking, and his answer may satisfy me at once. A COMEDY. 283 Jos. Surf. Oh, fie, Sir Peter ! would you have me join in so mean a trick ? — to trepan my brother too ? Sir Peter. Nay, you tell me you are sure he is innocent; if so, you do him the greatest service by giving him an opportunity to clear himself, and you will set my heart at rest. Come, you shall not refuse me : \_Going tip,] here behind the screen will be — Hey ! what the devil ! there seems to be one listener here already — I '11 swear I saw a petticoat ! Jos. Surf. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Well, this is ridiculous enough. I '11 tell you, Sir Peter, though I hold a man of intrigue to be a most despicable character, yet, you know, it does not follow that one is to be an absolute Joseph either! Hark 'ee, 'tis a little French milliner, — a silly rogue that plagues me; — and having some char- acter to lose, on your coming, sir, she ran behind the screen. Sir Peter. Ah, Joseph ! Joseph ! Did I ever think that you But, egad, she has overheard all I have been saying of my wife. Jos. Surf Oh, 'twill never go any farther, you may depend upon it ! Sir Peter. No ! then, faith, let her hear it out. — Here 's a closet will do as well. Jos. Surf Well, go in there. Sir Peter. Sly rogue ! sly rogue ! [Goes into the closet. Jos. Surf A narrow escape, indeed ! and a curious situation I 'm in, to part man and wife in this manner. Lady Teas. [Peeping.'] Could n't I steal off ? Jos. Surf. Keep close, my angel ! Sir Peter. [Peeping.] Joseph, tax him home. Jos. Surf. Back, my dear friend ! Lady Teas. [Peeping^ Could n't you lock Sir Peter in ? 284 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Jos. Surf. Be still, my life ! Sir Peter. [Peepi?ig.] You 're sure the little milliner won't blab? Jos. Surf. In, in, my dear Sir Peter ! — 'Fore Gad, I wish I had a key to the door. Enter Charles Surface. Chas. Surf. Holla ! brother, what has been the matter ? Your fellow would not let me up at first. What ! have you had a Jew or a wench with you? Jos. Surf. Neither, brother, I assure you. Chas. Surf. But what has made Sir Peter steal off ? I thought he had been with you. Jos. Surf. He was, brother ; but, hearing you were coming, he did not choose to stay. Chas. Surf. What ! was the old gentleman afraid I wanted to borrow money of him ? Jos. Surf. No, sir : but I am sorry to find, Charles, you have lately given that worthy man grounds for great uneasiness. Chas. Surf. Yes, they tell me I do that to a great many worthy men. — But how so, pray ? Jos. Surf. To be plain with you, brother, — he thinks you are endeavoring to gain Lady Teazle's affections from him. Chas. Stirf. Who, I ? O Lud ! not I, upon my word. — Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! so the old fellow has found out that he has got a young wife, has he ? — or, what is worse, Lady Teazle has found out she has an old husband ? Jos. Surf. This is no subject to jest on, brother. He who can laugh Chas. Surf. True, true, as you were going to say — then, seri- ously, I never had the least idea of what you charge me with, upon my honor. A COMEDY. 285 Jos. Surf. Well, it will give Sir Peter great satisfaction to hear this. [Raising his voice. Chas. Surf. To be sure, I once thought the lady seemed to have taken a fancy to me ; but, upon my soul, I never gave her the least, encouragement. — Besides, you know my attachment to Maria. Jos. Surf But sure, brother, even if Lady Teazle had betrayed the fondest partiality for you Chas. Surf Why, look 'ee, Joseph, I hope I shall never delibe- rately do a dishonorable action ; but if a pretty woman was pur- posely to throw herself in my way — and that pretty woman married to a man old enough to be her father Jos. Surf. Well ! Chas. Surf. Why, I believe I should be obliged to Jos. Surf What ? Chas. Surf To borrow a little of your morality, that 's all. But, brother, do you know now that you surprise me exceedingly, by naming me with Lady Teazle ; for, i' faith, I always understood you were her favorite. Jos. Surf. Oh, for shame, Charles ! This retort is foolish. Chas. Surf. Nay, I swear I have seen you exchange such signifi- cant glances Jos. Surf. Nay, nay, sir, this is no jest. Chas. Surf. Egad, I 'm serious ! Don't you remember one day, when I called here Jos. Surf Nay, pr'ythee, Charles Chas. Surf. And found you together Jos. Surf Zounds, sir, I insist Chas. Surf And another time when your servant Jos Surf. Brother, brother, a word with you. — [Aside.'] Gad, I must stop him. 286 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. CJias. Surf. Informed, I say, that Jos. Surf. Hush ! I beg your pardon, but Sir Peter has overheard all we have been saying. I knew you would clear yourself, or I should not have consented. CJias. Surf How, Sir Peter ! Where is he ? Jos. Surf. Softly, there ! [Points to the closet. CJias. Surf. Oh, 'fore Heaven, I '11 have him out. Sir Peter, come forth ! Jos. Surf No, no CJias. Surf. I say, Sir Peter, come into court. ■ — [Pulls in Sir Peter.] What! my old guardian !-— What ! turn inquisitor, and take evidence incog. ? Oh, fie ! Oh, fie ! Sir Peter. Give me your hand, Charles — -I believe I have sus- pected you wrongfully : but you must n't be angry with Joseph — 't was my plan ! Chas. Surf. Indeed. Sir Peter. But I acquit you. I promise you I don't think near so ill of you as I did : what I have heard has given me great sat- isfaction. Chas. Surf Egad, then, 't was lucky you did n't hear any more. Was n't it, Joseph ? [Aside to Joseph. Sir Peter. Ah ! you would have retorted on him. Chas. Surf. Ah, ay, that was a joke. Sir Peter. Yes, yes, I know his honor too well. CJias. Surf. But you might as well have suspected him as me in this matter, for all that. Might n't he, Joseph ? [Aside to Joseph. Sir Peter. Well, well, I believe you. Jos. Surf. Would they were both out of the room ! [Aside. Sir Peter. And in future, perhaps we may not be such strangers. A COMEDY. 287 Re-Enter Servant, and whispers Joseph Surface. Ser, Lady Sneerwell is below, and says she will come up. Jos. Surf. Lady Sneerwell ! Gad 's life ! she must not come here. [Exit Servant.] Gentlemen, I beg pardon — I must wait on you down stairs : here is a person come on particular business. Ckas. Surf. Well, you can see him in another room. Sir Peter and I have not met a long time, and I have something to say to him. Jos. Surf [Aside.] They must not be left together. — [Aloud.] I '11 send this man away, and return directly. — [Aside to Sir Peter.] Sir Peter, not a word of the French milliner. Sir Peter. [Aside to Joseph Surface.] I ! not for the world ! — [Exit Joseph Surface.] Ah, Charles, if you associated more with your brother, one might indeed hope for your reformation. He is a man of sentiment. — Well, there is nothing in the world so noble as a man of sentiment. Ckas. Surf. Pshaw! he is too moral by half; and so apprehensive of his good name, as he calls it, that I suppose he would as soon let a priest into his house as a girl. Sir Peter. No, no, — come, come, — you wrong him. No, no ! Joseph is no rake, but he is no such saint either in that respect. — [Aside.] I have a great mind to tell him — we should have such a laugh at Joseph. Ckas. Surf Oh, hang him ! he 's a very anchorite, a young hermit. Sir Peter. Hark'ee — you must not abuse him: he may chance to hear of it again, I promise you . Chas. Surf Why, you won't tell him ? Sir Peter. No — but-— this way. — [Aside.] Egad, I'll tell him. — [Aloud.] Hark 'ee — have you a mind to have a good laugh at Joseph ? 288 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Chas. Surf. I should like it of all things. Sir Peter. Then, i' faith, we will ! — I '11 be quit with him for dis- covering me. — He had a girl with him when I called. [ Whispers. Chas. Surf. What ! Joseph ? you jest. Sir Peter. Hush ! — a little French milliner — and the best of the jest is — she is in the room now. Chas. Surf The devil she is ! Sir Peter. Hush ! I tell you. [Points to the screen. Chas. Surf Behind the screen! ' S life, let's unveil her! Sir Peter. No, no, — he 's coming : — you sha'n't indeed ! Chas. Surf. Oh, egad, we '11 have a peep at the little milliner ! Sir Peter. Not for the world ! - — Joseph will never forgive me. Chas. Surf. I '11 stand by you — Sir Peter. Odds, here he is ! Re-Enter Joseph Surface just as Charles Surface throws down the screen. Chas. Surf. Lady Teazle, by all that 's wonderful. Sir Peter. Lady Teazle, by all that 's damnable ! Chas. Surf. Sir Peter, this is one of the smartest French milliners I ever saw. Egad, you seem all to have been diverting yourselves here at hide and seek, and I don't see who is out of the secret. Shall I beg your ladyship to inform me ? Not a word ! — Brother, will you be pleased to explain this matter ? What ! is Morality dumb too ? — Sir Peter, though I found you in the dark, perhaps you are not so now! All mute! — Well — though I can make nothing of the affair, I suppose you perfectly understand one another ; so I will leave you to yourselves. — [Going.] Brother, I 'm sorry to find you have given that worthy man grounds for so much uneasiness. — Sir Peter ! there 's nothing in the world so noble as a man of sentiment ! [7 hey stand for some time looking at each other \ [Exit Charles. A COMEDY. 289 Jos. Swf. Sir Peter — notwithstanding — I confess — that ap- pearances are against me — if you will afford me your patience — I make no doubt — but I shall explain everything to your satisfaction. Sir Peter. If you please, sir. Jos. Surf. The fact is, sir, that Lady Teazle, knowing my preten- sions to your ward Maria — I say, sir, Lady Teazle, being apprehen- sive of the jealousy of your temper — and knowing my friendship to the family — she, sir, I say — called here — in order that — I might explain these pretensions — but on your coming — being apprehen- sive — as I said — of your jealousy — she withdrew — and this, you may depend on it, is the whole truth of the matter. Sir Peter. A very clear account, upon my word ; and I dare swear the lady will vouch for every article of it. Lady Teas. For not one word of it, Sir Peter ! Sir Peter. How ! don't you think it worth while to agree in the lie? Lady Teaz. There is not one syllable of truth in what that gentleman has told you. Sir Peter. I believe you, upon my soul, ma'am ! Jos. Surf. {Aside to Lady Teazle.] 'Scleath, madam, will you betray me ? Lady Teaz. Good Mr. Hypocrite, by your leave, I '11 speak for myself. Sir Peter. Ay, let her alone, sir; you'll find she'll make out a better story than you, without prompting. Lady Teaz. Hear me, Sir Peter! — I came here on no matter relating to your ward, and even ignorant of this gentleman's pre- tensions to her. But I came, seduced by his insidious arguments, at least to listen to his pretended passion, if not to sacrifice your honor to his baseness. 290 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Sir Peter. Now, I believe, the truth is coming, indeed ! Jos. Surf. The woman 's mad. Lady Teaz. No, sir ; she has recovered her senses, and your own arts have furnished her with the means. — Sir Peter, I do not expect you to credit me — but the tenderness you expressed for me, when I am sure you could not think I was a witness to it, has so penetrated to my heart, that had I left the place without the shame of this discovery, my future life should have spoken the sincerity of my gratitude. As for that smooth-tongued hypocrite, who would have seduced the wife of his too credulous friend, while he affected honorable addresses to his ward — I behold him now in a light so truly despicable, that I shall never again respect myself for having listened to him. [Exit Lady Teazle. Jos. Surf. Notwithstanding all this, Sir Peter, Heaven knows Sir Peter. That you are a villain ! and so I leave you to your conscience. Jos. Surf. You are too rash, Sir Peter ; you shall hear me. The man who shuts out conviction by refusing to Sir Peter Oh, damn your sentiments ! \Exeunt Sir Peter and Joseph Surface, talki?zg. A COMEDY. 29; ACT V. Scene I. — The Library in Joseph Surface's House. Enter Joseph Surface and Servant. Jos. Surf. Mr. Stanley ! and why should you think I would see him ? you must know he comes to ask something. Ser. Sir, I should not have let him in, but that Mr. Rowley came to the door with him. Jos. Surf. Psha ! blockhead ! to suppose that I should now be in a temper to receive visits from poor relations ! — Well, why don't you show the fellow up ? Ser. I will, sir. — Why, sir, it was not my fault that Sir Peter discovered my lady Jos. Surf. Go, fool ! — {Exit Servant.] Sure Fortune never played a man of my policy such a trick before ! My character with Sir Peter, my hopes with Maria, destroyed in a moment ! I 'm in a rare humor to listen to other people's distresses ! I sha'n't be able to bestow even a benevolent sentiment on Stanley. — So ! here he comes, and Rowley with him. I must try to recover myself, and put a little charity into my face, however. [Exit. Enter Sir Oliver Surface and Rowley. Sir Oliv. What ! does he avoid us ? That was he, was it not ? Row. It was, sir. But I doubt you are come a little too abruptly. His nerves are so weak, that the sight of a poor relation may be too much for him. I should have gone first to break it to him. Sir Oliv. Oh, plague of his nerves ! Yet this is he whom Sir Peter extols as a man of the most benevolent way of thinking ! 292 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Row. As to his way of thinking, I cannot pretend to decide ; for, to do him justice, he appears to have as much speculative be- nevolence as any private gentleman in the kingdom, though he is seldom so sensual as to indulge himself in the exercise of it. Sir Oliv. Yet he has a string of charitable sentiments at his fingers' ends. Row. Or, rather, at his tongue's end, Sir Oliver ; for I believe there is no sentiment he has such faith in as that Charity begins at home. Sir Oliv. And his, I presume, is of that domestic sort which never stirs abroad at all. Rozv. I doubt you '11 find it so ; — but he's coming. I mustn't seem to interrupt you ; and you know, immediately as you leave him, I come in to announce your arrival in your real character. Sir Oliv. True ; and afterwards you '11 meet me at Sir Peter's. Row. Without losing a moment. [Exit. Sir Oliv. I don't like the complaisance of his features. Re-Enter Joseph Surface. Jos. Surf. Sir, I beg you ten thousand pardons for keeping you a moment waiting. — Mr. Stanley, I presume. Sir Oliv. At your service. Jos. Surf. Sir, I beg you will do me the honor to sit down — I entreat you, sir Sir Oliv. Dear sir — there's no occasion. [Aside.] Too civil by half ! Jos. Surf. I have not the pleasure of knowing you, Mr. Stanley ; but I am extremely happy to see you look so well. You were nearly related to my mother, I think, Mr. Stanley ? Sir Oliv. I was, sir ; so nearly that my present poverty, I fear, A COMEDY. 293 may do discredit to her wealthy children, else I should not have presumed to trouble you. Jos. Surf. Dear sir, there needs no apology ; — he that is in distress, though a stranger, has a right to claim kindred with the wealthy. I am sure I wish I was one of that class, and had it in my power to offer you even a small relief. Sir Oliv. If your uncle, Sir Oliver, were here, I should have a friend. Jos. Surf. I wish he was, sir, with all my heart : you should not want an advocate with him, believe me, sir. Sir Oliv. I should not need one — my distresses would recom- mend me. But I imagined his bounty would enable you to become the agent of his charity. Jos. Surf My dear sir, you were strangely misinformed. Sir Oliver is a worthy man, a very worthy man ; but avarice, Mr. Stanley, is the vice of age. I will tell you, my good sir, in confi- dence, what he has done for me has been a mere nothing ; though people, I know, have thought otherwise, and, for my part, I never chose to contradict the report. Sir Oliv. What ! has he never transmitted you bullion — rupees — pagodas ? Jos. Surf. Oh, dear sir, nothing of the kind ! No, no ; a few presents now and then — china, shawls, congou tea, avadavats, and Indian crackers — little more, believe me. Sir Oliv. Here 's gratitude for twelve thousand pounds ! — Avada- vats and Indian crackers ! [Aside. Jos. Surf. Then, my dear sir, you have heard, I doubt not, of the extravagance of my brother : there are very few would credit what I have done for that unfortunate young man. Sir Qliv. Not I, for one ! {Aside. 294 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Jos. Surf. The sums I have lent him ! — Indeed I have been ex- ceedingly to blame ; it was an amiable weakness ; however, I don't pretend to defend it — and now I feel it doubly culpable, since it has deprived me of the pleasure of serving you, Mr. Stanley, as my heart dictates. Sir Oliv. [Aside.] Dissembler ! — [Aloud.] Then, sir, you can't assist me ? Jos. Surf. At present, it grieves me to say, I cannot ; but, when- ever I have the ability, you may depend upon hearing from me. Sir Oliv. I am extremely sorry Jos. Surf. Not more than I, believe me ; to pity without the power to relieve, is still more painful than to ask and be denied. Sir Oliv. Kind sir, your most obedient humble servant. Jos. Surf. You leave me deeply affected, Mr. Stanley. — Wil- liam, be ready to open the door. [Calls to Servant. Sir Oliv. Oh, dear sir, no ceremony. Jos. Surf. Your very obedient. Sir Oliv. Sir, your most obsequious. Jos. Surf. You may depend upon hearing from me, whenever I can be of service. Sir Oliv. Sweet sir, you are too good ! Jos. Surf In the mean time I wish you health and spirits. Sir Oliv. Your ever grateful and perpetual humble servant. Jos. Surf. Sir, yours as sincerely. Sir Oliv. [Aside.] Charles, you are my heir ! [Exit. Jos. Surf. This is one bad effect of a good character ; it invites application from the unfortunate, and there needs no small degree of address to gain the reputation of benevolence without incurring the expense. The silver ore of pure charity is an expensive article in the catalogue of a man's good qualities ; whereas the sentimental A COMEDY. 295 French plate I use instead of it makes just as good a show, and pays no tax. Re-Enter Rowley. Rozv. Mr. Surface, your servant : I was apprehensive of inter- rupting you, though my business demands immediate attention, as this note will inform you. Jos. Surf. Always happy to see Mr. Rowley, — a rascal. — [Aside. Reads the letter^] Sir Oliver Surface ! — My uncle arrived ! Row. He is, indeed: we have just parted — quite well, after a speedy voyage, and impatient to embrace his worthy nephew. Jos. Surf. I am astonished ! — William ! stop Mr. Stanley, if he 's not gone. [Calls to Servant. Row. Oh ! he 's out of reach, I believe. Jos. Surf Why did you not let me know this when you came in together ? Rozv. I thought you had particular business. Bat I must be gone to inform your brother, and appoint him here to meet your uncle. He will be with you in a quarter of an hour. Jos. Surf So he says. Well, I am strangely overjoyed at his coming. — [Aside.] Never, to be sure, was anything so damned unlucky ! Row. You will be delighted to see how well he looks. Jos. Surf. Ah ! I'm rejoiced to hear it. — [Aside.] Just at this time ! Rozv. I '11 tell him how impatiently you expect him. Jos. Surf Do, do ; pray give my best duty and affection. Indeed, I cannot express the sensations I feel at the thought of seeing him. [Exit Rowley.] Certainly his coming just at this time is' the cruellest piece of ill-fortune. [Exit. 296 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Scene II. — A Room in Sir Peter Teazle's House. Enter Mrs. Candour and Maid. Maid. Indeed, ma'am, my lady will see nobody at present. Mrs. Can. Did you tell her it was her friend, Mrs. Candour ? Maid. Yes, ma'am ; but she begs you will excuse her. Mrs. Can. Do go again : I shall be glad to see her, if it be only for a moment, for I'm sure she must be in great distress. — [Exit Maid.] Dear heart, how provoking ! I'm not mistress of half the circumstances ! We shall have the whole affair in the newspapers, with the names of the parties at length, before I have dropped the story at a dozen houses. Enter Sir Benjamin Backbite. Oh, dear Sir Benjamin ! you have heard, I suppose Sir Benj. Of Lady Teazle and Mr. Surface Mrs. Can. And Sir Peter's discovery Sir Benj. Oh, the strangest piece of business, to be sure ! Mrs. Can. Well, I never was so surprised in my life. I am so sorry for all parties, indeed. Sir Benj. Now, I don't pity Sir Peter at all : he was so extrava- gantly partial to Mr. Surface. Mrs. Can. Mr. Surface ! Why 't was with Charles Lady Teazle was detected. Sir Benj. No, no, I tell you : Mr. Surface is the gallant. Mrs. Can. No such thing ! Charles is the man. 'T was Mr. Sur- face brought Sir Peter on purpose to discover them. Sir Benj. I tell you I had it from one Mrs. Can. And I have it from one Sir Benj. Who had it from one, who had it cu'tdk/ A COMEDY. 297 Mrs. Can. From one immediately — But here comes Lady Sneerwell ; perhaps she knows the whole affair. Enter Lady Sneerwell. Lady Sneer, So, my dear Mrs. Candour, here 's a sad affair of our friend Lady Teazle ! Mrs. Can. ' Ay, my dear friend, who would have thought Lady Sneer. Well, there is no trusting appearances ; though, in- deed, she was always too lively for me. Mrs. Can. To be sure, her manners were a little too free ; but then she was so young ! Lady Sneer. And had, indeed, some good qualities. Mrs. Can. So she had, indeed. But have you heard the particulars ? Lady Sneer. No ; but every body says that Mr. Surface Sir Benj. Ay, there ; I told you Mr. Surface was the man. Mrs. Can. No, no : indeed the assignation was with Charles. Lady Sneer. With Charles ! You alarm me, Mrs. Candour ! Mrs. Can. Yes, yes ; he was the lover. Mr. Surface, to do him justice, was only the informer. Sir Benj. Well, I '11 not dispute with you, Mrs. Candour ; but, be it which it may, I hope that Sir Peter's wound will not Mrs. Can. Sir Peter's wound ! Oh, mercy ! I did n't hear a word of their fighting. Lady Sneer. Nor I, a syllable. Sir Benj. No ! what, no mention of the duel ? Mrs. Can. Not a word. Sir Benj. Oh, yes : they fought before they left the room. Lady Sneer. Pray let us hear. Mrs. Can. Ay, do oblige us with the duel. Sir Benj. Sir, says Sir Peter, immediately after the discovery, you are a most ungrateful fellozv. 29 8 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Mrs. Can. Ay, to Charles Sir Be?ij. No, no — to Mr. Surface — a most ungrateful fellow ; and old as I am, sir, says he, / insist on immediate satisfaction. Mrs. Can. Ay, that must have been to Charles ; for 't is very unlikely Mr. Surface should fight in his own house. Sir Benj. Gad's life, ma'am, not at all — giving me immediate satisfaction. — On this, ma'am, Lady Teazle, seeing Sir Peter in such danger, ran out of the room in strong hysterics, and Charles after her, calling out for hartshorn and water ; then, madam, they began to fight with swords Enter Crabtree. Crab. With pistols, nephew — pistols ! I have it from undoubted authority. Mrs. Can. Oh, Mr. Crabtree, then it is all true ! Crab. Too true, indeed, madam, and Sir Peter is dangerously wounded Sir Benj. By a thrust in second quite through his left side Crab. By a bullet lodged in the thorax. Mrs. Can. Mercy on me ! Poor Sir Peter ! Crab. Yes, madam ; though Charles would have avoided the mat- ter, if he could. Mrs. Can. I told you who it was ; I knew Charles was the person. Sir Benj. My uncle, I see, knows nothing of the matter. Crab. But Sir Peter taxed him with the basest ingratitude Sir Benj. That I told you, you know Crab. Do, nephew, let me speak ! — and insisted on imme- diate Sir Benj. Just as I said Crab. Odds life, nephew, allow others to know something too ! A pair of pistols lay on the bureau (for Mr. Surface, it seems had come A COMEDY. 299 home the night before late from Salthill, where he had been to see the Montem with a friend, who has a son at Eton), so, unluckily, the pistols were left charged. Sir Benj. I heard nothing of this. Crab. Sir Peter forced Charles to take one, and they fired, it seems, pretty nearly together. Charles's shot took effect, as I tell you, and Sir Peter's missed ; but, what is very extraordinary, the ball struck against a little bronze Shakespeare that stood over the fireplace, grazed out of the window at a right angle, and wounded the postman, who was just coming to the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire. Sir Benj. My uncle's account is more circumstantial, I confess ; but I believe mine is the true one, for all that. Lady Sneer. [Aside.] I am more interested in this affair than they imagine, and must have better information. {Exit Lady Sneerwell. Sir Benj. Ah ! Lady Sneerwell's alarm is very easily accounted for. Crab. Yes, yes, they certainly do say — but that's neither here nor there. Mrs. Can. But, pray, where is Sir Peter at present ? Crab. Oh, they brought him home, and he is now in the house, though the servants are ordered to deny him. Mrs. Can. I believe so, and Lady Teazle, I suppose, attending him. Crab. Yes, yes ; and I saw one of the faculty enter just before me. Sir Benj. Hey ! who comes here ? Crab. Oh, this is he : the physician, depend on 't. Mrs. Can. Oh, certainly ! it must be the physician ; and now we shall know. 300 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Enter Sir Oliver Surface. Crab. Well, doctor, what hopes ? Mrs. Can. Ay, doctor, how 's your patient ? Sir Benj. Now, doctor, is n't it a wound with a small-sword ? Crab. A bullet lodged in the thorax, for a hundred ! Sir Oliv. Doctor ! a wound with a small-sword ! and a bullet in the thorax ! — Oons ! are you mad, good people ? Sir Benj. Perhaps, sir, you are not a doctor ? Sir Oliv. Truly, I am to thank you for my degree, if I am. Crab. Only a friend of Sir Peter's, then, I presume. But, sir, you must have heard of his accident ? Sir Oliv. Not a word ! Crab. Not of his being dangerously wounded ? Sir Oliv. The devil he is ! Sir Benj. Run through the body — : — Crab. Shot in the breast Sir Benj. By one Mr. Surface Crab. Ay, the younger. Sir Oliv. Hey ! what the plague ! you seem to differ strangely in your accounts : however, you agree that Sir Peter is dangerously wounded. Sir Benj. Oh, yes, we agree in that. Crab. Yes, yes, I believe there can be no doubt of that. Sir Oliv. Then, upon my word, for a person in that situation, he is the most imprudent man alive ; for here he comes, walking as if nothing at all was the matter. Enter Sir Peter Teazle. Odds heart, Sir Peter ! you are come in good time, I promise you ; for we had just given you over ! A COMEDY. ■ 301 Sir Benj. [Aside to Crabtree.] Egad, uncle, this is the most sudden recovery ! Sir Oliv. Why, man ! what do you out of bed with a small- sword through your body, and a bullet lodged in your thorax ? Sir Peter. A small-sword and a bullet ! Sir Oliv. Ay ; these gentlemen would have killed you without law or physic, and wanted to dub me a doctor, to make me an accomplice. Sir Peter. Why, what is all this ? Sir Benj. We rejoice, Sir Peter, that the story of the duel is not true, and are sincerely sorry for your other misfortune. Sir Peter. So, so ; all over the town already ! [Aside. Crab. Though, Sir Peter, you were certainly vastly to blame to marry at your years. Sir Peter. Sir, what business is that of yours ? Mrs. Can. Though, indeed, as Sir Peter made so good a husband, he 's very much to be pitied. Sir Peter. Plague on your pity, ma'am ! I desire none of it. Sir Benj. However, Sir Peter, you must not mind the laughing and jests you will meet with on the occasion. Sir Peter. Sir, sir ! I desire to be master in my own house. Crab. 'T is no uncommon case, that 's one comfort. Sir Peter. I insist on being left to myself : without ceremony, — I insist on your leaving my house directly ! Mrs. Can. Well, well, we are going ; and depend on 't, we '11 make the best report of it we can. [Exit. Sir Peter. Leave my house ! Crab. And tell how hardly you 've been treated. [Exit. Sir Peter. Leave my house. Sir Benj. And how patiently you bear it. [Exit. 302 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Sir Peter. Fiends ! vipers ! furies ! Oh ! that their own venom would choke them ! Sir Oliv. They are very provoking, indeed, Sir Peter. Enter Rowley. Rozv. I heard high words : what has ruffled you, sir ? Sir Peter. Pshaw ! what signifies asking ? Do I ever pass a day without my vexations ? Rozv. Well, I 'm not inquisitive. Sir Oliv. Well, Sir Peter, I have seen both my nephews in the manner we proposed. Sir Peter. A precious couple they are ! Row. Yes, and Sir Oliver is convinced that your judgment was right, Sir Peter. Sir Oliv. Yes, I find Joseph is indeed the man, after all. Row. Ay, as Sir Peter says, he is a man of sentiment. Sir Oliv. And acts up to the sentiments he professes. Rozv. It certainly is edification to hear him talk. Sir Oliv. Oh, he 's a model for the young men of the age. — But how 's this, Sir Peter ? you don't join us in your friend Joseph's praise, as I expected. Sir Peter. Sir Oliver, we live in a damned wicked world, and the fewer we praise the better. Rozv. What ! do you say so, Sir Peter, who were never mistaken in your life ? Sir Peter. Pshaw ! plague on you both ! I see by your sneering you have heard the whole affair. I shall go mad among you ! Row. Then, to fret you no longer, Sir Peter, we are indeed ac- quainted with it all. I met Lady Teazle coming from Mr. Surface's so humble, that she deigned to request me to be her advocate with you. A COMEDY. 3°3 Sir Peter. And does Sir Oliver know all this ? Sir Oliv. Every circumstance. Sir Peter. What of the closet and the screen, hey ? Sir Oliv. Yes, yes, and the little French milliner. Oh, I have been vastly diverted with the story ! ha ! ha ! ha ! Sir Peter. 'T was very pleasant. Sir Oliv. I never laughed more in my life, I assure you ; ah ! ah ! ah! Sir Peter. Oh, vastly diverting ! ha ! ha ! ha ! Row. To be sure, Joseph with his sentiments ! ha ! ha ! ha ! Sir Peter. Yes, yes, his sentiments ! ha ! ha ! ha ! Hypocritical villain ! Sir Oliv. Ay, and that rogue Charles to pull Sir Peter out of the closet ! ha ! ha ! ha ! Sir Peter. Ha ! ha ! 't was devilish entertaining, to be sure ! Sir Oliv. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Egad, Sir Peter, I should like to have seen your face when the screen was thrown down ! ha ! ha ! Sir Peter. Yes, yes, my face when the screen was thrown down : ha ! ha ! ha! Oh, I must never show my head again ! Sir Oliv. But come, come, it isn't fair to laugh at you neither, my old friend ; though, upon my soul, I can't help it. Sir Peter. Oh, pray don't restrain your mirth on my account : it does not hurt me at all ! I laugh at the whole affair myself. Yes. yes, I think being a standing jest for all one's acquaintance a very happy situation. Oh, yes, and then of a morning to read the para- graphs about Mr. S , Lady T , and Sir P , will be so entertaining ! Row. Without affectation, Sir Peter, you may despise the ridicule of fools. But I see Lady Teazle going towards the next room ; I am sure you must desire a reconciliation as earnestly as she does. 304 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Sir Oliv. Perhaps my being here prevents her coming to you. Well, I '11 leave honest Rowley to mediate between you ; but he must bring you all presently to Mr. Surface's, where I am now returning, if not to reclaim a libertine, at least to expose hypocrisy. Sir Peter. Ah, I '11 be present at your discovering yourself there with all my heart ; though 't is a vile unlucky place for discoveries. Rozv. We '11 follow. (Exit Sir Oliver Surface. Sir Peter. She is not coming here, you see, Rowley. Row. No, but she has left the door of that room open, you per- ceive. See, she is in tears. Sir Peter. Certainly, a little mortification appears very becoming in a wife. Don't you think it will do her good to let her pine a little ? Row. Oh, this is ungenerous in you ! Sir Peter. Well, I know not what to think. You remember the letter I found of hers evidently intended for Charles ? Rozv. A mere forgery, Sir Peter ! laid in your way on purpose. This is one of the points which I intend Snake shall give you con- viction of. Sir Peter. I wish I were once satisfied of that. She looks this way. What a remarkably elegant turn of the head she has. Rowley, I '11 go to her. Rozv. Certainly. Sir Peter. Though, when it is known that we are reconciled, people will laugh at me ten times more. Rozv. Let them laugh, and retort their malice only by showing them you are happy in spite of it. Sir Peter. V faith, so I will ! and, if I 'm not mistaken, we may yet be the happiest couple in the country. Row. Nay, Sir Peter, he who once lays aside suspicion A COMEDY. 305 Sir Peter. Hold, Master Rowley ! if you have any regard for me, never let me hear you utter anything like a sentiment : I have had enough of them to serve me the rest of my life. {Exeunt. Scene III. — The Library in Joseph Surface's House. Enter Joseph Surface and Lady Sneerwell. Lady Sneer. Impossible ! Will not Sir Peter immediately be reconciled to Charles, and of course no longer oppose his union with Maria ? The thought is distraction to me. Jos. Surf. Can passion furnish a remedy ? Lady Sneer. No, nor cunning either. Oh, I was a fool, an idiot, to league with such a blunderer ! Jos. Surf. Sure, Lady Sneerwell, I am the greatest sufferer ; yet you see I bear the accident with calmness. Lady Sneer. Because the disappointment does n't reach your heart ; your interest only attached you to Maria. Had you felt for her what I have for that ungrateful libertine, neither your temper nor hypocrisy could prevent your showing the sharpness of your vexation. Jos. Surf But why should your reproaches fall on me" for this disappointment ? Lady Sneer. Are you not the cause of it ? Had you not a sufficient field for your roguery in imposing upon Sir Peter, and supplanting your brother, but you must endeavor to seduce his wife ? I hate such an avarice of crimes ; 't is an unfair monopoly, and never prospers. Jos. Surf Well, I admit I have been to blame. I confess I de- 306 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. viated from the direct road of wrong, but I don't think we 're so totally defeated neither. Lady Sneer. No ! Jos. Surf. You tell me you have made a trial of Snake since we met, and that you still believe him faithful to us ? Lady Sneer. I do believe so. Jos. Surf. And that he has undertaken, should it be necessary, to swear and prove that Charles is at this time contracted by vows and honor to your ladyship, which some of his former letters to you will serve to support ? Lady Sneer. This, indeed, might have assisted. Jos. Surf. Come, come ; it is not too late yet. — {Knocking at the door.] But hark ! this is probably my uncle, Sir Oliver : retire to that room ; we '11 consult farther when he is gone. Lady Sneer. Well, but if he should find you out too ? Jos. Surf. Oh, I have no fear of that. Sir Peter will hold his tongue for his own credit's sake — and you may depend on it I shall soon discover Sir Oliver's weak side ! Lady Sneer. I have no diffidence of your abilities : only be con- stant to one roguery at a time. Jos. Surf I will, I will ! — [Exit Lady Sneerwell.] So ! 't is confounded hard, after such bad fortune, to be baited by one's con- federate in evil. Well, at all events, my character is so much better than Charles's, that I certainly — hey! — what — this is not Sir Oliver, but old Stanley again. Plague on 't that he should return to tease me just now ! I shall have Sir Oliver come and find him here — and Enter Sir Oliver Surface. Gad's life, Mr. Stanley, why have you come back to plague me at this time ? You must not stay now, upon my word. A COMEDY. 307 Sir Oliv. Sir, I hear your uncle Oliver is expected here, and though he has been so penurious to you, I '11 try what he'll do for me. Jos. Surf. Sir, 't is impossible for you to stay now, so I must beg come any other time, and I promise you you shall be assisted. Sir Oliv. No : Sir Oliver and I must be acquainted. Jos. Surf. Zounds, sir ! then I insist on your quitting the room directly. Sir Oliv. Nay, sir Jos. Surf. Sir, I insist on 't ! — Here, William ! show this gentle- man out. Since you compel me, sir, not one moment — this is such insolence. {Going to push Jiim out. Enter Charles Surface. Chas. Surf Heyday ! what 's the matter now ? What the devil, have you got hold of my little broker here ? Zounds, brother, don't hurt little Premium. W T hat 's the matter, my little fellow? Jos. Surf. So ! he has been with you too, has he ? Chas. Surf. To be sure, he has. Why, he 's as honest a little But sure, Joseph, you have not been borrowing money too, have you? Jos. Surf. Borrowing ! no ! But, brother, you know we expect Sir Oliver here every Chas. Surf O Gad, that 's true ! Noll must n't find the little broker here, to be sure. Jos. Surf. Yet Mr. Stanley insists Chas. Surf Stanley ! why his name 's Premium. Jos. Surf. No, sir, Stanley. Chas. Surf. No, no, Premium. Jos. Surf. Well, no matter which — but Chas. Surf Ay, ay, Stanley or Premium, 't is the same thing, as 308 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. you say ; for I suppose he goes by half a hundred names, besides A. B. at the coffee-house. [Knocking. Jos. Surf. 'Sdeath! here's Sir Oliver at the door. — Now I beg, Mr. Stanley Chas. Surf. Ay, ay, and I beg Mr. Premium Sir Oliv. Gentlemen Jos. Surf. Sir, by Heaven you shall go ! Chas. Surf. Ay, out with him, certainly ! . Sir Oliv. This violence Jos. Surf. Sir, 't is your own fault. Chas. Surf. Out with him, to be sure. [Both faring Sir Oliver out. Enter Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, Maria and Rowley. Sir Peter. My old friend, Sir Oliver — hey! What in the name of wonder — here are dutiful nephews — assault their uncle at a first visit ! Lady Teaz. Indeed, Sir Oliver, 't was well we came in to rescue you. Row. Truly it was; for I perceive, Sir Oliver, the character of old Stanley was no protection to you. Sir Oliv. Nor of Premium either : the necessities of the former could not extort a shilling from that benevolent gentleman ; and with the other I stood a chance of faring worse than my ancestors, and being knocked down without being bid for. Jos. Surf. Charles ! Chas. Surf. Joseph ! Jos. Surf. 'T is now complete ! Chas. Surf Very. Sir Oliv. Sir Peter, my friend, and Rowley too — look on that elder nephew of mine. You know what he has already received A COMEDY. 309 from my bounty ; and you also know how gladly I would have regarded half my fortune as held in trust for him : judge then my disappointment in discovering him to be destitute of truth, charity, and gratitude ! Sir Peter. Sir Oliver, I should be more surprised at this declara- tion, if I had not myself found him to be mean, treacherous, and hypocritical. Lady Teaz. And if the gentleman pleads not guilty to these, pray let him call vie to his character. Sir Peter. Then, I believe, we need add no more: if he knows himself, he will consider it as the most perfect punishment that he is known to the world. Chas Surf. If they talk this way to Honesty, what will they say to me, by and by ? [Aside. [Sir Peter, Lady Teazle and Maria retire. Sir Oliv. As for that prodigal, his brother there Chas. Surf. Ay, now comes my turn : the damned family pictures will ruin me ! [Aside. Jos. Surf. Sir Oliver — uncle, will you honor me with a hearing ? Chas. Surf. Now, if Joseph would make one of his long speeches, I might recollect myself a little. [Aside. Sir Oliv. I suppose you would undertake to justify yourself en- tirely? [To Joseph Surface. Jos. Surf. I trust I could. Sir Oliv. [To Charles Surface.] Well, sir! — and you could justify yourself too, I suppose ? Chas. Surf. Not that I know of, Sir Oliver. Sir Oliv. What ! — Little Premium has been let too much into the secret, I suppose ? 310 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. CJtas. Surf. True, sir; but they were family secrets, and should not be mentioned again, you know. Row. Come, Sir Oliver, I know you cannot speak of Charles's follies with anger. Sir Oliv. Odd's heart, no more I can ; nor with gravity either. — Sir Peter, do you know the rogue bargained with me for all his ancestors; sold me judges and generals by the foot, and maiden aunts as cheap as broken china. CJias. Surf. To be sure, Sir Oliver, I did make a little free with the family canvas, that 's the truth on 't. My ancestors may rise in judgment against me, there 's no denying it ; but believe me sincere when I tell you — and upon my soul I would not say so if I was not — that if I do not appear mortified at the exposure of my follies, it is because I feel at this moment the warmest sat- isfaction in seeing you, my liberal benefactor. Sir Oliv. Charles, I believe you. Give me your hand again: the ill-looking little fellow over the settee has made your peace. Chas. Surf Then, sir, my gratitude to the original is still in- creased. Lady Teaz. [Advancing.] Yet, I believe, Sir Oliver, here is one whom Charles is still more anxious to be reconciled to. {Pointing to Maria. Sir Oliv. Oh, I have heard of his attachment there ; and, with the young lady's pardon, if I construe right — that blush Sir Peter. Well, child, speak your sentiments ! Mar. Sir, I have little to say, but that I shall rejoice to hear that he is happy; for me, — whatever claim I had to his affection, I willingly resign to one who has a better title. Chas. Surf. How, Maria ! Sir Peter. Heyday ! what 's the mystery now ? — While he ap- A COMEDY. 311 peared an incorrigible rake, you would give your hand to no one else ; and now that he is likely to reform I '11 warrant you won't have him ! Mar. His own heart and Lady Sneerwell know the cause. C/ias. Surf. Lady Sneerwell ! Jos. Surf. Brother, it is with great concern I am obliged to speak on this point, but my regard to justice compels me, and Lady Sneerwell's injuries can no longer be concealed. [Opens the door. Enter Lady Sneerwell. Sir Peter. So ! another French milliner ! Egad, he has one in every room in the house, I suppose ! Lady Sneer. Ungrateful Charles ! Well may you be surprised, and feel for the indelicate situation your perfidy has forced me into. CJias. Surf Pray, uncle, is this another plot of yours ? For, as I have life, I don't understand it. Jos. Surf I believe, sir, there is but the evidence of one person more necessary to make it extremely clear. Sir Peter. And that person, I imagine, is Mr. Snake. — Rowley, you were perfectly right to bring him with us, and pray let him appear. Row. Walk in, Mr. Snake. Enter Snake. I thought his testimony might be wanted : however, it happens unluckily, that he comes to confront Lady Sneerwell, not to support her. Lady Sneer. A villain ! Treacherous to me at last ! Speak, fellow, have you, too, conspired against me ? Snake. I beg your ladyship ten thousand pardons : you paid 312 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. me extremely liberally for the lie in question ; but I unfortunately have been offered double to speak the truth. Sir Peter. Plot and counter-plot, egad ! I wish your ladyship joy of your negotiation. Lady Sneer. The torments of shame and disappointment on you all ! [Going. Lady Tcaz. Hold, Lady Sneervvell — before you go, let me thank you for the trouble you and that gentleman . have taken, in writing letters from me to Charles, and answering them yourself ; and let me also request you to make my respects to the scandalous college of which you are president, and inform them that Lady Teazle, licentiate, begs leave to return the diploma they granted her, as she leaves off practice, and kills characters no longer. Lady Sneer. You too, madam ! — provoking — insolent ! May your husband live these fifty years ! [Exit. Sir Peter. Oons ! what a fury ! Lady Teaz. A malicious creature, indeed ! Sir Peter. Hey ! not for her last wish ? Lady Tcaz. Oh, no ! Sir Oliv. Well, sir, and what have you to say now ? Jos. Surf. Sir, I am so confounded, to find that Lady Sneerwell could be guilty of suborning Mr. Snake in this manner, to impose on us all, that I know not what to say : however, lest her revengeful spirit should prompt her to injure my brother, I had certainly better follow her directly. For the man who attempts to [Exit. Sir Peter. Moral to the last drop ! Sir Oliv. Ay, and marry her, Joseph, if you can. Oil and Vinegar ! — egad, you '11 do very well together. Row. I believe we have no more occasion for Mr. Snake at present ? A COMEDY. 313 Snake. Before I go, I beg pardon once for all, for whatever uneasiness I have been the humble instrument of causing to the parties present. Sir Peter. Well, well, you have made atonement by a good deed at last. Snake. But I must request of the company, that it shall never be known. Sir Peter. Hey! — what the plague! — are you ashamed of hav- ing done a right thing once in your life ? Snake. Ah, sir, consider — I live by the badness of my character ; I have nothing but my infamy to depend on ! and, if it were once known that I had been betrayed into an honest action, I should lose every friend I have in the world. Sir Oliv. Well, well — we '11 not traduce you by saying anything in your praise, never fear. [Exit Snake. Sir Peter. There 's a precious rogue ! Lady Teaz. See, Sir Oliver, there needs no persuasion now to reconcile your nephew and Maria. Sir Oliv. Ay, ay, that 's as it should be, and, egad, we' 11 have the wedding to-morrow morning. C/ias. Surf. Thank you, dear uncle. Sir Peter. What, you rogue ! don't you ask the girl's consent first ? C/ias. Surf. Oh, I have done that a long time — a minute ago — and she has looked yes. Mar. For shame, Charles ! — I protest, Sir Peter, there has not been a word Sir Oliv. Well, then, the fewer the better; may your love for each other never know abatement. Sir Peter. And may you live as happily together as Lady Teazle and I intend to do ! 314 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. CJias. Surf. Rowley, my old friend, I am sure you congratulate me; and I suspect that I owe you much. Sir Oliv. You do, indeed, Charles. Row. If my efforts to serve you had not succeeded, you would have been in my debt for the attempt ; but deserve to be happy and you overpay me. Sir Peter. Ay, honest Rowley always said you would reform. Chas. Surf. Why, as to reforming, Sir Peter, I '11 make no pro- mises, and that I take to be a proof that I intend to set about it. But here shall be my monitor — my gentle guide. — Ah ! can I leave the virtuous path those eyes illumine ? Though thou, dear maid, shouldst waive thy beauty's sway, Thou still must rule, because I will obey : An humble fugitive from Folly view, No sanctuary near but Love and you : \_To the audience. You can, indeed, each anxious fear remove, For even Scandal dies, if you approve. EPILOGUE. BY MR. COLMAN. SPOKEN BY LADY TEAZLE. I, who was late so volatile and gay, Like a trade-wind must now blow all one way, Bend all my cares, my studies, and my vows, To one dull rusty weathercock — my spouse ! So wills our virtuous bard — the motley Bayes Of crying epilogues and laughing plays ! Old bachelors, who marry smart young wives, Learn from our play to regulate your lives ; Each bring his dear to town, all faults upon her — London will prove the very source of honor, Plunged fairly in, like a cold bath it serves, When principles relax, to brace the nerves : Such is my case ; and yet I must deplore That the gay dream of dissipation 's o'er. And say, ye fair ! was ever lively wife, Born with a genius for the highest life, Like me untimely blasted in her bloom, Like me condemn'd to such a dismal doom ? Save money — when I just knew how to waste it ! Leave London — just as I began to taste it ! Must I then watch the early crowing cock, The melancholy ticking of a clock ; 316 EPILOGUE. In a lone rustic hall for ever pounded, With dogs, cats, rats, and squalling brats surrounded ? With humble curate can I now retire, (While good Sir Peter boozes with the squire,) And at backgammon mortify my soul, That pants for loo, or flutters at a vole ? Seven 's the main ! Dear sound that must expire, Lost at hot cockles round a Christmas fire ; The transient hour of fashion too soon spent, Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content ! Farewell the plumed head, the cushioned tete, That takes the cushion from its proper seat ! That spirit-stirring drum ! — card drums I mean, Spadille — odd trick — pam — basto — king and queen ! And you, ye knockers, that, with brazen throat, The welcome visitors' approach denote ; Farewell all quality of high renown, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious town ! Farewell ! your revels I partake no more, And Lady Teazle 's occupation 's o'er ! All this I told our bard ; he smiled, and said 't was clear, I ought to play deep tragedy next year. Meanwhile he drew wise morals from his play, And in these solemn periods stalk'd away : — . " Bless'd were the fair like you ; her faults who stopp'd And closed her follies when the curtain dropp'd ! No more in vice or error to engage, Or play the fool at large on life's great stage." NOTES, NOTES. FRONTISPIECE. Portrait of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, by John Russell, R. A. This portrait, drawn in crayons in 1788, — the year of the great speech against Warren Hastings, — is in the National Portrait Gallery at South Kensington, and is here reproduced by the kind permission of George Scharf, Esq., F. S. A., the keeper of that collection. So far as known, it has not been engraved hitherto. The familiar portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds was painted in 1789, and is now in the possession of Lord Kennaird, of Rossie Priory. Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan of Frampton Court, Dorchester, has a finely finished portrait of his grandfather, done in pencil by Wright of Derby. THE RIVALS. Preface. Faded ideas float in the fancy like half-forgotten dreams ; and the imagination in its fullest enjoyments becomes suspicious of its offspring, and doubts whether it has created or adopted. This passage was quoted by Burgoyne, in the preface of the ' Heiress.' The same thought is to be found also in the 'Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,' where Dr. Holmes says, " I never wrote a line of verse that seemed to me comparatively good, but it appeared old at once, and often as if it had been borrowed." A little earlier in the same chapter, the Autocrat had declared the law which governs in such cases : " When a person of fair character for literary honesty uses an image such as another has employed before him, the presumption is that he has struck upon it independently, or unconsciously recalled it, supposing it his own." 319 2>20 THE RIVALS. It is net without pleasure that I catch at an opportunity of justifying myself from the charge of intending any national reflection in the character of Sir Lticius O 'Trigger. In his ' Retrospections of the Stage,' John Bernard, who was present at the unfortunate first performance of the ' Rivals,' has declared that the audience was indifferent to Sir Lucius, as acted by Lee. When the play was revised, Clinch took the part. Why any one should ob- ject to Sir Lucius, it is now difficult to discover. Sir Lucius is one of the best of stage-Irishmen, and he is emphatically an Irish gentleman. ACT I. Scene I. Thomas. — But pray, Mr. Fag, what kind of a place is this Bath ? It is not easy now to understand fully the extraordinary brilliancy of Bath after Beau Nash had organized society there. The manners and customs of Bath, as they were a very few years before the date of the ' Rivals,' may be seen in Anstey's ' New Bath Guide,' first published in 1766; and Anstey's lively verses prove that the town offered unusual advantages to the social satirist and the comic dramatist. In ' Hum- phrey Clinker,' Smollett has left us an elaborate description of the place and the people to be met there. Foote's coined} 7 , the ' Maid of Bath,' was a dramatic setting of the romantic story of Miss Linley, Sheridan's wife. Scene II. Lydia. — And could not you get The Reward of Constancy? Miss Lydia Languish seems to have had a Catholic taste in fiction. Most of the books she sought were novelties : the ' Mistakes of the Heart' and the ' Tears of Sensibility' were translations from the French, published in 1773. The 'Delicate Distress' and the ' Gordian Knot' had been published together in four volumes in the same year. The ' Memoirs of a Lady of Quality ' (1. e., Lady Vane) were included in Smollett's 'Peregrine Pickle,' published first in 1751. His 'Humphrey Clinker' did not appear till 1771. The 'Sentimental Journey' had been originally published in 1768, in two volumes. Lydia. — Here, my dear Lucy, hide these hooks. Miss Languish was evidently fond of Smollett. After ' Peregrine Pickle,' with its ' Memoirs of a Lady of Quality," and after ' Hum- NOTES. 321 phrey Clinker,' comes Roderick Random,' published in 1748. The 'Innocent Adultery' was the second title of Southerne's tragedy, the 1 Fatal Marriage,' revived as ' Isabella ; or, the Fatal Marriage,' for Mrs. Siddons, after Sheridan became the manager of Drury Lane theatre. A century ago English plays were read as French plays are still. Henry Mackenzie's 'Man of Feeling' had first appeared in 1771. Mrs. Chapone's 'Letters on the Improvement of the Mind,' addressed to her niece, had been published in 1773 in two volumes; and Lord Chesterfield's 'Letters,' written in 1768, had not been given to the world until 1774. From notes found by Moore, we know that Sheridan had begun to draft a criticism of Lord Chesterfield's pre- cepts just before he sat down resolutely to the writing of this play. Mrs. Mai. — 'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion. With a readiness recalling Sheridan's own promptness in repartee, George Canning quoted this assertion of Mrs. Malapropos, in a speech delivered in the House of Commons in 1825. Sir Anthony. — Well, I must leave you. The traditional business of Sir Anthonys departure requires him to bow and gain the door, and then to return to say the next clause as though it has just occurred to him. This leave-taking, protracted by Mrs. Malapropos elaborate courtseys, is repeated two or three times before Sir Anthony finally takes himself off. Lucy. — And a black paduasoy. •Paduasoy was a particular kind of silk stuff, deriving its name from the Italian town Padua, and the French word sole, silk. ACT II. Scene I. Fag. — I beg pardon, sir — I beg pardon — but, with submission, a lie is nothing unless one supports it. Sir, whenever I draw on my invention for a good current lie, I always forge indorsements as well as the bill. This use of mercantile technicalities was not uncommon with Sheridan ; and Fag's idioms may be compared with Sir Peter Teazle's declaration ('School for Scandal,' Act II., Scene II.) that he "would have law merchant," for those who report what they hear, so that, 3 2 2 THE RIVALS. "in all cases of slander currency, whenever the drawer of the lie was not to be found, the injured parties should have a right to come on any of the indorsers." Enter Fanlkland. Faulkland is the name of two prominent characters, a father and a son, in the 'Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph,' the novel written by Mrs. Frances Sheridan ; but neither of them in any way resembles this Faulkland of her son's. Acres. — My hair has been in training some time. Here Acres removes his cap, and shows his side-curls in papers. After his next speech, he turns his back to the audience to show his back-hair elaborately dressed. Acres. — Damns have had their day. In his 'History of the English Stage' (v. 461,) the Rev. Mr. Geneste quotes an epigram of Sir John Harrington's, quite pertinent here: — In elder times, an ancient custom was To swear, in weighty matters, by the mass; But when the mass went down, as old men note, They sware, then, by the cross of this same groat ; And when the cross was likewise held in scorn, Then by their faith the common oath was sworn ; Last having sworn away all faith and troth, Only God damn them is their common oath. Thus custom kept decorum by gradation, That losing mass, cross, faith, they find damnation. Sir Antho7iy. — What's that to you, sir? The alleged likeness of Sir Anthony to Smollett's Matthew Bramble is very slight indeed. Sheridan's treatment of Sir Anthony in this scene and in the contrasting scene in the next act is exquisite comedy. In these two scenes is to be found the finest writing in the play. The present scene may be compared with one somewhat similar between Mrs. Linnet and Miss Linnet in the first act of Foote's ' Maid of Bath.' Sir Anthony. — Like the bull in Cox's Museum. Cox's Museum was a popular and fashionable exhibition of natural and mechanical curiosities. There are many allusions to it in contem- porary literature. In 'Evelina,' for instance, published in 1778, three years after the ' Rivals ' was written, Miss Burney takes her heroine NOTES. 323 to Cox's Museum and describes some of the many marvels it must have contained. Scene II. Fag. — We will — we will. [Exeunt severally.'] The traditional business here is for Fag to parody the exit of Sir Lucius just before, calling Lucy, kissing her, saying, " I '11 quiet your conscience," and then making his exit, humming the tune he has just caught from Sir Lucius. ACT III. Scene III. Mrs. Mai. — Oh, it gives me the hydrostatics to such a degree ! I thought she had per- sisted from corresponding with him; but, behold! this very day, 1 have interceded another letter from the fellow. I believe I have it in my pocket. Tradition authorizes Mrs. Malaprop first to take from her pocket the letter of Sir Lucius, and then discovering her mistake to produce •with much difficulty and in great confusion the letter which Capt. Abso- lute recognizes at once. Lydia. — O Heavens! Beverley! Lydia Languish has been called a second edition of Colman's Polly Honey comb e ; but the charge has only the slightest foundation. It would have been more difficult to evolve Lydia from Polly than to have made her out of nothing. If a prototype must be found for Lydia, it had better be sought in the Niece in Steele's 'Tender Husband.' In Steele's play, the relations of the Aunt and the Niece are not unlike those of Mrs. Malaprop and Lydia; and we are told that the Niece "has spent all her solitude in reading romances, her head is full of shepherds, knights, flowery meads, groves, and streams (Act I., Scene I.). And she anticipates Lydia in thinking that "it looks so ordinary, to go out at a door to be married. Indeed I ought to be taken out of a window, and run away with " (Act IV., Scene I.). It may be noted, also, that the lover of Steele's airy heroine visits her in disguise and makes love to her before the face of the Aunt. Scene IV. Acres {practising a dancing step.) — These outlandish heathen allemandes and cotillons are quite beyond me. I shall never prosper at 'em, that 's sure. Mine are true-born English legs. They don't understand their curst French lingo. In his ■ History of the English Stage,' Geneste recalls a parallel passage in the 'Wasps,' of Aristophanes, where the old man, on being desired 324 THE RIVALS. to put on a pair of Lacedemonian boots, endeavors to excuse himself by saying that one of his toes is a sworn enemy to the' Lacedemo- nians. Acres. — That 's too civil by half. In the writing of the challenge most actors of Acres indulge in "gags" beyond the bounds of all decency, and until comedy sinks into clowning. Mr. Joseph Jefferson refuses to make the judicious grieve by saying, "to prevent the confusion that might arise from our both undressing the same lady," and other vulgarities of that sort, retaining, however, the subtler jest of Acres' 's pause and hesitation when he comes to the word "company," of his significant whisper in the ear of Sir Lucius, and of Sir Lucius 's prompt solution of the orthographical problem, — " With a c, of course ! " ACT IV. Scene II. Mrs. Malaprop. — Comparisons don't become a young woman. Here Mrs. Malaprop comes very near to Dogberrfs "comparisons are odorous" ('Much Ado About Nothing.' Act III., Scene V.). Per- haps the earliest use of the phrase is in 'The Posies of George Cascoigne' (1575)* where we find, "Since all comparisons are odious." ACT V. Scene I. Faidkland.— Julia, I have proved you to the quick! Moore considers that this scene was suggested by Prior's ballad of the 'Nut-brown Maid,' and so indeed it may have been, although Prior's situation is very different from Sheridan's. In the 'Nut-brown Maid,' the high-born lover conceals his rank, approaches his mistress in various disguises, and at last tests her love by a tale of murder, like Faulklands. She stands the the test like Julia. Then the lover confesses the trick and reveals his rank, whereat the maid is joyful. The point of Sheridan's more dramatic situation is in the recoil of Faulk- land's distrustful ingenuity on his own head, and the rejection of his suit by Julia, so soon as he declares his fraud. NOTES. 325 Lydia. — How often have I stole forth, in the coldest night in January, and found him in the garden, stuck like a dripping statue. In his notes to his own translation of Horace, Sir Theodore Martin draws attention to the likeness of this speech of LydicCs to the lines in the Tenth Ode of the Third Book, in which Horace adjures a certain Lyce to take pity on him. You would pity, sweet Lyce, the poor soul that shivers Out here at your door in the merciless blast. Only hark how the doorway goes straining and creaking, And the piercing wind pipes through the trees that surround The court of your villa, while black frost is streaking With ice the crisp snow that lies thick on the ground ! Yet be not as cruel — forgive my upbraiding — As snakes, nor as hard as the toughest of oak; Think, to stand out here, drenched to the skin, serenading All night may in time prove too much of a joke. Scene II. • Absolute. — Really, sir, you have the advantage of me. Captain Absolute is the son of a long line of light and lively heroes of comedy, and the father of a line almost as long. Foremost among his ancestors is the inventive protagonist of Foote's ' Liar,' and foremost among his progeny is the even more slippery young man in Mr. Bouci- cault's ' London Assurance,' who ventures to deny his father in much the same fashion as Capt. Absolute. Scene III. Acres. — By my valour ! By a hundred devious ways, Bob Acres traces his descent from that other humorous coward, Sir Andrew Aguecheek ; and the duels into which both gentlemen enter valiantly are not without a certain highly comic resemblance. Sir Lucius. — I'm told there is very snug lying in the Abbey. This reference is, of course, to the Abbey church, at Bath, in which Sarah Fielding, the sister of the novelist, is buried. 326 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. ACT I. Scene I. Lady Sneer. — The paragraphs, you say, Mr. Snake, were all inserted. In the original draft of this scene, now in the possession of Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan of Frampton Court, Dorchester, where he kindly permitted me to examine it, the person with whom Lady Sneer- well is conversing is a Miss Verjuice, and it is only later in the scene, after the entrance of Joseph Surface, that we find a reference to " Snake, the Scribbler." In revising the scene, Sheridan found that one charac- ter might suffice for the minor dirty work of the plot ; and to this character he gave the dialogue of Miss Verjuice and the name of Snake. The name Sneerwell is to be found in Fielding's 'Pasquin.' Servant. — Mr. Surface. In 'A Journey to Bath,' an unacted and unprinted comedy by Mrs. Frances Sheridan, three acts of which are preserved in the British Museum (MS. 25, 975), there is a Mrs. Surface, "one who keeps a lodging-house at Bath." She is no relation to either of the Surfaces in the ' School for Scandal ; ' yet it may be worth noting that she is a scandal-monger who hates scandal. Scene II. Rowley. — Oh, Sir Peter, your servant ! Rowley is one of the many faithful stewards, frequent in comedy. Perhaps the first of them was Trusty in Steele's ' Funeral.' ACT II. Scene I. Sir Peter. — And three powdered footmen before your chair. In 1777, when Sheridan wrote, only people of the highest position and fashion made their footmen powder their hair; so Sir Peter is here reproaching Lady Teazle with her exalted ambitions. NOTES. 3,2? Sir Peter. — You were content to ride double, behind the butler on a docked coach-horse. Professor Ward in his ' History of English Dramatic Literature,' draws attention to a parallel passage in Fletcher's 'Noble Gentleman' (Act II., Scene I.), in which Marine threatens to take his fashionable wife home again : — Make you ready straight, And in that gown which you first came to town in, Your safe-cloak, and your hood suitable, Thus on a double gelding shall you amble, And my man Jaques shall be set before you. Sir Peter. — Ay — there again — taste! Zounds! madam, you had no taste when you married me! It seems as though Mr. John G. Saxe may have remembered this speech of Sir Peter's when he wrote his epigram, ' Too Candid by Half:' — As Tom and his wife were discoursing one day Of their several faults, in a bantering way, Said she: 'Though my wit you disparage, I f m sure, my dear husband, our friends will attest This much, at the least, that my judgment is best.' Quoth Tom : ' So they said at our marriage ! ' Scene II. Sir Benjamin Backbite : — " Sure never were seen two such beautiful ponies ! Other horses are clowns, but these macaronies. To give them this title I 'm sure can't be wrong, Their legs are so slim, and their tails are so long. The reading of this epigram by Sir Benjamin Backbite is perhaps another of Sheridan's reminiscences of Moliere ; at least there is a situa- tion not unlike it in the ' Precieuses Ridicules,' in the ' Femmes Savantes,' and in the ' Misanthrope.' In the final quarter of the eighteenth century, there arose a species of dandy called the macaroni, much as in the final quarter of the nineteenth century there has arisen a variety called the dude. " The Italians are extremely fond of a dish they call macaroni, com- posed of a kind of paste ; and, as they consider this the summum bonum of all good eating, so they figuratively call everything they think elegant and uncommon macaroni. Our young travellers, who generally catch the follies of the countries they visit, judged that the title of macaroni was applicable to a clever fellow ; and, accordingly, to distin- guish themselves as such, they instituted a club under this denomination, 328 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. the members of which were supposed to be the standards of taste, They make a most ridiculous figure, with hats of an inch in the brim, that do not cover, but lie upon, the head ; with about two pounds of fictitious hair, formed into what is called a club, hanging down their shoulders, as white as a baker's sack" ('Pocket-book,' 1773, quoted in Mr. T. L. O. Davies's 'Supplementary Glossary'). The name of the macaroni is also preserved in the first stanza of our ' Yankee Doodle,' which is almost contemporaneous with Sheridan's play. Sir Peter. — A character dead at every word, I suppose ? Moore noted the resemblance of this aside to Pope's line, in the 'Rape of the Lock': — At every word, a reputation dies. This scandal scene of Sheridan's had predecessors in the comedies of Congreve and of Wycherley, not to go back as far as the ' Misan- thrope ' of Moliere. Hard and cruel as Sheridan's scene now seems to us, it is gentle indeed when contrasted with the cudgel-play of Congreve and Wycherley. It is possible that Sheridan owed some of his comparative suavity to the example of Addison, who contributed to No. 17 of the Spectator, & 'Fine Lady's Journal,' in which there is a passage of tittle-tattle more like Sheridan than Wycherley or Congreve. Sir Peter. — Yes, madam, I would have law merchant for them too. Geneste, in his ' History of the English Stage,' draws attention to a parallel passage in the ' Trinummus ' of Plautus, and suggests that it would furnish a very pat motto for this play : — Ouod si exquiratur usque ab stirpe auctoritas, Unde quicquid auditum dicant, nisi id appareat. Famigeratori res sit cum damno et malo : Hoc ita si fiat, publico fiat bono. Pauci sint faxim, qui sciant quod resciunt; Occlusioremque habeant stultiloquentiam. ACT III. Scene I. Sir Peter. — But, Moses! would not you have him run out a little against the Annuity Bill? In 1777 a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the laws concerning usury and annuities; and on its report in May, the month in which this play was first acted, a bill was brought NOTES. 329 in and passed, providing that all contracts with minors for annuities shall be void, and that those procuring them and solicitors charging more than ten shillings per cent shall be subject to fine or imprison- ment. Sir Peter. — No, never ! The traditional business of the scene is for Sir Peter and Lady Teazle here to take each other by the hand and to repeat, in unison, " Never ! never ! never ! " Scene II. Trip. — And find our own bags and bouquets. In the original draft of the several scenes which Sheridan finally combined into the 'School for Scandal,' this phrase, 'bags and bou- quets,' was said to Sir Peter as he was complaining of Lady Teazle's extravagances. This utilization at last of a phrase at first rejected elsewhere is highly characteristic of Sheridan. Trip. — Or you shall have the reversion of the French velvet. Sheridan has been accused, justly enough, of making his servants talk as their masters ; but this is an old failing of writers of comedy, although few of them would have risked this accurate use of the legal phraseology which Sheridan at all times affected. But there is in Ben Tonson's ' Every Man in his Humor ' (Act III., Scene II.) a speech of KnowelVs servant Brainworm in which we find the very same technical term as we have in the text : " This smoky varnish being washed off, and three or four patches removed, I appear your worship's [servant] in reversion, after the decease of your good father, Brainworm." Sheri- dan's Trip and Fag recall the amusing personages of ' High Life below Stairs,' generally attributed to a certain Reverend James Townley, but more probably the work of David Garrick : it was suggested by a paper of Steele's, ' On Servants,' in the Spectator, No. SS. Scene III. Sir Harry Bumper — Sings. It has been asserted (in Notes and Queries 5th S., ii., 245, and elsewhere) that Sheridan derived this song from a ballad in Suckling's play, the ' Goblins ;' but a careful comparison of the two songs shows that there is really no foundation for the charge. The music to Sheri- dan's song was composed by his father-in-law, Thomas Linley, who had been his partner in the ' Duenna.' 33° THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Moses. — Oh, pray, sir, consider ! Mr. Premium 's a gentleman. In Foote's ' Minor,' there is a spendthrift son, whose father visits him in disguise to test him; and in Foote's 'Author,' a father re- turns in disguise, and, to his great delight, hears his son disclose the most admirable sentiments ; but there is no real likeness between either of Foote's scenes and this of Sheridan's, the real original of which is perhaps to be found in .his mother's ' Sidney Biddulph,' in which an East Indian uncle returns to test a nephew and a niece. Yet there is possibly a slight resemblance between "little Premium the broker," and " little Transfer^ the broker," in the " Minor." 4 Moses. — Oh, yes ; I '11 swear to 't ! An erring tradition authorizes Moses to interpolate freely and fre- quently throughout the rest of the scene a more or less meaningless, "I'll take my oath of that." As the part of Moses is generally taken by the low comedian who also appears as Tony Lumpkin, this "gag" may be a reminiscence of the comic scene in ' She Stoops to Conquer,' in which Tony offers to swear to his mother's assertion that Miss Hard- castle's jewels have been stolen. ACT IV. Scene I. Charles. — But come, get to your pulpit, Mr. Auctioneer> The absurdity of an auction with only one bidder has been com- mented upon often, but surely Sheridan never intended the auction to be taken seriously. The pretence of an auction is surely a freak of Charles's humor and high spirits. Charles. — Well, here's my great uncle, Sir Richard Raveline. The ' School for Scandal ' was one of the plays performed by the English actors on their famous visit to Paris in 1827, — a visit which revealed the might and range of the English drama to the French, and thereby served to make possible the Romanticist revolt of 1830. Victor Hugo was an assiduous follower of the English performances ; and it may be that this scene of the ' School for Scandal ' suggested to him the scene with the portraits in ' Hernani.' Scene II. Charles. — Be just before you 're generous. In a note to an anonymous pamphlet biographical sketch of Sheri- NOTES. 331 dan, published in 1799, there is quoted a remark of a lady which is not without point and pertinency : " Mr. Sheridan is a fool if he pays a bill (of which, by the by, he is not accused) of one of the trades- men who received his comedy with such thunders of applause. He ought to tell them in the words of Charles, that he could never make Justice keep pace with Generosity, and they could have no right to complain." Scene III. Joseph. — Stay, stay; draw that screen before the windows! j It has been often objected that the hiding of Lady Teazle behind the screen put her in full view of the opposite neighbor, the maiden lady of so curious a temper; but it must be remembered that it is Joseph who makes this remark and has the screen set, and it is Lady Teazle who unwittingly rushes to hide behind it. Joseph. — Ah, my dear madam, there is the great mistake. 'T is this very conscious innocence that is of the greatest prejudice to you. The late Abraham Hayward, in his ' Selected Essays ' (i, 400), calls this "the recast of a fine reflection in ' Zadig,' " and quotes, in a foot-note; Voltaire's words : " Astarte' est femme, elle laisse parler ses regards avec d' autant plus d' imprudence qu' elle ne se croit pas encore coupable. Malheureusement rassuree sur son innocence, elle neglige les dehors necessaires. Je tremblerai pour elle tant qu' elle n' aura rien a. se reprocher." Charles Surface throws down the screen. Boaden, the biographer of Kemble, has the hyper-ingenuity to dis- cover in the fall of the rig in Molly Seagwrfs bedroom, disclosing the philosopher Square, in ' Tom Jones,' the first germ of the fall of the screen in the ' School for Scandal.' Sir Peter. — Lady Teazle, by all that 's damnable ! Nowadays most Sir Peters take this situation to heart as though the ' School for Scandal ' were a tragedy, but the play is a comedy, and this, scene is, and is meant to be, comic, and not tragic, or even purely pathetic. It is the vanity rather than the honor of Sir Peter in which he feels the wound. If he is as deeply moved as Othello, the following speech of Charles is unspeakably heartless and brutal — and so, indeed, it is, as it is delivered by most . comedians. 33 2 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. ACT V. Scene I. Sir Oliver. — What! has he never transmitted to you bullion — rupees — pagodas? The rupee and the pagoda were coins current in Hindustan. The rupee is of silver and is equivalent to about two shillings sterling. The pagoda was either gold or silver, and its value varied from eight to nine shillings sterling. The avadavats mentioned in an earlier speech are birds of brilliant plumage. Scene II. Sir Benjamin. — By a thrust in segoon quite through his left side. " Segoon " is a corruption of segunde, the Spanish form of the French fencing term seconde. Mr. Walter Herries Pollock kindly gave me this information, sought elsewhere in vain. A thrust in segoon, he writes, is " a thrust delivered low, under the adversary's blade, with the hand in the tierce position, that is, with the knuckles upwards, and the wrist turned downwards.' The parry is now more frequently used than is the thrust of seconde, and is especially valuable in disarming; but the thrust is very useful in certain cases, and particularly for one form of the coup d' arret. A lunge in seconde which goes through the lung is nowadays an odd thing to hear of ; but such a result might come from the blade of the man using the thrust in seconde being thrown upwards by a slip on the adversary's blade, arm, or shirt." Crabtree. — From Salthill, where he had been to see the Montem. The Montem was a triennial ceremony of the boys at Eton, abolished only in 1847. It consisted of a procession to a mound (ad montem) near the Bath Road, where they exacted money from those present and from all passers-by. The sum collected, sometimes nearly ^1000, went to the captain or senior scholar, and served to pay his expenses at the university. There is an interesting account of the Montem in 1 Coningsby.' Craltree. — Who was just coming to the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire. Tradition formerly authorized Mrs. Candour to interpolate here a query as to whether the postage had been paid or not ; but this seems to be carrying the joke a little too far. NOTES. 333 Scene III. Snake. — Ah, sir, consider I live by the badness of my character. In the first draft of the play this speech of Snake's was in one of the earliest scenes. The anonymous writer of a pamphlet, ' Letter to Thomas Moore, Esq., on the subject of Sheridan's " School for Scan- dal" ' (Bath, 1826), declares that "this is but boyish composition, and quite too broad even for farce. It might have been said to Snake by another, but is out of even stage-nature or stage-necessity, as coming from himself " (p. 16). Epilogue. So wills our virtuous bard the motley Bayes. Bayes was the hero of the Duke of Buckingham's ' Rehearsal,' and was a caricature of John Dryden. At the time this epilogue was written the ' Rehearsal ' had not yet been driven from the stage by the 1 Critic' Spadille — odd trick — pam — basto — king and queen. In the game of ombre, at its height when Pope wrote the ' Rape of the Lock,' and still surviving when Colman wrote this epilogue, " Spa- dille " was the ace of spades, " pam " was the knave of clubs, and "basto" was the ace of clubs. \ LBJe'08 H ■ ■ ■ I ■ • l.-^sHX 8v. 9HI -\ I ■ 1 1 ; I ) I I X.wU I 'lL/>,k' ■ ■