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Love for Love

by William Congreve

March, 1998  [Etext #1244]


The Project Gutenberg Etext of Love for Love by William Congreve
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Prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk





LOVE FOR LOVE--A COMEDY




Nudus agris, nudus nummis paternis,
Insanire parat certa ratione modoque.

- HOR.



TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
CHARLES, EARL OF DORSET AND MIDDLESEX,
LORD CHAMBERLAIN OF HIS MAJESTY'S HOUSEHOLD,
AND KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, ETC.



My Lord,--A young poet is liable to the same vanity and indiscretion
with a young lover; and the great man who smiles upon one, and the
fine woman who looks kindly upon t'other, are both of 'em in danger
of having the favour published with the first opportunity.

But there may be a different motive, which will a little distinguish
the offenders.  For though one should have a vanity in ruining
another's reputation, yet the other may only have an ambition to
advance his own.  And I beg leave, my lord, that I may plead the
latter, both as the cause and excuse of this dedication.

Whoever is king is also the father of his country; and as nobody can
dispute your lordship's monarchy in poetry, so all that are
concerned ought to acknowledge your universal patronage.  And it is
only presuming on the privilege of a loyal subject that I have
ventured to make this, my address of thanks, to your lordship, which
at the same time includes a prayer for your protection.

I am not ignorant of the common form of poetical dedications, which
are generally made up of panegyrics, where the authors endeavour to
distinguish their patrons, by the shining characters they give them,
above other men.  But that, my lord, is not my business at this
time, nor is your lordship NOW to be distinguished.  I am contented
with the honour I do myself in this epistle without the vanity of
attempting to add to or explain your Lordships character.

I confess it is not without some struggling that I behave myself in
this case as I ought:  for it is very hard to be pleased with a
subject, and yet forbear it.  But I choose rather to follow Pliny's
precept, than his example, when, in his panegyric to the Emperor
Trajan, he says:-


Nec minus considerabo quid aures ejus pati possint, quam quid
virtutibus debeatur.


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

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

WILLIAM CONGREVE.



PROLOGUE.  Spoken, at the opening of the new house, by Mr Betterton.



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



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



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



DRAMATIS PERSONAE.



MEN.

SIR SAMPSON LEGEND, father to Valentine and Ben,--Mr Underhill.
VALENTINE, fallen under his father's displeasure by his expensive
way of living, in love with Angelica,--Mr Betterton.
SCANDAL, his friend, a free speaker,--Mr Smith.
TATTLE, a half-witted beau, vain of his amours, yet valuing himself
for secrecy,--Mr Bowman.
BEN, Sir Sampson's younger son, half home-bred and half sea-bred,
designed to marry Miss Prue,--Mr Dogget.
FORESIGHT, an illiterate old fellow, peevish and positive,
superstitious, and pretending to understand astrology, palmistry,
physiognomy, omens, dreams, etc; uncle to Angelica,--Mr Sanford.
JEREMY, servant to Valentine,--Mr Bowen.
TRAPLAND, a scrivener,--Mr Triffusis.
BUCKRAM, a lawyer,--Mr Freeman.


WOMEN.


ANGELICA, niece to Foresight, of a considerable fortune in her own
hands,--Mrs Bracegirdle.
MRS FORESIGHT, second wife to Foresight,--Mrs Bowman.
MRS FRAIL, sister to Mrs Foresight, a woman of the town,--Mrs Barry.
MISS PRUE, daughter to Foresight by a former wife, a silly, awkward
country girl,--Mrs Ayliff.
NURSE to MISS,--Mrs Leigh.
JENNY,--Mrs Lawson.

A STEWARD, OFFICERS, SAILORS, AND SEVERAL SERVANTS.

The Scene in London.



LOVE FOR LOVE--ACT I.--SCENE I.



VALENTINE in his chamber reading.  JEREMY waiting.

Several books upon the table.

VAL.  Jeremy.

JERE.  Sir?

VAL.  Here, take away.  I'll walk a turn and digest what I have
read.

JERE.  You'll grow devilish fat upon this paper diet.  [Aside, and
taking away the books.]

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

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

VAL.  Read, read, sirrah, and refine your appetite; learn to live
upon instruction; feast your mind and mortify your flesh; read, and
take your nourishment in at your eyes; shut up your mouth, and chew
the cud of understanding.  So Epictetus advises.

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

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

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

VAL.  Yes.

JERE.  Sir, you're a gentleman, and probably understand this fine
feeding:  but if you please, I had rather be at board wages.  Does
your Epictetus, or your Seneca here, or any of these poor rich
rogues, teach you how to pay your debts without money?  Will they
shut up the mouths of your creditors?  Will Plato be bail for you?
Or Diogenes, because he understands confinement, and lived in a tub,
go to prison for you?  'Slife, sir, what do you mean, to mew
yourself up here with three or four musty books, in commendation of
starving and poverty?

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

JERE.  Ay, sir, I am a fool, I know it:  and yet, heaven help me,
I'm poor enough to be a wit.  But I was always a fool when I told
you what your expenses would bring you to; your coaches and your
liveries; your treats and your balls; your being in love with a lady
that did not care a farthing for you in your prosperity; and keeping
company with wits that cared for nothing but your prosperity; and
now, when you are poor, hate you as much as they do one another.

VAL.  Well, and now I am poor I have an opportunity to be revenged
on them all.  I'll pursue Angelica with more love than ever, and
appear more notoriously her admirer in this restraint, than when I
openly rivalled the rich fops that made court to her.  So shall my
poverty be a mortification to her pride, and, perhaps, make her
compassionate the love which has principally reduced me to this
lowness of fortune.  And for the wits, I'm sure I am in a condition
to be even with them.

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

VAL.  I'll take some of their trade out of their hands.

JERE.  Now heaven of mercy continue the tax upon paper.  You don't
mean to write?

VAL.  Yes, I do.  I'll write a play.

JERE.  Hem!  Sir, if you please to give me a small certificate of
three lines--only to certify those whom it may concern, that the
bearer hereof, Jeremy Fetch by name, has for the space of seven
years truly and faithfully served Valentine Legend, Esq., and that
he is not now turned away for any misdemeanour, but does voluntarily
dismiss his master from any future authority over him -

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

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

VAL.  You are witty, you rogue.  I shall want your help.  I'll have
you learn to make couplets to tag the ends of acts.  D'ye hear?  Get
the maids to Crambo in an evening, and learn the knack of rhyming:
you may arrive at the height of a song sent by an unknown hand, or a
chocolate-house lampoon.

JERE.  But, sir, is this the way to recover your father's favour?
Why, Sir Sampson will be irreconcilable.  If your younger brother
should come from sea, he'd never look upon you again.  You're
undone, sir; you're ruined; you won't have a friend left in the
world if you turn poet.  Ah, pox confound that Will's coffee-house:
it has ruined more young men than the Royal Oak lottery.  Nothing
thrives that belongs to't.  The man of the house would have been an
alderman by this time, with half the trade, if he had set up in the
city.  For my part, I never sit at the door that I don't get double
the stomach that I do at a horse race.  The air upon Banstead-Downs
is nothing to it for a whetter; yet I never see it, but the spirit
of famine appears to me, sometimes like a decayed porter, worn out
with pimping, and carrying billet doux and songs:  not like other
porters, for hire, but for the jests' sake.  Now like a thin
chairman, melted down to half his proportion, with carrying a poet
upon tick, to visit some great fortune; and his fare to be paid him
like the wages of sin, either at the day of marriage, or the day of
death.

VAL.  Very well, sir; can you proceed?

JERE.  Sometimes like a bilked bookseller, with a meagre terrified
countenance, that looks as if he had written for himself, or were
resolved to turn author, and bring the rest of his brethren into the
same condition.  And lastly, in the form of a worn-out punk, with
verses in her hand, which her vanity had preferred to settlements,
without a whole tatter to her tail, but as ragged as one of the
muses; or as if she were carrying her linen to the paper-mill, to be
converted into folio books of warning to all young maids, not to
prefer poetry to good sense, or lying in the arms of a needy wit,
before the embraces of a wealthy fool.


SCENE II.


VALENTINE, SCANDAL, JEREMY.

SCAN.  What, Jeremy holding forth?

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

SCAN.  Ay?  Why, then, I'm afraid Jeremy has wit:  for wherever it
is, it's always contriving its own ruin.

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

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

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

SCAN.  Jeremy speaks like an oracle.  Don't you see how worthless
great men and dull rich rogues avoid a witty man of small fortune?
Why, he looks like a writ of enquiry into their titles and estates,
and seems commissioned by heaven to seize hte better half.

VAL.  Therefore I would rail in my writings, and be revenged.

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

VAL.  You are as inveterate against our poets as if your character
had been lately exposed upon the stage.  Nay, I am not violently
bent upon the trade.  [One knocks.]  Jeremy, see who's there.
[JERE. goes to the door.]  But tell me what you would have me do?
What do the world say of me, and my forced confinement?

SCAN.  The world behaves itself as it uses to do on such occasions;
some pity you, and condemn your father; others excuse him, and blame
you; only the ladies are merciful, and wish you well, since love and
pleasurable expense have been your greatest faults.

VAL.  How now?

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

VAL.  What answer have you given 'em?

SCAN.  Patience, I suppose, the old receipt.

JERE.  No, faith, sir; I have put 'em off so long with patience and
forbearance, and other fair words, that I was forced now to tell 'em
in plain downright English -

VAL.  What?

JERE.  That they should be paid.

VAL.  When?

JERE.  To-morrow.

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

JERE.  Keep it?  Not at all; it has been so very much stretched that
I reckon it will break of course by to-morrow, and nobody be
surprised at the matter.  [Knocking.]  Again!  Sir, if you don't
like my negotiation, will you be pleased to answer these yourself?

VAL.  See who they are.


SCENE III.


VALENTINE, SCANDAL.

VAL.  By this, Scandal, you may see what it is to be great;
secretaries of state, presidents of the council, and generals of an
army lead just such a life as I do; have just such crowds of
visitants in a morning, all soliciting of past promises; which are
but a civiller sort of duns, that lay claim to voluntary debts.

SCAN.  And you, like a true great man, having engaged their
attendance, and promised more than ever you intended to perform, are
more perplexed to find evasions than you would be to invent the
honest means of keeping your word, and gratifying your creditors.

VAL.  Scandal, learn to spare your friends, and do not provoke your
enemies; this liberty of your tongue will one day bring a
confinement on your body, my friend.


SCENE IV.


VALENTINE, SCANDAL, JEREMY.

JERE.  O sir, there's Trapland the scrivener, with two suspicious
fellows like lawful pads, that would knock a man down with pocket-
tipstaves.  And there's your father's steward, and the nurse with
one of your children from Twitnam.

VAL.  Pox on her, could she find no other time to fling my sins in
my face?  Here, give her this, [gives money] and bid her trouble me
no more; a thoughtless two-handed whore, she knows my condition well
enough, and might have overlaid the child a fortnight ago, if she
had had any forecast in her.

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

JERE.  Yes, sir.

SCAN.  My blessing to the boy, with this token [gives money] of my
love.  And d'ye hear, bid Margery put more flocks in her bed, shift
twice a week, and not work so hard, that she may not smell so
vigorously.  I shall take the air shortly.

VAL.  Scandal, don't spoil my boy's milk.  Bid Trapland come in.  If
I can give that Cerberus a sop, I shall be at rest for one day.


SCENE V.


VALENTINE, SCANDAL, TRAPLAND, JEREMY.

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

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

SCAN.  The morning's a very good morning, if you don't spoil it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

VAL.  T'other glass, and then we'll talk.  Fill, Jeremy.

TRAP.  No more, in truth.  I have forborne, I say -

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

TRAP.  Thank you.  I have been out of this money -

VAL.  Drink first.  Scandal, why do you not drink?  [They drink.]

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

VAL.  I was much obliged to you for your supply.  It did me signal
service in my necessity.  But you delight in doing good.  Scandal,
drink to me, my friend Trapland's health.  An honester man lives
not, nor one more ready to serve his friend in distress:  though I
say it to his face.  Come, fill each man his glass.

SCAN.  What, I know Trapland has been a whoremaster, and loves a
wench still.  You never knew a whoremaster that was not an honest
fellow.

TRAP.  Fie, Mr Scandal, you never knew -

SCAN.  What don't I know?  I know the buxom black widow in the
Poultry. 800 pounds a year jointure, and 20,000 pounds in money.
Aha! old Trap.

VAL.  Say you so, i'faith?  Come, we'll remember the widow.  I know
whereabouts you are; come, to the widow -

TRAP.  No more, indeed.

VAL.  What, the widow's health; give it him--off with it.  [They
drink.]  A lovely girl, i'faith, black sparkling eyes, soft pouting
ruby lips!  Better sealing there than a bond for a million, ha?

TRAP.  No, no, there's no such thing; we'd better mind our business.
You're a wag.

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

TRAP.  Verily, give me a glass.  You're a wag,--and here's to the
widow.  [Drinks.]

SCAN.  He begins to chuckle; ply him close, or he'll relapse into a
dun.


SCENE VI.


[To them] OFFICER.

OFF.  By your leave, gentlemen:  Mr Trapland, if we must do our
office, tell us.  We have half a dozen gentlemen to arrest in Pall
Mall and Covent Garden; and if we don't make haste the chairmen will
be abroad, and block up the chocolate-houses, and then our labour's
lost.

TRAP.  Udso that's true:  Mr Valentine, I love mirth, but business
must be done.  Are you ready to -

JERE.  Sir, your father's steward says he comes to make proposals
concerning your debts.

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

TRAP.  Mr Snap, stay within call.


SCENE VII.


VALENTINE, SCANDAL, TRAPLAND, JEREMY, STEWARD who whispers
VALENTINE.

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

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

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

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

TRAP.  Sincerely, I am loth to be thus pressing, but my necessity -

VAL.  No apology, good Mr Scrivener, you shall be paid.

TRAP.  I hope you forgive me; my business requires -


SCENE VIII.


VALENTINE, SCANDAL.

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

VAL.  But I have got a reprieve.

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

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

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

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

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


SCENE IX.


[To them] JEREMY.

JERE.  More misfortunes, sir.

VAL.  What, another dun?

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

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


SCENE X.


VALENTINE, SCANDAL.

SCAN.  Pox on him, I'll be gone.

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

SCAN.  A mender of reputations!  Ay, just as he is a keeper of
secrets, another virtue that he sets up for in the same manner.  For
the rogue will speak aloud in the posture of a whisper, and deny a
woman's name while he gives you the marks of her person.  He will
forswear receiving a letter from her, and at the same time show you
her hand in the superscription:  and yet perhaps he has
counterfeited the hand too, and sworn to a truth; but he hopes not
to be believed, and refuses the reputation of a lady's favour, as a
Doctor says no to a Bishopric only that it may be granted him.  In
short, he is public professor of secrecy, and makes proclamation
that he holds private intelligence.--He's here.


SCENE XI.


[To them] TATTLE.

TATT.  Valentine, good morrow; Scandal, I am yours: --that is, when
you speak well of me.

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

TATT.  How inhuman!

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

TATT.  But how barbarous that is, and how unfortunate for him, that
the world shall think the better of any person for his calumniation!
I thank heaven, it has always been a part of my character to handle
the reputations of others very tenderly indeed.

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

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

SCAN.  Not know 'em?  Why, thou never had'st to do with anybody that
did not stink to all the town.

TATT.  Ha, ha, ha; nay, now you make a jest of it indeed.  For there
is nothing more known than that nobody knows anything of that nature
of me.  As I hope to be saved, Valentine, I never exposed a woman,
since I knew what woman was.

VAL.  And yet you have conversed with several.

TATT.  To be free with you, I have.  I don't care if I own that.
Nay more (I'm going to say a bold word now) I never could meddle
with a woman that had to do with anybody else.

SCAN.  How?

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

TATT.  Oh, that -

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

TATT.  Pooh, I know Madam Drab has made her brags in three or four
places, that I said this and that, and writ to her, and did I know
not what--but, upon my reputation, she did me wrong--well, well,
that was malice--but I know the bottom of it.  She was bribed to
that by one we all know--a man too.  Only to bring me into disgrace
with a certain woman of quality -

SCAN.  Whom we all know.

TATT.  No matter for that.  Yes, yes, everybody knows.  No doubt
on't, everybody knows my secrets.  But I soon satisfied the lady of
my innocence; for I told her:  Madam, says I, there are some persons
who make it their business to tell stories, and say this and that of
one and t'other, and everything in the world; and, says I, if your
grace -

SCAN.  Grace!

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

VAL.  Ha, ha, ha.

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

VAL.  I confess this is something extraordinary.

TATT.  Not a word, as I hope to be saved; an errant lapsus linguae.
Come, let's talk of something else.

VAL.  Well, but how did you acquit yourself?

TATT.  Pooh, pooh, nothing at all; I only rallied with you--a woman
of ordinary rank was a little jealous of me, and I told her
something or other, faith I know not what.--Come, let's talk of
something else.  [Hums a song.]

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

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

VAL.  Yes.

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

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

TATT.  Oh, that is not fair.

SCAN.  What?

TATT.  To tell.

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

TATT.  Who, I?  Upon honour I don't know whether she be man or
woman, but by the smoothness of her chin and roundness of her hips.

SCAN.  No?

TATT.  No.

SCAN.  She says otherwise.

TATT.  Impossible!

SCAN.  Yes, faith.  Ask Valentine else.

TATT.  Why then, as I hope to be saved, I believe a woman only
obliges a man to secrecy that she may have the pleasure of telling
herself.

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

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

SCAN.  Well, you own it?

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

SCAN.  She'll be here by and by, she sees Valentine every morning.

TATT.  How?

VAL.  She does me the favour, I mean, of a visit sometimes.  I did
not think she had granted more to anybody.

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

TATT.  Nay, what do you mean, gentlemen?

SCAN.  I'm resolved I'll ask her.

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

SCAN.  No; you told us.

TATT.  And bid me ask Valentine?

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

TATT.  But, gentlemen, this is the most inhuman proceeding -

VAL.  Nay, if you have known Scandal thus long, and cannot avoid
such a palpable decoy as this was, the ladies have a fine time whose
reputations are in your keeping.


SCENE XII.


[To them] JEREMY.

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

VAL.  Show her up when she comes.


SCENE XIII.


VALENTINE, SCANDAL, TATTLE.

TATT.  I'll be gone.

VAL.  You'll meet her.

TATT.  Is there not a back way?

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

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

VAL.  Scandal, have pity on him; he'll yield to any conditions.

TATT.  Any, any terms.

SCAN.  Come, then, sacrifice half a dozen women of good reputation
to me presently.  Come, where are you familiar?  And see that they
are women of quality, too--the first quality.

TATT.  'Tis very hard.  Won't a baronet's lady pass?

SCAN.  No, nothing under a right honourable.

TATT.  Oh, inhuman!  You don't expect their names?

SCAN.  No, their titles shall serve.

TATT.  Alas, that's the same thing.  Pray spare me their titles.
I'll describe their persons.

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

TATT.  Well, first then -


SCENE XIV.


[To them] MRS FRAIL.

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

SCAN.  Well, on that condition.  Take heed you don't fail me.

MRS FRAIL.  I shall get a fine reputation by coming to see fellows
in a morning.  Scandal, you devil, are you here too?  Oh, Mr Tattle,
everything is safe with you, we know.

SCAN.  Tattle -

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

VAL.  Well, Lady Galloper, how does Angelica?

MRS FRAIL.  Angelica?  Manners!

VAL.  What, you will allow an absent lover -

MRS FRAIL.  No, I'll allow a lover present with his mistress to be
particular; but otherwise, I think his passion ought to give place
to his manners.

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

MRS FRAIL.  Then let him marry and reform.

VAL.  Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of his passion, but it
very rarely mends a man's manners.

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

VAL.  Pox take 'em, their conjunction bodes me no good, I'm sure.

MRS FRAIL.  Now you talk of conjunction, my brother Foresight has
cast both their nativities, and prognosticates an admiral and an
eminent justice of the peace to be the issue male of their two
bodies; 'tis the most superstitious old fool!  He would have
persuaded me that this was an unlucky day, and would not let me come
abroad.  But I invented a dream, and sent him to Artimedorus for
interpretation, and so stole out to see you.  Well, and what will
you give me now?  Come, I must have something.

VAL.  Step into the next room, and I'll give you something.

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

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

VAL.  Mine's a secret.

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

VAL.  And Scandal shall give you a good name.

MRS FRAIL.  That's more than he has for himself.  And what will you
give me, Mr Tattle?

TATT.  I?  My soul, madam.

MRS FRAIL.  Pooh!  No, I thank you, I have enough to do to take care
of my own.  Well, but I'll come and see you one of these mornings.
I hear you have a great many pictures.

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

SCAN.  Hang him, he has nothing but the Seasons and the Twelve
Caesars--paltry copies--and the Five Senses, as ill-represented as
they are in himself, and he himself is the only original you will
see there.

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

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

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

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

MRS FRAIL.  Well, but a woman -

TATT.  Nor woman, till she consented to have her picture there too--
for then she's obliged to keep the secret.

SCAN.  No, no; come to me if you'd see pictures.

MRS FRAIL.  You?

SCAN.  Yes, faith; I can shew you your own picture, and most of your
acquaintance to the life, and as like as at Kneller's.

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

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

SCAN.  Yes; mine are most in black and white.  And yet there are
some set out in their true colours, both men and women.  I can shew
you pride, folly, affectation, wantonness, inconstancy,
covetousness, dissimulation, malice and ignorance, all in one piece.
Then I can shew you lying, foppery, vanity, cowardice, bragging,
lechery, impotence, and ugliness in another piece; and yet one of
these is a celebrated beauty, and t'other a professed beau.  I have
paintings too, some pleasant enough.

MRS FRAIL.  Come, let's hear 'em.

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

MRS FRAIL.  So.

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

MRS FRAIL.  O devil!  Well, but that story is not true.

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

MRS FRAIL.  And no head?

SCAN.  No head.

MRS FRAIL.  Pooh, this is all invention.  Have you never a poet?

SCAN.  Yes, I have a poet weighing words, and selling praise for
praise, and a critic picking his pocket.  I have another large piece
too, representing a school, where there are huge proportioned
critics, with long wigs, laced coats, Steinkirk cravats, and
terrible faces; with cat-calls in their hands, and horn-books about
their necks.  I have many more of this kind, very well painted, as
you shall see.

MRS FRAIL.  Well, I'll come, if it be but to disprove you.


SCENE XIV.


[To them] JEREMY.

JERE.  Sir, here's the steward again from your father.

VAL.  I'll come to him--will you give me leave?  I'll wait on you
again presently,

MRS FRAIL.  No; I'll be gone.  Come, who squires me to the Exchange?
I must call my sister Foresight there.

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

MRS FRAIL.  Civil!

TATT.  I will:  because I have a tendre for your ladyship.

MRS FRAIL.  That's somewhat the better reason, to my opinion.

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

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

SCAN.  I'll give an account of you and your proceedings.  If
indiscretion be a sign of love, you are the most a lover of anybody
that I know:  you fancy that parting with your estate will help you
to your mistress.  In my mind he is a thoughtless adventurer


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



ACT II.--SCENE I.



A room in FORESIGHT's house.

FORESIGHT and SERVANT.

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

SERV.  No, sir.

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

SERV.  Yes, sir.

FORE.  I believe you lie, sir.

SERV.  Sir?

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

SERV.  I can't tell indeed, sir.

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


SCENE II.


[To them] NURSE.

FORE.  Nurse, where's your young mistress?

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

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

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

FORE.  Ha, how?  Faith and troth I'm glad of it; and so I have:
that may be good luck in troth, in troth it may, very good luck.
Nay, I have had some omens:  I got out of bed backwards too this
morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too; but then I
stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad omens those:
some bad, some good, our lives are chequered.  Mirth and sorrow,
want and plenty, night and day, make up our time.  But in troth I am
pleased at my stocking; very well pleased at my stocking.  Oh,
here's my niece!  Sirrah, go tell Sir Sampson Legend I'll wait on
him if he's at leisure: --'tis now three o'clock, a very good hour
for business:  Mercury governs this hour.


SCENE III.


ANGELICA, FORESIGHT, NURSE.

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

FORE.  What, would you be gadding too?  Sure, all females are mad
to-day.  It is of evil portent, and bodes mischief to the master of
a family.  I remember an old prophecy written by Messahalah the
Arabian, and thus translated by a reverend Buckinghamshire bard:-


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


Fruitful, the head fruitful, that bodes horns; the fruit of the head
is horns.  Dear niece, stay at home--for by the head of the house is
meant the husband; the prophecy needs no explanation.

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

FORE.  Yes, yes; while there's one woman left, the prophecy is not
in full force.

ANG.  But my inclinations are in force; I have a mind to go abroad,
and if you won't lend me your coach, I'll take a hackney or a chair,
and leave you to erect a scheme, and find who's in conjunction with
your wife.  Why don't you keep her at home, if you're jealous of her
when she's abroad?  You know my aunt is a little retrograde (as you
call it) in her nature.  Uncle, I'm afraid you are not lord of the
ascendant, ha, ha, ha!

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

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

FORE.  Why, you malapert slut -

ANG.  Will you lend me your coach, or I'll go on--nay, I'll declare
how you prophesied popery was coming only because the butler had
mislaid some of the apostle spoons, and thought they were lost.
Away went religion and spoon-meat together.  Indeed, uncle, I'll
indite you for a wizard.

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

NURSE.  O merciful father, how she talks!

ANG.  Yes, I can make oath of your unlawful midnight practices, you
and the old nurse there -

NURSE.  Marry, heaven defend!  I at midnight practices?  O Lord,
what's here to do?  I in unlawful doings with my master's worship--
why, did you ever hear the like now?  Sir, did ever I do anything of
your midnight concerns but warm your bed, and tuck you up, and set
the candle and your tobacco-box and your urinal by you, and now and
then rub the soles of your feet?  O Lord, I!

ANG.  Yes, I saw you together through the key-hole of the closet one
night, like Saul and the witch of Endor, turning the sieve and
shears, and pricking your thumbs, to write poor innocent servants'
names in blood, about a little nutmeg grater which she had forgot in
the caudle-cup.  Nay, I know something worse, if I would speak of
it.

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

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

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

FORE.  I will have patience, since it is the will of the stars I
should be thus tormented.  This is the effect of the malicious
conjunctions and oppositions in the third house of my nativity;
there the curse of kindred was foretold.  But I will have my doors
locked up;--I'll punish you:  not a man shall enter my house.

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

FORE.  But there's but one virgin among the twelve signs, spitfire,
but one virgin.

ANG.  Nor there had not been that one, if she had had to do with
anything but astrologers, uncle.  That makes my aunt go abroad.

FORE.  How, how?  Is that the reason?  Come, you know something;
tell me and I'll forgive you.  Do, good niece.  Come, you shall have
my coach and horses--faith and troth you shall.  Does my wife
complain?  Come, I know women tell one another.  She is young and
sanguine, has a wanton hazel eye, and was born under Gemini, which
may incline her to society.  She has a mole upon her lip, with a
moist palm, and an open liberality on the mount of Venus.

ANG.  Ha, ha, ha!

FORE.  Do you laugh?  Well, gentlewoman, I'll--but come, be a good
girl, don't perplex your poor uncle, tell me--won't you speak?  Odd,
I'll -


SCENE IV.


[To them] SERVANT.

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

ANG.  Good-bye, uncle--call me a chair.  I'll find out my aunt, and
tell her she must not come home.

FORE.  I'm so perplexed and vexed, I'm not fit to receive him; I
shall scarce recover myself before the hour be past.  Go nurse, tell
Sir Sampson I'm ready to wait on him.

NURSE.  Yes, sir,

FORE.  Well--why, if I was born to be a cuckold, there's no more to
be said--he's here already.


SCENE V.


FORESIGHT, and SIR SAMPSON LEGEND with a paper.

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

FORE.  Odso, let me see; let me see the paper.  Ay, faith and troth,
here 'tis, if it will but hold.  I wish things were done, and the
conveyance made.  When was this signed, what hour?  Odso, you should
have consulted me for the time.  Well, but we'll make haste -

SIR SAMP.  Haste, ay, ay; haste enough.  My son Ben will be in town
to-night.  I have ordered my lawyer to draw up writings of
settlement and jointure--all shall be done to-night.  No matter for
the time; prithee, brother Foresight, leave superstition.  Pox o'
the time; there's no time but the time present, there's no more to
be said of what's past, and all that is to come will happen.  If the
sun shine by day, and the stars by night, why, we shall know one
another's faces without the help of a candle, and that's all the
stars are good for.

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

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

FORE.  But I tell you, I have travelled, and travelled in the
celestial spheres, know the signs and the planets, and their houses.
Can judge of motions direct and retrograde, of sextiles, quadrates,
trines and oppositions, fiery-trigons and aquatical-trigons.  Know
whether life shall be long or short, happy or unhappy, whether
diseases are curable or incurable.  If journeys shall be prosperous,
undertakings successful, or goods stolen recovered; I know -

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

FORE.  I know when travellers lie or speak truth, when they don't
know it themselves.

SIR SAMP.  I have known an astrologer made a cuckold in the
twinkling of a star; and seen a conjurer that could not keep the
devil out of his wife's circle.

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

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

FORE.  Capricorn in your teeth, thou modern Mandeville; Ferdinand
Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first
magnitude.  Take back your paper of inheritance; send your son to
sea again.  I'll wed my daughter to an Egyptian mummy, e'er she
shall incorporate with a contemner of sciences, and a defamer of
virtue.

SIR SAMP.  Body o' me, I have gone too far; I must not provoke
honest Albumazar: --an Egyptian mummy is an illustrious creature, my
trusty hieroglyphic; and may have significations of futurity about
him; odsbud, I would my son were an Egyptian mummy for thy sake.
What, thou art not angry for a jest, my good Haly?  I reverence the
sun, moon and stars with all my heart.  What, I'll make thee a
present of a mummy:  now I think on't, body o' me, I have a shoulder
of an Egyptian king that I purloined from one of the pyramids,
powdered with hieroglyphics, thou shalt have it brought home to thy
house, and make an entertainment for all the philomaths, and
students in physic and astrology in and about London.

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

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


SCENE VI.


[To them] JEREMY.

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

FORE.  Nay, if you were but in jest--who's that fellow?  I don't
like his physiognomy.

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

JERE.  No, sir, Mr Valentine, my master; 'tis the first time he has
been abroad since his confinement, and he comes to pay his duty to
you.

SIR SAMP.  Well, sir.


SCENE VII.


FORESIGHT, SIR SAMPSON, VALENTINE, JEREMY.

JERE.  He is here, sir.

VAL.  Your blessing, sir.

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIR SAMP.  Oh, sir, I understand you--that's all, ha?

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

SIR SAMP.  No doubt of it, sweet sir; but your filial piety, and my
fatherly fondness would fit like two tallies.  Here's a rogue,
brother Foresight, makes a bargain under hand and seal in the
morning, and would be released from it in the afternoon; here's a
rogue, dog, here's conscience and honesty; this is your wit now,
this is the morality of your wits!  You are a wit, and have been a
beau, and may be a--why sirrah, is it not here under hand and seal--
can you deny it?

VAL.  Sir, I don't deny it.

SIR SAMP.  Sirrah, you'll be hanged; I shall live to see you go up
Holborn Hill.  Has he not a rogue's face?  Speak brother, you
understand physiognomy, a hanging look to me--of all my boys the
most unlike me; he has a damned Tyburn face, without the benefit o'
the clergy.

FORE.  Hum--truly I don't care to discourage a young man,--he has a
violent death in his face; but I hope no danger of hanging.

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

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

VAL.  Your son, sir.

SIR SAMP.  That's more than I know, sir, and I believe not.

VAL.  Faith, I hope not.

SIR SAMP.  What, would you have your mother a whore?  Did you ever
hear the like?  Did you ever hear the like?  Body o' me -

VAL.  I would have an excuse for your barbarity and unnatural usage.

SIR SAMP.  Excuse!  Impudence!  Why, sirrah, mayn't I do what I
please?  Are not you my slave?  Did not I beget you?  And might not
I have chosen whether I would have begot you or no?  'Oons, who are
you?  Whence came you?  What brought you into the world?  How came
you here, sir?  Here, to stand here, upon those two legs, and look
erect with that audacious face, ha?  Answer me that!  Did you come a
volunteer into the world?  Or did I, with the lawful authority of a
parent, press you to the service?

VAL.  I know no more why I came than you do why you called me.  But
here I am, and if you don't mean to provide for me, I desire you
would leave me as you found me.

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

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

SIR SAMP.  Body o' me, what a manyheaded monster have I propagated!

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

SIR SAMP.  'Oons, what had I to do to get children,--can't a private
man be born without all these followers?  Why, nothing under an
emperor should be born with appetites.  Why, at this rate, a fellow
that has but a groat in his pocket may have a stomach capable of a
ten shilling ordinary.

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

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

JERE.  By the provision that's made for me, you might have begot me
too.  Nay, and to tell your worship another truth, I believe you
did, for I find I was born with those same whoreson appetites too,
that my master speaks of.

SIR SAMP.  Why, look you there, now.  I'll maintain it, that by the
rule of right reason, this fellow ought to have been born without a
palate.  'S'heart, what should he do with a distinguishing taste?  I
warrant now he'd rather eat a pheasant, than a piece of poor John;
and smell, now, why I warrant he can smell, and loves perfumes above
a stink.  Why there's it; and music, don't you love music,
scoundrel?

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

SIR SAMP.  The spleen, ha, ha, ha; a pox confound you--solos or
sonatas?  'Oons, whose son are you?  How were you engendered,
muckworm?

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

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

SIR SAMP.  And if this rogue were anatomized now, and dissected, he
has his vessels of digestion and concoction, and so forth, large
enough for the inside of a cardinal, this son of a cucumber.--These
things are unaccountable and unreasonable.  Body o' me, why was not
I a bear, that my cubs might have lived upon sucking their paws?
Nature has been provident only to bears and spiders; the one has its
nutriment in his own hands; and t'other spins his habitation out of
his own entrails.

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

SIR SAMP.  Again!  'Oons, han't you four thousand pounds?  If I had
it again, I would not give thee a groat.--What, would'st thou have
me turn pelican, and feed thee out of my own vitals?  S'heart, live
by your wits:  you were always fond of the wits, now let's see, if
you have wit enough to keep yourself.  Your brother will be in town
to-night or to-morrow morning, and then look you perform covenants,
and so your friend and servant: --come, brother Foresight.


SCENE VIII.


VALENTINE, JEREMY.

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

VAL.  'Tis as much as I expected.  I did not come to see him, I came
to see Angelica:  but since she was gone abroad, it was easily
turned another way, and at least looked well on my side.  What's
here?  Mrs Foresight and Mrs Frail, they are earnest.  I'll avoid
'em.  Come this way, and go and enquire when Angelica will return.


SCENE IX.


MRS FORESIGHT and MRS FRAIL.

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

MRS FORE.  You will?

MRS FRAIL.  Yes, marry will I.  A great piece of business to go to
Covent Garden Square in a hackney coach, and take a turn with one's
friend.

MRS FORE.  Nay, two or three turns, I'll take my oath.

MRS FRAIL.  Well, what if I took twenty--I warrant if you had been
there, it had been only innocent recreation.  Lord, where's the
comfort of this life if we can't have the happiness of conversing
where we like?

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

MRS FRAIL.  Pooh, here's a clutter:  why should it reflect upon you?
I don't doubt but you have thought yourself happy in a hackney coach
before now.  If I had gone to Knight's Bridge, or to Chelsea, or to
Spring Garden, or Barn Elms with a man alone, something might have
been said.

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

MRS FRAIL.  Was I?  What do you mean?

MRS FORE.  You have been at a worse place.

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

MRS FORE.  I suppose you would not go alone to the World's End.

MRS FRAIL.  The World's End!  What, do you mean to banter me?

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

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

MRS FORE.  Very well, that will appear who has most; you never were
at the World's End?

MRS FRAIL.  No.

MRS FORE.  You deny it positively to my face?

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

MRS FORE.  No matter for that, it's as good a face as yours.

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

MRS FORE.  I'll allow you now to find fault with my face; for I'll
swear your impudence has put me out of countenance.  But look you
here now, where did you lose this gold bodkin?  Oh, sister, sister!

MRS FRAIL.  My bodkin!

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

MRS FRAIL.  Well, if you go to that, where did you find this bodkin?
Oh, sister, sister!  Sister every way.

MRS FORE.  Oh, devil on't, that I could not discover her without
betraying myself.  [Aside.]

MRS FRAIL.  I have heard gentlemen say, sister, that one should take
great care, when one makes a thrust in fencing, not to lie open
oneself.

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

MRS FRAIL.  With all my heart:  ours are but slight flesh wounds,
and if we keep 'em from air, not at all dangerous.  Well, give me
your hand in token of sisterly secrecy and affection.

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

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

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


SCENE X.


[To them] TATTLE and MISS PRUE.

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

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

MISS.  What must I call you then, are you not my father's wife?

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

MISS.  Look you here, madam, then, what Mr Tattle has given me.
Look you here, cousin, here's a snuff-box; nay, there's snuff in't.
Here, will you have any?  Oh, good!  How sweet it is.  Mr Tattle is
all over sweet, his peruke is sweet, and his gloves are sweet, and
his handkerchief is sweet, pure sweet, sweeter than roses.  Smell
him, mother--madam, I mean.  He gave me this ring for a kiss.

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

MISS.  Yes; I may tell my mother.  And he says he'll give me
something to make me smell so.  Oh, pray lend me your handkerchief.
Smell, cousin; he says he'll give me something that will make my
smocks smell this way.  Is not it pure?  It's better than lavender,
mun.  I'm resolved I won't let nurse put any more lavender among my
smocks--ha, cousin?

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

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

TATT.  Oh, madam; you are too severe upon Miss; you must not find
fault with her pretty simplicity:  it becomes her strangely.  Pretty
Miss, don't let 'em persuade you out of your innocency.

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

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

MRS FRAIL.  Ah devil, sly devil.  He's as close, sister, as a
confessor.  He thinks we don't observe him.

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

TATT.  Upon reputation

MRS FORE.  They're all so, sister, these men.  They love to have the
spoiling of a young thing, they are as fond of it, as of being first
in the fashion, or of seeing a new play the first day.  I warrant it
would break Mr Tattle's heart to think that anybody else should be
beforehand with him.

TATT.  O Lord, I swear I would not for the world -

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

MISS.  How you love to jeer one, cousin.

MRS FORE.  Hark'ee, sister, by my soul the girl is spoiled already.
D'ee think she'll ever endure a great lubberly tarpaulin?  Gad, I
warrant you she won't let him come near her after Mr Tattle.

MRS FRAIL.  O my soul, I'm afraid not--eh!--filthy creature, that
smells all of pitch and tar.  Devil take you, you confounded toad--
why did you see her before she was married?

MRS FORE.  Nay, why did we let him--my husband will hang us.  He'll
think we brought 'em acquainted.

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

MRS FORE.  So he would--but then leaving them together is as bad:
and he's such a sly devil, he'll never miss an opportunity.

MRS FRAIL.  I don't care; I won't be seen in't.

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


SCENE XI.


TATTLE, MISS PRUE.

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

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

MISS.  Come, must not we go too?

TATT.  No, no, they don't mean that.

MISS.  No!  What then?  What shall you and I do together?

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

MISS.  Yes, if you please.

TATT.  Frank, i'Gad, at least.  What a pox does Mrs Foresight mean
by this civility?  Is it to make a fool of me?  Or does she leave us
together out of good morality, and do as she would be done by?--Gad,
I'll understand it so.  [Aside.]

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

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

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

TATT.  D'ye think you can love me?

MISS.  Yes.

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

MISS.  What must I say then?

TATT.  Why you must say no, or you believe not, or you can't tell -

MISS.  Why, must I tell a lie then?

TATT.  Yes, if you'd be well bred.  All well bred persons lie.--
Besides, you are a woman, you must never speak what you think:  your
words must contradict your thoughts; but your actions may contradict
your words.  So when I ask you if you can love me, you must say no,
but you must love me too.  If I tell you you are handsome, you must
deny it, and say I flatter you.  But you must think yourself more
charming than I speak you:  and like me, for the beauty which I say
you have, as much as if I had it myself.  If I ask you to kiss me,
you must be angry, but you must not refuse me.  If I ask you for
more, you must be more angry,--but more complying; and as soon as
ever I make you say you'll cry out, you must be sure to hold your
tongue.

MISS.  O Lord, I swear this is pure.  I like it better than our old-
fashioned country way of speaking one's mind;--and must not you lie
too?

TATT.  Hum--yes--but you must believe I speak truth.

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

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

MISS.  No, indeed; I'm angry at you.  [Runs and kisses him.]

TATT.  Hold, hold, that's pretty well, but you should not have given
it me, but have suffered me to have taken it.

MISS.  Well, we'll do it again.

TATT.  With all my heart.--Now then, my little angel.  [Kisses her.]

MISS.  Pish.

TATT.  That's right,--again, my charmer.  [Kisses again.]

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

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

MISS.  No, indeed won't I; but I'll run there, and hide myself from
you behind the curtains.

TATT.  I'll follow you.

MISS.  Ah, but I'll hold the door with both hands, and be angry;--
and you shall push me down before you come in.

TATT.  No, I'll come in first, and push you down afterwards.

MISS.  Will you?  Then I'll be more angry and more complying.

TATT.  Then I'll make you cry out.

MISS.  Oh, but you shan't, for I'll hold my tongue.

TATT.  O my dear apt scholar!

MISS.  Well, now I'll run and make more haste than you.

TATT.  You shall not fly so fast, as I'll pursue.



ACT III.--SCENE I.



NURSE alone.

NURSE.  Miss, Miss, Miss Prue!  Mercy on me, marry and amen.  Why,
what's become of the child?  Why Miss, Miss Foresight!  Sure she has
locked herself up in her chamber, and gone to sleep, or to prayers:
Miss, Miss,--I hear her.--Come to your father, child; open the door.
Open the door, Miss.  I hear you cry husht.  O Lord, who's there?
[peeps]  What's here to do?  O the Father!  A man with her!  Why,
miss, I say; God's my life, here's fine doings towards--O Lord,
we're all undone.  O you young harlotry [knocks].  Od's my life,
won't you open the door?  I'll come in the back way.


SCENE II.


TATTLE, MISS PRUE.

MISS.  O Lord, she's coming, and she'll tell my father; what shall I
do now?

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

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

TATT.  There's no occasion for a lie; I could never tell a lie to no
purpose.  But since we have done nothing, we must say nothing, I
think.  I hear her,--I'll leave you together, and come off as you
can.  [Thrusts her in, and shuts the door.]


SCENE III.


TATTLE, VALENTINE, SCANDAL, ANGELICA.

ANG.  You can't accuse me of inconstancy; I never told you that I
loved you.

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

ANG.  You mistake indifference for uncertainty; I never had concern
enough to ask myself the question.

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

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

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

ANG.  Persuade your friend that it is all affectation.

SCAN.  I shall receive no benefit from the opinion; for I know no
effectual difference between continued affectation and reality.

TATT.  [coming up].   Scandal, are you in private discourse?
Anything of secrecy?  [Aside to SCANDAL.]

SCAN.  Yes, but I dare trust you; we were talking of Angelica's love
to Valentine.  You won't speak of it.

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

SCAN.  Ha, ha, ha!

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

SCAN.  Your love of Valentine.

ANG.  How!

TATT.  No, madam, his love for your ladyship.  Gad take me, I beg
your pardon,--for I never heard a word of your ladyship's passion
till this instant.

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

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

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

SCAN.  Is that your discretion?  Trust a woman with herself?

TATT.  You say true, I beg your pardon.  I'll bring all off.  It was
impossible, madam, for me to imagine that a person of your
ladyship's wit and gallantry could have so long received the
passionate addresses of the accomplished Valentine, and yet remain
insensible; therefore you will pardon me, if, from a just weight of
his merit, with your ladyship's good judgment, I formed the balance
of a reciprocal affection.

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

ANG.  I dare swear you wrong him, it is his own.  And Mr Tattle only
judges of the success of others, from the effects of his own merit.
For certainly Mr Tattle was never denied anything in his life.

TATT.  O Lord!  Yes, indeed, madam, several times.

ANG.  I swear I don't think 'tis possible.

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

ANG.  Nay, now you're ungrateful.

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

VAL.  There, now it's out.

ANG.  I don't understand you now.  I thought you had never asked
anything but what a lady might modestly grant, and you confess.

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

TATT.  Brag!  O heavens!  Why, did I name anybody?

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

TATT.  Not in my power, madam!  What, does your ladyship mean that I
have no woman's reputation in my power?

SCAN.  'Oons, why, you won't own it, will you?  [Aside.]

TATT.  Faith, madam, you're in the right; no more I have, as I hope
to be saved; I never had it in my power to say anything to a lady's
prejudice in my life.  For as I was telling you, madam, I have been
the most unsuccessful creature living, in things of that nature; and
never had the good fortune to be trusted once with a lady's secret,
not once.

ANG.  No?

VAL.  Not once, I dare answer for him.

SCAN.  And I'll answer for him; for I'm sure if he had, he would
have told me; I find, madam, you don't know Mr Tattle.

TATT.  No indeed, madam, you don't know me at all, I find.  For sure
my intimate friends would have known -

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

TATT.  O pox, Scandal, that was too far put.  Never have told
particulars, madam.  Perhaps I might have talked as of a third
person; or have introduced an amour of my own, in conversation, by
way of novel; but never have explained particulars.

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

SCAN.  Why, thence it arises--the thing is proverbially spoken; but
may be applied to him--as if we should say in general terms, he only
is secret who never was trusted; a satirical proverb upon our sex.
There's another upon yours--as she is chaste, who was never asked
the question.  That's all.

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

TATT.  Gad, it's very true, madam, I think we are obliged to acquit
ourselves.  And for my part--but your ladyship is to speak first.

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

TATT.  And i'Gad, I have given some temptation that has not been
resisted.

VAL.  Good.

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

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

SCAN.  So, why this is fair, here's demonstration with a witness.

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

SCAN.  Pooh, this proves nothing.

TATT.  No?  I can show letters, lockets, pictures, and rings; and if
there be occasion for witnesses, I can summon the maids at the
chocolate-houses, all the porters at Pall Mall and Covent Garden,
the door-keepers at the Playhouse, the drawers at Locket's,
Pontack's, the Rummer, Spring Garden, my own landlady and valet de
chambre; all who shall make oath that I receive more letters than
the Secretary's office, and that I have more vizor-masks to enquire
for me, than ever went to see the Hermaphrodite, or the Naked
Prince.  And it is notorious that in a country church once, an
enquiry being made who I was, it was answered, I was the famous
Tattle, who had ruined so many women.

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

TATT.  True; I was called Turk-Tattle all over the parish.  The next
Sunday all the old women kept their daughters at home, and the
parson had not half his congregation.  He would have brought me into
the spiritual court, but I was revenged upon him, for he had a
handsome daughter whom I initiated into the science.  But I repented
it afterwards, for it was talked of in town.  And a lady of quality
that shall be nameless, in a raging fit of jealousy, came down in
her coach and six horses, and exposed herself upon my account; Gad,
I was sorry for it with all my heart.  You know whom I mean--you
know where we raffled -

SCAN.  Mum, Tattle.

VAL.  'Sdeath, are not you ashamed?

ANG.  O barbarous!  I never heard so insolent a piece of vanity.
Fie, Mr Tattle; I'll swear I could not have believed it.  Is this
your secrecy?

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

SCAN.  No, don't; for then you'll tell us no more.  Come, I'll
recommend a song to you upon the hint of my two proverbs, and I see
one in the next room that will sing it.  [Goes to the door.]

TATT.  For heaven's sake, if you do guess, say nothing; Gad, I'm
very unfortunate.

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


SONG.

Set by Mr John Eccles.

I.

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

II.

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


SCENE IV.


[To them] SIR SAMPSON, MRS FRAIL, MISS PRUE, and SERVANT.

SIR SAMP.  Is Ben come?  Odso, my son Ben come?  Odd, I'm glad on't.
Where is he?  I long to see him.  Now, Mrs Frail, you shall see my
son Ben.  Body o' me, he's the hopes of my family.  I han't seen him
these three years--I warrant he's grown.  Call him in, bid him make
haste.  I'm ready to cry for joy.

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

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

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

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

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

ANG.  I can't.  Resolution must come to me, or I shall never have
one.

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


SCENE V.


ANGELICA, SIR SAMPSON, TATTLE, MRS FRAIL, MISS PRUE.

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

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

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

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

SIR SAMP.  Faith and troth, you're a wise woman, and I'm glad to
hear you say so; I was afraid you were in love with the reprobate.
Odd, I was sorry for you with all my heart.  Hang him, mongrel, cast
him off; you shall see the rogue show himself, and make love to some
desponding Cadua of fourscore for sustenance.  Odd, I love to see a
young spendthrift forced to cling to an old woman for support, like
ivy round a dead oak; faith I do, I love to see 'em hug and cotton
together, like down upon a thistle.


SCENE VI.


[To them] BEN LEGEND and SERVANT.

BEN.  Where's father?

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

SIR SAMP.  My son Ben!  Bless thee, my dear body.  Body o' me, thou
art heartily welcome.

BEN.  Thank you, father, and I'm glad to see you.

SIR SAMP.  Odsbud, and I'm glad to see thee; kiss me, boy, kiss me
again and again, dear Ben.  [Kisses him.]

BEN.  So, so, enough, father, Mess, I'd rather kiss these
gentlewomen.

SIR SAMP.  And so thou shalt.  Mrs Angelica, my son Ben.

BEN.  Forsooth, if you please.  [Salutes her.]  Nay, mistress, I'm
not for dropping anchor here; about ship, i'faith.  [Kisses Frail.]
Nay, and you too, my little cock-boat--so [Kisses Miss].

TATT.  Sir, you're welcome ashore.

BEN.  Thank you, thank you, friend.

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

BEN.  Ay, ay, been!  Been far enough, an' that be all.  Well,
father, and how do all at home?  How does brother Dick, and brother
Val?

SIR SAMP.  Dick--body o' me--Dick has been dead these two years.  I
writ you word when you were at Leghorn.

BEN.  Mess, that's true; marry!  I had forgot.  Dick's dead, as you
say.  Well, and how?  I have a many questions to ask you.  Well, you
ben't married again, father, be you?

SIR SAMP.  No; I intend you shall marry, Ben; I would not marry for
thy sake.

BEN.  Nay, what does that signify?  An' you marry again--why then,
I'll go to sea again, so there's one for t'other, an' that be all.
Pray don't let me be your hindrance--e'en marry a God's name, an the
wind sit that way.  As for my part, mayhap I have no mind to marry.

FRAIL.  That would be pity--such a handsome young gentleman.

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

SIR SAMP.  Ben's a wag.

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

SIR SAMP.  A very wag--Ben's a very wag; only a little rough, he
wants a little polishing.

MRS FRAIL.  Not at all; I like his humour mightily:  it's plain and
honest--I should like such a humour in a husband extremely.

BEN.  Say'n you so, forsooth?  Marry, and I should like such a
handsome gentlewoman for a bed-fellow hugely.  How say you,
mistress, would you like going to sea?  Mess, you're a tight vessel,
an well rigged, an you were but as well manned.

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

BEN.  But I'll tell you one thing, an you come to sea in a high
wind, or that lady--you may'nt carry so much sail o' your head--top
and top gallant, by the mess.

MRS FRAIL.  No, why so?

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

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

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

BEN.  No, I hope the gentlewoman is not angry; I mean all in good
part, for if I give a jest, I'll take a jest, and so forsooth you
may be as free with me.

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

TATT.  Well, Miss, I have your promise.  [Aside to Miss.]

SIR SAMP.  Body o' me, madam, you say true.  Look you, Ben, this is
your mistress.  Come, Miss, you must not be shame-faced; we'll leave
you together.

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

SIR SAMP.  No, no.  Come, let's away.

BEN.  Look you, father, mayhap the young woman mayn't take a liking
to me.

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


SCENE VII.


BEN, and MISS PRUE.

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

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

BEN.  Why that's true, as you say, nor I an't dumb, I can be heard
as far as another,--I'll heave off, to please you.  [Sits farther
off.]  An we were a league asunder, I'd undertake to hold discourse
with you, an 'twere not a main high wind indeed, and full in my
teeth.  Look you, forsooth, I am, as it were, bound for the land of
matrimony; 'tis a voyage, d'ye see, that was none of my seeking.  I
was commanded by father, and if you like of it, mayhap I may steer
into your harbour.  How say you, mistress?  The short of the thing
is, that if you like me, and I like you, we may chance to swing in a
hammock together.

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

BEN.  No?  I'm sorry for that.  But pray why are you so scornful?

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

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

MISS.  But I'm sure it is not so, for I'll speak sooner than you
should believe that; and I'll speak truth, though one should always
tell a lie to a man; and I don't care, let my father do what he
will; I'm too big to be whipt, so I'll tell you plainly, I don't
like you, nor love you at all, nor never will, that's more:  so
there's your answer for you; and don't trouble me no more, you ugly
thing.

BEN.  Look you, young woman, you may learn to give good words,
however.  I spoke you fair, d'ye see, and civil.  As for your love
or your liking, I don't value it of a rope's end; and mayhap I like
you as little as you do me:  what I said was in obedience to father.
Gad, I fear a whipping no more than you do.  But I tell you one
thing, if you should give such language at sea, you'd have a cat o'
nine tails laid cross your shoulders.  Flesh! who are you?  You
heard t'other handsome young woman speak civilly to me of her own
accord.  Whatever you think of yourself, gad, I don't think you are
any more to compare to her than a can of small-beer to a bowl of
punch.

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

BEN.  What, do you mean that fair-weather spark that was here just
now?  Will he thrash my jacket?  Let'n,--let'n.  But an he comes
near me, mayhap I may giv'n a salt eel for's supper, for all that.
What does father mean to leave me alone as soon as I come home with
such a dirty dowdy?  Sea-calf?  I an't calf enough to lick your
chalked face, you cheese-curd you: --marry thee?  Oons, I'll marry a
Lapland witch as soon, and live upon selling contrary winds and
wrecked vessels.

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


SCENE VIII.


[To them] MRS FORESIGHT and MRS FRAIL.

MRS FORE.  They have quarrelled, just as we could wish.

BEN.  Tar-barrel?  Let your sweetheart there call me so, if he'll
take your part, your Tom Essence, and I'll say something to him;
gad, I'll lace his musk-doublet for him, I'll make him stink:  he
shall smell more like a weasel than a civet-cat, afore I ha' done
with 'en.

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

BEN.  Let her cry:  the more she cries the less she'll--she has been
gathering foul weather in her mouth, and now it rains out at her
eyes.

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

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

BEN.  Venture, mess, and that I will, though 'twere to sea in a
storm.


SCENE IX.


SIR SAMPSON and FORESIGHT.

SIR SAMP.  I left 'em together here; what, are they gone?  Ben's a
brisk boy:  he has got her into a corner; father's own son, faith,
he'll touzle her, and mouzle her.  The rogue's sharp set, coming
from sea; if he should not stay for saving grace, old Foresight, but
fall to without the help of a parson, ha?  Odd, if he should I could
not be angry with him; 'twould be but like me, a chip of the old
block.  Ha! thou'rt melancholic, old Prognostication; as melancholic
as if thou hadst spilt the salt, or pared thy nails on a Sunday.
Come, cheer up, look about thee:  look up, old stargazer.  Now is he
poring upon the ground for a crooked pin, or an old horse-nail, with
the head towards him.

FORE.  Sir Sampson, we'll have the wedding to-morrow morning.

SIR SAMP.  With all my heart.

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

SIR SAMP.  To a minute, to a second; thou shalt set thy watch, and
the bridegroom shall observe its motions; they shall be married to a
minute, go to bed to a minute; and when the alarm strikes, they
shall keep time like the figures of St. Dunstan's clock, and
consummatum est shall ring all over the parish.


SCENE X.


[To them] SCANDAL.

SCAN.  Sir Sampson, sad news.

FORE.  Bless us!

SIR SAMP.  Why, what's the matter?

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

SIR SAMP.  Body o' me, I don't know any universal grievance, but a
new tax, or the loss of the Canary fleet.  Unless popery should be
landed in the West, or the French fleet were at anchor at Blackwall.

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

FORE.  'Tis no earthquake!

SCAN.  No, not yet; nor whirlwind.  But we don't know what it may
come to.  But it has had a consequence already that touches us all.

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

SCAN.  Something has appeared to your son Valentine.  He's gone to
bed upon't, and very ill.  He speaks little, yet he says he has a
world to say.  Asks for his father and the wise Foresight; talks of
Raymond Lully, and the ghost of Lilly.  He has secrets to impart, I
suppose, to you two.  I can get nothing out of him but sighs.  He
desires he may see you in the morning, but would not be disturbed
to-night, because he has some business to do in a dream.

SIR SAMP.  Hoity toity, what have I to do with his dreams or his
divination?  Body o' me, this is a trick to defer signing the
conveyance.  I warrant the devil will tell him in a dream that he
must not part with his estate.  But I'll bring him a parson to tell
him that the devil's a liar: --or if that won't do, I'll bring a
lawyer that shall out-lie the devil.  And so I'll try whether my
blackguard or his shall get the better of the day.


SCENE XI.


SCANDAL, FORESIGHT.

SCAN.  Alas, Mr Foresight, I'm afraid all is not right.  You are a
wise man, and a conscientious man, a searcher into obscurity and
futurity, and if you commit an error, it is with a great deal of
consideration, and discretion, and caution -

FORE.  Ah, good Mr Scandal -

SCAN.  Nay, nay, 'tis manifest; I do not flatter you.  But Sir
Sampson is hasty, very hasty.  I'm afraid he is not scrupulous
enough, Mr Foresight.  He has been wicked, and heav'n grant he may
mean well in his affair with you.  But my mind gives me, these
things cannot be wholly insignificant.  You are wise, and should not
be over-reached, methinks you should not -

FORE.  Alas, Mr Scandal,--humanum est errare.

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

FORE.  You are learned, Mr Scandal.

SCAN.  A trifler--but a lover of art.  And the Wise Men of the East
owed their instruction to a star, which is rightly observed by
Gregory the Great in favour of astrology.  And Albertus Magnus makes
it the most valuable science, because, says he, it teaches us to
consider the causation of causes, in the causes of things.

FORE.  I protest I honour you, Mr Scandal.  I did not think you had
been read in these matters.  Few young men are inclined -

SCAN.  I thank my stars that have inclined me.  But I fear this
marriage and making over this estate, this transferring of a
rightful inheritance, will bring judgments upon us.  I prophesy it,
and I would not have the fate of Cassandra not to be believed.
Valentine is disturbed; what can be the cause of that?  And Sir
Sampson is hurried on by an unusual violence.  I fear he does not
act wholly from himself; methinks he does not look as he used to do.

FORE.  He was always of an impetuous nature.  But as to this
marriage, I have consulted the stars, and all appearances are
prosperous -

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

FORE.  How?

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

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

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

FORE.  Pray explain yourself.

SCAN.  Do you sleep well o' nights?

FORE.  Very well.

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

FORE.  I am in health, I think.

SCAN.  So was Valentine this morning; and looked just so.

FORE.  How?  Am I altered any way?  I don't perceive it.

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

FORE.  Indeed!  Bless me!


SCENE XII.


[To them] MRS FORESIGHT.

MRS FORE.  Husband, will you go to bed?  It's ten a'clock.  Mr
Scandal, your servant.

SCAN.  Pox on her, she has interrupted my design--but I must work
her into the project.  You keep early hours, madam.

MRS FORE.  Mr Foresight is punctual; we sit up after him.

FORE.  My dear, pray lend me your glass, your little looking-glass.

SCAN.  Pray lend it him, madam.  I'll tell you the reason.

[She gives him the glass:  SCANDAL and she whisper.]  My passion for
you is grown so violent, that I am no longer master of myself.  I
was interrupted in the morning, when you had charity enough to give
me your attention, and I had hopes of finding another opportunity of
explaining myself to you, but was disappointed all this day; and the
uneasiness that has attended me ever since brings me now hither at
this unseasonable hour.

MRS FORE.  Was there ever such impudence, to make love to me before
my husband's face?  I'll swear I'll tell him.

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

FORE.  I do not see any revolution here; methinks I look with a
serene and benign aspect--pale, a little pale--but the roses of
these cheeks have been gathered many years;--ha!  I do not like that
sudden flushing.  Gone already! hem, hem, hem! faintish.  My heart
is pretty good; yet it beats; and my pulses, ha!--I have none--mercy
on me--hum.  Yes, here they are--gallop, gallop, gallop, gallop,
gallop, gallop, hey!  Whither will they hurry me?  Now they're gone
again.  And now I'm faint again, and pale again, and hem! and my
hem! breath, hem! grows short; hem! hem! he, he, hem!

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

MRS FORE.  How do you do, Mr Foresight!

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

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

FORE.  Very likely.

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

SCAN.  And did not use to be so?

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

FORE.  I will go to bed.

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

MRS FORE.  Nurse, nurse!

FORE.  Do you think so, Mr Scandal?

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

FORE.  I hope so.


SCENE XIII.


[To them] NURSE.

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

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

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

NURSE.  Yes, sir.

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

SCAN.  No, no, you look much better.

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

SCAN.  I hope so.  Leave that to me; I will erect a scheme; and I
hope I shall find both Sol and Venus in the sixth house.

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


SCENE XIV.


SCANDAL, MRS FORESIGHT.

SCAN.  Good night, good Mr Foresight; and I hope Mars and Venus will
be in conjunction;--while your wife and I are together.

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

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

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

SCAN.  Yes, several, very honest; they'll cheat a little at cards,
sometimes, but that's nothing.

MRS FORE.  Pshaw! but virtuous, I mean?

SCAN.  Yes, faith, I believe some women are virtuous too; but 'tis
as I believe some men are valiant, through fear.  For why should a
man court danger or a woman shun pleasure?

MRS FORE.  Oh, monstrous!  What are conscience and honour?

SCAN.  Why, honour is a public enemy, and conscience a domestic
thief; and he that would secure his pleasure must pay a tribute to
one and go halves with t'other.  As for honour, that you have
secured, for you have purchased a perpetual opportunity for
pleasure.

MRS FORE.  An opportunity for pleasure?

SCAN.  Ay, your husband, a husband is an opportunity for pleasure:
so you have taken care of honour, and 'tis the least I can do to
take care of conscience.

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

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

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

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

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

SCAN.  Come, I know what you would say:  you think it more dangerous
to be seen in conversation with me than to allow some other men the
last favour; you mistake:  the liberty I take in talking is purely
affected for the service of your sex.  He that first cries out stop
thief is often he that has stol'n the treasure.  I am a juggler,
that act by confederacy; and if you please, we'll put a trick upon
the world.

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

SCAN.  Faith, I'm sound.

MRS FORE.  Oh, fie--I'll swear you're impudent.

SCAN.  I'll swear you're handsome.

MRS FORE.  Pish, you'd tell me so, though you did not think so.

SCAN.  And you'd think so, though I should not tell you so.  And now
I think we know one another pretty well.

MRS FORE.  O Lord, who's here?


SCENE XV.


[To them] MRS FRAIL and BEN.

BEN.  Mess, I love to speak my mind.  Father has nothing to do with
me.  Nay, I can't say that neither; he has something to do with me.
But what does that signify?  If so be that I ben't minded to be
steered by him; 'tis as thof he should strive against wind and tide.

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

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

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

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

MRS FRAIL.  Well, but if you should forsake me after all, you'd
break my heart.

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

MRS FRAIL.  And will you love me always?

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

MRS FRAIL.  Hold, there's my sister, I'll call her to hear it.

MRS FORE.  Well; I won't go to bed to my husband to-night, because
I'll retire to my own chamber, and think of what you have said.

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

MRS FORE.  Hold, here's my sister coming towards us.

MRS FRAIL.  If it won't interrupt you I'll entertain you with a
song.

BEN.  The song was made upon one of our ship's-crew's wife.  Our
boatswain made the song.  Mayhap you may know her, sir.  Before she
was married she was called buxom Joan of Deptford.

SCAN.  I have heard of her.

BEN.  [Sings]:-


BALLAD.

Set by MR JOHN ECCLES.

I.

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

II.

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

III.

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

BEN.  If some of our crew that came to see me are not gone, you
shall see that we sailors can dance sometimes as well as other
folks.  [Whistles.]  I warrant that brings 'em, an they be within
hearing.  [Enter seamen].   Oh, here they be--and fiddles along with
'em.  Come, my lads, let's have a round, and I'll make one.
[Dance.]

BEN.  We're merry folks, we sailors:  we han't much to care for.
Thus we live at sea; eat biscuit, and drink flip, put on a clean
shirt once a quarter; come home and lie with our landladies once a
year, get rid of a little money, and then put off with the next fair
wind.  How d'ye like us?

MRS FRAIL.  Oh, you are the happiest, merriest men alive.

MRS FORE.  We're beholden to Mr Benjamin for this entertainment.  I
believe it's late.

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

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

SCAN.  Why, faith, I have a good lively imagination, and can dream
as much to the purpose as another, if I set about it.  But dreaming
is the poor retreat of a lazy, hopeless, and imperfect lover; 'tis
the last glimpse of love to worn-out sinners, and the faint dawning
of a bliss to wishing girls and growing boys.


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



ACT IV.--SCENE I.



Valentine's lodging.

SCANDAL and JEREMY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

SCAN.  Well, I'll try her: --'tis she--here she comes.


SCENE II.


[To them] ANGELICA with JENNY.

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

SCAN.  Not upon a kind occasion, madam.  But when a lady comes
tyrannically to insult a ruined lover, and make manifest the cruel
triumphs of her beauty, the barbarity of it something surprises me.

ANG.  I don't like raillery from a serious face.  Pray tell me what
is the matter?

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

ANG.  How d'ye mean, mad?

JERE.  Why, faith, madam, he's mad for want of his wits, just as he
was poor for want of money; his head is e'en as light as his
pockets, and anybody that has a mind to a bad bargain can't do
better than to beg him for his estate.

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

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

ANG.  Mr Scandal, you can't think me guilty of so much inhumanity as
not to be concerned for a man I must own myself obliged to?  Pray
tell me truth.

SCAN.  Faith, madam, I wish telling a lie would mend the matter.
But this is no new effect of an unsuccessful passion.

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

SCAN.  I'm afraid the physician is not willing you should see him
yet.  Jeremy, go in and enquire.


SCENE III.


SCANDAL, ANGELICA, JENNY.

ANG.  Ha!  I saw him wink and smile.  I fancy 'tis a trick--I'll
try.--I would disguise to all the world a failing which I must own
to you:  I fear my happiness depends upon the recovery of Valentine.
Therefore I conjure you, as you are his friend, and as you have
compassion upon one fearful of affliction, to tell me what I am to
hope for--I cannot speak--but you may tell me, tell me, for you know
what I would ask?

SCAN.  So, this is pretty plain.  Be not too much concerned, madam;
I hope his condition is not desperate.  An acknowledgment of love
from you, perhaps, may work a cure, as the fear of your aversion
occasioned his distemper.

ANG.  [Aside.]  Say you so; nay, then, I'm convinced.  And if I
don't play trick for trick, may I never taste the pleasure of
revenge.--Acknowledgment of love!  I find you have mistaken my
compassion, and think me guilty of a weakness I am a stranger to.
But I have too much sincerity to deceive you, and too much charity
to suffer him to be deluded with vain hopes.  Good nature and
humanity oblige me to be concerned for him; but to love is neither
in my power nor inclination, and if he can't be cured without I suck
the poison from his wounds, I'm afraid he won't recover his senses
till I lose mine.

SCAN.  Hey, brave woman, i'faith--won't you see him, then, if he
desire it?

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

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

ANG.  But I have considered that passions are unreasonable and
involuntary; if he loves, he can't help it; and if I don't love, I
can't help it; no more than he can help his being a man, or I my
being a woman:  or no more than I can help my want of inclination to
stay longer here.  Come, Jenny.


SCENE IV.


SCANDAL, JEREMY.

SCAN.  Humh!  An admirable composition, faith, this same womankind.

JERE.  What, is she gone, sir?

SCAN.  Gone?  Why, she was never here, nor anywhere else; nor I
don't know her if I see her, nor you neither.

JERE.  Good lack!  What's the matter now?  Are any more of us to be
mad?  Why, sir, my master longs to see her, and is almost mad in
good earnest with the joyful news of her being here.

SCAN.  We are all under a mistake.  Ask no questions, for I can't
resolve you; but I'll inform your master.  In the meantime, if our
project succeed no better with his father than it does with his
mistress, he may descend from his exaltation of madness into the
road of common sense, and be content only to be made a fool with
other reasonable people.  I hear Sir Sampson.  You know your cue;
I'll to your master.


SCENE V.


JEREMY, SIR SAMPSON LEGEND, with a LAWYER.

SIR SAMP.  D'ye see, Mr Buckram, here's the paper signed with his
own hand.

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

SIR SAMP.  Ready, body o' me?  He must be ready.  His sham-sickness
shan't excuse him.  Oh, here's his scoundrel.  Sirrah, where's your
master?

JERE.  Ah sir, he's quite gone.

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

JERE.  No, sir, not dead.

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

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

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

JERE.  Would you could, sir, for he has lost himself.  Indeed, sir,
I have a'most broke my heart about him--I can't refrain tears when I
think of him, sir:  I'm as melancholy for him as a passing-bell,
sir, or a horse in a pound.

SIR SAMP.  A pox confound your similitudes, sir.  Speak to be
understood, and tell me in plain terms what the matter is with him,
or I'll crack your fool's skull.

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

SIR SAMP.  Mad!

BUCK.  What, is he non compos?

JERE.  Quite non compos, sir.

BUCK.  Why, then, all's obliterated, Sir Sampson, if he be non
compos mentis; his act and deed will be of no effect, it is not good
in law.

SIR SAMP.  Oons, I won't believe it; let me see him, sir.  Mad--I'll
make him find his senses.

JERE.  Mr Scandal is with him, sir; I'll knock at the door.

[Goes to the scene, which opens.]


SCENE VI.


SIR SAMPSON, VALENTINE, SCANDAL, JEREMY, and LAWYER.  VALENTINE upon
a couch disorderly dressed.

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

VAL.  Ha!  Who's that?  [Starting.]

SCAN.  For heav'n's sake softly, sir, and gently; don't provoke him.

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

SIR SAMP.  Gads bobs, does he not know me?  Is he mischievous?  I'll
speak gently.  Val, Val, dost thou not know me, boy?  Not know thy
own father, Val?  I am thy own father, and this is honest Brief
Buckram, the lawyer.

VAL.  It may be so--I did not know you--the world is full.  There
are people that we do know, and people that we do not know, and yet
the sun shines upon al