Mill. A walk! what then? Sir Wil. Nay, nothing; only for the walk's sake, that's all. Mill. I nauseate walking; 'tis a country diversion; I loathe the country, and every thing that relates to it. Sir Wil. Indeed! hah! look ye, look ye, you do? nay, 'tis like you may-Here are choice of pastimes here in town, as plays and the like, that must be confessed indeed. Mill. Ah l'étourdie! I hate the town too. Sir Wil. Dear heart, that's much- -Hah! that you should hate 'em both! hah! 'tis like you may; there are some cann't relish the town, and others cann't away with the country-'tis like you may be one of those, cousin. Mill. Ha, ha, ha! Yes, 'tis like I may.-You have nothing further to say to me? Sir Wil. Not at present, cousin.-'Tis like when I have an opportunity to be more private I may break my mind in some measure-I conjecture you partly guess-However, that's as time shall try-but spare to speak, and spare to Mill. It may be in things of common application, but never sure in love. O, I hate a lover that can dare to think he draws a moment's air independent on the bounty of his mistress. There is not so impudent a thing in nature, as the saucy look of an assured man, confident of success. The pedantic arrogance of a very husband has not so pragmatical an air.-Ah! I'll never marry, unless I am first made sure of my will and pleasure. Mira. Would you have 'em both before marriage? Or will you be contented with only the first now, and stay for the other till after grace? Mill. Ah! don't be impertinent-My dear liberty, shall I leave thee? My faithful solitude, my darling contemplation, must I bid you then adieu? Ay, adieu-My morning thoughts, agreeable wakings, indolent slumbers, ye douceurs, ye sommeils du matin, adieu-I can't do it; 'tis more than impossible-Positively, Mirabell, I'll lie a-bed in a morning as long as I please. Mira. Then I'll get up in a morning as early as I please. Mill. Ah! idle creature, get up when you -And, d'ye hear, I won't be called names after I'm married; positively I won't be called speed, as they say. Mill. If it is of no great importance, Sir Wil-willfull, you will oblige me by leaving me. I have just now a little business Sir Will. Enough, enough, cousin : yes, yes, all a case- -When you're disposed. Now's as well as another time; and another time as well as now. All's one for that-Yes, yes, if your concerns call you, there's no haste; it will keep cold, as they say-Cousin, your servant.think this door's locked. Mill. You may go this way, sir. Sir Wil. Your servant; then with your leave I'll return to my company. Mill. Ay, ay; ha, ha, ha! [Exit. Like Phoebus sung the no less am'rous boy. Mira. Like Daphne she, as lovely and as coy. Do you lock yourself up from me, to make my search more curious? Or is this pretty artifice contrived, to signify that here the chace must end, and my pursuit be crowned, for you can fly no further? Mill. Vanity! No-I'll fly and be followed to the last moment; though I am upon the very verge of matrimony, I expect you should solicit me as much as if I were wavering at the grate of a monastery, with one foot over the threshold. I'll be solicited to the very last, nay, and afterwards. Mira. What, after the last? Mill. O, I should think I was poor, and had nothing to bestow, if I were reduced to an inglorious ease, and freed from the agreeable fatigues of solicitation. Mira. But do not you know, that when favours are conferred upon instant and tedious solicitation, that they diminish in their value, and that both the giver loses the grace, and the receiver lessens his pleasure? names. Mira. Names! Mill. Ay, as wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweetheart, and the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their wives are so fulsomely familiar-I shall never bear that Good Mirabell, don't let us be familiar or fond, nor kiss before folks, like my Lady Fadler and Sir Francis nor go in public together the first Sunday in a new chariot, to provoke eyes and whispers, and then never be seen there together again; as if we were proud of one another the first week, and ashamed of one another ever after. Let us never visit together, nor go to a play together, but let us be very strange and well bred: let us be as strange as if we had been married a great while; and as well bred as if we were not married at all. Mira. Have you any more conditions to offer? hitherto your demands are pretty reasonable. Mill. Trifles-as liberty to pay and receive visits, to and from whom I please; to write and receive letters without interrogatories or wry faces on your part; to wear what I please; and choose conversation with regard only to my own taste; to have no obligation upon me to converse with wits that I don't like, because they are your acquaintance; or to be intimate with fools, because they may be your relations. Come to dinner when I please; dine in my dressingroom when I'm out of humour, without giving a reason. To have my closet inviolate; to be sole empress of my tea-table, which you must never presume to approach without first asking leave. And lastly, wherever I am, you shall always knock at the door before you come in. These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into a wife. Mira. Your bill of fare is something advanced in this latter account. Well, have I liberty to offer conditions-That when you are dwindled into a wife, I may not be beyond measure enlarged into a husband? Mill. You have free leave; propose your utmost; speak, and spare not. Mira. I thank you. Imprimis, then, I covenant that your acquaintance be general; that you admit no sworn confidante, or intimate of your own sex: no she friend, to screen her affairs under your countenance, and tempt you to make trial of a mutual secrecy. No decoy-duck to wheedle you a fop-scrambling to the play in a mask-Then bring you home in a pretended fright, when you think you shall be found out-And rail at me for missing the play, and disappointing the frolic which you had to pick me up, and prove my constancy. Mill. Detestable imprimis! I go to the play in a mask! Mira. Then we're agreed. Shall I kiss your hand upon the contract? And here comes one to be a witness to the sealing of the deed. Mrs FAINALL enters. Mill. Fainall, what shall I do? shall I have him? I think I must have him. Mrs Fain. Ay, ay, take him, take him; what should you do? Mill. Well then-I'll take my death I'm in a horrid fright-Fainall, I shall never say it-well -I think-I'll endure you. Mrs Fun. Fie, fie, have him, have him, and tell him so in plain terms; for I am sure you have a mind to have him. Mitl. Are you? I think I have-and the horrid man looks as if he thought so too-Well, you ridiculous thing you, I'll have you-I won't be kissed, nor I won't be thanked-Here, kiss my hand though- -so, hold your tongue now; don't say a word. Mira. Item, I article that you continue to Mrs Fain. Mirabell, there's a necessity for like your own face as long as I shail; and while your obedience; you have neither time to talk it passes current with me, that you endeavour nor stay. My mother is coming; and in my not to new-coin it. To which end, together conscience if she should see you, would fall into with all vizards for the day, I prohibit all masks fits, and may be not recover time enough to re. for the night, made of oiled-skins, and I know turn to Sir Rowland, who, as Foible tells me, is not what-hog's-bones, hare's-gall, pig water, in a fair way to succeed. Therefore spare your and the marrow of a roasted cat. In short, I for- ecstacies for another occasion, and slip down the bid all commerce with the gentlewoman in what-back-stairs, where Foible waits to consult you. d'ye-call-it court. Item, I shut my door against all procuresses with baskets, and pennyworths of muslin, china, fans, &c. Item, when you shall be breeding Mill. Ah! name it not. Mill. Ay, go, go. In the mean time I'll suppose you have said something to please me. Mira. I am all obedience. [Exit. Mrs Fain. Yonder's Sir Wilfull drunk! and so noisy, that my mother has been forced to Mira. Which may be presumed, with a bless- leave Sir Rowland to appease him; but he aning on our endeavours Mill. Odious endeavours! Mira. I denounce against all strait-lacing, squeezing for a shape, till you mould my boy's head like a sugar-loaf! and, instead of a manchild, make me father to a crooked billet. Lastly, to the dominion of the tea-table I submit But with proviso, that you exceed not in your province; but restrain yourself to native and simple tea-table drinks, as tea, chocolate, and coffee. As likewise to genuine and authorized tea-table talk-Such as mending of fashions, spoiling reputations, railing at absent friends, and so forth-But that on no account you encroach on the men's prerogative, and presume to drink healths, or toast fellows; for prevention of which I banish all foreign forces, all auxiliaries to the tea-table, as orange-brandy, all anniseed, cinnamon, citron, and Barbadoes waters, together with ratafia, and the most noble spirit of clary.But for cowslip wine, poppey-water, and all dormitives, those I allow.-These proviso admitted, in other things I may prove a tractable and complying husband. odious Mill. O, horrid proviso! filthy strong waters! I toast fellows; odious men! I hate proviso your swers her only with singing and drinking-what they may have done by this time I know not; but Petulant and he were upon quarrelling as I came by. Mill. Well, if Mirabell should not make a good husband, I am a lost thing; for I find I love him violently. Mrs Fain. So it seems; for you mind not what's said to you.-If you doubt him, you had better take up with Sir Wilfull. Mill. How can you name that superannuated lubber? foh! WITWOULD enters, from drinking. Mrs Fain. Se is the fray made up, that you have left 'em? -I Wit. Left 'em? I could stay no longer— have laugh'd like ten christenings-I am tipsy with laughing-If I had staid any longer I should have burst-I must have been let out and pierced in the sides, like an unsized camlet.Yes, yes, the fray is composed; my lady came in like a noli prosequi, and stopt the proceedings. Mill. What was the dispute? Wit. That's the jest; there was no dispute. They could neither of 'em speak for rage, and so fell a sputtering at one another, like two roasting apples. PETULANT enters, drunk. Now, Petulant, all's over, all's well? gad, my head begins to whim it about-Why dost thou not speak? thou art both as drunk and as mute as a fish. Pet. Look you, Mrs Millamant-if you can love me, dear nymph-say it-and that's the conclusion-pass on, or pass off-that's all. Wit. Thou hast uttered volumes, folios, in less than decimo sexto, my dear Lacedemonian. Sirrah, Petulant, thou art an epitomizer of words. Pet. Witwould-You are an annihilator of sense. Wit. Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants, like a maker of pin-cushions-thou art in truth (metaphorically speaking) a speaker of short-hand. Pet. Thou art (without a figure) just one half of an ass, and Baldwin yonder, thy half-brother, is the rest-a gemini of asses split, would make just four of you. Wit. Thou dost bite, my dear mustard-seed; kiss me for that. Pet. Stand off-I'll kiss no more males.] have kissed your twin yonder in a humour of reconciliation, till he [Hiccups] rises upon my sto mach like a raddish. Mill. Eh! filthy creature-what was the quar rel? Pet. If I have the humour to quarrel, I can make less matters conclude premises-if you are not handsome, what then, if I have a humour to prove it? If I shall have my reward, say so: if not, fight for your face the next time yourself -I'll go sleep. Wit. Do wrap thyself up like a wood-louse, and dream revenge-and hear me, if thou canst learn to write by to-morrow morning, pen me a challenge I'll carry it for thee. go to Pet. Carry your mistress's monkey a spider-go flea dogs, and read romances) -I'll bed to my maid. [Exit. Mrs Fain. He's horridly drunk-how came you all in this pickle? Wit. A plot, a plot, to get rid of the knight. -Your husband's advice; but he sneaked off. Sir WILFULL, drunk, and Lady WISHPORT enter. L. Wish. Out upon't, out upon't! at years of discretion, and comport yourself at this rantipole rate! Sir Wil. No offence, aunt. L. Wish. Offence! as I am a person, I'm ashamed of you-foh! how you stink of wine! most Sir Wil. 'Sheart! an you grutch me your li quor, make a bill-give me more drink, and take my purse. [Sings. Pr'ythee fill me the glass For a bumper has not its fellow. the word, and I'll do't-Wilfull will do't, that's But if you would have me marry my cousin-say the word-Wilfull will do't, that's my crestmy motto I have forgot. L. Wish. My nephew's a little overtaken, cousin-but 'tis with drinking your healthO' my word, you are obliged to him Sir Wil. In vino veritas, aunt: if I drunk your health to-day, cousin-I am a borachio. But if you have a mind to be married, say the word, and send for the piper; Wilfull will do't. If not, dust it away, and let's have t'other round -Tony! od's heart, where's Tony?—Tony's and that's a fault. an honest fellow, but he spits after a bumper, [Sings. We'll drink, and we'll never ha' done, boys. Put the glass then around with the sun, boys. Let Apollo's example invite us; For he's drunk every night, And that makes him so bright, The sun's a good pimple, an honest soaker; he has a cellar at your Antipodes. If I travel, aunt, I touch at your Antipodesyour Antipodes are good rascally sort of topsy-turvy fellows-if I had a bumper I'd stand upon my head and drink a health to them-A match or no match, cousin with the hard name?-Aunt, Wilfull will do't. If she has her maidenhead, let her look to't; if she has not, let her keep her own counsel in the mean time, and cry out at the nine month's end. Mill. Your pardon, madam, I can stay no longer-Sir Wilfull grows very powerful. Égh! how he smells! I shall be overcome if I stay. Come, cousin. [Exeunt MILLAMANT and Mrs FAINALL. L. Wish. Smells! he would poison a tallowchandler and his family. Beastly creature! I know not what to do with him. Travel, quotha! ay, travel, travel, get thee gone, get thee gone, get thee but far enough, to the Saracens, or the Tartars, or the Turks; for thou art not fit to live in a Christian commonwealth, thou beastly Pagan. Sir Wil. Turks! no; no Turks, aunt; your Turks are infidels, and believe not in the grave. Your Mahometan, your Musselman is a dry To drink is a Christian diversion, Crown a health to the king, L. Wish. Sir Rowland impatient? good lack! what shall I do with this beastly tumbril?-go lie down and sleep, you sot; or, as I'm a person, I'll have you bastinadoed with broomsticks. Call up the wenches with broomsticks. es? Sir Wil. Ahey! wenches; where are the wench L. Wish. Dear cousin Witwould, get him away, and you will bind me to you inviolably. I have an affair of moment that invades me with some precipitation-you will oblige me to all futurity. Wit. Come, knight-plague on him, I don't know what to say to him-will you go to a cockmatch? Sir Wil. With a wench, Tony? Is she a shakebag, sirrah? let me bite your cheek for that. a most prevailing vehemence-But a day or two for decency of marriage. Wait. For decency of funeral, madam. The delay will break my heart; or if that should fail, I shall be poisoned. My nephew will get an inkling of my designs, and poison me, and I would willingly starve him before I die: I would gladly go out of the world with that satisfaction. That would be some comfort to me, if I could but live so long as to be revenged on that unnatural viper. L. Wish. Is he so unnatural, say you? Truly I would contribute much both to the saving of your life and the accomplishment of your revenge. Not that I respect myself; though he has been a perfidious wretch to me. Wait. Perfidious to you! L. Wish. O, Sir Rowland, the hours that he has died away at my feet, the tears that he has shed, the oaths that he has sworn, the palpitations that he has felt, the trances and tremblings, the ardours and the ecstacies, the kneelings and the risings, the heart-heavings and the hand-gripings, the pangs and the pathetic regards of his protesting eyes! Oh, no memory can register. Wait. What, my rival! is the rebel my rival? a' dies. L. W'ish. No, don't kill him at once, Sir Rowland; starve him gradually, inch by inch. Wait. I'll do't. In three weeks he shall be barefoot; in a month out at knees with begging an alms. He shall starve upward and upward, till he has nothing living but his head, and then go out in a stink, like a candle's end upon a saveall. Wit. Horrible! he has a breath like a bag- L. Wish. Well, Sir Rowland, you have the pipe.—Ay, ay, come, will you march, my Salopi-way-You are no novice in the labyrinth of love an? Sir Wil. Lead on, little Tony.-I'll follow thee, my Anthony, my Tanthony: sirrah, thou shalt be my Tanthony, and I'll be thy pig. -And a fig for your sultan and sophi. L. Wish. This will never do. It will never make a match-At least before he has been abroad. WAITWELL enters disguised as for Sir Row LAND. Dear Sir Rowland, I am confounded with confusion at the retrospection of my own rudeness. -I have more pardons to ask than the pope distributes in the year of jubilee. But I hope where there is likely to be so near an alliance, we may unbend the severity of decorum, and dispense with a little ceremony. Wait. My impatience, madam, is the effect of my transport; and till I have the possession of your adorable person, I am tantalized on the rack, and do but hang, madam, on the tenter of expectation. L. Wish. You have an excess of gallantry, Sir Rowland, and press things to a conclusion with You have the clue-But, as I am a person, Sir Rowland, you must not attribute my yielding to any sinister appetite, or indigestion of widowhood; nor impute my complacency to any lethargy of continence. I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials Wait. Far be it from me L. Wish. If you do, I protest I must recedeor think that I have made a prostitution of decorums; but in the vehemence of compassion, and to save the life of a person of so much importance Wait. I esteem it so L. Wish. Or else you wrong my condescension Wait. I do not, I do not L. Wish. Indeed you do. Wait. I do not, fair shrine of virtue. L. Wish. If you think the least scruple of carnality was an ingredient Wait. Dear madam, no. You are all camphire and frankincense, all chastity and odour. L. Wish. Or that FO!BLE enters. Foi. Madam, the dancers are ready, and there's one with a letter, who must deliver it into your own hands. L. Wish. Sir Rowland, will you give me leave? | think favourably, judge candidly, and conclude you have found a person who would suffer racks in honour's cause, dear Sir Rowland, and will wait on you incessantly. [Exit. Wait. Fie, fie !-What a slavery have I undergone! Spouse, hast thou any cordial? I want spirits. Foi. What a washy rogue art thou, to pant thus for a quarter of an hour's lying and swearing to a fine lady! Wait. O, she is the antidote to desire. Spouse, thou wilt fare the worse for't; I shall have no appetite to iteration of nuptials-this eight and forty hours. By this hand, I'd rather be a chairman in the dog-days, than act Sir Rowland till this time to-morrow. Lady WISHFORT enters, with a letter. L. Wish. Call in the dancers.-Sir Rowland, we'll sit, if you please, and see the entertainment. [Dance.] Now, with your permission, Sir Rowland, I will peruse my letter-I would open it in your presence, because I would not make you uneasy. If it should make you uneasy, I would burn it: speak if it does-but you may see the superscription is like a woman's hand. Foi. By Heaven! Mrs Marwood's. I know it. -My heart aches-get it from her [To him. Wait. A woman's hand? No, madam, that's no woman's hand, I see that already. That's somebody whose throat must be cut. L. Wish Nay, Sir Rowland, since you give me a proof of your passion by your jealousy, I promise you I'll make a return by a frank communication-You shall see it-we'll open it together -Look you here. [Reads.] "Madam, though unknown to you," Look you there; 'tis from nobody that I know.)—“ I have that honour for your character, that I think myself obliged to let you know you are abused. He who pretends to be Sir Rowland is a cheat and a rascal". O, Heavens! what's this? Foi. Unfortunate! all's ruin'd! Wait. How, how! let me see, let me see[Reading."A rascal, and disguised and suborn'd for that imposture"-O, villainy! O, villainy! -"By the contrivance of". L. Wish. I shall faint, I shall die, ho! Foi Say 'tis your nephew's hand.ly:-his plot :-swear it, swear it. -Quick Wait. Here's a villain! madam, don't you perceive it; don't you see it? L. Wish. Too well, too well. I have seen too much. Wait. I told you at first I knew the hand A woman's hand! The rascal writes a sort of a large hand; your Roman hand-I saw there was a throat to be cut presently. If he were my son, as he is my nephew, I'd pistol him. Foi. O, treachery! But are you sure, Sir Rowland, it is his writing? Wait. Sure! Am I here? Do I live? Do I love this pearl of India? I have twenty letters in my pocket from him, in the same character. L. Wish. How! Foi. O, what luck it is, Sir Rowland, that you were present at this juncture! This was the business that brought Mr Mirabell disguised to Madam Millamant this afternoon. I thought something was contriving, when he stole by me, and would have hid his face. L. Wish. How, how !-I heard the villain was in the house indeed; and now I remember, my niece went away abruptly, when Sir Wilfull was to have made his addresses. Foi. Then, then, madam, Mr Mirabell waited for her in her chamber; but I would not tell your ladyship, to discompose you when you were to receive Sir Rowland. Wait. Enough: his date is short. Foi. No, good Sir Rowland, don't incur the law. Wait. Law! I care not for law. I can but die, and 'tis in a good cause. My lady shall be satisfied of my truth and innocence, though it cost me my life. L. Wish. No, dear Sir Rowland, don't fight; if you should be killed I must never shew my face; or hang'd-O, consider my reputation, Sir Rowland- -No, you sha'n't fight-I'll go in and examine my niece; I'll make her confess. I conjure you, Sir Rowland, by all your love, not to fight. Wait. I am charmed, madam; I obey. But some proof you must let me give you ;—I'll go for a black box, which contains the writings of my whole estate, and deliver that into your hands. L. Wish. Ay, dear Sir Rowland, that will be some comfort: bring the black box. Wait. And may I presume to bring a contract, to be signed this night? May I hope so far? L. Wish. Bring what you will; but come alive, pray come alive. O, this is a happy discovery. Wait. Dead or alive I'll come—and married we will be, in spite of treachery; ay, and get an heir that shall defeat the last remaining glimpse of hope in my abandoned nephew. Come, my buxom widow, Ere long you shall substantial proof receive |