Ld F. O Heavens! what's the matter? Where is my wife? Sir P. All turn'd topsy-turvy, as sure as a gun. Sir P. No, no, I mean the family. Yourl: dy's affairs may be in a very good posture; I sav her go into the garden with Mr Brisk. Ld F. How? Where? when? what to do? Sir P. I suppose they have been laying their heads together. Ld F. How? Sir P. Nay, only about poetry, I suppose, my lord-making couplets. Ld F. Couplets! Sir P. O, here they come ! Enter Lady FROTH and BRISK. Brisk. My lord, your humble servant; Sir Paul, yours -The finest night Lady F. My dear, Mr Brisk and I have been star-gazing I don't know how long. Sir P. Does it not tire your ladyship ? Are not you weary with looking up? Lady F. O no; I love it violently-My dear, you are melancholy. Ld F. No, my dear, I am but just awake. Lady F. Snuff some of my spirit of hartshorn. Ld F. I have some of my own, thank you, my dear. Lady F. Well, I swear, Mr Brisk, you understand astronomy like an old Egyptian. Brisk. Not comparably to your ladyship; you are the very Cynthia of the skies, and queen of stars. Lady F. That's because I have no light, but what's by reflection from you, who are the sun. Brisk. Madam, you have eclipsed me quite; let me perish, I cannot answer that. Lady F. No matter-Hark'e, shall you and I make an almanack together? Brisk. With all my soul-Your ladyship has made me the man in it already, I am so full of the wounds which you have given. Care. You need not fear, madam; you have charms to fix inconstancy itself. Lady P. O dear, you make me blush. La F. Come, my dear, shall we take leave of my lord and lady? Cyn. They'll wait upon your lordship presently. Lady F. Mr Brisk, my coach shall set you down. All. What's the matter? [A great shriek from the corner of the stage. Enter Lady TOUCHWOOD, and runs out affrighted, my Lord after her, like a parson. Lady T. I'm betrayed-Save me, help me! La T. Now what evasion, strumpet? Lady T. Stand off, let me go. Ld T. Go, and thy own infamy pursue thee— You stare as you were all amazed-I do not wonder at itBut too soon you'll know mine and that woman's shame. Enter MELLEFONT, disguised in a parson's habit, and pulling in MASKWELL. Mel. Nay, by heaven you shall be seen-Careless, your hand-Do you hold down your head? Yes, I am your chaplain; look in the face of your injured friend, thou wonder of all falsehood." Ld T. Are you silent, monster? Mel. Good heavens ! how I believed and loved this man!-Take him hence, for he is a disease to my sight. Ld T. Secure that manifold villain. [Servants seize him. Care. Miracle of ingratitude! Brisk. This is all very surprising, let me perish. Lady F. You know I told you Saturn looked a little more angry than usual. Ld T. We'll think of punishment at leisure, but let me hasten to do justice, in rewarding virtue and wronged innocence.-Nephew, I hope I have your pardon and Cynthia's. Mel. We are your lordship's creatures. Ld T. And be each other's comfort:-Let me join your hands-Unwearied nights and wishing days attend you both; mutual love, lasting health, and circling joys, tread round each happy Lady F. O, finely taken! I swear now you are even with me-O Parnassus! you have an infi-year of your long lives. nite deal of wit. Sir P. So he has, gads-bud, and so has your ladyship. Enter Lady PLYANT, CARELESS, and CYNTHIA. Lady P. You tell me most surprising thingsBless ine, who would ever trust a man? Oh, my heart aches for fear they should be all deceitful alike! Let secret villainy from hence be warned, Howe'er in private mischiefs are conceived, Torture and shame attend their open birth; Like vipers in the womb, base treachery fies Still gnawing that whence first it did arise; No sooner born, but the vile parent dies. [Exeunt omnes. EPILOGUE. COULD poets but foresee how plays would take, Then they could tell what epilogues to make; Whether to thank or blame their audience most: But that late knowledge does much hazard cost, 'Till dice are thrown, there's nothing won, nor lost. So till the thief has stolen, he cannot know The vizor masks that are in pit and gallery, They judge of action too, and time and place; Which must of consequence be foes to wit. THE husbandman in vain renews his toil, root: Th' unladen boughs, he sees, bode certain dearth, 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. Or only shews its teeth, as if it smiled. hit, He offers but this one excuse- -'twas writ Before your late encouragement of wit. ACT I. SCENE I.-VALENTINE in his Chamber reading; JEREMY waiting. Several Bookŝ upon the Tuble. Val. Jeremy! Jer. Sir. 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 Val. Here, take away! I'll walk a turn, and di- her compassionate the love, which has princigest what I have read.— Jer. You'll grow devilish fat upon this paper diet! [Aside, and taking away the books. Val. And, d'ye hear? go you to breakfastThere's a page doubled down in Epictetus, that is a feast for an emperor. Jer. 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. Jer 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. Jer. Humph! and so he has made a very fine feast, where there is nothing to be eaten. Vul. Yes. [Jr. 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. Jer. Ay, sir, I am a fool, and 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 expences 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. pally reduced me to this lowness of fortune. And for the wits, I'm sure I am in a condition to be even with them. Jer. 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. Jer. Now Heaven of mercy continue the tax upon paper!-You don't mean to write? Val. Yes, I do; I'll write a play. Jer. 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, Esquire; and that he is not 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. Jer. 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 canonized 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. Jer. But, sir, is this the way to recover your father's favour? Why, Sir Sampson will be irreconcileable. 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 it. 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 jest's 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 wages of sin, either at the day of marriage, or the day of death. Vat. Very well, sir; can you proceed? Jer. 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 was 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. Enter SCANDAL. 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. Jer. 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? Jer. Ay, more indeed for who cares for any body 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 inquiry into their titles and estates; and seems commissioned by Heaven to seize the 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 sha'n't have fair play for your life. If you cann'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, any thing 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, recal 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 up on the stage.-Nay, I am not violently bent upon the trade. [One knocks.] Jeremy, see who's there. [JER. 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 expence have been your greatest faults.. Jer. That they should be paid. Val. When? Jer. To-morrow. Val. And how the devil do you mean to keep your word? Jer. 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 negociation, will you be pleased to answer these yourself? Val. See who they are. [Exit JEREMY.] 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 truly 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 confinement on your body, my friend. |