young wife whom he locks up: Sir Mirabel robs him of his wife, trips up his gouty old heels and leaves the old hunks. The old fool, what business has he to hoard his money, or to lock up blushing eighteen? Money is for youth, love is for youth, away with the old people. When Millamant is sixty, having of course divorced the first Lady Millamant, and married his friend Doricourt's granddaughter out of the nursery-it will be his turn; and young Belmour will make a fool of him. All this pretty morality you have in the comedies of William Congreve, Esq. They are full of wit. Such manners as he observes, he observes with great humour; but ah! it's a weary feast, that banquet of wit where no love is. It palls very soon; sad indigestions follow it and lonely blank headaches in the morning. I can't pretend to quote scenes from the splendid Congreve's plays1- which are undeniably bright, witty, and 1 The scene of Valentine's pretended madness in "Love for Love" is a splendid specimen of Congreve's daring manner : — "Scandal. him? And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon "Jeremy. Yes, Sir; he says he'll favour it, and mistake her for Angelica. "Scandal. Foresight. "Valentine.. It may make us sport. - Husht― interrupt me not- I'll whisper predictions to thee, and thou shalt prophesie ; — I am truth, and can teach thy tongue a new trick, I have told thee what's passed-now I'll tell what's to come:- Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow? Answer me for I will tell thee. To-morrow knaves will thrive thro' craft, and fools thro' fortune; and honesty will go as it did, frostnipt in a summer suit. Ask me questions concerning to-morrow. not "Scandal. Ask him, Mr. Foresight. "Valentine. 66 - Scandal will tell you; - I am truth, I never come there. Foresight. In the city? "Valentine. — Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the usual hours. Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters as if religion were to be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go methodically in the city, the clocks will strike twelve at noon, and the horn'd herd buzz daring any more than I could ask you to hear the dialogue of a witty bargeman and a brilliant fishwoman in the Exchange at two. Husbands and wives will drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy the family. Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the cropt 'prentice that sweeps his master's shop in the morning, may, ten to one, dirty his sheets before night. But there are two things, that you will see very strange; which are, wanton wives with their legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about their necks. But hold, I must examine you before I go further; you look suspiciously. Are you a husband? Foresight. I am married. "Valentine. Poor creature! Is your wife of Covent-garden Parish? Foresight. No; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. "Valentine. Alas, poor man! his eyes are sunk, and his hands shrivelled; his legs dwindled, and his back bow'd. Pray, pray for a metamorphosis change thy shape, and shake off age; get thee Medea's kettle and be boiled anew; come forth with lab'ring callous hands, and chine of steel, and Atlas' shoulders. Let Taliacotius trim the calves of twenty chairmen, and make thee pedestals to stand erect upon, and look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha! That a man should have a stomach to a wedding-supper, when the pidgeons ought rather to be laid to his feet! Ha, ha, ha! 66 Foresight. — His frenzy is very high now, Mr. Scandal. "Scandal. I believe it is a spring-tide. Foresight. - Very likely - truly; you understand these matters. Mr. Scandal, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and hieroglyphical. "Valentine. - Oh! why would Angelica be absent from my eyes so long? "Scandal. Humour him, Madam, by all means. "Valentine. - Where is she? Oh I see her: she comes, like Riches, Health, and Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and abandoned wretch. Oh-welcome, welcome! "Mrs. Frail. - How d'ye, Sir? Can I serve you? “Valentine. — Hark 'ee- I have a secret to tell you. Endymion and the moon shall meet us on Mount Latmos, and we'll be married in the dead of night. But say not a word. Hymen shall put his torch into a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give her peacock poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail; and Argus's hundred eyes be shut-ha! Nobody shall know, but Jeremy. "Mrs. Frail.- No, no; we'll keep it secret; it shall be done presently. "Valentine. — The sooner the better. Jeremy, come hither closer exchanging compliments at Billingsgate; but some of his verses- they were amongst the most famous lyrics of - that none may overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you news: Angelica is turned nun, and I am turning friar, and yet we'll marry one another in spite of the Pope. Get me a cowl and beads, that I may play my part; for she'll meet me two hours hence in black and white, and a long veil to cover the project, and we won't see one another's faces 'till we have done something to be ashamed of, and then we 'll blush once for all. "Enter TATTLE. "Tattle. Do you know me, Valentine? "Valentine. - You! - who are you? No, I hope not. "Tattle.- I am Jack Tattle, your friend. "Valentine. - My friend! What to do? I am no married man, and thou canst not lye with my wife; I am very poor, and thou canst not borrow money of me. Then, what employment have I for a friend? "Tattle. Hah! A good open speaker, and not to be trusted with a secret. Angelica. - Do you know me, Valentine? "Valentine. - Oh, very well. "Valentine. You're a woman, one to whom Heaven gave beauty when it grafted roses on a brier. You are the reflection of Heaven in a pond; and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white — a sheet of spotless paper-when you first are born; but you are to be scrawled and blotted by every goose's quill. I know you; for I loved a woman, and loved her so long that I found out a strange thing: I found out what a woman was good for. Valentine. — Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for, though she should tell, yet she is not to be believed. "Tattle. - Hah! Good again, faith. "Valentine. I would have musick. Sing me the song that I like."-CONGREVE: Love for Love. There is a Mrs. Nickleby, of the year 1700, in Congreve's Comedy of "The Double Dealer," in whose character the author introduces some wonderful traits of roguish satire. She is practised on by the gallants of the play, and no more knows how to resist them than any of the ladies above quoted could resist Congreve. 66 Lady Plyant.-Oh! reflect upon the horror of your conduct! Offering to pervert me” [the joke is that the gentleman is pressing the lady the time, and pronounced equal to Horace by his contemporaries may give an idea of his power, of his grace, of his daring manner, his magnificence in compliment, and his polished sarcasm. He writes as if he was for her daughter's hand, not for her own] -" perverting me from the road of virtue, in which I have trod thus long, and never made one tripnot one faux pas. Oh, consider it: what would you have to answer for, if you should provoke me to frailty! Alas! humanity is feeble, heaven knows! Very feeble, and unable to support itself. dam it 66 Mellefont. Where am I? Is it day? and am I awake? Ma Lady Plyant. -O Lord, ask me the question! I'll swear I'll deny therefore don't ask me; nay, you shan't ask me, I swear I'll deny it. O Gemini, you have brought all the blood into my face; I warrant I am as red as a turkey-cock. O fie, cousin Mellefont! 66 66 Mellefont.-Nay, Madam, hear me; I mean - Lady Plyant. Hear you? No, no; I'll deny you first, and hear you afterwards. For one does not know how one's mind may change upon hearing-hearing is one of the senses, and all the senses are fallible. I won't trust my honour, I assure you; my honour is infallible and uncomatable. 66 'Lady Plyant. — Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of heaven, and have so much wickedness in your heart? May be, you don't think it a sin. They say some of you gentlemen don't think it a sin; but still, my honour, if it were no sin But, then, to marry my daughter for the convenience of frequent opportunities - I'll never consent to that as sure as can be, I'll break the match. Mellefont. - Death and amazement! Madam, upon my knees 'Lady Plyant.-Nay, nay, rise up! come, you shall see my goodnature. I know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. 'Tis not your fault; nor I swear, it is not mine. How can I help it, if I have charms? And how can you help it, if you are made a captive? I swear it is pity it should be a fault; but, my honour. Well, but your honour, too—but the sin! Well, but the necessity. O Lord, here's somebody coming. I dare not stay. Well, you must consider of your crime; and strive as much as can be against it—strive, to be sure; but don't be melancholick - don't despair; but never think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no; but be sure you lay aside all thoughts of the marriage, for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only as a blind to your passion for me- - yet it will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say? Jealous! No, no, I can't be jealous; for I must not love you. Therefore, don't hope; but don't despair neither. Oh, they're coming; I must fly.” The Double Dealer: Act 2, sc. v. page 156. so accustomed to conquer, that he has a poor opinion of his victims. Nothing's new except their faces, says he: "every woman is the same." He says this in his first comedy, which he wrote languidly1 in illness, when he was an excellent young man." Richelieu at eighty could have hardly said a more excellent thing. 66 When he advances to make one of his conquests, it is with a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and with the fiddles playing, like Grammont's French dandies attacking the breach of Lerida. Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young lady at the Wells at Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnificent compliment "Cease, cease to ask her name, The crowned Muse's noblest theme, Shall only sounded be. But if you long to know, Then look round yonder dazzling row : You may be sure 't is she." Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was not so well pleased at the poet's manner of celebrating her "When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair, But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke, Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound, And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound." 1 “There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance. The Old Bachelor' was written for amusement in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dialogue and incessant ambition of wit."-JOHNSON: Lives of the Poets. |