Page images
PDF
EPUB

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
Whether he shall escape the law or no.
But poets run much greater hazards far,
Than they who stand their trials at the bar;
The law provides a curb for its own fury,
And suffers judges to direct the jury.
But in this court, what difference does appear!
For every one's both judge and jury here;
Nay, and what's worse, an executioner.
All have a right and title to some part,
Each choosing that in which he has most art.
The dreadful men of learning all confound,
Unless the fable's good and moral sound.

The vizor masks that are in pit and gallery,
Approve or damn the repartee and raillery.
The lady critics, who are better read,
Inquire if characters are nicely bred;
If the soft things are penned and spoke with
grace:

They judge of action too, and time and place;
In which we do not doubt but they're discerning,
For that's a kind of assignation learning.
Beaux judge of dress; the witlings judge of songs;
The cuckoldom, of ancient right, to cits belongs.
Thus poor poets the favour are denied,
Even to make exceptions, when they're tried.
'Tis hard that they must every one admit :
Methinks I see some faces in the pit,
Which must of consequence be foes to wit.
You who can judge, to sentence may proceed;
But though he cannot write, let him be freed,
At least, from their contempt who cannot read.

LOVE FOR LOVE.

BY

CONGREVE.

PROLOGUE.

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 :

[blocks in formation]

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 shews 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 the ensuing scenes not chance to

hit,

He offers but this one excuse-'twas writ Before your late encouragement of wit.

[blocks in formation]

ACT I.

SCENE I.-VALENTINE in his Chamber reading; JEREMY waiting. Several Books upon the Tubie.

Val. Jeremy! Jer. Sir.

Val. Here, take away! I'll walk a turn, and digest 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 Epictetas 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. Val. Yes.

[ocr errors]

Jer. 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.

[ocr errors]

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.

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.

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 alderinan 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.

Val. 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.

[blocks in formation]

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.

Enter JEREMY.

Jer. 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 Twit'nam.

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;

[blocks in formation]

Scan. My blessing to the boy, with this token

|

buxom black widow in the Poultry-Eight hundred pounds a-year jointure, and twenty thou sand pounds in money. Ahah! 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

[Gives money.] of my love. And, d'ye hear, bid-off with it. [They drink.]—A lovely girl, i'faith; 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.

[JEREMY goes out, and brings in TRAP

LAND.

Val. O, 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.

Fal. Come, sit you down; you know his way. Trap. [Sits.] There is a debt, Mr Valentine, of fifteen hundred 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 our business. My service to you, Mr Scandal-[Drinks. ] -i have forborn as long

Val. T'other glass, and then we'll talk-Fill,

Jeremy.

Trap. No more, in truth-I have forborn, 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 whore-master, and loves a wench still. You never knew a whore-master that was not an honest fellow.

Trap. Fie, MScandal, you never knew-
Scan. What don't I know?--I know the

|

|

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 anchorite; and the prettiest foot! Oh, if a man could but fasten his eyes on her feet as they steal in and out, and play at bo-peep under her petticoats-ha! Mr Trapland!

Trap. Verily, give me a glass-you're a wagand here's to the widow. [Drinks. Scan. He begins to chuckle-ply him close, or he'll relapse into a dun.

Enter Officer.

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

Trap. Odso, that's true. Mr Valentine, I love mirth; but business must be done; are you ready to

Jer. 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.

[Exit Officer.

[blocks in formation]

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 them. Take Mr Trapland with you, and let him draw the writing-Mr Trapland, you know this man ? he shail satisfy you..

Trap. Sincerely, I am loth to be thus pressing; but my necessity

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

« PreviousContinue »