for you know his tricks: he'll knock me down.” 19 Here is your true moral ascendancy. For such a character, there is no other, and Sir Tunbelly does well to keep her tied up, and to let her taste a discipline of daily stripes.20 Section IX.-Artificial Characters 2 Let us accompany this modest character to town, and place her with her equals in fine society. All these artless ladies do wonders there, both in the way of actions and maxims. Wycherley's" Country Wife" gives us the tone. When one of them happens to be partly honest,' she has the manners and the boldness of a hussar in petticoats. Others seem born with the souls of courtesans and procuresses. "If I marry my Lord Aimwell," says Dorinda, "there will be title, place, and precedence, the Park, the play, and the drawing-room, splendor, equipage, noise and flambeaux. Hey, my Lady Aimwell's servants there! Lights, lights to the stairs! My Lady Aimwell's coach put forward! Stand by, make room for her ladyship!-Are not these things moving?" She is candid, and so are others-Corinna, Miss Betty, Belinda, for example. Belinda says to her aunt, whose virtue is tottering: "The sooner you capitulate the betFurther on, when she has decided to marry Heartfree, to save her aunt who is compromised, she makes a confession of faith which promises well for the future of her new spouse: "Were't not for your affair in the balance, I should go near to pick up some odious man of quality yet, and only take poor Heartfree for a gallant." These young ladies are clever, and in all cases apt to follow good instruction. Listen to Miss Prue: "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. Smell, cousin; he says, he'll give 13 19 Vanbrugh's "Relapse," v. 5. 4 20 See also the character of a young stupid blockhead, Squire Humphrey. (Vanbrugh's "Journey to London.") He has only a single idea, to be always eating. 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? It is the silly chatter of a young magpie, who flies for the first time. Tattle, alone with her, tells her he is going to make love: "5 "Miss Prue. 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. Tattle. You must let me speak, miss, you must not speak first; I must ask you questions, and you must answer. Miss P. What, is it like the catechism?-come then, ask me. T. D'ye think you can love me? Miss P. Yes. T. Pooh! pox! you must not say yes already; I shan't care a farthing for you then in a twinkling. Miss P. What must I say then? T. Why, you must say no, or you believe not, or you can't tell. T. 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. Miss P. O Lord, I swear this is pure!-I like it better than our oldfashioned country way of speaking one's mind;—and must not you lie too? T. Hum!-Yes; but you must believe I speak truth. Miss P. O Gemini! well, I always had a great mind to tell lies; but they frighted me, and said it was a sin. T. Well, my pretty creature; will you make me happy by giving me a kiss? Miss P. No, indeed; I'm angry at you. (Runs and kisses him.) T. Hold, hold, that's pretty well;-but you should not have given it me, but have suffered me to have taken it. Miss P. Well, we'll do it again. T. With all my heart. Now, then, my little angel. (Kisses her.) Miss P. Pish! T. That's right-again, my charmer! (Kisses again.) Miss P. O fy! nay, now I can't abide you. T. Admirable! that was as well as if you had been born and bred in Covent Garden." 6 Congreve's "Love for Love," ii. 10. • Ibid. 11. She makes such rapid progress that we must stop the quotation forthwith. And mark, what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh. All these charming characters soon employ the language of kitchen-maids. When Ben, the dolt of a sailor, wants to make love to Miss Prue, she sends him off with a flea in his ear, raves, lets loose a string of cries and coarse expressions, calls him a "great sea-calf." "What does father mean," he says, "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." Moved by these amenities, she breaks out into a rage, weeps, calls him a “stinking tar-barrel." 7 People come and put a stop to this first essay at gallantry. She fires up, declares she will marry Tattle, or the butler, if she cannot get a better man. Her father says, "Hussy, you shall have a rod." She answers, "A fiddle of a rod! I'll have a husband: and if you won't get me one, I'll get one for myself. I'll marry our Robin the butler.' Here are pretty and prancing mares if you like; but decidedly, in these authors' hands, the natural man becomes nothing but a waif from the stable or the kennel. 98 Will you be better pleased by the educated man? The worldly life which they depict is a regular carnival, and the heads of their heroines are full of wild imaginations and unchecked gossip. You may see in Congreve how they chatter, with what a flow of words and affectations, with what a shrill and modulated voice, with what gestures, what twisting of arms and neck, what looks raised to heaven, what genteel airs, what grimaces. Lady Wishfort speaks: "But art thou sure Sir Rowland will not fail to come? or will he not fail when he does come? Will he be importunate, Foible, and push? For if he should not be importunate, I shall never break decorums:I shall die with confusion, if I am forced to advance.-Oh no, I can never advance!-I shall swoon, if he should expect advances. No, I hope Sir Rowland is better bred than to put a lady to the necessity of 7 Miss Prue: "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 fairweather spark that was here just now? Will he thrash my jacket? Let'n, let'n, let'n-but an he comes near me, mayhap I may give him a salt-eel for's supper, for all that. What does father mean, to leave me alone, as soon as come home with such a dirty dowdy? Sea-calf! I an't calf enough to lick your chalked face, you cheese-curd you."-Ibid. iii. 7. 8 Congreve's Love for Love," v. 6. breaking her forms. I won't be too coy neither-I won't give him despair-but a little disdain is not amiss; a little scorn is alluring. Foible. A little scorn becomes your ladyship. Lady Wishfort. Yes, but tenderness becomes me best-a sort of dyingness-you see that picture has a sort of a-ha, Foible! a swimmingness in the eye-yes, I'll look so-my niece affects it; but she wants features. Is Sir Rowland handsome? Let my toilet be removed-I'll dress above. I'll receive Sir Rowland here. Is he handsome? Don't answer me. I won't know I'll be surprised, I'll be taken by surprise. . . . And how do I look, Foible? F. Most killing well, madam. Lady W. Well, and how shall I receive him? in what figure shall I give his heart the first impression? . . . Shall I sit?-no, I won't sit—I'll walk—ay, I'll walk from the door upon his entrance; and then turn full upon him-no, that will be too sudden. I'll lie-ay, I'll lie down-I'll receive him in my little dressing-room; there's a couchyes, yes, I'll give the first impression on a couch. I won't lie neither; but loll and lean upon one elbow: with one foot a little dangling off, jogging in a thoughtful way-yes-and then as soon as he appears, start, ay, start, and be surprised, and rise to meet him in a pretty disorder." 10 These hesitations of a finished coquette become still more vehement at the critical moment. Lady Plyant thinks herself beloved by Mellefont, who does not love her at all, and tries in vain to undeceive her. "Mellefont. For heaven's sake, madam. Lady Plyant. O, 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.May be it is no sin to them that don't think it so; indeed, if I did not think it a sin-but still my honour, if it were no sin.-But then, to marry my daughter, for the conveniency of frequent opportunities, I'll never consent to that; as sure as can be I'll break the match. Mel. Death and amazement.-Madam, upon my knees. Lady P. Nay, nay, rise up; come, you shall see my good nature. 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 is somebody coming, I dare not stay. Well, you must consider of your crime; and strive as much as can be against it-strive, be sure-but don't be melancholic, 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, 10 Ibid. iv. Congreve," The Way of the World," iii. 5. no; I can't be jealous, for I must not love you-therefore don't hope --but don't despair neither.-O, they're coming! I must fly." 11 She escapes and we will not follow her. This giddiness, this volubility, this pretty corruption, these reckless and affected airs, are collected in the most brilliant, the most worldly portrait of the stage we are discussing, that of Mrs. Millamant," a fine lady," as the Dramatis Personæ say.12 She enters," with her fan spread and her streamers out," dragging a train of furbelows and ribbons, passing through a crowd of laced and bedizened fops, in splendid perukes, who flutter about her path, haughty and wanton, witty and scornful, toying with gallantries, petulant, with a horror of every grave word and all nobility of action, falling in only with change and pleasure. She laughs at the sermons of Mirabell, her suitor: "Sententious Mirabell!-Prithee don't look with that violent and inflexible wise face, like Solomon at the dividing of the child in an old tapestry-hanging.13 . . Ha! ha! ha!-pardon me, dear creature, though I grant you 'tis a little barbarous, ha! ha! ha! "14 She breaks out into laughter, then gets into a rage, then banters, then sings, then makes faces, and changes at every motion while we look at her. It is a regular whirlpool; all turns round in her brain as in a clock when the mainspring is broken. Nothing can be prettier than her fashion of entering on matrimony: "Millamant. Ah! I'll never marry unless I am first made sure of my will and pleasure! . . . My dear liberty, shall I leave thee? my faithful solitude, my darling contemplation, must I bid you then adieu? Ay-h-adieu--my morning thoughts, agreeable wakings, indolent slumbers, all 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. Mirabell. Then I'll get up in a morning as early as I please. Mill. Ah! idle creature, get up when you will-and d'ye hear, I won't be called names after I'm married; positively I won't be called names. Mir. Names! Mill. Ay, as wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweet heart, 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. . . . 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 |