As when a Raphael’s masterpiece has been,
By the astonished judge, with rapture seen;
Should some young artist next his picture show,
He speaks his colours faint, his fancy low;
Though it some beauties has, it still must fall,
Compared to that, which has excell’d in all.
So when, by an admiring, ravish’d age,
A finished piece is ‘plauded on the stage,
What fate, alas! must a young author share,
Who, deaf to all entreaties, ventures there?
Yet, too, too certain of his weaker cause,
He claims nor equal merit nor applause.
Compare ‘em not; should favour do its most,
He owns, by the comparison, he’s lost.
Light, airy scenes, his comic muse displays,
Far from the buskin’s higher vein he strays,
By humour only catching at the bays:
Humour still free from an indecent flame,
Which, should it raise your mirth, must raise your shame.
Indecency’s the bane to ridicule,
And only charms the libertine or fool:
Nought shall offend the fair one’s ears to-day,
Which they might blush to hear, or blush to say.
No private character these scenes expose,
Our bard at vice, not at the vicious, throws.
If any by his pointed arrows smart,
Why did he bear the mark within his heart?
Since innocently, thus, to please he aims,
Some merit, surely, the intention claims:
With candour, critics, to his cause attend;
Let pity to his lighter errors bend,
Forgive, at least; but if you can, commend.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
MEN
Wisemore — Mr. Mills.
Merital — Mr. Wilks.
Malvil — Mr. Bridgewater.
Lord Formal — Mr. Griffin.
Rattle — Mr. Cibber.
Sir Positive Trap — Mr. Harper.
Sir Apish Simple — Mr. Miller
WOMEN
Lady Matchless — Mrs. Oldfield.
Vermilia — Mrs. Porter.
Helena — Mrs. Booth.
Lady Trap — Mrs. Moor.
Catchit — Mrs. Mills.
SCENE, LONDON
ACT I.
SCENE I.
The Piazza.
MERITAL, MALVIL.
MERITAL. Mr. Malvil, good morrow; I thought the spirit of champagne would have lengthened your repose this morning.
MALVIL. No, sir, the spirit of something else disturbs my mind too much: an unfortunate lover and repose are as opposite as any lover and sense.
MERITAL. Malapert simile! What is there in life, what joys, what transports, which flow not from the spring of love? The birth of love is the birth of happiness, nay, even of life. To breathe without it is to drag on a dull, phlegmatic, insipid being, and struggle imperfect in the womb of nature.
MALVIL. What in the name of fustian’s here?
MERITAL. Did you not see the Lady Matchless last night? What ecstasies did she impart, even at a distance, to her beholders!
MALVIL. A beautiful, rich, young widow, in a front box, makes as much noise as a blazing star in the sky; draws as many eyes on her, and is as much criticised on in the polite world as the other in the learned. With what envious glances was she attacked by the whole circle of belles! and what amorous ones by the gentlemen proprietors of the toupet, snuff-box, and sword-knot!
MERITAL. Nor could all this elevate her to the least pride or haughtiness, but she carried it with an air not conscious of the envy and adoration she contracted. That becoming modesty in her eyes! that lovely, easy sweetness in her smile! that gracefulness in her mien! that nobleness, without affectation, in her looks! in short, that one complete charm in her person! Such a woman as this does as much mischief amongst the men of sense! —
MALVIL. As some beaus do amongst the women of none. But, by your speaking so feelingly, I should suspect some mischief here. [Claps Merital’s breast.
MERITAL. Why that fort is not impregnable to the batteries of a fair eye; but there is a certain beautiful, rich, young virgin who keeps guard there.
MALVIL. Ha, she is a blazing star indeed! Where does she live? or rather, where is she worshipped? and in what street is her temple?
MERITAL. I have described her, and sure my picture is not so bad as to require its name under it.
MALVIL. But it is so good that I am afraid you hardly took nature for a pattern.
MERITAL. Thou art always endeavouring to be satirical on the ladies; prythee desist: for the name of an ill-natured wit will slightly balance the loss of their favour. Who would not prefer a dear smile from a pretty face —
MALVIL. To a frown from an ugly one. But have I never seen this inestimable?
MERITAL. No, sir; the sun has never seen her but by peeping through a window. She is kept as close as a jealous Spaniard keeps his wife, or a city usurer his treasure; and is now brought to town to be married to that gay knight Sir Apish Simple.
MALVIL. You have a rival then, there’s one difficulty.
MERITAL. Ay, and many difficulties, which, in love, are so many charms. In the first place, the young lady’s guardian, Sir Positive Trap by name, is an old, precise knight, made up of avarice, folly, and ill-bred surliness of temper, and an odd, fantastic pride built on the antiquity of his family, into which he enrols most of the great men he ever heard of. The next is his lady, who is his absolute empress; for though he be monstrously morose to the rest of the world, he is as foolishly easy and credulous to his wife.
MALVIL. And she, I suppose, is as easy to the rest of the world, as imperious to him.
MERITAL. Then my mistress is made up of natural spirit, wit, and fire; all these she has improved by an intimate conversation with plays, poems, romances, and such gay studies, by which she has acquired a perfect knowledge of the polite world without ever seeing it, and turned the confinement of her person into the enlargement of her mind. Lastly, my rival — but his character you know already. And these are my obstacles.
MALVIL. But what objection does the old knight make to your pretensions?
MERITAL. Several. My estate is too small, my father was no baronet, and I am — no fool.
MALVIL. Those are weighty objections, I must confess: to evade the first you must bribe his lawyer, to conquer the second, purchase a title — and utterly to remove the last, plead lover.
MERITAL. Kindly advised. But what success are you like to reap from that plea with Vermilia?
MALVIL. Why faith! our affair is grown dull as a chancery suit; but, if it be much more prolix, my stock of love will be so far exhausted, that I shall be like a contested heir, who spends his estate in the pursuit of it, and when his litigious adversary is overthrown, finds his possessions reduced to a long lawyer’s bill for more than he is able to pay.
MERITAL. But then your fates will be different, the one condemned to starve in a prison, the other to surfeit in matrimony. Though, by what I see, you are in little danger of bringing matters to that issue.
MALVIL. Hast thou seen? Come, perhaps you have discovered what, indeed, her late coldness gives me reason to fear.
MERITAL. What?
MALVIL. A rival.
MERITAL. Ha, ha, ha! yon certainly are the most unfortunate in your temper, and most an enemy to yourself, of any man in the world. Be assured, Jack, that if, after what has passed between you, so long a service, and so many apparent signs of the sincerest passion on your side and such a manifest reception of it on hers, she jilts you; she yet has rid you of the greatest pest in nature.
MALVIL. ‘Sdeath! could I reason thus with myself, I might think so, but I love her above my reason. I see my folly and despise it, and yet cannot shun it.
MERITAL. Well, you are the first in the class of romantic lovers. But, for my part, I would as
soon turn chemist and search for the philosopher’s stone, as a lover to run headlong after an Ignis Fatuus, that flies the faster the more it is pursued.
MALVIL. These are the known sentiments of you light, gay, fluttering fellows; who, like the weathercock, never fix long to a point till you are good for nothing.
MERITAL. And you platonic lovers, like the compass, are ever pointing to the same pole, but never touch it.
MALVIL. You are a sort of sportsmen, who are always hunting in a park of coquets, where your sport is so plenty that you start fresh game before you have run down the old.
MERITAL. And you are a sort of anglers ever fishing for prudes, who cautiously steal, and pamper up their vanity with your baits, but never swallow the hook.
MALVIL. But hast thou then discovered any thing in Vermilia’s conduct that —
MERITAL. That makes me confident you will never gain her, so I advise you to raise the siege; for you must carry that garrison by storm, and, I know, you have not so much bravery in love — Ha, amazement! is not that Wisemore?
SCENE II.
WISEMORE, MERITAL, MALVIL.
WISEMORE. Mr. Merital, Mr. Malvil, your humble servant; I am fortunate, indeed, at my first arrival, to embrace my friends.
MALVIL. Dear Wisemore, a thousand welcomes; what propitious wind has drove thee to town?
WISEMORE. No wind propitious to my inclination, I assure ye, gentlemen; I had taken leave of this place long ago, its vanities, hurries, and superficial, empty, ill-digested pleasures.
MERITAL. But you have seen your error, and, like a re-? lenting nun, who had too rashly taken leave of the world, art returned to enjoy thy pleasures again.
WISEMORE. No, ‘tis business, business, gentlemen, that drags me hither; my pleasures lie another way, a way little known to you gentlemen of the town.
MALVIL. Not so little known as you imagine, Ned, nor have you been supposed alone these three years in the country. ‘Tis no secret that you have had the conversation of ——
WISEMORE. The wise, the learned, the virtuous. Books, sir, have been mostly my companions, a society preferable to that of this age. Who would converse with fools and fops, whilst they might enjoy a Cicero or an Epictetus, a Plato, or an Aristotle? Who would waste his afternoon in a coffee-house, or at a tea-table, to be entertained with scandal, lies, balls, operas, intrigues, fashions, flattery, nonsense, and that swarm of impertinences which compose the commonplace chat of the world? Who would bear all this, did he know the sweets of retirement?
MERITAL. Let me survey thee a little that I may be certain you are my old friend metamorphosed, and no apparition.
WISEMORE. Look ye, sirs, of all places in the world my spirit would never haunt this. London is to me what the country is to a gay, giddy girl, pampered up with the love of admiration; or a young heir just leapt into his estate and chariot. It is a mistress, whose imperfections I have discovered, and cast off. I know it; I have been a spectator of all its scenes. I have seen hypocrisy pass for religion, madness for sense, noise and scurrility for wit, and riches for the whole train of virtues. Then I have seen folly beloved for its youth and beauty, and reverenced for its age. I have discovered knavery in more forms than ever Proteus had, and traced him through them all, till I have lodged him behind a counter, with the statue of bankruptcy in his hand, and a pair of gilded horns in his pocket.
MERITAL and MALVIL. Ha, ha, ha!
WISEMORE. I know the folly, foppery, and childishness of your diversions — I know your vices too.
MALVIL. And hast practised them, to my knowledge.
WISEMORE. So much the more have they contracted my hate. Oons! If I do not get out of this vile town in three days, I shall get out of the world in four.
MERITAL. But what earnest business has drove thee hither now, so much against thy will?
MALVIL. He is married, his wife has drawn him hither, and he is jealous.
MERITAL. Or are you in law, and have been rid down this morning by a fat serjeant or solicitor?
MALVIL. He has been writing philosophy, and is come to town to publish it.
WISEMORE. I have been studying folly, and am come to town to publish it. I know that title will sell any productions, or some of your modern poets, who hardly merit that name by their works, would merit it by starving.
MERITAL. But they deal not so openly with the world, for they promise much though they perform little. Nay, I’ve sometimes seen treatises where the author has put all his wit in the title-page.
WISEMORE. Why, faith, and politic enough; for few readers now look farther than the title-page.
MERITAL. But prythee what is this errand of folly, as you are pleased to term it?
WISEMORE. O beyond conception; I shudder with the apprehension of its being known. But why do I fear it? folly or vice must be of a prodigious height to over-top the crowd; but if it did, the tall, overgrown monster would be admired, and, like other monsters, enrich the possessor. I see your women have gone through with the transformation and dress like us, nay, they frequent coffee-houses too; I was frightened from one just now by two girls in paduasuay coats and breeches.
MALVIL. Ha, ha, ha! these were two beaus, Ned.
WISEMORE. So much the greater transformation, for they had, apparently, more of the woman than the man about them. But, perhaps, by them this amphibious dress may be a significant calculation; for I have known a beau with everything of a woman but the sex, and nothing of a man besides it.
MALVIL. They will esteem you for that assertion.
WISEMORE. Why ay, it may recommend them to the teatables. For the natural perfections of our sex, and the unnatural acquisitions of her own, must be a rare compound to make a woman’s idol.
MERITAL. Sure, never was a man so altered! Do not affect singularity this way; for in town we look on none to be so great a fool as a philosopher, and there is no fool so out of fashion.
WISEMORE. A certain sign fools are in fashion. Philosophy is a true glass, which shows the imperfections of the mind as plain as the other of the body; and no more than a true glass can be agreeable to a town constitution.
MERITAL. So, here comes one who will hit your taste —
SCENE III.
To them, RATTLE.
RATTLE. Merital, Malvil, a buss, dear boys. Ha! hum! what figure is that?
MERITAL. Mr. Rattle, pray know my friend, Mr. Wisemore.
RATTLE. That I will gladly. Sir, I am your most obedient, humble servant, sir.
WISEMORE. Sir, I am very much yours.
RATTLE. Well, I know you will be witty upon me, but since the town will blab, I will put on the armour of assurance, and declare boldly, that I am very, very deeply in love.
MALVIL. A bold declaration, indeed! and what may require some assurance to maintain, since it is ten to four thou hast never spoke to this new mistress, nay, perhaps, never seen more of her than her picture.
RATTLE. Her picture! ha, ha, ha! who can draw the sun in its meridian glories? Neither painting, poetry, nor imagination can form her image. She is young and blooming as the spring, gay and teeming as the summer, ripe and rich as the autumn.
MALVIL. Thy chemistry has from that one virtue extracted all the rest, I very modestly suppose.
MERITAL. You know, Harry, Malvil allows the sex no virtues.
RATTLE. That’s because they allow him no favours. But to express my mistress’s worth, in a word, and prove it too — She is the Lady Matchless.
WISEMORE. Ha! — [Aside.
MERITAL. But what hopes can you have of succeeding against the multitudes which swarm in her drawing-room?
RATTLE. Pugh! Tom you know I have succeeded against greater multitudes before now — and she is a woman of excellent sense.
WISEMORE. You fix your hopes on a very sound foundation, sir; for a woman of sense will, undoubtedly, set a just value on a laced coat, which qualification is undeniably yours.
RATTLE. Sir, as I take it, there are other qualifications appertaining to —
> WISEMORE. But none preferable in the eyes of some women, and the persons of some men, sir.
RATTLE. I believe she will find some preferable in the person of your humble servant, sir.
WISEMORE. Say you so! then know, sir, I am your rival there.
RATTLE. Rival, sir! and do you think to supplant me, sir?
WISEMORE. I think to maintain my ground, sir.
MERITAL. And is this the folly you are come to town to publish? For a philosopher to go a widow-hunting is folly with a vengeance.
WISEMORE. [Aside.] Am I become a jest? I deserve it. Why did I come hither, but to be laughed at by all the world! my friends will deride me out of love, my enemies out of revenge; wise men from their scorn, and fools from their triumph, to see me become as great a fool as themselves. [To them.] I see, by your mirth, gentlemen, my company grows tedious, so I’m your humble servant.
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 231