I shall not here trouble the reader with a laborious definition of Tragedy drawn from Aristuttle or Horase; for which I refer him to those authors. I shall content myself with the following plain proposition: “That a Tragedy is a thing of five acts, written dialoguewise, consisting of several fine similes, metaphors, and moral phrases, with here and there a speech upon liberty. That it must contain an action, characters, sentiments, diction, and a moral.” Whatever falls short of any of these, is by no means worthy the name of a Tragedy.
“Quæ genus aut flexum variant, quœcunque novato
Ritu deftciunt superantve, heteroelita sunto.” action.
I shall proceed to examine the piece before us on these rules, nor do I doubt to prove it deficient in them all.
“Quæ sequitur manca est numero casuque propago.”
As for an action, I have read it over twice, and do solemnly aver I can find none, at least none worthy to be called an
The author, indeed, in one place seems to promise something like an action, where Stormandra, who is enraged with Lovegirlo, sends Bilkum to destroy him, and at the same time threatens to destroy herself! But alas! what comes of all this preparation? — Why, parturiunt montes — the audience is deceived, according to custom, and the two murdered people appear in good health. For all which great revolution of fortune we have no other reason given, but that the one has been run through the coat;, and the other has hung up her gown instead of herself — Ridiculum!
The characters, I think, are such as I have not yet met with in Tragedy. First, for the character of Mother Punchbowl; and, by the way, I cannot conceive why she is called MOTHER. Is she the mother of any body in the play? No.
From one line one might guess she was a bawd. Leathersides desires her to procure two whores, &c., but then is she not continually talking of virtue? How can she be a bawd? In the third scene of the second act she appears to be Stormandra’s mother.
“Punchbowl. Daughter, you use the Captain too unkind.
But, if I mistake not, in the scene immediately preceding,
Bilkum and she have mothered and soned it several times.
Sure she cannot be mother to them both, when she would put them to bed together? Perhaps she is mother-in-law to one of them, as being married to her own child. But of this the poet should, I think, have given us some better assurance than barely intimating that they were going to bed together; which people in this our island have been sometimes known to do without going to church together.
What is intended by the character of Gallono is difficult to imagine. Either he is taken from life, or he is not. Mcthinks, I could wish he had been left out of the dance, nothing being more unnatural than to conceive so great a sot to be a lover of dancing; nay, so great a lover of dancing, as to take that woman for a partner whom he has just before been abusing. As for the characters of Lovegirlo and Kissinda, they are poor imitations cf the characters of Pyrrhus and Andromache in The Distrest Mother, as Bilkum and Stormandra are of Orestes and Hermione,
— “Sed quid morer istis.”
As for Mr. Leathersides, he is indeed an original; and such a one as I hope will never have a copy. We are told (to set him off) that he has learned to read, has read playbills, and writ The Grub Street Journal. But how reading playbills, and writing Grub Street papers, can qualify him to be a judge of plays, I confess I cannot tell.
The only character I can find entirely faultless is the
Chairman: for first we are assured,
“He asks but for his fare;”
when the Captain answers him,
“Thy fare be damn’d.”
He replies in the gentlest manner imaginable,
“This is not acting like a gentleman.”
The Captain, upon this, threatens to knock his brains out. He then answers, in a most intrepid and justifiable manner:
“Oh! that with me,” &c.
I cannot help wishing this may teach all gentlemen to pay their chairmen. Proceed we now to the sentiments. And here, to show how inclined I am to admire rather than dislike, I shall allow the beautiful manner wherein this play sets out. The first five lines are a mighty pretty satire on our age, our country, statesmen, lawyers, and physicians. What did I not expect from such a beginning? But alas! what follows? No fine moral sentences, not a word of liberty and property, no insinuations that courtiers are fools and statesmen rogues. You have indeed a few similes; but they are very thin sown.
“Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto.”
The sentiments fall very short of politeness every where: but those in the mouth of Captain Bilkum breathe the true spirit of Billingsgate. The courtship that passes between him and Stormandra in the second act is so extremely delicate, sure the author must have served an apprenticeship there before he could have produced it. How unlike this was the beautiful manner of making love in use among the ancients, that charming simplicity of manners which shines so apparently in all the Tragedies of Plautus, where,
— “petit et prece blandus amicam.”
But alas! how should an illiterate modern imitate authors he has never read?
To say nothing of the meanness of the diction, which is some degrees lower than I have seen in any modern Tragedy, we very often meet with contradictions in the same line. The substantive is so far from showing the signification of its adjective as the latter requires,
“An adjective requires some word to be joined to it to show its signification.” — Vid. Accidence. that it very often takes away its meaning, as particularly “virtuous whore.” Did it ever enter into any head before to bring those two words together? Indeed, my friend, I could as soon unite the idea of your sweet self and a good poet.
“Forth from your empty head I’ll knock your brains.”
Had you had any brains in your own head, you never had writ this line.
“Yet do not shock it with a thought so base.”
Ten low words creep here in a line, indeed.
— “Monosyllabla nomina quoedam,
Sal, sol, ren et splen, car, ser, vir, vas.
Virgal rod, grief-stung soul,” &c.
I would recommend to this author (if he can read) that wholesome little treatise, called Gulielmi Lilii Monita Pædagogica, where he will find this instruction:
— “Veiuti seopulos barbara verba fugc.”
“Much may be said on both sides of this question.
Let me consider what the question is.”
Mighty pretty, faith! resolving a question first, and then asking it.
— “thou hast a tongue
Might charm a bailiff to forego his hold.”
Very likely, indeed! I fancy, sir, if ever you were in the hands of a bailiff, you have not escaped so easily.
“Hanover Square shall come to Drury Lane.”
Wonderful!
“Thou shalt wear farms and houses in each ear.”
Oh! Bavius! Oh! conundrum! is this true? Sure the poet exaggerates! What! a woman wear farms and houses in her ear, nay, in each ear, to make it still the more incredible! I suppose these are poetical farms and houses, which any woman may carry about her without being the heavier. But I pass by this, and many other beauties of the like nature, quæ lectio juxta docebit, to come to a little word which is worth the whole work,
“Nor modesty, nor pride, nor fear, nor REP.”
Quid sibi vuht istud REP? — I have looked over all my dictionaries, but in vain.
“Nusquam reperitur in usu.”
I find, indeed, such a word in some of the Latin authors: but, as it is not in the dictionary, I suppose it to be obsolete.
Perhaps, it is a proper name; if so, it should have been in ITALICS. I am a little inclined to this opinion, as we find several very odd names in this piece, such as Hackabouta, &c.
I am weary of raking in this dirt, and shall therefore pass on to the moral, which the poet very ingenuously tells us is he knows not what; nor any one else, I dare swear. I shall however allow him this merit, that,
except in the five lines above mentioned, I scarce know any performance more of a piece. Either the author never sleeps or never wakes throughout.
PROLOGUE
SPOKEN BY MR. THEOPHILUS CIBBER
IN’ Athens first (as dictionaries write)
The Tragic Muse was midwifed into light;
Rome knew her next, and next she took a dance,
Some say to England, others say to France.
But when, or whence, the tuneful goddess came,
Since she is here, I think, is much the same.
Oft have you seen the king and hero rage,
Oft has the virgin’s passion filled the stage:
To-night nor king, nor hero, shall you spy,
Nor virgin’s love shall fill the virgin’s eye.
Our poet, from unknown, untasted springs,
A curious draft of tragic nectar brings.
From Covent Garden culls delicious stores
Of bullies, bawds, and sots, and rakes, and whores.
Examples of the great can serve but few;
For what are kings’ and heroes’ faults to you?
But these examples are of general use.
What rake is ignorant of King’s Coffee-house?
Here the old rake may view the crimes h’as known,
And boys hence dread the vices of the town:
Here nymphs seduced may mourn their pleasures past,
And maids, who have their virtue, learn to hold it fast.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
GENTLEMEN
CAPTAIN BILKUM
LOVEGIRLO
GALLONO
LEATIIERSIDES
CHAIRMAN
MR. MULLART.
MR. CIBBER, Jun.
MR. PAGET.
MR. ROBERTS.
MR. JONES.
LADIES
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL
KISSINDA
STORMANDRA
NONPAREL
SCENE. — Antechamber, or rather Back-parlour, in Mother Punchbowl’s House.
ACT I.
SCENE I.
An Antechamber.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL, LEATHERSIDES, NONPAREL, INDUSTRIOUS JENNY.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL. Who’d be a bawd in this degenerate age!
Who’d for her country unrewarded toil!
Not so the statesman scrubs his plotful head,
Not so the lawyer shakes his unfee’d tongue,
Not so the doctor guides the doleful quill.
Say, Nonparel, industrious Jenny, say,
Is the play done, and yet no cull appears?
NONPAREL. The play is done: for from the pigeon-hole
I heard them hiss the curtain as it fell.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL. Ha, did they hiss? Why then the play is damned,
And I shall see the poet’s face no more.
Say, Leathersides, ‘Tis thou that best can tell;
For thou hast learnt to read, hast playbills read,
The Grub Street Journal thou hast known to write,
Thou art a judge; say, wherefore was it damned?
LEATHERSIDES. I heard a tailor, sitting by my side,
Play on his catcall, and cry out, “Sad stuff!”
A little farther an apprentice sat,
And he too hissed, and he too cried, “‘twas low.”
Then o’er the pit I downward cast my eye.
The pit all hissed, all whistled, and all groaned.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL. Enough. The poet’s lost, and so’s his bill.
Oh! ‘Tis the tradesman’s, not the poet’s hurt:
For him the washerwoman toils in vain,
For him in vain the tailor sits cross legged,
He runs away and leaves all debts unpaid.
LEATHERSIDES. The mighty Captain Bilkum this way comes.
I left him in the entry with his chairman
Wrangling about his fare.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL. Leathersides, ‘tis well.
Retire, my girls, and patient wait for culls.
SCENE II.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL, CAPTAIN BILKUM, CHAIRMAN.
CHAIRMAN. Your honour, sir, has paid but half my fare.
I ask but for my fare.
CAPTAIN BILKUM. Thy fare be damned.
CHAIRMAN. This is not acting like a gentleman.
CAPTAIN BILKUM. Begone; or by the powers of dice, I swear,
Were there no other chairman in the world,
From out thy empty head I’d knock thy brains.
CHAIRMAN. Oh that with me all chairmen would conspire
No more to carry such sad dogs for hire,
But let the lazy rascals straddle through the mire.
SCENE III.
CAPTAIN BILKUM, MOTHER PUNCHBOWL.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL. What is the reason, captain, that you make
This noise within my house? Do you intend
To arm reforming constables against me?
Would it delight your eyes to see me dragged
By base plebian hands to Westminster,
The scoff of serjeants and attorneys’ clerks,
And then, exalted on the pillory,
To stand the sneer of every virtuous whore?
Oh! couldst thou bear to see the rotten egg
Mix with my tears, and trickle down my cheeks,
Like dew distilling from the full-blown rose:
Or see me follow the attractive cart,
To see the hangman lift the virgal rod,
That hangman you so narrowly escaped!
CAPTAIN BILKUM. Ha! that last thought has stung me to the soul:
Damnation on all laws and lawyers too:
Behold thee carted — oh! forefend that sight,
May Bilkum’s neck be stretched before that day.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL. Come to my arms, thou best beloved of sons,
Forgive the weakness of thy mother’s fears:
O ! may I never, never see thee hanged!
CAPTAIN BILKUM. If born to swing, I never shall be drowned:
Far be it from me, with too curious mind,
To search the office whence eternal fate
Issues her writs of various ills to men;
Too soon arrested we shall know our doom.
And now a present evil gnaws my heart,
Oh! Mother, mother —
MOTHER PUNCHBOWTL. Say, what would my son?
CAPTAIN BILKUM. Get me a wench, and lend me half a crowm.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL. Thou shalt have both.
CAPTAIN BILKUM. Oh! goodness most unmatche
What are your ‘Nelopes compared to thee?
In vain we’d search the hundreds of the town,
From where, in Goodman’s Fields, the city dame
Emboxed sits, for two times eighteenpence,
To where, at midnight hours, the noble race
In borrowed voice, and mimic habit squeak.
Yet where, oh where is such a bawd as thou?
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL. Oh! deal not praise with such a lavish tongue;
If I excel all others of my trade,
Thanks to those stars that taught me to excel.
SCENE IV.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL, CAPTAIN BILKUM, LEATHERSIDES.
LEATHERSIDES. A porter from Lovegirlo is arrived.
If in your train one harlot can be found,
That has not been a month upon the town;
Her he expects to find in bed by two.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL. Thou, Leathersides, best knowst such nymphs to find,
To thee their lodgings they communicate.
Go, thou procure the girl, I’ll make the punch,
Which she must call for when she first arrives.
Oh! Bilkum, when I backward cast my thoughts,
When I revolve the glorious days I’ve seen,
(Days I shall see no more) — it tears my brain.
When culls sent frequent, and were sent away.
When colonels, majors, captains, and lieutenants,
&nb
sp; Here spent the issue of their glorious toils;
These were the men, my Bilkum, that subdued
The haughty foe, and paid for beauty here.
Now we are sunk to a low race of beaus,
Fellows unfit for women or for war;
And one poor cull is all the guests I have.
SCENE V.
LEATHERSIDES, MOTHER PUNCHBOWL, CAPTAIN BILKUM.
LEATHERSIDES. TWO whores, great madam, must be straight prepared,
A fat one for the squire, and for my lord a lean.
MOTHER PUNCHBOWL. Be that thy care. This weighty business done,
A bowl of humming punch shall glad my son.
SCENE VI.
CAPTAIN BILKUM. [Solus.] Oh! ‘Tis not in the power of punch to ease
My grief-stung soul, since Hecatissa’s false,
Since she could hide a poor half-guinea from me.
Oh! had I searched her pockets ere I rose,
I had not left a single shilling in them.
But lo! Lovegirlo comes, I will retire.
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 289