have done by this time I know not; but Petulant and he were upon quarrelling as I came by. Mill. Well, if Mirabell should not make a good husband, I am a lost thing; for I find I love him violently. Mrs Fain. So it seems; for you mind not what is said to you. If you doubt him, you had bet ter take up with sir Wilfull. Mill. How can you name that superannuated lubber? foh! Enter WITWOULD from drinking. Mrs Fain. So! is the fray made up, that you have left them? Wit. Left them? I could stay no longer-I have laughed like ten christenings-I am tipsy with laughing—If I had staid any longer I should have burst-I must have been let out, and pierced in the sides like an unsized camlet-Yes, yes, the fray is composed; my lady came in like a noli prosequi, and stopt the proceedings. Mill. What was the dispute? Wit. That's the jest; there was no dispute. They could neither of them speak for rage; and so fell a sputtering at one another, like two roasting apples. Enter PETULANT drunk. Now, Petulant? all's over, all's well? gad, my head begins to whim it about-why dost thou not speak? thou art both as drunk and as mute as a fish. Pet. Look you, Mrs Millamant-if you can love me, dear nymph--say it-and that's the conclusion-pass on, or pass off--that's all. Wit. Thou hast uttered volumes, folios, in less than decimo sexto, my dear Lacedemonian. Sirrah, Petulant, thou art an epitomizer of words! Pet. Witwould--You are an annihilator of sense! Wit. Thou art a retailer of phrases; and dost deal in remnants of remnants, like a maker of pincushions!---Thou art, in truth, (metaphorically speaking) a speaker of short-hand ! Pet. Thou art (without a figure) just one-half of an ass, and Baldwin, yonder, thy half-brother, is the rest!--a gemini of asses split would make just four of you! Wit. Thou dost bite, my dear mustard-seed! Kiss me for that. Pet. Stand off! I'll kiss no more males. I have kissed your twin yonder in a humour of reconciliation, till he [Hiccup.] rises upon my sto mach like a raddish. Mill. Eh! filthy creature---what was the quar rel? Pet. There was no quarrel-there might have been a quarrel. Wit. If there had been words enow between them to have expressed provocation, they had gone together, by the ears, like a pair of castanets. Pet. You were the quarrel. Mill. Me! Pet. If I have the humour to quarrel, I can make less matters conclude premises--if you are not handsome, what then, if I have a humour to prove it? If I shall have my reward, say so; if not, fight for your face the next time yourself— I'll go sleep. Wit. Do, wrap thyself up like a woodlouse, and dream revenge-and, hear me, if thou canst learn to write by to-morrow morning, pen me a challenge; I'll carry it for thee! Pet. Carry your mistress's monkey a spider! go flea dogs, and read romances !---I'll go to bed. [Exit PETULANT. Mrs Fain. He's horridly drunk-how came. you all in this pickle? Wit. A plot, a plot, to get rid of the knight !---Your husband's advice; but he sneaked off. Enter SIR WILFULL drunk, and LADY WISH Sir Wil. 'Sheart, an you grudge me your liquor, make a bill-give me more drink, and take my purse. Sings. Prithee fill me the glass Till it laugh in my face, Is an ignorant ass, But if you would have me marry my cousin, say the word, and I'll do it--Wilfull will do it, that's the word-Wilfull will do it, that's my crest---my motto I have forgot. Lady Wish. My nephew's a little overtaken, cousin but 'tis with drinking your health-On my word, you are obliged to him Sir Wil. In vino veritas, aunt: if I drunk your health to day, cousin-I am a borachio. But if you have a mind to be married, say the word, dust it away, and let's have t'other round-Tony, and send for the piper; Wilfull will do it. If not, ods-heart, where's Tony?-Tony's an honest fellow; but he spits after a bumper, and that's a fault. Sings. We'll drink, and we'll never ha' done, boys. Put the glass, then, around with the sun, boys. Let Apollo's example invite us ; The sun's a good pimple, an honest soaker, he has a cellar at your antipodes. If I travel, aunt, I touch at your antipodes your antipodes are a good rascally sort of topsy-turvy fellows—if I had a bumper, I'd stand upon my head and drink a health to them-A match or no match, cousin with the hard name?-aunt, Wilfull will do it. Mill. Your pardon madam, I can stay no longer-Sir Wilfull grows very powerful. Egh! how he smells! I shall be overcome, if I stay. Come, cousin. Sir Wil. With a wench, Tony? let me bite your check for that. Wit. Horrible! he has a breath like a bagpipe--Ay, ay, come, will you march, my Salopian? Sir Wil. Lead on, little Tony--I'll follow thee, my Anthony, my Tanthony; sirrah, thou shalt be my Tantony, and I'll be thy pig. -And a fig for your sultan and sophi. [Exeunt SIR WILFULL, MR WITWOULD, and FOIBLE. Lady Wish. This will never do. It will never make a match-At least, before he has been abroad. Enter WAITWELL, disguised, as for SIR Row LAND. [Exeunt MILLAMANT and MRS FAINALL. Lady Wish. Smells! he would poison a tallowchandler and his family. Beastly creature, I Dear sir Rowland, I am confounded with confuknow not what to do with him.-Travel quoth a!sion at the retrospection of my own rudeness.—— ay, travel, travel; get thee gone, get thee gone, get thee but far enough, to the Saracens, or the Tartars, or the Turks-for thou art not fit to live in a Christian commonwealth, thou beastly pagan! I have more pardons to ask than the pope distributes in the year of jubilee. But, I hope, where there is likely to be so near an alliance--we may unbend the severity of decorum-and dispense with a little ceremony. Sir Wil. Turks! no; no Turks, aunt; your Wait. My impatience, madam, is the effect of Turks are infidels, and believe not in the grape. my transport; and, till I have the possession of Your Mahometan, your Musselman, is a dry stin-your adorable person, I am tantalized on the rack, kard-No offence, aunt. My map says that your and do but hang, madam, on the tenter of exTurk is not so honest a man as your Christian- pectation. I cannot find by the map, that your Mufti is orthodox-whereby it is a plain case, that orthodox is a hard word, aunt, and [Hiccup.] Greek for claret. Sings. To drink is a Christian diversion, Unknown to the Turk or the Persian: Enter FOIBLE, and whispers LADY WISHFORT. Eh, Tony! Lady Wish. Sir Rowland impatient! good lack, what shall I do with this beastly tumbril?---go lie down and sleep, you sot---or, as I'm a person, I'll have you bastinadoed with broomsticks. Call up the wenches with broomsticks. Sir Wil. Ahey! wenches? where are the wenches? Lady Wish. Dear cousin Witwould, get him away, and you will bind me to you inviolably. I have an affair of moment, that invades me with some precipitation--you will oblige me to all futurity. Wit. Come, knight-plague on him, I don't know what to say to him---will you go to a cockmatch? VOL. II. Lady Wish. You have excess of gallantry, sir Rowland; and press things to a conclusion with a most prevailing vehemence-But a day or two for decency of marriage. Wait. For decency of funeral, madam. The delay will break my heart-or, if that should fail, I shall be poisoned. My nephew will get an inkling of my designs, and poison me--and I would willingly starve him before I die--I would gladly go out of the world with that satisfaction. That would be some comfort to me, if I could but live so long as to be revenged on that unnatural viper. Lady Wish. Is he so unnatural, say you? truly, I would contribute much, both to the saving of your life, and the accomplishment of your revenge. Not that I respect myself; though he has been a perfidious wretch to me. Wait. Perfidious to you! Lady Wish. O, sir Rowland, the hours, that he has died away at my feet; the tears, that he has shed; the oaths, that he has sworn; the palpitations, that he has felt; the trances and tremblings, the ardours and the ecstasies, the kneelings and the risings, the heart-heavings and the handgrippings, the pangs and the pathetic regards of his protesting eyes! O, no memory can register. Wait. What, my rival! is the rebel my rival? a'dies. Lady Wish. No, don't kill him at once, sir Rowland; starve him gradually, inch by inch. Wait. I'll do it. In three weeks he shall be 2 M barefoot; in a month out at knees with begging an alms--he shall starve upward and upward, till he has nothing living but his head, and then go out in a stink, like a candle's end upon a save all. Lady Wish. Well, sir Rowland, you have the way-You are no novice in the labyrinth of love -You have the clue-But, as I am a person, sir Rowland, you must not attribute my yielding to any sinister appetite, or indigestion of widowhood; nor impute my complacency to any lethargy of continence I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials Wait. Far be it from me Lady Wish. If you do, I protest I must recede -or think that I have made a prostitution of decorums; but, in the vehemence of compassion, and to save the life of a person of so much importance-- Wait. I esteem it so-- Lady Wish. Or else you wrong my condescension Wait. I do not, I do not Lady Wish. Indeed, you do. Wait. I do not, fair shrine of virtue. Lady Wish. If you think the least scruple of carnality was an ingredient— Wait. Dear madam, no. You are all camphire and frankincense; all chastity and odour. Lady Wish. Or that Enter FOIBLE. Foi. Madam, the dancers are ready, and there's one with a letter, who must deliver it into your own hands. Lady Wish. Sir Rowland, will you give me leave? think favourably, judge candidly, and conclude you have found a person, who would suffer racks in honour's cause, dear sir Rowland, and will wait on you incessantly. [Exit LADY WISHFORT. Wait. Fy, fy-What a slavery have I undergone! Spouse, hast thou any cordial? I want spirits. Foi. What a washy rogue art thou, to pant thus for a quarter of an hour's lying and swearing to a fine lady! Wait. O, she is the antidote to desire. Spouse, thou wilt fare the worse for it. By this hand, I'd rather be a chairman in the dog-days-than act sir Rowland till this time to-morrow. Enter LADY WISHFORT with a letter. Lady Wish. Call in the dancers;-Sir Rowland, we'll sit, if you please, and see the entertainment. [Dance.] Now, with your permission, sir Rowland, I will peruse my letter-I would open it in your presence, because I would not make you uneasy. If it should make you uneasy I would burn it-speak, if it does--but you may see, the superscription is like a woman's hand. Foi. By heaven! Mrs Marwood's. I know it. My heart akes-get it from her [To him. Wait. A woman's hand! No, madam, that's no woman's hand, I see that already. That's somebody, whose throat must be cut. Lady Wish. Nay, sir Rowland, since you give me a proof of your passion by your jealousy, I promise you I'll make a return, by a frank communication-You shall see it-we'll open it together-look you here.-Reads Madam, though unknown to you,' (Look you there, 'tis from nobody, that I know) I have that honour for your character, that I think myself obliged to let you know you are abused. He, who pretends to be sir Rowland, is a cheat and a rascal-' O heaven's! what's this? Foi. Unfortunate, all's ruined! Wait. How, how! let me see, let me see;[Reading. A rascal, and disguised, and suborned for that imposture,'-O villainy! Ovillainy! By the contrivance of Lady Wish. I shall faint, I shall die, ho! Foi. Say, 'tis your nephew's hand.-Quickly, his plot, swear it, swear it. --- Wait. Here's a villain, madam! don't you per ceive it, don't you see it? Lady Wish. Too well, too well; I have seen too much. Wait. I told you at first I knew the hand: a woman's hand! The rascal writes a sort of a large hand; your Roman hand-I saw there was a throat to be cut presently. If he were my son, as he is my nephew, I'd pistol him— Foi. O, treachery! But are you sure, sir Rowland, it is his writing? Wait. Sure! Am I here? Do I live? Do I love this pearl of India? I have twenty letters in my pocket from him, in the same character. Lady Wish. How! Foi. O, what luck it is, sir Rowland, that you were present at this juncture! this was the business that brought Mr Mirabell disguised to madam Millamant this afternoon. I thought something was contriving, when he stole by me, and would have hid his face. Lady Wish. How, how!-I heard the villain was in the house, indeed; and, now, I remember, my niece went away abruptly, when sir Wilfull was to have made his addresses. Foi. Then, theu, madam, Mr Mirabell waited for her in her chamber! but, I would not tell your ladyship, to discompose you, when you were to receive sir Rowland. Wait. Enough, his date is short. Foi. No, good sir Rowland, don't incur the law. Wait. Law! I care not for law. I can but die; and, 'tis in a good cause-My lady shall be satisfied of my truth and innocence, though it cost me my life. Lady Wish. No, dear sir Rowland, don't fight; if you should be killed, I must never show my face: Or hanged!-0, consider my reputation, sir Rowland!--No, you shan't fight-I'll go in and examine my niece; I'll make her confess. I conjure you, sir Rowland, by all your love, not to fight. Wait. I am charmed, madam; I obey. But some proof you must let me give you. I'll go for a black box, which contains the writings of my whole estate, and deliver that into your hands. Lady Wish. Ay, dear sir Rowland, that will be some comfort; bring the black box. SCENE I.-Continues. ACT V. LADY WISHFORT and FOIBLE. Lady Wish. Out of my house, out of my house, thou viper, thou serpent, that I have fostered! thou bosom traitress, that I raised from nothing! Begone, begone, begone! go, go!-That I took from washing of old gauze, and weaving of dead hair, with a bleak blue nose, over a chaffing-dish of starved embers, and dining behind a traverserag, in a shop no bigger than a birdcage, go, go! starve again, do, do. Foi. Dear madam, I'll beg pardon on my knees. Lady Wish. Away! out, out! go, set up for yourself again--do, drive a trade, do, with your three-pennyworth of small ware, flaunting upon a pack-thread, under a brandy-seller's bulk, or against a dead wall by a ballad-monger. Go, hang out an old frisoneer-gorget, with a yard of yellow Colberteen, again; do; an old gnawed mask, two rows of pins, and a child's fiddle; a glass necklace, with the beads broken, and a quilted night-cap with one ear. Go, go, drive a trade. These were your commodities, you treacherous trull! this was the merchandise you dealt in, when I took you into my house, placed you next myself, and made you governante of my whole family. You have forgot this, have you, now you have feathered your nest? Foi. No, no, dear madam! Do but hear me; have but a moment's patience-I'll confess all. Mr Mirabell seduced me; I am not the first, that he has wheedled with his dissembling tongue; your ladyship's own wisdom has been deluded by him; then, how should I, a poor ignorant, defend myself? O, madam! if you knew but what he promised me; and how he assured me your ladyship should come to no damage--Or else the wealth of the Indies should not have bribed me to conspire against so good, so sweet, so kind a lady as you have been to me. Lady Wish. No damage! What! to betray me, and marry me to a cast serving-man! to make me a receptacle, an hospital for a decayed pimp! No damage! O thou frontless impudence, more than a big-bellied actress ! Foi. Pray, do but hear me, madam; he could not marry your ladyship, madain--No, indeed, his marriage was to have been void in law; for, he was married to me first, to secure your ladyship. Yes, indeed; I inquired of the law in that case, before I would ineddle or make. Lady Wish. What, then, I have been your property, have I? I have been convenient to you, it seems-while you were catering for Mirabell, I have been broker for you! What, have you made a passive bawd of me?--This exceeds all precedent; I am brought to fine uses, to become a botcher of second-hand marriages between Abigails and Andrews! I'll couple you. Yes, I'll baste you together, you and your Philander. I'll Duke's-Place you, as I'm a person. Your turtle is in custody already: you shall coo in the same cage, if there be a constable or warrant in the parish. [Erit. Foi. O that ever I was born! O that I was ever married!-a bride! ay, I shall be a Bridewell bride, oh! Enter MRS FAINALL. Mrs Fain. Poor Foible, what's the matter? Foi. O madam, my lady's gone for a constable! I shall be had to a justice, and put to Bridewell to beat hemp; poor Waitwell's gone to prison already. Mrs Fain. Have a good heart, Foible; Mirabell's gone to give security for him. This is all Marwood's and my husband's doing. Foi. Yes, yes, I know it, madam; she was in my lady's closet, and overheard all that you said to me before dinner. She sent the letter to my lady; and that missing effect, Mr Fainall laid this plot to arrest Waitwell, when he pretended to go for the papers; and, in the mean time, Mrs Marwood declared all to my lady. Mrs Fuin. Was there no mention made of me in the letter?-My mother does not suspect my being in the confederacy? I fancy Marwood has not told her, though she has told my husband. Foi. Yes, madam; but my lady did not see that part: we stifled the letter before she read so far. Has that mischievous devil told Mr Fainall of your ladyship then? Mrs Fain. Ay, all's out; my affair with Mirabell, every thing discovered. This is the last day of our living together, that's my comfort. Foi. Indeed, madam! and so 'tis a comfort, if you knew all-he has been even with your ladyship; which I could have told you long enough since; but I love to keep peace and quietness by my good will: I had rather bring friends together, than set them at distance. But Mrs Marwood and he are nearer related than ever their parents thought for. Mrs Fain. Say'st thou so, Foible? Canst thou prove this? and now, you are become an intercessor with my son-in-law, to save the honour of my house, and compound for the frailties of my daughter. Well, friend, you are enough to reconcile me to the bad world, or else I would retire to deserts and solitudes, and feed harmless sheep by groves and purling streams. Dear Marwood, let us leave the world, and retire by ourselves, and be shepherdesses. Mrs Mar. Let us first dispatch the affair in hand, madam. We shall have leisure to think of retirement afterwards. Here is one who is concerned in the treaty. Lady Wish. O daughter, daughter! is it possible thou shouldst be my child, bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, and, as I may say, another me, and yet transgress the minute particle of severe virtue? Is it possible you should lean aside to iniquity, who have been cast in the direct mould of virtue? Foi. I can take my oath of it, madam; so can Mrs Mincing. We have had many a fair word from madam Marwood, to conceal something, that passed in our chamber one evening, when we were at Hyde Park ;-and we were thought to have gone a walking: but we went up una- Mrs Fain. I don't understand your ladyship. wares,- though we were sworn to secrecy, Lady Wish. Not understand! why, have you too; madam Marwood took a book, and swore us not been naught? have you not been sophisticatupon it but it was but a book of poems.-Soed? Not understand! here I am ruined to comlong as it was not a bible-oath, we may break it with a safe conscience. Mrs Fain. This discovery is the most opportune thing I could wish-Now, Mincing! Enter MINCING. Min. My lady would speak with Mrs Foible. mem. Mr Mirabell is with her; he has set your spouse at liberty, Mrs Foible, and would have you hide yourself in my lady's closet, till my old lady's anger is abated. O, my old lady is in a perilous passion, at something Mr Fainal has said; he swears, and my old lady cries. There's a fearful hurricane, I VOW. He says, mem, how that he'll have my lady's fortune made over to him, or he'll be divorced. Mrs Fain. Does your lady or Mirabell know that! Min. Yes, mem, they have sent me to see if Sir Wilfull be sober, and to bring him to them. My lady is resolved to have him, I think, rather than lose such a vast sum as six thousand pounds. O, come Mrs Foible; I hear my old lady. Mrs Fain. Foible, you must tell Mincing, that she must prepare to vouch when I call her. Foi. Yes, yes, madam. Min. O, yes, mem, I'll vouch any thing for your ladyship's service, be what it will. [Exeunt FOIBLE and MINCING. Enter LADY WISHFORT and MRS MARWOOD. Lady Wish. O my dear friend, how can I enumerate the benefits that I have received from your goodness! To you, I owe the timely discovery of the false vows of Mirabell; to you, I owe the detection of the impostor sir Rowland; pound for your caprices, and your cuckoldoms. I must part with my plate and my jewels, and ruin my niece, and all little enough- Mrs Fain. I am wronged and abused, and so are you. 'Tis a false accusation, as false as hell! as false as your friend there, ay, or your friend's friend, my false husband! Mrs Mar. My friend! Mrs Fainall? your husband my friend! what do you mean? Mrs Fain. I know what I mean, madam, and so do you: and so shall all the world at a time convenient. Mrs Mar. I am sorry to see you so passionate, madam. More temper would look more like innocence. But I have done. I am sorry my zeal to serve your ladyship and family should admit of misconstruction, or make me liable to affronts. You will pardon me, madam, if I meddle no more with an affair, in which I am not personally concerned. Lady Wish. O dear friend, I am so ashamed that you should meet with such returns!—you ought to ask pardon on your knees, ungrateful creature! she deserves more from you, than all your life can accomplish-O don't leave me destitute in this perplexity!-no, stick to me, my good genius! Mrs Fain. I tell you, madam, you're abused-Stick to you? ay, like a leech, to suck your best blood-she'll drop off, when she's full. Madam, you shan't pawn a bodkin, nor part with a brass counter, in composition for me. I defy them all. Let them prove their aspersions: I know my own innocence, and dare stand a trial. |