blunder here, child, to invite so many people to a marriage-knot, and, instead of that, it is like to be one under the left ear. Clo. I'd fain have him die. D. Lew. Well, my dear, I'll provide for thy going off, however; let me see— -you'll only have occasion for a nosegay, a pair of white gloves, and a coffin: look you, take you no care about the surgeons, you shall not be anatomized-I'll get the body off with a wet finger-Though, methinks, I'd fain see the inside of the puppy, too. Clo. Oh, rot him! I can't bear this. D. Lew. Well, I won't trouble you any more now, child; if I am not engaged, I don't know but I may come to the tree, and sing a stave or two with thee-Nay, I'll rise on purposethough you will hardly suffer before twelve o'clock, neither-ay, just about twelve-about twelve you'll be turned off. Clo. Oh, curse consume him! Gov. I am convinced, madam; the fact appears too plain. D. Lew. Yes, yes, he'll suffer. [Aside. Gov. What says the gentleman? Do you confess the fact, sir? Clo. Will it do me any good, my lord? Gov. Perhaps it may, if you can prove it was not done in malice. Clo. Why, then, to confess the truth, my lord, I did pink him, and am sorry for it; but it was none of my fault, split me. Elo. Now, my lord, your justice. D. Du. Hold, madam, that remains in me to give; for know, your brother lives, and happy in the proof of such a sister's virtue. [Discovers himself. Elo. My brother! Oh, let my wonder speak my joy! Clo. Hey! [CLODIO and his friends seem surprised: Gov. Don Duart! living and well! How came this strange recovery? : D. Du. My body's health the surgeon has restored but here's the true physician of my mind: the hot, distempered blood, which lately rendered me offensive to mankind, his just, resenting sword let forth, which gave me leisure to reflect upon my follies past; and, by reflection, to reform. Elv. This is indeed a happy change. Clo. Here, Testy, prithee do so much as untie this a little. D. Lew. Why, so I will, sirrah; I find thou hast done a mettled thing; and I don't know whether it is worth my while to be shocked at thee any longer. Elo. I ask your pardon for the wrong I have done you, sir; and blush to think how much I owe you, for a brother thus restored. Clo. Madam, your very humble servant; it is mighty well as it is. D. Du. We are, indeed, his debtors both; and sister, there's but one way now of being grateful. For my sake, give him such returns of love, as he may yet think fit to ask, or you, with modesty, can answer. Clo. Sir, I thank you; and when you don't think it impudence in me to wish myself well with your sister, I shall beg leave to make use of your friendship. D. Du. This modesty commends you, sir. Ant. Sir, you have proposed like a man of honour; and if the lady can but like it, she shall find those among us, that will make up a fortune to deserve her. Car. I wish my brother well; and as I once offered him to divide my birth-right, I'm ready still to put my words into perfor mance. D. Lew. Nay, then, since I find the rogue's no longer like to be an enemy to Charles, as far as a few acres go, I'll be his friend, too. D. Du. Sister! Elo. This is no trifle, brother; allow me a convenient time to think, and if the gentleman continues to deserve your friendship, he shall not much complain I am his enemy. D. Lew. So, now it will be a wedding again, faith! Car. Come, my Angelina, Our bark, at length, has found a quiet harbour, And the distressful voyage of our loves Ends not alone in safety, but reward. Now we unlade our freight of happiness, Of which, from thee alone my share's derived; For all my former search in deep philosophy, Not knowing thee, was a mere dream of life: But love, in one soft moment, taught me more Than all the volumes of the learned could reach; Gave me the proof, when nature's birth began, To what great end the ETERNAL formed a man. [Exeunt. SCENE I.-A chocolate house. ACT I. Fain. Confess, Millamant and you quarrelled MIRABELL and FAINALL, rising from cards. soine humours, that would tempt the patience of last night, after I left you; my fair cousin has BETTY waiting. Mira. You are a fortunate man, Mr Fainall. Fain. Have we done? Mira. What you please. I'll play on to entertain you. Fain. No, I'll give you your revenge another time, when you are not so indifferent; you are thinking of something else now, and play too negligently; the coldness of a losing gamester lessens the pleasure of the winner. I'd no more play with a man, that slighted his ill fortune, than I'd make love to a woman, who undervalued the loss of her reputation. Mira. You have a taste extremely delicate, and are for refining on your pleasures. Fain. Prithee, why so reserved? something has put you out of humour. Mira. Not at all: I happen to be grave today; and you are gay; that's all. a stoic. What, some coxcomb came in, and was well received by her, while you were by? Mira. Witwould and Petulant! and what was worse, her aunt, your wife's mother, my evil genius; or, to sum up all in her own name, my old lady Wishfort came in Fain. O, there it is, then!passion for you, and with reasonmy wife was there? -She has a lasting -What! then Mira. Yes, and Mrs Marwood, and three or four more, whom I never saw before; seeing me, they all put on their grave faces, whispered one another, then complained aloud of the vapours, and after, fell into a profound silence. Fain. They had a mind to be rid of you. Mira. For which reason, I resolved not to stir. At last, the good old lady broke through her painful taciturnity with an invective against long visits. I would not have understood her, but Millamant joining in the argument, I rose, and, with a constrained smile, told her, I thought nothing was so easy as to know, when a visit began to be troublesome. She reddened, and I withdrew without expecting her reply. Fain. You were to blame to resent what she spoke only in compliance with her aunt. Mira. She is more mistress of herself than to be under the necessity of such resignation. Fain. What! though half her fortune depends upon her marrying with my lady's approbation? Mira. I was then in such a humour, that I ́should have been better pleased, if she had been less discreet. Bet. Turned of the last canonical hour, sir. Mira. How pertinently the jade answers me! ha! almost one o'clock ! [Looking on his watch.] O, ye are come Enter FOOTMAN. Well, is the grand affair over? You have been something tedious. Fain. Now I remember, I wonder not they were weary of you: last night was one of their cabal nights; they have them three times a-week, and meet by turns at one another's apartments, where they come together, like the coroner's inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of Foot. Sir, there's such coupling at Pancras, the week. You and I are excluded; and it was that they stand behind one another, as 'twere in once proposed, that all the male sex should be a country dance. Ours was the last couple to excepted; but somebody moved, that, to avoid lead up; and no hopes appearing of dispatch, bescandal, there might be one man of the commu-sides, the parson growing hoarse, we were afraid nity; upon which motion Witwould and Petulant were enrolled members. Mira. And who may have been the foundress of this sect? My lady Wishfort, I warrant, who publishes her detestation of mankind; and, full of the vigour of fifty-five, declares for a friend and ratafia; and let posterity shift for itself, she'll breed no more. Fain. The discovery of your sham addresses to her, to conceal your love to her niece, has provoked this separation : had you dissembled better, things might have continued in the state of nature. Mira. I did as much as man could, with any reasonable conscience; I proceeded to the very last act of flattery with her, and was guilty of a song in her commendation. Nay, I got a friend to put her into a lampoon, and compliment ber with the addresses of a young fellow. The devil's in't if an old woman is to be flattered farther. But for the discovery of this amour, I am indebted to your friend, or your wife's friend, Mrs Marwood. Fain. What should provoke her to be your enemy, unless she has made you advances, which you have slighted? Women do not easily forgive omissions of that nature. Mira. She was always civil to me, till of late. I confess, I am not one of those coxcombs, who are apt to interpret a woman's good manners to her prejudice; and think, that she, who does not refuse them every thing, can refuse them nothing. Fain. You are a gallant man, Mirabell; and though you may have cruelty enough not to answer a lady's advances, you have too much generosity, not to be tender of her honour. Yet, you speak with an indifference, which seems to be affected; and confesses you are conscious of a negligence. his lungs would have failed before it came to our Mira. So, so, you are sure they are married. Foot. Here it is, sir. Fain. Joy of your success, Mirabell; you look pleased. Mira. Ay, I have been engaged in a matter of some sort of mirth, which is not yet ripe for discovery. I am glad this is not a cabal-night. I wonder, Fainall, that you, who are married, and, of consequence, should be discreet, will suffer your wife to be of such a party. Fain. Faith, I am not jealous. Besides, most, who are engaged, are women and relations; and, for the men, they are of a kind too contemptible to give scandal. Mira. I am of another opinion. The greater the coxcomb, always the more the scandal: for, a woman, who is not a fool, can have but one reason for associating with a man, who is one. Fain. Are you jealous as often as you see Witwould entertained by Millamant? Mira. Of her understanding I am, if not of her person. Fain. You do her wrong; for, to give her her | of England, that all Europe should know we have due, she has wit. blockheads of all ages. Mira. She has beauty enough to make any man think so; and complaisance enough not to contradict him, who shall tell her so. Fain. For a passionate lover, methinks you are a man somewhat too discerning in the failings of your mistress. Mira. And for a discerning man, somewhat too passionate a lover; for I like her with all her faults; nay, like her for her faults. Her follies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her; and those affectations, which, in another woman, would be odious, serve but to make her more agreeable. I'll tell thee, Fainall; she once used me with that insolence, that, in revenge, I took her to pieces; sifted her, and separated her failings; I studied them, and got them by rote. The catalogue was so large, that I was not without hopes, one day or other, to hate her heartily; to which end I so used myself to think of them, that at length, contrary to my design and expectation, they gave me every hour less disturbance, till, in a few days, it became habitual to me to remember them without being displeased. They are now grown as familiar to me as my own frailties; and, in all probability, in a little time longer I shall like them as well. Fain. Marry her, marry her; be half as well acquainted with her charms as you are with her defects, and my life on't you are your own man again. Mira. Say you so? Mira. I wonder there is not an act of parliament to save the credit of the nation, and prohibit the exportation of fools. Fain. By no means, 'tis better as it is; 'tis better to trade with a little loss, than to be quite eaten up with being overstocked. Mira. Pray, are the follies of this knight-errant, and those of the 'squire his brother, any thing related? Fain. Not at all; Witwould grows by the knight, like a medlar grafted on a crab. One will melt in your mouth, and t'other set your teeth on edge; one is all pulp, and the other all core. Mira. So, one will be rotten before he be ripe, and the other will be rotten without ever being ripe at all. Fain. Sir Wilful is an odd mixture of bashfulness and obstinacy. But when he's drunk, he's as loving as the monster in the tempest; and much after the same manner. To give t'other his due, he has something of good-nature, and does not always want wit. Mira. Not always but as often as his memory fails him, and his common-place of comparisons. He is a fool with a good memory, and some few scraps of other folks wit. He is one, whose conversation can never be approved, yet it is now and then to be endured. He has, indeed, one good quality—he is not exceptious; for he so so passionately affects the reputation of un Fain. I have experience: I have a wife, and derstanding raillery, that he will construe an afso forth. Enter Messenger. Mes. Is one 'squire Witwould here? Bet. Yes; what's your business? Mes. I have a letter for him, from his brother, sir Wilful, which I am charged to deliver into his own hands. Bet. He's in the next room, friend-That [Exit Messenger way. Mira. What, is the chief of that noble family in town? sir Wilful Witwould? Fain. He is expected to-day. Do you know him? Mira. I have seen him; he promises to be an extraordinary person; I think you have the honour to be related to him? Fain. Yes, he is half-brother to this Witwould by a former wife, who was sister to my lady Wishfort, my wife's mother. If you marry Millamant, you must call cousins too. Mira. I would rather be his relation than his acquaintance. Fain. He comes to town in order to equip himself for travel. Mira. For travel! Why, the man, that I mean, is above forty. Fain. No matter for that; 'tis for the honour front into a jest; and call downright rudeness and ill language, satire and fire. Fain. If you have a mind to finish his picture, you have an opportunity to do it at full length. Behold the original. Enter WITWOULD. Wit. Afford me your compassion, my dears; pity me, Fainall! Mirabell, pity me! Mira. I do, from my soul. Fain. Why, what's the matter? Bet. Did not a messenger bring you one but now, sir? Wit. Aye, but no other? Bet. No, sir. Wit. That's hard, that's very hard; a messenger, a mule, a beast of burden; he has brought me a letter from the fool, my brother, as heavy as a panegyric in a funeral sermon, or a copy of commendatory verses from one poet to another. And what's worse, 'tis as sure a forerunner of the author, as an epistle dedicatory. Mira. A fool, and your brother, Witwould! Wit. Aye, aye, my half brother. My half brother he is; no nearer, upon honour. Mira. Then, 'tis possible he may be but half a fool. Wit. Good, good, Mirabell, le drole! Good, good! hang him! don't let us talk of him. Fainall, how does your lady? gad, I say any thing in the world to get this fellow out of my head. I beg pardon, that I should ask a man of pleasure, and the town, a question at once so foreign and domestic. But I talk like an old maid at a marriage; I don't know what I say: but she is the best woman in the world. Fain. "Twas well you don't know what you say, or else your commendation would go near to make me either vain or jealous. Wit. No man in town lives well with a wife but Fainall. Your judgment, Mirabell? fore he speaks; we have all our failings: you are too hard upon him; you are, faith. Let me excuse him-I can defend most of his faults, except one or two; one he has, that's the truth on't; if he were my brother, I could not acquit him-that, indeed, I could wish were otherwise. Mira. Aye marry, what's that, Witwould? Wit. O pardon me! expose the infirmities of a friend! No, my dear, excuse me there. Fain. What, I warrant he's insincere, or 'tis some such trifle. Wit. No, no; what if he be? 'tis no matter for that; his wit will excuse that; a wit should Mira. You had better step and ask his wife, no more be sincere, than a woman constant; one if you would be credibly informed. Wit. Mirabell Mira. Aye Wit. My dear, I ask ten thousand pardons; gad, I have forgot what I was going to say to you. Mira. I thank you heartily, heartily. Wit. No, but prithee, excuse me-my memory is such a memory. Mira. Have you a care of such apologies, Witwould; for I never knew a fool but he affected to complain, either of the spleen or his me mory. Fain. What have you done with Petulant? Wit. He's reckoning his money; my money it was- -I have had no luck to-day. Fain. You may allow him to win of you at play; for you are sure to be too hard for him at repartee: Since you monopolize the wit, that is between you, the fortune must be his of course. Mira. I don't find, that Petulant confesses the superiority of wit to be your talent, Witwould. Wit. Come, come, you are malicious now, and would breed debates-Petulant's my friend, and a very pretty fellow, and a very honest fellow, and has a smattering—faith and troth a pretty deal of an odd sort of small wit: nay, I do him justice, I'm his friend, I won't wrong him. And, if he had any judgement in the world, he would not be altogether contemptible. Come, come, don't detract from the merits of my friend. Fain. You don't take your friend to be overnicely bred? argues a want of parts, as t'other of beauty. Mira. May be you think him too positive? Wit. No, no, his being positive is an incentive to argument, and keeps up conversation. Fain. Too illiterate. Wit. That! that's his happiness-his want of learning gives him the more opportunity to shew his natural parts. Mira. He wants words. Wit. Aye; but I like him for that, now; for his want of words gives me the pleasure very often to explain his meaning. Fain. He's impudent. Wit. No, that's not it. Mira. Vain. Wit. No. Mira. What, he speaks unseasonable truths sometimes, because he has not wit enough to invent an evasion. Wit. Truth! ha, ha, ha! No, no; since you will have it, I mean, he never speaks truth at all, that's all. He will lie like a chambermaid, or a woman of quality's porter. Now, that is a fault. Enter COACHMAN. Coach. Is master Petulant here, mistress? Coach. Three gentlewomen in a coach would speak with him. Fain. O brave Petulant! three! Bet. I'll tell him. Coach. You must bring two dishes of chocolate, and a glass of cinnamon-water. [Exeunt COACHMAN and BETTY. Wit. That should be for two fasting bona roWit. No, no, hang him, the rogue has no man- bas, and a procuress troubled with wind. Now, ners at all, that I must own-No more breed-you may know what the three are. ing than a bum-baily, that I grant you-Tis pity; the fellow has fire and life. Mira. What, courage? Mira. You are very free with your friend's acquaintance. Wit. Aye, aye, friendship without freedom is Wit. Hum, faith I don't know as to that, as dull as love without enjoyment, or wine withcan't say as to that. Yes, faith, in controversy, he'll contradict any body. out toasting; but, to tell you a secret, these are trulls, whom he allows coach-hire, and someMira. Though it were a man, whom he fear-thing more, by the week, to call on him once a ed; or a woman, whom he loved. Wit. Well, well, he does not always think be day at public places. Mira. How! |