Enter Boy with PUFF. Boy. Mr. Puff, sir. Car. The meanness of my original demonstrates the greatness of my genius. Car. Let us be private. What have you there! Puff. Genius! Here's a dog! Pray how Puff. Two of Rembrandt's etching, by Scrape, high did your genius soar? To the daubing diaia May's Buildings: a paltry affair; a poor ten-bolical angels for ale-houses, dogs with chains guinea job; however, a small game-you for tanners' yards, rounds of beef, and, roasted know the proverb What became of you pigs for Porridge island. yesterday? Car. I was detained by Sir Positive Bubble. How went the pictures? The Guido, what did that fetch? Puff. One hundred and thirty, Car. Hum! Four guineas for the frame, three the painting; then, we divide just one hundred and twenty-three. Car. Hannibal Scratchi did the same. Puff. From that contemptible state did not I raise you to the Cat and Fiddle in Petticoatlane; the Goose and Gridiron in Paul's Churchyard; the first live things you ever drew, dog? Car. Pox take your memory! Well, but, Mr. Puff-you are so Puff. Nor did I quit you, then: Who, sirrah, Puff. Hold-not altogether so fast-Var-recommended you to Prim Stiff the mercer upon nish had two pieces for bidding against Squan- Ludgate-hill; how came you to draw the queen der, and Brush five for bringing Sir Tawdry there? [Loud knocks at the door. Trifle. Car. Mr. Puff, for Heaven's sake! Dear sir, you are so warm, we shall be blownEnter Boy. Car. Mighty wel!! Look ye, Mr. Puff, if these people are eternally quartered upon us, I declare off, sir; they eat up the profit. There's that damned Brush-but you'll find him out. I have, upon his old plan, given him copies of all the work I executed upon his recommendation; and what was the consequence? He clandestinely sold the copies, and I have all the originals in my lumber-room. Puff. Come, come, Carmine; you are no great loser by that. Ah! that lumber-room! that lumber-room out of repair, is the best conditioned estate in the county of Middlesex. Why, now, there's your Susannah, it could not have produced you above twenty at most; and, by the addition of your lumber-room, dirt, and the salutary application of the asphaltum-pot, it became a Guido, worth a hundred and thirty pounds-Besides, in all traffic of this kind, there must be combinations. Varnish and Brush are our jackals, and it is but fair they should partake of the prey. Courage, my boy! never fear. Praise be to folly and fashion, there are in this town dupes enough to gratify the avarice of us all. Car. Mr. Puff, you are ignorant and scurrilous, and very impertinent, Mr. Puff; and Mr. Puff, I have a strange mind to leave you to yourselves, and then see what a hand you would make of it. Sir, if I do now and then add some tints of antiquity to my pictures, I do it in condescension to the foible of the world; for, sir, age, age, sir, is all my picture's want to render them as good pieces as the masters from whom they are taken; and let me tell you, sir, he that took my Susannah for a Guido, gave no mighty proofs of his ignorance, Mr. Puff. Boy. Sir, my Lady Pen———— Car. Send her to the-Show her up stairs. Dear Puff Puff. Oh, sir! I can be calm; I only wanted to let you see I had not forgot, though, perhaps, you may. Car. Sir, you are very obliging. Well, but now, as all is over, if you will retreat a small time-Lady Pentweazel sits for her picture, and she's Puff. I have some business at next door; I suppose in half an hour's time Car. I shall be at leisure. Dear PuffPuff. Dear CarmineExit PUFF. Car. Son of a whore! Boy, shew the lady up stairs. Enter LADY PENTWEAZEL. Lady Pent. Fine pieces! very likely pieces! And, indeed, all alike. Hum! Lady Fussockand, ha, ha, ha! Lady Glumstead, by all that's ugly-Pray, now, Mr. Carmine, how do you limners contrive to overlook the ugliness, and yet preserve the likeness? Car. The art, madam, may be conveyed in two words: where nature has been severe, we soften; where she has been kind, we aggravate. Lady Pent. Very ingenus, and very kind, truly. Well, good sir, I bring you a subject that will demand the whole of the first part of your skill; and, if you are at leisure, you may begin directly. Car. Your ladyship is here a little ungrateful to nature, and cruel to yourself; even Lady Pentweazel's enemies (if such there be) must allow that she is a fine woman. Puff. Why, thou post-painter, thou dauber, thou execrable white-washer, thou-have you so soon forgot the wretched state from whence I dragged you? The first time I set eyes on you, what was your occupation, then? Scribbling, in scarce legible letters, Coffee, tea, and choco-had my day. Lady Pent. Oh, your servant, good sir! Why, I have had my day, Mr. Carmine; I have Car. And have still, madam. The only difference I shall make between what you were, and what you are, will be no more than what Rubens has distinguished between Mary de Medicis, a virgin, and a regent. Lady Pent. Mr. Carmine, I vow you are a very judicious person; I was always said to be like that family, When my piece was first done, the limner did me after Venus de Medicis, which, I suppose might be one of Mary's sisters: but things must change; to be sitting for my picture at this time of day-ha, ha, ha! But my daughter, Sukey, you must know, is just married to Mr. Deputy Dripping, of Candlewick-ward, and would not be said nay; so it is not so much for the beauty, as the similitude.— Ha, ha, ha! Car. True, madam: ha, ha, ha! But if I hit the likeness, I must preserve the beauty. Will your ladyship be seated? [She sits. Lady Pent. I have heard, good sir, that every body has a more betterer and more worserer side of the face than the other-now, which will you choose? Car. The right side, madam-the left-now, if you please, the full Your ladyship's countenance is so exactly proportioned, that I must have it all; no feature can be spared, Lady Pent. When you come to the eyes, Mr. Carmine, let me know, that I may call up a look. Car. Mighty well, madam! your face a little nearer to the left, nearer me-your head more up-shoulders back-and chest forward. Lady Pent. Bless me, Mr. Carmine, don't mind my shape this bout; for I am only in jumps. Shall I send for my tabbies. Car. No, madam, we'll supply that for the present-Your ladyship was just now mentioning a daughter-Is she-your face a little more towards me-Is she the sole inheritor of her mother's beauty? Or-have you Lady Pent. That? ha, ha, ha! Why, that is my youngest of all, except Caleb. I have had, Mr, Carmine, live-born and christened-stay— don't let me lie now-One-two-three-four -five-In short, I have had twenty as fine babes as ever trode in shoe of leather. Car. Upon my word, madam, your ladyship is an admirable member of the commonwealth; 'tis a thousand pities that, like the Romans, we have not some honours to reward such distinguished merit. Lady Pent. Ay, ay, Mr. Carmine, if breeding amongst Christians was as much encouraged as amongst dogs and horses, we need not be making laws to let in a parcel of outlandish locusts to eat us all up. have a great aunt among the beauties at Windsor; she has a sister at Hampton-court, a perdigious fine woman-she had but one eye, indeed, but that was a piercer; that one eye got her three husbands-we were called the gimlet-eyed family. Oh, Mr. Carmine; you need not mind these heats in my face; they always discharge themselves about Christmas-my true carnation is not seen in my countenance. That's carnation! Here's your flesh and blood. [Shewing her arm. Car. Delicate, indeed! finely turned, and of a charming colour! Lady Pent. And yet it has been employed enough to spoil the best hand and arm in the world- Even before marriage never idle; none of your galloping, gossiping, Ranelagh romps, like the forward minxes of the present age. I was always employed either in painting your lamskips, playing upon the haspicols, making paste, or something or other-All our family had a geno: and then I sung! Every body said I had a monstrous fine voice for music. Car. That may be discerned by your ladyship's tones in conversation. Lady Pent. Tones! you are right, Mr. Carmine; that was Mr. Purcell's word. Miss Molly Griskin, says he (my maiden name), you have tones. Car. As your ladyship has preserved every thing else so well, I dare swear you have not lost your voice. Will you favour me with an air? Lady Pent. Oh, sir! you are so polite, that it's impossible-But I have none of your new play-house songs- -I can give you one that was made on myself by Laurence Lutestring, a neighbour's son. Car. What you please, madam. As I was walking by the side of a river, Fal de rol, hugh, hugh, &c. Bless me! I have such a cough; but there are tones. Car. Inimitable ones. Lady Pent. But, Mr. Carmine, you limners are all ingenus men-you sing? Car. A ballad, or so, madam; music is a sis ter art; and it would be a little unnatural not to cultivate an acquaintance there. Lady Pent. Why, truly, we ought not to be ashamed of our relations, unless they are poor; Car. I am told, madam, that a bill for some-and then, you know such purpose is about to pass. Now, madam, I am come to the eyes-Oh, that look, that, that I must despair of imitating. Lady Pent. Oh, oh, good sir! Have you found out that? Why, all my family by the mother's side were famous for their eyes: I Enter Boy. Boy. Alderman Pentweazel, and Mr. Puff. Lady Pent. Oh, he was to call upon me; we go to the auction. Desire him to walk up-Mr. Pentweazel, you must know, went this morning to meet Caleb, my youngest boy, at the Bull and day, the serjeant run away with the showman's Gate. The child has been two years and three wife; the t'other two went after! so only the quarters at school, with Dr. Jerk, near Doncas-monkey and I came to town together. ter, and comes to-day by the York waggon: for it has always been my maxum, Mr. Carmine, to give my children learning enough; for, as the old saying is, When house and land are gone and spent, Car. Your ladyship is quite right. Too much money cannot be employed in so material an article. Car. Upon my word, the young gentleman gives a good account of his travels ! Lady Pent. Ay, ay, Mr. Carmine, he's all over the blood of the Griskins. I warrant the child will make his way. Go, Caleb, go and look at them pretty paintings- -Now, Mr. Carmine, let us see if my good man can find me out. Ald. Lack-a-day! Well, I profess they are all so handsome, that I am puzzled to know which is thine, chuck. Puff. I am surprized at your want of discernment, Mr. Alderman; but the possession of a Lady Pent. Nay, the cost is but small; but poor ten pounds a-year, for head, back, books, bed, and belly; and they say the children are all wonderful Latiners, and come up-lack-a-jewel destroys it value with the wearer: now, to day! they come up as fat as pigs. Oh! here me, it seems impossible to err; and though Mr. Carmine is generally successful, in this instance they are odds me! he's a thumper. he is particularly happy. Where can you meet with that mixture of fire and softness, but in the eyes of Lady Pentweazel? Enter ALDERMAN PENTWEAZEL, CALEB, and PUFF. You see, Mr. Carmine, I breed no starvelingsCome hither, child. Mind your haviours. Where's your best bow? Turn out your toes. One would think he had learnt to dance of his father. I am sure my family were none so awkward. There was my brother George, a perfect picture of a man: he danced, lud! But come, all in good time-Hold up thy head, Caleb. Ald, Pr'ythec, sweet honey, let the child alone. His master says he comes on wonderful in his learning; and, as to your bows and your congees, never fear, he'll learn them fast enough at home. Lady Pent. Lack-a-day! Well said-we know if he does, I know who must teach him. Well, child, and dost remember me? Hey? Who am I? Caleb. Anan? Lady Pent. Dost know me? Lady Pent. Nay, the boy had always a good memory. And what hast learnt, Caleb, hey? Caleb. I be got into Æsop's Fables, and can say all As in presenti by heart. Lady Pent. Upon my word-that's more than ever thy father could. Ald. Nay, nay, no time has been lost; I questioned the lad as we came along; I asked him himself Lady Pent. Well, well; speak when you are spoken to, Mr. Alderman. How often must I— Well, Caleb, and hadst a good deal of company in the waggon, boy? Lady Pent. Oh, sir ! Puff. That clearness and delicacy of complexion, with that flow of ruddiness and health? Lady Pent. Sir! Sir! Sir! Puff. That fall of shoulders, turn of neck, seton head, full chest, taper waist, plump Lady Pent. Spare me, sweet sir! You see, Mr. Pentweazel, other people can find out my charms, though you overlook them.—Well, I profess, sir, you are a gentleman of great discernment: and, if business should bring you into the city-for, alas! what pleasure can bring a man of your refined taste there? Puff. Oh, madam! Lady Pent. I say, sir, if such an accident should happen, and Blowbladder-street has any charms Puff. Oh! Madam! Madam! Madam! Madam! Lady Pent. It is not impossible but we may receive you, though not equal to your meritsPuff. Madam! Lady Pent. Yet in such a manner as to show our sense of them. Sir, I'm your very obe dient. Puff. Your ladyship's most- Lady Pent. Sir—Mr. Alderman, your bow to the gentleman. The very finestPuff. Madam! Lady Pent. Sir, your most obedient. [Exeunt Ald. and Wife. Car. Ha, ha! Well said, Puff! What a calaCaleb, Ola! Powers of company, mother.- mity hast thou drawn upon the knight! Thou There was Lord Gorman's fat cook, a blacka-hast so tickled the vanity of the harradan, that more drumming-man, two actor people, a re- the poor helpmate will experience a double portion of her contempt. cruiting serjeant, a monkey and I. Lady Pent. Upon my word, a pretty parcel! Caleb. Yes, indeed! but the the fat cook got drunk at Coventry, and so fell out at the tail of the waggon; so we left she behind. The next Puff. Rot them! But to our business. The auction is about beginning; and I have promised to meet Mr. David Dusledorpe, Sir Positive Bubble, and Lord Dupe, to examine the pictures, and fix on those for which they are to bid-but since, we have settled the German plan; so Varnish or Brush, must attend them. Car. Oh! By all means pursue that. You have no conception how dear the foreign accent is to your true virtuoso; it announces taste, knowledge, veracity, and in short every thing -But can you enough disguise the turn of your face, and tone of your voice? A discovery of Mr. Puff, in Mynheer Groningen, blasts us at once. Puff. Never fear me. I wish you may have equal success in the part of Canto. Car. Pho! Mine's a trifle. A man must have very slender abilities indeed, who can't, for ten minutes, imitate a language and deportment that he has been witness to for ten years. Puff. But you must get their tones, their tones; 'tis easy enough. Come, hand up here that there Corregio; an inimitable piece, gentlemen and ladies, the very best work of the best master; subject agreeable, highly finished, and well preserved; a seat for the ladies; hand it to Sir Positive; a-going for fifty: speak, or it is going for fifty; joy to your ladyship; come, the next. But remember, let your bob be bushy, and your bow low. Car. Enough, enough; we are strangers to each other, you know. Puff. Absolute. Oh! but what pictures of yours are in the sale? Car. There's my holy family, by Raphael; the marriage in Cana, by Reuben Rouge; Tom Jackson's Teniers; and for busts, Taylor's head without a pose from Herculaneum, Puff. Are the antique seals come home? Car. No; but they will be finished by next week. Puff. You must take care of Novice's collection of medals-he'll want them by the end of the month. SCENE I-Auction Room. ACT II. Enter PUFF, as MONSIEUR BARON DE GRONIN- Puff. I canno speak for Englandt, but I can mak understand very mightily. Will that do? Enter LORD DUPE, BUBBLE, SQUANDER, &c. Lord Dupe. Mr. Brush, I am your devoted servant. You have procured my ancestor? Brush. It is in my possession, my lord; and I have the honour to assure your lordship, that the family features are very discernible; and, allowing for the difference of dress, there's a strong likeness between you and your prede cessor. Lord Dupe. Sir, you have obliged me. All these you have marked in the catalogue are ori Brush. To a hair. Remember you are come hither to purchase pictures for the elector of Bavaria. Carmine, you must clap Lord Dupe's coat of arms on that half-length of Erasmus. Iginals? have sold it him as his great-grandfather's third brother for fifty guineas. Car. It shall be done-Be it my province to establish the baron's reputation as a connoisseur, Brush has seen you abroad at the court of the reigning prince of Blantin. Puff. Yes; I was do business mightily for Prince Blantin. Brush. Your portraits go first, Carmine. Novice, Sir Positive Bubble, Jack Squander, Lord Dupe, and Mordecai Lazarus, the Jew-broker, have app inted me to examine with them the history-pieces. Which are most likely to stick? Cur. Here's a list. Brush. Undoubted. But, my lord, you need not depend solely on my judgment: here's Mynheer Baron de Groningen, who is come hither to survey, and purchase for the elector of Bavaria; an indisputable connoisseur: his bidding will be a direction for your lordship. Tis a thousand pities that any of these masters should quit Eng land. They were conducted hither at an immense expence and if they now leave us, what will it be but a public declaration, that all taste and liberal knowledge is vanished from amongst us? Lord Dupe. Sir, leave the support of the na tional credit to my care. Could you introduce Brush. Hush! hide the Erasmus; I hear theme to Mynheer? Does he speak English? company on the stars. [CARMINE puts the Erasmus on one side. Brush. Not fluently; but so as to be under stood. Mynheer, Lord Dupe the patron of arts, the Petronius for taste, and for well-timed generosity the Leo-and the Mæcenas of the present age, desires to know you. Puff. Sir, you honour me very mightily. I was hear of Lord Dupes in Hollandt. I was tell he was one delatant, one curieuse, one precieuse of his country. Lord Dupe. The Dutch are an obliging, civilized, well-bred kind of people. But pray, sir, what occasions us the honour of a visit from you? Puff. I was come to bid for paints for the elector of Bavaria. Lord Dupe. Are there any here that deserve your attention? Puff. O, dare are good pieces; but dare is one I likes mightily: de off-sky, and home track is fine, and de maister is in it. Lord Dupe. What is the subject? Puff. Dat I know not? vat I minds, vat you call de draws and de colours. Lord Dupe. Mr. Canto, what is the subject? Car. It is, my lord, St. Anthony of Padua exercising the devil out of a ram-cat: it has a companion somewhere-oh, here! which is the same saint in a wilderness, reading his breviary by the light of a glow-worm. Brush. Invaluable pictures both! And will match your lordship's Corregio in the saloon. Lord Dupe. I'll have them. What pictures are those, Mr. Canto? Car. They are not in the sale; but I fancy I could procure them for your lordship. Lord Dupe. This I presume, might have been a landskip; but the water, and the men, and the trees, and the dogs, and the ducks, and the pigs, they are all obliterated, all gone. Brush. An indisputable mark of its antiquity; its very merit; besides, a little varnish will fetch the figures again, Lord Dupe. Set it down for me- -The next. Car. That is a Moses in the bulrushes. The blended joy and grief in the figure of the sister in the corner, the distress and anxiety of the mother here, and the beauty and benevolence of Pharoah's daughter, are circumstances happily imagined and boldly expressed. the goats, Mynheer, yours was a Welch piece, instead of a Dutch. Puff. Ah, 'twas good piece. I wish to my heart Lord Dupes was have that piece. Enter NOVICE. Nov. Where's Mr. Brush? My dear Brush, am I too late? Brush. In pretty good time. Nov. May I lose my Otho, or be tumbled from my phaeton the first time I jehup my sorrels, if I have not made more haste than a young surgeon to his first labour! But the lots, the lots, my dear Brush, what are they? I'm upon the rack of impatience till I see them, and in a fever of desire till I possess them. Brush. Mr. Canto, the gentleman would be glad to see the busts, medals, and precious relics, of Greece and ancient Rome. Car. Perhaps, sir, we may show him some thing of greater antiquity-Bring them forward -The first lot consists of a hand without an arm, the first joint of the forefinger gone, supposed to be a limb of the Apollo DelphosThe second half a foot with the toes entire, of the Juno Lucina-The third, the Caduceus of the Mercurius Infernalis- The fourth, the half of a leg of the infant Hercules-All indisputable antiques, and of the Memphian marble. Puff. Let me see Juno's half-foot. All the toes entire? Car. All. Brush. Lack-a-day! 'tis but a modern per- Nov. But where are your busts? Here, here, formance; the master is alive, and an English-gentlemen, here's a curiosity! a medal of man. Oriuna; got for me by doctor Mummy: the only one in the visible world; there may be some under ground. Lord Dupe. Fine indeed! Will you permit me to to taste it! It has the relish. [All taste. Nov. The relish! Zooks, it cost me a hundred guineas. Puff. By gar, it is a dear bit, though. Nov. So you may think; but three times the money should not purchase it. Lord Dupe. Pray, sir, whose bust is it that dignifies this coin? Nov. The empress Oriuna, my lord. |