ture that Vainlove debauched, and has forsaken. Did you never hear Bellmour chide him about Silvia ? Heart. [Aside.] Death and hell and marriage ! my wife! Sharp. Why thou art as musty as a new married that had found his wife knowing the first man, night. Heart. [Aside.] Hell and the devil! does he know it? But hold-if he should not, I were a fool to discover it.-I'll dissemble, and try him.[Aloud.] Ha ha ha! why, Tom, is that such an occasion of melancholy? Is it such an uncommon mischief? Sharp. No, faith; I believe not. Few women but have their year of probation, before they are cloistered in the narrow joys of wedlock. But, prithee come along with me, or I'll go and have the lady to myself. B'w'y George. [Going. Heart. [Aside.] O torture! how he racks and tears me!-Death! shall I own my shame, or wittingly let him go and whore my wife? no, that's insupportable.-[Aloud.] Oh, Sharper! Sharp. How now? Heart. Oh, I am-married. Sharp. [Aside.] Now hold spleen.—[Aloud.] Married! Heart. Certainly, irrecoverably married. Sharp. Heaven forbid, man! how long? Heart. Oh, an age, an age! I have been married these two hours. Sharp. My old bachelor married! that were a jest! ha ha! ha! Heart. Death! d'ye mock me! Hark ye, if either you esteem my friendship or your own safety, come not near that house-that corner house-that hot brothel ask no questions. Sharp. Mad, by this light! [Exit. Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure; Married in haste, we may repent at leisure. SCENE IX. SHARPER and SETTER. Set. Some by experience find those words mis placed : At leisure married, they repent in haste. As, I suppose, my master Heartwell. Sharp. Here again, my Mercury? Set. Sublimate, if you please, sir: I think my achievements do deserve the epithet.-Mercury was a pimp too; but though I blush to own it, at this time, I must confess I am somewhat fallen from the dignity of my function, and do condescend to be scandalously employed in the promotion of vulgar matrimony. Sharp. As how, dear dexterous pimp? Set. Why, to be brief, for I have weighty affairs depending,- -our stratagem succeeded as you intended. Bluffe turns arrant traitor: bribes me to make a private conveyance of the lady to him, and put a sham settlement upon Sir Joseph. Sharp. O rogue! well, but I hope Set. No, no; never fear me, sir.-I privately informed the knight of the treachery; who has agreed, seemingly to be cheated, that the captain may be so in reality. Sharp. Where's the bride? Set. Shifting clothes for the purpose at a friend's house of mine. Here's company coming; if you' walk this way, sir, I'll tell you. SCENE X. BELLMOUR, BELINDA, ARAMINTA, and VAINLOVE. Vain. Oh, 'twas frenzy all! cannot you forgive it?-men in madness have a title to your pity. [To ARAMINTA Aram. Which they forfeit, when they are restored to their senses. Vain. I am not presuming beyond a pardon. Aram. You who could reproach me with on counterfeit, how insolent would a real pardon make you! but there's no need to forgive what is no worth my anger. Belin. [To BELLMOUR.] O my conscience, could find in my heart to marry thee, purely to b rid of thee: at least thou art so troublesome lover, there's hopes thou'lt make a more thar ordinary quiet husband. [And Bell. Say you so? is that a maxim among yon Belin. Yes; you fluttering men of the mod have made marriage a mere French dish. Bell. I hope there's no French sauce. Belin. You are so curious in the preparation that is, your courtship, one would think you mean a noble entertainment; but when we come to feed 'tis all froth, and poor, but in show; nay, of only remains which have been I know not ho many times warmed for other company, and at la served up cold to the wife. Bell. That were a miserable wretch indeed, wh could not afford one warm dish for the wife of h bosom. But you timorous virgins form a dreadf chimera of a husband, as of a creature contrary t that soft, humble, pliant, easy thing, a lover; s guess at plagues in matrimony, in opposition to th pleasures of courtship. Alas! courtship to ma riage, is but as the music in the playhouse till th curtain's drawn; but that once up, then opens th scene of pleasure. Belin. Oh, foh! no; rather courtship to ma riage, is as a very witty prologue to a very du play. SCENE XI. BELLMOUR, BELINDA, ARAMINTA, VAINLOVE, and SHARF Sharp. Hist, Bellmour; if you'll bring the 1 dies, make haste to Silvia's lodgings, before Hea well has fretted himself out of breath. Bell. You have an opportunity now, madam, revenge yourself upon Heartwell, for affronti your squirrel. [TO BELIN Belin. O, the filthy rude beast! never been at our house since. Bell. But give yourselves the trouble to walk that corner-house, and I'll tell you by the way wh may divert and surprise you. Bell. Now, George, what, rhyming! I thought the chimes of verse were passed, when once the doleful marriage-knell was rung. Heart. Shame and confusion, I am exposed! [VAINLOVE and ARAMINTA talk apart. Belin. Joy, joy, Mr. Bridegroom! I give you joy, sir! Heart. "Tis not in thy nature to give me joy: 1 woman can as soon give immortality. Belin. Ha ha ha! O gad, men grow such clowns when they are married! Bell. That they are fit for no company but their wives. Belin. Nor for them neither, in a little time.I swear, at the month's end, you shall hardly find a married man that will do a civil thing to his wife, or say a civil thing to anybody else. How he books already! ha! ha! ha! Bell. Ha ha! ha! Heart. Death, am I made your laughing-stock? -For you, sir, I shall find a time; but take off your wasp here, or the clown may grow boisterous; I have a fly-flap. Belin. You have occasion for't, your wife has been blown upon. Bell. That's home. Heart. Not fiends or furies could have added to my vexation, or anything but another woman !you've racked my patience; begone, or by— Bell. Hold, hold; what the devil, thou wilt not draw upon a woman! Vain. What's the matter? Aram. Bless me! what have you done to him! Belin. Only touched a galled beast till he winced. Vain. Bellmour, give it over; you vex him too Buch; 'tis all serious to him. Belin. Nay, I swear, I begin to pity him myself. Heart. Damn your pity !-But let me be calm a little-How have I deserved this of you? any of e-Sir, have I impaired the honour of your house, promised your sister marriage, and whored her? Wherein have I injured you? Did I bring a physician to your father when he lay expiring, and endeavour to prolong his life, and you one-and twenty?-Madam, have I had an opportunity with you and balked it?-did you ever offer me the favour that I refused it? Or Belin. Oh, foh! what does the filthy fellow mean? lard, let me begone! Aram. Hang me, if I pity you; you are right enough served. Bell. This is a little scurrilous though. Vain. Nay, 'tis a sore of your own scratching. -[TO HEARTWELL.] Well, George Heart. You are the principal cause of all my present ills. If Silvia had not been your mistress, my wife might have been honest. Vain. And if Silvia had not been your wife, my mistress might have been just :-there we are even. -But have a good heart, I heard of your misfortune, and come to your relief. Heart. When execution's over, you offer a reprieve. Vain. What would you give? Heart. Oh! anything, everything, a leg or two, or an arm; nay, I would be divorced from my virility, to be divorced from my wife. SCENE XIV. HEARTWELL, Bellmour, Belinda, Vainlove, ARAMINTA, and SHARPER. Vain. Faith, that's a sure way-but here's one can sell your freedom better cheap. Sharp. Vainlove, I have been a kind of a godfather to you, yonder; I have promised and vowed some things in your name, which I think you are bound to perform. Vain. No signing to a blank, friend. Sharp. No, I'll deal fairly with you :-'tis a full and free discharge to sir Joseph Wittol and captain Bluffe, for all injuries whatsoever, done unto you by them, until the present date hereof.How say you? Vain. Agreed. Sharp. Then let me beg these ladies to wear their masks a moment.-Come in, gentlemen and ladies. Heart. What the devil's all this to me? Sir Jo. Only a little art-military trick, captain, only countermined, or so.-Mr. Vainlove, I suppose you know whom I have got now? But all's forgiven. Vain. I know whom you have not got; pray, ladies, convince him. [ARAMINTA and BELINDA unmask. Sir Jo. Ah! O Lord, my heart aches !—Ah, Setter, a rogue of all sides! Sharp. Sir Joseph, you had better have preengaged this gentleman's pardon; for though Vainlove be so generous to forgive the loss of his mistress, I know not how Heartwell may take the loss of his wife. [SILVIA unmasks. Heart. My wife! by this light 'tis she, the very cockatrice !-Oh, Sharper, let me embrace thee! But art thou sure she is really married to him? Set. Really and lawfully married, I am witness. Sharp. Bellmour will unriddle to you. [HEARTWELL goes to BELLMOUR. Sir Jo. Pray, madam, who are you? for I find you and I are like to be better acquainted. Silv. The worst of me is, that I am your wife. Sharp. Come, sir Joseph, your fortune is not so bad as you fear :-a fine lady, and a lady of very good quality. Sir Jo. Thanks to my knighthood, she's a lady. Vain. That deserves a fool with a better title.Pray use her as my relation, or you shall hear on't. Bluffe. What! are you a woman of quality too, spouse? Set. And my relation: pray let her be respected accordingly.-Well, honest Lucy, fare thee well. I think you and I have been playfellows off and on any time this seven years. Lucy. Hold your prating !—I'm thinking what vocation I shall follow while my spouse is planting laurels in the wars. Bluffe. No more wars, spouse, no more wars !— while I plant laurels for my head abroad, I may find the branches sprout at home. Heart. Bellmour, I approve thy mirth, and thank thee; and I cannot in gratitude (for I see which way thou art going) see thee fall into the same snare out of which thou hast delivered me. Vain. Ill-natured as an old maid Bell. Wanton as a young widow— Bell. Well, 'midst of these dreadful denunciations, and notwithstanding the warning and example before me, I commit myself to lasting durance. Belin. Prisoner, make much of your fetters. [Giving her hand. Bell. Frank, will you keep us in countenance? Vain. May I presume to hope so great a blessing? Aram. We had better take the advantage of a little of our friends' experience first. Bell. [Aside.] O' my conscience she dares not consent, for fear he should recant.—[Aloud.] Well, we shall have your company to church in the morning; may be it may get you an appetite to see us fall to before ye.-Setter, did not you tell me Set. They're at the door, I'll call 'em in. A Dance. Bell. Now set we forward on a journey for life The youthful beast sets forth, and neighs aloud. What rugged ways attend the noon of life! EPILOGUE SPOKEN BY MRS. BARRY. As a rash girl, who will all hazards run, Would give the world she could her toy recover; But hold-I am exceeding my commission: him? But then you cruel critics would so maul him! THE DOUBLE-DEALER. A Comedy. Interdum tamen, et vocem Comœdia tollit.-HORAT. Ars Poet. Syrus. Huic equidem consilio palmam do: hic me magnifice effero, TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES MONTAGUE, ONE OF THE LORDS OF THE TREASURY. STR,-I heartily wish that this play were as perfect as I intended it, that it might be more worthy your acceptance; nd that my dedication of it to you might be more becoming that honour and esteem which I, with everybody who is fortunate as to know you, have for you. It had your countenance when yet unknown; and now it is made public, wants your protection. I would not have anybody imagine that I think this play without its faults, for I am conscious of several. I confess designed (whatever vanity or ambition occasioned that design) to have written a true and regular comedy: but I found tan undertaking which put me in mind of–Sudet multum, frustraque laboret ausus idem. And now, to make amends or the vanity of such a design, I do confess both the attempt, and the imperfect performance. Yet I must take the idness to say, I have not miscarried in the whole; for the mechanical part of it is regular. That I may say with as ttle vanity, as a builder may say he has built a house according to the model laid down before him; or a gardener hat he has set his flowers in a knot of such or such a figure. I designed the moral first, and to that moral I invented he fable, and do not know that I have borrowed one hint of it anywhere. I made the plot as strong as I could, because I was single; and I made it single, because I would avoid confusion, and was resolved to preserve the three unities of be drama. Sir, this discourse is very impertinent to you, whose judgment much better can discern the faults, than I excuse them; and whose good-nature, like that of a lover, will find out those hidden beauties (if there are any such) thich it would be great immodesty for me to discover. I think I do not speak improperly when I call you a lover of wetry; for it is very well known she has been a very kind mistress to you: she has not denied you the last favour; nd she has been fruitful to you in a most beautiful issue.-If I break off abruptly here, I hope everybody will undertand that it is to avoid a commendation, which, as it is your due, would be most easy for me to pay, and too troubleme for you to receive. I have, since the acting of this play, hearkened after the objections which have been made to it; for I was conscious there a true critic might have put me upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack; and am pretty confident I wuld have vindicated some parts, and excused others; and where there were any plain miscarriages, I would most genuously have confessed them. But I have not heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer. That which oks most like an objection, does not relate in particular to this play, but to all or most that ever have been written; ad that is, soliloquy. Therefore I will answer it, not only for my own sake, but to save others the trouble, to whom it Bay hereafter be objected. I grant, that for a man to talk to himself appears absurd and unnatural; and indeed it is so in most cases; but the rcumstances which may attend the occasion make great alteration. It oftentimes happens to a man to have designs #hich require him to himself, and in their nature cannot admit of a confidant. Such, for certain, is all villany; and ther less mischievous intentions may be very improper to be communicated to a second person. In such a case, therebre, the audience must observe, whether the person upon the stage takes any notice of them at all, or no. For if he pposes any one to be by when he talks to himself, it is monstrous and ridiculous to the last degree. Nay, not only in is case, but in any part of a play, if there is expressed any knowledge of an audience, it is insufferable. But otherwise, en a man in soliloquy reasons with himself, and pro's and con's, and weighs all his designs, we ought not to imagine at this man either talks to us, or to himself; he is only thinking, and thinking such matter as were inexcusable folly in him to speak. But because we are concealed spectators of the plot in agitation, and the poet finds it necessary to let know the whole mystery of his contrivance, he is willing to inform us of this person's thoughts; and to that end is red to make use of the expedient of speech, no other better way being yet invented for the communication of thought. Another very wrong objection has been made by some, who have not taken leisure to distinguish the characters. The hero of the play, as they are pleased to call him, (meaning Mellefont,) is a gull, and made a fool, and cheated. Is every man a gull and a fool that is deceived? At that rate I am afraid the two classes of men will be reduced to one, and the knaves themselves be at a loss to justify their title: but if an open-hearted honest man, who has an entire confidence in one whom he takes to be his friend, and whom he has obliged to be so; and who (to confirm him in his opinion) in all appearance, and upon several trials has been so; if this man be deceived by the treachery of the other, must he of necessity commence fool immediately, only because the other has proved a villain? Ay, but there was Caution given to Mellefont in the first Act by his friend Careless. Of what nature was that caution? Only to give the audience some light into the character of Maskwell, before his appearance; and not to convince Mellefont of his treachery; for that was more than Careless was then able to do; he never knew Maskwell guilty of any villany; he was only a sort of man which he did not like. As for his suspecting his familiarity with my Lady Touchwood; let them examine the answer that Mellefont makes him, and compare it with the conduct of Mask well's character through the play. I would beg them again to look into the character of Maskwell, before they accuse Mellefont of weakness for being deceived by him. For upon summing up the inquiry into this objection, it may be found they have mistaken cunning in one character, for folly in another. But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all the false criticisms that are made upon me; and that is, some of the ladies are offended. I am heartily sorry for it, for I declare 1 would rather disoblige all the critics in the world, than one of the fair sex. They are concerned that I have represented some women vicious and affected: how can I help it? It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of humankind; and there are bat two sexes, male and female, men and women, which have a title to humanity: and if I leave one half of them out, the work will be imperfect. I should be very glad of an opportunity to make my compliment to those ladies who are offended; but they can no more expect it in a comedy, than to be tickled by a surgeon when he is letting them blood. They who are virtuous or discreet should not be offended; for such characters as these distinguish them, and make their beauties more shining and observed: and they who are of the other kind, may nevertheless pass for such, by seeming not to be displeased, or touched with the satire of this comedy. Thus have they also wrongfully accused me of doing them a prejudice, when I have in reality done them a service. You will pardon me, Sir, for the freedom I take of making answers to other people, in an epistle which ought wholly to be sacred to you: but since I intend the play to be so too, I hope I may take the more liberty of justifying it, where it is in the right. I must now, Sir, declare to the world how kind you have been to my endeavours; for in regard of what was well meant, you have excused what was ill performed. I beg you would continue the same method in your acceptance of this dedication. I know no other way of making a return to that humanity you showed, in protecting an infant, but by enrolling it in your service, now that it is of age and come into the world. Therefore be pleased to accept of this as an acknowledgment of the favour you have shown me, and an earnest of the real service and gratitude of, Sir, your most obliged, humble servant, WILLIAM CONGREVE SCENE, A GALLERY IN LORD TOUCHWOOD'S HOUSE, WITH CHAMBERS ADJOINING. PROLOGUE SPOKEN BY MRS. BRACEGIRDLE. MOORS have this way (as story tells) to know Such are the trials poets make of plays: Critics, avaunt! for you are fish of prey, Let Nature work, and do not damn too soon, Let us consider, had it been our fate, But Heaven be praised this custom is confined Whatever fate is for this play design'd, |