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 Mira. Aye marry, what's that, Witwould? Fain. What, I warrant he's insincere, or 'tis 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. Wit. That! that's his happiness-his want of Mira. He wants words. Wit. 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? Wit. Hum, faith I don't know as to that,-I can't say as to that. Yes, faith, in controversy, he'll contradict any body. Mira. Though it were a man, whom he feared; or a woman, whom he loved. Wit. Well, well, he does not always think be Mira. You are very free with your friend's acquaintance. Wit. Aye, aye, friendship without freedom is as dull as love without enjoyment, or wine without toasting; but, to tell you a secret, these are trulls, whom he allows coach-hire, and something more, by the week, to call on him once a day at public places. Mira. How! Wit. You shall see he wont go to them, because there's no more company here to take notice of him. Why this is nothing to what he used to do: before he found out this way, I have known him call for himself Fain. Call for himself! what dost thou mean? Wit. Mean! why he would slip you out of this chocolate-house, just when you had been talking to him. As soon as your back was turnedwhip he was gone; then trip to his lodging, clap on a hood and a scarf, and a mask, slap into a hackney-coach, and drive hither to the door again in a trice; where he would send in for himself, that is, I mean, call for himself, wait for himself, nay, and what's more, not finding himself, sometimes leave a letter for himself. Mira. I confess this is something extraordinary. I believe he waits for himself now, he is so long a coming: O, I ask his pardon. Enter PETULANT and BETTY. Pet. Well, well; I coine-'Sbud, a man had as good be a professed midwife, as a professed gallant, at this rate; to be knocked up, and raised at all hours, and in all places. Deuce on them, I wont come-D'ye hear, tell them I wont come -Let them snivel and cry their hearts [Erit BETTY. Fain. You are very cruel, Petulant. Pet. All's one, let it pass—I have a humour to be cruel. out. Pet. Aye, Roxalanas! Mira. Cry you mercy. Fain. Witwould says they are- Pet. Pass on, Witwould-Harkee, by this light his relations-Two co-heiresses, his cousins, and an old aunt, who loves intriguing better than a conventicle. Wit. Ha, ha, ha! I had a mind to see how the rogue would come off-Ha, ha, ha! gad, I can't be angry with him, if he had said they were my mother and my sisters. Mira. No! Pet. Enough, let them trundle. Anger helps complexion, saves paint. Fain. This continence is all dissembled; this is in order to have something to brag of the next time he makes court to Millamant, and swear he has abandoned the whole sex for her sake. Mira. Have you not left off your impudent pretensions there yet? I shall cut your throat, some time or other, Petulant, about that business. -There are Pet. Aye, aye, let that passother throats to be cut Mira. Meaning mine, sir? Pet. Not I; I mean nobody; I know nothing; But there are uncles and nephews in the world; and there may be rivals-What, then? all's one for that Mira. Now, harkee, Petulant, come hitherExplain, or I shall call your interpreter. Pet. Explain! I know nothing- -Why you have an uncle, have you not, lately come to town, and lodges by my lady Wishfort's? Mira. True. Pet. Why that's enough; you and he are not friends: and if he should marry and have a child, you may be disinherited, ha! Mira. Where hast thou stumbled upon all this truth! Pet. All's one for that; why, then, say I know something. Mira. Come, thou art an honest fellow, Petulant, and shalt make love to my mistress; thou shalt, faith. What hast thou heard of my uncle? Pet. I! nothing; I! If throats are to be cut, let swords clash: snug's the word; I shrug and am silent. Mira. O raillery, raillery! Come, I know thou art in the women's secrets-what, you're a cabalist? I know you staid at Millamant's last night, after I went. Was there any mention made of my uncle or me? tell me. If thou hadst but good nature equal to thy wit, Petulant, Tony Witwould, who is now thy competitor in fame, would shew as dim by thee as a dead whiting's eye by a pearl of orient; he would no more be seen by thee, than Mercury is by the sun. Come, I'm sure thou wo't tell me. Pet. If I do, will you grant me common sense, then, for the future? Mira. Faith I'll do what I can for thee; and I'll pray that it may be granted thee in the mean time. Pet. Well, harkee. [They talk apart. Fain. Petulant and you, both, will find Mirabell as warm a rival as a lover. Wit. 'Pshaw, 'pshaw! that she laughs at Pe Wit. No; the rogue's wit and readiness of in- tulant, is plain. And, for my part-but that it is vention charm me, dear Petulant. Enter BETTY. Bet. They are gone, sir, in great anger. almost a fashion to admire her, I shouldharkee-to tell you a secret, but let it go no farther-between friends, I shall never break my heart for her. Fain. How! Mira. I thank you, I know as much as my Wit. She's handsome; but she's a sort of an curiosity requires. Fainall, are you for the Mall? uncertain woman. Fain. I thought you had died for her. Wit. Umph-no- Wit. 'Tis what she will hardly allow any body else-now, I should hate that, if she were as handsome as Cleopatra. Mirabell is not so sure of her, as he thinks for. Fain. Why do you think so? Wit. We staid pretty late there last night; and heard something of an uncle to Mirabell, who is lately come to town, and is between him and the best part of his estate; Mirabell and he are at some distance, as my lady Wishfort has been told; and, you know, she hates Mirabell worse than a quaker hates a parrot, or than a fishmonger hates a hard frost. Whether this uncle has seen Mrs Millamant or not, I cannot say; but there were items of such a treaty being in embryo; and, if it should come to life, poor Mirabell would be, in some sort, unfortunately fobbed, i'faith! Fain. 'Tis impossible Millamant should heark en to it. Wit. Faith, my dear, I can't tell; she's a woman, and a kind of a humourist. Mira. And this is the sum of what you could collect last night? Pet. The quintessence. May be Witwould knows more; he staid longer- -besides, they never mind him; they say any thing before him. Mira. I thought you had been the greatest favourite. Pet. Aye, tête à tête; but not in public, because I make remarks. Mira. You do? Pet. Aye, aye; I'm malicious, man. Now, he's soft, you know; they are not in awe of him -the fellow's well-bred; he's what you call a— what d'ye-call them, a fine gentleman; but he's silly withal. Fain. Aye, I'll take a turn before dinner. Wit. Aye, we'll all walk in the park; the ladies talk of being there. Mira. I thought you were obliged to watch for your brother sir Wilfull's arrival. Wit. No, no; he comes to his aunt's, my lady Wishfort: plague on him, I shall be troubled with him, too; what shall I do with the fool? Pet. Beg him for his estate, that I may beg you afterwards; and so have but one trouble with you both. Wit. O rare Petulant! thou art as quick as fire in a frosty morning; thou shalt to the Mall with us, and we'll be very severe. Pet. Enough, I'm in a humour to be severe. Mira. Are you? Pray, then, walk by yourselves—let not us be accessary to your putting the ladies out of countenance with your senseless ribaldry, which you roar out aloud as often as they pass by you; and, when you have made a handsome woman blush, then you think you have been severe. Pet. What, what? then let them either shew their innocence, by not understanding what they hear, or else shew their discretion by not hearing what they would not be thought to under stand. Mira. But hast not thou, then, sense enough to know, that thou ought'st to be most ashamed thyself, when thou hast put another out of countenance? Pet. Not I, by this hand- -I always take blushing either for a sign of guilt, or ill-breeding, Mira, I confess you ought to think so. You are in the right, that you may plead the error of your judgment, in defence of your practice. Where modesty's ill manners, 'tis but fit That impudence and malice pass for wit. [Exeunt, ACT II, SCENE I-St James's Park. Enter MRS FAINALL, and MRS MARWOOD. Mrs Fain. AYE, aye, dear Marwood, if we will be happy, we must find the means in ourselves, and among ourselves. Men are ever in extremes; either doating, or averse. While they are lovers, if they have fire and sense, their jealousies are insupportable: and, when they cease to love, (we ought to think at least) they lothe: they look upon us with horror and distaste; they meet us like the ghosts of what we were, and, as from such, fly from us. Mrs Mar. True; 'tis an unhappy circumstance of life, that love should ever die before us; and that the man so often should outlive the lover. But, say what you will, 'tis better to be left, than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life, because they once must leave us, is as preposterous, as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old. For my part, my youth may wear and waste, but it shall never rust in my possession. Mrs Fain. Then, it seems, you dissemble an aversion to mankind, only in compliance to my mother's humour. Mrs Mar. Certainly. To be free; I have no taste of those insipid, dry discourses, with which our sex, of force, must entertain themselves apart from men. We may affect endearments to each other, profess eternal friendships, and seem to dote like lovers; but 'tis not in our natures long to persevere. Love will resume his empire in our breasts, and every heart, or soon or late, resume and re-admit him as its lawful tyrant. Mrs Fain. Bless me! how have I been deceived? Why, you're a professed libertine. Mrs Mar. You see my friendship by my freedom. Conie, be as sincere; acknowledge that your sentiments agree with mine. Mrs Fain. Never. Mrs Mar. You hate mankind? Mrs Fain. Heartily, inveterately. Mrs Fain. Most transcendently; aye, though I say it, meritoriously. Mrs Mar. Give me your hand upon it. Mrs Mar. I join with you; what I have said, has been to try you. Mrs Fain. Is it possible? dost thou hate those vipers, men? Mrs Mar. I have done hating them, and am now come to despise them; the next thing I have to do, is eternally to forget them. Mrs Fain. There spoke the spirit of an Amazon, a Penthesilea. Mrs Mar. And yet I am thinking sometimes to carry my aversion farther. Mrs Fain. How? Mrs Mar. By marrying; if I could but find one, that loved me very well, and would be thoroughly sensible of ill usage, I think I should do myself the violence of undergoing the cere niony. Mrs Fain. You would not dishonour him? Mrs Mar. No, but I'd make him believe I did, and that's as bad. Mrs Fain. Why, had you not as good do it? Mrs Mar. Oh, if he should ever discover it, he would then know the worst, and be out of his pain; but I would have him ever to continue upon the rack of fear and jealousy. Mrs Fain. Ingenious mischief! would thou wert married to Mirabell! Mrs Mar. Would I were! Mrs Fain. So do I; but I can hear him named. But what reason have you to hate him in particular? Mrs Mar. I never loved him; he is, and always was, insufferably proud. Mrs Fain. By the reason you give for your aversion, one would think it dissembled; for you have laid a fault to his charge, of which his enemies must acquit him. Mrs Mar. Oh, then, it seems you are one of his favourable enemies. Methinks you look a little pale, and now you flush again. VOL. II. Mrs Fain. Do I? I think I am a little sick o' the sudden. Mrs Mar. What ails you? Mrs Fain. My husband. Don't you see him? He turned short upon me unawares, and has al most overcome me. Enter FAINALL and MIRABELL. Mrs Mar. Ha, ha, ha! he comes opportunely for you. Mrs Fain. For you; for he has brought Mirabell with him. Fain. My dear! Mrs Fain. My soul! Fain. You don't look well to-day, child. Mira. He's the only man that does, madam. Mrs Fain. The only man that would tell me so, at least; and the only man from whom I could hear it without mortification. Fain. Oh, my dear, I am satisfied of your tenderness; I know you cannot resent any thing from me; especially what is an effect of my con cern. Mrs Fain. Mr Mirabell, my mother interrupted you in a pleasant relation, last night; I could fain hear it out. Mira. The persons, concerned in that affair, have yet a tolerable reputation. I am afraid Mr Fainall will be censorious. Mrs Fain. He has a humour more prevailing than his curiosity, and will willingly dispense with the hearing of one scandalous story, to avoid giving an occasion to make another, by being seen to walk with his wife. This way, M Mirabell, and, I dare promise, you will oblige us both. [Exeunt MRS FAINALL and MIRABELL. Fain. Excellent creature! well, sure, if I should live to be rid of my wife, I should be a miserable man. Mrs Mar. Aye? Fain. For, having only that one hope, the accomplishment of it, of consequence, must put an end to all my hopes; and what a wretch is he, who must survive his hopes! nothing remains, when that day comes, but to sit down and weep like Alexander, when he wanted other worlds to conquer. Mrs Mar. Will you not follow them? Mrs Mar. Pray let us; I have a reason. Fain. Of Mirabell. Mrs Mar. If I am, is it inconsistent with my love to you, that I am tender of your honour? Fain. You would intimate, then, as if there were a particular understanding between my wife and him? Mrs Mar. I think she does not hate him to that degree she would be thought. 2 K Fain. But he, I fear, is too insensible. Mrs Mar. It may be, you are deceived. Fain. It may be so. I do not now begin to apprehend it. Mrs Mar. What? Fain. You misinterpret my reproof. I meant but to remind you of the slight account you once could make of strictest ties, when set in competition with your love to me. Mrs Mar. 'Tis false; you urged it with deli Fain. That I have been deceived, madam, and berate malice-Twas spoke in scorn, and I never you are false. Mrs Mar. That I am false! What mean you? Fain. To let you know, I see through all your little arts-come, you both love him, and both have equally dissembled your aversion. Your mutual jealousies of one another have made you clash, till you have both struck fire. I have seen the warm confession reddening on your cheeks, and sparkling from your eyes. Mrs Mar. You do me wrong. Fain. I do not-'Twas for my ease to over see and wilfully neglect the gross advances made him by my wife; that, by permitting her to be engaged, I might continue unsuspected in my pleasures; and take you oftener to my arms in full security. But could you think, because the nodding husband would not wake, that e'er the watchful lover slept? Mrs Mar. And wherewithal can you reproach me? Fain. With infidelity; with loving another; with love of Mirabell. Mrs Mar. 'Tis false. I challenge you to shew an instance, that can confirm your groundless accusation. I hate him. Fain. And wherefore do you hate him? He is insensible, and your resentment follows his neglect. An instance! The injuries you have done him are a proof: your interposing in his love. What cause had you to make discoveries of his pretended passion? to undeceive the credulous aunt, and be the officious obstacle of his match with Millamant? Mrs Mar. My obligations to my lady urged me: I had professed a friendship to her; and could not see her easy nature so abused by that dissembler. too. Fain. Ha, ha, ha! you are my wife's friend. Mrs Mar. Shame and ingratitude! Do you reproach me? You, you upbraid me! Have I been false to her through strict fidelity to you, and sacrificed my friendship to keep my love inviolate? and have you the baseness to charge me with the guilt, unmindful of the merit! To you it should be meritorious, that I have been vicious; and do you reflect that guilt upon me, which should lie buried in your bosom? will forgive it. Fain. Your guilt, not your resentment, begets your rage. If yet you loved, you could forgive a jealousy but you are stung to find, you are discovered, : Mrs Mar. It shall be all discovered. You, too, shall be discovered; be sure you shall. I can but be exposed-If I do it myself I shall prevent your baseness. Fain. Why, what will you do? Mrs Mar. Disclose it to your wife; own what has past between us. Fain. Frenzy! Mrs Mar. By all my wrongs, I'll do it !—I'll publish to the world the injuries you have done me, both in my fame and fortune: with both I trusted you; you, bankrupt in honour, as indigent of wealth. Fain. Your fame I have preserved. Your fortune has been bestowed, as the prodigality of your love would have it, in pleasures, which we both have shared. Yet, had not you been false, I had, ere this, repaid it-Tis true-had you permitted Mirabell with Millamant to have stolen their marriage, my lady had been incensed beyond all means of reconcilement: Millamant had forfeited the moiety of her fortune, which then would have descended to my wife. And wherefore did I marry, but to make lawful prize of a rich widow's wealth, and squander it on love and you ? Mrs Mar. Deceit and frivolous pretence. Fain. Death! am I not married? what's pretence? Am I not imprisoned, fettered? have I not a wife? nay, a wife, that was a widow, a young widow, a handsome widow; and would be again a widow, but that I have a heart of proof, and something of a constitution to bustle through the ways of wedlock and this world? Will you be reconciled to truth and me? Mrs Mar. Impossible. Truth and you are inconsistent- -I hate you, and shall for ever. Fain. For loving you? Mrs Mar. I loath the name of love after such usage; and next to the guilt, with which you would asperse me, I scorn you most. Farewell. Fain. Nay, we must not part thus. -Let me go. -I'd leave them to Fain. I would not hurt you for the world. Have I no other hoid to keep you here? |