SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER

OR,

THE MISTAKES OF A NIGHT

ACT THE FIRST

Scene I, A CHAMBER IN AN OLD-FASHIONED HOUSE. Enter Mrs. Hardcastle and Mr. Hardcastle.

Mrs. Hardcastle. I vow, Mr. Hardcastle, you're very particular. Is there a creature in the whole country but ourselves that does not take a trip to town now and then, to rub off the rust a little? There's the two Miss Hoggs, and our neighbor Mrs. Grigsby, go to take a month's polishing every winter.

Hardcastle. Ay, and bring back vanity and affectation to last them the whole year. I wonder why London cannot keep its own fools at home. In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stage-coach.1 Its fopperies come down not only as inside passengers, but in the very basket.

Mrs. Hardcastle. Ay, your times were fine times indeed; you have been telling us of them for many a long year. Here we live in an old rumbling 2 mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn, but that we

2

1 faster than a stage-coach: In April, 1765, Jean Pierre Grosley, in his Tour of London, says that the public carriages to Dover are now called "flying machines."

2 rumbling rambling.

never see company. Our best visitors are old Mrs. Oddfish, the curate's wife, and little Cripplegate, the lame dancing-master; and all our entertainment your old stories of Prince Eugene 1 and the Duke of Marlborough. I hate such old-fashioned trumpery.

1

Hardcastle. And I love it. I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; 2 and, I believe, Dorothy, (taking her hand,) you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife.

Mrs. Hardcastle. Lord, Mr. Hardcastle, you're forever at your Dorothys and your old wifes. You may be a Darby, but I'll be no Joan,3 I promise you. I'm not so old as you'd make me by more than one good year. Add twenty to twenty and make money of that.

'old stories of Prince Eugene: On Friday, April 10, 1772, Goldsmith dined with a company at General Oglethorpe's, and the General, then seventy-four years old, told tales of his service with Prince Eugene in the Turkish campaigns of 1716-17 (Hill's Boswell, vol. ii, p. 207). There can be no doubt that, with Hardcastle, Goldsmith loved "such old-fashioned trumpery." After the fashion of Oglethorpe, Hardcastle tries to tell his old stories in Act II. Prince Eugene visited England in 1712, and Steele wrote an essay on him; he also wrote a pamphlet on the Duke of Marlborough the same year.

2 old friends, old times, old manners: A conscious or unconscious paraphrase of Bacon's Apothegms, 97: "Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read!"

3 Darby... Joan: Literary types of husband and wife who remain lovers throughout life. Joan is a typical name for

doth keel the pot," Love's

a farm wench. "While greasy Joan Labor's Lost (Act V, Sc. 2). The first known use of these names in conjunction occurs in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1735 :·

Old Darby with Joan by his side,
You've often regarded with wonder.

Hardcastle. Let me see; twenty added to twenty - makes just fifty and seven!

Mrs. Hardcastle. It's false, Mr. Hardcastle; I was but twenty when I was brought to bed of Tony, that I had by Mr. Lumpkin, my first husband; and he's not come to years of discretion yet.

Hardcastle. Nor ever will, I dare answer for him. Ay, you have taught him finely!

Mrs. Hardcastle. No matter. Tony Lumpkin has a good fortune. My son is not to live by his learning. I don't think a boy wants much learning to spend fifteen hundred a year.

Hardcastle. Learning, quotha! a mere composition of tricks and mischief!

Mrs. Hardcastle. Humor, my dear; nothing but humor. Come, Mr. Hardcastle, you must allow the boy a little humor.

Hardcastle. I'd sooner allow him a horse-pond! If burning the footmen's shoes, frighting the maids, and worrying the kittens, be humor, he has it. It was but yesterday he fastened my wig1 to the back of my chair, and when I went to make a bow, I popped my bald head in Mrs. Frizzle's face.

Mrs. Hardcastle. And I am to blame? The poor boy was always too sickly to do any good. A school would be his death. When he comes to be a little stronger who knows what a year or two's Latin may do for him?

Hardcastle. Latin for him! A cat and fiddle! No, no; the alehouse and the stable are the only schools he 'll ever go to.

' fastened my wig: This trick was played on Goldsmith himself. See Forster, Life, Book IV, chap. xv.

Mrs. Hardcastle. Well, we must not snub the poor boy now, for I believe we shan't have him long among us. Anybody that looks in his face may see he's consumptive.

Hardcastle. Ay, if growing too fat be one of the symptoms.

Mrs. Hardcastle. He coughs sometimes.

Hardcastle. Yes, when his liquor goes the wrong

way.

Mrs. Hardcastle. I'm actually afraid of his lungs.

Hardcastle. And truly, so am I; for he sometimes whoops like a speaking-trumpet-(Tony hallooing behind the scenes.) - Oh, there he goes

sumptive figure, truly!

Enter Tony, crossing the stage.

a very con

Mrs. Hardcastle. Tony, where are you going, my charmer? Won't you give papa and I1 a little of your company, lovey?

Tony. I'm in haste, mother; I cannot stay.

Mrs. Hardcastle. You shan't venture out this raw evening, my dear; you look most shockingly.

Tony. I can't stay, I tell you. The Three Pigeons expects me down every moment. There's some fun going forward.

Hardcastle. Ay, the alehouse, the old place; I thought so.

Mrs. Hardcastle. A low, paltry set of fellows.

Tony. Not so low, neither. There's Dick Muggins, the exciseman; Jack Slang, the horse-doctor; little

1 papa and I Like Mrs. Malaprop, Mrs. Hardcastle does not use her mother tongue with accuracy.

Aminadab, that grinds the music-box; and Tom Twist, that spins the pewter platter.

Mrs. Hardcastle. Pray, my dear, disappoint them for one night at least.

Tony. As for disappointing them, I should not so much mind; but I can't abide to disappoint myself. Mrs. Hardcastle. (Detaining him.) You shan't go. Tony. I will, I tell you.

Mrs. Hardcastle. I say you shan't.

Tony. We'll see which is the strongest, you or I. [Exit, hauling her out. Hardcastle. (Alone.) Ay, there goes a pair that only spoil each other. But is not the whole age in a combination to drive sense and discretion out of doors? There's my pretty darling, Kate; the fashions of the times have almost infected her too. By living a year or two in town, she is as fond of gauze and French frippery as the best of them.

Enter Miss Hardcastle.

Blessings on my pretty innocence! Dressed out as usual, my Kate. Goodness! what a quantity of superfluous silk hast thou got about thee, girl! I could never teach the fools of this age that the indigent world could be clothed out of the trimmings of the vain.

Miss Hardcastle. You know our agreement, sir. You allow me the morning to receive and pay visits,

1 the indigent world: Compare this with the vicar's speech in The Vicar of Wakefield (chap. iv): "I do not know whether such flouncing and shredding is becoming even in the rich, if we consider, upon a moderate calculation, that the nakedress of the indigent world might be clothed from the trimmings of the vain."

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