[31] The fate,
according
to an old proverb, of those who die maids.
Thomas Otway
_ Oh papa, papa!
where have you been these two days,
papa?
_2nd Whore. _ You are a precious father indeed, to take no
more care of your children! we might be dead for all you, you
naughty daddy, you.
_Sir Jol. _ Dead, my poor fubses! odd, I had rather all the
relations I have were dead; a-dad, I had. Get you gone, you
little devils! Bubbies! oh, law, there's bubbies! --odd, I'll
bite 'em; odd, I will!
_1st Whore. _ Nay, fie, papa! I'll swear you'll make me angry,
except you carry us and treat us to-night; you have promised me
a treat this week; won't you, papa?
_2nd Whore. _ Ay, won't you, dad?
_Sir Jol. _ Odds so, odds so, well remembered! get you gone,
don't stay talking: get you gone! Yonder's a great lord,
the Lord Beaugard, and his cousin the baron, the count, the
marquis, the Lord knows what, Monsieur Courtine, newly come to
town, odds so.
_3rd Whore. _ O law, where, daddy, where? O dear, a lord!
_1st Whore. _ Well, you are the purest papa; but where be dey
mun, papa?
_Sir Jol. _ I won't tell you, you gipsies, so I won't--except
you tickle me: 'sbud they are brave fellows, all tall, and not
a bit small; odd, one of 'em has a devilish deal of money.
_1st Whore. _ Oh, dear! but which is he, papa?
_2nd Whore. _ Shan't I be in love with him, daddy?
_Sir Jol. _ What, nobody tickle me! nobody tickle me! --not yet?
Tickle me a little, Mally--tickle me a little, Jenny--do! he,
he, he, he, he, he! [_They tickle him. _] No more, O dear, O
dear! poor rogues! so, so, no more,--nay, if you do, if you do,
odd I'll, I'll, I'll--
_3rd Whore. _ What, what will you do, trow?
_Sir Jol. _ Come along with me, come along with me; sneak after
me at a distance, that nobody take notice: swingeing fellows,
Mally--swingeing fellows, Jenny; a devilish deal of money: get
you afore me then, you little didappers, ye wasps, ye wagtails,
get you gone, I say; swingeing fellows! [_Exeunt. _
[Illustration]
SCENE II. --_A Room in_ Sir DAVY DUNCE's _House_.
_Enter_ Lady DUNCE _and_ SYLVIA.
_L. Dunce. _ Die a maid, Sylvia, fie, for shame! what a
scandalous resolution's that! Five thousand pounds to your
portion, and leave it all to hospitals, for the innocent
recreation hereafter of leading apes in hell? [31] fie, for
shame!
_Sylv. _ Indeed, such another charming animal as your consort,
Sir Davy, might do much with me; 'tis an unspeakable blessing
to lie all night by a horseload of diseases; a beastly,
unsavoury, old, groaning, grunting, wheezing wretch, that
smells of the grave he's going to already. From such a curse,
and haircloth next my skin, good Heaven deliver me!
_L. Dunce. _ Thou mistakest the use of a husband, Sylvia:
they are not meant for bedfellows; heretofore, indeed, 'twas
a fulsome fashion, to lie o' nights with a husband; but the
world's improved, and customs altered.
_Sylv. _ Pray instruct me then what the use of a husband is.
_L. Dunce. _ Instead of a gentleman-usher for ceremony's sake,
to be in waiting on set days and particular occasions; but the
friend, cousin, is the jewel unvaluable.
_Sylv. _ But Sir Davy, madam, will be difficult to be so
governed; I am mistaken if his nature is not too jealous to be
blinded.
_L. Dunce. _ So much the better; of all, the jealous fool is
easiest to be deceived: for observe, where there's jealousy
there's always fondness; which if a woman, as she ought to do,
will make the right use of, the husband's fears shall not so
awake him on one side, as his dotage shall blind him on the
other.
_Sylv. _ Is your piece of mortality such a doting doodle? is he
so very fond of you?
_L. Dunce. _ No, but he has the vanity to think that I am very
fond of him; and if he be jealous, 'tis not so much for fear
I do abuse, as that in time I may, and therefore imposes this
confinement on me; though he has other divertisements that take
him off from my enjoyment, which make him so loathsome no woman
but must hate him.
_Sylv. _ His private divertisements I am a stranger to.
_L. Dunce. _ Then for his person, 'tis incomparably odious; he
has such a breath, one kiss of him were enough to cure the fits
of the mother;[32] 'tis worse than assafoetida.
_Sylv. _ Oh, hideous!
_L. Dunce. _ Everything that's nasty he affects: clean linen
he says is unwholesome; and to make him more charming, he's
continually eating of garlic and chewing tobacco.
_Sylv. _ Faugh! this is love! this is the blessing of matrimony!
_L. Dunce. _ Rail not so unreasonably against love, Sylvia. As I
have dealt freely, and acknowledged to thee the passion I have
for Beaugard, so methinks Sylvia need not conceal her good
thoughts of her friend. Do not I know Courtine sticks in your
stomach?
_Sylv. _ If he does, I'll assure you he shall never get to my
heart. But can you have the conscience to love another man now
you are married? What do you think will become of you?
_L. Dunce. _ I tell thee, Sylvia, I was never married to that
engine we have been talking of; my parents indeed made me
say something to him after a priest once, but my heart went
not along with my tongue; I minded not what it was: for my
thoughts, Sylvia, for these seven years, have been much better
employed--Beaugard! Ah, curse on the day that first sent him
into France!
_Sylv. _ Why so, I beseech you?
_L. Dunce. _ Had he stayed here, I had not been sacrificed to
the arms of this monument of man, for the bed of death could
not be more cold than his has been: he would have delivered me
from the monster, for even then I loved him, and was apt to
think my kindness not neglected.
_Sylv. _ I find indeed your ladyship had good thoughts of him.
_L. Dunce. _ Surely 'tis impossible to think too well of him,
for he has wit enough to call his good-nature in question, and
yet good-nature enough to make his wit suspected.
_Sylv. _ But how do you hope ever to get sight of him? Sir
Davy's watchfulness is invincible. I dare swear he would smell
out a rival if he were in the house, only by natural instinct;
as some that always sweat when a cat's in the room. Then again,
Beaugard's a soldier, and that's a thing the old gentleman, you
know, loves dearly.
_L. Dunce. _ There lies the greatest comfort of my uneasy life;
he is one of those fools, forsooth, that are led by the
nose by knaves to rail against the king and the government,
and is mightily fond of being thought of a party. I have had
hopes this twelve-month to have heard of his being in the
Gatehouse[33] for treason.
_Sylv. _ But I find only yourself the prisoner all this while.
_L. Dunce. _ At present indeed I am so; but fortune I hope will
smile, wouldst thou but be my friend, Sylvia.
_Sylv. _ In any mischievous design, with all my heart.
_L. Dunce. _ The conclusion, madam, may turn to your
satisfaction. But you have no thoughts of Courtine?
_Sylv. _ Not I, I'll assure you, cousin.
_L. Dunce. _ You don't think him well shaped, straight, and
proportionable?
_Sylv. _ Considering he eats but once a week, the man is well
enough.
_L. Dunce. _ And then he wears his clothes, you know, filthily,
and like a horrid sloven.
_Sylv. _ Filthily enough of all conscience, with a threadbare
red coat, which his tailor duns him for to this day, over which
a great, broad, greasy, buff-belt, enough to turn any one's
stomach but a disbanded soldier; a peruke tied up in a knot,
to excuse its want of combing; and then, because he has been a
man at arms, he must wear two tuffles of a beard, forsooth, to
lodge a dunghill of snuff upon, to keep his nose in good humour.
_L. Dunce. _ Nay, now I am sure that thou lovest him.
_Sylv. _ So far from it, that I protest eternally against the
whole sex.
_L. Dunce. _ That time will best demonstrate; in the mean while
to our business.
_Sylv. _ As how, madam?
_L. Dunce. _ To-night must I see Beaugard; they are this minute
at dinner in the Haymarket; now to make my evil genius, that
haunts me everywhere, my thing called a husband, himself to
assist his poor wife at a dead lift, I think would not be
unpleasant.
_Sylv. _ But 'twill be impossible.
_L. Dunce. _ I am apt to be persuaded rather very easy. You know
our good and friendly neighbour, Sir Jolly.
_Sylv. _ Out on him, beast! he's always talking filthily to a
body; if he sits but at the table with one, he'll be making
nasty figures in the napkins.
_L. Dunce. _ He and my sweet yoke-fellow are the most intimate
friends in the world; so that partly out of neighbourly
kindness, as well as the great delight he takes to be meddling
in matters of this nature, with a great deal of pains and
industry he has procured me Beaugard's picture, and given him
to understand how well a friend of his in petticoats, called
myself, wishes him.
_Sylv. _ But what's all this to the making the husband
instrumental? for I must confess, of all creatures, a husband's
the thing that's odious to me.
_L. Dunce. _ That must be done this night: I'll instantly to my
chamber, take my bed in a pet, and send for Sir Davy.
_Sylv. _ But which way then must the lover come?
_L. Dunce. _ Nay, I'll betray Beaugard to him, show him the
picture he sent me, and beg of him, as he tenders his own
honour and my quiet, to take some course to secure me from the
scandalous solicitations of that innocent fellow.
_Sylv. _ And so make him the property, the go-between, to bring
the affair to an issue the more decently.
_L. Dunce. _ Right, Sylvia; 'tis the best office a husband can
do a wife; I mean an old husband. Bless us, to be yoked in
wedlock with a paralytic, coughing, decrepit dotterel; to be a
dry-nurse all one's life-time to an old child of sixty-five;
to lie by the image of death a whole night, a dull immoveable,
that has no sense of life but through its pains! the pigeon's
as happy that's laid to a sick man's feet, when the world has
given him over:[34] for my part, this shall henceforth be my
prayer:--
Curst be the memory, nay double curst,
Of her that wedded age for interest first!
Though worn with years, with fruitless wishes full,
'Tis all day troublesome, and all night dull.
Who wed with fools, indeed, lead happy lives;
Fools are the fittest, finest things for wives:
Yet old men profit bring, as fools bring ease,
And both make youth and wit much better please. [_Exeunt. _
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[26] Knights of the post were hired witnesses and men of straw who made
a trade of becoming bail. They hung about the various inns of court so
as to be available at a moment's notice. In _Hudibras_ we read:
"Retain all sorts of witnesses
That ply i' the Temples under trees,
Or walk the Round with Knights o' th' Posts
About the crossed-legged Knights their hosts. "
[27] In Covent Garden.
[28] A courtesan.
[29] A famous ordinary, which stood on the site of Drummond's bank at
Charing Cross, frequently alluded to by writers of the period.
[30] Refuse.
[31] The fate, according to an old proverb, of those who die maids.
[32] Hysterics.
[33] A well-known prison near the west end of Westminster Abbey, where
political prisoners were confined.
[34] An old superstitious practice. Pepys makes mention of pigeons
being placed at the feet of Catherine of Braganza, Charles II. 's queen,
when she was dangerously ill.
ACT THE SECOND.
SCENE I. --_The Street before Whitehall. _
_Enter_ Sir JOLLY JUMBLE, BEAUGARD, COURTINE,
_and_ FOURBIN.
_Cour. _ Sir Jolly is the glory of the age.
_Sir Jol. _ Nay, now, sir, you honour me too far.
_Beau. _ He's the delight of the young, and wonder of the old.
_Sir Jol. _ I swear, gentlemen, you make me blush.
_Cour. _ He deserves a statue of gold, at the charge of the
kingdom.
_Sir Jol. _ Out upon't, fie for shame! I protest I'll leave
your company if you talk so. But faith they were pure whores,
daintily dutiful strumpets: ha! uddsbud, they'd--have stripped
for t'other bottle.
_Beau. _ Truly, Sir Jolly, you are a man of very extraordinary
discipline: I never saw whores under better command in my life.
_Sir Jol. _ Pish, that's nothing, man, nothing; I can send for
forty better when I please; doxies that will skip, strip, leap,
trip, and do anything in the world, anything, old soul!
_Cour. _ Dear, dear Sir Jolly, where and when?
_Sir Jol. _ Odd! as simply as I stand here, her father was a
knight.
_Beau. _ Indeed, Sir Jolly! a knight, say you?
_Sir Jol. _ Ay, but a little decayed: I'll assure you she's a
very good gentlewoman born.
_Cour. _ Ay, and a very good gentlewoman bred too.
_Sir Jol. _ Ay, and so she is.
_Beau. _ But, Sir Jolly, how goes my business forward? when
shall I have a view of the quarry I am to fly at?
_Sir Jol. _ Alas-a-day, not so hasty; soft and fair, I beseech
you. Ah, my little son of thunder, if thou hadst her in thy
arms now between a pair of sheets, and I under the bed to see
fair play, boy; gemini! what would become of me? what would
become of me? there would be doings! O lawd, I under the bed!
_Beau. _ Or behind the hangings, Sir Jolly, would not that do as
well?
_Sir Jol. _ Ah no, under the bed against the world, and then it
would be very dark, ha!
_Beau. _ Dark to choose?
_Sir Jol. _ No, but a little light would do well; a small
glimmering lamp, just enough for me to steal a peep by; oh,
lamentable! oh, lamentable! I won't speak a word more! there
would be a trick! O rare! you friend, O rare! Odds-so, not a
word more, odds-so, yonder comes the monster that must be the
cuckold-elect; step, step aside and observe him; if I should be
seen in your company, 'twould spoil all.
[_Exeunt_ Sir JOLLY _and_ COURTINE.
_Beau. _ For my part, I'll stand the meeting of him; one way
to promote a good understanding with a wife, is first to get
acquainted with her husband. [_Retires. _
_Enter_ Sir DAVY DUNCE.
_Sir Dav. _ Well, of all blessings, a discreet wife is the
greatest that can light upon a man of years: had I been married
to anything but an angel now, what a beast had I been by this
time! well, I am the happiest old fool! 'tis a horrid age that
we live in, so that an honest man can keep nothing to himself.
If you have a good estate, every covetous rogue is longing
for't (truly I love a good estate dearly myself); if you have
a handsome wife, every smooth-faced coxcomb will be combing
and cocking[35] at her: flesh-flies are not so troublesome
to the shambles as those sort of insects are to the boxes in
the play-house. But virtue is a great blessing, an unvaluable
treasure: to tell me herself that a villain had tempted her,
and give me the very picture, the enchantment that he sent to
bewitch her! it strikes me dumb with admiration. Here's the
villain in effigy. [_Pulls out the picture. _] Odd! a very
handsome fellow, a dangerous rogue, I'll warrant him: such
fellows as these now should be fettered like unruly colts, that
they might not leap into other men's pastures. Here's a nose
now, I could find it in my heart to cut it off. Damned dog, to
dare to presume to make a cuckold of a knight! --bless us! what
will this world come to? Well, poor Sir Davy, down, down on thy
knees, and thank thy stars for this deliverance.
_Beau. _ 'Sdeath! what's that I see? sure 'tis the very picture
which I sent by Sir Jolly; if so, by this light, I am damnably
jilted.
_Sir Dav. _ But now if--
_Beau. _ Surely he does not see us yet.
_Four. _ See you, sir! why he has but one eye, and we are on his
blind side; I'll dumb-found him. [_Strikes him on the shoulder. _
_Sir Dav. _ Who the devil's this? Sir, sir, sir, who are you,
sir?
_Beau. _ Ay, ay, 'tis the same; now a pox of all amorous
adventures! 'sdeath, I'll go beat the impertinent pimp that
drew me into this fooling.
_Sir Dav. _ Sir, methinks you are very curious.
_Beau. _ Sir, perhaps I have an extraordinary reason to be so.
_Sir Dav. _ And perhaps, sir, I care not for you, nor your
reasons neither.
_Beau. _ Sir, if you are at leisure, I would beg the honour to
speak with you.
_Sir Dav. _ With me, sir? what's your business with me?
_Beau. _ I would not willingly be troublesome, though it may be
I am so at this time.
_Sir Dav. _ It may be so too, sir.
_Beau. _ But to be known to so worthy a person as you are, would
be so great an honour, so extraordinary a happiness, that I
could not avoid taking this opportunity of tendering you my
service.
_Sir Dav. _ [_Aside. _] Smooth rogue! who the devil is this
fellow? But, sir, you were pleased to nominate business, sir; I
desire with what speed you can to know your business, sir, that
I may go about my business.
_Beau. _ Sir, if I might with good manners, I should be glad
to inform myself whose picture that is which you have in your
hand; methinks it is a very fine painting.
_Sir Dav. _ Picture, friend, picture! sir, 'tis a resemblance
of a very impudent fellow; they call him Captain Beaugard,
forsooth, but he is in short a rake-hell, a poor, lousy,
beggarly, disbanded devil; do you know him, friend?
_Beau. _ I think I have heard of such a vagabond: the truth on't
is, he is a very impudent fellow.
_Sir Dav. _ Ay, a damned rogue.
_Beau. _ Oh, a notorious scoundrel.
_Sir Dav. _ I expect to hear he's hanged by next sessions.
_Beau. _ The truth on't is, he has deserved it long ago. But did
you ever see him, Sir Davy?
_Sir Dav. _ Sir! --does he know me? [_Aside. _
_Beau. _ Because I fancy that miniature is very like him. Pray,
sir, whence had it you?
_Sir Dav. _ Had it, friend? had it? whence had it I? [_Aside. _]
Bless us! [_Compares the picture with_ BEAUGARD'S _face_. ] what
have I done now! this is the very traitor himself; if he should
be desperate now, and put his sword in my guts! --slitting my
nose will be as bad as that, I have but one eye left neither,
and may be--Oh, but this is the King's Court; odd, that's
well remembered; he dares not but be civil here. I'll try to
out-huff him. Whence had it you?
_Beau. _ Ay, sir, whence had it you? that's English in my
country, sir.
_Sir Dav. _ Go, sir, you are a rascal.
_Beau. _ How!
_Sir Dav. _ Sir, I say you are a rascal, a very impudent rascal;
nay, I'll prove you to be a rascal, if you go to that--
_Beau. _ Sir, I am a gentleman and a soldier.
_Sir Dav. _ So much the worse; soldiers have been cuckold-makers
from the beginning: sir, I care not what you are; for aught I
know you may be a--come, sir, did I never see you? Answer me
to that; did I never see you? for aught I know you may be a
Jesuit; there were more in the last army beside you.
_Beau. _ Of your acquaintance, and be hanged!
_Sir Dav. _ Yes, to my knowledge there were several at
Hounslow-heath, disguised in dirty petticoats, and cried
brandy. I knew a sergeant of foot that was familiar with one
of them all night in a ditch, and fancied him a woman; but the
devil is powerful.
_Beau. _ In short, you worthy villain of worship, that picture
is mine, and I must have it, or I shall take an opportunity to
kick your worship most inhumanly.
_Sir Dav. _ Kick, sir!
_Beau. _ Ay, sir, kick; 'tis a recreation I can show you.
_Sir Dav. _ Sir, I am a free-born subject of England, and there
are laws, look you, there are laws; so I say you are a rascal
again, and now how will you help yourself, poor fool?
_Beau. _ Hark you, friend, have not you a wife?
_Sir Dav. _ I have a lady, sir--oh, and she's mightily taken
with this picture of yours; she was so mightily proud of it,
she could not forbear showing it me, and telling too who it was
sent it her.
_Beau. _ And has she been long a jilt? has she practised the
trade for any time?
_Sir Dav. _ Trade! humph, what trade? what trade, friend?
_Beau.
papa?
_2nd Whore. _ You are a precious father indeed, to take no
more care of your children! we might be dead for all you, you
naughty daddy, you.
_Sir Jol. _ Dead, my poor fubses! odd, I had rather all the
relations I have were dead; a-dad, I had. Get you gone, you
little devils! Bubbies! oh, law, there's bubbies! --odd, I'll
bite 'em; odd, I will!
_1st Whore. _ Nay, fie, papa! I'll swear you'll make me angry,
except you carry us and treat us to-night; you have promised me
a treat this week; won't you, papa?
_2nd Whore. _ Ay, won't you, dad?
_Sir Jol. _ Odds so, odds so, well remembered! get you gone,
don't stay talking: get you gone! Yonder's a great lord,
the Lord Beaugard, and his cousin the baron, the count, the
marquis, the Lord knows what, Monsieur Courtine, newly come to
town, odds so.
_3rd Whore. _ O law, where, daddy, where? O dear, a lord!
_1st Whore. _ Well, you are the purest papa; but where be dey
mun, papa?
_Sir Jol. _ I won't tell you, you gipsies, so I won't--except
you tickle me: 'sbud they are brave fellows, all tall, and not
a bit small; odd, one of 'em has a devilish deal of money.
_1st Whore. _ Oh, dear! but which is he, papa?
_2nd Whore. _ Shan't I be in love with him, daddy?
_Sir Jol. _ What, nobody tickle me! nobody tickle me! --not yet?
Tickle me a little, Mally--tickle me a little, Jenny--do! he,
he, he, he, he, he! [_They tickle him. _] No more, O dear, O
dear! poor rogues! so, so, no more,--nay, if you do, if you do,
odd I'll, I'll, I'll--
_3rd Whore. _ What, what will you do, trow?
_Sir Jol. _ Come along with me, come along with me; sneak after
me at a distance, that nobody take notice: swingeing fellows,
Mally--swingeing fellows, Jenny; a devilish deal of money: get
you afore me then, you little didappers, ye wasps, ye wagtails,
get you gone, I say; swingeing fellows! [_Exeunt. _
[Illustration]
SCENE II. --_A Room in_ Sir DAVY DUNCE's _House_.
_Enter_ Lady DUNCE _and_ SYLVIA.
_L. Dunce. _ Die a maid, Sylvia, fie, for shame! what a
scandalous resolution's that! Five thousand pounds to your
portion, and leave it all to hospitals, for the innocent
recreation hereafter of leading apes in hell? [31] fie, for
shame!
_Sylv. _ Indeed, such another charming animal as your consort,
Sir Davy, might do much with me; 'tis an unspeakable blessing
to lie all night by a horseload of diseases; a beastly,
unsavoury, old, groaning, grunting, wheezing wretch, that
smells of the grave he's going to already. From such a curse,
and haircloth next my skin, good Heaven deliver me!
_L. Dunce. _ Thou mistakest the use of a husband, Sylvia:
they are not meant for bedfellows; heretofore, indeed, 'twas
a fulsome fashion, to lie o' nights with a husband; but the
world's improved, and customs altered.
_Sylv. _ Pray instruct me then what the use of a husband is.
_L. Dunce. _ Instead of a gentleman-usher for ceremony's sake,
to be in waiting on set days and particular occasions; but the
friend, cousin, is the jewel unvaluable.
_Sylv. _ But Sir Davy, madam, will be difficult to be so
governed; I am mistaken if his nature is not too jealous to be
blinded.
_L. Dunce. _ So much the better; of all, the jealous fool is
easiest to be deceived: for observe, where there's jealousy
there's always fondness; which if a woman, as she ought to do,
will make the right use of, the husband's fears shall not so
awake him on one side, as his dotage shall blind him on the
other.
_Sylv. _ Is your piece of mortality such a doting doodle? is he
so very fond of you?
_L. Dunce. _ No, but he has the vanity to think that I am very
fond of him; and if he be jealous, 'tis not so much for fear
I do abuse, as that in time I may, and therefore imposes this
confinement on me; though he has other divertisements that take
him off from my enjoyment, which make him so loathsome no woman
but must hate him.
_Sylv. _ His private divertisements I am a stranger to.
_L. Dunce. _ Then for his person, 'tis incomparably odious; he
has such a breath, one kiss of him were enough to cure the fits
of the mother;[32] 'tis worse than assafoetida.
_Sylv. _ Oh, hideous!
_L. Dunce. _ Everything that's nasty he affects: clean linen
he says is unwholesome; and to make him more charming, he's
continually eating of garlic and chewing tobacco.
_Sylv. _ Faugh! this is love! this is the blessing of matrimony!
_L. Dunce. _ Rail not so unreasonably against love, Sylvia. As I
have dealt freely, and acknowledged to thee the passion I have
for Beaugard, so methinks Sylvia need not conceal her good
thoughts of her friend. Do not I know Courtine sticks in your
stomach?
_Sylv. _ If he does, I'll assure you he shall never get to my
heart. But can you have the conscience to love another man now
you are married? What do you think will become of you?
_L. Dunce. _ I tell thee, Sylvia, I was never married to that
engine we have been talking of; my parents indeed made me
say something to him after a priest once, but my heart went
not along with my tongue; I minded not what it was: for my
thoughts, Sylvia, for these seven years, have been much better
employed--Beaugard! Ah, curse on the day that first sent him
into France!
_Sylv. _ Why so, I beseech you?
_L. Dunce. _ Had he stayed here, I had not been sacrificed to
the arms of this monument of man, for the bed of death could
not be more cold than his has been: he would have delivered me
from the monster, for even then I loved him, and was apt to
think my kindness not neglected.
_Sylv. _ I find indeed your ladyship had good thoughts of him.
_L. Dunce. _ Surely 'tis impossible to think too well of him,
for he has wit enough to call his good-nature in question, and
yet good-nature enough to make his wit suspected.
_Sylv. _ But how do you hope ever to get sight of him? Sir
Davy's watchfulness is invincible. I dare swear he would smell
out a rival if he were in the house, only by natural instinct;
as some that always sweat when a cat's in the room. Then again,
Beaugard's a soldier, and that's a thing the old gentleman, you
know, loves dearly.
_L. Dunce. _ There lies the greatest comfort of my uneasy life;
he is one of those fools, forsooth, that are led by the
nose by knaves to rail against the king and the government,
and is mightily fond of being thought of a party. I have had
hopes this twelve-month to have heard of his being in the
Gatehouse[33] for treason.
_Sylv. _ But I find only yourself the prisoner all this while.
_L. Dunce. _ At present indeed I am so; but fortune I hope will
smile, wouldst thou but be my friend, Sylvia.
_Sylv. _ In any mischievous design, with all my heart.
_L. Dunce. _ The conclusion, madam, may turn to your
satisfaction. But you have no thoughts of Courtine?
_Sylv. _ Not I, I'll assure you, cousin.
_L. Dunce. _ You don't think him well shaped, straight, and
proportionable?
_Sylv. _ Considering he eats but once a week, the man is well
enough.
_L. Dunce. _ And then he wears his clothes, you know, filthily,
and like a horrid sloven.
_Sylv. _ Filthily enough of all conscience, with a threadbare
red coat, which his tailor duns him for to this day, over which
a great, broad, greasy, buff-belt, enough to turn any one's
stomach but a disbanded soldier; a peruke tied up in a knot,
to excuse its want of combing; and then, because he has been a
man at arms, he must wear two tuffles of a beard, forsooth, to
lodge a dunghill of snuff upon, to keep his nose in good humour.
_L. Dunce. _ Nay, now I am sure that thou lovest him.
_Sylv. _ So far from it, that I protest eternally against the
whole sex.
_L. Dunce. _ That time will best demonstrate; in the mean while
to our business.
_Sylv. _ As how, madam?
_L. Dunce. _ To-night must I see Beaugard; they are this minute
at dinner in the Haymarket; now to make my evil genius, that
haunts me everywhere, my thing called a husband, himself to
assist his poor wife at a dead lift, I think would not be
unpleasant.
_Sylv. _ But 'twill be impossible.
_L. Dunce. _ I am apt to be persuaded rather very easy. You know
our good and friendly neighbour, Sir Jolly.
_Sylv. _ Out on him, beast! he's always talking filthily to a
body; if he sits but at the table with one, he'll be making
nasty figures in the napkins.
_L. Dunce. _ He and my sweet yoke-fellow are the most intimate
friends in the world; so that partly out of neighbourly
kindness, as well as the great delight he takes to be meddling
in matters of this nature, with a great deal of pains and
industry he has procured me Beaugard's picture, and given him
to understand how well a friend of his in petticoats, called
myself, wishes him.
_Sylv. _ But what's all this to the making the husband
instrumental? for I must confess, of all creatures, a husband's
the thing that's odious to me.
_L. Dunce. _ That must be done this night: I'll instantly to my
chamber, take my bed in a pet, and send for Sir Davy.
_Sylv. _ But which way then must the lover come?
_L. Dunce. _ Nay, I'll betray Beaugard to him, show him the
picture he sent me, and beg of him, as he tenders his own
honour and my quiet, to take some course to secure me from the
scandalous solicitations of that innocent fellow.
_Sylv. _ And so make him the property, the go-between, to bring
the affair to an issue the more decently.
_L. Dunce. _ Right, Sylvia; 'tis the best office a husband can
do a wife; I mean an old husband. Bless us, to be yoked in
wedlock with a paralytic, coughing, decrepit dotterel; to be a
dry-nurse all one's life-time to an old child of sixty-five;
to lie by the image of death a whole night, a dull immoveable,
that has no sense of life but through its pains! the pigeon's
as happy that's laid to a sick man's feet, when the world has
given him over:[34] for my part, this shall henceforth be my
prayer:--
Curst be the memory, nay double curst,
Of her that wedded age for interest first!
Though worn with years, with fruitless wishes full,
'Tis all day troublesome, and all night dull.
Who wed with fools, indeed, lead happy lives;
Fools are the fittest, finest things for wives:
Yet old men profit bring, as fools bring ease,
And both make youth and wit much better please. [_Exeunt. _
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[26] Knights of the post were hired witnesses and men of straw who made
a trade of becoming bail. They hung about the various inns of court so
as to be available at a moment's notice. In _Hudibras_ we read:
"Retain all sorts of witnesses
That ply i' the Temples under trees,
Or walk the Round with Knights o' th' Posts
About the crossed-legged Knights their hosts. "
[27] In Covent Garden.
[28] A courtesan.
[29] A famous ordinary, which stood on the site of Drummond's bank at
Charing Cross, frequently alluded to by writers of the period.
[30] Refuse.
[31] The fate, according to an old proverb, of those who die maids.
[32] Hysterics.
[33] A well-known prison near the west end of Westminster Abbey, where
political prisoners were confined.
[34] An old superstitious practice. Pepys makes mention of pigeons
being placed at the feet of Catherine of Braganza, Charles II. 's queen,
when she was dangerously ill.
ACT THE SECOND.
SCENE I. --_The Street before Whitehall. _
_Enter_ Sir JOLLY JUMBLE, BEAUGARD, COURTINE,
_and_ FOURBIN.
_Cour. _ Sir Jolly is the glory of the age.
_Sir Jol. _ Nay, now, sir, you honour me too far.
_Beau. _ He's the delight of the young, and wonder of the old.
_Sir Jol. _ I swear, gentlemen, you make me blush.
_Cour. _ He deserves a statue of gold, at the charge of the
kingdom.
_Sir Jol. _ Out upon't, fie for shame! I protest I'll leave
your company if you talk so. But faith they were pure whores,
daintily dutiful strumpets: ha! uddsbud, they'd--have stripped
for t'other bottle.
_Beau. _ Truly, Sir Jolly, you are a man of very extraordinary
discipline: I never saw whores under better command in my life.
_Sir Jol. _ Pish, that's nothing, man, nothing; I can send for
forty better when I please; doxies that will skip, strip, leap,
trip, and do anything in the world, anything, old soul!
_Cour. _ Dear, dear Sir Jolly, where and when?
_Sir Jol. _ Odd! as simply as I stand here, her father was a
knight.
_Beau. _ Indeed, Sir Jolly! a knight, say you?
_Sir Jol. _ Ay, but a little decayed: I'll assure you she's a
very good gentlewoman born.
_Cour. _ Ay, and a very good gentlewoman bred too.
_Sir Jol. _ Ay, and so she is.
_Beau. _ But, Sir Jolly, how goes my business forward? when
shall I have a view of the quarry I am to fly at?
_Sir Jol. _ Alas-a-day, not so hasty; soft and fair, I beseech
you. Ah, my little son of thunder, if thou hadst her in thy
arms now between a pair of sheets, and I under the bed to see
fair play, boy; gemini! what would become of me? what would
become of me? there would be doings! O lawd, I under the bed!
_Beau. _ Or behind the hangings, Sir Jolly, would not that do as
well?
_Sir Jol. _ Ah no, under the bed against the world, and then it
would be very dark, ha!
_Beau. _ Dark to choose?
_Sir Jol. _ No, but a little light would do well; a small
glimmering lamp, just enough for me to steal a peep by; oh,
lamentable! oh, lamentable! I won't speak a word more! there
would be a trick! O rare! you friend, O rare! Odds-so, not a
word more, odds-so, yonder comes the monster that must be the
cuckold-elect; step, step aside and observe him; if I should be
seen in your company, 'twould spoil all.
[_Exeunt_ Sir JOLLY _and_ COURTINE.
_Beau. _ For my part, I'll stand the meeting of him; one way
to promote a good understanding with a wife, is first to get
acquainted with her husband. [_Retires. _
_Enter_ Sir DAVY DUNCE.
_Sir Dav. _ Well, of all blessings, a discreet wife is the
greatest that can light upon a man of years: had I been married
to anything but an angel now, what a beast had I been by this
time! well, I am the happiest old fool! 'tis a horrid age that
we live in, so that an honest man can keep nothing to himself.
If you have a good estate, every covetous rogue is longing
for't (truly I love a good estate dearly myself); if you have
a handsome wife, every smooth-faced coxcomb will be combing
and cocking[35] at her: flesh-flies are not so troublesome
to the shambles as those sort of insects are to the boxes in
the play-house. But virtue is a great blessing, an unvaluable
treasure: to tell me herself that a villain had tempted her,
and give me the very picture, the enchantment that he sent to
bewitch her! it strikes me dumb with admiration. Here's the
villain in effigy. [_Pulls out the picture. _] Odd! a very
handsome fellow, a dangerous rogue, I'll warrant him: such
fellows as these now should be fettered like unruly colts, that
they might not leap into other men's pastures. Here's a nose
now, I could find it in my heart to cut it off. Damned dog, to
dare to presume to make a cuckold of a knight! --bless us! what
will this world come to? Well, poor Sir Davy, down, down on thy
knees, and thank thy stars for this deliverance.
_Beau. _ 'Sdeath! what's that I see? sure 'tis the very picture
which I sent by Sir Jolly; if so, by this light, I am damnably
jilted.
_Sir Dav. _ But now if--
_Beau. _ Surely he does not see us yet.
_Four. _ See you, sir! why he has but one eye, and we are on his
blind side; I'll dumb-found him. [_Strikes him on the shoulder. _
_Sir Dav. _ Who the devil's this? Sir, sir, sir, who are you,
sir?
_Beau. _ Ay, ay, 'tis the same; now a pox of all amorous
adventures! 'sdeath, I'll go beat the impertinent pimp that
drew me into this fooling.
_Sir Dav. _ Sir, methinks you are very curious.
_Beau. _ Sir, perhaps I have an extraordinary reason to be so.
_Sir Dav. _ And perhaps, sir, I care not for you, nor your
reasons neither.
_Beau. _ Sir, if you are at leisure, I would beg the honour to
speak with you.
_Sir Dav. _ With me, sir? what's your business with me?
_Beau. _ I would not willingly be troublesome, though it may be
I am so at this time.
_Sir Dav. _ It may be so too, sir.
_Beau. _ But to be known to so worthy a person as you are, would
be so great an honour, so extraordinary a happiness, that I
could not avoid taking this opportunity of tendering you my
service.
_Sir Dav. _ [_Aside. _] Smooth rogue! who the devil is this
fellow? But, sir, you were pleased to nominate business, sir; I
desire with what speed you can to know your business, sir, that
I may go about my business.
_Beau. _ Sir, if I might with good manners, I should be glad
to inform myself whose picture that is which you have in your
hand; methinks it is a very fine painting.
_Sir Dav. _ Picture, friend, picture! sir, 'tis a resemblance
of a very impudent fellow; they call him Captain Beaugard,
forsooth, but he is in short a rake-hell, a poor, lousy,
beggarly, disbanded devil; do you know him, friend?
_Beau. _ I think I have heard of such a vagabond: the truth on't
is, he is a very impudent fellow.
_Sir Dav. _ Ay, a damned rogue.
_Beau. _ Oh, a notorious scoundrel.
_Sir Dav. _ I expect to hear he's hanged by next sessions.
_Beau. _ The truth on't is, he has deserved it long ago. But did
you ever see him, Sir Davy?
_Sir Dav. _ Sir! --does he know me? [_Aside. _
_Beau. _ Because I fancy that miniature is very like him. Pray,
sir, whence had it you?
_Sir Dav. _ Had it, friend? had it? whence had it I? [_Aside. _]
Bless us! [_Compares the picture with_ BEAUGARD'S _face_. ] what
have I done now! this is the very traitor himself; if he should
be desperate now, and put his sword in my guts! --slitting my
nose will be as bad as that, I have but one eye left neither,
and may be--Oh, but this is the King's Court; odd, that's
well remembered; he dares not but be civil here. I'll try to
out-huff him. Whence had it you?
_Beau. _ Ay, sir, whence had it you? that's English in my
country, sir.
_Sir Dav. _ Go, sir, you are a rascal.
_Beau. _ How!
_Sir Dav. _ Sir, I say you are a rascal, a very impudent rascal;
nay, I'll prove you to be a rascal, if you go to that--
_Beau. _ Sir, I am a gentleman and a soldier.
_Sir Dav. _ So much the worse; soldiers have been cuckold-makers
from the beginning: sir, I care not what you are; for aught I
know you may be a--come, sir, did I never see you? Answer me
to that; did I never see you? for aught I know you may be a
Jesuit; there were more in the last army beside you.
_Beau. _ Of your acquaintance, and be hanged!
_Sir Dav. _ Yes, to my knowledge there were several at
Hounslow-heath, disguised in dirty petticoats, and cried
brandy. I knew a sergeant of foot that was familiar with one
of them all night in a ditch, and fancied him a woman; but the
devil is powerful.
_Beau. _ In short, you worthy villain of worship, that picture
is mine, and I must have it, or I shall take an opportunity to
kick your worship most inhumanly.
_Sir Dav. _ Kick, sir!
_Beau. _ Ay, sir, kick; 'tis a recreation I can show you.
_Sir Dav. _ Sir, I am a free-born subject of England, and there
are laws, look you, there are laws; so I say you are a rascal
again, and now how will you help yourself, poor fool?
_Beau. _ Hark you, friend, have not you a wife?
_Sir Dav. _ I have a lady, sir--oh, and she's mightily taken
with this picture of yours; she was so mightily proud of it,
she could not forbear showing it me, and telling too who it was
sent it her.
_Beau. _ And has she been long a jilt? has she practised the
trade for any time?
_Sir Dav. _ Trade! humph, what trade? what trade, friend?
_Beau.
