No More Learning

As puffing quacks some caitiff wretch procure
To swear the pill, or drop, has wrought a cure;
Thus, on the stage, our play-wrights still depend
For epilogues and prologues on some friend,
Who knows each art of coaxing up the town,
And make full many a bitter pill go down:
Conscious of this, our bard has gone about,
And teased each rhyming friend to help him out.
An epilogue! things can't go on without it;
It could not fail, would you but set about it:
"Young man," cries one, (a bard laid up in clover,)
"Alas! young man, my writing days are over;
Let boys play tricks, and kick the straw, not I;
Your brother doctor there, perhaps, may try,"
"What I! dear Sir," the doctor interposes;
"What, plant my thistle, Sir, among his roses!
No, no, I've other contests to maintain;
To-night I heard our troops at Warwick-lane.
Go ask your manager"—"Who, me! Your pardon,
Those things are not our forte at Covent Garden. "
Our author's friends, thus placed at happy distance,
Give him good words, indeed, but no assistance.
As some unhappy wight, at some new play,
At the pit door stands elbowing a way,
While oft, with many a smile, and many a shrug,
He eyes the centre, where his friends sit snug;
His simpering friends, with pleasure in their eyes,
Sink as he sinks, and as he rises rise:
He nods, they nod; he cringes, they grimace;
But not a soul will budge to give him place.
Since, then, unhelp'd, our bard must now conform
"To 'bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,"
Blame where you must, be candid where you can,
And be each critic the _Good-natured Man_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Seated woman reading a book. ]

STANZAS ON WOMAN.

When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is—to die.

THE CLOWN'S REPLY.

John Trott was desired by two witty peers
To tell them the reason why asses had ears.
"An't please you," quoth John, "I'm not given to letters,
Nor dare I pretend to know more than my betters;
Howe'er, from this time, I shall ne'er see your graces,
As I hope to be saved! —without thinking on asses. "

* * * * *

SONG.


The wretch condemn'd with life to part,
Still, still on Hope relies;
And every pang that rends the heart
Bids expectation rise.

Hope, like the glimmering taper's light,
Adorns and cheers the way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.


STANZAS.


Weeping, murmuring, complaining,
Lost to every gay delight,
Myra, too sincere for feigning,
Fears th'approaching bridal night.

Yet why impair thy bright perfection?
Or dim thy beauty with a tear?
Had Myra follow'd my direction,
She long had wanted cause of fear.

* * * * *

EPILOGUE


TO "SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. "

INTENDED TO BE SPOKEN BY MRS. BULKLEY AND MISS CATLEY.

_Enters_ MRS. BULKLEY, _who curtsies very low as beginning to speak.
Then enters_ MISS CATLEY, _who stands full before her, and curtsies to
the Audience_.

MRS. BULKLEY.

Hold, Ma'am, your pardon. What's your business here?

MISS CATLEY.

The Epilogue.

MRS. BULKLEY.

The Epilogue?

MISS CATLEY.

Yes, the Epilogue, my dear.

MRS. BULKLEY.

Sure you mistake, Ma'am. The Epilogue, _I_ bring it.

MISS CATLEY.

Excuse me, Ma'am. The author bid _me_ sing it.

_Recitative. _

Ye beaux and belles, that form this splendid ring,
Suspend your conversation while I sing.

MRS. BULKLEY.

Why, sure the girl's beside herself! an Epilogue of singing,
A hopeful end, indeed, to such a blest beginning.
Besides, a singer in a comic set—
Excuse me, Ma'am, I know the etiquette.

MISS CATLEY.

What if we leave it to the house?

MRS. BULKLEY.

The house! —Agreed.

MISS CATLEY.

Agreed.

MRS. BULKLEY.

And she whose party's largest shall proceed.
And first, I hope you'll readily agree
I've all the critics and the wits for me.
They, I am sure, will answer my commands;
Ye candid judging few, hold up your hands.
What! no return? I find too late, I fear,
That modern judges seldom enter here.

MISS CATLEY.

I'm for a different set:—Old men, whose trade is
Still to gallant and dangle with the ladies.

_Recitative. _

Who mump their passion, and who, grimly smiling
Still thus address the fair with voice beguiling.

_Air. —Cotillion. _


Turn, my fairest, turn, if ever
Strephon caught thy ravish'd eye.
Pity take on your swain so clever,
Who without your aid must die.
Yes, I shall die, hu, hu, hu, hu!
Yes, I must die, ho, ho, ho, ho!
_Da Capo. _


MRS. BULKLEY.

Let all the old pay homage to your merit;
Give me the young, the gay, the men of spirit.
Ye travell'd tribe, ye macaroni train,
Of French friseurs and nosegays justly vain,
Who take a trip to Paris once a year
To dress, and look like awkward Frenchmen here,—
Lend me your hand: O fatal news to tell,
Their hands are only lent to the Heinelle.

MISS CATLEY.

Ay, take your travellers—travellers indeed!
Give me my bonny Scot, that travels from the Tweed.
Where are the chiels? —Ah! ah, I well discern
The smiling looks of each bewitching bairn.

_Air. —A bonny young Lad is my Jocky. _

I sing to amuse you by night and by day,
And be unco merry when you are but gay;
When you with your bagpipes are ready to play,
My voice shall be ready to carol away
With Sandy, and Sawney, and Jockey,
With Sawney, and Jarvie, and Jockey.

MRS. BULKLEY.

Ye gamesters, who, so eager in pursuit,
Make but of all your fortune one _va toute_:
Ye jockey tribe, whose stock of words are few,
"I hold the odds. —Done, done, with you, with you. "
Ye barristers, so fluent with grimace,
"My Lord,—Your Lordship misconceives the case. "
Doctors, who cough and answer every misfortuner,
"I wish I'd been called in a little sooner:"
Assist my cause with hands and voices hearty,
Come end the contest here, and aid my party.

MISS CATLEY.

_Air. —Ballinamony_

Ye brave Irish lads, hark away to the crack,
Assist me, I pray, in this woful attack;
For—sure I don't wrong you—you seldom are slack,
When the ladies are calling, to blush and hang back.
For you're always polite and attentive,
Still to amuse us inventive,
And death is your only preventive:
Your hands and your voices for me.

MRS. BULKLEY.

Well, Madam, what if, after all this sparring,
We both agree, like friends, to end our jarring?

MISS CATLEY.

And that our friendship may remain unbroken,
What if we leave the Epilogue unspoken?

MRS. BULKLEY.

Agreed.

MISS CATLEY.

Agreed.

MRS. BULKLEY.

And now with late repentance,
Un-epilogued the Poet waits his sentence.
Condemn the stubborn fool who can't submit
To thrive by flattery, though he starves by wit.

[_Exeunt. _




THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.

A COMEDY.


PREFACE.

When I undertook to write a comedy, I confess I was strongly
prepossessed in favour of the poets of the last age, and strove to
imitate them. The term _genteel comedy_ was then unknown amongst us,
and little more was desired by an audience, than nature and humour, in
whatever walks of life they were most conspicuous. The author of the
following scenes never imagined that more would be expected of him, and
therefore to delineate character has been his principal aim. Those who
know any thing of composition, are sensible, that in pursuing humour,
it will sometimes lead us into the recesses of the mean; I was even
tempted to look for it in the master of a spunging-house: but in
deference to the public taste, grown of late, perhaps, too delicate,
the scene of the bailiffs was retrenched in the representation. In
deference also to the judgment of a few friends, who think in a
particular way, the scene is here restored. The author submits it to
the reader in his closet; and hopes that too much refinement will not
banish humour and character from ours, as it has already done from the
French theatre. Indeed the French comedy is now become so very elevated
and sentimental, that it has not only banished humour and _Molière_
from the stage, but it has banished all spectators too.

Upon the whole, the author returns his thanks to the public for the
favourable reception which the Good-Natured Man has met with: and to
Mr. Colman in particular, for his kindness to it. It may not also be
improper to assure any who shall hereafter write for the theatre, that
merit, or supposed merit, will ever be a sufficient passport to his
protection.

PROLOGUE.


WRITTEN BY DR. JOHNSON.

SPOKEN BY MR. BENSLEY.

Press'd by the load of life, the weary mind
Surveys the general toil of humankind;
With cool submission joins the labouring train,
And social sorrow loses half its pain.
Our anxious bard, without complaint, may share
This bustling season's epidemic care;
Like Cæsar's pilot, dignified by fate,
Toss'd in one common storm with all the great;
Distress'd alike, the statesman and the wit,
When one a borough courts, and one the pit.
The busy candidates for power and fame,
Have hopes, and fears, and wishes just the same
Disabled both to combat, or to fly,
Must hear all taunts, and hear without reply.
Uncheck'd, on both, loud rabbles vent their rage,
As mongrels bay the lion in a cage.
Th'offended burgess hoards his angry tale,
For that blessed year when all that vote may rail;
Their schemes of spite the poet's foes dismiss,
Till that glad night when all that hate may hiss.
"This day the powder'd curls and golden coat,"
Says swelling Crispin, "begged a cobbler's vote! "
"This night our wit" the pert apprentice cries,
"Lies at my feet: I hiss him, and he dies! "
The great, 'tis true, can charm th'electing tribe;
The bard may supplicate, but cannot bribe.
Yet, judg'd by those whose voices ne'er were sold
He feels no want of ill-persuading gold;
But, confident of praise, if praise be due,
Trusts, without fear, to merit, and to you.


DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.


MEN.


MR. HONEYWOOD.
CROAKER.
LOFTY.
SIR WILLIAM HONEYWOOD.
LEONTINE.
JARVIS.
BUTLER.
BAILIFF.
DUBARDIEU.
POSTBOY.


WOMEN.


MISS RICHLAND.
OLIVIA.
MRS. CROAKER.
GARNET.
LANDLADY.

SCENE—_London. _

[Illustration:

"BUTLER. —_Sir, I'll not stay in
the family with Jonathan. _"—_p. _ 271.
]




ACT I.


SCENE I. —_An Apartment in_ YOUNG HONEYWOOD'S _House_.

_Enter_ SIR WILLIAM HONEYWOOD _and_ JARVIS.

SIR WILL. Good Jarvis, make no apologies for this honest bluntness.
Fidelity like yours, is the best excuse for every freedom.

JARVIS. I can't help being blunt, and being very angry too, when I hear
you talk of disinheriting so good, so worthy a young gentleman as your
nephew, my master. All the world loves him.

SIR WILL. Say rather, that he loves all the world; that is his fault.

JARVIS. I'm sure there is no part of it more dear to him than you are,
though he has not seen you since he was a child.

SIR WILL. What signifies his affection to me? or how can I be proud of
a place in a heart where every sharper and coxcomb finds an easy
entrance?

JARVIS. I grant that he's rather too good-natured; that he's too much
every man's man; that he laughs this minute with one, and cries the
next with another; but whose instructions may he thank for all this?

SIR WILL. Not mine, sure! My letters to him during my employment in
Italy, taught him only that philosophy which might prevent, not defend,
his errors.

JARVIS. Faith, begging your honour's pardon, I'm sorry they taught him
any philosophy at all; it has only served to spoil him. This same
philosophy is a good horse in a stable, but an errant jade on a
journey.
For my own part, whenever I hear him mention the name on't,
I'm always sure he's going to play the fool.

SIR WILL. Don't let us ascribe his faults to his philosophy, I entreat
you. No, Jarvis, his good-nature arises rather from his fears of
offending the importunate, than his desire of making the deserving
happy.

JARVIS. What it rises from, I don't know. But, to be sure, every body
has it, that asks it.

SIR WILL. Ay, or that does not ask it. I have been now for some time a
concealed spectator of his follies, and find them as boundless as his
dissipation.

JARVIS. And yet, faith, he has some fine name or other for them all. He
call his extravagance, generosity; and his trusting every body,
universal benevolence. It was but last week he went security for a
fellow whose face he scarce knew, and that he called an act of exalted
mu-mu-munificence; ay, that was the name he gave it.

SIR WILL. And upon that I proceed, as my last effort, though with very
little hopes to reclaim him. That very fellow has just absconded, and I
have taken up the security. Now, my intention is, to involve him in
fictitious distress, before he has plunged himself into real calamity;
to arrest him for that very debt, to clap an officer upon him, and then
let him see which of his friends will come to his relief.

JARVIS. Well, if I could but any way see him thoroughly vexed, every
groan of his would be music to me; yet, faith, I believe it impossible.
I have tried to fret him myself every morning these three years; but,
instead of being angry, he sits as calmly to hear me scold, as he does
to his hair-dresser.

SIR WILL. We must try him once more, however, and I'll go this instant
to put my scheme into execution; and I don't despair of succeeding, as
by your means, I can have frequent opportunities of being about him,
without being known. What a pity it is, Jarvis, that any man's good
will to others should produce so much neglect of himself, as to require
correction! Yet, we must touch his weakness with a delicate hand. There
are some faults so nearly allied to excellence, that we can scarce weed
out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

_Exit. _

JARVIS. Well, go thy ways, Sir William Honeywood. It is not without
reason that the world allows thee to be the best of men. But here comes
his hopeful nephew; the strange, good-natured, foolish,
open-hearted—And yet, all his faults are such that one loves him still
the better for them.

_Enter_ HONEYWOOD.

HONEYW. Well, Jarvis, what messages from my friends this morning!

JARVIS. You have no friends.

HONEYW. Well; from my acquaintance, then?

JARVIS. (_Pulling out bills. _) A few of our usual cards of compliment,
that's all. This bill from your tailor; this from your mercer; and this
from the little broker in Crooked-lane. He says he has been at a great
deal of trouble to get back the money you borrowed.

HONEYW. That I don't know; but I am sure we were at a great deal of
trouble in getting him to lend it.

JARVIS. He has lost all patience.

HONEYW. Then he has lost a very good thing.

JARVIS. There's that ten guineas you were sending to the poor gentleman
and his children in the Fleet. I believe that would stop his mouth for
a while at least.

HONEYW. Ay, Jarvis, but what will fill their mouths in the meantime?
Must I be cruel because he happens to be importunate; and, to relieve
his avarice, leave them to insupportable distress?

JARVIS. 'Sdeath, sir, the question now is, how to relieve yourself.
Yourself—Haven't I reason to be out of my senses, when I see things
going at sixes and sevens?

HONEYW. Whatever reason you may have for being out of your senses, I
hope you'll allow that I'm not quite unreasonable for continuing in
mine.

JARVIS. You're the only man alive in your present situation that could
do so—Every thing upon the waste. There's Miss Richland and her fine
fortune gone already, and upon the point of being given to your rival.

HONEYW. I'm no man's rival.

JARVIS. Your uncle in Italy preparing to disinherit you; your own
fortune almost spent; and nothing but pressing creditors, false
friends, and a pack of drunken servants that your kindness has made
unfit for any other family.

HONEYW. Then they have the more occasion for being in mine.

JARVIS. So! What will you have done with him that I caught stealing
your plate in the pantry? In the fact; I caught him in the fact.

HONEYW. In the fact? If so, I really think that we should pay him his
wages, and turn him off.

JARVIS. He shall be turned off at Tyburn, the dog; we'll hang him, if
it be only to frighten the rest of the family.

HONEYW. No, Jarvis: it's enough that we have lost what he has stolen,
let us not add to the loss of a fellow-creature.

JARVIS. Very fine; well, here was the footman just now, to complain of
the butler; he says he does most work, and ought to have most wages.

HONEYW. That's but just: though perhaps here comes the butler to
complain of the footman.

JARVIS. Ay, it's the way with them all, from the scullion to the
privy-counsellor. If they have a bad master, they keep quarrelling with
him; if they have a good master they keep quarrelling with one another.

_Enter_ BUTLER _drunk_.

BUTLER. Sir, I'll not stay in the family with Jonathan: you must part
with him, or part with me, that's the ex-ex-position of the matter,
sir.

HONEYW. Full and explicit enough. But what's his fault, good Phillip?

BUTLER. Sir, he's given to drinking, sir, and I shall have my morals
corrupted, by keeping such company.

HONEYW. Ha! ha! he has such a diverting way—

JARVIS. O! quite amusing.

BUTLER. I find my wines a-going, sir; and liquors don't go without
mouths, sir; I hate a drunkard, sir.

HONEYW. Well, well, Philip, I'll hear you upon that another time, so go
to bed now.

JARVIS. To bed! Let him go to the devil.

BUTLER. Begging your honour's pardon, and begging your pardon, master
Jarvis, I'll not go to bed, nor to the devil neither. I have enough to
do to mind my cellar. I forgot, your honour, Mr. Croaker is below. I
came on purpose to tell you.

HONEYW. Why didn't you show him up, blockhead?

BUTLER. Show him up, sir? With all my heart, sir. Up or down, all's one
to me.

_Exit. _

JARVIS. Ay, we have one or other of that family in this house from
morning till night. He comes on the old affair, I suppose; the match
between his son, that's just returned from Paris, and Miss Richland,
the young lady he's guardian to.

HONEYW. Perhaps so. Mr. Croaker, knowing my friendship for the young
lady, has got it into his head that I can persuade her to what I
please.

JARVIS. Ah! if you loved yourself but half as well as she loves you, we
should soon see a marriage that would set all things to rights again.

HONEYW. Love me! Sure, Jarvis, you dream. No, no; her intimacy with me
never amounted to more than friendship—mere friendship. That she is the
most lovely woman that ever warmed the human heart with desire, I own.
But never let me harbour a thought of making her unhappy, by a
connection with one so unworthy her merits, as I am. No, Jarvis, it
shall be my study to serve her, even in spite of my wishes; and to
secure her happiness, though it destroys my own.

JARVIS. Was ever the like? I want patience.

HONEYW. Besides, Jarvis, though I could obtain Miss Richland's consent,
do you think I could succeed with her guardian, or Mrs. Croaker, his
wife; who, though both very fine in their way, are yet a little
opposite in their dispositions, you know?

JARVIS. Opposite enough, Heaven knows; the very reverse of each other;
she all laugh and no joke, he always complaining and never sorrowful; a
fretful poor soul, that has a new distress for every hour in the
four-and-twenty—

HONEYW. Hush, hush, he's coming up! he'll hear you.

JARVIS. One whose voice is a passing bell—

HONEYW. Well, well, go do.

JARVIS. A raven that bodes nothing but mischief; a coffin and cross
bones; a bundle of rue; a sprig of deadly nightshade; a—(HONEYWOOD,
_stopping his mouth, at last pushes him off_. )

_Exit_ JARVIS.

HONEYW. I must own, my old monitor is not entirely wrong. There is
something in my friend Croaker's conversation that quite depresses me.
His very mirth is an antidote to all gaiety, and his appearance has a
stronger effect on my spirits than an undertaker's shop. —Mr. Croaker,
this is such a satisfaction—

_Enter_ CROAKER.

CROAKER. A pleasant morning to Mr. Honeywood, and many of them. How is
this? You look most shockingly to-day, my dear friend. I hope this
weather does not affect your spirits. To be sure, if this weather
continues—I say nothing—but God send we be all better this day three
months.

[Illustration:

"CROAKER. —_A pleasant morning to Mr. Honeywood. _"—_p. _ 272.
]


HONEYW. I heartily concur in the wish, though, I own, not in your
apprehensions.

CROAKER. May be not. Indeed, what signifies what weather we have, in a
country going to ruin like ours? Taxes rising and trade falling. Money
flying out of the kingdom, and Jesuits swarming into it. I know at this
time no less than a hundred and twenty-seven Jesuits between
Charing-cross and Temple-bar.

HONEYW. The Jesuits will scarce pervert you or me, I should hope?

CROAKER. May be not. Indeed what signifies whom they pervert in a
country that has scarce any religion to lose? I'm only afraid for our
wives and daughters.

HONEYW. I have no apprehensions for the ladies, I assure you.

CROAKER. May be not. Indeed what signifies whether they be perverted or
not? The women in my time were good for something. I have seen a lady
dressed from top to toe in her own manufactures formerly. But
now-a-days the devil a thing of their own manufacture about them,
except their faces.

HONEYW. But, however these faults may be practised abroad, you don't
find them at home, either with Mrs. Croaker, Olivia, or Miss Richland.

CROAKER. The best of them will never be canonised for a saint when
she's dead. By the by, my dear friend, I don't find this match between
Miss Richland and my son much relished, either by one side or t'other.

HONEYW.