SCENE XII.-Silvia's Lodgings.

HEARTWELL and Boy.

Heart. Gone forth, say you, with her maid! Boy. There was a man too that fetched 'em out; Setter I think they called him.

[Exit.

Heart. So that precious pimp too.-Damned, damned strumpet! could she not contain herself

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.

on her wedding day! not hold out till night. O[To HEARTWELL.] Well, Georgecursed state! how wide we err, when apprehensive

of the load of life,

We hope to find
That help which Nature meant in womankind,
To man that supplemental self design'd;
But proves a burning caustic when applied;
And Adam, sure, could with more ease abide
The bone when broken, than when made a bride.

SCENE XIII.

HEARTWELI, BELLMOUR, BELINDA, VAINLOVE, and ARA

MINTA.

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: a 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 looks 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! Beiin. Only touched a galled beast till he I winced.

Vain. Bellmour, give it over; you vex him too much; '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 ye? 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

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 relicf.

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?
Vain. Patience.

EPILOGUE

SPOKEN BY MRS. BARRY.

SIR,-I heartily wish that this play were is perfect as I intended it, that it might be more worthy your acceptance, and that my dedication of it to you might' a more becoming that honour and esteem which I, with everybody who is so fortunate as to know you, have for you. It had your countenance when yet unknown; and now it is made public, it 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 I designed (whatever vanity or ambition occasioned that design) to have written a true and regular comedy: but I found it an undertaking which put me in mind of-Sudet multum, frustraque laboret ausus idem. And now, to make amends for the vanity of such a design, I do confess both the attempt, and the imperfect performance. Yet I must take the boldness to say, I have not miscarried in the whole; for the mechanical part of it is regular. That I may say with as little vanity, as a builder may say he has built a house according to the model laid down before him; or a gardener that he has set his flowers in a knot of such or such a figure. I designed the inoral first, and to that moral I invented the fable, and do not know that I have borrowed one hint of it anywhere. I made the plot as strong as I could, because it was single; and I made it single, because I would avoid confusion, and was resolved to preserve the three unities of the drama. Sir, this discour is very impertinent to you, whose judgment much better can discern the faults, than I can excuse them; and whose "ood-nature, like that of a lover, will find out those hidden beauties (if there are any such) which it would be great immodesty for me to discover. I think I do not speak improperly when I call you a lover of poetry; for it is very well known she has been a very kind mistress to you: she has not denied you the last favour; and she has been fruitful to you in a most beautiful issue.-If I break off abruptly here, I hope everybody will understand that it is to avoid a commendation, which, as it is your due, would be most easy for me to pay, and too troublesome 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 where a true critic might have put me upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack; and am pretty confident I could have vindicated some parts, and excused others; and where there were any plain miscarriages, I would most ingenuously have confessed them. But I have not heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer. That which looks most like an objection, does not relate in particular to this play, but to all or most that ever have been written; and that is, soliloquy. Therefore I will answer it, not only for my own sake, but to save others the trouble, to whom it may 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 circumstances which may attend the occasion make great alteration. It oftentimes happens to a man to have designs which require him to himself, and in their nature cannot admit of a confidant. Such, for certain, is all villany; and other less mischievous intentions may be very improper to be communicated to a second person. In such a case, therefore, the audience must observe, whether the person upon the stage takes any notice of them at all, or no. For if he supposes any one to be by when he talks to himself, it is monstrous and ridiculous to the last degree. Nay, not only in this case, but in any part of a play, if there is expressed any knowledge of an audience, it is insufferable. But otherwise, when a man in soliloquy reasons with himself, and pro's and con's, and weighs all his designs, we ought not to imagine that 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 us know the whole mystery of his contrivance, he is willing to inform us of this person's thoughts; and to that end is forced 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 be 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 Maskwell'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 I 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 but 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.

1

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
Whether their brats are truly got or no ;
Into the sea the new-born babe is thrown,
There, as instinct directs, to swim or drown.
A barbarous device to try if spouse
Has kept religiously her nuptial vows.

Such are the trials poets make of plays:
Only they trust to more inconstant seas;
So does our author this his child commit
To the tempestuous mercy of the pit,
To know if it be truly born of wit.

Critics, avaunt! for you are fish of prey,
And feed, like sharks, upon an infant play.
Be every monster of the deep away;
Let's a fair trial have, and a clear sea.

Let Nature work, and do not damn too soon,
For life will struggle long ere it sink down ;
And will at least rise thrice before it drown.

Let us consider, had it been our fate,
Thus hardly to be proved legitimate!
I will not say, we'd all in danger been,
Were each to suffer for his mother's sin;
But, by my troth, I cannot avoid thinking
How nearly some good men might have 'scaped

sinking.

But Heaven be praised this custom is confined
Alone to the offspring of the Muses' kind:
Our christian cuckolds are more bent to pity;

I know not one Moor husband in the city.

I' th' good man's arms the chopping bastard thrives;
For he thinks all his own that is his wife's.
Whatever fate is for this play design'd,

The poet's sure he shall some comfort find:
For if his muse has play'd him false, the worst
That can befal him, is to be divorced;
You husbands judge, if that be to be cursed.

ACT I.