but a book of poems-So long as it was not a Bible oath, we may break it with a safe conscience. Mrs Fain. This discovery is the most oppor tune thing I could wish.-Now, Mincing! MINCING enters. Mine. My lady would speak with Mrs Foible, mem. Mr Mirabell is with her; he has set your spouse at liberty, Mrs Foible, and would have you hide yourself in my lady's closet, till my old lady's anger is abated. O, my old lady is in a perilous passion at something Mr Fainall has said; he swears, and my old lady cries. There's a fearful hurricane, I vow. He says, mem, how that he'll have my lady's fortune made over to him, or he'll be divorced. Mrs Fain. Does your lady or Mirabell know that? Mine. Yes, mem, they have sent me to see if Sir Wilfull be sober, and to bring him to them. My lady is resolved to have him, I think, rather than lose such a vast sum as six thousand pounds. O, come, Mrs Foible, I hear my old lady. Mrs Fain. Foible, you must tell Mincing that she must prepare to vouch when I call her. Foi. Yes, yes, madam. Minc. O yes, mem, I'll vouch any thing for your ladyship's service, be what it will. part with my plate and my jewels, and ruin my niece, and all little enough. Mrs Fain. I am wronged and abused, and so are you. 'Tis a false accusation, as false as hell, as false as your friend there, ay, or your friend's friend, my false husband. Mrs Mar. My friend, Mrs Fainall? your husband my friend! what do you mean? Mrs Fain. I know what I mean, madam, and so do you; and so shall the world, at a time convenient. Mrs Mar. I am sorry to see you so passionate, madam. More temper would look more like innocence. But I have done. I am sorry my zeal to serve your ladyship and family should admit of misconstruction, or make me liable to affronts. You will pardon me, madani, if I meddle no more with an affair in which I am not personally concerned. L. Wish. O, dear friend, I am so ashamed that you should meet with such returns.-You ought to ask pardon on your knees, ungrateful creature; she deserves more from you than all your life can accomplish.-O, don't leave me destitute in this perplexity: no, stick to me, my good genius. Mrs Fain. I tell you, madam, you're abused -Stick to you! ay, like a leech, to suck your best blood-she'll drop off when she's full. Madam, you sha'n't pawn a bodkin, nor part with a brass counter, in composition for me. I defy 'em all. Let them prove their aspersions: I know my own innocence, and dare stand a trial. [Exit. [Exeunt FOIBLE and MINCING. Lady WISHIFORT and Mrs MARWOOD enter. L. Wish. O, my dear friend, how can I enu- L. Wish. Why, if she should be innocent, if merate the benefits that I have received from she should be wronged after all, ha? I don't your goodness? To you I owe the timely dis- know what to think-and I promise you, her covery of the false vows of Mirabell; to you education has been very unexceptionable--I may I owe the detection of the impostor Sir Row- say it; for I chiefly made it my own care to iniland; and now you are become an intercessor tiate her very infancy in the rudiments of virtue, with my son-in-law, to save the honour of my and to impress upon her tender years a young house, and compound for the frailties of my odium and aversion to the very sight of mendaughter. Well, friend, you are enough to re- ay, friend, she would ha' shrieked if she had but concile me to the bad world, or else I would re- seen a man, till she was in her teens. As I'm a tire to deserts and solitudes, and feed harmless person, 'tis true-She was never suffered to play sheep by groves and purling streams. Dear Mar-with a male-child, though but in coats; nay, her wood, let us leave the world, and retire by ourselves, and be shepherdesses. Mrs Mar. Let us first dispatch the affair in hand, madam. We shall have leisure to think of retirement afterwards. Here is one who is concerned in the treaty. L. Wish. O, daughter, daughter, is it possible thou shouldst be my child, bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, and, as I may say, another me, and yet transgress the minutest particle of severe virtue? Is it possible you should lean aside to iniquity, who have been cast in the direct mould of virtue? I have not only been a mould, but a pattern for you, and a model for you, after you were brought into the world. Mrs Fain. I don't understand your ladyship. L. Wish. Not understand! Why, have you not been naught? have you not been sophisticated? Not understand! Here I am ruined, to compound for your caprices, and your cuckoldoms. I must very babies were of the feminine gender.-0, she never looked a man in the face, but her own father, or the chaplain, and him we made a shift to put upon her for a woman, by the help of his long garments and his sleek face, till she was going in her fifteen. Mrs Mar. 'Twas much she should be deceived so long. L. Wish. I warrant you, or she would never have borne to have been catechized by him; and have heard his long lectures against singing and dancing, and such debaucheries; and going to filthy plays, and profane music-meetings, where the lewd trebles squeak nothing but bawdy, and the basses roar blasphemy. O, she would have swooned at the sight or name of an obscene playbook-and can I think, after all this, that my daughter can be naught? What, a whore! and thought it excommunication to set her foot within the door of a play-house. O, dear friend, I cann't believe it. No, no; as she says, let him prove it, let him prove it. Mrs Mar. Prove it, madam? what, and have your name prostituted in a public court! yours and your daughter's reputation worried at the bar by a pack of bawling lawyers! to be ushered in with an O-yes of scandal, and have your case opened by an old fumbling lecher in a coif, like a man-midwife, to bring your daughter's infamy to light; to be a theme for legal punsters and quibblers by the statute, and become a jest, against a rule of court, where there is no precedent for a jest in any record; not even in Doomsday-book; to discompose the gravity of the bench, and provoke naughty interrogatories in more naughty law Latin; while the good judge, tickled with the proceeding, simpers under a grey beard, and fidgets off and on his cushion, as if he had swallowed cantharides, or sate upon cow-itch. L. Wish. O, 'tis very hard! Mrs Mar. And then to have my young revellers of the temple take notes, like 'prentices at a conventicle; and after talk it over again in commons, or before drawers in an eating-house. L. Wish. Worse and worse. Mrs Mar. Nay, this is nothing; if it would end here 'twere well. But it must, after this, be consigned by the short-hand writers to the public press; and from thence be transferred to the hands, nay, into the throats and lungs of hawkers, with voices more licentious than the loud flounder-man's; and this you must hear till you are stunned; nay, you must hear nothing else for some days. L. Wish. O, 'tis insupportable! No, no, dear friend, make it up, make it up; ay, ay, I'll compound. I'll give up all, myself and my all, my niece and her all-any thing, every thing for composition. Mrs Mar. Nay, madam, I advise nothing; I only lay before you, as a friend, the inconveniencies which perhaps you have overseen. Here comes Mr Fainall-If he will be satisfied to huddle up all in silence, I shall be glad. You must think I would rather congratulate than condole with you. FAINALL enters. L. Wish. Ay, ay, I do not doubt it, dear Marwood: no, no, I do not doubt it. Fain. Well, madam; I have suffered myself to be overcome by the importunity of this lady, your friend; and am content you shall enjoy your own proper estate during life; on condition you oblige yourself never to marry, under such penalty as I shall think convenient. L. Wish. Never to marry! Fain. No more Sir Rowlands-the next imposture may not be so timely detected. Mrs Mar. That condition, I dare answer, my lady will consent to without difficulty; she has already but too much experienced the perfidiousness of men. Besides, madain, when we retire to our pastoral solitude, we shall bid adieu to all other thoughts. L. Wish. Ay, that's true; but in case of neces sity, as of health, or some such emergency▬▬ Fain. O, if you are prescribed marriage, you shall be considered; I will only reserve to myself the power to choose for you. If your physic be wholesome, it matters not who is your apothecary. Next, my wife shall settle on me the remainder of her fortune, not made over already; and for her maintenance depend entirely on my dis cretion. L. Wish. This is most inhumanly savage; exceeding the barbarity of a Muscovite husband. Fain. I learned it from his Czarish majesty's retinue, in a winter evening's conference over brandy and pepper, amongst other secrets of matrimony and policy, as they are at present prac tised in the northern hemisphere. But this must be agreed unto, and that positively. Lastly, I will be endowed, in right of my wife, with that six thousand pounds which is the moiety of Mrs Millamant's fortune in your possession, and which she has forfeited (as will appear by the last will and testament of your deccased husband, Sir Jonathan Wishfort) by her disobedience in contracting herself against your consent or knowledge; and by refusing the offered match with Sir Wilfull Witwould, which you, like a careful aunt, had provided for her. L. Wish. My nephew was non compos, and could not make his addresses. Fain. I come to make demands-I'll hear no objections. "L. Wish. You will grant me time to consider? Fain. Yes, while the instrument is drawing, to which you must set your hand till more sufficient deeds can be perfected, which I will take care shall be done with all possible speed. In the mean while I will go for the said instrument, and, till my return, you may balance this matter in your own discretion. [Exit. L. Wish. This insolence is beyond all precedent, all parallel. Must I be subject to this merciless villain? Mrs Mur. 'Tis severe indeed, madam, that you should smart for your daughter's failings. L. Wish. 'Twas against my consent that shomarried this barbarian; but she would have him, though her year was not out-Ah! her first husband, my son Languish, would not have carried it thus. Well, that was my choice, this is hers; she is matched now with a witness-I shall be mad, dear friend: is there no comfort for me? Must I live to be confiscated at this rebel rate?— Here come two more of my Egyptian plagues too. Mrs MILLAMANT and Sir WILFULL enter. L. Wish. Out, caterpillar! call not me aunt; I know thee not. Sir Wil. I confess I have been a little in disguise, as they say-'Sheart! and I'm sorry for't. What would you have? I hope I committed no offence, aunt—and if I did, I am willing to make satisfaction; and what can a man say fairer ? If I have broke any thing, I'll pay for't, an it cost a pound; and so let that content for what's past, and make no more words -For what's to come, to pleasure you, I'm willing to marry my cousin. So pray let's all be friends: she and I are agreed upon the matter before a witness. L. Wish. How's this, dear niece? have I any comfort? can this be true. dain-I come not to plead for favour; nay, not for pardon; I am suppliant only for pity.-I am going where I never shall behold you more.Sir Wil. How, fellow-traveller!-you shall go by yourself then. Mira. Let me be pitied first, and afterwards forgotten-I ask no more. Sir Wil. By'r lady, a very reasonable request, and will cost you nothing, aunt-Come, come, forgive and forget, aunt; why, you must, an you are a Christian. Mill. I am content to be a sacrifice to your repose, madam; and to convince you that I had no hand in the plot, as you were misinformed. I have laid my commands on Mirabell to come in person, and be a witness that I give my hand to Mira. Consider, madam, in reality, you could this flower of knighthood; and for the contract not receive much prejudice; it was an innocent that passed between Mirabell and me, I have ob- device;-though I confess it had a face of guiltiliged him to make a resignation of it in your lady-ness; it was at most an artifice which love conship's presence he is without, and waits your leave for admittance. L. Wish. Well, I'll swear I am something revived at this testimony of your obedience; but I cannot admit that traitor- -I fear I cannot fortify myself to support his appearance. He is as terrible to me as a Gorgon; if I see him I fear I shall turn to stone, and petrify incessantly. Mill. If you disoblige him, he may resent your refusal, and insist upon the contract still. Then, 'tis the last time he will be offensive to you. L. Wish. Are you sure it will be the last time? --If I were sure of that--shall I never see him again? Mill. Sir Wilfull, you and he are to travel together, are you not? trived-and errors which love produces have ever been accounted venial. At least think it is pu nishment enough, that I have lost what in my heart I hold most dear; that to your cruel indignation I have offered up this beauty, and with her my peace and quiet; nay, all my hopes of future comfort. Sir Wil. An he does not move me, would I may never be o' the quorum. An it were not as good a deed as to drink, to give her to him again -I would I might never take shipping. Aunt, if you don't forgive quickly, I shall melt, I can tell you that. My contract went no farther than a little mouth-glue, and that's hardly dry;-one doleful sigh more from my fellow-traveller, and 'tis dissolved. Sir Wil. 'Sheart, the gentleman's a civil gen- L. Wish. Well, nephew, upon your accounttleman, aunt; let him come in; why, we are sworn Ah, he has a false, insinuating tongue. Well, sir, brothers and fellow-travellers. We are to be I will stifle my just resentment, at my nephew's Pylades and Orestes, he and I-He is to be my request-I will endeavour what I can to forget, interpreter in foreign parts. He has been over--but on proviso that you resign the contract seas once already, and with proviso that I marry with my niece immediately. my cousin, will cross 'em once again, only to bear me company.-'Sheart, i'll call him in,-an I set on't once, he shall come in; and see who'll hinder him. [Goes to tie door and hems. Mrs Mar. This is precious fooling, if it would pass; but I'll know the bottom of it. L. Wish. O, dear Marwood, you are not go Mira. It is in writing, and with papers of concern; but I have sent my servant for it, and will deliver it to you, with all acknowledgments for your transcendent goodness. L. Wish. Oh, he has witchcraft in his eyes and tongue-when I did not see him, I could have bribed a villain to his assassination; but his appearance rakes the embers which have so long lain smothered in my breast. [Aside. FAINALL and Mrs MARWOOD enter. Fain. Your debate of deliberation, madam, is expired. Here is the instrument; are you prepared to sign? Sir Wil. Look up, man; I'll stand by you; 'sbud, an she do frown, she cann't kill you;besides harkee, she dare not frown desperately, L. Wish. If I were prepared, I am not embecause her face is none of her own; 'sheart, an powered. My niece exerts her lawful claim, hashe should, her forehead would wrinkle like theving matched herself, by my direction, to Sir Wilcoat of a cream-cheese; but mum for that, fellow- full. traveller. Mira. If a deep sense of the many injuries I have offered to so good a lady, with a sincere remorse, and a hearty contrition, can but obtain the least glance of compassion, I am too happy. -Ah, madam, there was a time-but let it be forgotten-I confess I have deservedly forfeited the high place I once held, ot sighing at your feet; nay, kill me not, by turning from me in dis Fain. That sham is too gross to pass on methough 'tis imposed on you, madam. Mill. Sir, I have given my consent. Mira. And I, sir, have resigned my pretensions. Sir Wil. And, sir, I assert my right, and will maintain it, in defiance of you, sir, and of your instrument. 'Sheart, an you talk of an instrument, sir, I have an old fox by my thigh shall hack your instrument of ram vellum to shreds, sir. It shall not be sufficient for a miltimus, or a tailor's measure; therefore withdraw your instrument, or, by'r lady, I shall draw mine. L. Wish. Hold, nephew, hold. | false? My friend deceive me! Hast thou been a wicked accomplice with that profligate man ? Mrs Mar. Have you so much ingratitude and injustice, to give credit, against your friend, to the aspersions of two sach mercenary trulls? Mine. Mercenary, mem! I scorn your words. blue garret; by the same token, you swore us to secrecy upon Messalina's poems. Mercenary! No, if we would have been mercenary, we should have held our tongues; you would have bribed us sufficiently. Mill. Good Sir Wilfull, respite your valour. Fain. Indeed! are you provided of your guard, with your single beef-eater there? But I am pre-'Tis true we found you and Mr Fainall in the pared for you, and insist upon my first proposal: You shall submit your own estate to my management, and absolutely make over my wife's to my sole use, as pursuant to the purport and tenour of this other covenant. I suppose, madam, your consent is not requisite in this case; nor, Mr Mirabell, your resignation; nor, Sir Wilfull, your right-You may draw your fox, if you please, sir, and make a Bear-garden flourish somewhere else; for here it will not avail. This, my lady Wishfort, must be subscribed, or your darling daughter's turned adrift, like a leaky hulk, to sink or swim, as she and the current of this lewd town can agree. L. Wish. Is there no means, no remedy, to stop my ruin? Ungrateful wretch! Dost thou not owe thy being, thy subsistence to my daughter's fortune? Fain. I'll answer you when I have the rest of it in my possession. Mira. But that you would not accept of a remedy from my hands-I own I have not deserved you should owe any obligation to me; or else perhaps I could advise L. Wish. O, what? what? to save me and my child from ruin, from want, I'll forgive all that's past; nay, I'll consent to any thing to come, to be delivered from this tyranny. Mira. Ay, madam; but that is too late; my reward is intercepted. You have disposed of her who only could have made me a compensation for all my services;-but be it as it may, I'm resolved I'll serve you; you shall not be wronged in this savage manner. L. Wish. How! Dear Mr Mirabell, can you be so generous at last! But it is not possible. Harkee, I'll break my nephew's match; you shall have my niece yet, and all her fortune, if you can but save me from this imminent danger. Mira. Will you? I take you at your word. I ask no more. I must have leave for two criminals to appear. L. Wish. Ay, ay, any body, any body. Mira. Foible is one, and a penitent. Mrs FAINALL, FOIBLE, and MINCING enter. Mrs Mar. O, my shame! [MIRABELL and Lady WISH. go to Mrs FAINALL and FOIBLE.] These corrupt things are brought hither to ex[To FAINALL. Fain. If it must all come out, why, let 'em know it; 'tis but " The Way of the World." That shall not urge me to relinquish or abate one tittle of my terms; no, I will insist the more. pose me. Foi. Yes indeed, madam, I'll take my Bible eath of it. Mine. And so will I, mem. Fain. Go; you are an insignificant thing. Well, what are you the better for this? Is this Mr Mirabeil's expedient? I'll be put off no longer-You thing, that was a wife, shall smart for this. I will not leave thee wherewithal to hide thy shame: Your person shall be naked as your repu tation. Mrs Fain. I despise you, and defy your ma lice-You have aspersed me wrongfully-I have proved your falsehood-Go, you and your treacherous-I will not name it--but starve together Perish. Fain. Not while you are worth a groat, indeed, my dear.-Madam, I'll be fooled no longer. L. Wish. Ah, Mr Mirabell, this is small comfort, the detection of this affair. Mira. O, in good time-Your leave for the other offender and penitent to appear, madam. WAITWELL enters with a box of writings. E. Wish. O, Sir Rowland-Well, rascal. Wait. What your ladyship pleases.-I have brought the black box at last, madam. Mira. Give it me. Madam, you remember your promise. L. Wish. Ay, dear sir. Mira. Where are the gentlemen? Wait. At hand, sir, rubbing their eyes-just risen from sleep. Fain. 'Sdeath! what's this to me? I'll not wait your private concerns. PETULANT and WITWOULD enter. Pet. How now? what's the matter? whose hand's out? Wit. Hey-day! what, are you all together, like players at the end of the last act? Mira. You may remember, gentlemen, I once requested your hands as witnesses to a certain parchment. Wit. Ay, I do; my hand I remember-Petulant set his mark. Mira. You wrong him; his name is fairly written, as shall appear-You do not remember, gentlemen, any thing of what that parchment contained. [Undoing the box. Wit. No. Pet. Not I. I writ; I read nothing. L. Wish. Ay, ay, sir, upon my honour. L. Wish. O, Marwood, Marwood, art thou should know that your lady, while she was at her own disposal, and before you had by your insinuations wheedled her out of a pretended settlement of the greatest part of her fortune Fain. Sir! pretended! Mira. Yes, sir, I say that this lady, while a widow, having, it seems, received some cautions respecting your inconstancy and tyranny of temper, which, from her own partial opinion and fondness of you she could never have suspected -She did, I say, by the wholesome advice of friends, and of sages learned in the laws of this land, deliver this same as her act and deed to me in trust, and to the uses within mentioned. You may read if you please-[Holding out the parchment]-though perhaps what is written on the back may serve your occasions. Fain. Very likely, sir. What's here? Damnation! [Reads.] "A deed of conveyance of the whole estate real of Arabella Languish, widow, in trust, to Edward Mirabell."-Confusion! Mira. Even so, sir: 'tis "The Way of the World," sir; of the widows of the world. I suppose this deed may bear an elder date than what you have obtained from your lady. Fain. Perfidious fiend! then thus I'll be revenged- [Offers to run at Mrs FAINALL. Sir Wil. Hold, sir; now you may make your Bear-garden flourish somewhere else, sir. Fain. Mirabell, you shall hear of this, sir, be sure you shall.-Let me pass, oaf. [Exit. Mrs Fain. Madam, you seem to stifle your resentment: you had better give it vent. Mrs Mar. Yes, it shall have vent—and to your confusion, or I'll perish in the attempt. [Exit. L. Wish. O, daughter, daughter! 'tis plain thou hast inherited thy mother's prudence. Mrs Fain. Thank Mr Mirabell, a cautious friend, to whose advice all is owing. L. Wish. Well, Mr Mirabell, you have kept your promise-and I must perform mine.-First, I pardon for your sake Sir Rowland there and Foible. The next thing is to break the matter to my nephew-and how to do that Mira. For that, madam, give yourself no trouble-let me have your consent -Sir Wilfull is my friend; he has had compassion upon lovers, and generously engaged a volunteer in this action, for our service, and now designs to prosecute his travels. Sir Wil. 'Sheart, aunt, I have no mind to mar ry.-My cousin's a fine lady, and the gentleman loves her, and she loves him, and they deserve one another; my resolution is to see foreign parts-I have set on't-and when I'm set on't, I must do't. And if these two gentlemen would travel too, they might be spared. Pet. For my part, I say little-I think things are best off or on. Wait. 'Egad, I understand nothing of the mat ter.—I'm in a maze yet, like a dog in a dancingschool. L. Wish. Well, sir, take her, and with her all the joy I can give you. Mill. Why does not the man take me? Would you have me give myself to you over again? Mira. Ay, and over and over again; [Kisses her hand;] I would have you as often as possibly I can. Well, Heaven grant I love you not too well, that's all my fear. Sir Wil. 'Sheart, you'll have time enough to toy after you're married; or if you will toy now, let us have a dance in the mean time, that we who are not lovers may have some other employment, besides looking on. Mira. With all my heart, dear Sir Wilfull.What shall we do for music? Foi. O, sir, some that were provided for Sir Rowland's entertainment are yet within call. [A dance. L. Wish. As I am a person, I can hold out no longer-I have wasted my spirits so to-day already, that I am ready to sink under the fatigue; and I cannot but have some fears upon me yet, that my son Fainall will pursue some desperate course. Mira. Madam, disquiet not yourself on that account; to my knowledge his circumstances are such, he must of force comply. For my part, I will contribute all that in me lies to a re-union: in the mean time, madam, [To Mrs FAINALL,] let me, before these witnesses, restore to you this deed of trust; it may be a means, well managed, to make you live easily together. From hence let those be warned who mean to wed, Lest mutual falschood stain the bridal bed; EPILOGUE. AFTER our epilogue this crowd dismisses, There are some critics so with spleen diseased, They scarcely come inclining to be pleased: And sure he must have more than mortal skill, Who pleases any one against his will. |