George Farquhar

“ Count Bel. Ah, begar, and so must I.
Squire Sul. Look'ee, madam, don't think that my anger proceeds from any concern I have for your honour, but for my own, and if you can contrive any way of being a whore without making me a cuckold, do it and welcome.
Mrs. Sul. Sir, I thank you kindly, you would allow me the sin but rob me of the pleasure. No, no, I'm resolved never to venture upon the crime without the satisfaction of seeing you punished for't.
Squire Sul. Then will you grant me this, my dear? Let anybody else do you the favour but that Frenchman, for I mortally hate his whole generation. ”

“ Arch. Ha! ha! ha! now comes my turn to be ravished. —You see now, madam, you must use men one way or other; but take this by the way; good madam, that none but a fool will give you the benefit of his courage, unless you'll take his love along with it. —How are they armed, friend?
Scrub. With sword and pistol, sir.
Arch. Hush!—I see a dark lantern coming through the gallery—Madam, be assured I will protect you, or lose my life.
Mrs. Sul. Your life! no, sir, they can rob me of nothing that I value half so much; therefore now, sir, let me entreat you to be gone. ”

“ ACT IV., SCENE I The Gallery in Lady Bountiful's House, Mrs. Sullen discovered alone.
Mrs. Sul. Were I born an humble Turk, where women have no soul nor property, there I must sit contented. But in England, a country whose women are its glory, must women be abused? where women rule, must women be enslaved? Nay, cheated into slavery, mocked by a promise of comfortable society into a wilderness of solitude! I dare not keep the thought about me. Oh, here comes something to divert me.
Enter a Countrywoman.
Wom. I come, an't please your ladyship—you're my Lady Bountiful, an't ye? ”

“ No sooner the virgin is rifled, But a trifle shall part 'em again. What mortal man would be able At White's half an hour to sit? Or who could bear a tea-table, Without talking of trifles for wit? The court is from trifles secure, Gold keys are no trifles, we see: White rods are no trifles, I 'm sure, Whatever their bearers may be. But if you will go to the place, Where trifles abundantly breed, The levee will show you His Grace Makes promises trifles indeed. A coach with six footmen behind, I count neither trifle nor sin: But, ye gods! how oft do we find A scandalous trifle within. ”

“ No, no, child, 'tis a standing maxim in conjugal discipline, that when a man would enslave his wife, he hurries her into the country; and when a lady would be arbitrary with her husband, she wheedles her booby up to town. A man dare not play the tyrant in London, because there are so many examples to encourage the subject to rebel. O Dorinda! Dorinda! a fine woman may do anything in London: o' my conscience, she may raise an army of forty thousand men. ”

“ Alas, sir! Necessity has no law. The lady may be in distress; perhaps she has a confounded husband, and her revenge may carry her farther than her love. Egad, I have so good an opinion of her, and of myself, that I begin to fancy strange things: and we must say this for the honour of our women, and indeed of ourselves, that they do stick to their men as they do to their Magna Charta, If the plot lies as I suspect, I must put on the gentleman.—But here comes the doctor—I shall be ready. ”

“ A peace is a trifle to-day, Who knows what may happen to-morrow! A black coat a trifle may cloke, Or to hide it, the red may endeavour: But if once the army is broke, We shall have more trifles than ever. The stage is a trifle, they say, The reason, pray carry along, Because at every new play, The house they with trifles so throng. But with people's malice to trifle, And to set us all on a foot: The author of this is a trifle, And his song is a trifle to boot. Mrs. Sul. Very well, sir, we 're obliged to you.— Something for a pair of gloves. ”

“ I am no lord, but a poor needy man, come with a mean, a scandalous design to prey upon your fortune; but the beauties of your mind and person have so won me from myself that, like a trusty servant, I prefer the interest of my mistress to my own.
Dor. Sure I have had the dream of some poor mariner, a sleepy image of a welcome port, and wake involved in storms!—Pray, sir, who are you? ”

“ Look'ee, sir, I have nothing to say to your sea of truth, but, if a good parcel of land can entitle a man to a little truth, I have as much as any He in the country.
Bon. I never heard your worship, as the saying is, talk so much before.
Squire Sul. Because I never met with a man that I liked before.
Bon. Pray, sir, as the saying is, let me ask you one question: are not man and wife one flesh? [60]
Sir Chas. You and your wife, Mr. Guts, may be one flesh, because ye are nothing else; but rational creatures have minds that must be united. ”

“ Sir, I'm a bold Briton, and will spill the last drop of my blood to keep out popery and slavery.
Foi. Master Scrub, you would put me down in politics, and so I would be speaking with Mrs. Shipsy.
Scrub. Good Mr. Priest, you can't speak with her; she's sick, sir, she's gone abroad, sir, she's—-dead two months ago, sir.
Re-enter Gipsy.
Gip. How now, impudence! how dare you talk so saucily to the doctor?—Pray, sir, don't take it ill; for the common people of England are not so civil to strangers, as—
Scrub. You lie! you lie! 'tis the common people that are civilest to strangers. ”

“ Well, sister, since the truth must out, it may do as well now as hereafter; I think, one way to rouse my lethargic, sottish husband, is to give him a rival: security begets negligence in all people, and men must be alarmed to make 'em alert in their duty. Women are like pictures, of no value in the hands of a fool, till he hears men of sense bid high for the purchase. ”

“ Yes, with his autumnal periwig, shading his melancholy face, his coat older than anything but its fashion, with one hand idle in his pocket, and with the other picking his useless teeth; and, though the Mall was crowded with company, yet was poor Jack as single and solitary as a lion in a desert.
Aim. And as much avoided for no crime upon earth but the want of money.
Arch. And that's enough. Men must not be poor; idleness is the root of all evil; the world's wide enough, let 'em bustle. Fortune has taken the weak under her protection, but men of sense are left to their industry. ”

“ Re-enter Scrub.
Scrub. Martin! brother Martin!
Arch. O brother Scrub, I beg your pardon, I was not a-going: here's a guinea my master ordered you.
Scrub. A guinea! hi! hi! hi! a guinea! eh—by this light it is a guinea! But I suppose you expect one-and-twenty shillings in change?
Arch. Not at all; I have another for Gipsy.
Scrub. A guinea for her! faggot and fire for the witch! Sir, give me that guinea, and I 'll discover a plot. ”

“ Chamberlain! maid! Cherry! daughter Cherry! all asleep? all dead?
Enter Cherry running.
Cher. Here, here! why d'ye bawl so, father? d'ye think we have no ears?
Bon. You deserve to have none, you young minx! The company of the Warrington coach has stood in the hall this hour, and nobody to show them to their chambers.
Cher. And let 'em wait farther; there's neither red-coat in the coach, nor footman behind it.
Bon. But they threaten to go to another inn to-night.
Cher. That they dare not, for fear the coachman should overturn them to-morrow.—Coming! coming!— Here's the London coach arrived. ”

“ Seeking out the dramatist in his wretched garret in St Martin's Lane, the actor advised him no longer to trust to great men's promises, but to look only to his pen for support, and urged him to write another play. 'Write!' said Farquhar, starting from his chair; 'is it possible that a man can write with common-sense who is heartless and has not a shilling in his pockets?' 'Come, come, George,' said Wilks, 'banish melancholy, draw up your drama, and bring your sketch with you to-morrow, for I expect you to dine with me. ”

“ What a rogue is my father! My father! I deny it. My mother was a good, generous, free-hearted woman, and I can't tell how far her good nature might have extended for the good of her children. This landlord of mine, for I think I can call him no more, would betray his guest, and debauch his daughter into the bargain—by a footman too!
Re-enter Archer.
Arch. What footman, pray, mistress, is so happy as to be the subject of your contemplation? [355]
[19] Cher. Whoever he is, friend, he'll be but little the better for't. ”

“ Mrs. Sul. Pray, spouse, what did you marry for?
Squire Sul. To get an heir to my estate.
Sir Chas. And have you succeeded?
Squire Sul. No.
Arch. The condition fails of his side.—Pray, madam, what did you marry for?
Mrs. Sul. To support the weakness of my sex by the strength of his, and to enjoy the pleasures of an agreeable society.
Sir Chas. Are your expectations answered?
Mrs. Sul. No.
Count Bel. A clear case! a clear case!
Sir Chas. What are the bars to your mutual contentment?
Mrs. Sul. In the first place, I can't drink ale with him.
Squire Sul. Nor can I drink tea with her. ”

“ Bon. As punctual, sir, as I am in the age of my children. I'll show you such ale!—Here, tapster [Enter Tapster] broach number 1706, as the saying is.—Sir, you shall taste my Anno Domini.—I have lived in Lichfield, man and boy, above eight-and-fifty years, and, I believe, have not consumed eight-and-fifty ounces of meat.
Aim. At a meal, you mean, if one may guess your sense by your bulk.
Bon. Not in my life, sir: I have fed purely upon ale; I have eat my ale, drank my ale, and I always sleep upon ale. ”

“ Well, my dear Bonny, you assure me that Scrub is a coward?
Bon. A chicken, as the saying is. You 'll have no creature to deal with but the ladies.
Gib. And I can assure you, friend, there's a great deal of address and good manners in robbing a lady; I am the most a gentleman that way that ever travelled the road.—But, my dear Bonny, this prize will be a galleon, a Vigo business.—I warrant you we shall bring off three of four thousand pounds. ”

“ I can be charmed with Sappho's singing without falling in love with her face: I love hunting, but would not, like Actæon, be eaten up by my own dogs; I love a fine house, but let another keep it; and just so I love a fine woman. ”

“ It has often grieved the heart of me to see how some inhuman wretches murder their kind fortunes; those that, by sacrificing all to one appetite, shall starve all the rest. You shall have some that live only in their palates, and in their sense of tasting shall drown the other four: others are only epicures in appearances, such who shall starve their nights to make a figure a days, and famish their own to feed the eyes of others: a contrary sort confine their pleasures to the dark, and contract their specious acres to the circuit of a muff-string. ”

“ In plate, jewels, and money, as the saying is, you may.
Gib. Why then, Tyburn, I defy thee! I'll get up to town, sell off my horse and arms, buy myself some pretty employment in the household, and be as snug and as honest as any courtier of 'em all.
Bon. And what think you then of my daughter Cherry for a wife?
Gib. Look 'ee, my'dear Bonny—-Cherry is the Goddess I adore, as the song goes; but it is a maxim, that man and wife should never have it in their power to hang one another; for if they should, the Lord have mercy on 'em both! ”

“ Sir, you shall deliver her—in short, sir, we have saved you and your family; and if you are not civil, we'll unbind the rogues, join with 'em, and set fire to your house. What does the man mean? not part with his wife!
Count Bel. Ay, garzoon, de man no understan common justice.
Mrs. Sul. Hold, gentlemen, all things here must move by consent, compulsion would spoil us; let my dear and I talk the matter over, and you shall judge it between us.
Squire Sul. Let me know first who are to be our judges. Pray, sir, who are you?
Sir Chas. I am Sir Charles Freeman, come to take away your wife. ”

“ Let me see— two thousand pounds—if the wench would promise to die when the money were spent, egad, one would marry her; but the fortune may go off in a year or two, and the wife may live—Lord knows how long. Then an innkeeper's daughter! ay, that's the devil—there my pride brings me off.
For whatsoe'er the sages charge on pride, The angels' fall, and twenty faults beside, On earth, I'm sure, 'mong us of mortal calling, Pride saves man oft, and woman too, from falling. ”

“ I warrant you, the gentleman has got to his confidant already, has avowed his passion, toasted your health, called you ten thousand angels, has run over your lips, eyes, neck, shape, air, and everything, in a description that warms their mirth to a second enjoyment. ”

“ I 'm glad on't.
Mrs. Sul. What is the reason, sir, that you use me thus inhumanly?
Squire Sul. Scrub!
Scrub. Sir!
Squire Sul. Get things ready to shave my head. [Exit.
Mrs. Sul. Have a care of coming near his temples, Scrub, for fear you meet something there that may turn the edge of your razor.— [Exit Scrub.] Inveterate stupidity I did you ever know so hard, so obstinate a spleen as his? O sister, sister! I shall never ha' good of the beast till I get him to town; London, dear London, is the place for managing and breaking a husband. ”