Hannah Cowley

“ Laura. Yes, ingrate, thee!
Vict. Positively, Laura, you have these extravagancies so often, I wonder my passion can stand them. To be plain, those violences in your temper may make a pretty relief in the flat of matrimony, child, but they do not suit that state of freedom which is necessary to my happiness. It was by such destructive arts as these you cured Don Carlos of his love.
Laura. Cured Don Carlos! Oh, Florio! wert thou but as he is?
Vict. Why, you don't pretend he loves you still? ”

“ Through fifty back lanes, a long garden, and a narrow staircase, into a superb apartment—all that's in the regular way; as the Spanish women manage it, one intrigue is too much like another. If it was not now and then for the little lively fillip of a jealous husband or brother, which obliges one to leap from a window, or crawl, like a cat, along the gutters, there would be no bearing the ennui. ”

“ When you are married, ma'am, I hope your husband will bear your humour less patiently than I have done.
Oliv. My husband!—dost think my husband shall contradict my will? Oh, I long to set a pattern to those milky wives, whose mean compliances degrade the sex.
Gar. Opportune! [Aside.]
Oliv. The only husband on record who knew how to treat a wife was Socrates; and though his lady was a Grecian, I have some reason to believe her descendants matched into our family; and never shall my tame submission disgrace my ancestry.
Gar. Heavens! why have you never curbed this intemperate spirit, Don Cæsar? ”

“ Laura. Yes, every hour—Now, Carlos I bring thee to the test!—You saw, you liked, you loved me; was there no fond trusting woman whom you deserted, to indulge the transient passion? Yes, one blessed with beauty, gentleness, and youth; one, who more than her own being loved thee, who made thee rich, and whom thou madest thy wife. ”

“ Can it be true that I have been unhappy?—But the mysteries, my Carlos, are already explained to you—Gasper's resemblance to my uncle——
Gasp. Yes, sir, I was always apt at resemblances—In our plays at home, I am always Queen Cleopatra—You know she was but a gipsey queen, and I hits her off to a nicety.
Car. Come, my Victoria——Oh, there is a painful pleasure in my bosom—To gaze on thee, to listen to and to love thee, seems like the bliss of angels' cheering whispers to repentant sinners. ”

“ Laura. Nay, let not the thought distress you thus—Carlos I despise—he is the weakest of mankind.
Vict. 'Tis false, madam, you cannot despise him. Carlos the weakest of mankind! Heavens! what woman could resist him? Persuasion sits on his tongue, and love, almighty love, triumphant in his eyes!
Laura. This is strange; you speak of your rival with the admiration of a mistress.
Vict. Laura! it is the fate of jealousy as well as love, to see the charms of its object, increased and heightened. I am jealous—jealous to distraction, of Don Carlos ”

“ Car. Confound thee, confound thee! If thou art a wife, may thy husband plague thee with jealousies, and thou never be able to give him cause for them; and if thou art a maid, may'st thou be an old one! [Going, r. meets Don Julio.] Oh, Julio, look not that way; there's a tongue will stun thee!
Julio. Heaven be praised! I love female prattle. A woman's tongue can never scare me. Which of these two goldfinches makes the music?
Car. [Crosses to Victoria.] Oh, this is as silent as a turtle— [Taking Victoria's hand.] —only coos now and then,—Perhaps you don't hate a married man, sweet one? ”

“ Gasp. Hang it! I am rather too near his own age; to appear an old man with effect, one should not be above twenty; 'tis always so on the stage.
Vict. Pho! you might pass for Juan's grandson.
Gasp. Nay, if your ladyship condesends to flatter me, you have me.
Vict. Then follow me; for Don Cæsar, I hear, is approaching—in the garden I'll make you acquainted with my plan, and impress on your mind every trait of my uncle's character. If you can hit him off, the arts of Laura shall be foiled, and Carlos be again Victoria's. ”

“ These doubts may soon be annihilated, or confirmed to certainty.—I have seen Don Sancho, the uncle of Victoria; he is now in Madrid.—You have told me that he once professed a passion for you.
Laura. Oh, to excess; but at that time I had another object.
Vict. Have you conversed with him much?
Laura. I never saw him nearer than from my balcony, where he used to ogle me through a glass, suspended by a ribbon, like an order of knighthood; he is weak enough to fancy it gives him an air of distinction—Ha! ha! But where can I find him? I must see him. ”

“ Min. I believe so, indeed; help the poor gentleman, I say, to whose fate you fall! [Returns up.]
Gar. Don Cæsar, adieu! My commiseration for your fate subdues the resentment I should otherwise feel at your endeavouring to deceive me into such a marriage. [Crosses, l.]
Oliv. Marriage! oh, mercy!—Is this Don Garcia! [Apart to Cæsar.]
Cæsar. Yes, termagant!
Oliv. O, what a misfortune! Why did you not tell me it was the gentleman you designed to marry me to?—Oh, sir! all that is past was in sport; a contrivance between my maid and me: I have no spirit at all—I am as patient as poverty. ”

“ You are married, Carlos;—that's all I have to say—you are married.
Car. Pho! that's past long ago, and ought to be forgotten; but if a man does a foolish thing once, he'll hear of it all his life.
Julio. Ay, the time has been when thou might'st have been intrusted with such a dear secret,—when I might have opened the billet, and feasted thee with the sweet meandering strokes at the bottom, which form her name, when——
Car. What, 'tis from a woman then?
Julio. It is.
Car. Handsome?
Julio. Hum—not absolutely handsome, but she'll pass, with one who has not had his taste spoiled by—matrimony. ”

“ Julio. The devil! what can she mean? [Pushing himself between Minette and the sofa.] Donna Olivia, I am sorry to inform you that my physician has just been sent for to your father, Don Cæsar.—The poor gentleman was seized with a vertigo.
Oliv. Vertigoes! Oh, he has them frequently, you know. [To Minette.]
Min. Yes, and they always keep me from his sight.
Julio. Did ever one woman prevent another from leaving her at such a moment before? I really, madam, cannot comprehend——
Cæsar. [Without.] It is impossible—impossible, gentleman! Don Julio cannot be here. ”

“ Now, if my scheme takes, what a happy person I shall be! and sure, as I was Donna Olivia to-day, to please my lady, I may be Donna Olivia tonight, to please myself. I'll address him as the maid of a lady who has taken a fancy to him, then convey him to our house—then retire, and then come in again, and, with a vast deal of confusion, confess I sent my maid for him. If he should dislike my forwardness, the censure will fall on my lady; if he should be pleased with my person, the advantage will be mine. ”

“ SCENE III.—Another Apartment.
Enter Cæsar and Vincentio, l.
Vin. Presto, presto, signior! where is the Olivia?—not a moment to spare. I left off in all the fury of composition; minums and crotchets have been battling it through my head the whole day, and trying a semibreve in G sharp, has made me as flat as double F.
Cæsar. Sharp and flat!—trying a semibreve!—oh—gad, sir! I had like not to have understood you; but a semibreve is something of a demi-culverin, I take it; and you have been practising the art military.
Vin. Art military!—what, sir! are you unacquainted with music? ”

“ She has saved my life! I thought she was going to knock down his hobby-horse. [Aside.]
Vin. You enchant me! I have the finest band in Madrid—My first violin draws a longer bow than Giardini; my clarionets, my viol de gamba——Oh, you shall have such concerts!
Oliv. Concerts! Pardon me there—My passion is a single instrument.
Vin. That's carrying singularity very far indeed! I love a crash; so does every body of taste.
Oliv. But my taste isn't like every body's; my nerves are so particularly fine, that more than one instrument overpowers them. ”

“ Would you not fear to trust your fate with her, you have cause to think so hateful?
Julio. No, I'd bless the hour that bound my fate to hers. Permit me, sir, to pay my vows to this fair vixen.
Cæsar. What, are you such a bold man as that? Pho! but if you are, 'twill be only lost time—she'll contrive, some way or other, to return your vows upon your hands. ”

“ But if Olivia makes a bold stroke to obtain a husband, surely Victoria makes a still bolder, to preserve one; and there is something less honourable in the enterprises of the young maiden, in order to renounce her state, than in those of a married woman to avert the dangers that are impending over hers.
Whichever of those females becomes the most admired object with the reader, he will not be insensible to the trials of the other, or to the various interests of the whole dramatis personæ, to whom the writer has artfully given a kind of united influence ”

“ Why, yes, though I say it, there are few prettier women in Madrid; and she has got enemies amongst her own sex accordingly. They pretend to say that——I say, sir, they have reported that she is not blessed with that kind of docility and gentleness that a——now, though she may not be so very placid, and insipid, as some young women, yet, upon the whole—
Gar. Oh, fie, sir!—not a word—a beauty cannot be ill-tempered; gratified vanity keeps her in good humour with herself, and every body about her. ”

“ Serv. There is a gentleman at the door, madam, called Don Julio de Melessina. He waits on you from Don Vincentio.
Oliv. Who? Don Julio! it cannot be—art thou sure of his name?
Serv. The servant repeated it twice. He is in a fine carriage, and seems to be a nobleman.
Oliv. Conduct him hither. [Exit Servant, l.] I am astonished! I cannot see him! I would not have him know the incognita to be Olivia, for worlds!—There is but one way. [Aside.] Minette, ask no questions; but do as I order you.—Receive Don Julio in my name; call yourself the heiress of Don Cæsar ”

“ Donna Victoria is as much too gentle, as her cousin is too harsh.
Min. Ay, and you see what she gets by it; had she been more spirited, perhaps her husband would not have forsaken her;—men enlisted under the matrimonial banner, like those under the king's, would be often tempted to run away from their colours, if fear did not keep them in dread of desertion.
Inis. If making a husband afraid is the way to keep him faithful, I believe your lady will be the happiest wife in Spain.
Min. Ha! ha! ha! how people may be deceived!—nay, how people are deceived!—but time will discover all things. ”

“ Carlos turns on r.
Vict. Heavens, 'tis my husband!
Oliv. Your husband! Is that Don Carlos?
Vict. It is indeed.
Oliv. Why, really, now I see the man, I don't wonder that you are in no hurry for your weeds. He is moving towards us.
Vict. I cannot speak to him, and yet my soul flies to meet him.
Car. Pray, lady, what occasioned that pretty scream? I shrewdly suspect it was a trap.
Oliv. A trap! ha! ha! ha!—a trap for you!
Car. Why not, madam? Zounds, a man near six feet high, and three flasks of burgundy in his head, is worth laying a trap for. ”

“ Laura. How, sir!—but hold——Stay a moment—I am breathless with fear.
Gasp. Nay, madam, don't be afraid! 'Tis my estate—that's all; the very castle where I was born; and which I never did, nor ever will, bestow on any Don in the two Castiles. Dissembling rogue! Bribe you with a fictitious title to my estate—ha! ha! ha!
Laura. [Aside.] Curses follow him! The villain I employed must have been his creature; his reluctance all art; and, whilst I believed myself undoing him, was duped myself!
Gasp. Could you suppose I'd give Carlos such an estate for running away with my niece? No, no ”

“ Oliv. Immured in a convent! then I'll raise sedition in the sisterhood, depose the abbess, and turn the confessor's chair to a go-cart.
Gasp. So, the threat of the mother-in-law, which I thought would be worse than that of the abbess, does not frighten ye?
Oliv. No, because my father dares not give me one.—Marry, without my consent! no, no, he'll never think of it, depend on't; however, lest the fit should grow strong upon him, I'll go and administer my volatiles to keep it under. ”