Sir Richard Steele

“ Campley?
Cam. Ay, my lord, with t'other sister—with t'other sister.
Ld. H. What a dunce was I, not to know which, without your naming her! Why, thou art the only man breathing fit to deal with her. But my Lady Sharlot, there's a woman—so easily virtuous! So agreeably severe! Her motion so unaffected, yet so composed! Her lips breathe nothing but truth, good sense, and flowing wit.
Cam. Lady Harriot! there's the woman; such life, such spirit, such warmth in her eyes; such a lively commanding air in her glances; so spritely a mien, that carries in it the triumph of conscious beauty ”

“ Tom. Master Humphry, ha! ha! you were an unhappy lad to be sent up to town in such queer days as you were. Why, now, sir, the lackeys are the men of pleasure of the age, the top gamesters; and many a laced coat about town have had their education in our party-coloured regiment. We are false lovers; have a taste of music, poetry, billet-doux, dress, politics; ruin damsels; and when we are tired of this lewd town, and have a mind to take up, whip into our masters' wigs and linen, and marry fortunes.
Humph. Hey-day!
Tom. Nay, sir, our order is carried up to the highest dignities and distinctions ”

“ Niece. What, to burn Philocles, Artaxeres, Oroondates, and the rest of the heroic lovers, and take my country booby, cousin Humphry, for a husband!
Aunt. Oh dear, oh dear, Biddy! Pray, good dear, learn to act and speak like the rest of the world; come, come, you shall marry your cousin and live comfortably.
Niece. Live comfortably! What kind of life is that? A great heiress live comfortably! Pray, aunt, learn to raise your ideas—What is, I wonder, to live comfortably?
Aunt. To live comfortably is to live with prudence and frugality, as we do in Lombard Street. ”

“ I say, sir, experience has made you wiser in your care of me; for, sir, since you lost my dear mother, your time has been so heavy, so lonely, and so tasteless, that you are so good as to guard me against the like unhappiness, by marrying me prudentially by way of bargain and sale. For, as you well judge, a woman that is espoused for a fortune, is yet a better bargain if she dies; for then a man still enjoys what he did marry, the money, and is disencumbered of what he did not marry, the woman.
Sir J. Bev. But pray, sir, do you think Lucinda, then, a woman of such little merit? ”

“ Y. Book. 'Tis true, madam, I owe it all to fortune; neither your kindness nor my industry had any share in't. Thus am I still as wretched as I was, for this happiness I so much prize had doubtless been refused my want of merit.
Pen. It has very soon, you see, lost what you valued in it; but I find you and I, sir, have a different sense; for, in my opinion, we enjoy with most pleasure what we attain with least merit. Merit is a claim, and may pretend justly to favour; when without it what's conferred is more unexpected, and therefore more pleasing. ”

“ But there cannot be less expected from the son of an Ossory, than to contemn life, to adorn it, and with munificence, affability, scorn of gain, and passion for glory, to be the honour and example to the profession of arms; all which engaging qualities your noble family has exerted with so steadfast a loyalty, that in the most adverse fortune of our monarchy, popularity, which in others had been invidious, was a security to the Crown, when lodged in the House of Ormond. ”

“ Pray, niece, forbear this idle trash, and talk like other people. Your cousin Humphry will be true and hearty in what he says, and that's a great deal better than the talk and compliment of romances.
Niece. Good madam, don't wound my ears with such expressions; do you think I can ever love a man that's true and hearty? What a peasant-like amour do these coarse words import! True and hearty! Pray, aunt, endeavour a little at the embellishment of your style.
Aunt. Alack-a-day, cousin Biddy, these idle romances have quite turned your head. ”

“ Sir Har. Hark ye, Numps, who is this you have brought hither? is it not the famous fine lady, Mrs. Clerimont? What a pox did you let her come near your wife?
Hump. Look ye, don't expose yourself, and play some mad country prank to disgrace me before her; I shall be laughed at, because she knows I understand better.
Mrs. Cler. I congratulate, madam, your coming out of the bondage of a virgin state. A woman can't do what she will properly till she's married. ”

“ Myrt. Only, madam, that the first time you are alone with your lover, you will, with open arms, receive him.
Luc. As willingly as his heart could wish it.
Myrt. Thus, then, he claims your promise. O Lucinda!
Luc. Oh! a cheat! a cheat! a cheat!
Myrt. Hush! 'tis I, 'tis I, your lover, Myrtle himself, madam.
Luc. O bless me! what a rashness and folly to surprise me so—But hush—my mother.
Enter Mrs. Sealand, Cimberton, and Phillis.
Mrs. Seal. How now! what's the matter? ”

“ Ind. No, 'twas Heaven's high will I should be such; to be plundered in my cradle! tossed on the seas! and even there an infant captive! to lose my mother, hear but of [Pg 355] my father! to be adopted! lose my adopter! then plunged again into worse calamities!
Mr. Seal. An infant captive!
Ind. Yet then, to find the most charming of mankind, once more to set me free from what I thought the last distress, to load me with his services, his bounties, and his favours; to support my very life in a way that stole, at the same time, my very soul itself from me. ”

“ Humphry while I feed the vanity of Parthenissa; for I am so experienced in these matters that I know none but coxcombs think to win a woman by any desert of their own—No, it must be done rather by complying with some prevailing humour of your mistress, than exerting any good quality in yourself.
'Tis not the lover's merit wins the field,
But to themselves alone the beauteous yield. ”

“ I was in a passion and betrayed myself, but you're my lover's friend, and a man of honour, therefore know you'll do nothing to injure us. Why, Mr. Campley, you must know I can speak as good English as you, but I don't for fear of losing my customers. The English will never give a price for anything they understand. Nay, I've known some of your fools pretend to buy with good breeding, and give any rate rather than not be thought to have French enough to know what they were doing; strange and far-fetched things they only like. ”

“ SCENE III.—Covent Garden.
Enter Lovemore and Frederick.
Love. It is so pleasant a night that I will see you over the Garden to your lodgings.
Fred. That compliment won't pass upon me. Your reason for sauntering this way is that 'tis near Penelope's.
Love. I come for her sake! No; should she write, beseech, kneel to me, I think I ne'er should value her more. No, I'll be no longer her tool, her jest; she shall not dally with a passion she deserves not. ”

“ You knew Sharlot's worthy father—No, there's no need of my seeing more of this woman. I behold her now with the same eyes that you do; there's a meanness in all she says or does; she has a great wit but a little [Pg 77] mind—something ever wanting to make her appear my Lady Brumpton. She has nothing natively great. You see I love her not; I talk with judgment of her.
Tru. I see it, my good lord, with joy I see it, nor care how few things I see more in this world. My satisfaction is complete. Welcome old age; welcome decay; 'tis not decay, but growth to a latter being. ”

“ I thought, therefore, it would be an honest ambition to attempt a Comedy which might be no improper entertainment in a Christian commonwealth.
In order to this, the spark of this play is introduced with as much agility and life as he brought with him from France, and as much humour as I could bestow upon him in England. But he uses the advantages of a learned education, a ready fancy, and a liberal fortune, without the circumspection and good sense which should always attend the pleasures of a gentleman; that is to say, a reasonable creature. ”

“ You perhaps, who know not what it is to love, who have your ready, your commodious, your foreign [Pg 333] trinket, for your loose hours; and from your fortune, your specious outward carriage, and other lucky circumstances, as easy a way to the possession of a woman of honour; you know nothing of what it is to be alarmed, to be distracted with anxiety and terror of losing more than life. Your marriage, happy man, goes on like common business, and in the interim you have your rambling captive, your Indian princess, for your soft moments of dalliance, your convenient, your ready Indiana. ”

“ Pounce. Mr. Humphry, you shan't be fooled any longer; I'll carry you into company. Mr. Fainlove, you shall introduce him to Mrs. Clerimont's toilet.
Fain. She'll be highly taken with him; for she loves a gentleman whose manner is particular.
Pounce. What, sir, a person of your pretensions, a clear estate, no portions to pay! 'Tis barbarous, your treatment.—Mr. Humphry, I'm afraid you want money. There's for you—What, a man of your accomplishments! ”

“ Sir J. Bev. Why, I do believe I may, and yet I'm in a thousand fears when I lay this vast wealth before me; when I consider his prepossessions, either generous to a folly, in an honourable love, or abandoned, past redemption, in a vicious one; and, from the one or the other, his insensibility to the fairest prospect towards doubling our estate: a father, who knows how useful wealth is, and how necessary, even to those who despise it—I say a father, Humphry, a father cannot bear it. ”

“ Sir, show me but the least glimpse of argument, that I am authorised, by my own hand, to vindicate any lawless insult of this nature, and I will show thee—to chastise thee hardly deserves the name of courage—slight, inconsiderate man!—There is, Mr. Myrtle, no such terror in quick anger; and you shall, you know not why, be cool, as you have, you know not why, been warm.
Myrt. Is the woman one loves so little an occasion of anger? ”

“ The most believing is the most a lover.
[Pg 235]
SCENE II.—Niece's Lodgings.
Enter Niece.
Niece. Oh, Clerimont! Clerimont! To be struck at first sight! I'm ashamed of my weakness; I find in myself all the symptoms of a raging amour. I love solitude, I grow pale, I sigh frequently, I call upon the name of Clerimont when I don't think of it—His person is ever in my eyes, and his voice in my ears—Methinks I long to lose myself in some pensive grove, or to hang over the head of some warbling fountain, with a lute in my hand, softening the murmurs of the water. ”

“ Why, who can be more a usurer than he who lays out his money in such valuable purchases? If pleasure be [Pg 311] worth purchasing, how great a pleasure is it to him, who has a true taste of life, to ease an aching heart; to see the human countenance lighted up into smiles of joy, on the receipt of a bit of ore which is superfluous and otherwise useless in a man's own pocket? ”

“ Bevil, I must tell you, this coolness, this gravity, this show of conscience, shall never cheat me of my mistress. You have, indeed, the best excuse for life, the hopes of possessing Lucinda. But consider, sir, I have as much reason to be weary of it, if I am to lose her; and my first attempt to recover her shall be to let her see the dauntless man who is to be her guardian and protector. ”

“ Yes, sir; I told you, sir, I had it from himself.
Fred. Then I'm sure there was nothing left out; he never tells a story by halves.
O. Book. Why, then, you think my son's a liar.
Fred. Oh fie, sir, but he enlivens a mere narration with variety of accidents; to be plain, his discourse gains him more applause than credit. You could not, I believe, have married your son to a less expensive lady in England than this Mrs. Matilda. I'll be sworn you'll avoid all the charge of gay dress, high play, and stately childbirth. You understand me, sir? ”

“ Know, then, when my misfortunes drove me to the Indies, for reasons too tedious now to mention, I changed my name of Danvers into Sealand.
Enter Isabella.
Isab. If yet there wants an explanation of your wonder, examine well this face (yours, sir, I well remember) , gaze on and read in me your sister, Isabella.
Mr. Seal. My sister!
Isab. But here's a claim more tender yet——your Indiana, sir, your long-lost daughter.
Mr. Seal. Oh, my child! my child!
Ind. All gracious Heaven! is it possible! do I embrace my father? ”

“ Enter Campley and Trim.
Dear Tom Campley, this is kind! You are an extraordinary man indeed, who in the sudden accession of a noble fortune can be still yourself, and visit your less happy friends.
Cam. No; you are, my lord, the extraordinary man, who, on the loss of an almost princely fortune, can be master of a temper that makes you the envy, rather than pity, of your more fortunate, not more happy friends.
Ld. H. O, sir, your servant—but let me gaze on thee a little, I han't seen thee since I came home into England—most exactly, negligently, genteelly dressed! ”

“ Ah! niece! there is a sort of bashfulness which is the best engine to carry on a shameless purpose. Some men's modesty serves their wickedness, as hypocrisy gains the respect due to piety. But I will own to you, there is one hopeful symptom, if there could be such a thing as a disinterested lover. But it's all a perplexity—till—till—till——
Ind. Till what?
Isab. Till I know whether Mr. Myrtle and Mr. Bevil are really friends or foes.—And that I will be convinced of before I sleep; for you shall not be deceived. ”

“ I cannot tell him immediately the purport of her letter, except I could cure him of the violent and untractable passion of jealousy, and so serve him, and her, by disobeying her, in the article of secrecy, more than I should by complying with her directions.—But then this duelling, which custom has imposed upon every man who would live with reputation and honour in the world—how must I preserve myself from imputations there? ”