William Congreve

“ SIR SAMP. No, no; come, come, sit thee down, honest Val. How dost thou do? Let me feel thy pulse. Oh, pretty well now, Val. Body o’ me, I was sorry to see thee indisposed; but I’m glad thou art better, honest Val.
VAL. I thank you, sir.
SCAN. Miracle! The monster grows loving. [Aside.]
SIR SAMP. Let me feel thy hand again, Val. It does not shake; I believe thou canst write, Val. Ha, boy? thou canst write thy name, Val. Jeremy, step and overtake Mr. Buckram, bid him make haste back with the conveyance; quick, quick. [In whisper to Jeremy.]
SCENE VIII. Sir Sampson, Valentine, Scandal. ”

“ JERE. Ay, sir, I am a fool, I know it: and yet, heaven help me, I’m poor enough to be a wit. But I was always a fool when I told you what your expenses would bring you to; your coaches and your liveries; your treats and your balls; your being in love with a lady that did not care a farthing for you in your prosperity; and keeping company with wits that cared for nothing but your prosperity; and now, when you are poor, hate you as much as they do one another.
VAL. Well, and now I am poor I have an opportunity to be revenged on them all. ”

“ SCENE IX. Sir Sampson and Foresight.
SIR SAMP. I left ’em together here; what, are they gone? Ben’s a brisk boy: he has got her into a corner; father’s own son, faith, he’ll touzle her, and mouzle her. The rogue’s sharp set, coming from sea; if he should not stay for saving grace, old Foresight, but fall to without the help of a parson, ha? Odd, if he should I could not be angry with him; ’twould be but like me, a chip of the old block. Ha! thou’rt melancholic, old Prognostication; as melancholic as if thou hadst spilt the salt, or pared thy nails on a Sunday. ”

“ SIR SAMP. Oons, what is the meaning of this?
BEN. Mess, here’s the wind changed again. Father, you and I may make a voyage together now.
ANG. Well, Sir Sampson, since I have played you a trick, I’ll advise you how you may avoid such another. Learn to be a good father, or you’ll never get a second wife. I always loved your son, and hated your unforgiving nature. I was resolved to try him to the utmost; I have tried you too, and know you both. You have not more faults than he has virtues, and ’tis hardly more pleasure to me that I can make him and myself happy than that I can punish you. ”

“ Scandal, for heaven’s sake, sir, try if you can dissuade him from turning poet.
SCAN. Poet! He shall turn soldier first, and rather depend upon the outside of his head than the lining. Why, what the devil, has not your poverty made you enemies enough? Must you needs shew your wit to get more?
JERE. Ay, more indeed: for who cares for anybody that has more wit than himself?
SCAN. Jeremy speaks like an oracle. Don’t you see how worthless great men and dull rich rogues avoid a witty man of small fortune? ”

“ A good whoremaster, I warrant him:—the time draws nigh, Jeremy. Angelica will be veiled like a nun, and I must be hooded like a friar, ha, Jeremy?
JERE. Ay, sir; hooded like a hawk, to seize at first sight upon the quarry. It is the whim of my master’s madness to be so dressed, and she is so in love with him she’ll comply with anything to please him. Poor lady, I’m sure she’ll have reason to pray for me, when she finds what a happy exchange she has made, between a madman and so accomplished a gentleman. ”

“ TATT. I’ll make thy fortune; say no more. Thou art a pretty fellow, and canst carry a message to a lady, in a pretty soft kind of phrase, and with a good persuading accent.
JERE. Sir, I have the seeds of rhetoric and oratory in my head: I have been at Cambridge.
TATT. Ay; ’tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an university: but the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman. I hope you are secret in your nature: private, close, ha?
JERE. Oh, sir, for that, sir, ’tis my chief talent: I’m as secret as the head of Nilus. ”

“ Valentine, does not he lie? I can’t believe a word he says.
VAL. No indeed, he speaks truth now. For as Tattle has pictures of all that have granted him favours, he has the pictures of all that have refused him: if satires, descriptions, characters, and lampoons are pictures.
SCAN. Yes; mine are most in black and white. And yet there are some set out in their true colours, both men and women. I can shew you pride, folly, affectation, wantonness, inconstancy, covetousness, dissimulation, malice and ignorance, all in one piece. ”

“ I am thy own father, and this is honest Brief Buckram, the lawyer.
VAL. It may be so—I did not know you—the world is full. There are people that we do know, and people that we do not know, and yet the sun shines upon all alike. There are fathers that have many children, and there are children that have many fathers. ’Tis strange! But I am Truth, and come to give the world the lie.
SIR SAMP. Body o’ me, I know not what to say to him.
VAL. Why does that lawyer wear black? Does he carry his conscience withoutside? Lawyer what art thou? ”

“ Tattle? I heard you say something was whispered everywhere.
SCAN. Your love of Valentine.
ANG. How!
TATT. No, madam, his love for your ladyship. Gad take me, I beg your pardon,—for I never heard a word of your ladyship’s passion till this instant.
ANG. My passion! And who told you of my passion, pray sir?
SCAN. Why, is the devil in you? Did not I tell it you for a secret?
TATT. Gadso; but I thought she might have been trusted with her own affairs.
SCAN. Is that your discretion? Trust a woman with herself? ”

“ Scandal, you had best go to bed and dream too.
SCAN. Why, faith, I have a good lively imagination, and can dream as much to the purpose as another, if I set about it. But dreaming is the poor retreat of a lazy, hopeless, and imperfect lover; ’tis the last glimpse of love to worn-out sinners, and the faint dawning of a bliss to wishing girls and growing boys. ”

“ SIR SAMP. Odd, you are hard to please, madam: to find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task. But, faith and troth, you speak very discreetly; for I hate both a wit and a fool.
ANG. She that marries a fool, Sir Sampson, forfeits the reputation of her honesty or understanding; and she that marries a very witty man is a slave to the severity and insolent conduct of her husband. I should like a man of wit for a lover, because I would have such an one in my power ”

“ Scandal. I did not think you had been read in these matters. Few young men are inclined—
SCAN. I thank my stars that have inclined me. But I fear this marriage and making over this estate, this transferring of a rightful inheritance, will bring judgments upon us. I prophesy it, and I would not have the fate of Cassandra not to be believed. Valentine is disturbed; what can be the cause of that? And Sir Sampson is hurried on by an unusual violence. I fear he does not act wholly from himself; methinks he does not look as he used to do. ”

“ Body o’ me, I have made a cuckold of a king, and the present majesty of Bantam is the issue of these loins.
FORE. I know when travellers lie or speak truth, when they don’t know it themselves.
SIR SAMP. I have known an astrologer made a cuckold in the twinkling of a star; and seen a conjurer that could not keep the devil out of his wife’s circle.
FORE. What, does he twit me with my wife too? I must be better informed of this. [Aside.] Do you mean my wife, Sir Sampson? ”

“ SIR SAMP. Zooks, but it is, madam, a very great while: to a man that admires a fine woman as much as I do.
ANG. You’re an absolute courtier, Sir Sampson.
SIR SAMP. Not at all, madam,—odsbud, you wrong me,—I am not so old neither, to be a bare courtier, only a man of words. Odd, I have warm blood about me yet, and can serve a lady any way. Come, come, let me tell you, you women think a man old too soon, faith and troth you do. Come, don’t despise fifty; odd, fifty, in a hale constitution, is no such contemptible age. ”

“ Nature has been provident only to bears and spiders; the one has its nutriment in his own hands; and t’other spins his habitation out of his own entrails.
VAL. Fortune was provident enough to supply all the necessities of my nature, if I had my right of inheritance.
SIR SAMP. Again! ’Oons, han’t you four thousand pounds? If I had it again, I would not give thee a groat.—What, would’st thou have me turn pelican, and feed thee out of my own vitals? S’heart, live by your wits: you were always fond of the wits, now let’s see, if you have wit enough to keep yourself. ”

“ Has any young rogue affronted you, and shall I cut his throat? Or—
ANG. No, Sir Sampson, I have no quarrel upon my hands. I have more occasion for your conduct than your courage at this time. To tell you the truth, I’m weary of living single and want a husband.
SIR SAMP. Odsbud, and ’tis pity you should. Odd, would she would like me, then I should hamper my young rogues. Odd, would she would; faith and troth she’s devilish handsome. [Aside.] Madam, you deserve a good husband, and ’twere pity you should be thrown away upon any of these young idle rogues about the town. ”

“ VAL. We are the twin stars, and cannot shine in one sphere; when he rises I must set. Besides, if I should stay, I don’t know but my father in good nature may press me to the immediate signing the deed of conveyance of my estate; and I’ll defer it as long as I can. Well, you’ll come to a resolution.
ANG. I can’t. Resolution must come to me, or I shall never have one.
SCAN. Come, Valentine, I’ll go with you; I’ve something in my head to communicate to you.
SCENE V. Angelica, Sir Sampson, Tattle, Mrs. Frail, Miss Prue.
SIR SAMP. What, is my son Valentine gone? ”

“ Odd, madam, I’ll love you as long as I live, and leave you a good jointure when I die.
ANG. Ay; but that is not in your power, Sir Sampson: for when Valentine confesses himself in his senses, he must make over his inheritance to his younger brother.
SIR SAMP. Odd, you’re cunning, a wary baggage! Faith and troth, I like you the better. But, I warrant you, I have a proviso in the obligation in favour of myself. Body o’ me, I have a trick to turn the settlement upon the issue male of our two bodies begotten. Odsbud, let us find children and I’ll find an estate! ”

“ SCAN. Death and hell! Where’s Valentine?
SCENE X. Sir Sampson, Angelica, Foresight, Mrs. Foresight, Ben, Buckram.
MRS. FORE. This is so surprising.
SIR SAMP. How! What does my aunt say? Surprising, aunt? Not at all for a young couple to make a match in winter: not at all. It’s a plot to undermine cold weather, and destroy that usurper of a bed called a warming-pan.
MRS. FORE. I’m glad to hear you have so much fire in you, Sir Sampson.
BEN. Mess, I fear his fire’s little better than tinder; mayhap it will only serve to light up a match for somebody else. ”

“ MRS. FORE. Here ’tis, with all my heart.
MRS. FRAIL. Well, as an earnest of friendship and confidence, I’ll acquaint you with a design that I have. To tell truth, and speak openly one to another, I’m afraid the world have observed us more than we have observed one another. You have a rich husband, and are provided for. I am at a loss, and have no great stock either of fortune or reputation, and therefore must look sharply about me. Sir Sampson has a son that is expected to-night, and by the account I have heard of his education, can be no conjurer. ”

“ For now I am convinced that all women are not like fortune, blind in bestowing favours, either on those who do not merit or who do not want ’em.
ANG. ’Tis an unreasonable accusation that you lay upon our sex: you tax us with injustice, only to cover your own want of merit. You would all have the reward of love, but few have the constancy to stay till it becomes your due. Men are generally hypocrites and infidels: they pretend to worship, but have neither zeal nor faith. How few, like Valentine, would persevere even to martyrdom, and sacrifice their interest to their constancy! ”

“ SCENE XI. Sir Sampson, Scandal, Foresight, Miss Foresight, Mrs. Frail.
FORE. What says he? What, did he prophesy? Ha, Sir Sampson, bless us! How are we?
SIR SAMP. Are we? A pox o’ your prognostication. Why, we are fools as we use to be. Oons, that you could not foresee that the moon would predominate, and my son be mad. Where’s your oppositions, your trines, and your quadrates? What did your Cardan and your Ptolemy tell you? Your Messahalah and your Longomontanus, your harmony of chiromancy with astrology. Ah! ”

“ I’ll not venture myself with a madman.
SCENE X. Sir Sampson, Valentine, Scandal, Jeremy.
VAL. Ha, ha, ha; you need not run so fast, honesty will not overtake you. Ha, ha, ha, the rogue found me out to be in forma pauperis presently.
SIR SAMP. Oons! What a vexation is here! I know not what to do, or say, nor which way to go.
VAL. Who’s that that’s out of his way? I am Truth, and can set him right. Harkee, friend, the straight road is the worst way you can go. He that follows his nose always, will very often be led into a stink. Probatum est. But what are you for? religion or politics? ”

“ Tattle meant the favour to me: I thank him.
TATT. I did, as I hope to be saved, madam; my intentions were good. But this is the most cruel thing, to marry one does not know how, nor why, nor wherefore. The devil take me if ever I was so much concerned at anything in my life.
ANG. ’Tis very unhappy, if you don’t care for one another.
TATT. The least in the world—that is for my part: I speak for myself. Gad, I never had the least thought of serious kindness.—I never liked anybody less in my life. Poor woman! Gad, I’m sorry for her too, for I have no reason to hate her neither ”