Thomas Congreve

“ Though satire scarce dares grin, 'tis grown so mild Or only shows its teeth, as if it smiled. As asses thistles, poets mumble wit, And dare not bite for fear of being bit: They hold their pens, as swords are held by fools, And are afraid to use their own edge-tools. ”

“ Forbear your wonder, and the fault forgive, If in our larger family we grieve One falling Adam and one tempted Eve. We who remain would gratefully repay What our endeavours can, and bring this day The first-fruit offering of a virgin play. ”

“ The husbandman in vain renews his toil To cultivate each year a hungry soil; And fondly hopes for rich and generous fruit, When what should feed the tree devours the root; Th' unladen boughs, he sees, bode certain dearth, Unless transplanted to more kindly earth. So the poor husbands of the stage, who found Their labours lost upon ungrateful ground, This last and only remedy have proved, And hope new fruit from ancient stocks removed. Well may they hope, when you so kindly aid, Well plant a soil which you so rich have made. ”

“ Sure scribbling fools, called poets, fare the worst:
For they're a sort of fools which fortune makes,
And, after she has made 'em fools, forsakes.
With Nature's oafs 'tis quite a diff'rent case,
For Fortune favours all her idiot race. ”

“ We hope there's something that may please each taste, And though of homely fare we make the feast, Yet you will find variety at least. There's humour, which for cheerful friends we got, And for the thinking party there's a plot. ”

“ May’st thou live long in thy great master’s smiles,
And growing under him, adorn these isles.
But when—when part of him (be that but late)
His body yielding must submit to fate,
Leaving his deathless works and thee behind
(The natural successor of his mind) ,
Then may’st thou finish what he has begun:
Heir to his merit, be in fame his son.
What thou hast done, shews all is in thy pow’r,
And to write better, only must write more. ”

“ Had the fact been as he stated it, the defence would be worth very little. For no man acquainted with human nature could think that a sententious couplet would undo all the mischief that five profligate acts had done. But it would have been wise in Congreve to have looked again at his own comedies before he used this argument. Collier did so, and found that the moral of the Old Bachelor, the grave apophthegm which is to be a set-off against all the libertinism of the piece, is contained in the following triplet:—
"What rugged ways attend the noon of life! ”

“ SCENE XV. MRS FORESIGHT, MRS FRAIL, VALENTINE, SCANDAL, FORESIGHT, and JEREMY.
SCAN. And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon him? [To JEREMY.]
JERE. Yes, sir; he says he'll favour it, and mistake her for Angelica.
SCAN. It may make us sport.
FORE. Mercy on us!
VAL. Husht--interrupt me not--I'll whisper prediction to thee, and thou shalt prophesy. I am Truth, and can teach thy tongue a new trick. I have told thee what's past,--now I'll tell what's to come. Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow?--Answer me not--for I will tell thee. ”

“ SIR PAUL. You’ll scarcely believe me when I shall tell you—my lady is so nice. It’s very strange, but it’s true; too true—she’s so very nice, that I don’t believe she would touch a man for the world. At least not above once a year; I’m sure I have found it so; and, alas, what’s once a year to an old man, who would do good in his generation? Indeed it’s true, Mr. Careless, it breaks my heart. I am her husband, as I may say; though far unworthy of that honour, yet I am her husband ”

“ Not to anticipate a later division of the subject, it may be said here that a man of thirty, of a fine intellect and a fine taste, of a languid habit withal, and with an invalided constitution, while he might repeat the triumphs of diction and intellect of The Way of the World, was most unlikely to return to the broader humours and the more popular gaiety of the other play. Congreve, like Rochester before him, despised the judgment of the town in these matters, but by the town he would have to be judged. ”

“ Vainlove, I suppose you know whom I have got—now, but all’s forgiven.
VAIN. I know whom you have not got; pray ladies convince him. [Aram. and Belin. unmask.]
SIR JO. Ah! oh Lord, my heart aches. Ah! Setter, a rogue of all sides.
SHARP. Sir Joseph, you had better have pre-engaged this gentleman’s pardon: for though Vainlove be so generous to forgive the loss of his mistress, I know not how Heartwell may take the loss of his wife. [Sylvia unmasks.]
HEART. My wife! By this light ’tis she, the very cockatrice. O Sharper! Let me embrace thee. But art thou sure she is really married to him? ”

“ LORD TOUCHWOOD, LORD FROTH, SIR PAUL PLYANT, and BRISK.
LORD TOUCH. Out upon’t, nephew. Leave your father-in-law and me to maintain our ground against young people!
MEL. I beg your lordship’s pardon. We were just returning.
SIR PAUL. Were you, son? Gadsbud, much better as it is. Good, strange! I swear I’m almost tipsy; t’other bottle would have been too powerful for me,—as sure as can be it would. We wanted your company, but Mr. Brisk—where is he? I swear and vow he’s a most facetious person, and the best company. And, my Lord Froth, your lordship is so merry a man, he, he, he. ”

“ Here they come: I’ll leave you. Ply her close, and by and by clap a billet doux into her hand; for a woman never thinks a man truly in love with her, till he has been fool enough to think of her out of her sight, and to lose so much time as to write to her.
SCENE VI. CARELESS, SIR PAUL, and LADY PLYANT.
SIR PAUL. Shan’t we disturb your meditation, Mr. Careless? You would be private?
CARE. You bring that along with you, Sir Paul, that shall be always welcome to my privacy.
SIR PAUL. O sweet sir, you load your humble servants, both me and my wife, with continual favours. ”

“ SCENE VII. MRS. MILLAMANT, MRS. FAINALL.
MRS. FAIN. Yonder Sir Wilfull's drunk, and so noisy that my mother has been forced to leave Sir Rowland to appease him; but he answers her only with singing and drinking. What they may have done by this time I know not, but Petulant and he were upon quarrelling as I came by.
MILLA. Well, if Mirabell should not make a good husband, I am a lost thing: for I find I love him violently.
MRS. FAIN. So it seems; for you mind not what's said to you. If you doubt him, you had best take up with Sir Wilfull. ”

“ MEL. For my Lord Froth, he and his wife will be sufficiently taken up with admiring one another and Brisk’s gallantry, as they call it. I’ll observe my uncle myself, and Jack Maskwell has promised me to watch my aunt narrowly, and give me notice upon any suspicion. As for Sir Paul, my wise father-in-law that is to be, my dear Cynthia has such a share in his fatherly fondness, he would scarce make her a moment uneasy to have her happy hereafter.
CARE. So you have manned your works; but I wish you may not have the weakest guard where the enemy is strongest. ”

“ SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, she’s a fine person.
LADY PLYANT. O Lord! sir, pardon me, we women have not those advantages; I know my imperfections. But at the same time you must give me leave to declare in the face of the world that nobody is more sensible of favours and things; for with the reserve of my honour I assure you, Mr. Careless, I don’t know anything in the world I would refuse to a person so meritorious. ”

“ SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, I am transported! Give me leave to kiss your ladyship’s hand.
CYNT. That my poor father should be so very silly! [Aside.]
LADY PLYANT. My lip indeed, Sir Paul, I swear you shall. [He kisses her, and bows very low.]
SIR PAUL. I humbly thank your ladyship. I don’t know whether I fly on ground, or walk in air. Gads-bud, she was never thus before. Well, I must own myself the most beholden to Mr. Careless. As sure as can be, this is all his doing, something that he has said; well, ’tis a rare thing to have an ingenious friend. ”

“ 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. Your brother will be in town to-night or to-morrow morning, and then look you perform covenants, and so your friend and servant: --come, brother Foresight.
SCENE VIII. VALENTINE, JEREMY.
JERE. I told you what your visit would come to.
VAL. 'Tis as much as I expected. I did not come to see him, I came to see Angelica: but since she was gone abroad, it was easily turned another way, and at least looked well on my side. What's here? Mrs Foresight and Mrs Frail, they are earnest. ”

“ WIT. Ay, ay, but that was but for a while. Not long, not long; pshaw, I was not in my own power then. An orphan, and this fellow was my guardian; ay, ay, I was glad to consent to that man to come to London. He had the disposal of me then. If I had not agreed to that, I might have been bound prentice to a feltmaker in Shrewsbury: this fellow would have bound me to a maker of felts.
SIR WIL. ’Sheart, and better than to be bound to a maker of fops, where, I suppose, you have served your time, and now you may set up for yourself.
MRS. MAR. You intend to travel, sir, as I’m informed? ”

“ SIR PAUL. Merry, gads-bud, I’m serious; I’ll give thee five hundred pounds for every inch of him that resembles me; ah, this eye, this left eye! A thousand pounds for this left eye. This has done execution in its time, girl; why, thou hast my leer, hussey, just thy father’s leer. Let it be transmitted to the young rogue by the help of imagination; why, ’tis the mark of our family, Thy; our house is distinguished by a languishing eye, as the house of Austria is by a thick lip. ”

“ JERE. But, sir, is this the way to recover your father's favour? Why, Sir Sampson will be irreconcilable. If your younger brother should come from sea, he'd never look upon you again. You're undone, sir; you're ruined; you won't have a friend left in the world if you turn poet. Ah, pox confound that Will's coffee-house: it has ruined more young men than the Royal Oak lottery. Nothing thrives that belongs to't. ”

“ Since women love to change, and so do we.
No more, for I am melancholy. [Walks musing.]
JERE. I'll do't, sir. [To SCANDAL.]
SCAN. Mr Foresight, we had best leave him. He may grow outrageous, and do mischief.
FORE. I will be directed by you.
JERE. [To MRS FRAIL.] You'll meet, madam? I'll take care everything shall be ready.
MRS FRAIL. Thou shalt do what thou wilt; in short, I will deny thee nothing.
TATT. Madam, shall I wait upon you? [To ANGELICA.]
ANG. No, I'll stay with him; Mr Scandal will protect me. Aunt, Mr Tattle desires you would give him leave to wait on you. ”

“ CYNT. ’Tis my interest to believe he will, my Lord.
LORD FROTH. D’ye think he’ll love you as well as I do my wife? I’m afraid not.
CYNT. I believe he’ll love me better.
LORD FROTH. Heav’ns! that can never be. But why do you think so?
CYNT. Because he has not so much reason to be fond of himself.
LORD FROTH. Oh, your humble servant for that, dear madam. Well, Mellefont, you’ll be a happy creature.
MEL. Ay, my lord, I shall have the same reason for my happiness that your lordship has, I shall think myself happy.
LORD FROTH. Ah, that’s all.
BRISK. [To Lady Froth.] Your ladyship is in the right ”

“ 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? ”

“ I am no blab, sir.
VAL. Acquaint Jeremy with it, he may easily bring it about. They are welcome, and I'll tell 'em so myself. [To SCANDAL.] What, do you look strange upon me? Then I must be plain. [Coming up to them.] I am Truth, and hate an old acquaintance with a new face. [SCANDAL goes aside with JEREMY.]
TATT. Do you know me, Valentine?
VAL. You? Who are you? No, I hope not.
TATT. I am Jack Tattle, your friend.
VAL. My friend, what to do? I am no married man, and thou canst not lie with my wife. I am very poor, and thou canst not borrow money of me. ”

“ William Congreve's career as a playwright ends at the early age of thirty.
But though he abandoned the drama, he was not allowed to retire in peace. There was a certain worthy, but peppery little man, who, though a Jacobite and a clergyman, was stanch and true, and as superior in character—even, indeed, in vigour of writing—to Congreve, as Somers was to every man of his age. This very Jeremy Collier, to whom we owe it that there is any English drama fit to be acted before our sisters and wives in the present day. ”

“ Well, now, Sir Paul, what do you think of your friend Careless? Has he been treacherous, or did you give his insolence a licence to make trial of your wife’s suspected virtue? D’ye see here? [Snatches the letter as in anger.] Look, read it. Gads my life, if I thought it were so, I would this moment renounce all communication with you. Ungrateful monster! He? is it so? Ay, I see it, a plot upon my honour; your guilty cheeks confess it. Oh, where shall wronged virtue fly for reparation? I’ll be divorced this instant.
SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, what shall I say? This is the strangest surprise. ”

“ MRS FRAIL. I shall get a fine reputation by coming to see fellows in a morning. Scandal, you devil, are you here too? Oh, Mr Tattle, everything is safe with you, we know.
SCAN. Tattle -
TATT. Mum. O madam, you do me too much honour.
VAL. Well, Lady Galloper, how does Angelica?
MRS FRAIL. Angelica? Manners!
VAL. What, you will allow an absent lover -
MRS FRAIL. No, I'll allow a lover present with his mistress to be particular; but otherwise, I think his passion ought to give place to his manners.
VAL. But what if he has more passion than manners? ”