The English Theatre owes this farce to an accident not unlike that which gave it to the French. And I wish I had been as able to preserve the spirit of Molière, as I have, in translating it, fallen short even of that very little time he allowed himself in writing it; however, the candour of its audiences hath given me no reason to repent or be ashamed of my undertaking, as perhaps, when I have returned what is due to Molière, and to the performers, I shall have very little cause of triumph from it.
The applause our Mock Doctor received on the theatre admits of no addition from my pen. I shall only congratulate the town on the lively hope they may entertain of having the loss, they are one day to suffer in the father, so well supplied in the son.
But I cannot, when I mention the rising glories of the theatre, omit one, who, though she owes little advantage to the part of Dorcas, hath already convinced the best judges of her admirable genius for the stage: she hath sufficiently shown in the Old Debauchees that her capacity is not confined to a song; and I dare swear they will shortly own her able to do justice to characters of a much greater consequence.
One pleasure I enjoy from the success of this piece is a prospect of transplanting successfully some others of Molière of great value. How I have done this, any English reader may be satisfied by examining an exact literal translation of the Médecin malgré Lui, which is the second in the second volume of Select Comedies of Molière.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
MEN
SIR JASPER — Mr. Shepherd.
LEANDER — Mr. Stopelaer.
GREGORY — Mr. Cibber, Jun.
ROBERT — Mr. Jones.
JAMES — Mr. Mullart.
HARRY — Mr. Roberts.
DAVY —— Mr. Jones.
HELLEBORE — Mr. Roberts.
WOMEN
DORCAS — Miss Raftor.
CHARLOTTE — Miss Williams.
MAID — Mrs. Mears.
SCENE — Partly in a Country-town, and partly in a Wood.
SCENE I.
A Wood.
DORCAS, GREGORY.
GREGORY. I tell you no, I won’t comply, and it is my business to talk, and to command.
DORCAS. And I tell you, you shall confirm to my will; and that I was not married to you to suffer your ill-humours.
GREGORY. O the intolerable fatigue of matrimony! Aristotle never said a better thing in his life, than when he told us, “That a wife is worse than a devil.”
DORCAS. Hear the learned gentleman with his Aristotle!
GREGORY. And a learned man I am too; find me out a maker of fagots that’s able, like myself, to reason upon things, or that can boast such an education as mine.
DORCAS. An education!
GREGORY. Ay, hussy, a regular education; first at the charity-school, where I learnt to read; then I waited on a gentleman at Oxford, where I learnt — very near as much as my master; from whence I attended a travelling physician six years, under the factious denomination of a MerryAndrew, where I learnt physic.
DORCAS. O that thou hadst followed him still! Cursed be the hour wherein I ered the parson, “I will.”
GREGORY. And cursed be the parson that asked me the question!
DORCAS. Yon have reason to complain of him, indeed, who ought to be on your knees every moment returning thanks to Heaven for that great blessing it sent you, when it sent you myself. I hope you have not the assurance to think you deserved such a wife as me.
GREGORY. No, really, I don’t think I do.
AIR I. Bessy Bell.
DOR. When a lady, like me, condescends to agree
To let such a jackanapes taste her,
With what zeal and care should he worship the fair,
Who gives him — what ‘s meat for his master?
His actions should still
Attend on her will,
Hear, sirrah, and take it for warning;
To her he should be
Each night on his knee,
And so he should be on each morning.
GREGORY. Meat for my master! you were meat for your master, if I ain’t mistaken; for, to one of our shames be it spoken, you rose as good a virgin from me as you went to bed. Come, come, madam, it was a lucky day for you when you found me out.
DORCAS. Lucky indeed! a fellow who eats every thing I have.
GREGORY. That happens to be a mistake, for I drink some part on’t.
DORCAS. That has not even left me a bed to lie on.
GREGORY. You’ll rise the earlier.
DORCAS. And who from morning till night is eternally in an alehouse.
GREGORY. It’s genteel, the squire does the same.
DORCAS. Pray, sir, what are you willing I shall do with my family?
GREGORY. Whatever you please.
DORCAS. My four little children that are continually crying for bread?
GREGORY. Give ‘em a rod! best cure in the world for crying children.
DORCAS. And do you imagine, sot —
GREGORY. Harkye, my dear, you know my temper is not over and above passive, and that my arm is extremely active.
DORCAS. I laugh at your threats, poor beggarly, insolent, fellow.
GREGORY. Soft object of my wishing eyes, I shall play with your pretty ears.
DORCAS. Touch me if you dare, you insolent, impudent, dirty, lazy, rascally —
GREGORY. Oh, ho, ho! you will have it then, I find.
[Beats her.
DORCAS. Oh, murder! murder!
SCENE II.
GREGORY, DORCAS, SQUIRE ROBERT.
ROBERT. What’s the matter here? Fie upon you! fie upon you, neighbour, to beat your wife in this scandalous manner.
DORCAS. Well, sir, and I have a mind to be beat, and what then?
ROBERT. O dear, madam! I give my consent with all my heart and soul.
DORCAS. What’s that to you, saucebox? Is it any business of yours?
ROBERT. No, certainly, madam.
DORCAS. Here’s an impertinent fellow for you, won’t suffer a husband to beat his own wife.
AIR II. Winchester Wedding.
Go thrash your own rib, sir, at home,
Nor thus interfere with our strife;
May cuckoldom still be his doom,
Who strives to part husband and wife.
Suppose I’ve a mind he should drub,
Whose bones are they, sir, he’s to lick?
At whose expense is it, you scrub?
You are not to find him a stick.
ROBERT. Neighbour, I ask your pardon heartily; here, take and thrash your wife, beat her as you ought to do.
GREGORY. No, sir, I won’t beat her.
ROBERT. Oh! sir, that’s another thing.
GREGORY. I’ll beat her when I please, and will not beat her when I do not please. She is my wife, and not yours.
ROBERT. Certainly.
DORCAS. Give me the stick, dear husband.
ROBERT. Well, if ever I attempt to part husband and wife again, may I be beaten myself.
SCENE III.
GREGORY, DORCAS.
GREGORY. Come, my dear, let us be friends.
DORCAS. What, after beating me so!
GREGORY. ‘Twas but in jest.
DORCAS. I desire you will crack your jests on your own bones, not on mine.
GREGORY. Pshaw! you know, you and I are one, and I beat one half of myself when I beat you.
DORCAS. Yes, but, for the future, I desire you will beat the other half of yourself.
GREGORY. Come, my pretty dear, I ask pardon, I’m sorry for’t.
DORCAS. For once I pardon you — but you shall pay for it.
GREGORY. Pshaw! pshaw! child, these are only little affairs, necessary in friendship; four or five good blows with a cudgel between your very fond couples only tend to heighten the affections. I’ll now to the wood, and I promise thee to make a hundred fagots before I come home again.
DORCAS. If I am not revenged on those blows of yours! — Oh that I could but think of some method to be
revenged on him! Hang the rogue, he’s quite insensible of cuckoldom.
AIR III. Oh, London is a fine town.
In ancient days I’ve heard with horns
The wife her spouse could fright,
Which now the hero bravely scorns,
So common is the sight.
To city, country, camp, or court,
Or wheresoe’er he go,
No horned brother dares make sport,
They’re cuckolds all arow.
Oh that I could find out some invention to get him well drubbed!
SCENE IV.
HARRY, JAMES, DORCAS.
HARRY. Were ever two fools sent on such a message as we are, in quest of a dumb doctor?
JAMES. Blame your own cursed memory that made you forget his name. For my part, I’ll travel through the world rather than return without him; that were as much as a limb or two were worth.
HARRY. Was ever such a cursed misfortune! to lose the letter? I should not even know his name if I were to hear it.
DORCAS. Can I find no invention to be revenged? — Heyday! who are these?
JAMES. Harkye, mistress, do you know where — where — where Doctor What-d’ye-call him lives?
DORCAS. Doctor who?
JAMES. Doctor — Doctor — what’s his name?
DORCAS. Hey! what, has the fellow a mind to banter me?
HARRY. Is there no physician hereabouts famous for curing dumbness?
DORCAS. I fancy you have no need of such a physician, Mr. Impertinence.
HARRY. Don’t mistake us, good woman, we don’t mean to banter you; we are sent by our master, whose daughter has lost her speech, for a certain physician who lives hereabouts; we have lost our direction, and ‘Tis as much as our lives are worth to return without him.
DORCAS. There is one Doctor Lazy lives just by, but he has left off practising. You would not get him a mile to save the lives of a thousand patients.
JAMES. Direct us but to him; we’ll bring him with us, one way or other, I warrant you.
HARRY. Ay, ay, we’ll have him with us, though we carry him on our backs.
DORCAS. Ha! Heaven has inspired me with one of the most admirable inventions to be revenged on my hangdog! [Aside.] I assure you, if you can get him with you, he’ll do your young lady’s business for her; he’s reckoned one of the best physicians in the world, especially for dumbness.
HARRY. Pray tell us where he lives.
DORCAS. You’ll never be able to get him out of his own house; but if you watch hereabouts you’ll certainly meet with him, for he very often amuses himself with cutting wood.
HARRY. A physician cut wood!
JAMES. I suppose he amuses himself in searching after herbs, you mean.
DORCAS. No, he’s one of the most extraordinary men in the world: he goes dressed like a common clown; for there is nothing he so much dreads as to be known for a physician.
JAMES. All your great men have some strange oddities about ‘em.
DORCAS. Why, he will suffer himself to be beat, before he will own himself a physician — and I’ll give you my word, you’ll never make him own himself one, unless you both of you take a good cudgel, and thrash him into it; ‘Tis what we are all forced to do, when we have any need of him.
JAMES. What a ridiculous whim is here!
DORCAS. Very true, and in so great a man.
JAMES. And is he so very skilful a man?
DORCAS. Skilful! why he does miracles. About half a year ago a woman was given over by all her physicians, nay, she had been dead for some time; when this great man came to her, as soon as he saw her he poured a little drop of something down her throat — he had no sooner done it than she got out of her bed, and walked about the room as if there had been nothing the matter with her.
BOTH. Oh prodigious!
DORCAS. ‘Tis not above three weeks ago that a child of twelve years old fell from the top of a house to the bottom, and broke its skull, its arms, and legs. Our physician was no sooner drubbed into making him a visit, than, having rubbed the child all over with a certain ointment, it got upon its legs, and ran away to play.
BOTH. Oh most wonderful!
HARRY. Hey! Gad, James, we’ll drub him out of a pot of this ointment.
JAMES. But can he cure dumbness?
DORCAS. Dumbness! why the curate of our parish’s wife was born dumb, and the Doctor, with a sort of wash, washed her tongue till he set it a-going so, that in less than a month’s time she out-talked her husband.
HARRY. This must be the very man we were sent after.
DORCAS. Yonder is the very man I speak of.
JAMES. What, that he, yonder?
DORCAS. The very same —— He has spied us, and taken up his bill.
JAMES. Come, Harry, don’t let us lose one moment. Mistress, your servant; we give you ten thousand thanks for this favour.
DORCAS. Be sure and make good use of your sticks.
JAMES. He sha’n’t want that.
SCENE V
Another part of the Wood.
JAMES, HARRY, GREGORY.
GREGORY. Pox on’t! ‘Tis most confounded hot weather. Hey! who have we here?
JAMES. Sir, your most obedient humble servant.
GREGORY. Sir, your servant.
JAMES. We are mighty happy in finding you here —
GREGORY. Ay, like enough.
JAMES. ‘Tis in your power, sir, to do us a very great favour. We come, sir, to implore your assistance in a certain affair.
GREGORY. If it be in my power to give you any assistance, masters, I’m very ready to do it.
JAMES. Sir, you are extremely obliging —— But, dear sir, let me beg you’d be covered; the sun will hurt your complexion.
HARRY. For Heaven’s sake, sir, be covered.
GREGORY. These should be footmen by their dress; but should be courtiers by their ceremony. [Aside.
JAMES. You must not think it strange, sir, that we come thus to seek after you: men of your capacity will be sought after by the whole world.
GREGORY. Truly, gentlemen, though I say it that should not say it, I have a pretty good hand at a fagot.
JAMES. O dear sir!
GREGORY. You may, perhaps, buy fagots cheaper otherwhere; but if you find such in all this country, you shall have mine for nothing. To make but one word then with you, you shall have mine for ten shillings a hundred.
JAMES. Don’t talk in that manner, I desire you.
GREGORY. I could not sell ‘em a penny cheaper, if ‘twas to my father.
JAMES. Dear sir, we know you very well — don’t jest with us in this manner.
GREGORY. Faith, master, I am so much in earnest, that I can’t bate one farthing.
JAMES. O pray, sir, leave this idle discourse. — Can a person like you, amuse himself in this manner? Can a learned and famous physician, like you, try to disguise himself to the world, and bury such fine talents in the woods?
GREGORY. The fellow’s a fool.
JAMES. Let me entreat you, sir, not to dissemble with us.
HARRY. It is in vain, sir, we know what you are.
GREGORY. Know what you are! what do you know of me?
JAMES. Why, we know you, sir, to be a very great physician.
GREGORY. Physician in your teeth! I a physician?
JAMES. The fit is on him. — Sir, let me beseech you to conceal yourself no longer, and oblige us to — you know what.
GREGORY. Devil take me, if I know what, sir. — But I know this, that I’m no physician.
JAMES. We must proceed to the usual remedy, I find. — And so you are no physician?
GREGORY. No.
JAMES. You are no physician?
GREGORY. No, I tell you.
JAMES. Well, if we must, we must. [Beat him.
GREGORY. Oh! oh! gentlemen! gentlemen! What are you doing? I am — I am — whatever you please to have me.
JAMES. Why will you oblige us, sir, to this violence?
HARRY. Why will you force us to
this troublesome remedy?
JAMES. I assure you, sir, it gives me a great deal of pain.
GREGORY. I assure you, sir, and so it does me. But pray, gentlemen, what is the reason that you have a mind to make a physician of me?
JAMES. What! do you deny your being a physician again?
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 296
