Complete Works of William Congreve

by William Congreve

  BRISK. I suppose that’s because you laugh at your own jests, i’gad, ha, ha, ha.

  LORD FROTH. He, he, I swear though, your raillery provokes me to a smile.

  BRISK. Ay, my lord, it’s a sign I hit you in the teeth, if you show ’em.

  LORD FROTH. He, he, he, I swear that’s so very pretty, I can’t forbear.

  CARE. I find a quibble bears more sway in your lordship’s face than a jest.

  LORD TOUCH. Sir Paul, if you please we’ll retire to the ladies, and drink a dish of tea to settle our heads.

  SIR PAUL. With all my heart. Mr. Brisk, you’ll come to us, or call me when you joke; I’ll be ready to laugh incontinently.

  SCENE V.

  Mellefont, Careless, Lord Froth, Brisk.

  MEL. But does your lordship never see comedies?

  LORD FROTH. Oh yes, sometimes; but I never laugh.

  MEL. No?

  LORD FROTH. Oh no; never laugh indeed, sir.

  CARE. No! why, what d’ye go there for?

  LORD FROTH. To distinguish myself from the commonalty and mortify the poets; the fellows grow so conceited, when any of their foolish wit prevails upon the side-boxes. I swear, — he, he, he, I have often constrained my inclinations to laugh, — he, he, he, to avoid giving them encouragement.

  MEL. You are cruel to yourself, my lord, as well as malicious to them.

  LORD FROTH. I confess I did myself some violence at first, but now I think I have conquered it.

  BRISK. Let me perish, my lord, but there is something very particular in the humour; ’tis true it makes against wit, and I’m sorry for some friends of mine that write; but, i’gad, I love to be malicious. Nay, deuce take me, there’s wit in’t, too. And wit must be foiled by wit; cut a diamond with a diamond, no other way, i’gad.

  LORD FROTH. Oh, I thought you would not be long before you found out the wit.

  CARE. Wit! In what? Where the devil’s the wit in not laughing when a man has a mind to’t?

  BRISK. O Lord, why can’t you find it out? Why, there ’tis, in the not laughing. Don’t you apprehend me? My lord, Careless is a very honest fellow, but harkee, you understand me, somewhat heavy, a little shallow, or so. Why, I’ll tell you now, suppose now you come up to me — nay, prithee, Careless, be instructed. Suppose, as I was saying, you come up to me holding your sides, and laughing as if you would — well — I look grave, and ask the cause of this immoderate mirth. You laugh on still, and are not able to tell me, still I look grave, not so much as smile.

  CARE. Smile, no, what the devil should you smile at, when you suppose I can’t tell you!

  BRISK. Pshaw, pshaw, prithee don’t interrupt me. But I tell you, you shall tell me at last, but it shall be a great while first.

  CARE. Well, but prithee don’t let it be a great while, because I long to have it over.

  BRISK. Well then, you tell me some good jest or some very witty thing, laughing all the while as if you were ready to die, and I hear it, and look thus. Would not you be disappointed?

  CARE. No; for if it were a witty thing I should not expect you to understand it.

  LORD FROTH. Oh, foy, Mr. Careless, all the world allows Mr. Brisk to have wit; my wife says he has a great deal. I hope you think her a judge.

  BRISK. Pooh, my lord, his voice goes for nothing; I can’t tell how to make him apprehend. Take it t’other way. Suppose I say a witty thing to you?

  CARE. Then I shall be disappointed indeed.

  MEL. Let him alone, Brisk, he is obstinately bent not to be instructed.

  BRISK. I’m sorry for him, the deuce take me.

  MEL. Shall we go to the ladies, my lord?

  LORD FROTH. With all my heart; methinks we are a solitude without ’em.

  MEL. Or what say you to another bottle of champagne?

  LORD FROTH. Oh, for the universe not a drop more, I beseech you. Oh, intemperate! I have a flushing in my face already. [Takes out a pocket-glass and looks in it.]

  BRISK. Let me see, let me see, my lord, I broke my glass that was in the lid of my snuff-box. Hum! Deuce take me, I have encouraged a pimple here too. [Takes the glass and looks.]

  LORD FROTH. Then you must mortify him with a patch; my wife shall supply you. Come, gentlemen, allons, here is company coming.

  SCENE VI.

  Lady Touchwood and Maskwell.

  LADY TOUCH. I’ll hear no more. You are false and ungrateful; come, I know you false.

  MASK. I have been frail, I confess, madam, for your ladyship’s service.

  LADY TOUCH. That I should trust a man whom I had known betray his friend!

  MASK. What friend have I betrayed? or to whom?

  LADY TOUCH. Your fond friend Mellefont, and to me; can you deny it?

  MASK. I do not.

  LADY TOUCH. Have you not wronged my lord, who has been a father to you in your wants, and given you being? Have you not wronged him in the highest manner, in his bed?

  MASK. With your ladyship’s help, and for your service, as I told you before. I can’t deny that neither. Anything more, madam?

  LADY TOUCH. More! Audacious villain! Oh, what’s more, is most my shame. Have you not dishonoured me?

  MASK. No, that I deny; for I never told in all my life: so that accusation’s answered; on to the next.

  LADY TOUCH. Death, do you dally with my passion? Insolent devil! But have a care, — provoke me not; for, by the eternal fire, you shall not ‘scape my vengeance. Calm villain! How unconcerned he stands, confessing treachery and ingratitude! Is there a vice more black? Oh, I have excuses thousands for my faults; fire in my temper, passions in my soul, apt to ev’ry provocation, oppressed at once with love, and with despair. But a sedate, a thinking villain, whose black blood runs temperately bad, what excuse can clear?

  MASK. Will you be in temper, madam? I would not talk not to be heard. I have been [she walks about disordered] a very great rogue for your sake, and you reproach me with it; I am ready to be a rogue still, to do you service; and you are flinging conscience and honour in my face, to rebate my inclinations. How am I to behave myself? You know I am your creature, my life and fortune in your power; to disoblige you brings me certain ruin. Allow it I would betray you, I would not be a traitor to myself: I don’t pretend to honesty, because you know I am a rascal; but I would convince you from the necessity of my being firm to you.

  LADY TOUCH. Necessity, impudence! Can no gratitude incline you, no obligations touch you? Have not my fortune and my person been subjected to your pleasure? Were you not in the nature of a servant, and have not I in effect made you lord of all, of me, and of my lord? Where is that humble love, the languishing, that adoration, which once was paid me, and everlastingly engaged?

  MASK. Fixt, rooted in my heart, whence nothing can remove ’em, yet you —

  LADY TOUCH. Yet, what yet?

  MASK. Nay, misconceive me not, madam, when I say I have had a gen’rous and a faithful passion, which you had never favoured, but through revenge and policy.

  LADY TOUCH. Ha!

  MASK. Look you, madam, we are alone, — pray contain yourself and hear me. You know you loved your nephew when I first sighed for you; I quickly found it: an argument that I loved, for with that art you veiled your passion ’twas imperceptible to all but jealous eyes. This discovery made me bold; I confess it; for by it I thought you in my power. Your nephew’s scorn of you added to my hopes; I watched the occasion, and took you, just repulsed by him, warm at once with love and indignation; your disposition, my arguments, and happy opportunity accomplished my design; I pressed the yielding minute, and was blest. How I have loved you since, words have not shown, then how should words express?

  LADY TOUCH. Well, mollifying devil! And have I not met your love with forward fire?

  MASK. Your zeal, I grant, was ardent, but misplaced; there was revenge in view; that woman’s idol had defiled the temple of the god, and love was made a mock-worship. A son and heir would have edged young Mellefont upon the brink of ruin, and left him none but you
to catch at for prevention.

  LADY TOUCH. Again provoke me! Do you wind me like a larum, only to rouse my own stilled soul for your diversion? Confusion!

  MASK. Nay, madam, I’m gone, if you relapse. What needs this? I say nothing but what you yourself, in open hours of love, have told me. Why should you deny it? Nay, how can you? Is not all this present heat owing to the same fire? Do you not love him still? How have I this day offended you, but in not breaking off his match with Cynthia? which, ere to-morrow, shall be done, had you but patience.

  LADY TOUCH. How, what said you, Maskwell? Another caprice to unwind my temper?

  MASK. By heav’n, no; I am your slave, the slave of all your pleasures; and will not rest till I have given you peace, would you suffer me.

  LADY TOUCH. O Maskwell! in vain I do disguise me from thee, thou know’st me, knowest the very inmost windings and recesses of my soul. O Mellefont! I burn; married to morrow! Despair strikes me. Yet my soul knows I hate him too: let him but once be mine, and next immediate ruin seize him.

  MASK. Compose yourself, you shall possess and ruin him too, — will that please you?

  LADY TOUCH. How, how? Thou dear, thou precious villain, how?

  MASK. You have already been tampering with my Lady Plyant.

  LADY TOUCH. I have: she is ready for any impression I think fit.

  MASK. She must be throughly persuaded that Mellefont loves her.

  LADY TOUCH. She is so credulous that way naturally, and likes him so well, that she will believe it faster than I can persuade her. But I don’t see what you can propose from such a trifling design, for her first conversing with Mellefont will convince her of the contrary.

  MASK. I know it. I don’t depend upon it. But it will prepare something else, and gain us leisure to lay a stronger plot. If I gain a little time, I shall not want contrivance.

  One minute gives invention to destroy,

  What to rebuild will a whole age employ.

  ACT II.

  SCENE I.

  Lady Froth and Cynthia.

  CYNT. Indeed, madam! Is it possible your ladyship could have been so much in love?

  LADY FROTH. I could not sleep; I did not sleep one wink for three weeks together.

  CYNT. Prodigious! I wonder want of sleep, and so much love and so much wit as your ladyship has, did not turn your brain.

  LADY FROTH. Oh, my dear Cynthia, you must not rally your friend. But really, as you say, I wonder too. But then I had a way. For, between you and I, I had whimsies and vapours, but I gave them vent.

  CYNT. How, pray, madam?

  LADY FROTH. Oh, I writ, writ abundantly. Do you never write?

  CYNT. Write what?

  LADY FROTH. Songs, elegies, satires, encomiums, panegyrics, lampoons, plays, or heroic poems?

  CYNT. O Lord, not I, madam; I’m content to be a courteous reader.

  LADY FROTH. Oh, inconsistent! In love and not write! If my lord and I had been both of your temper, we had never come together. Oh, bless me! What a sad thing would that have been, if my lord and I should never have met!

  CYNT. Then neither my lord nor you would ever have met with your match, on my conscience.

  LADY FROTH. O’ my conscience, no more we should; thou say’st right. For sure my Lord Froth is as fine a gentleman and as much a man of quality! Ah! nothing at all of the common air. I think I may say he wants nothing but a blue ribbon and a star to make him shine, the very phosphorus of our hemisphere. Do you understand those two hard words? If you don’t, I’ll explain ’em to you.

  CYNT. Yes, yes, madam, I’m not so ignorant. — At least I won’t own it, to be troubled with your instructions. [Aside.]

  LADY FROTH. Nay, I beg your pardon; but being derived from the Greek, I thought you might have escaped the etymology. But I’m the more amazed to find you a woman of letters and not write! Bless me! how can Mellefont believe you love him?

  CYNT. Why, faith, madam, he that won’t take my word shall never have it under my hand.

  LADY FROTH. I vow Mellefont’s a pretty gentleman, but methinks he wants a manner.

  CYNT. A manner! What’s that, madam?

  LADY FROTH. Some distinguishing quality, as, for example, the bel air or brillant of Mr. Brisk; the solemnity, yet complaisance of my lord, or something of his own that should look a little Je-ne-sais-quoish; he is too much a mediocrity, in my mind.

  CYNT. He does not indeed affect either pertness or formality; for which I like him. Here he comes.

  LADY FROTH. And my lord with him. Pray observe the difference.

  SCENE II.

  [To them] Lord Froth, Mellefont, and Brisk.

  CYNT. Impertinent creature! I could almost be angry with her now. [Aside.]

  LADY FROTH. My lord, I have been telling Cynthia how much I have been in love with you; I swear I have; I’m not ashamed to own it now. Ah! it makes my heart leap, I vow I sigh when I think on’t. My dear lord! Ha, ha, ha, do you remember, my lord? [Squeezes him by the hand, looks kindly on him, sighs, and then laughs out.]

  LORD FROTH. Pleasant creature! perfectly well, ah! that look, ay, there it is; who could resist? ’twas so my heart was made a captive first, and ever since t’has been in love with happy slavery.

  LADY FROTH. Oh, that tongue, that dear deceitful tongue! that charming softness in your mien and your expression, and then your bow! Good my lord, bow as you did when I gave you my picture; here, suppose this my picture. [Gives him a pocket-glass.] Pray mind, my lord; ah! he bows charmingly; nay, my lord, you shan’t kiss it so much; I shall grow jealous, I vow now. [He bows profoundly low, then kisses the glass.]

  LORD FROTH. I saw myself there, and kissed it for your sake.

  LADY FROTH. Ah! Gallantry to the last degree. Mr. Brisk, you’re a judge; was ever anything so well bred as my lord?

  BRISK. Never anything, but your ladyship; let me perish.

  LADY FROTH. Oh, prettily turned again; let me die, but you have a great deal of wit. Mr. Mellefont, don’t you think Mr. Brisk has a world of wit?

  MEL. O yes, madam.

  BRISK. O dear, madam —

  LADY FROTH. An infinite deal!

  BRISK. O heav’ns, madam —

  LADY FROTH. More wit than anybody.

  BRISK. I’m everlastingly your humble servant, deuce take me, madam.

  LORD FROTH. Don’t you think us a happy couple?

  CYNT. I vow, my lord, I think you the happiest couple in the world, for you’re not only happy in one another, and when you are together, but happy in yourselves, and by yourselves.

  LORD FROTH. I hope Mellefont will make a good husband too.

  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; but, i’gad, I’m wholly turned into satire. I confess I write but seldom, but when I do — keen iambics, i’gad. But my lord was telling me your ladyship has made an essay toward an heroic poem.

  LADY FROTH. Did my lord tell you? Yes, I vow, and the subject is my lord’s love to me. And what do you think I call it? I dare swear you won’t guess — The Sillabub, ha, ha, ha.

  BRISK. Because my lord’s title’s Froth, i’gad, ha, ha, ha, deuce take me, very à propos and surprising, ha, ha, ha.

  LADY FROTH. He, ay, is not it? And then I call my lord Spumoso; and myself, what d’ye think I call myself?

  BRISK. Lactilla, may be, — i’gad, I cannot tell.

  LADY FROTH.
Biddy, that’s all; just my own name.