Alexander Pope - Delphi Poets Series

by Alexander Pope

  Clink. Oh! beyond every thing. So adapted for tragical machines! so proper to excite the passions! not in the least encumber’d with episodes! the vraysemblance and the miraculous are linkt together with such propriety.

  Town. But the subject, madam?

  Clink. The universal Deluge, I chose that of Deucalion and Pyrrha, because neither our stage nor actors are hallow’d enough for sacred story.

  Plot. But, madam ——

  [To Townley.

  Clink. What just occasion for noble description! these players are exceeding dilatory.

  — In the mean time, Sir, shall I be oblig’d to you and this lady for the rehearsal of a scene that I have been just touching up with some lively strokes.

  Town. I dare assure you, madam, it will be a pleasure to us both. I’ll take this occasion to inform you of my present circumstances.

  [To Plotwell.

  Clink. Imagine Deucalion and Pyrrha in their boat. They pass by a promontory, where stands prince Hæmon a former lover of Pyrrah’s, ready to be swallowed up by the devouring flood. She presses her husband to take him into the boat. Your part, Sir, is Hæmon; the lady personates Pyrrha; and I represent Deucalion. To you, Sir.

  [Gives Plotwell the manuscript.

  Plot. What ho, there sculler!

  [reads.

  Town. —— Hæmon!

  Plot. —— — Yes, ‘tis Hæmon!

  Town. Thou seest me now sail’d from my former lodgings,

  Beneath a husband’s ark; yet fain I would reward

  Thy proffer’d love. But Hæmon, ah, I fear

  Tomorrow’s eve will hide me in the country.

  Clink. Not a syllable in the part! wrong, all wrong!

  Plot. Through all the town, with diligent enquiries,

  I sought my Pyrrha ——

  Clink. Beyond all patience! the part, Sir, lies before you; you are never to perplex the drama with speeches extempore.

  Plot. Madam, ‘tis what the top players often do.

  Town. Though love denies, companion bids me save thee.

  [Plotwell kisses her.

  Clink. Fye, Mr. Plotwell; this is against all the decorum of the stage; I will no more allow the libertinism of lip-embraces than the barbarity of killing on the stage; your best tragedians, like the ladies of quality in a visit, never turn beyond the back-part of the cheek to a salute, as thus Mr. Plotwell.

  [Kisses Plotwell.

  Plot. I don’t find in Aristotle any precept against killing.

  Clink. Yet I would not stand upon the brink of an indecorum.

  Plot. True, madam, the finishing stroke of love and revenge should never shock the eyes of an audience. But I look upon a kiss in a comedy to be upon a par with a box on the ear in a tragedy, which is frequently given and taken by your best authors.

  Clink. Mighty just! for a lady can no more put up a kiss than a gentleman a box on the ear.

  Take my muse, Sir, into your protection [Gives him her play] the players I see are here. Your personating the author will infallibly introduce my play on the stage, and spite of their prejudice, make the theatre ring with applause, and teach even that injudicious Canaille to know their own interest.

  Exit.

  ACT II.

  Plotwell, Townley, Clinket, with Sir Tremendous and two Players, discovered seated round a Table.

  Plot. Gentlemen, this lady who smiles on my performances, has permitted me to introduce you and my tragedy to her tea-table.

  Clink. Gentlemen, you do me honour.

  1st Play. Suffer us, Sir, to recommend to your acquaintance, the famous Sir Tremendous, the greatest critick of our age.

  Plot. Sir Tremendous, I rejoice at your presence; though no lady that has an antipathy, so sweats at a cat as some authors at a critick. Sir Tremendous, madam, is a Gentleman who can instruct the town to dislike what has pleased them, and to be pleased with what they disliked.

  Sir Trem. Alas! what signifies one good palate when the taste of the whole town is viciated. There is not in all this Sodom of ignorance ten righteous criticks, who do not judge things backward,

  Clink. I perfectly agree with Sir Tremendous: your modern tragedies are such egregious stuff, they neither move terror nor pity.

  Plot. Yes, madam, the pity of the audience on the first night, and the terror of the author for the third. Sir Tremendous’s plays indeed have rais’d a sublimer passion, astonishment.

  Clink. I perceive here will be a wit-combat between these beaux-esprits. Prue, be sure you set down all the similes.

  Prue retires to the back part of the stage with pen and ink.

  Sir Trem. The subjects of most modern plays are as ill chosen as ——

  Plotw. The patrons of their dedications.

  [Clink. makes signs to Prue.

  Sir Trem. Their plots as shallow ——

  Plotw. As those of bad poets against new plays

  Sir Trem. Their episodes as little of a piece to the main action, as ——

  Clink. A black gown with a pink-colour’d petticoat. Mark that, Prue.

  [Aside.

  Sir Trem. Their sentiments are so very delicate —

  Plotw. That like whipt syllabub they are lost before they are tasted.

  Sir Trem. Their diction so low, that — that —

  Plotw. Why, that their friends are forced to call it simplicity.

  1st Play. Sir to the play if you please.

  2d Play. We have a rehearsal this morning.

  Sir Trem. And then their thefts are so open ——

  Plotw. that the very French taylors can discover them.

  Sir Trem. O what felony from the ancients! what petty larceny from the moderns! there is the famous Ephigenia of Racine, he stole his Agamemnon from Seneca, who stole it from Euripides, who stole it from Homer, who stole it from all the ancients before him. In short there is nothing so execrable as our most taking tragedies.

  1st Play. O! but the immortal Shakespeare, Sir.

  Sir Trem. He had no judgnent.

  2d Play. The famous ben Johmson!

  Clink. Dry.

  1st Play. The tender Otway!

  Sir Trem. Incorrect.

  2d Play. Etheridge!

  Clink. Mere chit-chat.

  1st Play. Dryden!

  Sir Trem. Nothing but a knack of versifying.

  Clink. Ah! dear Sir Tremendous, there is that delicatesse in your sentiments!

  Sir Trem. Ah madam! there is that justness in your notions!

  Clink. I am so much charm’d with your manly penetration!

  Sir Trem. I with your profound capacity!

  Clink. That I am not able —

  Sir Trem. That it is impossible —

  Clink. To conceive —

  Sir Trem. To express —

  Clink. With what delight I embrace —

  Sir Trem. With what pleasure I enter into —

  Clink. Your ideas, most learned Sir Tremendous!

  Sir Trem. Your sentiments, most divine Mrs. Clinket.

  2d Play. The play, for heaven’s sake, the play.

  [A tea-table brought in.]

  Clink. This finish’d drama is too good for an age like this.

  Plotw. The Universal Deluge, or the tragedy of Deucalion and Pyrrha.

  [Reads

  Clink. Mr. Plotwell, I will not be deny’d the pleasure of reading it, you will pardon me.

  1st Play. The deluge! the subject seems to be too recherche.

  Clink. A subject untouch’d either by ancients or moderns, in which are terror and pity in perfection.

  1st Play. The stage will never bear it. Can you suppose, Sir, that a box of ladies will sit three hours to see a rainy day, and a feather in a storm; make your best of it, I know it can be nothing else.

  2d Play. If you please, madam, let us hear how it opens.

  Clink. [reads.] The scene opens and discovers the heavens cloudy. A prodigious shower of rain. At a distance appears the top of the mountain Parnassus; all the fields beneath are over-flow
ed; there are seen cattle and men swimming. The tops of steeples rise above the flood, with men and women perching on their weathercocks ——

  Sir Trem. Begging your pardon, Sir, I believe it can be proved, that weather-cocks are of a modern invention. Besides, if stones were dissolved, as a late philosopher hath proved, how could steeples stand?

  Plot. I don’t insist upon trifles. Strike it out.

  Clink. Strike it out! consider what you do. In this they strike at the very foundation of the drama. Don’t almost all the persons of your second act start out of stones that Deucalion and Pyrrha threw behind them? This cavil is levell’d at the whole system of the reparation of human race.

  1st Play. Then the shower is absurd.

  Clink. Why should not this gentleman rain, as well as other authors snow and thunder? —— —— [reads.] Enter Deucalion in a sort of waterman’s habit, leading his wife Pyrrha to a boat — Her first distress is about her going back to fetch a casket of jewels. Mind, how he imitates your great authors. The first speech has all the fire of Lee.

  Tho’ heav’n wrings all the sponges of the sky,

  And pours down clouds, at once each cloud a sea.

  Not the spring tides ——

  Sir Trem. There were no spring tides in the Mediteranean, and consequently Deucalion could not make that simile.

  Clink. A man of Deucalion’s quality might have travelled beyond the Mediteranean, and so your objection is answered. Observe, Sir Tremendous, the tenderness of Otway, in this answer of Pyrrha.

  —— —— — Why do the stays

  Taper my waist, but for thy circling arms?

  Sir Trem. Ah! Anachronisms! Stays are a modern habit, and the whole scene is monstrous, and against the rules of tragedy.

  Plot. I submit Sir, — out with it.

  Clink. Were the play mine, you should gash my flesh, mangle my face, any thing sooner than scratch my play.

  Plot. Blot and insert wherever you please —— I submit myself to your judgment.

  Plotwell rises and discourses apart with Townley.

  Sir Trem. Madam, nonsense and I have been at variance from my cradle, it sets my understanding on edge.

  2d Play. Indeed, madam, with submission, and I think I have some experience of the stage, this play will hardly take.

  Clink. The worst lines of it would be sufficiently clapt, if it had been writ by a known author, or recommended by one.

  Sir Trem. Between you and I, madam, who understand better things, this gentleman knows nothing of poetry.

  1st Play. The gentleman may be an honest man, but he is a damn’d writer, and it neither can take, nor ought to take.

  Sir Trem. If you are the gentleman’s friend, and value his reputation, advise him to burn it.

  Clink. What struggles has an unknown author to vanquish prejudice! Suppose this play acts but six nights, his next may play twenty. Encourage a young author, I know it will be your interest.

  2d Play. I would sooner give five hundred pounds than bring some plays on the stage; an audience little considers whether ‘tis the author or the actor that is hiss’d, our character suffers.

  1st Play. Damn our character — We shall lose money by it.

  Clink. I’ll deposit a sum myself upon the success of it. Well, since it is to be play’d — I will prevail upon him to strike out some few things. — Take the play, Sir Tremendous.

  Sir Tremendous reads in a muttering tone.

  Sir Trem. Absurd to the last degree [strikes out.] palpable nonsense! [strikes out.]

  Clink. What all those lines! spare those for a lady’s sake, for those indeed, I gave him.

  Sir Trem. Such stuff! [strikes out.] abominable! [strikes out.] most execrable!

  1st Play. This thought must out.

  2d Play. Madam, with submission, this metaphor.

  1st Play. This whole speech.

  Sir Trem. The Fable!

  Clink. To you I answer, —

  1st Play. The characters!

  Clink. To you I answer —

  Sir Trem. The diction!

  Clink. And to you — Ah, hold, hold, — I’m butcher’d, I’m massacred. For mercy’s sake! murder, murder! ah!

  [faints.

  Enter Fossile peeping at the door.

  Foss. My house turn’d to a stage! and my bride playing her part too! What will become of me? but I’ll know the bottom of all this. [aside.] I am surprized to see so many patients here so early. What is your distemper, Sir?

  1st Play. The cholic, Sir, by a surfeit of green tea and damn’d verses.

  Foss. Your pulse is very high, madam. [To Townley.] You sympathize, I perceive, for yours is somewhat feverish. [To Plotwell.] But I believe I shall be able to put off the fit for this time. And as for you, niece, you have got the poetical itch, and are possess’d with nine devils, your nine muses; and thus I commit them and their works to the flames. [Takes up a heap of papers and flings them into the fire.]

  Clink. Ah! I am an undone woman.

  Plot. Has he burnt any bank-bills, or a new Mechlin head-dress?

  Clink. My works! my works!

  1st Play. Has he destroyed the writings of an estate, or your billet doux?

  Clink. A Pindarick ode! five similes! and half an epilogue!

  2d Play. Has he thrown a new fan or your pearl necklace into the flames?

  Clink. Worse, worse! The tag of the acts of a new comedy! a prologue sent by a person of quality three copies of recommendatory verses! and two Greek mottos!

  Foss. Gentlemen, if you please to walk out.

  2d Play. You shall have our positive answer concerning your tragedy, madam, in an hour or two.

  [Exit Sir Tremendous, Plotwell and Players.

  Foss. Though this affair looks but ill; yet I will not be over-rash: What says Lybanius? ‘A false accusation often recoils upon the accuser;’ and I have suffered already by too great precipitation.

  [Exit Fossile.

  Enter Sarsnet.

  Town. A narrow escape, Sarsnet! Plotwells letter was intercepted and read by my husband.

  Sars. I tremble every joint of me. How came you off?

  Town. Invention flow’d, I ly’d, he believ’d. True wife, true husband!

  Sars. I have often warned you, madam, against this superfluity of gallants; you ought at least to have clear’d all mortgages upon your person before you leas’d it out for life. Then, besides Plotwell, you are every moment in danger of Underplot, who attends on Plotwell like his shadow; he is unlucky enough to stumble upon your husband, and then I’m sure his shatterbrains would undo us at once.

  Town. Thy wit and industry, Sarsnet, must help me out. To day is mine, to morrow is my husband’s.

  Sars. But some speedy method must be thought of, to prevent your letters from falling into his hands.

  Town. I can put no confidence in my landlady Mrs. Chambers, since our quarrel at parting. So I have given orders to her maid to direct all letters and messages hither, and I have plac’d my own trusty servant Hugh at the door to receive them — but see, yonder comes my husband, I’ll retire to my closet.

  [Exit Townley and Sarsnet.

  Enter Fossile.

  Foss. O marriage, thou bitterest of potions, and thou strongest of astringents. This Plotwell that I found talking with her must certainly be the person that sent the letter. But if I have a Bristol stone put upon me instead of a diamond, why should I by experiments spoil its lustre? She is handsome, that is certain. Could I but keep her to myself for the future! Cuckoldom is an accute case, it is quickly over; when it takes place, it admits of no remedy but palliatives. —— Be it how it will, while my marriage is a secret ——

  Within. Bless the noble doctor Fossile and his honourable lady. The city musick are come to wish him much joy of his marriage.

  [A flourish of fiddles.

  Foss. Joy and marriage; never were two words so coupled.

  Within. Much happiness attend the learned doctor Fossile and his worthy and virtuous lady. The drums a
nd trumpets of his majesty’s guards are come to salute him ——

  [A flourish of Drums and Trumpets.

  Foss. Ah, Fossile! wretched Fossile! into what state hast thou brought thy self! thy disgrace proclaim’d by beat of drum! New married men are treated like those bit by a Tarantula, both must have musick: But where are the notes that can expell a wife!

  Exit.

  ACT III.

  Enter Fossile in a footman’s cloaths,

  Foss. A Special dog; this footman of my wife’s! as mercenary as the porter of a first minister! Why should she place him as a centinal at my door? unquestionably, to carry on her intrigues. Why did I bribe him to lend me his livery? to discover those intrigues. And now, O wretched Fossile, thou hast debas’d thyself into the low character of a footman. What then? gods and demi gods have assum’d viler shapes: they, to make a cuckold; I, to prove myself one. Why then should my metamorphosis be more shameful, when my purpose is more honest?

  [Knocking at the door, enter footman.]

  Foot. Ay, this is her livery. Friend, give this to your mistress.

  [Gives a letter to Fossile and exit.]

  Fossile. [reads] ‘Madam, you have jilted me. What I gave you cost me dear; what you might have given me, would have cost you nothing. You shall use my next present with more respect. I presented you a fine snuff-box; you gave it to that coxcomb Underplot, and Underplot gave it to my wife. Judge of my surprise.

  ‘Freeman.’

  A fine circulation of a snuff-box! in time I shall have the rarest of my shells set off with gold hinges, to make presents to all the fops about town. My Conchæ Veneris; and perhaps, even my Nautilus.

  A knocking at the door. Enter an old woman.

  Old Wom. Can I speak with your good mistress, honest friend?

  Fos. No, she’s busy.

  Old Wom. Madam Wyburn presents her service and has sent this letter.

  [Exit.

  Fossile. [reads] ‘Being taken up with waiting upon merchants ladies this morning, I have sent to acquaint you, my dear sweet Mrs. Townley, that the alderman agrees to every thing but putting away his wife, which he says is not decent at that end of the town. He desires a meeting this evening.’

  Postscript.

  ‘He does not like the grocer’s wife at all.’

  Bless me! what a libidinous age we live in! neither his own wife! nor the grocer’s wife! Will people like nobody’s wife but mine!