[DRAMATIS PERSONÆ]

SIR SAMPSON LEGEND, father [of] Valentine and
Ben
VALENTINE, fallen under his father's displeasure
by his expensive way of living, in love with
Angelica

SCANDAL, his friend, a free speaker
TATTLE, a half-witted beau, vain of his amours,
yet valuing himself for secrecy

BEN, Sir Sampson's younger son, half home-bred and half sea-bred, designed to marry Miss Prue

FORESIGHT, an illiterate old fellow, peevish and positive, superstitious, and pretending to understand astrology, palmistry, physiognomy, omens, dreams, etc., uncle to Angelica JEREMY, servant to Valentine

TRAPLAND, a scrivener

BUCKRAM, a lawyer

[SNAP, a bailiff]

[Stewards, Sailors, Servants, and Singer] ANGELICA, niece to Foresight, of a considerable fortune in her own hands

MRS. FORESIGHT, second wife of Foresight MRS. FRAIL, sister to Mrs. Foresight, a woman of the town

MISS PRUE, daughter of Foresight by a former wife, a silly awkward country girl

Nurse to Miss [Prue]

JENNY, maid to Angelica

SCENE: London

[TIME: Contemporary]

[DEDICATION]

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE CHARLES, EARI OF DORSET AND MIDDLESEX,

Lord Chamberlain of His Majesty's household, and Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, etc.

My Lord,

A young poet is liable to the same vanity and indiscretion with a young lover; and the great man who smiles upon one, and the fine woman who looks kindly upon t'other, are both of them in danger of having the favor published with the first opportunity.

But there may be a different motive, which will a little distinguish the offenders. For though one should have a vanity in ruining another's reputation, yet the other may only have an ambition to advance his own. And I beg leave, my Lord, that I may plead the latter, both as the cause and excuse of this dedication.

Whoever is king, is also the father of his country; and as nobody can dispute your Lordship's monarchy in poetry, so all that are concerned ought to acknowledge your universal patronage; and it is only presuming on the privilege of a loyal subject, that I have ventured to make this my address of thanks to your Lordship which, at the same time, included a prayer for your protection.

I am not ignorant of the common form of poetical dedications, which are generally made up of panegyrics, where the authors endeavor to distinguish their patrons by the shining characters they give them above other men. But that, my Lord, is not my business at this time, nor is your Lordship now to be distinguished. I am contented with the honor I do myself in this epistle, without the vanity of attempting to add to or explain your Lordship's character.

I confess it is not without some struggling that I behave myself in this case as I ought; for it is very hard to be pleased with a subject and yet

forbear it. But I choose rather to follow Pliny's precept than his example, when in his panegyric to the Emperor Trajan he says, "Nec minus considerabo quid aures eius pati possint, quam quid virtutibus debeatur."

I hope I may be excused the pedantry of a quotation when it is so justly applied. Here are some lines in the print (and which your Lordship read before this play was acted) that were omitted on the stage, and particularly one whole scene in the third act which not only helps the design forward with less precipitation, but also heightens the ridiculous character of Foresight, which indeed seems to be maimed without it. But I found myself in great danger of a long play, and was glad to help it where I could. Though notwithstanding my care, and the kind reception it had from the town, I could heartily wish it yet shorter, but the number of different characters represented in it would have been too much crowded in less room.

This reflection on prolixity (a fault for which scarce any one beauty will atone) warns me not to be tedious now, and detain your Lordship any longer with the trifles of, my Lord, your Lordship's most obedient and most humble servant,

JEREMY. Was Epictetus a real cook, or did he only write receipts?

VALENTINE. Read, read, sirrah! and refine your appetite; learn to live upon instruction; feast your mind, and mortify your flesh; read, and take your nourishment in at your eyes; shut up your mouth, and chew the cud of understanding! So Epictetus advises. 17 JEREMY. O Lord! I have heard much of him when I waited upon a gentleman at Cambridge. Pray, what was that Epictetus? VALENTINE. A very rich man-not worth a groat.

22

JEREMY. Sir, you're a gentleman, and probably understand this fine feeding; but if you please, I had rather be at boardwages. Does your Epictetus, or your Seneca here, or any of these poor rich rogues, teach you how to pay your debts without money? Will they shut up the mouths of your creditors? Will Plato be bail for you? or Diogenes, because he understands confinement, and lived in a tub, go to prison for you? 'Slife, sir, what do you mean? to mew yourself up here with three or four musty books, in commendation of starving and poverty?

VALENTINE. Why, sirrah, I have no money you know it-and therefore resolve to rail at all that have; and in that I but follow the examples of the wisest and wittiest men in all ages, these poets and philosophers whom you naturally hate for just such another reason-because they abound in sense, and you are a fool.

47

JEREMY. Aye, 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.

58

VALENTINE. Well, and now I am poor I have an opportunity to be revenged on 'em all; I'll pursue Angelica with more love than ever, and appear more notoriously her admirer in this restraint, than when I openly rivalled the rich fops that made court to her. So shall my poverty be a mortification to her pride, and perhaps make her compassionate that love which has principally reduced me to this lowness of fortune. And for the wits, I'm sure I am in a condition to be even with them.

70

JEREMY. Now Heaven, of mercy, continue the tax upon paper! You don't mean to write?

VALENTINE. Yes, I do; I'll write a play. JEREMY. Hem!-Sir, if you please to give me a small certificate of three linesonly to certify those whom it may concern, that the bearer hereof, Jeremy Fetch by name, has for the space of seven years, truly and faithfully served Valentine Legend, Esq.; and that he is not now turned away for any misdemeanor, but does voluntarily dismiss his master from any future authority over him.

VALENTINE. No, sirrah, you shall live with me still.

90

JEREMY. Sir, it's impossible: I may die with you, starve with you, or be damned with your works; but to live, even three days, the life of a play, I no more expect it than to be canonized for a Muse after my decease.

VALENTINE. You are witty, you rogue! I shall want your help; I'll have you learn to make couplets, to tag the ends of acts. D'ye hear? Get the maids to crambo in an evening, and learn the knack of rhyming. You may arrive at the height of a song sent by an unknown hand; or a chocolate-house lampoon.

103

JEREMY. But, sir, is this the way to recover your father's favor? 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. The man of the house would have been an alderman by this time with half the trade if he had set up in the city. For my part, I never sit at the door that I don't get double the stomach that I do at a horse-race-the air upon Banstead downs is nothing to it for a whetter. Yet I never see it but the spirit of famine appears to me, sometimes like a decayed porter, worn out with pimping, and carrying billets-doux and songs-not like other porters for hire, but for the jest's sake; now like a thin chairman, melted down to half his proportion with carrying a poet upon tick, to visit some great fortune, and his fare to be paid him, like the wages of sin, either at the day of marriage, or the day of death.

130

VALENTINE. Very well, sir; can you pro

ceed?

JEREMY. Sometimes like a bilked bookseller, with a meagre terrified countenance that looks as if he had written for himself, or were resolved to turn author and bring the rest of his brethren into the same condition; and lastly, in the form of a worn-out punk, with verses in her hand, which her vanity had preferred to settlements, without a whole tatter to her tail, but as ragged as one of the Muses; or as if she were carrying her linen to the paper-mill, to be converted into folio books of warning to all young maids, not to prefer poetry to good sense, or lying in the arms of a needy wit, before the embraces of a wealthy fool.

Enter SCANDAL

147

SCANDAL. What, Jeremy holding forth? VALENTINE. The rogue has (with all the wit he could muster up) been declaiming against wit.

SCANDAL. Aye? why, then, I'm afraid Jeremy has wit; for wherever it is, it's always contriving its own ruin.

SCANDAL. 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 show your wit to get more? 164

JEREMY. Aye, more indeed; for who cares for anybody that has more wit than himself?

SCANDAL. Jeremy speaks like an oracle. Don't you see how worthless great men and dull, rich rogues avoid a witty man of small fortune? Why, he looks like a writ of inquiry into their titles and estates, and seems commissioned by Heaven to seize the better half.

173

VALENTINE. Therefore I would rail in my writings, and be revenged.

SCANDAL. Rail? at whom? the whole world? Impotent and vain! Who would die a martyr to sense in a country where the religion is folly? You may stand at bay for a while; but when the full cry is against you, you won't have fair play for your life. If you can't be fairly run down by the hounds, you will be treacherously shot by the huntsmen. No, turn pimp, flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but poet. A modern poet is worse, more servile, timorous, and fawning, than any I have named-without you could retrieve the ancient honors of the name, recall the stage of Athens, and be allowed the force of open, honest satire.

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