LOVE for LOVE. АСТ І. SCENE I. VALENTINE in his Chamber reading, JEREMY waiting. Several Books upon the Table. VALENT Ι Ν Ι. J EREMY! Val. Here, take away; I'll walk a turn, and digeft what I have read. Jer. You'll grow devilish fat upon this paper diet. [Afide, and taking away the books. Val. And d'ye hear, go you to breakfast- -There's a page doubled down in Epictetus, that is a feast for an Emperor. Jer. Was Epictetus a real cook, or did he only write receipts? Val. Read, read, firrah, 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; fhut up your mouth, and chew the cud of underftanding; fo Epictetus advises. Fer. O Lord! I have heard much of him, when I waited upon a gentleman at Cambridge; pray, what was that Epictetus? Val A very rich man--not worth a groat. Jer. Humph, and fo he has made a very fine feaft where there is nothing to be eaten? Val. Yes. Fer. Sir, you're a gentleman, and probably understand this fine feeding; but if you please, I had rather be at board-wages. 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 fhut up the mouths of your creditors? Will Flato be bail for you? or Diogenes, because he underftands confinement, and liv'd 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 ftarving and poetry. Val. Why, Sirrah, I have no money, you know it; and therefore refclve to rail at all that have; and in that I but follow the examples of the wifeft and wittiest men in all ages; these poets and philofophers whom you naturally hate, for just such another reason, because they abound in fenfe, and you are a fool. Fer. Ay, 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 expences 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 car'd for nothing but your profperity, and now when you are poor, hate you as much as they do one another. Val. Well, and now I am poor, I have an opportunity to be revenged on them all; I'll purfue Angelica with more love than ever, and appear more notoriously her admirer in this reftraint, than when I openly rival'd the rich fops that made court to her; fo fhall my poverty be a mortification to her pride, and perhaps make her compaffionate the love, which has principally reduced me to this lowness of fortune. And for the wits, I'm fure I am in a condition to be even with them Jer. Nay, your condition is pretty even with theirs, that's the truth on't. Val. I'll take fome of their trade out of their hands. Jer. Now heaven of mercy continue the tax upon paper! you don't mean to write ! Val. Yes, I do; I'll write a play. Jer. Hem!-Sir, if you please to give me a fmall certifi cate of three lines-only to certify those whom it may concern, that the bearer hereof, Jeremy Fetch by name, has for the space of feven years, truly and faithfully ferved Valentine Legend, Efq; and that he is not now turned away for any misdemeanour, but does voluntarily dismiss his master from any future authority over him Val. No, firrah, you fhall live with me ftill. Fer. Sir, 'tis impoffible—I may die with you, starve with you, or be damn'd 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 mufe after my decease. Val. You are witty, you rogue, I fhall want your help; I'll have you learn to make couplets, to tag the end 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 fong fent by an unknown hand, or a chocolate-house lampoon. Jer. But, Sir, is this the way to recover your father's favour? Why, ir Sampton will be irreconcilable. If your younger brother should come from fea, he'd never look upon you again. You're undone, Sir, you're ruin'd, you won't have a friend left in the world if you turn poetAh, confound that Will's coffeehouse, it has ruined more young men than the Royal Oak lottery--nothing thrives that belongs to't. The man of the houfe would have been an alderman by this time with half the trade, if he had fet up in the city. For my part, I never fit at the door, that I don't get double the ftomach that I do at a horseThe air upon Banftead downs is nothing to it for a whetter; yet I never fee it, but the spirit of famine appears to me, fometimes like a decay'd porter, worn out race with pimping, and carrying billets-doux and fongs; not like other porters for hire, but for the jeft's fake. Now like a thin chairman, melted down to half his proportion, with carrying a poet upon tick, to visit fome great fortune, and his fare to be paid him like the wages of fin, either at the day of marriage, or the day of death. Val. Very well, Sir; can you proceed? Jer. Sometimes like a bilk'd bookfeller, with a meagre terrified countenance, that looks as if he had written for himself, or were refolv'd to turn author, and bring the reft of his brethren into the fame condition. And lastly, in the form of a worn out punk, with verfes in her hand, which her vanity had preferr'd to settlements, without a whole tatter to her tail, but as ragged as one of the mufes; or as if he 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. SCENE II. VALENTINE, SCANDAL, JEREMY. Scan. What, Jeremy holding forth? Val. The rogue has (with all the wit he could muster up) been declaiming against wit. Scan. Ay? why then I'm afraid Jeremy has wit: for where-ever it is, 'tis always contriving its own ruin. fer. Why, fo I have been telling my mafter, Sir; Mr Scandal, for Heaven's fake, Sir, try if you can diffuade him from turning poet. Scan. Poet he shall turn foldier 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 fhew your wit to get more? Fer. Ay, more indeed; for who cares for any body that has more wit than himself? Scan. Jeremy fpeaks like an oracle. Don't you see how worthless great men, and dull rich rogues, avoid a witty man of fmall fortune? Why, he looks like a writ of enquiry into their titles and estates; and feems commiffion'd by Heav'n to feize the better half. Val. Therefore I would rail in my writings, and be revenged. Scan. 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 shan'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, any thing but poet; a modern poet is worse, more fervile, timorous, and fawning, than any I have nam'd: without you could retrieve the ancient honours of the name, recall the stage of Athens, and be allow'd the force of open honest fatire. Val. You are as inveterate against our poets, as if your character had been lately exposed upon the stage--Nay, I am not violently bent upon the trade.-[One knocks.] Jeremy, fee who's there. [Jer. goes to the door.] But tell me what you would have me do? What does the world fay of me, and my forc'd confinement? San. The world behaves itself, as it ufes to do on fome occafions; fome pity you, and condemn your father; others excufe him and blame you; only the ladies are merciful, and wifh you well; fince love and pleafurable expence have been your greatest faults. Val. How now? [Jeremy returns. Fer. Nothing new, Sir; I have dispatched fome half a dozen duns with as much dexterity as a hungry judge does caules at dinner-time. Val. What answer have you given 'em? Scan. Patience, I fuppofe, the old receipt. S |