A Select Collection of Old English Plays Part 64

_Enter_ TRILLO.

TRIL. Hey, boys! never did my spirit chirp more cheerfully since I had one. Here is work for Platonics. Never did ladies, brave buxom girls, dispense at easier rates with their forfeited honours. This were an excellent age for that Roman Carvilius to live in, who never loved any sheets worser than those his wife lay in, nor his wife any lodging worse than where her decrepit consort slept in. Divorces are now as common as scolding at Billingsgate. O Alimony, Alimony! a darling incomparably dearer than a sear-icy bed, possessed of the spirit of a dull, inactive husband! A fresh flowery spring and a chill frosty winter never suit well together. He were a rare justice, in these times of separation, who had the ceremonial art to join hearts together as well as hands; but that chemical cement is above the alchemy of his office or verge of his ministerial charge. Heyday! who comes here? The very professed smock-satyr or woman-hater in all Europe; one who, had he lived in that state, or under that zone, might have compared with any Swetnam[105] in all the Albion Island.

SCENE II.

_Enter_ TIMON, SIPARIUS, _and a_ PAGE.

But, sure, he has some high design in hand; he pores so fixedly upon the ground, as on my life he has some swingeing stuff for our fresh Dabrides, who have invested themselves in the Platonic order, and retain courage enough to make an exchange of their old consorts with their new confidants and amorous pretenders. Let us hear him; he mumbles so strangely, he must surely either disburthen [him]self, or stifle his teeming birth for want of timely delivery.

TIM. Good, as I live, wondrous good! this is the way to catch the old one. Be all things ready, Siparius?

SIP. How do you mean, sir?

TIM. What a drolling bufflehead is this! He has been book-holder to my revels for decades of years, and the cuckoldry drone, as if he had slept in Trophonius' cave all his days, desires to know my meaning in the track of his own calling! Sir, shall I question you in your own dialect? Be your stage-curtains artificially drawn, and so covertly shrouded as the squint-eyed groundling[s]

may not peep into your discovery?

SIP. Leave that care to me, sir; it is my charge.

TIM. But were our bills posted, that our house may be with a numerous auditory stored? our boxes by ladies of quality and of the new dress crowdingly furnished? our galleries and ground-front answerably to their pay completed?

SIP. a.s.sure yourself, sir, nothing is a-wanting that may give way to the poet's improvement.

TIM. Thou sayest well; this is indeed the poet's third day, and must raise his pericranium deeply steeped in Frontiniac, a fair revenue for his rich Timonic fancy; or he must take a long adieu of the spirit of sack and that n.o.ble napry till the next vintage.

But, Siparius----

SIP. Your will, sir?

TIM. Be sure that you hold not your book at too much distance.

The actors, poor lapwings, are but pen-feathered; and once out, out for ever. We had a time, indeed--and it was a golden time for a pregnant fancy--when the actor could embellish his author, and return a paean to his pen in every accent; but our great disaster at Cannae, than which none ever more tragical to our theatre, made a speedy despatch of our rarest Rosciuses, closing them jointly in one funeral epilogue. Now for you, boy: as you play the chorus, so be mindful of your hint. I know you to be a wag by nature, and you must play the waggish actor.

PAGE. I shall not sleep in my action, sir, if your line have so much life as to provoke a laughter. I shall not strangle the height of your conceit with a dull gesture; nor weaken the weight of your plot with too flat or unbecoming a deportment.

TIM. Thou promisest fairly; go on.

TRIL. And so does Timon too, or his judgment fails him. Well, I will accost him.--Health to our stock of stoical wit, ingenious Timon! Come, sir, what brave dramatic piece has your running Mercury now upon the loom? The t.i.tle of your new play, sir?

TIM. Every post may sufficiently inform you; nay, the fame of the city cannot choose but echo it to you, so much is expected.

Neither shall you discover a mouse peeping out of a mountain, believe it.

[Sidenote: _Nulla fides spectanda feris, nec gratia victis._]

TRIL. No, nor a monkey dancing his tricotee on a rope, for want of strong lines from the poet's pen.

[Sidenote: _Corpora distendunt versibus affanda nefandis._]

TIM. You are i' th' right on't, Trillo. These pigmies of mine shall not play the egregious puppies in deluding an ignorant rabble with the sad presentment of a roasted savage.

[Sidenote: _Tempora sunt Cuculi gratissima labilis anni;_]

TRIL. Your conceit is above the scale of admiration. But the subject of your invention, sir? Where may you lay your scene; and what name [do] you bestow upon this long-expected comedy?

[Sidenote: _Cornua sunt sponsis trista, laeta procis._--Auson.]

TIM. My scene, Trillo, is Horn Alley: the name it bears is "Lady Alimony." The subject I shall not preoccupate. Let the fancies of my thirsty auditory fall a-working; if ever their small expense confined to three hours' s.p.a.ce were better recompensed, I will henceforth disclaim my society with a happy genius, and bestow the remainder of my time in catching flies with Domitian.

TRIL. Excellent, excellent! I am confident your acrimonious spirit will discurtain our changeable taffeta ladies to a hair.

TIM. Thou knowest my humour, and let me perish if I do not pursue it. Thou hast heard, no doubt, how I never found any branch more pleasingly fruitful, nor to my view more grateful, than when I found a woman hanging on it; wishing heartily that all trees in mine orchard bore such fruit.

TRIL. If your wish had proved true, no doubt but your orchard would have rendered you store of medlars. But your hour, sir, your hour.

TIM. You know, Trillo, our theatral time to a minute. One thing I must tell you, and you will attest it upon our presentment, that never was any stage, since the first erection of our ancient Roman amphitheatres, with suitable properties more accurately furnished, with choicer music more gracefully accommodated, nor by boys, though young, with more virile spirits presented.

TRIL. I'm already noosed in your poetical springe, and shall henceforth wish, for your sake, that all crop-eared histriomastixes, who cannot endure a civil, witty comedy, but by his racked exposition renders it downright drollery, may be doomed to Ancyrus, and skip there amongst satyrs for his rough and severe censure.

TIM. Parna.s.sus is a debtor to thee, Trillo, for thy clear and serene opinion of the Muses and their individual darling; of which, meaning to imprint our addresses all the better in your memory, our stage presents ever the most lively and lovely fancy:--

"Where th' stage breathes lines, scenes, subject, action fit, Th'

age must admire it, or it has no wit."

TRIL. Yet I have heard, Timon, that you were sometimes stoical, and could not endure the noise of an interlude, but snuff at it, as the satyr did at the first sight of fire.

TIM. All this is most authentically true; but shall I unbosom myself ingeniously[106] to thee, my dear Trillo? As his hate to woman made Eupolis eat nettle pottage, so became I fired in my spirit. My experience of a shrew drove me to turn the shrewd comedian; and yet all our boxes are stored with complete doxies; nay, some, whose carriage give life to this day's action.

TRIL. May the poet's day prove fair and fortunate! Full audience and honest door-keepers. I shall, perchance, rank myself amongst your gallery-men.

TIM. We shall hold our labours incomparably heightened by the breath of such approved judgments.

_Enter_ MESSENGER.

MES. Sir, here is a proud, peremptory, pragmatical fellow, newly come into our tiring-room, who disturbs our preparation, vowing, like a desperate haxter,[107] that he has express command to seize upon all our properties.

TIM. The devil he has! What furious Mercury might this be?

MES. Nay, sir, I know not what he may be; but, sure, if he be what he seems to be, he can be no less than one of our city Hectors; but I hope your spirit will conjure him, and make him a Clinias. He speaks nothing less than braving, buff-leather language, and has made all our boys so feverish, as if a quotidian ague had seized on them.

TIM. Sure, it is one of our trepanning decoys, sent forth for a champion to defend those ladies' engaged honour, whom our stage is this day to present! This shall not serve their turn. Call him in; we will collar him.

TRIL. Ha-ha-ha! This will prove rare sport, to see how the poet's genius will grapple with this bawdry!

SCENE III.

_Enter_ HAXTER.

HAX. Sir!