History of English Humour Volume I Part 28

_Host._ Breast! Don't you love the neck, Sir?

_Hyp._ Ha' ye nothing in the house but the neck?

_Host._ Really, Sir, we don't use to be so unprovided, but at present we have nothing else left.

_Trap._ Faith, Sir, I don't know but a Nothing else may be very good meat, when Anything else is not to be had.

Sometimes there is a little smartness in the dialogue, and in the "Careless Husband," Lord Foppington uses such strange expletives as "Sun burn me," "Stop my breath," "Set my blood." But the greater part of any amus.e.m.e.nt that there is, depends, as in the Roman Comedy, upon the tricks of low-minded mercenary servants.

Although neither of the two last-named writers was English by descent, they were both so by adoption, and the same may be said of the next author, Farquhar, who was born at Londonderry in 1678, but whose Irish characters want the charm of the pure national comicality. He was the son of a clergyman who sent him to the University, but his taste being averse to the prescribed course of study, he left it, and became an actor. Want of voice soon excluded him from the stage, and he entered the army--a profession which we might conclude, from the experiences of Wycherley and Vanbrugh, was somewhat favourable for the cultivation of dramatic talent. The constant companionship of men of wild and fanciful dispositions, the leisure for observing their talents and peculiarities, and the perpetual demand for the exercise of light repartee, would all tend to furnish effective materials for the stage. Farquhar soon married, and his poverty, with an increasing family, led to his producing a play nearly every year from 1703 to 1707. Finally he sold out, and was in deep distress. Speaking of his condition with his accustomed gaiety, he says:--

"I have very little estate, but what is under the circ.u.mference of my hat, and should I by perchance come to lose my head, I should not be worth a groat."

He thus sketches his mental peculiarities:--

"As to my mind, which in most men wears as many changes as their body, so in me 'tis generally drest like my person, in black.

Melancholy is its every-day apparel; and it has. .h.i.therto found few holidays to make it change its clothes. In short, my const.i.tution is very splenetic and yet very amorous, both which I endeavour to hide lest the former should offend others, and that the latter might incommode myself; and my reason is so vigilant in restraining these two failings, that I am taken for an easy-natured man with my own s.e.x, and an ill-natured clown by yours."

Farquhar was very fond of jesting about his own misfortunes, and perhaps the following from "Love in a Bottle," exhibits a scene in which he had been himself an actor in real life.

_Widow Bullfinch._ Mr. Lyric, what do you mean by all this? Here you have lodged two years in my house, promised me eighteen-pence a week for your lodging, and I have never received eighteen farthings, not the value of _that_, Mr. Lyric, (_snaps her fingers._) You always put me off with telling me of your play, your play! Sir, you shall play no more with me: I'm in earnest.

_Lyric._ There's more trouble in a play than you imagine, Madam.

_Bull._ There's more trouble with a lodger than you think, Mr.

Lyric.

_Lyric._ First there's the decorum of time.

_Bull._ Which you never observe, for you keep the worst hours of any lodger in town.

_Lyric._ Then there's the exactness of characters.

_Bull._ And you have the most scandalous one I ever heard....

_Lyric._ (_Aside_) Was ever poor rogue so ridden. If ever the Muses had a horse, I am he. (_Aloud_) Faith! Madam, poor Pegasus is jaded.

_Bull._ Come, come, Sir; he shan't slip his neck out of collar for all that. Money I will have, and money I must have.

The above is taken from Farquhar's first play, and we generally find richer humour in the first attempts of genius than in their later and more elaborate productions. Widow Bullfinch says that "Champagne is a fine liquor, which all your beaux drink to make em' witty."

_Mockmode._ Witty! oh by the universe I must be witty! I'll drink nothing else. I never was witty in all my life. I love jokes dearly. Here, Club, bring us a bottle of what d'ye call it--the witty liquor.

_Bull._ But I thought that all you that were bred at the University would be wits naturally?

_Mock._ The quite contrary, Madam, there's no such thing there. We dare not have wit there for fear of being counted rakes. Your solid philosophy is all read there, which is clear another thing. But now I will be a wit, by the universe.... Is that the witty liquor? Come fill the gla.s.ses. Now that I have found my mistress, I must next find my wits.

_Club._ So you had need, master, for those that find a mistress are generally out of their wits. (_Gives him a gla.s.s._)

_Mock._ Come, fill for yourself. (_They jingle and drink._) But where's the wit now, Club? Have you found it?

_Club._ Egad! master, I think 'tis a very good jest.

_Mock._ What?

_Club._ What? why drinking--you'll find, master, that this same gentleman in the straw doublet, this same will-i'-th'-wisp is a wit at the bottom. (_Fills._) Here, here, master; how it puns and quibbles in the gla.s.s!

_Mock._ By the universe, now I have it!--the wit lies in the jingling. All wit consists most in jingling; hear how the gla.s.ses rhyme to one another.

Again:--

_Mock._ Could I but dance well, push well,[63] play upon the flute, and swear the most modish oaths, I would set up for quality with e'er a young n.o.bleman of 'em all. Pray what are the most fashionable oaths in town? Zoons, I take it, is a very becoming one.

_Rigadoon._ (_a dancing-master._) Zoons is only used by the disbanded officers and bullies, but zauns is the beaux p.r.o.nunciation.

_Mock._ Zauns!

_Rig._ Yes, Sir; we swear as we dance; smooth and with a cadence--Zauns! 'Tis harmonious, and pleases the ladies, because it is soft. Zauns, Madam, is the only compliment our great beaux pa.s.s on a lady.

_Mock._ But suppose a lady speaks to me; what must I say?

_Rig._ Nothing, Sir; you must take snuff grin, and make her a humble cringe--thus: (_Bows foppishly and takes snuff; Mockmode imitates him awkwardly, and taking snuff, sneezes._) O Lord, Sir!

you must never sneeze; 'tis as unbecoming after orangery as grace after meat.

_Mock._ I thought people took it to clear the brain.

_Rig._ The beaux have no brains at all, Sir; their skull is a perfect snuff-box; and I heard a physician swear, who opened one of 'em, that the three divisions of his head were filled with orangery, bergamot, and plain Spanish.

_Mock._ Zauns! I must sneeze, (_sneezes._) Bless me!

_Rig._ Oh, fy! Mr. Mockmode! what a rustical expression that is!

'Bless me!' You should upon all such occasions cry, Dem me! You would be as nauseous to the ladies as one of the old patriarchs, if you used that obsolete expression.

Sir Harry Wildair gives a good sketch of a lady's waiting-woman of the time.

_Colonel Standard._ Here, here, Mrs. Parly; whither so fast?

_Parly._ Oh Lord! my master! Sir, I was running to Mademoiselle Furbelow, the French milliner, for a new burgundy for my lady's head.

_Col. S._ No, child; you're employed about an old-fashioned garniture for your master's head, if I mistake not your errand.

_Parly._ Oh, Sir! there's the prettiest fashion lately come over!

so airy, so French, and all that. The pinners are double ruffled with twelve plaits of a side, and open all from the face; the hair is frizzled all up round the head, and stands as stiff as a bodkin.

Then the favourites hang loose on the temples, with a languishing lock in the middle. Then the caul is extremely wide, and over all is a coronet raised very high, and all the lappets behind.

This lady on being questioned, says that her wages are ten pounds a year, but she makes two hundred a year of her mistress's old clothes.

But Farquhar is best known as the author of the "Beaux Stratagem."

Though not so full of humour, as "Love in a Bottle," it had more action and bolder sensational incidents. The play proved a great success, but one which will always have sad a.s.sociations. It came too late. Farquhar died in dest.i.tution, while the plaudits resounded in his ears.