Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Volume I Part 18

"_Jarv._ Yes, Sir, and I think, indeed, she has rather made a good bargain, for they find their own bags and bouquets.

"_Teaz._ Bags and bouquets for footmen!--halters and bastinadoes!

[Footnote: Transferred afterwards to Trip and Sir Oliver.]

"_Jarv._ 'Paid for my lady's own nosegays, 50_l_.'

"_Teaz._ Fifty pounds for flowers! enough to turn the Pantheon into a green-house, and give a Fete Champetre at Christmas.

[Footnote: We observe here a change in his plan, with respect both to the t.i.tles of Old Teazle and his wife, and the presence of the latter during this scene, which was evidently not at first intended.

From the following skeleton of the scenes of this piece it would appear that (inconsistently, in some degree, with my notion of its being the two act Comedy announced in 1775) he had an idea of extending the plot through five acts.

"Act 1st, Scene 1st, Sir Peter and Steward--2d, Sir P. and Lady--then Young Pliable.

"Act 2d, Sir P. and Lady--Young Harrier--Sir P. and Sir Rowland, and Old Jeremy--Sir R. and Daughter--Y. P. and Y. H.

"Act 3d, Sir R., Sir P. and O. J.--2d, Y. P. and Company, Y. R. O. R.-- 3d, Y. H. and Maria--Y. H., O. R. and Young Harrier, to borrow.

"Act 4th, Y. P. and Maria, to borrow his money; gets away what he had received from his uncle--Y. P. Old Jer. and tradesmen.--P. and Lady T."

&c. &c.]

"_Lady Teaz._ Lord, Sir Peter, I wonder you should grudge me the most innocent articles in dress--and then for the expense--flowers cannot be cheaper in winter--you should find fault with the climate, and not with me. I am sure I wish with all my heart, that it was Spring all the year round, and that roses grew under one's feet.

"_Sir P._ Nay, but, madam, then you would not wear them; but try s...o...b..a.l.l.s and icicles. But tell me, madam, how can you feel any satisfaction in wearing these, when you might reflect that one of the rose-buds would have furnished a poor family with a dinner?

"_Lady T._ Upon my word, Sir Peter, begging your pardon, that is a very absurd way of arguing. By that rule, why do you indulge in the least superfluity? I dare swear a beggar might dine tolerably on your great-coat, or sup off your laced waistcoat--nay, I dare say, he wouldn't eat your gold-headed cane in a week. Indeed, if you would reserve nothing but necessaries, you should give the first poor man you meet your wig, and walk the streets in your night-cap, which, you know, becomes you very much.

"_Sir P._ Well, go on to the articles.

"_Jarv._ (_Reading._) 'Fruit for my lady's monkey, 5_l._ per week.'

"_Sir P._ Five pounds for a monkey!--why 'tis a dessert for an alderman!

"_Lady T._ Why, Sir Peter, would you starve the poor animal? I dare swear he lives as reasonably as other monkeys do.

"_Sir P._ Well, well, go on.

"_Jarv._ 'China for ditto'--

"_Sir P._ What, does he eat out of china?

"_Lady T._ Repairing china that he breaks--and I am sure no monkey breaks less.

"_Jarv._ Paid Mr. Warren for perfumes--milk of roses, 30_l_.'

"_Lady T._ Very reasonable.

"_Sir P._ 'Sdeath, madam, if you had been born to these expenses I should not have been so much amazed; but I took you, madam, an honest country squire's daughter--

"_Lady T._ Oh, filthy; don't name it. Well, heaven forgive my mother, but I do believe my father must have been a man of quality.

"_Sir P._ Yes, madam, when first I saw you, you were dressed in a pretty figured linen gown, with a bunch of keys by your side; your occupations, madam, to superintend the poultry; your accomplishments, a complete knowledge of the family receipt-book--then you sat in a room hung round with fruit in worsted of your own working; your amus.e.m.e.nts were to play country-dances on an old spinnet to your father while he went asleep after a fox-chase--to read Tillotson's sermons to your aunt Deborah. These, madam, were your recreations, and these the accomplishments that captivated me. Now, forsooth, you must have two footmen to your chair, and a pair of white dogs in a phaeton; you forget when you used to ride double behind the butler on a docked bay coach- horse.... Now you must have a French hair-dresser; do you think you did not look as well when you had your hair combed smooth over a roller?....

Then you could be content to sit with me, or walk by the side of the-- Ha! Ha!

"_Lady T._ True, I did; and, when you asked me if I could love an old fellow, who would deny me nothing, I simpered and said 'Till death.'

"_Sir P._ Why did you say so?

"_Lady T._ Shall I tell you the truth?

"_Sir P._ If it is not too great a favor.

"_Lady T._ Why, then, the truth is, I was heartily tired of all these agreeable recreations you have so well remembered, and having a spirit to spend and enjoy fortune, I was determined to marry the first fool I should meet with.... you made me a wife, for which I am much obliged to you, and if you have a wish to make me more grateful still, make me a widow." [Footnote: The speeches which I have omitted consist merely of repet.i.tions of the same thoughts, with but very little variation of the language.]

"_Sir P._ Then, you never had a desire to please me, or add to my happiness?

"_Lady T._ Sincerely, I never thought about you; did you imagine that age was catching? I think you have been overpaid for all you could bestow on me. Here am I surrounded by half a hundred lovers, not one of whom but would buy a single smile by a thousand such baubles as you grudge me.

"_Sir P._ Then you wish me dead?

"_Lady T._ You know I do not, for you have made no settlement on me.

"_Sir P._ I am but middle-aged.

"_Lady T._ There's the misfortune; put yourself on, or back, twenty years, and either way I should like you the better.

Yes, sir, and then your behavior too was different; you would dress, and smile, and bow; fly to fetch me anything I wanted; praise every thing I did or said; fatigue your stiff face with an eternal grin; nay, you even committed poetry, and m.u.f.fled your harsh tones into a lover's whisper to sing it yourself, so that even my mother said you were the smartest old bachelor she ever saw--a billet-doux engrossed on buckram!!!!!!

[Footnote: These notes of admiration are in the original, and seem meant to express the surprise of the author at the extravagance of his own joke.]

Let girls take my advice and never marry an old bachelor. He must be so either because he could find nothing to love in women, or because women could find nothing to love in him."

The greater part of this dialogue is evidently _experimental_, and the play of repartee protracted with no other view, than to take the chance of a trump of wit or humor turning up.

In comparing the two characters in this sketch with what they are at present, it is impossible not to be struck by the signal change that they have undergone. The transformation of Sir Peter into a gentleman has refined, without weakening, the ridicule of his situation; and there is an interest created by the respectability, and amiableness of his sentiments, which, contrary to the effect produced in general by elderly gentlemen so circ.u.mstanced, makes us rejoice, at the end, that he has his young wife all to himself. The improvement in the character of Lady Teazle is still more marked and successful. Instead of an ill-bred young shrew, whose readiness to do wrong leaves the mind in but little uncertainty as to her fate, we have a lively and innocent, though imprudent country girl, transplanted into the midst of all that can bewilder and endanger her, but with still enough of the purity of rural life about her heart, to keep the blight of the world from settling upon it permanently.

There is indeed in the original draught a degree of glare and coa.r.s.eness, which proves the eye of the artist to have been fresh from the study of Wycherly and Vanbrugh; and this want of delicacy is particularly observable in the subsequent scene between Lady Teazle and Surface--the chastening down of which to its present tone is not the least of those triumphs of taste and skill, which every step in the elaboration of this Comedy exhibits.

"_Scene_ [Footnote: The Third of the fourth Act in the present form of the Comedy. This scene underwent many changes afterwards, and was oftener put back into the crucible than any other part of the play]

YOUNG PLIANT'S _Room_.

"_Young P._ I wonder her ladyship is not here: she promised me to call this morning. I have a hard game to play here, to pursue my designs on Maria. I have brought myself into a sc.r.a.pe with the mother-in-law.