The Age of Dryden Part 10

For as the sun shines every day, So, of our coachman I may say--

_Brisk._ I'm afraid that simile won't do in wet weather;--because you say the sun shines every day.

_Lady Froth._ No, for the sun it won't, but it will do for the coachman; for you know there's more occasion for a coach in wet weather.

_Brisk._ Right, right, that saves all.

_Lady Froth._ Then, I don't say the sun shines all the day, but that he peeps now and then; yet he does shine all the day too, you know, though we don't see him.

_Brisk._ Right, but the vulgar will never comprehend that.

_Lady Froth._ Well, you shall hear.--Let me see.

[_Reads._

For as the sun shines every day, So, of our coachman I may say, He shows his drunken fiery face, Just as the sun does, more or less.

_Brisk._ That's right, all's well, all's well!--More or less.

_Lady Froth._ [_Reads._]

And when at night his labour's done, Then too, like heaven's charioteer the sun--

Ay, charioteer does better.

Into the dairy he descends, And there his whipping and his driving ends; There's he's secure from danger of a bilk, His fare is paid him, and he sets in milk.

For Susan, you know, is Thetis, and so--

_Brisk._ Incomparably well and proper, egad!--But I have one exception to make:--don't you think _bilk_ (I know it's good rhyme), but don't you think _bilk_ and _fare_ too like a hackney-coachman?

_Lady Froth._ I swear and vow, I am afraid so.--And yet our Jehu was a hackney-coachman when my lord took him.

_Brisk._ Was he? I'm answered, if Jehu was a hackney-coachman.--You may put that in the marginal notes though, to prevent criticism.--Only mark it with a small asterism, and say, Jehu was formerly a hackney-coachman.

_Lady Froth._ I will; you'd oblige me extremely to write notes to the whole poem.

_Brisk._ With all my heart and soul, and proud of the vast honour, let me perish!'

Congreve excels not only in dialogue, but in painting a character by a single speech. How thoroughly we realize the inward and outward man of old Foresight the omen-monger, from a single pa.s.sage in _Love for Love_:

'_Nurse._ Pray heaven send your worship good luck! marry and amen with all my heart; for you have put on one stocking with the wrong side outward.

_Fore._ Ha! hm? faith and troth I'm glad of it. And so I have; that may be good luck in troth, in troth it may, very good luck: nay I have had some omens: I got out of bed backwards too this morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too; but then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad omens these, some bad, some good, our lives are chequered; mirth and sorrow, want and plenty, night and day, make up our time. But in troth I am pleased at my stocking; very well pleased at my stocking.'

Or Mr. Bluffe, the _miles gloriosus_ of _The Old Bachelor_:

'You must know, sir, I was resident in Flanders the last campaign, had a small part there, but no matter for that.

Perhaps, sir, there was scarce anything of moment done but an humble servant of yours that shall be nameless, was an eye-witness of--I won't say had the greatest share in it; though I might say that too, since I name n.o.body, you know.

Well, Mr. Sharper, would you think it? in all this time this rascally gazette writer never so much as once mentioned me--not once, by the wars!--took no more notice than as if Nol. Bluffe had not been in the land of the living!

_Sharper._ Strange!

_Bluffe._ Ay, ay, no matter.--You see, Mr. Sharper, that after all I am content to retire--live a private person--Scipio and others have done it.'

Vanbrugh has less individuality than his eminent contemporaries, and has consequently produced less impression than they upon the public mind, has added fewer typical characters to comedy, and stands some steps nigher to oblivion. Yet he is their equal in _vis comica_, and their superior in stage workmanship. 'He is no writer at all,' says Hazlitt, 'as to mere authorship; but he makes up for it by a prodigious fund of comic invention and ludicrous description, bordering upon caricature. He has none of Congreve's graceful refinement, and as little of Wycherley's serious manner and studious insight into the springs of character; but his exhibition of it in dramatic contrast and unlooked-for situations, where the different parties play upon one another's failings, and into one another's hands, keeping up the jest like a game of battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k, and urging it to the utmost verge of breathless extravagance, in the mere eagerness of the fray, is beyond that of any other of our writers.' In Hazlitt's opinion, Vanbrugh did not bestow much pains upon the construction of his pieces, and their excellent dramatic effect is mainly to be attributed to his promptness in seizing upon the hints for powerful situations which continually arose as he went along. He has nothing of the pa.s.sion which sometimes raises Congreve so near to the confines of tragedy, nor has he the airy gaiety of Farquhar; but his animal spirits are abundant and unforced, and his humour has a true Flemish exuberance. His characters are always lively and well discriminated, but the only type he can be said to have created is the model fop, Lord Foppington in _The Relapse_, and even he is partly borrowed from Etheredge's Sir Fopling Flutter. He is nevertheless a most perfect portrait, and gives real literary distinction to what would otherwise have been a mere comedy of intrigue. The powerful though disagreeable character of Sir John Brute lends force to _The Provoked Wife_; and the unfinished _Journey to London_ is grounded on an idea which might have been very fruitful, the country senator who has gone into Parliament as a speculation, but who, upon taking up his residence in London, finds that he loses more by the extravagance of his wife than he can gain by the prost.i.tution of his vote. Vanbrugh's other plays are mere comedies of intrigue, written without moral or immoral purpose for the sake of amus.e.m.e.nt, of which they are abundantly prolific for readers not repelled by a disregard of virtue so open and unblushing that, being too gay for cynicism, it almost seems innocence. The scene between Flippanta and her pupil in _The Confederacy_ is an excellent specimen of Vanbrugh's spirited comedy. It might be headed, _Malitia supplet aetatem_.

'_Flip._ Nay, if you can bear it so, you are not to be pitied so much as I thought.

_Cor._ Not pitied! Why, is it not a miserable thing for such a young creature as I am should be kept in perpetual solitude, with no other company but a parcel of old fumbling masters, to teach me geography, arithmetic, philosophy, and a thousand useless things? Fine entertainment, indeed, for a young maid at sixteen! Methinks one's time might be better employed.

_Flip._ Those things will improve your wit.

_Cor._ Fiddle, faddle! han't I wit enough already? My mother-in-law has learned none of this trumpery, and is not she as happy as the day is long?

_Flip._ Then you envy her I find?

_Cor._ And well I may. Does she not do what she has a mind to, in spite of her husband's teeth?

_Flip._ [_Aside._] Look you there now! If she has not already conceived that as the supreme blessing of life!

_Cor._ I'll tell you what, Flippanta; if my mother-in-law would but stand by me a little, and encourage me, and let me keep her company, I'd rebel against my father to-morrow, and throw all my books in the fire. Why, he can't touch a groat of my portion; do you know that, Flippanta!

_Flip._ [_Aside._] So--I shall spoil her! Pray Heaven the girl don't debauch me!

_Cor._ Look you: in short, he may think what he pleases, he may think himself wise; but thoughts are free, and I may think in my turn. I'm but a girl, 'tis true, and a fool too, if you'll believe him; but let him know, a foolish girl may make a wise man's heart ache; so he had as good be quiet.--Now it's out.

_Flip._ Very well, I love to see a young woman have spirit, it's a sign she'll come to something.

_Cor._ Ah, Flippanta! if you would but encourage me, you'd find me quite another thing. I'm a devilish girl in the bottom; I wish you'd but let me make one amongst you.

_Flip._ That never can be till you are married. Come, examine your strength a little. Do you think you durst venture upon a husband?

_Cor._ A husband! Why, a--if you would but encourage me. Come, Flippanta, be a true friend now. I'll give you advice when I have got a little more experience. Do you in your conscience and soul think I am old enough to be married?

_Flip._ Old enough! why, you are sixteen, are you not?

_Cor._ Sixteen! I am sixteen, two months, and odd days, woman.

I keep an exact account.

_Flip._ The deuce you are!

_Cor._ Why, do you then truly and sincerely think I am old enough?

_Flip._ I do, upon my faith, child.

_Cor._ Why, then, to deal as fairly with you, Flippanta, as you do with me, I have thought so any time these three years.

_Flip._ Now I find you have more wit than ever I thought you had; and to show you what an opinion I have of your discretion, I'll show you a thing I thought to have thrown in the fire.