The Comedies of William Congreve Part 39

BRISK. Right, but the vulgar will never comprehend that.

LADY FROTH. Well, you shall hear. Let me see. [_Reads_.]

For as the sun shines ev'ry 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 Heav'n's charioteer the sun:

Ay, charioteer does better.

Into the dairy he descends, And there his whipping and his driving ends; There 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. Incomparable 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'm 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.

LORD FROTH. Hee, hee, hee, my dear, have you done? won't you join with us? We were laughing at my Lady Whifler and Mr. Sneer.

LADY FROTH. Ay, my dear, were you? Oh, filthy Mr. Sneer; he's a nauseous figure, a most fulsamic fop, foh! He spent two days together in going about Covent Garden to suit the lining of his coach with his complexion.

LORD FROTH. O silly! yet his aunt is as fond of him as if she had brought the ape into the world herself.

BRISK. Who, my Lady Toothless? Oh, she's a mortifying spectacle; she's always chewing the cud like an old ewe.

CYNT. Fie, Mr. Brisk, eringo's for her cough.

LADY FROTH. I have seen her take 'em half chewed out of her mouth, to laugh, and then put 'em in again. Foh!

LORD FROTH. Foh!

LADY FROTH. Then she's always ready to laugh when Sneer offers to speak, and sits in expectation of his no jest, with her gums bare, and her mouth open--

BRISK. Like an oyster at low ebb, egad. Ha, ha, ha!

CYNT. [_Aside_] Well, I find there are no fools so inconsiderable in themselves but they can render other people contemptible by exposing their infirmities.

LADY FROTH. Then that t'other great strapping lady--I can't hit of her name; the old fat fool that paints so exorbitantly.

BRISK. I know whom you mean--but deuce take me, I can't hit of her name neither. Paints, d'ye say? Why, she lays it on with a trowel. Then she has a great beard that bristles through it, and makes her look as if she were plastered with lime and hair, let me perish.

LADY FROTH. Oh, you made a song upon her, Mr. Brisk.

BRISK. He! egad, so I did. My lord can sing it.

CYNT. O good, my lord, let's hear it.

BRISK. 'Tis not a song neither, it's a sort of an epigram, or rather an epigrammatic sonnet; I don't know what to call it, but it's satire. Sing it, my lord.

LORD FROTH sings.

Ancient Phyllis has young graces, 'Tis a strange thing, but a true one; Shall I tell you how?

She herself makes her own faces, And each morning wears a new one; Where's the wonder now?

BRISK. Short, but there's salt in't; my way of writing, egad.

SCENE XI.

[_To them_] FOOTMAN.

LADY FROTH. How now?

FOOT. Your ladyship's chair is come.

LADY FROTH. Is nurse and the child in it?

FOOT. Yes, madam.

LADY FROTH. O the dear creature! Let's go see it.

LORD FROTH. I swear, my dear, you'll spoil that child, with sending it to and again so often; this is the seventh time the chair has gone for her to-day.

LADY FROTH. O law! I swear it's but the sixth--and I haven't seen her these two hours. The poor creature--I swear, my lord, you don't love poor little Sapho. Come, my dear Cynthia, Mr. Brisk, we'll go see Sapho, though my lord won't.

CYNT. I'll wait upon your ladyship.

BRISK. Pray, madam, how old is Lady Sapho?

LADY FROTH. Three-quarters, but I swear she has a world of wit, and can sing a tune already. My lord, won't you go? Won't you? What! not to see Saph? Pray, my lord, come see little Saph. I knew you could not stay.

SCENE XII.

CYNTHIA _alone_.