The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield Part 16

[Footnote A: Of the attorney of Queen Anne's day Ward wrote: "He's an Amphibious Monster, that partakes of two Natures, and those contrary; He's a great Lover both of Peace and Enmity; and has no sooner set People together by the Ears, but is Soliciting the Law to make an end of the Difference. His Learning is commonly as little as his Honesty; and his Conscience much larger than his Green Bag. Catch him in what Company soever, you will always hear him stating of Cases, or telling what notice my Lord Chancellor took of him, when he beg'd leave to supply the deficiency of his Counsel. He always talks with as great a.s.surance as if he understood what he only pretends to know: And always wears a Band, and in that lies his Gravity and Wisdom. He concerns himself with no Justice but the Justice of a Cause: and for making an unconscionable Bill he outdoes a Taylor."]

"PUZZLE. As for legacies, they are good or not, as I please; for let me tell you, a man must take pen, ink and paper, sit down by an old fellow, and pretend to take directions, but a true lawyer never makes any man's will but his own; and as the priest of old among us got near the dying man, and gave all to the Church, so now the lawyer gives all to the law.

"CLERK. Ay, sir, but priests then cheated the nation by doing their offices in an unknown language.

"PUZZLE. True, but ours is a way much surer; for we cheat in no language at all, but loll in our own coaches, eloquent in gibberish, and learned in jingle. Pull out the parchment [_referring to the will of_ LORD BRUMPTON], there's the deed; I made it as long as I could.

Well, I hope to see the day when the indenture shall be the exact measure of the land that pa.s.ses by it; for 'tis a discouragement to the gown, that every ignorant rogue of an heir should in a word or two understand his father's meaning, and hold ten acres of land by half-an-acre of parchment. Nay, I hope to see the time when that there is indeed some progress made in, shall be wholly affected; and by the improvement of the n.o.ble art of tautology, every Inn in Holborn an Inn of Court. Let others think of logic, rhetoric, and I know not what impertinence, but mind thou tautology. What's the first excellence in a lawyer? Tautology. What's the second? Tautology. What's the third?

Tautology; as an old pleader said of action."

Who shall say that the tautological sentiments of Mr. Puzzle are not still inculcated? Nay, the whole play furnishes a capital instance of the truism that the world changes but little, and, furthermore, that the mould of nigh two centuries cannot spoil the wit of sparkling Steele. Ah, d.i.c.k! d.i.c.k! you may have been a sorry dog, with your toasts and your taverns, yet 'tis a thousand pities that a few dramatists of to-day cannot drink inspiration from the same cups.

To continue our cheerful journey with this unusual "Funeral," we soon find ourselves introduced to Lord Hardy, the unjustly discarded son of Brumpton. Hardy is a high-spirited, honest man of quality, a trifle out at elbows just now, owing to the stoppage of financial supplies from the paternal mansion. His straits are oft severe, and it is fortunate that he has in Trim a faithful servant who knows so well how to keep the duns at bay. "Why, friend, says I [Trim is describing to Hardy his method of dealing with his lordship's creditors], how often must I tell you my lord is not stirring. His lordship has not slept well, you must come some other time; your lordship will send for him when you are at leisure to look upon money affairs; or if they are so saucy, so impertinent as to press a man of your quality for their own, there are canes, there's Bridewel, there's the stocks for your ordinary tradesmen; but to an haughty, thriving Covent Garden mercer, silk or laceman, your lordship gives your most humble service to him, hopes his wife is well; you have letters to write, or you would see him yourself, but you desire he would be with you punctually on such a day, that is to say, the day after you are gone out of town, Which shows very plainly that Trim could have earned large wages had he lived in the nineteenth century. These 'Palmy Days' are not long enough, however, to permit the introduction of all the characters, nor the outlining of the entire story, with its brisk love-interest. But this bit of dialogue, which occurs after Sable has discovered the much-alive Lord Brumpton, is too good to be ignored:

"SABLE. Why, my lord, you can't in conscience put me off so; I must do according to my orders, cut you up, and embalm you, except you'll come down a little deeper than you talk of; you don't consider the charges I have been at already.

"LORD BRUMPTON. Charges! for what?

"SABLE. First, twenty guineas to my lady's woman for notice of your death (a fee I've before now known the widow herself go halves in), but no matter for that--in the next place, ten pounds for watching you all your long fit of sickness last winter--

"LORD BRUMPTON. Watching me? Why I had none but my own servants by turns!

"SABLE. I mean attending to give notice of your death. I had all your long fit of sickness, last winter, at half a crown a day, a fellow waiting at your gate to bring me intelligence, but you unfortunately recovered, and I lost all my obliging pains for your service.

"LORD BRUMPTON. Ha! ha! ha! Sable, thou'rt a very impudent fellow. Half a crown a day to attend my decease, and dost thou reckon it to me?"

"SABLE.... I have a book at home, which I call my doomsday-book, where I have every man of quality's age and distemper in town, and know when you should drop. Nay, my lord, if you had reflected upon your mortality half so much as poor I have for you, you would not desire to return to life thus--in short, I cannot keep this a secret, under the whole money I am to have for burying you."

Of course Lady Brumpton is discomfited and disgraced at the end of the play, and, of course, Lord Brumpton is reconciled to his son--for Steele took care that virtue should be rewarded and the moral code otherwise preserved. As to her ladyship, who has proved a very entertaining sort of villain, we shall take leave of her in one of the best scenes of the comedy:

"WIDOW. _[Reading the names of the visitors who have called to leave their condolences]_ Mrs. Frances and Mrs. Winnifred Glebe, who are they?"

"TATTLEAID. They are the country great fortunes, have been out of town this whole year; they are those whom your ladyship said upon being very well-born took upon them to be very ill-bred."

"WIDOW. Did I say so? Really I think it was apt enough; now I remember them. Lady Wrinkle--oh, that smug old woman! there is no enduring her affectation of youth; but I plague her; I always ask whether her daughter in Wiltshire has a grandchild yet or not. Lady Worth--I can't bear her company; [_aside_] she has so much of that virtue in her heart which I have in mouth only. Mrs. After-day--Oh, that's she that was the great beauty, the mighty toast about town, that's just come out of the small-pox; she is horribly pitted they say; I long to see her, and plague her with my condolence.... But you are sure these other ladies suspect not in the least that I know of their coming?

"TAT. No, dear madam, they are to ask for me.

"WIDOW. I hear a coach. [_Exit_ TATTLEAID.] I have now an exquisite pleasure in the thought of surpa.s.sing my Lady Sly, who pretends to have out-grieved the whole town for her husband. They are certainly coming. Oh, no! here let me--thus let me sit and think. [_Widow on her couch; while she is raving, as to herself_, TATTLEAID _softly introduces the ladies_.] Wretched, disconsolate, as I am!... Alas!

alas! Oh! oh! I swoon! I expire! [_Faints_.

"SECOND LADY. Pray, Mrs. Tattleaid, bring something that is cordial to her. [_Exit_ TATTLEAID.

"THIRD LADY. Indeed, madam, you should have patience; his lordship was old. To die is but going before in a journey we must all take.

_Enter_ TATTLEAID, _loaded with bottles_; THIRD LADY _takes a bottle from her and drinks_.

"FOURTH LADY. Lord, how my Lady Fleer drinks! I have heard, indeed, but never could believe it of her. [_Drinks also_.

"FIRST LADY. [_Whispers_.] But, madam, don't you hear what the town says of the jilt, Flirt, the men liked so much in the Park? Hark ye--was seen with him in a hackney coach.

"SECOND LADY. Impudent flirt, to be found out!

"THIRD LADY. But I speak it only to you.

"FOURTH LADY. [_Whispers next woman_.] Nor I, but to no one.

"FIFTH LADY. [_Whispers the_ WIDOW.] I can't believe it; nay, I always thought it, madam.

"WIDOW. Sure, 'tis impossible the demure, prim thing. Sure all the world is hypocrisy Well, I thank my stars, whatsoever sufferings I have, I have none in reputation. I wonder at the men; I could never think her handsome. She has really a good shape and complexion but no mein; and no woman has the use of her beauty without mein. Her charms are dumb, they want utterance. But whither does distraction lead me to talk of charms?

"FIRST LADY. Charms, a chit's, a girl's charms! Come, let us widows be true to ourselves, keep our countenances and our characters, and a fig for the maids.

"SECOND LADY. Ay, since they will set up for our knowledge, why should not we for their ignorance?

"THIRD LADY. But, madam, o' Sunday morning at church, I curtsied to you and looked at a great fuss in a glaring light dress, next pew.

That strong, masculine thing is a knight's wife, pretends to all the tenderness in the world, and would fain put the unwieldly upon us for the soft, the languid. She has of a sudden left her dairy, and sets up for a fine town lady; calls her maid Cisly, her woman speaks to her by her surname of Mrs. Cherryfist, and her great foot-boy of nineteen, big enough for a trooper, is stripped into a laced coat, now Mr. Page forsooth.

"FOURTH LADY. Oh, I have seen her. Well, I heartily pity some people for their wealth; they might have been unknown else--you would die, madam, to see her and her equipage: I thought her horses were ashamed of their finery; they dragged on, as if they were all at plough, and a great bashful-look'd b.o.o.by behind grasp'd the coach, as if he had never held one.

"FIFTH LADY. Alas! some people think there is nothing but being fine to be genteel; but the high prance of the horses, and the brisk insolence of the servants in an equipage of quality are inimitable.

"FIRST LADY. Now you talk of an equipage, I envy this lady the beauty she will appear in a mourning coach, it will so become her complexion; I confess I myself mourned for two years for no other reason. Take up that hood there. Oh, that fair face with a veil! [_They take up her hood_.

"WIDOW. Fie, fie, ladies. But I have been told, indeed, black does become--

"SECOND LADY. Well, I'll take the liberty to speak it, there is young Nutbrain has long had (I'll be sworn) a pa.s.sion for this lady; but I'll tell you one thing I fear she'll dislike, that is, he is younger than she is.

"THIRD LADY. No, that's no exception; but I'll tell you one, he is younger than his brother.

"WIDOW. Talk not of such affairs. Who could love such an unhappy relict as I am? But, dear madam, what grounds have you for that idle story?

"FOURTH LADY. Why he toasts you and trembles where you are spoke of.

It must be a match.

"WIDOW. Nay, nay, you rally, you rally; but I know you mean it kindly.

"FIRST LADY. I swear we do.

[TATTLEAID _whispers the_ WIDOW.

"WIDOW. But I must beseech you, ladies, since you have been so compa.s.sionate as to visit and accompany my sorrow, to give me the only comfort I can now know, to see my friends cheerful, and to honour an entertainment Tattleaid has prepared within for you. If I can find strength enough I'll attend you; but I wish you would excuse me, for I have no relish of food or joy, but will try to get a bit down in my own chamber.

"FIRST LADY. There is no pleasure without you.

"WIDOW. But, madam, I must beg of your ladyship not to be so importune to my fresh calamity as to mention Nutbrain any more. I am sure there is nothing in it. In love with me, quotha!"