The Works of Aphra Behn Volume Iv Part 1

The Works of Aphra Behn.

by Aphra Behn.

Volume IV.

ARGUMENT.

Sir Patient Fancy, a hypochondriacal old alderman, has taken a second wife, Lucia, a young and beautiful woman who, although feigning great affection and the strictest conjugal fidelity, intrigues with a gallant, Charles Wittmore, the only obstacle to their having long since married being mutual poverty. However, the jealousy and uxoriousness of the doting husband give the lovers few opportunities; on one occasion, indeed, as Lady Fancy is entertaining Wittmore in the garden they are surprised by Sir Patient, and she is obliged to pa.s.s her visitor off under the name of Fainlove as a suitor to her step-daughter, Isabella, in which role he is accepted by Sir Patient. But Isabella has betrothed herself to Lodwick, a son of the pedantic Lady Knowell: whilst Lucretia Knowell loves Leander, the alderman's nephew, in spite of the fact that she is promised by her mother to Sir Credulous Easy, a b.u.mpkinly knight from Devonshire. Lodwick, who is a close friend of Leander, has been previously known to Sir Credulous, and resolving to trick and befool the c.o.xcomb warmly welcomes him on his arrival in town. He persuades him, in fine, to give a ridiculous serenade, or, rather, a hideous hubbub, of noisy instruments under his mistress' window. A little before this Lady Knowell with a party of friends has visited Sir Patient, who is her next neighbour, and the loud laughter, talking, singing and foppery so enrage the precise old valetudinarian that he resolves to leave London immediately for his country house, a circ.u.mstance which would be fatal to his wife's amours. Wittmore and she, however, persuade him that he is very ill, and on being shown his face in a looking-gla.s.s that magnifies instead of in his ordinary mirror, he imagines that he is suddenly swollen and puffed with disease, and so is led lamenting to bed, leaving the coast clear for the nonce. Isabella, however, has made an a.s.signation with Lodwick at the same time that her stepmother eagerly awaits her own gallant, and in the dark young Knowell is by mistake escorted to Lucia's chamber, whilst Wittmore encountering Isabella, and thinking her Lady Fancy, proceeds to act so amorously that the error is soon discovered and the girl flies from his ardour. In her hurry, however, she rushes blundering into Lucia's bedchamber, where she finds Knowell. It is just at this moment that Sir Credulous Easy's deafening fanfare re-echoes in the street, and Sir Patient, awakened and half-stunned by the pandemonium, is led grouty and bawling into his wife's room, where he discovers Knowell, whom Lucia has all this time taken for Wittmore; but her obvious confusion and dismay thereon are such that Sir Patient does not suspect the real happenings, which she glozes over with a tale concerning Isabella. Meantime the serenaders are dispersed and routed by a band of the alderman's servants and clerks.

Sir Credulous courting Lucretia, who loathes him, meets Knowell bringing a tale of a jealous rival able to poison at a distance by means of some strangely subtle venom, upon which the Devonshire knight conceals himself in a basket, hoping to be conveyed away to his old uncle in Ess.e.x, whereas he is merely transported next door. Sir Patient, who surprises his lady writing a love-letter, which she turns off by appending Isabella's name thereto, is so overwhelmed with her seeming affection and care for his family that he presents her with eight thousand pounds in gold and silver, and resolves to marry his daughter to Fainlove (Wittmore) without any further delay. But whilst he is gone down to prayers and Lucia is entertaining her lover, the old nurse informs him that his little daughter f.a.n.n.y has long been privy to an intrigue between Knowell and Isabella, whereupon, in great perturbation, he rushes upstairs again to consult with his wife, who hurries Wittmore under the bed. Sir Patient, however, warmed with cordials which he quaffs to revive his drooping spirits, does not offer to quit the chamber, but lies down on the bed, and the gallant is only enabled to slip out un.o.bserved after several accidents each of which nearly betrays his presence. Upon the marriage morning Isabella in a private interview rejects her pseudo-suitor with scorn and contumely, whereat Knowell, who has of intent been listening, reveals to her that it is his friend Wittmore and no real lover who is seemingly courting her, and with his help, whilst Sir Patient is occupied with a consultation of doctors (amongst whom Sir Credulous appears disguised as a learned member of the faculty), Isabella and Knowell are securely married. Lady Knowell, who has feigned a liking for Leander, generously gives him to Lucretia, Sir Patient's attention being still engrossed by the physicians who a.s.semble in great force. Soon after, at Leander's instigation, in order to test his wife, Sir Patient feigns to be dead of a sudden apoplexy, and for a few moments, whilst others are present, Lucia laments him with many plaints and tears, but immediately changes when she is left alone with Wittmore. The lovers' plans, however, are overheard by the husband, who promptly confronts his wife with her duplicity. Amazed and confounded indeed, he forgives Leander and his daughter for marrying contrary to his former wishes; and when Lucia coolly announces her intention to play the hypocrite and puritan no more, but simply to enjoy herself with the moneys he has settled on her without let or proviso, he humorously declares he will for his part also drop the prig and canter, and turn town gallant and spark.

SOURCE.

In spite of Mrs. Behn's placid a.s.sertion in her address 'To the Reader'

that she has only taken 'but a very bare hint' from a foreign source, _Le Malade Imaginaire_, the critics who cried out that _Sir Patient Fancy_ 'was made out of at least four French plays' are patently right.

Sir Patient is, of course, Argan throughout and in detail; moreover, in the scene where the old alderman feigns death, there is very copious and obvious borrowing from Act III of _Le Malade Imaginaire_. Some of the doctors' lingo also comes from the third and final interlude of Moliere's comedy, whilst the idea of the medical consultation is pilfered from _L'Amour Medecin_, Act II, ii. Sir Credulous Easy is Monsieur de Porceaugnac, but his first entrance is taken wholesale from Brome's _The Damoiselle; or, The New Ordinary_ (8vo, 1653), Act II, i, where Amphilus and Trebasco discourse exactly as do Curry and his master. The pedantic Lady Knowell is a mixture of Philaminte and Belise from _Les Femmes Savantes_. The circ.u.mstance in Act IV, ii, when Lucia, to deceive her husband, appends Isabella's name to the love-letter she has herself just written, had already been used by Wycherley at the commencement of Act V of that masterpiece of comedy, _The Country Wife_ (4to, 1675, produced in 1672), where Mrs. Pinchwife, by writing 'your slighted Alithea' as the subscription of a letter, completely befools her churlish spouse.

Moliere's comedies, which were so largely conveyed in _Sir Patient Fancy_, have been a gold mine for many of our dramatists. From _Le Malade Imaginaire_ Miller took his _Mother-in-Law; or, The Doctor the Disease_, produced at the Haymarket, 12 February, 1734, and Isaac Bickerstaffe, _Dr. Last in his Chariot_, produced at the same theatre 25 August, 1769. In this farce Bickerstaffe further introduces the famous consultation scene from _L'Amour Medecin_, a play which had been made use of by Lacy, _The Dumb Lady; or, The Farrier made a Physician_ (1672); by Owen Swiney, _The Quacks; or, Love's the Physician_, produced at Drury Lane, 18 March, 1705; by Miller, _Art and Nature_, produced at the same theatre 16 February, 1738; and in an anonymous one act piece, which is little more than a bare translation under the t.i.tle _Love is the Doctor_, performed once only at Lincoln's Inn Fields, 4 April, 1734.

_Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_ supplied Ravenscroft with material no less than three times. In _Mamamouchi; or, The Citizen turn'd Gentleman_, acted early in 1672, we have Sir Simon Softhead, who is Pourceaugnac in detail; in _The Careless Lovers_, produced at the Duke's House in 1673, and again in _The Canterbury Guests; or, A Bargain Broken_, played at the Theatre Royal in 1694, we have _in extenso_ Act II, Scenes viii, ix, x, of the French comedy. Crowne's Sir Mannerley Shallow (_The Country Wit_, 1675) comes from the same source. _Squire Trelooby_, produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields, 20 March, 1704, and revived as _The Cornish Squire_ at Drury Lane, 3 January, 1734, is ascribed to Vanbrugh, Congreve, and Walsh; but this, as well as a farce produced at Dublin in 1720 by Charles Shadwell and ent.i.tled _The Plotting Lovers; or, The Dismal Squire_, cannot claim to be anything but translations. Miller's _Mother-in-Law_, again, includes much of _Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_; and Thomas Sheridan's _Captain O'Blunder; or, The Brave Irishman_, produced at Goodman's Fields, 31 January, 1746, is a poor adaptation. Mrs.

Parsons abbreviated Moliere to _The Intrigues of a Morning_, played at Covent Garden, 18 April, 1792, a jejune effort. _Les Femmes Savantes_ was rather racily transformed by Thomas Wright into _The Female Virtuosoes_, and produced at Drury Lane in 1693. It was revived as _No Fools like Wits_ at Lincoln's Inn Fields, 10 January, 1721, to antic.i.p.ate Cibber's _The Refusal; or, The Ladies' Philosophy_, which had a run of six nights. Miller, in his _The Man of Taste_, once more had resource to Moliere. His play was produced at Drury Lane, 6 March, 1735.

It has no value.

Of all these borrowers Mrs. Behn is infinitely the best. _Sir Patient Fancy_ is, indeed, an excellent comedy, and had she used more leisure might have been improved to become quite first rate. Perhaps she plagiarized so largely owing to the haste with which her play was written and staged, but yet everything she touched has been invested with an irresistible humour. A glaring example of her hurry remains in the fact that the 'precise clerk' of Sir Patient has a double nomenclature. In Act III he appears as Abel; in Act IV, iii, he is referred to as Bartholomew, and under this last name has an exit marked in Act V. This character is only on the stage twice and is given but some three or four lines to speak. Obviously, when writing her fourth act, Aphra forgot she had already christened him.

THEATRICAL HISTORY.

_Sir Patient Fancy_ was produced at the Duke's Theatre, Dorset Garden, in January, 1678, with an exceptionally strong cast which included both Betterton and his wife. It met with the great success it fully deserved.

The critics, indeed, were not slow to detect Mrs. Behn's plagiarisms, but the only real opposition was negligible disapproval of a modest clique, who a few years later vainly tried to d.a.m.n _The Lucky Chance_.

After the death of the two famous comedians Antony Leigh and James Nokes in December, 1692, _Sir Patient Fancy_, owing to the inability of succeeding actors to sustain the two roles, Sir Patient and Sir Credulous, which had been created by this gifted pair, completely dropped out of the repertory of the theatre. It was not singular in its fate, for Cibber expressly tells us that D'Urfey's excellent comedy _The Fond Husband_, and Crowne's satirical _City Politics_, 'lived only by the extraordinary performance of Nokes and Leigh.'

TO THE READER.

I Printed this Play with all the impatient haste one ought to do, who would be vindicated from the most unjust and silly aspersion, Woman could invent to cast on Woman; and which only my being a Woman has procured me; _That it was Baudy_, the least and most Excusable fault in the Men writers, to whose Plays they all crowd, as if they came to no other end than to hear what they condemn in this: _but from a Woman it was unnaturall_: but how so Cruell an unkindness came into their imaginations I can by no means guess; unless by those whose Lovers by long absence, or those whom Age or Ugliness have rendered a little distant from those things they would fain imagin here--But if such as these durst profane their Chast ears with hearing it over again, or taking it into their serious Consideration in their Cabinets; they would find nothing that the most innocent Virgins can have cause to blush at: but confess with me that no Play either Ancient or Modern has less of that Bug-bear Bawdry in it. Others to show their breeding (as _Bays_ sayes) cryed it was made out of at least four _French_ Plays, when I had but a very bare hint from one, the _Malad Imagenere_, which was given me translated by a Gentleman infinitely to advantage; but how much of the _French_ is in this, I leave to those who do indeed understand it and have seen it at the Court. The play had no other Misfortune but that of coming out for a Womans: had it been owned by a Man, though the most Dull Unthinking Rascally Scribler in Town, it had been a most admirable Play. Nor does it's loss of Fame with the Ladies do it much hurt, though they ought to have had good Nature and justice enough to have attributed all its faults to the Authours unhappiness, who is forced to write for Bread and not ashamed to owne it, and consequently ought to write to please (if she can) an Age which has given severall proofs it was by this way of writing to be obliged, though it is a way too cheap for men of wit to pursue who write for Glory, and a way which even I despise as much below me.

SIR PATIENT FANCY.

PROLOGUE,

Spoken by Mr. _Betterton_.

We write not now, as th' antient Poets writ, For your Applause of Nature, Sense and Wit; But, like good Tradesmen, what's in fashion vent, And cozen you, to give ye all content.

True Comedy, writ even in _Dryden's_ Style, Will hardly raise your Humours to a Smile.

Long did his Sovereign Muse the Scepter sway, And long with Joy you did true Homage pay: But now, like happy States, luxurious grown, The Monarch Wit unjustly you dethrone, And a Tyrannick Commonwealth prefer, Where each small Wit starts up and claims his share; And all those Laurels are in pieces torn, Which did e'er while one sacred Head adorn.

Nay, even the Women now pretend to reign; Defend us from a Poet _Joan_ again!

That Congregation's in a hopeful way To Heaven, where the Lay-Sisters teach and pray.

Oh the great Blessing of a little Wit!

I've seen an elevated Poet sit, And hear the Audience laugh and clap, yet say, Gad after all, 'tis a d.a.m.n'd silly Play: He unconcern'd, cries only--Is it so?

No matter, these unwitty things will do, When your fine fustian useless Eloquence Serves but to chime asleep a drousy Audience.

Who at the vast expence of Wit would treat, That might so cheaply please the Appet.i.te?

Such homely Fare you're like to find to night: Our Author Knows better how to juggle than to write: Alas! a Poet's good for nothing now, Unless he have the knack of conjuring too; For 'tis beyond all natural Sense to guess How their strange Miracles are brought to pa.s.s.

Your Presto Jack be gone, and come again, With all the Hocus Art of Legerdemain; Your dancing Tester, Nut-meg, and your Cups, Out-does your Heroes and your amorous Fops.

And if this chance to please you, by that rule, He that writes Wit is much the greater Fool.

DRAMATIS PERSONae.

MEN.

Sir _Patient Fancy_, an old rich Alderman, and one that fancies himself always sick, Mr. _Anthony Leigh_.

_Leander Fancy_, his Nephew, in love with _Lucretia_, Mr. _Crosby_.

_Wittmore_, Gallant to the Lady _Fancy_, a wild young Fellow of a small Fortune, Mr. _Betterton_.

_Lodwick Knowell_, Son to the Lady _Knowell_, in love with _Isabella_, Mr. _Smith_.

Sir _Credulous Easy_, a foolish _Devonshire_ Knight, design'd to marry _Lucretia_, Mr. _Nokes_.

_Curry_, his Groom, Mr. _Richards_.

_Roger_, Footman to the Lady _Fancy_.

_Abel (Bartholomew)_, Clerk to Sir _Patient Fancy_.

_Brunswick_, a friend to _Lodwick Knowell_.

Monsieur _Turboon_, a French Doctor.

A Fat Doctor.

An Amsterdam Doctor.

A Leyden Doctor.

Page to the Lady _Knowell_.

Guests, Six Servants to Sir _Patient_, Ballad-Singers and Serenaders.

WOMEN.