CLARISSA.
Prithee, tell me how you have passed the night?
ARAMINTA.
Why, I have been studying all the ways my brain could produce to plague my husband.
CLARISSA.
No wonder, indeed, you look so fresh this morning, after the satisfaction of such pleasant ideas all night. (Vanbrugh, Confederacy, II, i.)
100: Lady Fidget dit:
Our virtue is like the statesman's religion, the Quaker's word, the gamester's oath, and the great man's honour, but to cheat those that trust us. (Wycherley, Love in a Wood.)
If you consult the widows of the town, they'll tell you, you should never take a lease of a house you can hire for a quarter's warning. (Vanbrugh, Relapse, acte II, fin.)
My heart cut a caper up to my mouth when I heard my father was shot through the head. (Ibid.)
101:
LADY TOUCHWOOD (à Maskwell).
You want but leisure to invent fresh falsehood, and sooth me to a fond belief of all your fictions. But I'll stab the lie that is forming in your heart, and save a sin, in pity of your soul. (Congreve, Double Dealer.)
102: Farquhar, The Beaux Stratagem.
103: Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife.
104: After his man and he had rolled about the room, like sick passengers in a storm, he comes flounce in the bed, dead as a salmon into a fishmonger's basket; his feet cold as ice, his breath hot as a furnace, and his hands and his face as greasy as his flannel nightcap. O matrimony! He tosses up the clothes with a barbarous swing over his shoulders, disorders the whole economy of my bed, bares me half naked, and my whole night's comfort is the tunable serenade of that wakeful nightingale, his nose!
105: Why did I marry! I married because I had a mind to lie with her, and she would not let me....
106:
Ay, damn morality!—and damn the watch! and let the constable be married!... Liberty and property, and Old England, huzza!...
So, now, Mr. Constable, shall you and I go pick up a whore together?—No?—Then I'll go by myself, and you and your wife may be damned!...
Whom do you call a drunken fellow, you slut you? I'm a man of quality; the king has made me a knight.... I'll devil you, you jade you! I'll demolish your ugly face!...
I'll warrant you, it is some such squeamish minx as my wife, that is grown so dainty of late, that she finds fault even with a dirty shirt.
107: Let us hear no more of my wife nor your mistress. Damn them both with all my heart, and every thing else that dangles a petticoat, except four generous whores, with Betty Sands at the head of them, who are drunk with my Lord Rake and I ten times in a fortnight.
108:
Come, kiss me, then.
LADY BRUTE (kissing him).
There; now go. (Aside.) He stinks like poison.
SIR JOHN.
I see it goes damnably against your stomach, and therefore kiss me again. (Kisses and tumbles her.)
So now, you being as dirty and as nasty as myself, we may go pig together.
109: Come to your kennel, you cuckoldy drunken sot you.
110: Ralph, go thy ways, and ask Sir Tunbelly, if he pleases to be waited upon. And dost hear? Call to nurse that she may lock up Miss Hoyden before the gate's open.
111: Till I know your name, I shall not ask you to come into my house; and when I know your name, 'tis six to four I don't ask you neither.
112: Cod's my life! I ask your Lordship's pardon ten thousand times. (To a servant.) Here, run in a-doors quickly. Get a Scotch-coal fire in the great parlour; set all the Turkey-work chairs in their places; get the great brass candlesticks out, and be sure stick the sockets full of laurel. Run! And do you hear; run away to nurse; bid her let Miss Hoyden loose again, and, if it is not shifting day, let her put on a clean tucker, quick!
113:
Ah! poor girl, she will be scared out of her wits on her wedding night.
Udswoon, I'll give my wench a wedding-dinner, though I go to grass with the King of Assyria for it.
Not so soon. That is knocking my girl, before you bid her stand. Besides, my wench's wedding-gown is not come home yet.
114: Ha! there is my wench, I' faith. Touch and take, I'll warrant her; she'll breed like a tame rabbit.
115:
My lord, will you cut his throat, or shall I?
Here, give my dog-whip.
Here, here, here, let me beat out his brains, and that will decide it.
Ha! they bill like turtles. Udsookers, they set my old blood afire. I shall cuckold somebody before morning.
116: It's well I have a husband a-coming, or, ecod, I'd marry the baker; I would so. Nobody can knock at the gate, but presently I must be locked up; and here's the young grey-hound bitch can run loose about the house all the day long, she can. 'Tis very well.
117: O Lord, I'll go put on my laced smock, though I'm whipped till the blood run down my heels for it.
118: Sir, I never disobey my father in anything but eating of green gooseberries....
119: A week! Why, I shall be an old woman by that time!
120: Ecod, with all my heart! The more the merrier, I say; ha! nurse!
121: Le caractère de la nourrice est excellent. Fashion la remercie de l'éducation qu'elle a donnée à Hoyden:
«Alas, all I can boast of is, I gave her pure good milk, and so your honour would have said, an you had seen how the poor thing sucked it! Eh! God's blessing on the sweet face on it, how it used to hang at this poor teat, and suck and squeeze, and kick, and sprawl it would, till the belly on't was so full, it would drop off like a leech!»
Cela est vrai, même après la nourrice de Juliette dans Shakspeare.
122:
Why, if you two you be sure to hold your tongues, and not say a word of what's past, I'll even marry this lord too.
NURSE.
What, two husbands, my dear?
HOYDEN.
Why, you had three, good nurse; you may hold your tongue...
123:
But if I leave my lord, I must leave my lady too; and when I rattle about the streets in my coach, they'll only say: There goes Mistress—Mistress—Mistress what? What is this man's name have married, nurse?
NURSE.
'Squire Fashion.
HOYDEN.
'Squire Fashion is it? Well, 'squire, that's better than nothing.
124: Love him! Why, do you think I love him, nurse? Ecod, I would not care if he were hanged, so I were but once married to him. No; that which pleases me is to think what work I'll make when I get to London; for when I am a wife and a lady both, nurse, ecod, I'll flaunt it with the best of 'em.
125: But, d'ye hear? Pray, take care of one thing: when the business comes to break out, be sure you get between me and my father; for you know his tricks; he will knock me down.
126: Voir aussi le caractère du jeune garçon lourdaud et bête, squire Humphrey (A Journey to London, Vanbrugh). Il n'a qu'une idée, manger toujours.
127: L'Hippolyta de Wycherley, la Silvia de Farquhar.
128: If I marry my Lord Aimwell, there will be title, place, and precedence, the park, the play, and the drawing-room, splendour, equipage, noise, and flambeaux. «Hey, my Lady Aimwell's servants there!—Light, light to the stairs—my Lady Aimwell's coach put forward—stand by, make room for her ladyship.»—Are not those things moving?
129: Were it not for your affair in the balance, I should go near to pick up some odious man of quality yet, and only take poor Heartfree for a gallant.
130: Look you here, madam, then, what Mr. Tattle has given me.—Look you here, cousin; here's a snuff-box; nay, there's snuff in 't. Here, will you have any?—Oh God, how sweet it is! Mr. Tattle is all over sweet; his peruke is sweet, and his gloves are sweet, and his handkerchief is sweet, pure sweet, sweeter than roses.—Smell him, mother, madam, I mean.—He gave me this ring for a kiss.... Smell, cousin; he says he'll give me something that will make my smocks smell this way. Is not it pure? 'Tis better than lavender, nurse.—I'm resolved I won't let nurse put any more lavender among my smocks—ha, cousin?
131:
MISS PRUE.
Well, and how will you make love to me.—Come, I long to have you begin.—Must I make love too? You must tell me how.
TATTLE.
You must let me speak, miss; you must not speak first. I must ask you questions, and you must answer.
MISS PRUE.
What, is it like the catechism?—Come, then, ask me.
TATTLE.
D'ye think you can love me?
MISS PRUE.
Yes.
TATTLE.
Pooh, pox, you must not say yes already. I shan't care a farthing for you then in a twinkling.
MISS PRUE.
What must I say then?
TATTLE.
Why, you must say no, or you believe not, or you can't tell.
MISS PRUE.
Why, must I tell a lye then?
TATTLE.
Yes, if you'd be well bred. All well-bred persons lye.—Besides, you are a woman; you must never speak what you think. Your words must contradict your thoughts, but your actions may contradict your words. So when I ask you, if you can love me, you must say no; but you must love me too.—If I tell you you are handsome, you must deny it, and say I flatter you.—But you must think yourself more charming than I speak you, and like me, for the beauty which I say you have, as much as if I had it myself.—If I ask you to kiss me, you must be angry, but you must not refuse me....
MISS PRUE.
O Lord, I swear this is pure.—I like it better than our old-fashioned country way of speaking one's mind. And must not you lie too?
TATTLE.
Hum—yes.—But you must believe I speak truth....
MISS PRUE.
O Gemini! Well, I always had a great mind to tell lies. But they frightened me, and said it was a sin.
TATTLE.
Well, my pretty creature, will you make me happy by giving me a kiss?
MISS PRUE.
No, indeed; I am angry with you. (Runs and kisses him.)
TATTLE.
Hold, hold, that's pretty well.—But you should not have given it me, but have suffered me to have taken it.
MISS PRUE.
Well, we'll do it again.
TATTLE.
With all my heart.—Now then, my little angel. (Kisses her.)
MISS PRUE.
Pish.
TATTLE.
That is right. Again, my charmer. (Kisses again.)
MISS PRUE.
O fye, nay, now I can't abide you!
TATTLE.
Admirable! That was as well as if you had been born and bred in Covent Garden.
132:
MISS PRUE.
Well, and there's a handsome gentleman, and a fine gentleman, and a sweet gentleman, that was here, that loves me, and I love him; and if he sees you speak to me any more, he'll thrash your jacket for you, he will; you great sea-calf.
BEN.
What! do you mean that fair-weather spark that was here just now? Will he thrash my jacket? Let'n, let'n, let'n—but an he comes near me, mayhap I may give him a salt-eel for's supper, for all that. What does father mean, to leave me alone, as soon as I come home, with such a dirty dowdy? Sea-calf! I an't calf enough to lick your chalked face, you cheese-curd you.
133:
Now my mind is set upon a man; I will have a man some way or other. Oh! methinks I'm sick when I think of a man....
FORESIGHT.
Hussy, you shall have a rod.
MISS PRUE.
A fiddle of a rod! I'll have a husband. And if you won't get me one, I'll get one for myself. I'll marry our Robin the butler. He says he loves me, and he's a handsome man, and shall be my husband. I warrant he'll be my husband, and thank me too, for he told me so.
134: Congreve, The Way of the World.
135:
But art thou sure Sir Rowland will not fail to come? Or will he not fail when he does come? Will he be importunate, Foible, and push? For if he should not be importunate—I shall never break decorum.—I shall die with confusion, if I am forced to advance.—Oh no, I can never advance. I shall swoon, if he should expect advances. No, I hope Sir Rowland is better bred than to put a lady to the necessity of breaking her forms. I won't be too coy neither—I won't give him despair.—But a little disdain is not amiss—a little scorn is alluring.
FOIBLE.
A little scorn becomes your Ladyship.
LADY WISHFORT.
Yes, but tenderness becomes me best—a sort of dyingness. You see that picture has a sort of a—ha, Foible?—a swimmingness in the eyes.—Yes, I'll look so.—My niece affects it. But she wants features.—Is Sir Rowland handsome? Let my toilet be removed.—I'll dress above. I'll receive Sir Rowland here.—Is he handsome? Don't answer me. I won't know. I'll be inspirated. I'll be taken by surprise....
LADY WISHFORT.
And how do I look, Foible?
FOIBLE.
Most killing well, madam.
LADY WISHFORT.
Well, and how shall I receive him? In what figure shall I give his heart the first impression?—Shall I sit?—No, I won't sit—I'll walk—ay, I'll walk from the door upon his entrance, and then turn full upon him.—No, that will be too sudden.—I'll lie—ay, I'll lie down.—I'll receive him in my little dressing-room; there is a couch.—Yes, yes, I'll give the first impression on a couch.—I won't lie neither, but loll and lean upon an elbow, with one foot a little dangling off, jogging in a thoughtful way.—Yes; and then as soon as he appears, start,—ay, start, and be surprised, and rise to meet him with most pretty disorder.
136: Congreve, Double Dealer.
137:
MILLEFOND.
For heaven's sake, madam.
LADY PLIANT.
O, name it no more!—Bless me, how can you talk of heaven! and have so much wickedness in your heart!—May be you don't think it a sin.—They say some of you gentlemen don't think it a sin.—May be it is no sin to them that don't think it so. Indeed, if I did not think it a sin.—But still my honour, if it were no sin.—But then to marry my daughter, for the conveniency of frequent opportunities.—I'll never consent to that. As sure as can be, I'll break the match.
MILLEFOND.
Death and amazement! Madam, upon my knees.
LADY PLIANT.
Nay, nay, rise up. Come, you shall see my good nature. I know Love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. 'Tis not your fault; nor I swear it is not mine.—How can I help it, if I have charms? And how can you help it if you are made a captive? I swear it is pity it should be a fault.—But my honour!—Well, but your honour too.—But the sin!—Well, but the necessity.—O Lord, here is somebody coming. I dare not stay. Well, you must consider of your crime, and strive as much as can be against it.—Strive, be sure.—But don't be melancholy, don't despair.—But never think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no.—But be sure you lay aside all thoughts of the marriage; for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only as a blind for your passion for me, yet it will make me jealous.—O Lord, what did I say? Jealous! No, no; I can't be jealous, for I must not love you.—Therefore don't hope.—But don't despair neither.—O, they are coming, I must fly.
138: Congreve, The Way of the World.
139: Sententious Mirabell! Prithee, don't look with that violent and inflexible wise face, like Salomon on the dividing of the child in an old tapestry-hanging.... Ha, ha, ha, pardon me, dear creature, I must laugh, though I grant you 'tis a little barbarous, ha, ha, ha!
140:
Ah! I'll never marry unless I am first made sure of my will and pleasure!... My dear liberty, shall I leave thee? My faithful solitude, my darling contemplation, must I bid you adieu? Ay, adieu; my morning thoughts, agreeable wakings, indolent slumbers, all ye douceurs, ye sommeils du matin, adieu.—I can't do it; 'tis more than impossible.—Positively, Mirabell, I'll lie a bed in a morning as long as I please.
MIRABELL.
Then I'll get up in a morning as early as I please.
MILLAMANT.
Ah! idle creature, get up when you will. And d'ye hear, I won't be called names after I'm married; positively, I won't be called names.
MIRABELL.
Names!
MILLAMANT.
Ay, as wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweet heart, and the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their wives are so fulsomely familiar.—I shall never bear that.—Good Mirabell, don't let us be familiar or fond, nor kiss before folks, like my Lady Fadler and Sir Francis. Let us never visit together, nor go to a play together; but let us be very strange and well bred. Let us be as strange as if we had been married a great while, and as well bred as if we were not married at all.
MIRABELL.
Shall I kiss your hand upon the contract?
MILLAMANT.
Fainall, what shall I do? Shall I have him? I think I must have him.
FAINALL.
Ay, ay, take him, take him. What should you do?
MILLAMANT.
Well, then—I'll take my death I'm in a horrid fright.—Fainall, I shall never say it.—Well—I think—I'll endure you.
FAINALL.
Fy, fy, have him, have him, and tell him so in plain terms. For I am sure you have a mind to him.
MILLAMANT.
Are you? I think I have.—And the horrid man looks as if he thought so too.—Well, you ridiculous thing you, I'll have you.—I won't be kissed, nor I won't be thanked.—Here, kiss my hand though.—So hold your tongue now; don't say a word.
141:
AMANDA.
How did you live together?
BERINTHIA.
Like man and wife, asunder. He loved the country, and I the town; he hawks and hounds, I coaches and equipage; he eating and drinking, I carding and playing; he the sound of a horn, I the squeak of a fiddle. We were dull company at table; worse a-bed. Whenever we met, we gave one another the spleen; and never agreed but once, which was about lying alone. (Vanbrugh, Relapse, acte II, fin.)
Voyez encore dans Vanbrugh, A Journey to London. Rarement la laideur et la corruption de la nature brutale ou mondaine ont été étalées plus à vif. La petite Betty et son frère sont à pendre.
MISTRESS FORESIGHT.
Do you think any woman honest?
SCANDAL.
Yes, several, very honest.—They'll cheat a little at cards, sometimes; but that is nothing.
MISTRESS FORESIGHT.
Pshaw! But virtuous, I mean.
SCANDAL.
Yes, faith. I believe some women are virtuous too. But 'tis as I believe—some men are valiant through fear.—For why should a man court danger, or a woman shun pleasure? (Congreve, Love for Love.)
142:
We are as wicked as men, but our vices lie another way. They have more courage than we; so they commit more bold impudent sins. They quarrel, fight, swear, drink, blaspheme, and the like. Whereas we, being cowards, only backbite, tell lies, cheat cards, and so forth. (Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife.)
Voyez aussi dans cette pièce le caractère de Mademoiselle, femme de chambre française. Ils représentent le vice français comme plus impudent encore que le vice anglais.
143:
Give me a man that keeps his five senses keen and bright as his sword, that has them always drawn out in their just order and strength, with his reason as commander at the head of them, that detaches them by turns upon whatever party of pleasure agreeably offers, and commands them to retreat upon the least appearance of disadvantage or danger.
I love a fine house, but let another keep it; and so just I love a fine woman. (Acte I, scene i.)
Catéchisme de l'amour:
What are the objects of that passion?
Youth, beauty, and clean linen. (Farquhar, The Beaux Stratagem.)
As I am a gentleman, a man of the town, one that wears good clothes, eats, drinks, and wenches sufficiently. (Dryden, Mock Astrologer.)
144:
The first thing that I would do, should be to lie with her chambermaid, and hire three or four wenches of the neighbourhood to report that I have got them with child.
I never quarrel with anything in my cups, but an oysterwench, or a cookmaid; and if they be not civil, I knock them down.
145: You should have just so much disgust for your husband as may be sufficient to make you relish your lover. (Congreve, The Way of the World, acte II, scene iv.)
146:
MISTRESS FAINALL.
Why did you make me marry this man?
MIRABELL.
Why do we daily commit disagreeable and dangerous actions? To save that idol reputation....
147: If the familiarity of our loves had produced that consequence of which you were apprehensive, where could you have fixed a father's name with credit, but on a husband?
148: A better man ought not to have been sacrificed to the occasion; a worse had not answered the purpose. When you are weary of him, you know your remedy.
149: Rôle du chapelain Foigard dans Farquhar (Beaux Stratagem), de Mademoiselle, et en général, de tous les Français.
150: Rôle d'Amanda dans Relapse (Vanbrugh); rôle de mistress Sullen, conversion des deux viveurs, dans The Beaux Stratagem (Farquhar).
151: Though marriage be a lottery in which there are a wondrous many blanks, yet there is one inestimable lot, in which the only heaven upon earth is written.
To be capable of loving one, doubtless, is better than to possess a thousand. (Vanbrugh.)
152: She Stoops to Conquer.
153:
ACRES.
Odds blades! David, no gentleman will ever risk the loss of his honour.
DAVID.
I say then, it would be but civil in honour never to risk the loss of a gentleman. Look'ee, master, this honour seems to me a marvellously false friend, ay truly, a very courtier-like servant.
154:
SIR ANTHONY.
Nay, but Jack, such eyes! So innocently wild! So bashfully irresolute! not a glance but speaks and kindle some thought of love! Then, Jack! her cheeks! so deeply blushing at the insinuation of her tell-tale eyes! Then, Jack, her lips! O Jack, lips, smiling at their own discretion, and if not smiling, more sweetly pouting, more lovely in sullenness!
155:
MRS. CANDOUR.
To-day, Mrs. Clackitt assured me, Mr. and Mrs. Honeymoon were at last become man and wife, like the rest of their acquaintance. She likewise hinted that a certain widow, in the next street, had got rid of her dropsy and recovered her shape in a most surprising manner. And at the same time Miss Tattle, who was by, affirmed that Lord Buffalo had discovered his lady at a house of no extraordinary fame; and that Sir Harry Bouquet and Tom Saunter were to measure swords on a similar provocation.
156:
MRS. CANDOUR.
Well, I will never join in ridiculing a friend; and so I constantly tell my cousin Ogle, and you all know what pretensions she has to be critical on beauty.
CRAB.
Oh, to be sure! she has herself the oddest countenance that ever was seen; 'tis a collection of features from all the different countries of the globe.
SIR BENJAMIN.
So she has, indeed.... an Irish front....
CRAB.
Caledonian locks....
SIR BENJAMIN.
Dutch nose....
CRAB.
Austrian lips....
SIR BENJAMIN.
Complexion of a Spaniard....
CRAB.
And teeth à la chinoise....
SIR BENJAMIN.
In short, her face resembles a table d'hôte at Spa, where no two guests are of a nation....
CRAB.
Or a congress at the close of a general war; wherein all the members, even to her eyes, appear to have a different interest, and her nose and chin are the only parties likely to join issue.
157:
CRAB.
Sad comfort, whenever he returns, to hear how your brother has gone on!
JOSEPH SURFACE.
Charles has been imprudent, sir, to be sure; but I hope no busy people have already prejudiced Sir Oliver against him. He may reform.
SIR BENJAMIN.
To be sure he may: for my part, I never believed him to be so utterly void of principle as people say; and, though he has lost all his friends, I am told nobody is better spoken of by the Jews.
CRAB.
That's true, egad, nephew. If the Old Jewry was a ward, I believe Charles would be an alderman: no man more popular there, fore Gad! I hear he pays as many annuities as the Irish tontine; and that, whenever he is sick, they have prayers for the recovery of his health in all the synagogues.
SIR BENJAMIN.
Yet no man lives in greater splendour. They tell me, when he entertains his friends, he will sit down to dinner with a dozen of his own securities; have a score of tradesmen waiting in the antechamber, and an officer behind every guest's chair.
158:
SIR BENJAMIN.
Mr. Surface, I do not mean to hurt you; but depend on 't, your brother is utterly undone.
CRAB.
O Lud, ay! undone as ever man was—can't raise a guinea.
SIR BENJAMIN.
And every thing sold, I'm told, that was movable.
CRAB.
I have seen one that was at his house. Not a thing left but some empty bottles that were overlooked, and the family pictures, which I believe were framed in the wainscots.
SIR BENJAMIN.
And I'm very sorry also to hear some bad stories against him. (Going).
CRAB.
Oh, he has done many mean things, that's certain.
SIR BENJAMIN.
But, however, as he's your brother.... (Going.)
CRAB.
We'll tell you all another opportunity.
159:
His body was an orb, his sublime soul
Did move on Virtue's and on Learning's pole.
....Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make
If thou this hero's altitude canst take.
....Blisters with pride swell'd, which through's flesh did sprout
Like rosebuds, stuck i' th' lilly skin about.
Each little pimple had a tear in it
To wail the fault its rising did commit.
Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
The cabinet of a richer soul within?
No cornet need foretell his change drew on
Whose corpse might seem a constellation.
160:
«Si quelqu'un me demande ce qui a si fort poli notre conversation, je répondrai que c'est la cour.»
Dryden, Défense de l'Épilogue de la Conquête de Grenade.
161: Stances sur la mort d'Olivier Cromwell.
162: Defence of the Epilogue to the Conquest of Grenada.—Grounds of Criticism in tragedy.
163: The language, wit, and conversation of our age are improved and refined above the last....
Let us consider in what the refinement of a language principally consists: That is either in rejecting such old words or phrases which are ill sounding or improper, or in admitting new, which are more proper, more sounding, and more significant....
Let any man who understands English, read diligently the Works of Shakspeare and Fletcher, and I dare undertake that he will find, in every page, either some solecism of speech, or some notorious flaw in sense.... Many of their plots were made up of some ridiculous or incoherent story, which in one play many times took up the business of an age. I suppose I need not name Pericles, Prince of Tyre, nor the historical plays of Shakspeare; besides many of the rest, as the Winter's Tale, Love's Labour Lost, Measure for Measure, which were either grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written that the comedy neither caused your mirth nor the serious part our concernment.
.... I could easily demonstrate that our admired Fletcher neither understood correct plotting, nor what they call the decorum of the stage.... The reader will see Philaster wounding his mistress, and afterwards his boy, to save himself.... His shepherd falls twice into the former indecency of wounding women. (Defence of the Epilogue, etc.)
164: Many of his words and more of his phrases are scarce intelligible; and of those which we understand, some are ungrammatical, others coarse; and his whole style is so pestered with figurative expressions, that it is affected as it is obscure.
165: Well-placing of words for the sweetness of pronunciation was not known till Mr. Waller introduced it.
166: In the age wherein those poets lived there was less of gallantry than in ours.... Besides the want of learning and education, they wanted the happiness of converse....
If any ask me wherein it is that our conversation is so much refined, I must ascribe it to the Court.
Gentlemen will now be entertained with the follies of each other, and though they allow Cob and Tib to speak properly, yet they are not much pleased with their tankard or with their rags.
167: Préface de All for Love.
168: They are likewise to be gathered from the several virtues, vices, or passions, and many other common-places which a poet must be supposed to have learned from natural philosophy, ethicks, and history: of all which whosoever is ignorant does not deserve the name of poet.
169: Essay on Dramatic Poesy.
170: The beauties of the French poesy are the beauties of a statue, but not of a man, because not animated with the soul of poesy, which is imitation of humour and passions.... He who will look upon their plays which have been written 'till these last ten years or thereabouts, will find it an hard matter to pick out two or three passable humours amongst them. Corneille himself, their archpoet, what has he produced except the liar? And you know how it was cry'd up in France. But when it came upon the English stage, though well translated.... the most favourable to it would not put it in competition with many of Fletcher's or Ben Jonson's.... Their verses are to me the coldest I have ever read.... their speeches being so many declamations. When the French stage came to be reformed by cardinal Richelieu, those long harangues were introduced, to comply with the dignity of a churchman. Look upon the Cinna and the Pompey. They are not so properly to be called plays as long discourses of reason of state; and Polyeucte, in matters of religion, is as solemn as the long stops upon our organs. Since that time it is grown into a custom, and their actors speak by the hour-glass, like our parsons.... I deny not this may suit well enough with the French; for as we, who are a more sullen people, come to be diverted at our plays; so they, who are of an aery and gay temper, come hither to make themselves more serious. (Essay on Dramatic Poesy.)
171:
In this nicety of manners does the excellency of French poetry consist. Their heroes are the most civil people breathing; but their good breeding seldom extends to a word of sense. All their wit is in their ceremony. They want the genius which animates our stage.... Thus their Hippolytus is so scrupulous in point of decency that he will rather expose himself to death than accuse his step-mother to his father; and my criticks, I am sure, will commend him for it. But we of grosser apprehensions are apt to think that this excess of generosity is not practicable but with fools and madmen.... Take Hippolytus out of his poetic fit, and I suppose he would think it a wiser part to set the saddle on the right horse, and chuse rather to live with the reputation of a plain-spoken honest man than to die with the infamy of an incestuous villain.... The poet has chosen to give him the turn of gallantry, sent him to travel from Athens to Paris, taught him to make love, and transformed the Hippolytus of Euripides into Monsieur Hippolyte. (Préface de All for Love.)
Cette critique montre, en abrégé, tout le bon sens et toute la liberté d'esprit de Dryden, mais en même temps toute la grossièreté de son éducation et de son temps.
172:
.... Contented to be thinly regular.
Their tongue enfeebled is refin'd too much,
And, like pure gold, it bends to every touch.
Our sturdy Teuton yet will not obey,
More fit for manly thought, and strengthen'd with allay.
(Épître XII.)
173: A more masculine fancy and greater spirit in the writing than there is in any of the French.
174:
War is my province; Priest, why stand you mute?
You gain by Heav'n and therefore should dispute....
CATHERINE.
Then let the whole dispute concluded be
Betwixt these rules and christianity....
.... Reason with your fond religion fights,
For many Gods are many infinites;
This to the first philosophers was known.
Who under various names, ador'd but one.
(Act. II, sc. i.)
175:
Absent, I may her Martyrdom decree,
But one look more will make that martyr me....
Ce Maximin a la spécialité des calembours: Porphyrius, à qui il offre sa fille en mariage, répond que la distance est trop grande. Maximin là-dessus répond:
Yet Heav'n and Earth which so remote appear,
Are by the air, which flows betwixt'em, near.
176: