your Epictetus, or your Seneca here, or any of these poor rich
rogues, teach you how to pay your debts without money? Will they
shut up the mouths of your creditors? Will Plato be bail for you?
Or Diogenes, because he understands
confinement, and lived in a tub,
go to prison for you? 'Slife, sir, what do you mean, to mew
yourself up here with three or four musty books, in
commendation of
starving and
poverty?
VAL. Why, sirrah, I have no money, you know it; and
thereforeresolve to rail at all that have. And in that I but follow the
examples of the wisest and wittiest men in all ages, these poets and
philosophers whom you naturally hate, for just such another reason;
because they
abound in sense, and you are a fool.
JERE. Ay, sir, I am a fool, I know it: and yet, heaven help me,
I'm poor enough to be a wit. But I was always a fool when I told
you what your expenses would bring you to; your coaches and your
liveries; your treats and your balls; your being in love with a lady
that did not care a
farthing for you in your
prosperity; and keeping
company with wits that cared for nothing but your
prosperity; and
now, when you are poor, hate you as much as they do one another.
VAL. Well, and now I am poor I have an opportunity to be revenged
on them all. I'll
pursue Angelica with more love than ever, and
appear more notoriously her
admirer in this
restraint, than when I
openly rivalled the rich fops that made court to her. So shall my
poverty be a mortification to her pride, and, perhaps, make her
compassionate the love which has
principally reduced me to this
lowness of fortune. And for the wits, I'm sure I am in a condition
to be even with them.
JERE. Nay, your condition is pretty even with
theirs, that's the
truth on't.
VAL. I'll take some of their trade out of their hands.
JERE. Now heaven of mercy continue the tax upon paper. You don't
mean to write?
VAL. Yes, I do. I'll write a play.
JERE. Hem! Sir, if you please to give me a small
certificate of
three lines--only to certify those whom it may concern, that the
bearer hereof, Jeremy Fetch by name, has for the space of seven
years truly and
faithfully served Valentine Legend, Esq., and that
he is not now turned away for any misdemeanour, but does voluntarily
dismiss his master from any future authority over him -
VAL. No, sirrah; you shall live with me still.
JERE. Sir, it's impossible. I may die with you,
starve with you,
or be
damned with your works. But to live, even three days, the
life of a play, I no more expect it than to be canonised for a muse
after my decease.
VAL. You are witty, you rogue. I shall want your help. I'll have
you learn to make couplets to tag the ends of acts. D'ye hear? Get
the maids to Crambo in an evening, and learn the knack of rhyming:
you may arrive at the
height of a song sent by an unknown hand, or a
chocolate-house lampoon.
JERE. But, sir, is this the way to recover your father's favour?
Why, Sir Sampson will be irreconcilable. If your younger brother
should come from sea, he'd never look upon you again. You're
undone, sir; you're ruined; you won't have a friend left in the
world if you turn poet. Ah, pox
confound that Will's coffee-house:
it has ruined more young men than the Royal Oak
lottery. Nothing
thrives that belongs to't. The man of the house would have been an
alderman by this time, with half the trade, if he had set up in the
city. For my part, I never sit at the door that I don't get double
the
stomach that I do at a horse race. The air upon Banstead-Downs
is nothing to it for a whetter; yet I never see it, but the spirit
of
famine appears to me, sometimes like a decayed
porter, worn out
with pimping, and carrying billet doux and songs: not like other
porters, for hire, but for the jests' sake. Now like a thin
chairman, melted down to half his
proportion, with carrying a poet
upon tick, to visit some great fortune; and his fare to be paid him
like the wages of sin, either at the day of marriage, or the day of
death.
VAL. Very well, sir; can you proceed?
JERE. Sometimes like a bilked bookseller, with a meagre terrified
countenance, that looks as if he had written for himself, or were
resolved to turn author, and bring the rest of his brethren into the
same condition. And
lastly, in the form of a worn-out punk, with
verses in her hand, which her
vanity had preferred to settlements,
without a whole
tatter to her tail, but as
ragged as one of the
muses; or as if she were carrying her linen to the paper-mill, to be
converted into folio books of
warning to all young maids, not to
prefer
poetry to good sense, or lying in the arms of a needy wit,
before the embraces of a
wealthy fool.
SCENE II.
VALENTINE, SCANDAL, JEREMY.
SCAN. What, Jeremy
holding forth?
VAL. The rogue has (with all the wit he could
muster up) been
declaiming against wit.
SCAN. Ay? Why, then, I'm afraid Jeremy has wit: for
wherever it
is, it's always contriving its own ruin.
JERE. Why, so I have been telling my master, sir: Mr Scandal, for
heaven's sake, sir, try if you can dissuade him from turning poet.
SCAN. Poet! He shall turn soldier first, and rather depend upon
the outside of his head than the
lining. Why, what the devil, has
not your
poverty made you enemies enough? Must you needs shew your
wit to get more?
JERE. Ay, more indeed: for who cares for anybody that has more wit
than himself?
SCAN. Jeremy speaks like an
oracle. Don't you see how worthless
great men and dull rich rogues avoid a witty man of small fortune?
Why, he looks like a writ of enquiry into their titles and estates,
and seems commissioned by heaven to seize hte better half.
VAL. Therefore I would rail in my writings, and be revenged.
SCAN. Rail? At whom? The whole world? Impotent and vain! Who
would die a
martyr to sense in a country where the religion is
folly? You may stand at bay for a while; but when the full cry is
against you, you shan't have fair play for your life. If you can't
be fairly run down by the hounds, you will be treacherously shot by
the huntsmen. No, turn pimp, flatterer, quack,
lawyer,
parson, be
chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but
poet. A modern poet is worse, more servile, timorous, and fawning,
than any I have named: without you could retrieve the ancient
honours of the name, recall the stage of Athens, and be allowed the
force of open honest satire.
VAL. You are as inveterate against our poets as if your character
had been
lately exposed upon the stage. Nay, I am not violently
bent upon the trade. [One knocks.] Jeremy, see who's there.
[JERE. goes to the door.] But tell me what you would have me do?
What do the world say of me, and my forced
confinement?
SCAN. The world behaves itself as it uses to do on such occasions;
some pity you, and
condemn your father; others excuse him, and blame
you; only the ladies are
merciful, and wish you well, since love and
pleasurable expense have been your greatest faults.
VAL. How now?
JERE. Nothing new, sir; I have despatched some half a dozen duns
with as much
dexterity as a hungry judge does causes at dinner-time.
VAL. What answer have you given 'em?
SCAN. Patience, I suppose, the old receipt.
JERE. No, faith, sir; I have put 'em off so long with
patience and
forbearance, and other fair words, that I was forced now to tell 'em
in plain
downright English -
VAL. What?
JERE. That they should be paid.
VAL. When?
JERE. To-morrow.
VAL. And how the devil do you mean to keep your word?
JERE. Keep it? Not at all; it has been so very much stretched that
I
reckon it will break of course by to-morrow, and nobody be
surprised at the matter. [Knocking.] Again! Sir, if you don't
like my
negotiation, will you be pleased to answer these yourself?
VAL. See who they are.
SCENE III.
VALENTINE, SCANDAL.
VAL. By this, Scandal, you may see what it is to be great;
secretaries of state, presidents of the council, and generals of an
army lead just such a life as I do; have just such crowds of
visitants in a morning, all soliciting of past promises; which are
but a civiller sort of duns, that lay claim to
voluntary debts.
SCAN. And you, like a true great man, having engaged their
attendance, and promised more than ever you intended to perform, are
more perplexed to find evasions than you would be to
invent the
honest means of keeping your word, and gratifying your creditors.
VAL. Scandal, learn to spare your friends, and do not
provoke your
enemies; this liberty of your tongue will one day bring a
confinement on your body, my friend.
SCENE IV.
VALENTINE, SCANDAL, JEREMY.
JERE. O sir, there's Trapland the scrivener, with two suspicious
fellows like
lawful pads, that would knock a man down with pocket-
tipstaves. And there's your father's
steward, and the nurse with
one of your children from Twitnam.
VAL. Pox on her, could she find no other time to fling my sins in
my face? Here, give her this, [gives money] and bid her trouble me
no more; a
thoughtless two-handed whore, she knows my condition well
enough, and might have overlaid the child a
fortnight ago, if she
had had any
forecast in her.
SCAN. What, is it bouncing Margery, with my godson?
JERE. Yes, sir.
SCAN. My
blessing to the boy, with this token [gives money] of my
love. And d'ye hear, bid Margery put more flocks in her bed, shift
twice a week, and not work so hard, that she may not smell so
vigorously. I shall take the air shortly.
VAL. Scandal, don't spoil my boy's milk. Bid Trapland come in. If
I can give that Cerberus a sop, I shall be at rest for one day.
SCENE V.
VALENTINE, SCANDAL, TRAPLAND, JEREMY.
VAL. Oh, Mr Trapland! My old friend! Welcome. Jeremy, a chair
quickly: a bottle of sack and a toast--fly--a chair first.
TRAP. A good morning to you, Mr Valentine, and to you, Mr Scandal.
SCAN. The morning's a very good morning, if you don't spoil it.
VAL. Come, sit you down, you know his way.
TRAP. [sits.] There is a debt, Mr Valentine, of 1500 pounds of
pretty long
standing -
VAL. I cannot talk about business with a thirsty palate. Sirrah,
the sack.
TRAP. And I desire to know what course you have taken for the
payment?
VAL. Faith and troth, I am
heartily glad to see you. My service to
you. Fill, fill to honest Mr Trapland--fuller.
TRAP. Hold,
sweetheart: this is not to our business. My service
to you, Mr Scandal. [Drinks.] I have forborne as long -
VAL. T'other glass, and then we'll talk. Fill, Jeremy.
TRAP. No more, in truth. I have forborne, I say -
VAL. Sirrah, fill when I bid you. And how does your handsome
daughter? Come, a good husband to her. [Drinks.]
TRAP. Thank you. I have been out of this money -
VAL. Drink first. Scandal, why do you not drink? [They drink.]
TRAP. And, in short, I can be put off no longer.
VAL. I was much obliged to you for your supply. It did me signal
service in my necessity. But you delight in doing good. Scandal,
drink to me, my friend Trapland's health. An honester man lives
not, nor one more ready to serve his friend in
distress: though I
say it to his face. Come, fill each man his glass.
SCAN. What, I know Trapland has been a whoremaster, and loves a
wench still. You never knew a whoremaster that was not an honest
fellow.