Love for Love

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SCENE IX.

[To them] JEREMY.

JERE. More misfortunes, sir.

VAL. What, another dun?

JERE. No, sir, but Mr Tattle is come to wait upon you.

VAL. Well, I can't help it, you must bring him up; he knows I don't
go abroad.

SCENE X.

VALENTINE, SCANDAL.

SCAN. Pox on him, I'll be gone.

VAL. No, prithee stay: Tattle and you should never be asunder; you
are light and shadow, and show one another; he is perfectly thy
reverse both in humour and understanding; and as you set up for
defamation, he is a mender of reputations.

SCAN. A mender of reputations! Ay, just as he is a keeper of
secrets, another virtue that he sets up for in the same manner. For
the rogue will speak aloud in the posture of a whisper, and deny a
woman's name while he gives you the marks of her person. He will
forswear receiving a letter from her, and at the same time show you
her hand in the superscription: and yet perhaps he has
counterfeited the hand too, and sworn to a truth; but he hopes not
to be believed, and refuses the reputation of a lady's favour, as a
Doctor says no to a Bishopric only that it may be granted him. In
short, he is public professor of secrecy, and makes proclamation
that he holds private intelligence.--He's here.

SCENE XI.

[To them] TATTLE.

TATT. Valentine, good morrow; Scandal, I am yours: --that is, when
you speak well of me.

SCAN. That is, when I am yours; for while I am my own, or anybody's
else, that will never happen.

TATT. How inhuman!

VAL. Why Tattle, you need not be much concerned at anything that he
says: for to converse with Scandal, is to play at losing loadum;
you must lose a good name to him before you can win it for yourself.

TATT. But how barbarous that is, and how unfortunate for him, that
the world shall think the better of any person for his calumniation!
I thank heaven, it has always been a part of my character to handle
the reputations of others very tenderly indeed.

SCAN. Ay, such rotten reputations as you have to deal with are to
be handled tenderly indeed.

TATT. Nay, but why rotten? Why should you say rotten, when you
know not the persons of whom you speak? How cruel that is!

SCAN. Not know 'em? Why, thou never had'st to do with anybody that
did not stink to all the town.

TATT. Ha, ha, ha; nay, now you make a jest of it indeed. For there
is nothing more known than that nobody knows anything of that nature
of me. As I hope to be saved, Valentine, I never exposed a woman,
since I knew what woman was.

VAL. And yet you have conversed with several.

TATT. To be free with you, I have. I don't care if I own that.
Nay more (I'm going to say a bold word now) I never could meddle
with a woman that had to do with anybody else.

SCAN. How?

VAL. Nay faith, I'm apt to believe him. Except her husband,
Tattle.

TATT. Oh, that -

SCAN. What think you of that noble commoner, Mrs Drab?

TATT. Pooh, I know Madam Drab has made her brags in three or four
places, that I said this and that, and writ to her, and did I know
not what--but, upon my reputation, she did me wrong--well, well,
that was malice--but I know the bottom of it. She was bribed to
that by one we all know--a man too. Only to bring me into disgrace
with a certain woman of quality -

SCAN. Whom we all know.

TATT. No matter for that. Yes, yes, everybody knows. No doubt
on't, everybody knows my secrets. But I soon satisfied the lady of
my innocence; for I told her: Madam, says I, there are some persons
who make it their business to tell stories, and say this and that of
one and t'other, and everything in the world; and, says I, if your
grace -

SCAN. Grace!

TATT. O Lord, what have I said? My unlucky tongue!

VAL. Ha, ha, ha.

SCAN. Why, Tattle, thou hast more impudence than one can in reason
expect: I shall have an esteem for thee, well, and, ha, ha, ha,
well, go on, and what did you say to her grace?

VAL. I confess this is something extraordinary.

TATT. Not a word, as I hope to be saved; an errant lapsus linguae.
Come, let's talk of something else.

VAL. Well, but how did you acquit yourself?

TATT. Pooh, pooh, nothing at all; I only rallied with you--a woman
of ordinary rank was a little jealous of me, and I told her
something or other, faith I know not what.--Come, let's talk of
something else. [Hums a song.]

SCAN. Hang him, let him alone, he has a mind we should enquire.

TATT. Valentine, I supped last night with your mistress, and her
uncle, old Foresight: I think your father lies at Foresight's.

VAL. Yes.

TATT. Upon my soul, Angelica's a fine woman. And so is Mrs
Foresight, and her sister, Mrs Frail.

SCAN. Yes, Mrs Frail is a very fine woman, we all know her.

TATT. Oh, that is not fair.

SCAN. What?

TATT. To tell.

SCAN. To tell what? Why, what do you know of Mrs Frail?

TATT. Who, I? Upon honour I don't know whether she be man or
woman, but by the smoothness of her chin and roundness of her hips.

SCAN. No?

TATT. No.

SCAN. She says otherwise.

TATT. Impossible!

SCAN. Yes, faith. Ask Valentine else.

TATT. Why then, as I hope to be saved, I believe a woman only
obliges a man to secrecy that she may have the pleasure of telling
herself.

SCAN. No doubt on't. Well, but has she done you wrong, or no? You
have had her? Ha?

TATT. Though I have more honour than to tell first, I have more
manners than to contradict what a lady has declared.

SCAN. Well, you own it?

TATT. I am strangely surprised! Yes, yes, I can't deny't if she
taxes me with it.

SCAN. She'll be here by and by, she sees Valentine every morning.

TATT. How?

VAL. She does me the favour, I mean, of a visit sometimes. I did
not think she had granted more to anybody.

SCAN. Nor I, faith. But Tattle does not use to bely a lady; it is
contrary to his character. How one may be deceived in a woman,
Valentine?

TATT. Nay, what do you mean, gentlemen?

SCAN. I'm resolved I'll ask her.

TATT. O barbarous! Why did you not tell me?

SCAN. No; you told us.

TATT. And bid me ask Valentine?

VAL. What did I say? I hope you won't bring me to confess an
answer when you never asked me the question?

TATT. But, gentlemen, this is the most inhuman proceeding -

VAL. Nay, if you have known Scandal thus long, and cannot avoid
such a palpable decoy as this was, the ladies have a fine time whose
reputations are in your keeping.

SCENE XII.

[To them] JEREMY.

JERE. Sir, Mrs Frail has sent to know if you are stirring.

VAL. Show her up when she comes.

SCENE XIII.

VALENTINE, SCANDAL, TATTLE.

TATT. I'll be gone.

VAL. You'll meet her.

TATT. Is there not a back way?

VAL. If there were, you have more discretion than to give Scandal
such an advantage. Why, your running away will prove all that he
can tell her.

TATT. Scandal, you will not be so ungenerous. Oh, I shall lose my
reputation of secrecy for ever. I shall never be received but upon
public days, and my visits will never be admitted beyond a drawing-
room. I shall never see a bed-chamber again, never be locked in a
closet, nor run behind a screen, or under a table: never be
distinguished among the waiting-women by the name of trusty Mr
Tattle more. You will not be so cruel?

VAL. Scandal, have pity on him; he'll yield to any conditions.

TATT. Any, any terms.

SCAN. Come, then, sacrifice half a dozen women of good reputation
to me presently. Come, where are you familiar? And see that they
are women of quality, too--the first quality.

TATT. 'Tis very hard. Won't a baronet's lady pass?

SCAN. No, nothing under a right honourable.

TATT. Oh, inhuman! You don't expect their names?

SCAN. No, their titles shall serve.

TATT. Alas, that's the same thing. Pray spare me their titles.
I'll describe their persons.

SCAN. Well, begin then; but take notice, if you are so ill a
painter that I cannot know the person by your picture of her, you
must be condemned, like other bad painters, to write the name at the
bottom.

TATT. Well, first then -

SCENE XIV.

[To them] MRS FRAIL.

TATT. Oh, unfortunate! She's come already; will you have patience
till another time? I'll double the number.

SCAN. Well, on that condition. Take heed you don't fail me.

MRS FRAIL. I shall get a fine reputation by coming to see fellows
in a morning. Scandal, you devil, are you here too? Oh, Mr Tattle,
everything is safe with you, we know.

SCAN. Tattle -

TATT. Mum. O madam, you do me too much honour.

VAL. Well, Lady Galloper, how does Angelica?

MRS FRAIL. Angelica? Manners!

VAL. What, you will allow an absent lover -

MRS FRAIL. No, I'll allow a lover present with his mistress to be
particular; but otherwise, I think his passion ought to give place
to his manners.

VAL. But what if he has more passion than manners?

MRS FRAIL. Then let him marry and reform.

VAL. Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of his passion, but it
very rarely mends a man's manners.

MRS FRAIL. You are the most mistaken in the world; there is no
creature perfectly civil but a husband. For in a little time he
grows only rude to his wife, and that is the highest good breeding,
for it begets his civility to other people. Well, I'll tell you
news; but I suppose you hear your brother Benjamin is landed? And
my brother Foresight's daughter is come out of the country: I
assure you, there's a match talked of by the old people. Well, if
he be but as great a sea-beast as she is a land-monster, we shall
have a most amphibious breed. The progeny will be all otters. He
has been bred at sea, and she has never been out of the country.

VAL. Pox take 'em, their conjunction bodes me no good, I'm sure.

MRS FRAIL. Now you talk of conjunction, my brother Foresight has
cast both their nativities, and prognosticates an admiral and an
eminent justice of the peace to be the issue male of their two
bodies; 'tis the most superstitious old fool! He would have
persuaded me that this was an unlucky day, and would not let me come
abroad. But I invented a dream, and sent him to Artimedorus for
interpretation, and so stole out to see you. Well, and what will
you give me now? Come, I must have something.

VAL. Step into the next room, and I'll give you something.

SCAN. Ay, we'll all give you something.

MRS FRAIL. Well, what will you all give me?

VAL. Mine's a secret.

MRS FRAIL. I thought you would give me something that would be a
trouble to you to keep.

VAL. And Scandal shall give you a good name.

MRS FRAIL. That's more than he has for himself. And what will you
give me, Mr Tattle?

TATT. I? My soul, madam.

MRS FRAIL. Pooh! No, I thank you, I have enough to do to take care
of my own. Well, but I'll come and see you one of these mornings.
I hear you have a great many pictures.

TATT. I have a pretty good collection, at your service, some
originals.

SCAN. Hang him, he has nothing but the Seasons and the Twelve
Caesars--paltry copies--and the Five Senses, as ill-represented as
they are in himself, and he himself is the only original you will
see there.

MRS FRAIL. Ay, but I hear he has a closet of beauties.

SCAN. Yes; all that have done him favours, if you will believe him.

MRS FRAIL. Ay, let me see those, Mr Tattle.

TATT. Oh, madam, those are sacred to love and contemplation. No
man but the painter and myself was ever blest with the sight.

MRS FRAIL. Well, but a woman -

TATT. Nor woman, till she consented to have her picture there too--
for then she's obliged to keep the secret.

SCAN. No, no; come to me if you'd see pictures.

MRS FRAIL. You?

SCAN. Yes, faith; I can shew you your own picture, and most of your
acquaintance to the life, and as like as at Kneller's.

MRS FRAIL. O lying creature! Valentine, does not he lie? I can't
believe a word he says.

VAL. No indeed, he speaks truth now. For as Tattle has pictures of
all that have granted him favours, he has the pictures of all that
have refused him: if satires, descriptions, characters, and
lampoons are pictures.

SCAN. Yes; mine are most in black and white. And yet there are
some set out in their true colours, both men and women. I can shew
you pride, folly, affectation, wantonness, inconstancy,
covetousness, dissimulation, malice and ignorance, all in one piece.
Then I can shew you lying, foppery, vanity, cowardice, bragging,
lechery, impotence, and ugliness in another piece; and yet one of
these is a celebrated beauty, and t'other a professed beau. I have
paintings too, some pleasant enough.

MRS FRAIL. Come, let's hear 'em.

SCAN. Why, I have a beau in a bagnio, cupping for a complexion, and
sweating for a shape.

MRS FRAIL. So.

SCAN. Then I have a lady burning brandy in a cellar with a hackney
coachman.

MRS FRAIL. O devil! Well, but that story is not true.

SCAN. I have some hieroglyphics too; I have a lawyer with a hundred
hands, two heads, and but one face; a divine with two faces, and one
head; and I have a soldier with his brains in his belly, and his
heart where his head should be.

MRS FRAIL. And no head?

SCAN. No head.

MRS FRAIL. Pooh, this is all invention. Have you never a poet?

SCAN. Yes, I have a poet weighing words, and selling praise for
praise, and a critic picking his pocket. I have another large piece
too, representing a school, where there are huge proportioned
critics, with long wigs, laced coats, Steinkirk cravats, and
terrible faces; with cat-calls in their hands, and horn-books about
their necks. I have many more of this kind, very well painted, as
you shall see.

MRS FRAIL. Well, I'll come, if it be but to disprove you.

SCENE XIV.

[To them] JEREMY.

JERE. Sir, here's the steward again from your father.

VAL. I'll come to him--will you give me leave? I'll wait on you
again presently,

MRS FRAIL. No; I'll be gone. Come, who squires me to the Exchange?
I must call my sister Foresight there.

SCAN. I will: I have a mind to your sister.

MRS FRAIL. Civil!

TATT. I will: because I have a tendre for your ladyship.

MRS FRAIL. That's somewhat the better reason, to my opinion.

SCAN. Well, if Tattle entertains you, I have the better opportunity
to engage your sister.

VAL. Tell Angelica I am about making hard conditions to come
abroad, and be at liberty to see her.

SCAN. I'll give an account of you and your proceedings. If
indiscretion be a sign of love, you are the most a lover of anybody
that I know: you fancy that parting with your estate will help you
to your mistress. In my mind he is a thoughtless adventurer

Who hopes to purchase wealth by selling land;
Or win a mistress with a losing hand.

ACT II.--SCENE I.

A room in FORESIGHT's house.

FORESIGHT and SERVANT.

FORE. Hey day! What, are all the women of my family abroad? Is
not my wife come home? Nor my sister, nor my daughter?

SERV. No, sir.

FORE. Mercy on us, what can be the meaning of it? Sure the moon is
in all her fortitudes. Is my niece Angelica at home?

SERV. Yes, sir.

FORE. I believe you lie, sir.

SERV. Sir?

FORE. I say you lie, sir. It is impossible that anything should be
as I would have it; for I was born, sir, when the crab was
ascending, and all my affairs go backward.

SERV. I can't tell indeed, sir.

FORE. No, I know you can't, sir: but I can tell, and foretell,
sir.

SCENE II.

[To them] NURSE.

FORE. Nurse, where's your young mistress?

NURSE. Wee'st heart, I know not, they're none of 'em come home
yet. Poor child, I warrant she's fond o' seeing the town. Marry,
pray heaven they ha' given her any dinner. Good lack-a-day, ha, ha,
ha, Oh, strange! I'll vow and swear now, ha, ha, ha, marry, and did
you ever see the like!

FORE. Why, how now, what's the matter?

NURSE. Pray heaven send your worship good luck, marry, and amen
with all my heart, for you have put on one stocking with the wrong
side outward.

FORE. Ha, how? Faith and troth I'm glad of it; and so I have:
that may be good luck in troth, in troth it may, very good luck.
Nay, I have had some omens: I got out of bed backwards too this
morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too; but then I
stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad omens those:
some bad, some good, our lives are chequered. Mirth and sorrow,
want and plenty, night and day, make up our time. But in troth I am
pleased at my stocking; very well pleased at my stocking. Oh,
here's my niece! Sirrah, go tell Sir Sampson Legend I'll wait on
him if he's at leisure: --'tis now three o'clock, a very good hour
for business: Mercury governs this hour.

SCENE III.

ANGELICA, FORESIGHT, NURSE.

ANG. Is it not a good hour for pleasure too, uncle? Pray lend me
your coach; mine's out of order.

FORE. What, would you be gadding too? Sure, all females are mad
to-day. It is of evil portent, and bodes mischief to the master of
a family. I remember an old prophecy written by Messahalah the
Arabian, and thus translated by a reverend Buckinghamshire bard:-

'When housewives all the house forsake,
And leave goodman to brew and bake,
Withouten guile, then be it said,
That house doth stand upon its head;
And when the head is set in grond,
Ne marl, if it be fruitful fond.'

Fruitful, the head fruitful, that bodes horns; the fruit of the head
is horns. Dear niece, stay at home--for by the head of the house is
meant the husband; the prophecy needs no explanation.

ANG. Well, but I can neither make you a cuckold, uncle, by going
abroad, nor secure you from being one by staying at home.

FORE. Yes, yes; while there's one woman left, the prophecy is not
in full force.

ANG. But my inclinations are in force; I have a mind to go abroad,
and if you won't lend me your coach, I'll take a hackney or a chair,
and leave you to erect a scheme, and find who's in conjunction with
your wife. Why don't you keep her at home, if you're jealous of her
when she's abroad? You know my aunt is a little retrograde (as you
call it) in her nature. Uncle, I'm afraid you are not lord of the
ascendant, ha, ha, ha!

FORE. Well, Jill-flirt, you are very pert, and always ridiculing
that celestial science.

ANG. Nay, uncle, don't be angry--if you are, I'll reap up all your
false prophecies, ridiculous dreams, and idle divinations. I'll
swear you are a nuisance to the neighbourhood. What a bustle did
you keep against the last invisible eclipse, laying in provision as
'twere for a siege. What a world of fire and candle, matches and
tinder-boxes did you purchase! One would have thought we were ever
after to live under ground, or at least making a voyage to
Greenland, to inhabit there all the dark season.

FORE. Why, you malapert slut -

ANG. Will you lend me your coach, or I'll go on--nay, I'll declare
how you prophesied popery was coming only because the butler had
mislaid some of the apostle spoons, and thought they were lost.
Away went religion and spoon-meat together. Indeed, uncle, I'll
indite you for a wizard.

FORE. How, hussy! Was there ever such a provoking minx?

NURSE. O merciful father, how she talks!

ANG. Yes, I can make oath of your unlawful midnight practices, you
and the old nurse there -

NURSE. Marry, heaven defend! I at midnight practices? O Lord,
what's here to do? I in unlawful doings with my master's worship--
why, did you ever hear the like now? Sir, did ever I do anything of
your midnight concerns but warm your bed, and tuck you up, and set
the candle and your tobacco-box and your urinal by you, and now and
then rub the soles of your feet? O Lord, I!

ANG. Yes, I saw you together through the key-hole of the closet one
night, like Saul and the witch of Endor, turning the sieve and
shears, and pricking your thumbs, to write poor innocent servants'
names in blood, about a little nutmeg grater which she had forgot in
the caudle-cup. Nay, I know something worse, if I would speak of
it.

FORE. I defy you, hussy; but I'll remember this, I'll be revenged
on you, cockatrice. I'll hamper you. You have your fortune in your
own hands, but I'll find a way to make your lover, your prodigal
spendthrift gallant, Valentine, pay for all, I will.

ANG. Will you? I care not, but all shall out then. Look to it,
nurse: I can bring witness that you have a great unnatural teat
under your left arm, and he another; and that you suckle a young
devil in the shape of a tabby-cat, by turns, I can.

NURSE. A teat, a teat--I an unnatural teat! Oh, the false,
slanderous thing; feel, feel here, if I have anything but like
another Christian. [Crying.]

FORE. I will have patience, since it is the will of the stars I
should be thus tormented. This is the effect of the malicious
conjunctions and oppositions in the third house of my nativity;
there the curse of kindred was foretold. But I will have my doors
locked up;--I'll punish you: not a man shall enter my house.

ANG. Do, uncle, lock 'em up quickly before my aunt come home.
You'll have a letter for alimony to-morrow morning. But let me be
gone first, and then let no mankind come near the house, but
converse with spirits and the celestial signs, the bull and the ram
and the goat. Bless me! There are a great many horned beasts among
the twelve signs, uncle. But cuckolds go to heaven.

FORE. But there's but one virgin among the twelve signs, spitfire,
but one virgin.

ANG. Nor there had not been that one, if she had had to do with
anything but astrologers, uncle. That makes my aunt go abroad.

FORE. How, how? Is that the reason? Come, you know something;
tell me and I'll forgive you. Do, good niece. Come, you shall have
my coach and horses--faith and troth you shall. Does my wife
complain? Come, I know women tell one another. She is young and
sanguine, has a wanton hazel eye, and was born under Gemini, which
may incline her to society. She has a mole upon her lip, with a
moist palm, and an open liberality on the mount of Venus.

ANG. Ha, ha, ha!

FORE. Do you laugh? Well, gentlewoman, I'll--but come, be a good
girl, don't perplex your poor uncle, tell me--won't you speak? Odd,
I'll -

SCENE IV.

[To them] SERVANT.

SERV. Sir Sampson is coming down to wait upon you.

ANG. Good-bye, uncle--call me a chair. I'll find out my aunt, and
tell her she must not come home.

FORE. I'm so perplexed and vexed, I'm not fit to receive him; I
shall scarce recover myself before the hour be past. Go nurse, tell
Sir Sampson I'm ready to wait on him.

NURSE. Yes, sir,

FORE. Well--why, if I was born to be a cuckold, there's no more to
be said--he's here already.

SCENE V.

FORESIGHT, and SIR SAMPSON LEGEND with a paper.

SIR SAMP. Nor no more to be done, old boy; that's plain--here 'tis,
I have it in my hand, old Ptolomey, I'll make the ungracious
prodigal know who begat him; I will, old Nostrodamus. What, I
warrant my son thought nothing belonged to a father but forgiveness
and affection; no authority, no correction, no arbitrary power;
nothing to be done, but for him to offend and me to pardon. I
warrant you, if he danced till doomsday he thought I was to pay the
piper. Well, but here it is under black and white, signatum,
sigillatum, and deliberatum; that as soon as my son Benjamin is
arrived, he's to make over to him his right of inheritance. Where's
my daughter that is to be?--Hah! old Merlin! body o' me, I'm so glad
I'm revenged on this undutiful rogue.

FORE. Odso, let me see; let me see the paper. Ay, faith and troth,
here 'tis, if it will but hold. I wish things were done, and the
conveyance made. When was this signed, what hour? Odso, you should
have consulted me for the time. Well, but we'll make haste -

SIR SAMP. Haste, ay, ay; haste enough. My son Ben will be in town
to-night. I have ordered my lawyer to draw up writings of
settlement and jointure--all shall be done to-night. No matter for
the time; prithee, brother Foresight, leave superstition. Pox o'
the time; there's no time but the time present, there's no more to
be said of what's past, and all that is to come will happen. If the
sun shine by day, and the stars by night, why, we shall know one
another's faces without the help of a candle, and that's all the
stars are good for.

FORE. How, how? Sir Sampson, that all? Give me leave to
contradict you, and tell you you are ignorant.

SIR SAMP. I tell you I am wise; and sapiens dominabitur astris;
there's Latin for you to prove it, and an argument to confound your
Ephemeris.--Ignorant! I tell you, I have travelled old Fircu, and
know the globe. I have seen the antipodes, where the sun rises at
midnight, and sets at noon-day.

FORE. But I tell you, I have travelled, and travelled in the
celestial spheres, know the signs and the planets, and their houses.
Can judge of motions direct and retrograde, of sextiles, quadrates,
trines and oppositions, fiery-trigons and aquatical-trigons. Know
whether life shall be long or short, happy or unhappy, whether
diseases are curable or incurable. If journeys shall be prosperous,
undertakings successful, or goods stolen recovered; I know -

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