University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

—London.—An apartment in Lord Transit's house.
Lord Transit, Pliant, Sir Harry Sumner, and Hardiman. Heartright follows, sits down to a table in the back scene, takes up a newspaper and reads.
PLIANT.
Your lordship comes amongst us in good time;
A little more philosophy had marr'd you.

LORD TRANSIT.
Well, spare your raillery—it is confest
We country-people do but crawl through life:
The world, I see, gallops apace with you;
'Tis a free tit, my masters, and you ride
As if you meant to make it a short race.

PLIANT.
Yes, we go off at score, and trust to bottom.

LORD TRANSIT.
You're men of penetration, I perceive,
And calculate most truly of yourselves.
You are not of the sort that carry weight;
Mere feathers in the scale.

PLIANT.
We have no wives;
We don't ride double, as your lordship does.

SIR HARRY.
Come, Pliant, Pliant, you have got your charge;
Keep your pan down, nor let your priming flash.

LORD TRANSIT.
Oh! stop him not.—He is exceeding pleasant;
There is much argument in his discourse;
For what escapes so fast as pleasure does?
And wou'd not you, who chase it, be thrown out,
If you pull'd up for breath?

PLIANT.
Truly, my lord,
We do not often stop to moralise,
And make profound remarks upon the practice
Of other men, as you make upon ours.

LORD TRANSIT.
It speaks well for your candour, worthy sir;
And by the same rule I must plead my humour
For having married, though you all prefer
A life of singleness and liberty.

SIR HARRY.
Come, gentlemen, we'll drop these disquisitions.

HEARTRIGHT.
And you'll do well; for you have much more wine
Than wisdom in your heads.

[sitting at the table.]
SIR HARRY.
And now, my lord,
What kind of neighbours have you in the Country?

LORD TRANSIT.
But few, Sir Harry; and of those, perhaps,
The only man you know is Charles Le Brun.

PLIANT.
He is a damn'd honest fellow.

LORD TRANSIT.
I shou'd doubt
If he has honesty enough to damn him.

PLIANT.
You can speak well of no man.

LORD TRANSIT.
Yes, of him:
For, with your leave, I hold it worth some praise
“To affect a virtue, though you have it not.”
That merit I allow him.

PLIANT.
He's my friend.

LORD TRANSIT.
Well, if you choose your friend shou'd be a saint,
He can be one, whene'er it suits his purpose.
I hope that satisfies you, Mr. Pliant.

PLIANT.
Not at all satisfies me, not at all:
I must insist upon it with my lord,
My friend Sir Charles Le Brun shall have all dues,
Rights and prerogatives, pertaining to him,—
That he's no saint, that he has not a virtue,
But all those graceful eccentricities,
Those high-bred aberrations from decorum,
That sit so well upon a fort-esprit,
And (what I style him) a damn'd honest fellow.

HARDIMAN.
Come, pr'ythee, Pliant, let us have no more.
Sir Harry, let us wish my lord good night.

LORD TRANSIT.
Who waits? Attend upon the gentlemen.

PLIANT.
I satisfied! I'm any thing but that.

[Exeunt Pliant, Sir Harry, and Hardiman.— Manent Lord Transit and Heartright. Heartright rises and speaks.
HEARTRIGHT.
So! these are the agreeable companions
For whose society you have renounc'd
Tedious tranquillity, and those dull virtues
That want the zest of vice to recommend them.
I think this specimen may be enough
To recreate your genius with a taste
Of those soft pleasures which this Town supplies.

LORD TRANSIT.
I see you hold by your old humour still;
Bitter and blunt as ever.

HEARTRIGHT.
Yes: I see
No cause to sweeten my morality
To the pall'd palate of a libertine.
For you, my lord, whom I have train'd at school,
At university, abroad, at home,
Ever your friend, I'm not dispos'd to smooth
My bluntness down to such a silvery edge
As cannot penetrate the steel, in which
That heart is cas'd, which can revolt from virtue
When all her blessings were shower'd down upon you.

LORD TRANSIT.
What have I done, that like a chidden boy
You school me at this rate; which when I bear,
You are beholden to your age?

HEARTRIGHT.
My age!
If you can say I have no other claim
Upon your patience, let your anger loose—
I fear it not.

LORD TRANSIT.
Hold, hold—I do remember
That the last words my dying father spoke
Bequeath'd me to your friendship, to your care.
Give me your pardon—I am calm.

HEARTRIGHT.
Enough!
You have dismiss'd your wife.—That is a deed,
Which if you cannot justify by fact,
No sophistry can palliate. What induc'd you
So to disgrace the woman of your choice?

LORD TRANSIT.
Unless I cou'd lay open to your sight
The movements of my heart, I cou'd not answer
Why, for no crime committed on her part,
No fault, no failing, I dismiss'd my wife.
But as the sailor sickens in the calm,
So did the tame serenity, in which
I liv'd, deprive my spirits of their spring,
And made me sigh for change.

HEARTLIGHT.
And what a change!
Lady Le Brun, for instance—Gracious Heaven,
Cou'd such a change as that be worth a sigh?

LORD TRANSIT.
It costs me many.

HEARTRIGHT.
It will cost you more.
Go on, go on.

LORD TRANSIT.
I see you know my weakness.

HEARTRIGHT.
Consult those casuists who have just now left you;
They'll find a salvo to excuse your weakness.

LORD TRANSIT.
Hang 'em, dull rascals!

HEARTRIGHT.
Well! I grant 'em rascals:
Yet are they the prime spirits of the time,
Whom the men copy, and the women court.
To undermine the virgin's chastity,
The parent's peace, the wife's fidelity,
The husband's honour—These are modern arts,
Events too trivial to create surprise,
And crimes too common to extort a blush.

LORD TRANSIT.
My conscience hardly will subscribe to that.

HEARTRIGHT.
Hardly, I grant; for you have made of late
A kind of cautionary truce with Virtue,
Which tho' you've cancell'd, still your nature feels
Some small repugnance to be all at once
The monster that such wickedness will make you.
But Vice, when once admitted to the heart,
Soon grows familiar, talks reflection down,
And from a rubric of her own can quote
Lessons, to teach that passion is a plea
For every crime that can defile the soul.

[Exit.
LORD TRANSIT.
I cannot bear his lectures. They disturb me.
His graceless manner mars his good intent,
And checks, not turns me; puzzles, not persuades.

[Exit.