and one of them should be shot for an example to the other. They deny their being listed. Cost. Shot, Tummas ! Plume. Come, gentlemen, what's the matter? Cost. We don't know; the noble sergeant is pleased to be in a passion, sir-but Kite. They disobey command: they deny being listed. Tho. Nay, sergeant, we don't downright deny it neither ; that we dare not do, for fear of being shot; but we humbly conceive, in a civil way, and begging your worship's pardon, that we may go home. Plume. That's easily known. received any of the queen's money? Cost. Not a brass farthing, sir. Have either of you Kite. They have each of them received three-and-twenty shillings and sixpence, and 'tis now in their pockets. Cost. Wauns, if I have a penny in my pocket but a bent sixpence, I'll be content to be listed, and shot into the bargain. Tho. And I look ye here, sir. : Cost. Nothing but the queen's picture, that the sergeant gave me just now. Kite. See there, a broad-piece; three-and-twenty shillings and sixpence; t' other has the fellow on 't. Plume. The case is plain, gentlemen: the goods are found upon you. Those pieces of gold are worth threeand-twenty shillings and sixpence each. Cost. So it seems that Carolus is three-and-twenty shillings and sixpence in Latin? Tho. 'Tis the same thing in Greek, for we are listed. Cost. Flesh, but we an't, Tummas: I desire to be carried before the mayor, captain. Plume [Aside to Kite]. Twill never do, Kite; your damned tricks will ruin me at last. I won't lose the fellows though, if I can help it.—Well, gentlemen, there must be some trick in this; my sergeant offers to take his oath that you are fairly listed. Tho. Why, captain, we know that you soldiers have more liberty of conscience than other folks; but for me or neighbour Costar here to take such an oath, 'twould be downright perjuration. Plume [to Kite]. Look ye, rascal, you villain! if I find that you have imposed upon these two honest fellows, I'll trample you to death, you dog! Come, how was 't? Tho. Nay, then, we 'll speak. Your sergeant, as you say, is a rogue; an't like your worship, begging your worship's pardon; and Cost. Nay, Tummas, let me speak; you know I can read. And so, sir, he gave us those two pieces of money for pictures of the queen, by way of a present. Plume. How? by way of a present? the rascal! I'll teach him to abuse honest fellows like you. Scoundrel, rogue, villain! [Beats off the Sergeant, and follows. Both. O brave noble captain! huzza! A brave captain, faith! Cost. Now, Tummas, Carolus is Latin for a beating. This is the bravest captain I ever saw. Wauns, I've a month's mind to go with him. ... The 'broad-piece,' a name given to the 20s. piece (Jacobus or Carolus) to distinguish it from the guinea (which was not so broad and thin), had in 1706, when this play was produced, risen in value to 23s. 6d. Broad-pieces were called in in 1732 and recoined into guineas. Ewald edited Farquhar's works in 1893. See also Macaulay's essay on 'The Comic Dramatists of the Revolution,' Thackeray's English Humorists, and Leigh Hunt's critique in his edition of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718), who was bred to the law, but early forsook it for the tragic drama, was born at Little Barford in Bedfordshire, and from Westminster School and Dr Busby passed to the Middle Temple. His father had an estate at Lamerton in Devonshire, and was a serjeant-at-law in the Temple; by his death in 1692 Nicholas came into £300 a year, and cultivated the muses in chambers in the Temple. His blank-verse tragedy, The Ambitious Stepmother, was acted in 1700 with great success; and it was followed by Tamerlane (1702), The Fair Penitent (1703), Ulysses, The Royal Convert (1705), Jane Shore (1714), and Lady Jane Grey (1715). On rising into fame as an author, Rowe was munificently patronised. The Duke of Queensberry made him his secretary for public affairs in 1709— he was, of course, a Whig. On the accession of George I. he was made poet-laureate and a surveyor of customs, the Prince of Wales appointed him clerk of his council, and the Lord Chancellor gave him the office of clerk of the presentations. The fortunate playwright was a favourite in society; his voice was singularly sweet, his conversation lively, and his manner engaging. Pope, Swift, and Addison were amongst his intimates. Yet Spence reports that there was a certain levity and carelessness about him which made Pope declare him to have no heart. Rowe was the first editor of Shakespeare entitled to the name, and the first -of a long series-to collect biographical facts about him. His edition, published in 1709 and based on the Fourth Folio, was the earliest octavo one, and the first to contain regular lists of the dramatis persona. Rowe was twice married. His widow, who erected a handsome monument over his grave in Westminster Abbey, received a pension from the Crown in consideration not of his dramatic genius, but of the translation of Lucan's Pharsalia made by her late husband.' The translation is a spirited enough paraphrase, but little in Rowe's two volumes of miscellaneous poetry rises above dull and respectable mediocrity. His tragedies are passionate and tender, in smooth and equable verse. His Jane Shore, still performed from time to time, is effective in the pathetic scenes descriptive of the sufferings of the heroine. The Fair Penitent, adapted from Massinger's Fatal Dowry, was long a popular play, and the 'gallant gay Lothario' was the prototype of many stage seducers and romance heroes. Richardson elevated the character in his Lovelace, and gave a sanctity to Clarissa's sorrows which leaves Rowe's Calista immeasurably behind. Johnson praised the play heartily both for plot and language; Scott pronounced it greatly inferior to its original. The incidents of Rowe's dramas, well arranged as they are for stage effect, were studied and prepared in the manner of the French school, and were adapted to the taste of the age. As the study of Shakespeare and the romantic drama advanced, Rowe declined in credit, and is now but seldom acted or read. His popularity in his own day is best seen in the epitaph by Pope-an effusion of friendship presumably not irreconcilable with the anecdote preserved by Spence : Thy relics, Rowe, to this sad shrine we trust, And near thy Shakespeare place thy honoured bust ; ... Jane. No, arm thy brow with vengeance, and appear The minister of Heaven's enquiring justice. Array thyself all terrible for judgment, Wrath in thy eyes and thunder in thy voice. Pronounce my sentence, and if yet there be A woe I have not felt, inflict it on me. Shore. Waste not thy feeble spirits. I have long Beheld unknown thy mourning and repentance, Therefore my heart has set aside the past, And holds thee white as unoffending innocence. Therefore, in spite of cruel Gloster's rage, Soon as my friend had broke thy prison doors I flew to thy assistance. Let us haste Now while occasion seems to smile upon us, Forsake this place of shame, and find a shelter. Jane. What shall I say to you? But I obey. Shore. Lean on my arm. Thou tool of power, thou pander to authority! Cates. You'll answer this at full: away with 'em. Shore. He shall offend no more, for I will die, And take my last breath with you. Jane. Forgive me! but forgive me! And make my portion blest or curst for ever! From 'The Fair Penitent.' Calista. Be dumb for ever, silent as the grave, Nor let thy fond, officious love disturb My solemn sadness with the sound of joy. If thou wilt soothe me, tell some dismal tale Of pining discontent and black despair; Lucilla. Why do you follow still that wandering fire, That has misled your weary steps, and leaves you Benighted in a wilderness of woe? That false Lothario! Turn from the deceiver; No sound to break the silence but a brook That bubbling winds among the weeds: no mark Cal. There I fain would hide me From the base world, from malice, and from shame ; For 'tis the solemn counsel of my soul Never to live with public loss of honour : 'Tis fixed to die, rather than bear the insolence Luc. Can you perceive the manifest destruction, My trembling heart forebodes, let me entreat you Let me forbid his coming. Rage is the shortest passion of our souls; Like narrow brooks that rise with sudden showers, Cal. I have been wronged enough to arm my temper Against the smooth delusion; but, alas! (Chide not my weakness, gentle maid, but pity me) I swear I could not see the dear betrayer Luc. Ye sacred powers whose gracious providence That none may think it worth his while to ruin me, And fatal love may never be my bane. Cal. Ha! Altamont! Calista, now be wary, And guard thy soul's excesses with dissembling : Nor let this hostile husband's eyes explore The warring passions and tumultuous thoughts That rage within thee, and deform thy reason. The style of the translation of Lucan's Pharsalia may be illustrated by such sententious passages as: The vulgar falls and none laments his fate; Sorrow has hardly leisure for the great. Laws in great rebellions lose their end, To strictest justice many ills belong, When fair occasion calls, 'tis fatal to delay. More sprightly is (from an occasional poem): To think those glorious lamps were made 'How foolish was I to believe She could dote on so lowly a clown, So kind and so constant would prove, 'What though I have skill to complain, Though the Muses my temples have crowned? What though, when they hear my soft strain, The virgins sit weeping around? Ah, Colin, thy hopes are in vain ; Thy pipe and thy laurel resign; Thy false one inclines to a swain Whose music is sweeter than thine. 'And you, my companions so dear, Who sorrow to see me betrayed, Whatever I suffer, forbear Forbear to accuse the false maid.. Though through the wide world I should range, "Tis in vain from my fortune to fly; 'Twas hers to be false and to change, 'Tis mine to be constant and die. "If while my hard fate I sustain, In her breast any pity is found, Let her come with the nymph of the plain, Is to shade me with cypress and yew; Then to her new love let her go, Be finest at every fine show, And frolic it all the long day; His ghost shall glide over the green.' Six editions of Rowe's works appeared between 1727 and 1792. Susannah Centlivre (c. 1667–1723), dramatist, is said to have been born in Ireland, her surname either Freeman or Rawkins; her father according to one account having fled to Ireland after the Restoration, when his religious or political opinions made him obnoxious to the authorities. She had already been the wife or mistress of two or three gentlemen, when in 1700 she produced a tragedy, The Perjured Husband, and not long after she appeared on the stage at Bath. In 1706 she married Joseph Centlivre, head-cook to Queen Anne, with whom she lived happily till the end. Her nineteen plays (with Life, 3 vols. 1761; new ed. 1872) include The Perjured Husband (1700); The Gamester (1705); The Platonick Lady (1707); The Busybody (Marplot' its leading character, 1709); A Bickerstaff's Burial, ultimately called The Custom of the Country (1710); The Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret (1714); and A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1717), her most original play— for many of them are adaptations of French and other plays or stories. Some of her plays, on the other hand, were translated into French and into German. She was a strong Whig. In the Wonder, the scene of which is laid in Lisbon, the principal characters, except Spanish Dons and Donnas, are Colonel Briton, a Scotchman,' who has for three years held a command in Spain, and Gibby, his footman, who wears full Highland costume and speaks a dialect absolutely unknown to Highlanders, compounded of Aberdeenshire and south-country Scots, and English or disguised English, with a large element of a sort of Volapük concocted on hypothetical analogies. Much is genuine Scotch (as in Tatham's plays, vol. i. p. 786), often very oddly spelt; and, as in the former case, one wonders how many persons in a London audience in 1714-the year the play was produced-would understand that carich (i.e. carritch) meant catechism, speer ask, kenspeckle The conspicuous and recognisable, and sculdudrie what Allan Ramsay referred to by that name. institution, if not the word, figures largely in Mrs Centlivre's plays. When Gibby in full fig enters to Colonel Briton and a Spanish gentleman, the latter not unnaturally exclaims, 'What have we here?' and Colonel Briton explains: 'My footman; this is our country dress, you must know, which for the honour of Scotland I make all my servants wear.? But to the London auditory, who must have been at least as much nonplussed by Gibby's 'Doric,' no such explanation is vouchsafed of an utterance of the footman so esoteric as the following: Ay, this is bonny work indeed! to run three hundred mile to this wicked town, and before I can weel fill my weam, to be sent . . . hunting after this black she-devil. What gate sall I gang to speer for this wutch, now? Ah for a ruling elder-or the Kirk's treasurer-or his mon-I'd gar my master mak twa o' this. But I am sure there's na sick honest people here, or there wud na be sa mickle sculdudrie. Mary de la Riviere Manley (1672?-1724), novelist, dramatist, and political writer, enjoyed some celebrity among the wits of the Queen Anne period, though neither her life nor writings will bear a close scrutiny. She was the daughter of a respected royalist officer, Sir Roger Manley, who, an exile in 1646-60, became in 1667 commander-inchief (not governor) in Jersey. (He is wrongly credited by his daughter with being part-author of the famous Letters writ by a Turkish Spy, the first notable example of a description of European things by a feigned Oriental. The Letters are largely based on L'Espion Turc of the Genoese G. P. Marana, and are probably his work, translated and edited.) Sir Roger died while his daughter was young, and she fell to the charge of a Mr Manley, her cousin, who drew her into a mock marriage-he had a wife living-and in about three years basely deserted her. Her life henceforward was that of an author by profession and a woman of intrigue. The next notable woman after Mrs Aphra Behn to make a liveli hood by literature, she wrote three plays, the Royal Mischief, the Lost Lover, and Lucius—the last being honoured by a prologue from the pen of Steele and an epilogue by Prior. Her most famous work appeared in 1709—Secret Memoirs and Manners of several Persons of Quality, of both Sexes. From the New Atalantis-a political romance or satire, full of court and party scandal, directed against the Whig statesmen and public characters connected with the Revolution of 1688. This work was honoured with a State prosecution; author, printer, and publisher were arrested, but released in a few days. She met with some favour from a succeeding Tory Ministry; and Memoirs of Europe (1710) and Court Intrigues (1711) were reprinted as third and fourth volumes of the New Atalantis. Swift, in his Journal to Stella (January 28, 1711-12), says of Mrs Manley: 'She has very generous principles for one of her sort, and a great deal of good sense and invention : she is about forty, very homely, and very fat.' She found favour, moreover, with Swift's friend, Alderman Barbour, in whose house she lived for many years, and there she died. When Swift relinquished the Examiner, Mrs Manley conducted it for some time, the Dean supplying hints, and she appears to have been a ready and effcctive political writer. All her works, however, have sunk into oblivion. Her novels are worthless, extravagant productions, and the Atalantis is chiefly remembered from a line in Pope. Baron, in the Rape of the Lock, says: As long as Atalantis shall be read . . . The So long my honour, name, and praise shall live! Atalantis for Atlantis does no undue dishonour to Mrs Manley's scholarship. Spite of her cleverness and reading, she had a fatal incapacity to apprehend classical names aright, and refers familiarly to Paulus Diaconius, Cataline, and Isaac Commenus; and quotes 'Baron Annal' apparently without knowing that she was citing the Annales of Baronius. Even such spellings as strick (for strict), comparitively, and hipperboly (hyperbole !) occur. Swift said of Mrs Manley's writing that it 'seemed as if she had about two thousand epithets and fine words packed up in a bag, and that she pulled them out by handfuls, and strewed them on her paper, where once in five hundred times they happen to be right.' Yet he and his Tory allies willingly co-operated or collaborated with Mrs Manley; he was not above accepting hints from the New Atalantis, as Smollett also did; and in the unfortunate woman's last dark days Swift supported a petition from her to the Government for some reward for her services to the Tory cause, the writing of the Atalantis and her prosecution for it being accounted amongst her claims. The Memoirs of Europe towards the Close of the Eighth Century she described on the title-page as 'written by Eginardus, secretary and favourite to Charlemagne, and done into English by the translator of the New Atalantis! Though in some library catalogues it appears under the head of Eginhard, after his Life of Charlemagne (!), this miscellany was sufficiently like the New Atalantis to appear subsequently as a continuation of that work-contemporary persons being freely dealt with under eighth-century names. It was ironically dedicated to Isaac Bickerstaff in the following characteristic dedication, here reproduced with her own spelling and punctuation, italics, and long f's: taught me to fecure any One that might have been my Hero, from the well-bred, further Reflections, of so polite a Pen as yours. Tho' your Worship, in the TATLER of November the Tenth, has been pleased to call a Patron the Filthiest Creature in the Street, &c. yet I cannot but obferve, in innumerable Inftances, you are fo delighted with fuch Addreffes, as even to make 'em to your felf: I hope therefore, a corroborating Evidence of your Perfections, may not be unacceptable. I HAVE learnt from your Worship's Lucubrations, to have all the Moral Virtues in Efteem; and therefore take this Opportunity of doing Justice, and asking a certain worthy Gentleman, one Capt. Steele, pardon; for ever mistaking him for your Worship; for if I perfever'd in that Accufation, I must believe him not in Earneft, when he makes me these following Affurances in a Letter, which according to your Example, Sir, who seem prodigiously fond of fuch Infertions, I venture to Transcribe Verbatim. ་ Madam, To Mrs. Manley. 'I HAVE receiv'd a letter from you, wherein you tax me as if I were Bickerflaff, with falling upon you as Author ' of the Atalantis, and the Person who honour'd me with a Character in that Celebrated Piece. I folemnly affure 'you, you wrong me in this, as much as you know you do in all elfe you have been pleased to say of me. I 'had the greatest Sense imaginable of the kind Notice 'you gave me when I was going on to my Ruin, and 'am fo far from retaining an Inclination to revenge the 'Inhumanity with which you have treated Me, that I 'give my self a Satisfaction in that you have cancell'd, with Injuries, a friendship I should never have been able 6 to return. 'THIS will convince you how little I am an Ingrate; 'for I believe you will allow no one that is fo mean as to 'be forgetful of Services, ever fails in returning Injuries. 'As for the Verses you quote of mine, they are still my Opinion, i.e. 'Against a Woman's Wit 'tis full as low, ' and your Sex, as well as your Quality of a Gentle'woman (a Juftice you would not do my Birth and 'Education) shall always preserve you against the Pen of 'your provok'd Sept. 6. 1709. Moft humble Servant, Richd. Steele. SOON after, two moft mighty Tatlers came out, levell❜d directly at Me; but That I could have forgiven, had they not aim'd to asperse one too Great to name. Vain ! ridiculous Endeavour! as well the Sun may be cover'd with a Hand, as fuch Merit fullied by the Attempts of the most malicious, moft witty Pen. SINCE Mr. Steele's reconcil'd Friendship (promised after my Application to him when under Confinement) could never be guilty of fo barbarous a Breach, since he could not commit the Treacheroufeft! the Baseft! the moft Abject thing upon the Earth! fo contrary to his Assurances! It must be you, Sir, to whom my Thanks are due; making me a Perfon of fuch Confideration, as to be worthy your important War. A weak unlearned Woman's Writings, to employ so great a Pen! Heavens ! |