Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A67202
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The plain-dealer a comedy, as it is acted at the Theatre Royal / written by Mr. Wycherley.
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Wycherley, William, 1640-1716.
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1677
(1677)
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Wing W3749; ESTC R10532
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87,779
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111
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THE PLAIN-DEALER A COMEDY As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal. Written by M r WYCHERLEY HORAT Ridiculum acre Fortius melius magnas plerumque secat res Licensed Ian. 9. 1676. ROGER L'ESTRANGE LONDON Printed by T. N. for Iames Magnes and Rich Bentleyin Russel street in Covent-garden near the Piazza's M.DC.LXXVII PROLOGUE Spoken by the Plain-Dealer I The PLAIN-DEALER am to Act to Day And my rough Part begins before the Play First you who Scrible yet hate all that Write And keep each other Company in Spite As Rivals in your common Mistriss Fame And with faint Praises one another Damn 'T is a good Play we know you can't forgive But grudge your selves the pleasure you receive Our Scribler therefore bluntly bid me say He wou'd not have the Wits pleas'd here to Day Next you the fine loud Gentlemen o' th' Pit Who Damn all Playes yet if y 'ave any Wit 'T is but what here you spunge and daily get Poets like Friends to whom you are in Debt You hate and so Rooks laugh to see undone Those Pushing Gamesters whom they live upon Well you are Sparks and still will be i' th' fashion Rail then at Playes to hide your Obligation Now you shrewd Iudges who the Boxes sway Leading the Ladies hearts and sense astray And for their sakes see all and hear no Play Correct your Cravats Foretops Lock behind The Dress and Breeding of the Play ne'r mind Plain-dealing is you 'll say quite out of fashion You 'll hale it here as in a Dedication And your fair Neighbors in a Limning Poet No more than in a Painter will allow it Pictures too like the Ladies will not please They must be drawn too here like Goddesses You as at Lely's too wou'd Truncheon wield And look like Heroes in a painted Field But the course Dauber of the coming Scenes To follow Life and Nature only means Displays you as you are makes his fine Woman A mercenary Iilt and true to no Man His Men of Wit and Pleasure of the Age Are as dull Rogues as ever cumber'd Stage He draws a Friend only to Custom just And makes him naturally break his trust I only Act a Part like none of you And yet you 'll say it is a Fool 's Part too An honest Man who like you never winks At faults but unlike you speaks what he thinks The onely Fool who ne'r found Patron yet For Truth is now a fault as well as Wit And where else but on Stages do we see Truth pleasing or rewarded Honesty Which our bold Poet does this day in me If not to th' Honest be to th' Prosp'rous kind Some Friends at Court let the PLAIN-DEALER find EPILOGUE Spoken by the Widow Blackacre TO you the Iudges learned in Stage Laws Our Poet now by me submits his Cause For with young Iudges such as most of you The Men by Women best their bus'ness do And truth on 't is if you did not sit here To keep for us a Term throughout the Year We cou'd not live by 'r Tongues nay but for you Our Chamber-practice wou'd be little too And 't is not only the Stage Practiser Who by your meeting gets her living here For as in Hall of Westminster Sleek Sempstress vents amidst the Courts her Ware So while we Baul and you in Iudgment sit The Visor-Mask sells Linnen too i' th' Pit O many of your Friends besides us here Do live by putting off their sev'ral Ware Here 's daily done the great affair o' th' Nation Let Love and Vs then ne'r have Long-vacation But hold like other Pleaders I have done Not my poor Client's bus'ness but my own Spare me a word then now for him First know Squires of the Long Robe he does humbly show He has a just Right in abusing you Because he is a Brother-Templer too For at the Bar you Railly one another And Fool and Knave is swallow'd from a Brother If not the Poet here the Templer spare And maul him when you catch him at the Bar. From you our common modish Censurers Your Favor not your Iudgment 't is he fears Of all Loves begs you then to Rail find fault For Playes like Women by the World are thought When you speak kindly of 'em very naught THE PERSONS Manly Mr. Hart. Of an honest surly nice humor suppos'd first in the time of the Dutch War to have procur'd the Command of a Ship out of Honour not Interest and choosing a Sea-life only to avoid the World Freeman Mr. Kynaston Manly's Lieutenant a Gentleman well Educated but of a broken Fortune a Complyer with the Age. Vernish Mr. Griffin Manly's Bosome and onely Friend Novell Mr. Clark Apert railing Coxcomb and an Admirer of Novelties makes love to Olivia Major Oldfox Mr. Cartwright An old impertinent Fop given to Scribling makes Love to the Widow Blackacre My Lord Plausible Mr. Haines A Ceremonious Supple Commending Coxcomb in Love with Olivia Ierry-Blackacre Mr. Charlton A true raw Squire under Age and his Mothers Government bred to the Law Olivia Mrs. Marshall Manly's Mistriss Fidelia Mrs. Boutell In Love with Manly and follow'd him to Sea in Man's Cloaths Eliza Mrs. Knep Cousin to Olivia Letice Mrs. Knight Olivia's Woman The Widow Blackacre Mrs. Cory A petulant litigious Widow alwayes in Law and Mother to Squire Ierry Lawyers Knights of the Post Bayliffs an Alderman a Booksellers Prentice a Footboy Sailors Waiters and Attendants THE SCENE LONDON To my LADY B Madam THO I never had the Honour to receive a Favour from you nay or be known to you I take the confidence of an Author to write to you a Billiet doux Dedicatory which is no new thing for by most Dedications it appears that Authors though they praise their Patrons from top to toe and seem to turn 'em inside out know 'em as little as sometimes their Patrons their Books tho they read 'em out and if the Poetical Daubers did not write the name of the Man or Woman on top of the Picture 't were impossible to guess whose it were But you Madam without the help of a Poet have made your self known and famous in the World and because you do not want it are therefore most worthy of an Epistle Dedicatory And this Play claims naturally your Protection since it has lost its Reputation with the Ladies of stricter lives in the Play-house and you know when mens endeavours are discountenanc'd and refus'd by the nice coy Women of Honour they come to you To you the Great and Noble Patroness of rejected and bashful men of which number I profess my self to be one though a Poet a Dedicating Poet To you I say Madam who have as discerning a judgment in what 's obscene or not as any quick-sighted civil Person of 'em all and can make as much of a double meaning saying as the best of 'em yet wou'd not as some do make nonsense of a Poet's jest rather than not make it baudy by which they show they
dinner with so much civility and kindness a pox on 'em that I cou'd hardly get away to you dear Madam Oliv. You have a way with you so new and obliging Sir Eliz. You hate Flattery Cousin Apart to Olivia Nov. Nay faith Madam d' ye think my way new then you are obliging Madam I must confess I hate imitation to do any thing like other people all that know me do me the Honour to say I am an Original Faith but as I was saying Madam I have been treated to day with all the ceremony and kindness imaginable at my Lady Autums but the nauseous old Woman at the upper end of her Table Oliv. Revives the old Grecian custom of serving in a Deaths head with their Banquets Nov. Hah ha fine justifaith nay and new 't is like eating with the Ghost in the Libertine she wou'd frighten a Man from her dinner with her hollow invitations and spoil one's stomach Oliv. To Meat or Women I detest her hollow cherry cheeks she looks like an old Coach new painted affecting an unseemly smugness whil'st she is ready to drop in pieces Eliz. You hate Detraction I see Cousin Apart to Olivia Nov. But the filly old Fury whil'st she affects to look like a Woman of this Age talks Oliv. Like one of the last and as passionately as an old Courtier who has out-liv'd his Office Nov. Yes Madam but pray let me give you her character Then she never counts her age by the years but Oliv. By the Masques she has liv'd to see Nov. Nay then Madam I see you think a little harmless railing too great a pleasure for any but your self and therefore I 've done Oliv. Nay faith you shall tell me who you had there at dinner Nov. If you wou'd hear me Madam Oliv. Most patiently speak Sir Nov. Then we had her daughter Oliv. Ay her daughter the very disgrace to good cloaths which she alwayes wears but to heighten her deformity not mend it for she is still most splendidly gallantly ugly and looks like an ill piece of daubing in a rich Frame Nov. So But have you done with her Madam And can you spare her to me a little now Oliv. Ay ay Sir Nov. Then she is like Oliv. She is you 'd say like a City Bride the greater Fortune but not the greater Beauty for her dress Nov. Well yet have you done Madam Then she Oliv. Then she bestows as unfortunately on her face all the graces in fashion as the languishing eye the hanging or pouting lip but as the Fool is never more provoking than when he aims at Wit the ill-favorâ—d of our Sex are never more nauseous than when they wou'd be Beauties adding to their natural deformity the artificial ugliness of affectation Eliz. So Cousin I find one may have a collection of all ones acquaintances Pictures as well at your house as at Mr. Lely's only the difference is there we find 'em much handsomer than they are and like here much uglier and like and you are the first of the profession of Picture-drawing I ever knew without flattery Oliv. I draw after the Life do no Body wrong Cousin Eliz. No you hate flattery and detraction Oliv. But Mr. Novel who had you besides at dinner Nov. Nay the Devil take me if I tell you unless you will allow me the priviledge of railing in my turn but now I think on 't the Women ought to be your Province as the Men are mine and you must know we had him whom Oliv. Him whom Nov. What Invading me already And giving the character before you know the Man Eliz. No that is not fair tho' it be usual Oliv. I beg your pardon Mr. Novel pray go on Nov. Then I say we had that familiar Coxcomb who is at home wheresoe're he comes Oliv. Ay that Fool Nov. Nay then Madam your Servant I 'm gone Taking a Fool out of ones mouth is worse than taking the Bread out of ones mouth Oliv. I 've done your pardon Mr Novel pray proceed Nov. I say the Rogue that he may be the onely Wit in company will let no Body else talk and Oliv. Ay those Fops who love to talk all themselves are of all things my Aversion Nov. Then you 'll let me speak Madam sure The Rogue I say will force his Jest upon you and I hate a Jest that 's forc'd upon a Man as much as a Glass Eliz. Why I hope Sir he does not expect a Man of your temperance in jesting shou'd do him reason Nov. What interruption from this side too I must then Offers to rise Olivia holds him Oliv. No Sir You must know Cousin that Fop he means tho' he talks only to be commended will not give you leave to do 't Nov. But Madam Oliv. He a Wit hang him he 's only an Adopter of stragling Jests and fatherless Lampoons by the credit of which he eats at good Tables and so like the barren Beggar-woman lives by borrow'd Children Nov. Madam Oliv. And never was Author of any thing but his News but that is still all his own Nov. Madam pray Oliv. An eternal Babler and makes no more use of his ears than a Man that sits at a Play by his Mistress or in Fop-corner he 's in fine a base detracting Fellow and is my Aversion But who else pr'ythee Mr. Novel was there with you Nay you sha'nt stir Nov. I beg your pardon Madam I cannot stay in any place where I 'm not allow'd a little Christian liberty of railing Oliv. Nay pr'ythee Mr. Novel stay and tho' you shou'd rail at me I wou'd hear you with patience pr'ythee who else was there with you Nov. Your Servant Madam Oliv. Nay pr'ythee tell us Mr. Novel pr'ythee do Nov. We had no Body else Oliv. Nay faith I know you had Come my Lord Plausible was there too who is Cousin a Eliz. You need not tell me what he is Cousin for I know him to be a civil good-natur'd harmless Gentleman that speaks well of all the World and is alwayes in good humor and Oliv. Hold Cousin hold I hate Detraction but I must tell you Cousin his civility is cowardice his good nature want of wit and has neither courage or sense to rail And for his being alwayes in humor 't is because he is never dissatisfi'd with himself In fine he is my Aversion and I never admit his Visits beyond my Hall Nov. No he visit you Dam him cringing grinning Rogue if I shou'd see him coming up to you I wou'd make bold to kick him down again Ha! Enter my Lord Plausible My dear Lord your most humble Servant Rises and salutes Plausible and kisses him Eliz. So I find kissing and railing succeed each other with the angry Men as well as with the angry Women and their quarrels are like Love-quarrels since absence is the only cause of them for as soon as the Man appears again they are over Aside L. Plaus Your most faithful humble Servant generous Mr. Novel and