The Ancient British Drama ...

Some, as soon as th' enter, we wish 'em gone; Taking their visit as a visitation:

Yet when they go there are certain grimacess (Which, in plain English, is but making faces) That we, for manners sake, to all allow. The poet's parting; don't rise, but smile and bow;

And, 's back being turn'd, ye may take the liberty

To turn him, and all h' has writ, to raillery,
Now as I shall be sav'd, were I as you,
I'd make no bones on't-why, 'tis but his due.
A fop! in this brave, licentious age,
To bring his musty morals on the stage?
Rhime us to reason? and our lives redress
In metre, as Druids did the Savages?
Affront the free-born vices of the nation?
And bring dull virtue into reputation?
Virtue! would any man of common sense
Pretend to 't? why virtue now is impudence;

And such another modest play would blast
Our new stage, and put your palates out of taste.
We told him, sir, 'tis whisper'd in the pit,
This may be common sense, but 'tis not wit;
That has a flaming spirit, and stirs the blood.
That 's bawdery, said he, if rightly understood;
Which our late poets make their chiefest tasks,
As if they writ only to th' vizard-masks.
Nor that poetick rage, which hectors heaven,
Your writer's stile, like 's temper, 's grown more

GEORGE DIGBY, Earl of Bristol, was the author of the following play. He was, as* Mr Walpole observes, “ a singular person, whose life was one contradiction. He wrote against Popery, and em braced it; he was a zealous opposer of the Court, and a sacrifice for it: was conscientiously converted in the midst of his prosecution of Lord Strafford, and was most unconscientiously a prosecutor of Lord Clarendon. With great parts, he always hurt himself and his friends; with romantic bravery, he was always an unsuccessful commander. He spoke for the Test Act, though a Roma Catholic; and addicted himself to astrology on the birth-day of true philosophy. The histories of England abound with the adventures of this inconsistent and eccentric nobleman, who, amongst his other pursuits, esteemed the drama not unworthy of his attention. Downes the † Prompter asserts, that he wrote two plays, between the years 1662 and 1665, made out of the Spanish; one called 'Tis better than it was, and the other entitled Worse and Worse. Whether either of these is the present performance cannot now be ascertained. It is, however, at least, probable to be one of them with a new title. The same writer says, he also joined with Sir Samuel Tuke in the composition of The Adventures of Five Hours. Elvira was printed in the year 1667, and Mr Walpole imagines that it occasioned our author's being introduced into Sir John Suckling's Session of Poets: a conjec ture which, however, will by no means correspond with the time in which Lord Bristol and Sir John Suckling are supposed to have written the respective works before mentioned. From the notice taken of him by Sir John Suckling as a poet, he seems to have been the author of some pieces which are now lost to the world. After a life, which at different periods of it commanded both the respect and com tempt of mankind, and not unfrequently the same sentiments at one time, he died, neither loved nor regretted by any party, in the year 1676.

• Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, Vol. II. p. 25.
+ Roscius Anglicanus, 1708, p. 26.
+ P. 22.

Fab. I found him newly got out of his bed; He seem'd much satisfy'd, though much surpriz'd,

With your arrival; and as soon as possibly
He can get ready, he'll be with you here.
He says, he hopes some good occasion brings you
To Valencia, and that he shall not be
At quiet till he know it. 'Twas not fit
For

me, without your orders, to give him
Any more light than what your ticket did.
D. Fer. Tis well: go now and see if Donna
Elvira

Be stirring yet, for I would gladly have her

A witness, even at first, to what shall pass
Betwixt friend and me in her concernments:
If she be still asleep, Fabio, make bold
To knock, and wake her, w' have no time to lose.
O here she comes--Wait you, Don Julio.

[Exit FABIO.

Enter Donna ELVIRA.

Elv. Ah, can you think my cares and sleep consistent?

Slumber and tears have sometimes met in dreams;

But hearts with such a weight as mine oppress'd, Find still the heaviest sleep too light a guest.

D. Fer. Madam, though such least pity do deserve,

Who by their own unsteadiness have drawn Misfortune on themselves; yet truly, Elvira, Such is my sense of your's, and my compassion, To see a lady of your quality

Brought to such sad extremes in what is dearest, | Observing that respect in the relation,

As makes me even forget my own resentments,
Granting to pity the whole place of love,

And at that rate I'll serve you. Yet thus far
You must allow th' eruption of a heart
So highly injur'd, as to tell you frankly,
'Tis to comply with my own principles
Of honour, now, without the least relation
To former passion, or to former favours.

Elo. Those you have found a ready way to
cancel;

Your sullen silence, during all our journey,
Might well have spar'd you these superfluous

words;

That had sufficiently instructed me
What power mere appearances have had,
Without examination, to destroy,
With an umbrageous nature, all that love
Was ever able on the solid'st grounds
To found and to establish. Yet, methinks,
A man that boasts such principles of honour,
And of such force to sway him in his actions,
In spite of all resentments, should reflect,
That honour does oblige to a suspense,
At least, of judgment, when surprising chances,
Yet unenquir'd into, tempt gallant men
To prejudicial thoughts of those, with whom
They had settled friendship upon virtuous grounds,
But 'tis from Heav'n, I see, and not from you,
Elvira must expect her vindication;
And until then submit to th' hardest fate,
That ever can befall a generous spirit,
Of being oblig'd by him that injures her.
D. Fern. Nay, speak, Elvira, speak, you have

me attentive:

[With a kind of scornful accent.
It were a wonder worthy of your wit,
To make me trust my ears before my eyes.
Elo. Those are the witnesses indeed, Fernando,
To whose true testimony's false inference
You owe my moderation and my silence,
And that I leave it to the gods and time,
To make appear both to the world and you,
The maxim false, that still the worst proves true.
Enter FABIO.

Fab. Don Julio is without.
D. Fern. Wait on him in

[Exit FABIO.
And now, Elvira,
If you'll be pleas'd to rest yourself awhile
Within that closet, you may hear what passes
Betwixt my friend and me, until such time
As I by some discourse having prevented
Too great surprize, you shall think fit t' appear.
He is the man (as I have often told you,
During my happy days) for whom alone
I have no reserves; and 'tis to his assistance
That I must owe the means of serving you,
In the concernments of your safety and honour;
And therefore, madam, 't will be no offence,
I hope, to trust him with the true occasion
That brings me hither, to employ his friendship;

Which I shall always pay you.

[ELVIRA retiring as into the closet. Elv. There needs no management in the re

lation,

I am indifferent what others think,

Since those who ought t' have thought the best, have fail'd me:

Sir, I obey, resign'd up to your conduct,
Till mistress of my own.

[Erit.

Enter Don JULIO; Don FERNANDO and he embrace.

So unexpectedly, as great as 'tis,
Cannot make Julio unsensible

Of th' injury you have done him, t' have alighted
And pass'd a night within Valencia,

At any other place than at his house;
Donna Blanca herself will scarce forgive it,
When she shall know it.

D. Fer. I hope she's well.

D. Jul. She is so, thanks to Heaven;

But I must bid you expect a chiding from her. D. Fer. You both might well accuse me of a failure,

Did not th' occasion of my coming hither
Bring with it an excuse, alas! too just,
As you will quickly find.

D. Jul. Nay, then you raise disquiet; ease
me quickly,

By telling me what 'tis: of this be sure,
Heart, hand, and fortune, are entirely your's
At all essays.

D. Fer. It is not new t' ye, that I was a lover,
[After pausing a while.
Engaged in all the passion that e'er beauty,
In heighth of it's perfection, could produce;
And that confirm'd by reason, from her wit,
Her quality, and most unblemish'd conduct:
Nor was there more to justify my love,
Than to persuade my happiness in her
Just correspondence to it, by all the ways
Of honourable admission, that might serve
To make esteem transcend the pitch of love.
D. Jul. Of all this I have not only had
knowledge,

But great participation in your joys;
Than which, I thought nothing more permanent,
Since founded on such virtue as Elvira's.

D. Fer. Ah, Julio, how fond a creature is

the man

That founds his bliss upon a woman's firmness!
Even that Elvira, when I thought myself
Securest in my happiness, nothing wanting
To make her mine, but those exterior forms,
Without which, men of honour, that pretend
In way of marriage, would be loth to find
Greater concession, where the love is greatest:
As I was sitting with her, late at night,
By usual admittance to her chamber,

As two whose hearts in wedlock-bands were
join'd,

And seeni'd above all other care but how
Best to disguise things to a wayward father,
Till time and art might compass his consent;
A sudden noise was heard in th' inner room
Belonging to her chamber: she starts up
In manifest disorder, and runs in,
Desiring me to stay till she had seen
What caus'd it; I impatient, follow,
As fearing for her, had it been her father:
My head no sooner was within the room,
But strait I spy'd, behind a curtain shrinking,
A goodly gallant, but not known to me.

D. Jul. Heavens! what can this be?

E D. Fer. You will not think that there, and at

that hour,

I stay'd to ask his name; he, ready as I
To make his sword th' expresser of his mind,
We soon determin'd what we sought; I hurt
But slightly in the arm, he fell as slain,
Run through the body: what Elvira did,
My rage allow'd me not to mark; but strait
1 got away, more wounded to the heart
Than he I left for dead.

D. Jul. Prodigious accident! where can it end?
D. Fer. I got safe home, where carefully con-
ceal'd,

I sought, by Fabio's diligence, to learn
Who my slain rival was, and what became
Of my unhappy mistress, and what course
Don Pedro de Mendoza took, to right
The honour of his house.

Mine can protection seek from none but your's.
I've hitherto been shelter'd from the fury
Of my enrag'd father, by my cousin Camilla;
But that's no place, you easily may judge,
For longer stay; I do expect from you
To be convey'd, where, free from violence,
And from new hazards of my wounded fame,
may attend my righting from the gods.

D. Jul. Can guilt maintain such confidence
in a maid?

Yet how to think her innocent, I know not.
D. Fer: 'T were loss of time to dwell on cir-
cumstances,

Either of my wonder, or reply; in short,
What I found honour dictated, I did;
Within two hours I put her in a coach,
And, favour'd by the night, convey'd her safe
Out of Madrid to Ocana, and thence
In three days hither to Valencia,
The only place where, by your generous aid,
I could have hopes to settle and secure
Her person and her honour. That once done,
Farewel to Spain: I'll to the wars of Milan,
And there soon put a noble end to cares.

D. Jul. Let us first think how to dispose of her, Since here you say she is; that done, which presses,

You will have time to weigh all other things.

D. Fer. My thoughts can pitch upon no other
way

Decent or safe for her, but in a convent,
If you have any abbess here to friend.

D. Jul. I have an aunt, ruling the Ursulins,

D. Jul. You long'd not more to know it then, With whom I have full power, and she is wise,

Do now.

than I

D. Fer. All could be learn'd was this: That
my rival,

Whom I thought dead, was likely to recover,
And that he was a stranger lately come

Up to the court, to follow some pretensions;
His name he either learn'd not perfectly,
Or did not well retain. As for Elvira,

In case that course were to be fix'd upon;
But that's not my opinion.

D. Fer. What can your reason be?
D. Jul. Last remedies, in my judgment,
Are not to be used till easier have been try'd;
Had this strange accident been thoroughly
Examin'd in all its circumstances,

And that from thence she were convicted guilty,
Nought else were to be thought on but a cloister:

That none knew where she was; and that Don But, as things stand imperfectly discover'd,

Pedro

Had set a stop to prosecution

In any publick way. with what reserves
Was not yet known.

D. Jul. More and more intricate.

D. Fer. I must now come to that you least
would look for.

I had but few days past in my concealment
(Resentment and revenge still boiling in me)
When late one evening, as I buried was
In deepest thought, I suddenly was rous'd
By a surprising apparition, Julio,
Elvira in my chamber, speaking to me
With rare assurance thus-Don Fernando,
I come not here to justify myself,
That were below Elvira, towards one
Whose action in deserting me hath shown,
So disobligingly, his rash judgment of me.
I come to mind you of honour, not of love:

VOL. III.

Although appearances condemn her strongly,
I cannot yet conclude a person guilty
Of what throughout so contradictory seems
To the whole tenor of her former life,
As well as to her quality and wit;
And therefore let 's avoid precipitation.
Let my house be her shelter for a while;
You know my sister Blanca is discreet,
And may be trusted; she shall there be serv'd
By her and me, with care and secrecy.

D. Fer. The offer 's kind, but no wise prac

« Predošlá Pokračovať »

Knihy