i 
 
 J
 
 FAVOURITE CLASSICS: 
 
 The Plays of Sheridan. 
 
 THE RIVALS
 
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 NEW YORK : E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN
 
 THE PLAYS OF 
 SHERIDAN 
 
 THE RIVALS 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 EDMUND GOSSE 
 
 and a Plate representing DOWTON 
 as ' Sir Anthony Absolute.' 
 
 NEW YORK : E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
 1905
 
 THE RIVALS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THERE are few prominent plays in the literature of the 
 world which contain so many traces of the condition and 
 of the adventures of their author as does The Rivals. 
 Without being directly autobiographical, it is coloured 
 from prologue to epilogue by the personal history of the 
 brilliant young fellow who wrote it, and without re- 
 minding ourselves what were the events through which 
 he had lately passed, we fail to appreciate half the 
 touches in it. He had lately been a part of the sham 
 chivalry and the sham romance of which he made such 
 immortal fun, and the impressions of the absurdities of 
 life were fresh upon his memory when he wrote The 
 Rivals. He had been twenty years of age when he 
 eloped with Elizabeth Linley, exactly as Lydia Languish 
 hoped to fly with her Beverley. He had been twenty- 
 one when he fought two ridiculous duels, which were 
 evidently in his mind when he invented the inimitable 
 scenes in the fifth act of the play. He had suffered 
 "inexpressible torments," and had indulged in "sheets 
 of unintelligible rhapsody." At the house of Mrs. 
 Miller in Bath he had met with pretension and incon- 
 gruity and fashionable flutter enough to rig out a dozen 
 Mrs. Malaprops. He had poured verses into the 
 celebrated vase, dressed with pink ribbons and myrtles, 
 which crowned the fair of Parnassus at Bath Easton. 
 Throughout his tumultuous, absurd, romantic youth, 
 Sheridan had seemed to be rather acting than observing, 
 but his keen eyes were open to the world of folly, and 
 he was still but twenty-three when he sat down to write 
 this immortal picture of it all. 
 
 As early as 1771, and before the elopement, he had 
 proposed to himself to write a comedy. He was full 
 of literary ambition, but the path which he ought tc 
 
 2227621
 
 THE RIVALS. 
 
 take was slow to reveal itself. 'The elopement, the 
 secret marriage, the scandals at Bath, the tremendous 
 duels, interrupted the development of literature, for 
 who has time or wish to write comedy if he is actively 
 engaged in making it? At last, when quietly settled 
 with his hardly-won St. Cecilia in the London house in 
 Orchard Street, early in October 1774, he sat down to 
 write a comedy for Covent Garden. He did this at the 
 request of Harris, the manager, who had doubtless been 
 struck by the theatrical genius of Sheridan's mind and 
 by his wonderful aptitude for conversation. On the 
 17th of November, only six weeks after his setting to 
 work on it, the new comedy was already in rehearsal. 
 Harris and his friends, as Sheridan informs his father, 
 " assure me in the most nattering terms that [there is 
 not a doubt of its success," and that the dramatist may 
 depend on 600 profit at the very least. It was very 
 characteristic of Sheridan thus to count his chickens 
 before the eggs were hatched, and his confidence was 
 vthe more rash because several interesting and carefully- 
 written plays had quite lately been damned by the 
 capricious public. On the 17th of January 1775, his 
 comedy was at length acted at Covent Garden Theatre, 
 and met, we are told, "with very harsh treatment." 
 The audience, however, seemed rather captious than 
 hostile, and it must be confessed that their objections 
 were fairly founded. The Rivals is still a long play ; 
 on the first night it was double the length of any acting 
 drama, and the public made no concealment of their 
 extreme fatigue. Moreover, the part of Sir Lucius 
 O'Trigger, which requires great vigour, was so feebly 
 and ineffectively acted by John Lee, as to call dowr 
 upon him "shouts of disapprobation." The result was 
 somewhat extraordinary in the history of the theatre. 
 The Rivals was immediately withdrawn, after the first 
 representation, but not, as might be supposed, to be 
 consigned to oblivion or to the provinces. With his 
 admirable good sense, and rapidity of action, Sheridan 
 set himself to correct whatever the public had disliked. 
 First and foremost he removed a blemish which Harris,
 
 INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 if not he, should have perceived in rehearsal ; the 
 excessive length of the piece. He cut it down ruthlessly 
 and adroitly to the quite sufficient proportions with 
 which we are now familiar. Then there were certain 
 passages which seemed generally disliked by the first- 
 night audience. Nine authors out of ten would have 
 said that these were the particular beauties of the play. 
 Sheridan was above all things a man of the world, and 
 he gratified the public by an instant admission that " if 
 I felt any emotion of surprise at the disapprobation [of 
 these passages], it was not that they were disapproved of, 
 but that I had not before perceived that they deserved 
 it." Out they all went. The audience had disapproved 
 of John Lee, who was perhaps too old for the part of 
 Sir Lucius O'Trigger ; it was taken from him and given 
 to Clinch, a less-known but younger actor, who played 
 it with magnificent Irish verve. 
 
 The revival of the comedy took place eleven days 
 later, and this time the whole strength of Covent 
 Garden was concentrated on it. Edward Shuter was 
 tempestuous in Sir Anthony Absolute ; old Henry 
 Woodward, a veteran favourite with the public, made 
 up as a surprisingly gallant Captain Absolute ; John 
 Quick, who had been the original Tony Lumpkin, was 
 now the original Bob Acres; while "Gentleman" 
 Lewis acted the melancholy, whimsical Faulkland to 
 the life. The women were no less ably chosen. Miss 
 Barsanti played Lydia Languish ; delightful Mrs. Green, 
 Mrs. Malaprop ; whilst perhaps the greatest success of 
 all was achieved by Mrs. Bulkley as Julia. On the 
 second representation the success of the play was 
 assured, and since that night it has never ceased to be 
 a prime favourite with English audiences. It ran at 
 Covent Garden for sixteen nights. Early in February, 
 Sheridan took the play to Bath, then considered a 
 "theatrical tribunal, though not in quantity, in quality 
 as good as that of London." Miss Linley (quoted by 
 Mr. Fraser Rae) says of the actors on the first Bath 
 night, " I suppose the poor creatures never acted with 
 such shouts of applause in their life ... I never saw or
 
 THE RIVALS. 
 
 heard anything like it : before the actors spoke they 
 began their clapping." It was the same at Southampton, 
 the same at Bristol. The Rivals enjoyed, not the success 
 of the year, but the success of the century. Perhaps 
 the most pathetic incident connected with the early 
 triumph of the play was that Sheridan's father and 
 sisters, who were now entirely estranged from him by a 
 family quarrel, could not resist the temptation of coming 
 to witness his splendour. From an unseen spot behind 
 the stage, Sheridan gazed at their faces, and the tears 
 gathered in his eyes to think "that he alone was not 
 permitted to go near them or speak to them." 
 
 A French philosopher has warned us that we must 
 not look for psychology from a writer of twenty-three. 
 That was the age of the sparkling author of The Rivals, 
 and he was not a prodigy in this respect, although he was 
 one in so many others. His play presents us with the 
 results of no close anatomy of human character, and is 
 illuminated by no subtle flashes of analysis or intuition. 
 Its object, frankly, is to entertain, and the unbroken 
 merriment of more than a century proves that it 
 attained what it aimed at. The high spirits of The 
 Rivals, from the first speech to the last, are what any 
 dramatist who ever lived might envy. Every scene is 
 instinct with the effervescence of youthful genius, and 
 laughter is always at the wings, holding both his sides. 
 In 1775 the condition of English comedy was critical. 
 A few months earlier, Goldsmith, who alone had pre- 
 served the tradition of pure English fun, defending it 
 against the sentimentalities of French drama, had died 
 untimely. That comedy which was expected to con- 
 tinue and to surpass She Stoops to Conquer would never 
 be written by the one great playwright whom England 
 had produced since Farquhar. The authors of lachry- 
 mose plays, the Cumberlands, the Murphys, the Hugh 
 Kellys, regained something of the position they had 
 lost, but Goldsmith's genius had exposed them, and the 
 little sentimental comedies out of Marmontel, which 
 they offered to their admirers, fell flatter and flatter on 
 the stage. Sheridan, while almost a boy, had mocked
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 at the authors and Hugh Kelly, with his lugubrious 
 False Delicacy (1768), was the leader of them who said 
 that you should ' ' form comedy so that it is no laughing, 
 giggling piece of work." He had seen Major O'Flaherty 
 in Cumberland's West Indian at Drury Lane in 1771, 
 and had said to himself that he could do something 
 better than that with the point of honour. Now the 
 scene was suddenly empty, for even Kelly was declining 
 towards his premature death. Now, or never, was the 
 moment to recall comedy to her mirthful humour, and 
 pack all the snivelling farces to the Devil. 
 
 It was in The Rivals that Sheridan did it, and it is in 
 the element of robust laughter that the play subsists. 
 The serious conversations, between Julia and Lydia, 
 between Julia and Faulkland, are stilted and poor. 
 The accomplished Cumberland could do this kind of 
 thing at least as well as young Mr. Sheridan. These 
 scenes bore us to-day, but let Mrs. Malaprop or Acres 
 enter, and all is magnificent again. Such a scene 'as 
 that in which Mrs. Malaprop is forced to admit that 
 Captain Absolute Jis " the pine-apple of -'politeness," 
 or that between Acres and David at the beginning of 
 Act IV. have never been surpassed in the comic literature 
 of the world. It is impossible for a dramatist to be 
 more sprightly, more robustly facetious, than this, and 
 beside such fireworks of humour the boasted wit of 
 Congreve seems hard and motionless, like a set piece 
 in gold wire. In after years, when Sheridan had grown 
 critical by experience, he was accustomed to say that 
 The Rival* "was one of the worst plays in the 
 language." He would have given anything, he declared, 
 not to have written it. He destroyed from among his 
 papers all references to it. This is merely an instance 
 of an old man grown too fastidious to appreciate the 
 full-blooded and jovial impulses of youth. Essentially 
 The Rivals is a young play ; we miss all its fire and 
 force if we judge it by solemn and Terentian standards. 
 But if we are inclined to be critical of its psychology 
 and its construction, it treats us as Sam Foote treated 
 Dr. Johnson, who being resolved not to be pleased with 
 the comedian's conversation at dinner, found, never-
 
 THE RIVALS. 
 
 theless, that "the dog was so comical that I was 
 obliged to lay down my knife and fork, throw myself 
 back upon my chair, and fairly laugh it out." In the 
 
 Eresence of Mrs. Malaprop, criticism has to lay down 
 is knife and fork, and fairly laugh it out 
 
 EDMUND GOSSE.
 
 THE RIVALS. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 A PREFACE to a play seems generally to be considered 
 as a kind of closet-prologue, in which, if his piece has 
 been successful, the author solicits that indulgence 
 from the reader which he had before experienced 
 from the audience. But as the scope and immediate 
 object of a play is to please a mixed assembly in 
 representation (whose judgment, in the theatre at least, 
 is decisive), its degree of reputation is usually as 
 determined as public, before it can be prepared for 
 the cooler tribunal of the study. Thus any further 
 solicitude on the part of the writer becomes unneces- 
 sary at least, if not an intrusion ; and if the piece has 
 been condemned in the performance, I fear an address 
 to the closet, like an appeal to posterity, is constantly 
 regarded as the procrastination of a suit, from a con- 
 sciousness of the weakness of the cause. From these 
 considerations the following comedy would certainly 
 have been submitted to the reader without any further 
 introduction than what it had in the representation, 
 but that its success has probably been founded on a 
 circumstance which the author is informed has not 
 before attended a theatrical trial, and which conse- 
 quently ought not to pass unnoticed. 
 
 I need scarcely add that the circumstance alluded 
 to was the withdrawing of the piece to remove those 
 imperfections in the first representation which were too 
 obvious to escape reprehension, and too numerous to 
 admit of a hasty correction. There are few writers, 
 I believe, who, even in the fullest consciousness of 
 error, do not wish to palliate the faults which they 
 acknowledge ; and, however trifling the performance, 
 to second their confession of its deficiencies by what- 
 ever plea seems least disgraceful to their ability. In 
 the present instance it cannot be said to amount either
 
 Xii THE RIVALS. 
 
 to candour or modesty in me to acknowledge an extreme 
 inexperience and want of judgment on matters in which, 
 without guidance from practice or spur from success, 
 a young man should scarcely boast of being an adept. 
 If it be said that under such disadvantages no one 
 should attempt to write a play, I must beg leave to 
 dissent from the position, while the first point of 
 experience that I have gained on the subject is a know- 
 ledge of the candour and judgment with which an 
 impartial public distinguishes between the errors of 
 inexperience and incapacity, and the indulgence which 
 it shows even to a disposition to remedy the defects 
 of either. 
 
 It were unnecessary to enter into any further extenu- 
 ation of what was thought exceptionable in this play, 
 but that it has been said that the managers should 
 have prevented some of the defects before its appearance 
 to the public, and in particular the uncommon length 
 of the piece as represented the first night. It were an 
 ill return for the most liberal and gentlemanly conduct 
 on their side to suffer any censure to rest where none 
 was deserved. Hurry in writing has long been exploded 
 as an excuse for an author. However, in the dramatic 
 line it may happen that both an author and a manager 
 may wish to fill a chasm in the entertainment of the 
 public with a hastiness not altogether culpable. The 
 season was advanced when I first put the play into Mr. 
 Harris's hands. It was at that time at least double the 
 length of any acting comedy. I profited by his judg- 
 ment and experience in the curtailing of it, till I believe 
 his feeling for the vanity of a young author got the 
 better of his desire for correctness, and he left many 
 excrescences remaining, because he had assisted in 
 pruning so many more. Hence, though I was not 
 uninformed that the acts were still too long, I nattered 
 myself that, after the first trial, I might with safer 
 judgment proceed to remove what should appear to have 
 been most dissatisfactory. Many other errors there 
 were which might in part have arisen from my being 
 by no means conversant with plays in general, either 
 in reading or at the theatre. Yet I own that, in one
 
 PREFACE. X1H 
 
 respect, I did not regret my ignorance ; for as my first 
 wish in attempting a play was to avoid every appear- 
 ance of plagiary, I thought I should stand a better 
 chance of effecting this from being in a walk which 
 I had uot frequented, and where, consequently, the 
 progress of invention was less likely to be interrupted 
 by starts of recollection : for on subjects on which the 
 mind has been much informed, invention is slow of 
 exerting itself. Faded ideas float in the fancy like half- 
 forgotten dreams, and the imagination in its fullest 
 enjoyments becomes suspicious of its offspring, and 
 doubts whether it has created or adopted. 
 
 With regard to some particular passages which on 
 the first night's representation seemed generally dis- 
 liked, I confess that if I felt any emotion of surprise 
 at the disapprobation, it was not that they were dis- 
 approved of, but that I had not before perceived that 
 they deserved it. As some part of the attack on the 
 piece was begun too early to pass for the sentence of 
 judgment, which is ever tardy in condemning, it has 
 been suggested to me that much of the disapprobation 
 must have arisen from virulence of malice rather than 
 severity of criticism ; but as I was more apprehensive 
 of their being just grounds to excite the latter than 
 conscious of having deserved the former, I continue 
 not to believe that probable which I am sure must 
 have been unprovoked. However, if it was so, and 
 I could even mark the quarter from whence it came, 
 it would be ungenerous to retort, for no passion suffers 
 more than malice from disappointment. For my own 
 part, I see no reason why the author of a play should 
 not regard a first night's audience as a candid and 
 judicious friend attending on behalf of the public at 
 his last rehearal. If he can dispense with flattery, he 
 is sure at least of sincerity, and even though the 
 annotation be rude, he may rely upon the justness of 
 the comment. Considered in this light, that audience 
 whose fiat is essential to the poet's claim, whether his 
 object be fame or profit, has surely a right to expect 
 some deference to its opinion, from principles of 
 politeness at least, if not from gratitude.
 
 THE RIVALS. 
 
 As for the little puny critics who scatter their 
 peevish strictures in private circles, and scribble at 
 every author who has the eminence of being 1 uncon- 
 nected with them, as they are usually spleen-swoln 
 from a vain idea of increasing 1 their consequence, 
 there will always be found a petulance and illiberality 
 in their remarks which should place them as far 
 beneath the notice of a gentleman as their original 
 dulness had sunk them from the level of the most 
 unsuccessful author. 
 
 It is not without pleasure that I catch at an oppor- 
 tunity of justifying myself from the charge of intend- 
 ing any national reflection in the character of Sir Lucius 
 O'Trigger. If any gentlemen opposed the piece from 
 that idea, I thank them sincerely for their opposition ; 
 and if the condemnation of this comedy (however mis- 
 conceived the provocation) could have added one spark 
 to the decaying flame of national attachment to the 
 country supposed to be reflected on, I should have been 
 happy in its fate, and might with truth have boasted 
 that it had done more real service in its failure than the 
 successful morality of a thousand stage-novels will ever 
 effect. 
 
 It is usual, I believe, to thank the performers in a 
 new play for the exertion of their several abilities. But 
 where (as in this instance) their merit has been so 
 striking and uncontroverted as to call for the warmest 
 and truest applause from a number of judicious audiences, 
 the poet's after-praise comes like the feeble acclamation 
 of a child to close the shouts of a multitude. The con- 
 duct, however, of the principals in a theatre cannot be 
 so apparent to the public. I think it therefore but 
 justice to declare that from this theatre (the only one 
 I can speak of from experience) those writers who wish 
 to try the dramatic line will meet with that candour 
 and liberal attention, which are generally allowed to be 
 better calculated to lead genius into excellence, than 
 either the precepts of judgment, or the guidance of 
 experience. 
 
 THE AUTHOR,
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 (At originally acted at Covent Garden Theatre in 1776.) 
 
 SIR ANTHONY ABSOLUTE . . . Mr. Shuter. 
 
 CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE .... Mr. Woodward. 
 
 FAULKLAND Mr. Lewis. 
 
 ACRES Mr. Quick. 
 
 SIR Lucius O'TRIGGER . . . Mr. Lee. 
 
 FAG Mr. Lee Lewes. 
 
 DAVID Mr. Dunstal. 
 
 THOMAS Mr. Fearon. 
 
 MRS. MALAPROP .... Mrs. Green. 
 
 LYDIA LANGUISH .... Miss Barsanti. 
 
 JULIA Mrs. Bulkier. 
 
 LUCY Mrs. Lessingham. 
 
 Maid, Boy, Servantt, &$c. 
 
 Scene Bath. 
 Time of Action Five Hour*.
 
 THE RIVALS. 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 SPOKEN BY MR. WOODWARD AND MR. QUICK. 
 
 Enter SERJEANT-AT-LAW, and ATTORNEY following, and 
 giving a paper. 
 
 SERJ. What's here ! a vile cramp hand ! I cannot see 
 Without my spectacles. 
 
 ATT. He means his fee. 
 
 Nay, Mr. Serjeant, good sir, try again. [Gives money. 
 
 SERJ. The scrawl improves ! [more] O come, 'tis 
 
 pretty plain. 
 
 Hey ! how's this ? Dibble ! sure it cannot be ! 
 A poet's brief ! a poet arid a fee ! 
 
 ATT. Yes, sir ! though you without reward, I know, 
 Would gladly plead the Muse's cause. 
 
 SERJ. So ! so ! 
 
 ATT. And if the fee offends, your wrath should fall 
 On me. 
 
 SERJ. Dear Dibble, no offence at all. 
 
 ATT. Some sons of Phoebus in the courts we meet, 
 
 SERJ. And fifty sons of Phoebus in the Fleet ! 
 
 ATT. Nor pleads he worse, who with a decent sprig 
 Of bays adorns his legal waste of wig. 
 
 SEHJ. Full-bottom'd heroes thus, on signs, unfurl 
 A leaf of laurel in a grove of curl ! 
 
 A
 
 2 THE RIVALS. 
 
 Yet tell jour client, that, in adverse days, 
 This wig is warmer than a bush of bays. 
 
 ATT. Do you, then, sir, my client's place supply, 
 
 Profuse of robe, and prodigal of tie 
 
 Do you, with all those blushing powers of face, 
 
 And wonted bashful hesitating grace, 
 
 Rise in the court, and flourish on the case. [Exit. 
 
 SERJ. For practice then suppose this brief will show 
 
 it- 
 
 Me, Serjeant Woodward, counsel for the poet. 
 Used to the ground, I know 'tis hard to deal 
 With this dread court, from whence there's no appeal ; 
 No tricking here, to blunt the edge of law, 
 Or, damn'd in equity, escape by flaw : 
 But judgment given, your sentence must remain ; 
 No writ of error lies to Drury Lane ! 
 
 Yet when so kind you seem, 'tis past dispute 
 We gain some favour, if not costs of suit. 
 No spleen is here ! I see no hoarded fury ; 
 I think I never faced a milder jury ! 
 Sad else our plight ! where frowns are transportation, 
 A hiss the gallows, and a groan damnation ! 
 But such the public candour, without fear 
 My client waives all right of challenge here. 
 No newsman from our session is dismiss'd, 
 Nor wit nor critic we scratch off the list ; 
 His faults can never hurt another's ease, 
 His crime, at worst, a bad attempt to please : 
 Thus, all respecting, he appeals to all, 
 And by the general voice will stand or fall.
 
 THE RIVALS. 3 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 SPOKEN ON THE TENTH NJGHT BY MHS. BULKLEY. 
 
 GRANTED our cause, our suit and trial o'er, 
 The worthy serjeant need appear no more : 
 In pleasing I a different client choose, 
 He served the Poet I would serve the Muse ; 
 Like him, I'll try to merit your applause, 
 A female counsel in a female's cause. 
 
 Look on this form, 1 where humour, quaint and sly, 
 Dimples the cheek, and points the beaming- eye ; 
 Where gay invention seems to boast its wiles 
 In amorous hint, and half-triumphant smiles ; 
 While her light mask or covers satire's strokes, 
 Or hides the conscious blush her wit provokes. 
 Look on her well does she seem form'd to teach ? 
 Should you expect to hear this lady preach ? 
 Is grey experience suited to her youth? 
 Do solemn sentiments become that mouth ? 
 Bid her be grave, those lips should rebel prove 
 To every theme that slanders mirth or love. 
 
 Yet, thus adorned with every graceful art 
 
 To charm the fancy and yet reach the heart 
 
 Must we displace her ? And instead advance 
 The goddess of the woful countenance 
 The sentimental Muse ! Her emblems view, 
 The Pilgrim's Progress, and a sprig of rue ! 
 View her too chaste to look like flesh and blood 
 Primly portray'd on emblematic wood ! 
 There, fix'd in usurpation, should she stand, 
 She'll snatch the dagger from her sister's hand : 
 1 Pointing to the figure of Comedy.
 
 THE RIVALS. [ACT 
 
 And having made her votaries weep a flood, 
 Good heaven ! she'll end her comedies in blood 
 Bid Harry Woodward break poor Dunstal's crown ! 
 Imprison Quick, and knock Ned Shuter down ; 
 While sad Barsanti, weeping o'er the scene, 
 Shall stab herself or poison Mrs. Green. 
 
 Such dire encroachments to prevent in time, 
 Demands the critic's voice the poet's rhyme. 
 Can our light scenes add strength to holy laws ! 
 Such puny patronage but hurts the cause: 
 Fair virtue scorns our feeble aid to ask ; 
 And moral truth disdains the trickster's mask, 
 For here their favourite stands, 1 whose brow severe 
 And sad, claims youth's respect, and pity's tear ; 
 Who, when oppress'd by foes her worth creates, 
 Can point a poniard at the guilt she hates. 
 
 ACT THE FIRST. 
 SCENE I. 
 
 A Street. 
 
 Enter THOMAS. He crosses the Stage. FAG follows, 
 looking after him. 
 
 FAG. What! Thomas! sure 'tis he ? What ! Thomas! 
 Thomas ! 
 
 THOS. Hey ! Odd's life ! Mr. Fag ! give us your 
 hand, my old fellow-servant. 
 
 FAG. Excuse my glove, Thomas. I'm devilish glad 
 to see you, my lad. Why, my prince of charioteers, 
 you look as hearty ! but who the deuce thought of 
 seeing you in Bath ? 
 
 THOS. Sure, master, Madam Julia, Harry, Mrs. Kate, 
 and the postillion, be all come. 
 
 1 Pointing to Tragedy.
 
 SC. I.] THE RIVALS. 
 
 FAG. Indeed ! 
 
 THOS. Ay, master thought another fit of the gout 
 was coming to make him a visit ; so he'd a mind to 
 gi't the slip, and whip ! we were all off at an hour's 
 warning. 
 
 FAG. Ay, ay, hasty in everything, or it would not 
 be Sir Anthony Absolute ! 
 
 THOS. But tell us, Mr. Fag, how does young master? 
 Odd ! Sir Anthony will stare to see the captain here ! 
 
 FAG. I do not serve Captain Absolute now. 
 
 THOS. Why, sure ! 
 
 FAG. At present I am employed by Ensign Beverley. 
 
 THOS. I doubt, Mr. Fag, you ha'u't changed for the 
 better. 
 
 FAG. I have not changed, Thomas. 
 
 THOS. No ! Why, didn't you say you had left young 
 master ? 
 
 FAG. No. Well, honest Thomas, I must puzzle you 
 no further. Briefly then Captain Absolute and Ensign 
 Beverley are one and the same person. 
 
 THOS. The devil they are ! 
 
 FAG. So it is indeed, Thomas ; and the ensign half of 
 my master being on guard at present the captain has 
 nothing to do with me. 
 
 THOS. So, so ! What, this is some freak, 1 warrant ! 
 Do tell us, Mr. Fag, the meaning o't you know, I ha* 
 trusted you. 
 
 FAG. You'll be secret, Thomas ? 
 
 THOS. As a coach horse. 
 
 FAG. Why, then, the cause of all this is Love, 
 Love, Thomas, who (as you may get read to you) has 
 been a masquerader ever since the days of Jupiter. 
 
 THOS. Ay, ay ; I guessed there was a lady in the 
 case but pray, why does your master pass only for 
 ensign ? Now if he had shammed general indeed
 
 THE RIVALS. [ACT I. 
 
 FAG. Ah ! Thomas, there lies the mystery o' the 
 matter. Hark'ee, Thomas, my master is in love with 
 a lady of a very singular taste a lady who likes him 
 better as a half-pay ensign than if she knew he was 
 son and heir to Sir Anthony Absolute, a baronet of 
 three thousand a year. 
 
 THOS. That is an odd taste indeed ! But has she 
 got the stuff, Mr. Fag? Is she rich, hey? 
 
 FAG. Rich ! Why, I believe she owns half the 
 stocks ! Zounds ! Thomas, she could pay the national 
 debt as easily as I could my washerwoman ! She has 
 a lapdog that eats out of gold, she feeds her parrot 
 with small pearls, and all her thread-papers are made 
 of bank-notes ! 
 
 THOS. Bravo, faith ! Odd ! I warrant she has a set 
 of thousands at least ; but does she draw kindly with 
 the captain ? 
 
 FAG. As fond as pigeons. 
 
 THOS. May one hear her name ? 
 
 FAG. Miss Lydia Languish. But there is an old 
 tough aunt in the way ; though, by-the-bye, she has 
 never seen my master for we got acquainted with 
 miss while on a visit in Gloucestershire. 
 
 THOS. Well I wish they were once harnessed to- 
 gether in matrimony. But pray, Mr. Fag, what kind 
 of a place is this Bath ? I ha' heard a deal of it here's 
 a mort o' merry-making, hey ? 
 
 FAG. Pretty well, Thomas, pretty well 'tis a good 
 lounge. In the morning we go to the pump-room 
 (though neither my master nor I drink the waters) ; 
 after breakfast we saunter on the parades, or play a 
 game at billiards ; at night we dance ; but damn the 
 place, I'm tired of it ; their regular hours stupefy me 
 not a fiddle nor a card after eleven ! However, Mr. 
 Faulkland's gentleman and I keep it up a little in
 
 SC. I.] THE RIVALS. 
 
 private parties. I'll introduce you there, Thomas 
 you'll like him much. 
 
 THOS. Sure I know Mr. Du-Peigne you know his 
 master is to marry Madam Julia. 
 
 FAG. I had forgot. But, Thomas, you must polish a 
 little indeed you must. Here now this wig ! What 
 the devil do you do with a wig, Thomas? None of the 
 London whips of any degree of ton wear wigs now. 
 
 THOS. More's the pity ! more's the pity ! I say. 
 Odd's life ! when I heard how the lawyers and doctors 
 had took to their own hair, I thought how 'twould go 
 next. Odd rabbit it ! when the fashion had got foot 
 on the bar, I guessed 'twould mount to the box ! but 
 'tis all out of character, believe me, Mr. Fag : and 
 look'ee, I'll never gi' up mine the lawyers and doctors 
 may do as they will. 
 
 FAG. Well, Thomas, we'll not quarrel about that. 
 
 THOS. Why, bless you, the gentlemen of the pro- 
 fessions ben't all of a mind for in the village now, 
 tho'ff Jack Gauge, the exciseman, has ta'en to his 
 carrots, there's little Dick, the farrier, swears he'll 
 never forsake his bob, though all the college should 
 appear with their own heads ! 
 
 FAG. Indeed ! well said, Dick ! But hold mark ! 
 mark ! Thomas. 
 
 THOS. Zooks ! 'tis the captain. Is that the lady with 
 him? 
 
 FAG. No, no ; that is Madam Lucy, my master's 
 mistress's maid. They lodge at that house but I must 
 after him to tell him the news. 
 
 THOS. Odd ! he's giving her money ! Well, Mr. 
 Fag 
 
 FAG. Good-bye, Thomas. I have an appointment in 
 Gyde's Porch this evening at eight ; meet me there, 
 and we'll make a little party. [Exeunt severally.
 
 THE RIVALS. [ACT I. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 A Dressing-room in MRS. MALAPROP'S Lodgings. 
 
 LYDIA sitting on a sofa, with a book in her hand. LUCY, 
 as just returned from a message. 
 
 LUCY. Indeed, ma'am, I traversed half the town in 
 search of it : I don't believe there's a circulating library 
 in Bath I ha'n't been at. 
 
 LYD. And could not you get The Reward of Constancy? 
 
 LUCY. No, indeed, ma'am. 
 
 LYD. Nor The Fatal Connexion ? 
 
 LUCY. No, indeed, ma'am. 
 
 LYD. Nor The Mistakes of the Heart? 
 
 LUCY. Ma'am, as ill luck would have it, Mr. Bull said 
 Miss Sukey Saunter had just fetched it away. 
 
 LYD. Heigh-ho ! Did you inquire for The Delicate 
 Distress ? 
 
 LUCY. Or, The Memoirs of Lady Woodford ? Yes, in- 
 deed, ma'am. I asked everywhere for it ; and I might 
 have brought it from Mr. Frederick's, but Lady Slattern 
 Lounger, who had just sent it home, had so soiled and 
 dog's-eared it, it wa'n't fit for a Christian to read. 
 
 LYD. Heigh-ho ! Yes, I always know when Lady 
 Slattern has been before me. She has a most observing 
 thumb ; and, I believe, cherishes her nails for the con- 
 venience of making marginal notes. Well, child, what 
 have you brought me? 
 
 LUCY. Oh ! here, ma'am. [Taking books from under 
 her cloak, and from her pockets.] This is The Gordian 
 Knot, and this Peregrine Pickle. Here are The Tears of 
 Sensibility, and Humphrey Clinker. This is The Memoirs 
 of a Lady of Quality, written by herself, and here the 
 second volume of The Sentimental Journey.
 
 EC. II.J THE RIVALS. 9 
 
 LYD. Heigh-ho ! What are those books by the 
 glass ? 
 
 LUCY. The great one is only The Whole Duty of Man, 
 where I press a few blonds, ma'am. 
 
 LYD. Very well give me the sal volatile. 
 
 LUCY. Is it in a blue cover, ma'am ? 
 
 LYD. My smelling-bottle, you simpleton ! 
 
 LUCY. Oh, the drops here, ma'am. 
 
 LYD. Hold ! Here's some one coming quick, see 
 who it is. [Exit LUCY.] Surely 1 heard my cousin 
 Julia's voice. 
 
 Re-enter LUCY. 
 
 LUCY. Lud ! ma'am, here is Miss Melville. 
 
 LYD. Is it possible ! [Exit LUCY. 
 
 Enter JULIA. 
 
 LYD. My dearest Julia, how delighted am I ! [Em- 
 brace.] How unexpected was this happiness ! 
 
 JUL. True, Lydia, and our pleasure is the greater. 
 But what has been the matter? You were denied to 
 me at first ! 
 
 LYD. Ah, Julia, I have a thousand things to tell you ! 
 But first inform me what has conjured you to Bath? 
 Is Sir Anthony here ? 
 
 JUL. He is we are arrived within this hour and 
 I suppose he will be here to wait on Mrs. Malaprop 
 as soon as he is dressed. 
 
 LYD. Then before we are interrupted, let me impart 
 to you some of my distress ! I know your gentle nature 
 will sympathise with me, though your prudence may 
 condemn me ! My letters have informed you of my 
 whole connection with Beverley ; but I have lost him, 
 Julia ! My aunt has discovered our intercourse by a
 
 10 THE RIVALS. [ACT I. 
 
 note she intercepted, and has confined me ever since ! 
 Yet, would you believe it ? she has absolutely fallen in 
 love with a tall Irish baronet she met one night since 
 we have been here, at Lady Macshuffle's rout. 
 
 JUL. You jest, Lydia ! 
 
 LYD. No, upon my word. She really carries on a 
 kind of correspondence with him, under a feigned name 
 though, till she chooses to be known to him ; but it is 
 a Delia or a Celia, I assure you. 
 
 JUL. Then, surely, she is now more indulgent to her 
 niece. 
 
 LYD. Quite the contrary. Since she has discovered 
 her own frailty, she is become more suspicious of mine. 
 Then I must inform you of another plague ! That 
 odious Acres is to be in Bath to-day ; so that I protest 
 I shall be teased out of all spirits ! 
 
 JUL. Come, come, Lydia, hope for the best Sir 
 Anthony shall use his interest with Mrs. Malaprop. 
 
 LYD. But you have not heard the worst. Unfortu- 
 nately I had quarrelled with my poor Beverley, just be- 
 fore my aunt made the discovery, and I have not seen 
 him since, to make it up. 
 
 JUL. What was his offence ? 
 
 LYD. Nothing at all ! But, I don't know how it was, 
 as often as we had been together, we had never had a 
 quarrel, and, somehow, I was afraid he would never 
 give me an opportunity. So, last Thursday, I wrote a 
 letter to myself, to inform myself that Beverley was at 
 that time paying his addresses to another woman. I 
 signed it your friend unknown, showed it to Beverley, 
 charged him with his falsehood, put myself in a violent 
 passion, and vowed I'd never see him more. 
 
 JUL. And you let him depart so, and have not seen 
 him since ? 
 
 LYD. 'Twas the next day my aunt found the matter
 
 SC. II.] THE RIVALS. 11 
 
 out. I intended only to have teased him three days and 
 a half, and now I've lost him for ever. 
 
 JUL. If he is as deserving and sincere as you have 
 represented him to me, he will never give you up so. 
 Yet, consider, Lydia, you tell me he is but an ensign, 
 and you have thirty thousand pounds. 
 
 LYD. But you know I lose most of my fortune if I 
 marry without my aunt's consent, till of age ; and that 
 is what I have determined to do, ever since I knew the 
 penalty. Nor could I love the man, who would wish to 
 wait a day for the alternative. 
 
 JfL. Nay, this is caprice ! 
 
 LYD. What! does Julia tax me with caprice? I 
 thought her lover Faulkland had inured her to it. 
 
 JUL. I do not love even his faults. 
 
 LYD. But apropos you have sent to him, I suppose ? 
 
 JUL. Not yet, upon my word nor has he the least 
 idea of my being in Bath. Sir Anthony's resolution 
 was so sudden, I could not inform him of it. 
 
 LYD. Well, Julia, you are your own mistress (though 
 under the protection of Sir Anthony), yet have you, for 
 this long year, been a slave to the caprice, the whim, 
 the jealousy of this ungrateful Faulkland, who will ever 
 delay assuming the right of a husband while you suffer 
 him to be equally imperious as a lover. 
 
 JUL. Nay, you are wrong entirely. We were con- 
 tracted before my father's death. That, and some 
 consequent embarrassments, have delayed what I know 
 to be my Faulklaud's most ardent wish. He is too 
 generous to trifle on such a point : and for his char- 
 acter, you wrong him there too. No, Lydia, he is too 
 proud, too noble to be jealous ; if he is captious, 'tis 
 without dissembling ; if fretful, without rudeness. 
 Unused to the fopperies of love, he is negligent of the 
 little duties expected from a lover but being unhack-
 
 12 THE RIVALS. [A <TT I. 
 
 neyed in the passion, his affection is ardent and sincere ; 
 and as it engrosses his whole soul, he expects every 
 thought and emotion of his mistress to move in unison 
 with his. Yet, though his pride calls for this full return, 
 his humility makes him undervalue those qualities in 
 him which would entitle him to it ; and not feeling why 
 he should be loved to the degree he wishes, he still 
 suspects that he is not loved enough. This temper, I 
 must own, has cost me many unhappy hours ; but I have 
 learned to think myself his debtor for those imper- 
 fections which arise from the ardour of his attachment. 
 
 LYD. Well, I cannot blame you for defending him. 
 But tell me candidly, Julia, had he never saved your 
 life, do you think you should have been attached to 
 him as you are ? Believe me, the rude blast that over- 
 set your boat was a prosperous gale of love to him. 
 
 JUL. Gratitude may have strengthened my attachment 
 to Mr. Faulkland, but I loved him before he had pre- 
 served me ; yet surely that alone were an obligation 
 sufficient. 
 
 LYD. Obligation ! why, a water spaniel would have 
 done as much ! Well, I should never think of giving 
 my heart to a man because he could swim. 
 
 JUL. Come, Lydia, you are too inconsiderate. 
 
 LYD. Nay, I do but jest. What's here? 
 
 Re-enter LUCY in a hurry. 
 
 LUCY. O ma'am, here is Sir Anthony Absolute just 
 come home with your aunt. 
 
 LYD. They'll not come here. Lucy, do you watch. 
 
 [Exit LUCY. 
 
 JUL. Yet I must go. Sir Anthony does not know I 
 am here, and if we meet he'll detain me to show me the 
 town. I'll take another opportunity of paying my
 
 II.] THE RIVALS. 13 
 
 respects to Mrs. Malaprop, when she shall treat me, as 
 long as she chooses, with her select words so ingeniously 
 misapplied, without being mispronounced. 
 
 Re-enter LUCY. 
 
 LUCY. O Lud ! ma'am, they are both coming upstairs. 
 
 LYD. Well, I'll not detain you, coz. Adieu, my dear 
 Julia, I'm sure you are in haste to send to Faulkland. 
 There through my room you'll find another stair- 
 case. 
 
 JUL. Adieu ! [Embraces LYDIA, and exit. 
 
 LYD. Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, 
 quick. Fling Peregrine Pickle under the toilet throw 
 Roderick Random into the closet put The Innocent 
 Adultery into The Whole Duty of Man thrust Lord 
 Aimworth under the sofa, cram Ovid behind the bolster 
 there put The Man of Feeling into your pocket so, 
 so now lay Mrs. Chapone in sight, and leave Fordyce's 
 Sermons open on the table. 
 
 LUCY. Oh, burn it, ma'am ! the hairdresser has torn 
 away as far as Proper Pride. 
 
 LYD. Never mind open at Sobriety. Fling me Lord 
 Chesterfield's Letters. Now for 'em. [Exit LUCY. 
 
 Enter MRS. MALAPROP and SIR ANTHONY ABSOLUTE. 
 
 MRS. MAL. There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deli- 
 berate simpleton who wants to disgrace her family, and 
 lavish herself on a fellow not worth a shilling. 
 
 LYD. Madam, I thought you once 
 
 MRS. MAL. You thought, miss ! I don't know any 
 business you have to think at all thought does not 
 become a young woman. But the point we would 
 request of you is, that you will promise to forget this 
 fellow to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.
 
 14 THE RIVALS. [ACT I. 
 
 LYD. Ah, madam ! our memories are independent of 
 our wills. It is not so easy to forget. 
 
 MBS. MAL. But I say it is, miss ; there is nothing on 
 earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set 
 about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor 
 dear uncle as if he had never existed and I thought it 
 my duty so to do ; and let me tell you, Lydia, these 
 violent memories don't become a young woman. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Why, sure she won't pretend to remember 
 what she's ordered not ! ay, this comes of her reading ! 
 
 LYD. What crime, madam, have I committed, to be 
 treated thus? 
 
 MRS. MAL. Now don't attempt to extirpate yourself 
 from the matter ; you know I have proof controvertihle 
 of it. But tell me, will you promise to do as you're bid ? 
 Will you take a husband of your friends' choosing? 
 
 LYD. Madam, I must tell you plainly, that had I no 
 preference for any one else, the choice you have made 
 would be my aversion. 
 
 MRS. MAL. What business have you, miss, with pre- 
 ference and aversion? They don't become a young 
 woman ; and you ought to know, that as both always 
 wear off, 'tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little 
 aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle before 
 marriage as if he'd been a blackamoor and yet, miss, 
 you are sensible what a wife I made ! And when it 
 pleased Heaven to release me from him, 'tis unknown 
 what tears I shed ! But suppose we were going to give 
 you another choice, will you promise us to give up this 
 Beverley ? 
 
 LYD. Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that 
 promise, my actions would certainly as far belie my 
 words. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Take yourself to your room. You are fit 
 company for nothing but your own ill-humours.
 
 SC. II.] THE RIVALS. 15 
 
 LYD. Willingly, ma'am I cannot change for the 
 worse. [Exit. 
 
 MRS. MAL. There's a little intricate hussy for you ! 
 
 SIR ANTH. It is not to be wondered at, ma'am all this 
 is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. 
 Had I a thousand daughters, by Heaven ! I'd as soon 
 have them taught the black art as their alphabet ! 
 
 MRS. MAL. Nay, nay, Sir Anthony, you are an absolute 
 misanthropy. 
 
 SIR ANTH. In my way hither, Mrs. Malaprop, I observed 
 your niece's maid coming forth from a circulating library ! 
 She had a book in each hand they were half-bound 
 volumes, with marble covers ! From that moment I 
 guessed how full of duty I should see her mistress ! 
 
 MRS. MAL. Those are vile places indeed ! 
 
 SIR ANTH. Madam, a circulating library in a town 
 is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge ! Jt 
 blossoms through the year ! And depend on it, Mrs. 
 Malaprop, that they who are so fond of handling the 
 leaves, will long for the fruit at last. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Fy, fy, Sir Anthony! you surely speak 
 laconically. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Why, Mrs. Malaprop, in moderation now, 
 what would you have a woman know ? 
 
 MRS. MAL. Observe me, Sir Anthony. I would by no 
 means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of 
 learning ; I don't think so much learning becomes a 
 young woman ; for instance, I would never let her 
 meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or algebra, or simony, 
 or fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches 
 of learning neither would it be necessary for her to 
 handle any of your mathematical, astronomical, dia- 
 bolical instruments. But, Sir Anthony, I would send 
 her, at nine years old, to a boarding-school, in order to 
 learn a little ingenuity and artifice. Then, sir, she
 
 16 THE RIVALS. [ACT I. 
 
 should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts ; and 
 as she grew up I would have her instructed in geometry, 
 that she might know something of the contagious 
 countries ; but above all, Sir Anthony, she should be 
 mistress of orthodoxy, that she might not misspell and 
 mispronounce words so shamefully as girls usually do ; 
 and likewise that she might reprehend the true meaning 
 of what she is saying. This, Sir Anthony, is what I 
 would have a woman know ; and I don't think there is a 
 superstitious article in it. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Well, well, Mrs. Malaprop, I will dispute 
 the point no further with you ; though I must confess 
 that you are a truly moderate and polite arguer, for 
 almost every third word you say is on my side of the 
 question. But, Mrs. Malaprop, to the more important 
 point in debate you say you have no objection to my 
 proposal ? 
 
 MRS. MAL. None, I assure you. I am under no positive 
 engagement with Mr. Acres, and as Lydia is so obstinate 
 against him, perhaps your son may have better success. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Well, madam, I will write for the boy 
 directly. He knows not a syllable of this yet, though I 
 have for some time had the proposal in my head. He is 
 at present with his regiment. 
 
 MRS. MAL. We have never seen your son, Sir Anthony ; 
 but I hope no objection on his side. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Objection ! let him object if he dare! 
 No, no, Mrs. Malaprop, Jack knows that the least 
 demur puts me in a frenzy directly. My process was 
 always very simple in their younger days, 'twas 
 "Jack, do this"; if he demurred, I knocked him 
 down, and if he grumbled at that, I always sent him 
 out of the room. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Ay, and the properest way, o' my con- 
 science ! nothing is so conciliating to young people as
 
 SC. II.] THE RIVALS. 17 
 
 severity. Well, Sir Anthony, I shall give Mr. Acres his 
 discharge, and prepare Lydia to receive your son's invo- 
 cations ; and I hope you will represent her to the captain 
 as an object not altogether illegible. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Madam, I will handle the subject prudently. 
 Well, I must leave you ; and let me beg you, Mrs. 
 Malaprop, to enforce this matter roundly to the girl. 
 Take my advice keep a tight hand. If she rejects this 
 proposal, clap her under lock and key ; and if you were 
 just to let the servants forget to bring her dinner for 
 three or four days, you can't conceive how she'd come 
 about. [Exit. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Well, at any rate I shall be glad to get her 
 from under my intuition. She has somehow discovered 
 my partiality for Sir Lucius O'Trigger sure, Lucy can't 
 have betrayed me ! No, the girl is such a simpleton, I 
 should have made her confess it. Lucy ! Lucy ! [Calls.] 
 Had she been one of your artificial ones I should never 
 have trusted her. 
 
 Re-enter LUCY. 
 
 LUCY. Did you call, ma'am ? 
 
 MRS. MAL. Yes, girl. Did you see Sir Lucius while 
 you was out? 
 
 LUCY. No, indeed, ma'am, not a glimpse of him. 
 
 MRS. MAL. You are sure, Lucy, that you never men- 
 tioned 
 
 LUCY. Oh, gemini ! I'd sooner cut my tongue out. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Well, don't let your simplicity be im- 
 posed on. 
 
 LUCY. No, ma'am. 
 
 MRS. MAL. So, come to me presently, and I'll give you 
 another letter to Sir Lucius ; but mind, Lucy if ever 
 you betray what you are entrusted with (unless it be 
 other people's secrets to me), you forfeit my malevolence
 
 THE RIVALS. [ACT II. 
 
 for ever ; and your being a simpleton shall be no excuse 
 for your locality. [Exit. 
 
 LUCY. Ha ! ha ! ha ! So, my dear Simplicity, let me 
 give you a little respite. [Altering her manner.] Let 
 girls in my station be as fond as they please of appearing 
 expert, and knowing in their trusts ; commend me to a 
 mask of silliness, and a pair of sharp eyes for my own 
 interest under it ! Let me see to what account have I 
 turned my simplicity lately. [Looks at a paper.] For 
 abetting Miss Lydia Languish in a design of running away 
 with an ensign! in money, sundry times, twelve pound 
 twelve; gowns, five; hats, ruffles, caps, c^c. c., number- 
 less! From the said ensign, within this last month, six 
 guineas and a half about a quarter's pay ! Item, front 
 Mrs. Malaprop, for betraying the young people to her 
 when I found matters were likely to be discovered 
 two guineas and a black paduasoy. Item, from Mr. Acres, 
 for carrying divers letters which I never delivered 
 two guineas, and a pair of buckles. Item, from Sir 
 Lucius 0' Trigger, three crowns, two gold pocket-pieces, and 
 a silver snuff-box ! Well done, Simplicity ! Yet I was 
 forced to make my Hibernian believe that he was corre- 
 sponding, not with the aunt, but with the niece : for 
 though not over rich, I found he had too much pride 
 and delicacy to sacrifice the feelings of a gentleman to 
 the necessities of his fortune. [Exit. 
 
 ACT THE SECOND. 
 SCENE I. 
 
 CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE'S Lodgings. 
 
 CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE and FA. 
 
 FAG. Sir, while I was there Sir Anthony came in : I 
 told him you had sent me to inquire after his health, 
 and to know if he was at leisure to see you.
 
 I.J THE RIVALS. 19 
 
 ABS. And what did he say, on hearing I was at 
 Bath ? 
 
 FAG. Sir, in my life I never saw an elderly gentleman 
 more astonished ! He started back two or three paces, 
 rapped out a dozen interjectural oaths, and asked what 
 the devil had brought you here. 
 
 ABS. Well, sir, and what did you say ? 
 
 FAG. Oh, I lied, sir 1 forget the precise lie ; but you 
 may depend on't he got no truth from me. Yet, with 
 submission, for fear of blunders in future, I should be 
 glad to fix what has brought us to Bath, in order that 
 we may lie a little consistently. Sir Anthony's servants 
 were curious, sir, very curious indeed. 
 
 ABS. You have said nothing to them ? 
 
 FAG. Oh, not a word, sir not a word ! Mr. Thomas, 
 indeed, the coachman (whom I take to be the discreetest 
 of whips) 
 
 ABS. 'Sdeath ! you rascal ! you have not trusted him ! 
 
 FAG. Oh no, sir. no no not a syllable, upon my 
 veracity ! He was, indeed, a little inquisitive ; but I 
 was sly, sir devilish sly ! My master (said I), honest 
 Thomas (you know, sir, one says honest to one's 
 inferiors), is come to Bath to recruit Yes, sir, I said to 
 recruit and whether for men, money, or constitution, 
 you know, sir, is nothing to him, nor any one else. 
 
 ABS. Well, recruit will do let it be so. 
 
 FAG. O sir, recruit will do surprisingly indeed, to 
 give the thing an air, I told Thomas that your honour 
 had already enlisted five disbanded chairmen, seven 
 minority waiters, and thirteen billiard-markers. 
 
 ABS. You blockhead, never say more than is necessary. 
 
 FAG. I beg pardon, sir I beg pardon but, with sub- 
 mission, a lie is nothing unless one supports it. Sir, 
 whenever I draw on my invention for a good current lie, 
 I always forge indorsements as well as the bill.
 
 20 THE RIVALS. [ACT II. 
 
 ABS. Well, take care you don't hurt your credit, by 
 offering too much security. Is Mr. Faulkland returned ? 
 
 FAG. He is above, sir, changing his dress. 
 
 ABS. Can you tell whether he has been informed of 
 Sir Anthony and Miss Melville's arrival ? 
 
 FAG. I fancy not, sir ; he has seen no one since he 
 came in but his gentleman, who was with him at 
 Bristol. I think, sir, I hear Mr. Faulkland coming 
 down 
 
 ABS. Go, tell him I am here. 
 
 FAG. Yes, sir. [Going.] I beg pardon, sir, but should 
 Sir Anthony call, you will do me the favour to remember 
 that we are recruiting, if you please. 
 
 ABS. Well, well. 
 
 FAG. Arid in tenderness to my character, if your 
 honour could bring in the chairmen and waiters, I 
 should esteem it as an obligation ; for though I never 
 scruple a lie to serve my master, yet it hurts one's con- 
 science to be found out. [Exit. 
 
 ABS. Now for my whimsical friend ; if he does not 
 know that his mistress is here, I'll tease him a little 
 before I tell him. 
 
 Enter FAULKLAND. 
 
 Faulkland, you're welcome to Bath again ; you are 
 punctual in your return. 
 
 FAULK. Yes ; I had nothing to detain me, when I had 
 finished the business I went on. Well, what news since 
 I left you ? How stand matters between you and Lydia ? 
 
 ABS. Faith, much as they were. I have not seen her 
 since our quarrel ; however, I expect to be recalled 
 every hour. 
 
 FAULK. Why don't you persuade her to go off with you 
 at once ? 
 
 ABS. What, and lose two-thirds of her fortune ? You
 
 SC. I.J THE RIVALS. 21 
 
 forget that, my friend. No, no, I could have brought 
 her to that long ago. 
 
 FAULK. Nay, then, you trifle too long ; if you are sure 
 of her, propose to the aunt in your own character, and 
 write to Sir Anthony for his consent. 
 
 ABS. Softly, softly ; for though I am convinced my 
 little Lydia would elope with me as Ensign Beverley, 
 yet am I by no means certain that she would take me 
 with the impediment of our friends' consent, a regular 
 humdrum wedding, and the reversion of a good fortune 
 on my side no, no ; I must prepare her gradually for 
 the discovery, and make myself necessary to her, before 
 I risk it. Well, but Faulkland, you'll dine with us to- 
 day at the hotel ? 
 
 FAULK. Indeed I cannot ; I am not in spirits to be of 
 such a party. 
 
 ABS. By heavens ! I shall forswear your company. 
 You are the most teasing, captious, incorrigible lover ! 
 Do love like a man. 
 
 FAULK. I own I am unfit for company. 
 
 ABS. Am not I a lover ; ay, and a romantic one too ? 
 Yet do I carry everywhere with me such a confounded 
 farrago of doubts, fears, hopes, wishes, and all the 
 flimsy furniture of a country miss's brain? 
 
 FAULK. Ah ! Jack, your heart and soul are not, like 
 mine, fixed immutably on one only object. You throw 
 for a large stake, but losing, you could stake and throw 
 again ; but 1 have set my sum of happiness on this cast, 
 and not to succeed, were to be stripped of all. 
 
 ABS. But, for Heaven's sake ! what grounds for appre- 
 hension can your whimsical brain conjure up at present? 
 
 FAULK. What grounds for apprehension, did you say ? 
 Heavens ! are there not a thousand ? I fear for her 
 spirits, her health, her life. My absence may fret her ; 
 her anxiety for my return, her fears for me may oppress
 
 22 THE RIVALS. [ACT II. 
 
 her gentle temper: and for her health, does not every 
 hour bring me cause to be alarmed ? Tf it rains, some 
 shower may even then have chilled her delicate frame ! 
 If the wind be keen, some rude blast may have affected 
 her ! The heat of noon, the dews of the evening, may 
 endanger the life of her for whom only I value mine. 
 O Jack ! when delicate and feeling souls are separated, 
 there is not a feature in the sky, not a movement of the 
 elements, not an aspiration of the breeze, but hints some 
 cause for a lover's apprehension ! 
 
 ABS. Ay, but we may choose whether we will take the 
 hint or not. So then, Faulkland, if you were convinced 
 that Julia were well and in spirits, you would be en- 
 tirely content? 
 
 FAULK. I should be happy beyond measure. I am 
 anxious only for that. 
 
 ABS. Then to cure your anxiety at once Miss Mel- 
 ville is in perfect health, and is at this moment in Bath. 
 
 FAULK. Nay, Jack don't trifle with me. 
 
 ABS. She is arrived here with my father within this 
 hour. 
 
 FAULK. Can you be serious? 
 
 ABS. I thought you knew Sir Anthony better than to 
 be surprised at a sudden whim of this kind. Seriously, 
 then, it is as I tell you upon my honour. 
 
 FAULK. My dear friend ! Hollo, Du Peigne ! my hat. 
 My dear Jack, now nothing on earth can give me a 
 moment's uneasiness. 
 
 Re-enter FAQ. 
 
 FAG. Sir, Mr. Acres, just arrived, is below. 
 
 ABS. Stay, Faulkland, this Acres lives within a mile 
 of Sir Anthony, and he shall tell you how your mistress 
 has been ever since you left her. Fag, show the gentle- 
 man up. [Exit FAG.
 
 SC. I.] THE RIVALS. 23 
 
 FAULK. What, is he much acquainted in the family? 
 
 ABS. Oh, very intimate : I insist on your not going ; 
 besides, his character will divert you. 
 
 FAULK. Well, I should like to ask him a few questions. 
 
 ABS. He is likewise a rival of mine that is, of my 
 other self's, for he does not think his friend, Captain . 
 Absolute, ever saw the lady in question ; and it is 
 ridiculous enough to hear him complain to me of one 
 Beverley, a concealed, skulking rival, who 
 
 FAULK. Hush ! he's here. 
 
 Enter ACRES. 
 
 ACRES. Ha ! my dear friend, noble captain, and 
 honest Jack, how do'st thou ? Just arrived, faith, as 
 you see. Sir, your humble servant. Warm work on 
 the roads, Jack ! Odds whips and wheels ! I've 
 travelled like a comet, with a tail of dust all the way 
 as long as the Mall. 
 
 ABS. Ah ! Bob, you are indeed an eccentric planet, 
 but we know your attraction hither. Give me leave to 
 introduce Mr. Faulkland to you ; Mr. Faulkland, Mr. 
 Acres. 
 
 ACRES. Sir, I am most heartily glad to see you : sir, 
 I solicit your connections. Hey, Jack what, this is 
 Mr. Faulkland, who 
 
 ABS. Ay, Bob, Miss Melville's Mr. Faulkland. . 
 
 ACRES. Oddso ! she and your father can be but just 
 arrived before me. I suppose you have seen them. Ah, 
 Mr. Faulkland, you are indeed a happy man. 
 
 FAULK. I have not seen Miss Melville yet, sir ; I hope 
 she enjoyed full health and spirits in Devonshire? 
 
 ACRES. Never knew her better in my life, sir never 
 better. Odds blushes and blooms ! she has been as 
 healthy as the German Spa.
 
 24 THE RIVALS. [ACT II. 
 
 FAULK. Indeed ! I did hear that she had been a little 
 indisposed. 
 
 ACRES. False, false, sir only said to vex you : quite 
 the reverse, I assure you. 
 
 FAULK. There, Jack, you see she has the advantage of 
 me ; I had almost fretted myself ill. 
 
 ABS. Now, are you angry with your mistress for not 
 having been sick ? 
 
 FAULK. No, no, you misunderstand me ; yet surely a 
 little trifling indisposition is not an unnatural con- 
 sequence of absence from those we love. Now, confess 
 isn't there something unkind; in this violent, robust, 
 unfeeling health ? 
 
 ABS. Oh, it was very unkind of her to be well in 
 your absence, to be sure ! 
 
 ACRES. Good apartments, Jack. 
 
 FAULK. Well, sir, but you was saying that Miss Mel- 
 ville has been so exceedingly well what, then, she has 
 been merry and gay, I suppose ? Always in spirits, hey ? 
 
 ACRES. Merry, odds crickets ! she has been the belle 
 and spirit of the company wherever she has been so 
 lively and entertaining ! so full of wit and humour ! 
 
 FAULK. There, Jack, there. Oh, by my soul ! there 
 is an innate levity in woman that nothing can overcome. 
 What ! happy, and I away ! 
 
 ABS. Have done. How foolish this is ! just now you 
 were only apprehensive for your mistress's spirits. 
 
 FAULK. Why, Jack, have I been the joy and spirit of 
 the company? 
 
 ABS. No, indeed, you have not. 
 
 FAULK. Have I been lively and entertaining ? 
 
 ABS. Oh, upon my word, I acquit you. 
 
 FAULK. Have I been full of wit and humour? 
 
 ABS. No, faith, to do you justice, you have been con- 
 foundedly stupid indeed.
 
 SO. I.] THE RIVALS. 25 
 
 ACRES. What's the matter with the gentleman ? 
 
 ABS. He is only expressing his great satisfaction at 
 hearing that Julia has been so well and happy, that's 
 all hey, Faulkland ? 
 
 FAULK. Oh i I am rejoiced to hear it yes, yes, she 
 has a happy disposition ! 
 
 ACRES. That she has indeed then she is so accom- 
 plished so sweet a voice so expert at her harpsichord 
 such a mistress of flat and sharp, squallante, rum- 
 blante, and quiverante ! There was this time month 
 odds minims and crotchets ! how she did chirrup at 
 Mrs. Piano's concert ! 
 
 FAULK. There again, what say you to this ? You see 
 she has been all mirth and song not a thought of me ! 
 
 ABS. Pho ! man, is not music the food of love ? 
 
 FAULK. Well, well, it may be so. Pray, Mr. , 
 
 what's his damned name ? Do you remember what 
 songs Miss Melville sung? 
 
 ACRES. Not I indeed. 
 
 ABS. Stay, now, they were some pretty melancholy 
 purling-stream airs, I warrant ; perhaps you may re- 
 collect. Did she sing, When absent from my soul's 
 delight? 
 
 ACRES. No, that wa'n't it. 
 
 ABS. Or, Go, gentle gales ! [Sings. 
 
 ACRES. Oh no ! nothing like it. Odds ! now I re- 
 collect one of them My heart's my own, my will is 
 free. [Sings. 
 
 FAULK. Fool ! fool that I am ! to fix all my happine&,_ 
 on such a trifler ! 'Sdeath ! to make herself the pipe 
 and ballad-monger of a circle ! to soothe her light 
 heart with catches and glees ! What can you say to 
 this, sir? 
 
 ABS. Why, that I should be glad to hear my mistress 
 had been so merry, sir.
 
 26 THE RIVALS. [ACT II. 
 
 FAULK. Nay, nay, nay I'm not sorry that she has 
 heen happy no, no, I am glad of that 1 would not 
 have had her sad or sick ; yet surely a sympathetic heart 
 would have shown itself even in the choice of a soug 
 she might have been temperately healthy, and somehow, 
 plaintively gay but she has been dancing too, I doubt 
 not! 
 
 ACRES. What does the gentleman say about danc- 
 ing? 
 
 ABS. He says the lady we speak of dances as well as 
 she sings. 
 
 ACRES. Ay, truly does she there was at our last race 
 ball 
 
 FAULK. Hell and the devil ! There ! there I told 
 you so! I told you so ! Oh ! she thrives in my absence ! 
 Dancing ! but her whole feelings have been in opposi- 
 tion with mine. I have been anxious, silent, pensive, 
 sedentary my days have been hours of care, my 
 nights of watchfulness. She has been all health ! 
 spirit ! laugh ! song ! dance ! Oh ! damned, damned 
 levity ! 
 
 ABS. For Heaven's sake, Fanlkland, don't expose 
 yourself so! Suppose she has danced, what then? 
 Does not the ceremony of society often oblige 
 
 FAULK. Well, well, I'll contain myself perhaps as 
 you say for form's sake. What, Mr. Acres, you were 
 praising Miss Melville's manner of dancing a minuet 
 hey? 
 
 ACRES. Oh, I dare insure her for that but what I 
 was going to speak of was her country-dancing. Odds 
 swimmings ! she has such an air with her ! 
 
 FAULK. Now disappointment on her ! Defend this, 
 Absolute ; why don't you defend this ? Country- 
 dances ! jigs and reels! am I to blame now? A 
 minuet I could have forgiven I should not have
 
 SC. I.] THE RIVALS. 
 
 minded that I say I should not have regarded a 
 minuet but country-dances ! Zounds:! had she made 
 one in a cotillion I believe I could have forgiven even 
 that but to be monkey-led for a night ! to run the 
 gauntlet through a string of amorous palming puppies ! 
 to show paces like a managed filly ! O Jack, there 
 never can be but one man in the world whom a truly 
 modest and delicate woman ought to pair with in a 
 country-dance ; and, even then, the rest of the couples 
 should be her great-uncles and aunts ! 
 
 ABS. Ay, to be sure ! grandfathers and grand- 
 mothers ! 
 
 FAULK. If there be but one vicious mind in the set, 
 'twill spread like a contagion the action of their pulse 
 beats to the lascivious movement of the jig their quiver- 
 ing, warm-breathed sighs impregnate the very air the 
 atmosphere becomes electrical to love, and each amorous 
 spark darts through every link of the chain ! I must 
 leave you. I own I am somewhat flurried and that 
 confounded looby has perceived it. [Going. 
 
 ABS. Nay, but stay, Faulkland, and thank Mr. Acres 
 for his good news. 
 
 FAU/.K. Damn his news ! \Earit. 
 
 ABS. Ha ! ha ! ha ! poor Faulkland, five minutes 
 since "nothing on earth could sive him a moment's 
 uneasiness !" 
 
 AC.IES. The gentleman wa'n't angry at my praising his 
 mistress, was he? 
 
 ABS. A little jealous, I believe, Bob. 
 
 ACRES. You don't say so? Ha ! ha ! jealous of me 
 that's a good joke. 
 
 ABS. There's nothing strange in that, Bob ; let me 
 tell you, that sprightly grace and insinuating manner of 
 yours will do some mischief among the girls here. 
 
 ACRES. Ah ! you joke ha ! ha ! mischief ha ! ha !
 
 28 THE RIVALS. [ACT II. 
 
 but you know I am not my own property, my dear Lydia 
 has forestalled me. She could never abide me in the 
 country, because I used to dress so badly but odds 
 frogs and tambours ! I shan't take matters so here, now 
 ancient madam has no voice in it : I'll make my old 
 clothes know who's master. I shall straightway cashier 
 the hunting-frock, and render my leather breeches 
 incapable. My hair has been in training some time. 
 
 ABS. Indeed ! 
 
 ACRES. Ay and tho'ff the side curls are a little 
 restive, my hind-part takes it very kindly. 
 
 ABS. Oh, you'll polish, I doubt not. 
 
 ACRES. Absolutely I propose so then if I can find 
 out this Ensign Beverley, odds triggers and flints ! I'll 
 make him know the difference o't. 
 
 ABS. Spoke like a man ! But pray, Bob, I observe 
 you have got an odd kind of a new method of swear- 
 ing 
 
 ACRES. Ha ! ha ! you've taken notice of it 'tis genteel, 
 isn't it? I didn't invent it myself though ; but a com- 
 mander in our militia, a great scholar, I assure you, 
 says that there is no meaning in the common oaths, and 
 that nothing but their antiquity makes them respectable ; 
 because, he says, the ancients would never stick to an 
 oath or two, but would say, by Jove ! or by Bacchus ! 
 or by Mars ! or by Venus ! or by Pallas ! according to 
 the sentiment : so that to swear with propriety, says my 
 little major, the oath should be an echo to the sense ; 
 and this we call the oath referential, or sentimental 
 swearing ha ! ha ! 'tis genteel, isn't it ? 
 
 ABS. Very genteel, and very new, indeed and I 
 dare say will supplant all other figures of imprecation. 
 
 ACRES. Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete. 
 Damns have hail their day.
 
 I.] THE RIVALS. 29 
 
 Re-enter FAG. 
 
 FAG. Sir, there is a gentleman below desires to see 
 you. Shall I show him into the parlour? 
 
 ABS. Ay you may. 
 
 ACRES. Well, I must be gone 
 
 ABS. Stay ; who is it, Fag ? 
 
 FAG. Your father, sir. 
 
 ABS. You puppy, why didn't you show him up 
 directly? [Exit FAG. 
 
 ACRES. You have business with Sir Anthony. I 
 expect a message from Mrs. Malaprop at my lodg- 
 ings. I have sent also to my dear friend, Sir Lucius 
 O'Trigger. Adieu, Jack ! we must meet at night, 
 when you shall give me a dozen bumpers to little 
 Lydia. 
 
 ABS. That I will with all my heart. [Exit ACRES.] 
 Now for a parental lecture I hope he has heard nothing 
 of the business that has brought me here I wish the 
 gout had held him fast in Devonshire, with all my soul ! 
 
 Enter SIR ANTHONY ABSOLUTE. 
 
 Sir, I am delighted to see you here looking so well ! 
 Your sudden arrival at Bath made me apprehensive for 
 your health. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Very apprehensive, I dare say, Jack. 
 What, you are recruiting here, hey? 
 
 ABS. Yes, sir, I am on duty. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Well, Jack, I am glad to see you, though I 
 did not expect it, for I was going to write to you on a 
 little matter of business. Jack, I have been considering 
 that I grow old and infirm, and shall probably not 
 trouble you long. 
 
 ABS. Pardon me, sir, I never saw you look more
 
 30 THE RIVALS. [ACT II. 
 
 strong and hearty ; and I pray frequently that you may 
 continue so. 
 
 SIB ANTH. I hope your prayers may be heard, with all 
 my heart. Well then, Jack, J have been considering 
 that I am so strong and hearty I may continue to plague 
 you a long time. Now, Jack, I am sensible that the 
 income of your commission, and what I have hitherto 
 allowed you, is but a small pittance for a lad of your 
 spirit. 
 
 ABS. Sir, you are very good. 
 
 SIB ANTH. And it is my wish, while yet I live, to have 
 my boy make some figure in the world. 1 have resolved, 
 therefore, to fix you at once in a noble independence. 
 
 ABS. Sir, your kindness overpowers me such 
 generosity makes the gratitude of reason more lively 
 than the sensations even of filial affection. 
 
 SIB ANTH. I am glad you are so sensible of my atten- 
 tion and you shall be master of a large estate in a few 
 weeks. 
 
 ABS. Let my future life, sir, speak my gratitude ; I 
 cannot express the sense I have of your munificence. 
 Yet, sir, I presume you would not wish me to quit the 
 army? 
 
 SIB ANTH. Oh, that shall be as your wife chooses. 
 
 Aus. My wife, sir ! 
 
 SIB ANTH. Ay, ay, settle that between you settle that 
 between you. 
 
 ABS. A wife, sir, did you say ? 
 
 SIB ANTH. Ay, a wife why, did I not mention her 
 before ? 
 
 ABS. Not a word of her, sir. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Odd so ! I mustn't forget her though. 
 Yes, Jack, the independence I was talking of is by a 
 marriage the fortune is saddled with a wife but i 
 suppose that makes no diiference.
 
 SC. I.] THE RIVALS. 
 
 ABS. Sir ! sir ! you amaze me ! 
 
 SIR ANTH. Why, what the devil's the matter with the 
 fool ? Just now you were all gratitude and duty. 
 
 ABS. I was, sir ; you talked to me of independence 
 and a fortune, but not a word of a wife. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Why what difference does that make? 
 Odds life, sir ! if you have the estate, you must take it 
 with the live stock on it, as it stands. 
 
 ABS. If my happiness is to be the price, I must beg 
 leave to decline the purchase. 1'ray, sir, who is the 
 lady? 
 
 SIR ANTH. What's that to you, sir? Come, give me 
 your promise to love, and to marry her directly. 
 
 ABS. Sure, sir, this is not very reasonable, to summon 
 my affections for a lady I know nothing of! 
 
 SIR ANTH. I am sure, sir, 'tis more unreasonable in 
 you to object to a lady you know nothing of. 
 
 ABS. Then, sir, I must tell you plainly that my in- 
 clinations are fixed on another my heart is engaged to 
 an angel. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Then pray let it send an excuse. It is 
 very sorry but business prevents its waiting on her. 
 
 ABS. But my vows are pledged to her. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Let her foreclose, Jack ; let her foreclose ; 
 they are not worth redeeming. Besides, you have the 
 angel's vows in exchange, I suppose ; so there can be 
 no loss there. 
 
 ABS. You must excuse me, sir, if I tell you, once for 
 all, that in this point I cannot obey you. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Hark'ee, Jack ; I have heard you for some 
 time with patience I have been cool quite cool ; but 
 take care. You know I am compliance itself when I 
 am not thwarted ; no one more easily led when I 
 have my own way ; but don't put me in a frenzy. 
 
 ABS. Sir, I must repeat it in this I cannot obey you.
 
 32 THE RIVALS. [ACT II. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Now damn me ! if ever I call you Jack 
 again while I live ! 
 
 ABS. Nay, sir, but hear me. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Sir, I won't hear a word not a word ! not 
 one word ! So give me your promise by a nod and I'll 
 tell you what, Jack I mean, you dog if you don't, 
 by 
 
 ABS. What, sir, promise to link myself to some mass 
 of ugliness ! to 
 
 SIR ANTH. Zounds ! sirrah ! the lady shall be as ugly 
 as I choose : she shall have a hump on each shoulder ; 
 she shall be as crooked as the crescent ; her one eye 
 shall roll like the bull's in Cox's Museum ; she shall 
 have a skin like a mummy, and the beard of a Jew 
 she shall be all this, sirrah ! yet I will make you ogle 
 her all day, and sit up all night to write sonnets on her 
 beauty. 
 
 ABS. This is reason and moderation indeed ! 
 
 SIR ANTH. None of your sneering, puppy ! no grin- 
 ning, jackanapes ! 
 
 ABS. Indeed, sir, I never was in a worse humour for 
 mirth in my life. 
 
 SIR ANTH. 'Tis false, sir, I know you are laughing 
 in your sleeve ; I know you'll grin when I am gone, 
 sirrah ! 
 
 ABS. Sir, I hope I know my duty better. 
 
 SIR ANTH. None of your passion, sir ! none of your 
 violence, if you please ! It won't do with me, I promise 
 you. 
 
 ABS. Indeed, sir, I never was cooler in my life. 
 
 SIR ANTH. 'Tis a confounded lie ! I know you are in 
 a passion in your heart ; I know you are, you hypo- 
 critical young dog ! but it won't do. 
 
 ABS. Nay, sir, upon my word ' 
 
 SIR ANTH. So you will fly out ! can't you be cool like
 
 SC. I.] THE RIVALS. S3 
 
 me ? What the devil good can passion do ? Passion 
 is of no service, you impudent, insolent, overbearing 
 reprobate ! There, you sneer again ! don't provoke 
 me ! but you rely upon the mildnesf of my temper 
 you do, you dog ! You play upon the meekness of my 
 disposition ! Yet take care the patience of a saint may 
 be overcome at last ! but mark ! I give you six hours and 
 a half to consider of this : if you then agree, without 
 any condition, to do everything on earth that I choose, 
 why confound you ! I may in time forgive you. If 
 not, zounds ! don't enter the same hemisphere with me ! 
 don't dare to breathe the same air, or use the same light 
 with me ; but get an atmosphere and a sun of your own ! 
 I'll strip you of your commission ; I'll lodge a five-and- 
 threepence in the hands of trustees, and you shall live 
 on the interest. I'll disown you, I'll disinherit you, 
 I'll unget you ! and damn me ! if ever I call you Jack 
 again ! [Exit. 
 
 ABS.gMild/ gentle, considerate father I kiss your 
 hands ! What a tender method of giving his opinion in 
 these matters Sir Anthony has ! I dare not trust him 
 with the truth. I wonder what old wealthy hag it is 
 that he wants to bestow on me ! Yet he married himself 
 for love, and was in his youth a bold intriguer and a gay 
 companion ! 
 
 Re-enter FAG. 
 
 FAG. Assuredly, sir, your father is wrath to a degree ; 
 he comes downstairs eight or ten steps at a time mutter- 
 ing, growling, and thumping the banisters all the way. 
 I and the cook's dog stand bowing at the door rap ! he 
 gives me a stroke on the head with his cane ; bids me 
 carry that to my master ; then kicking the poor turnspit 
 into the area, damns us all, for a puppy triumvirate ! 
 Upon my credit, sir, were 1 in your place, and found 
 
 c
 
 34 THE RIVALS. [ACT II. 
 
 my father such very bad company., I should certainly 
 drop his acquaintance. 
 
 ABS. Cease your impertinence, sir, at present. Did 
 
 you come in for nothing more ? Stand out of the way ! 
 
 [Pushes him aside, and exit. 
 
 FAQ. So ! Sir Anthony trims my master : he is afraid 
 to reply to his father, then vents his spleen on poor 
 Fag ! When one is vexed by one person, to revenge 
 one's self on another who happens to come in the way is 
 the vilest injustice ! Ah ! it shows the worst temper 
 the basest 
 
 Enter Boy. 
 
 BOY. Mr. Fag ! Mr. Fag ! your master calls you. 
 
 FAG. Well, you little dirty puppy, you 'need not bawl 
 so t The meanest disposition ! the 
 
 BOY. Quick, quick, Mr Fag ! 
 
 FAG. Quick ! quick ! you impudent jackanapes ! Am 
 I to be commanded by you too, you little impertinent, 
 
 insolent, kitchen-bred 
 
 [Exit, kicking and beating him. 
 
 SCENE IL 
 
 The North Parade. 
 Enter LUCY. 
 
 LUCY. 80 I shall have another rival t add to my 
 mistress's list Captain Absolute. However, I shall not 
 enter his name till my purse has received notice in form. 
 Poor Acres is dismissed 1 Well, I have done him a last 
 friendly office in letting him know that Beverley was 
 here before him. Sir Lucius is generally more punctual, 
 when he expects to hear from his dear Dalia, as he calls
 
 SC. II.] THE RIVALS. 85 
 
 her. I wonder he's not here ! I have a little scruple of 
 conscience from this deceit ; though I should not be 
 paid so well if my hero knew that Delia was near fifty, 
 and her own mistress. 
 
 Enter SIR Lucius O'TRIGGER. 
 
 SIR Luc. Ha ! my little ambassadress upon my 
 conscience, I have been looking for you ; I have been 
 on the South Parade this half-hour. 
 
 LUCY. [Speaking simply.] Oh, gemini ! and I have been 
 waiting for your worship here on the North. 
 
 SIR Luc. Faith ! maybe that was the reason we did not 
 meet ; and it is very comical, too, how you could go out 
 and I not see you, for I was only taking a nap at the 
 Parade Coffee-house, and I chose the window on purpose 
 that I might not miss you. 
 
 LUCY. My stars 1 Now I'd wager a sixpence I went 
 by while you were asleep. 
 
 SIR Luc. Sure enough it must have been so and I 
 never dreamt it was so late, till I waked. Well, but my 
 little girl, have you got nothing for me ? 
 
 LUCY. Yes, but I have I've got a letter for you in my 
 pocket. 
 
 SIR Luc. Oh, faith ! I guessed you weren't come 
 empty-handed. Well, let me see what the dear creature 
 says. 
 
 LUCY. There, Sir Lucius. [Gives him a letter. 
 
 SIR Luc. [Reads.] Sir, There is often a sudden incen- 
 tive impulse in love that has a greater induction than 
 years of domestic combination : such was the commotion I 
 felt at the first superfluous view of Sir Lucius (/Trigger. 
 Very pretty, upon my word. Female punctuation for- 
 bids me to say more ; yet let me add that it will give me 
 joy infallible to find Sir lAunii* worthy the lust criterion of
 
 36 THE RIVALS. [ACT II. 
 
 my affections. DELIA. Upou my conscience, Lucy, your 
 lady is a great mistress of language. Faith, she's quite 
 the queen of the dictionary ! for the devil a word dare 
 refuse coming at her call though one would think it 
 was quite out of hearing. 
 
 LUCY. Ay, sir, a lady of her experience 
 
 SIB Luc. Experience ! what, at seventeen ? 
 
 LUCY. Oh, true, sir but then she reads so my stars ! 
 how she will read off-hand ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Faith, she must be very deep read to write 
 this way though she is rather an arbitrary writer too 
 for here are a great many poor words pressed into the 
 service of this note that would get their habeas corpus 
 from any court in Christendom. 
 
 LUCY. Ah ! Sir Lucius, if you were to hear how she 
 talks of you ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Oh, tell her I'll make her the best husband 
 in the world, and Lady O'Trigger into the bargain ! But 
 we must get the old gentlewoman's consent, and do 
 everything fairly. 
 
 LUCY. Nay, Sir Lucius, I thought you wa'n't rich 
 enough to be so nice ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Upon my word, young woman, you have 
 hit it ; I am so poor that I can't afford to do a dirty 
 action. If I did not want money, I'd steal your mistress 
 and her fortune with a great deal of pleasure. However, 
 my pretty girl [Gives her money], here's a little some- 
 thing to buy you a ribbon ; and meet me in the evening, 
 and I'll give you an answer to this. So, hussy, take a 
 kiss beforehand to put you in mind. [Kisses her. 
 
 LUCY. O Lud ! Sir Lucius I never seed such a 
 gemman ! My lady won't like you if you're so im- 
 pudent. 
 
 SIR Luc. Faith she will, Lucy ! That same pho ! 
 what's the name of it ? modesty is a quality in a lover
 
 8C. II.] THE RIVALS. 37 
 
 more praised by the women than liked ; so, if your 
 mistress asks you whether Sir Lucius ever gave you a 
 kiss, tell her fifty, my dear. 
 
 LUCY. What, would you have me tell her a lie ? 
 
 SIR Luc. Ah, then, you baggage ! I'll make it a truth 
 presently. 
 
 LUCY. For shame now ! here is some one coming. 
 
 SIR Luc. Oh, faith, I'll quiet your conscience ! 
 
 [Exit , humming a tune. 
 
 Enter FA.O. 
 
 FAG. So, so, ma'am ! I humbly beg pardon. 
 
 LUCY. O Lud ! now, Mr. Fag you flurry one so. 
 
 FAG. Come, come, Lucy, here's no one by so a little 
 less simplicity, with a grain or two more sincerity, if 
 you please. You play false with us, madam. I saw you 
 give the baronet a letter. My master shall know this 
 and if he don't call him out, I will. 
 
 LUCY. Ha ! ha ! ha ! you gentlemen's gentlemen are 
 so hasty. That letter was from Mrs. Malaprop, simple- 
 ton. She is taken with Sir Lucius's address. 
 
 FAG. How ! what tastes some people have ! Why, I 
 suppose I have walked by her window a hundred times. 
 But what says our young lady? Any message to my 
 master ? 
 
 LUCY. Sad news, Mr. Fag. A worse rival than Acres ! 
 Sir Anthony Absolute has proposed his son. 
 
 FAG. What, Captain Absolute? 
 
 LUCY. Even so I overheard it all. 
 
 FAG. Ha ! ha ! ha ! very good, faith ! Good-bye, 
 Lucy, I must away with this news. 
 
 LUCY. Well, you may laugh but it is true, I assure 
 you. [Going.] But, Mr. Fag, tell your master not to 
 be cast down by this.
 
 38 THE RIVALS. [ACT III. 
 
 FAG. Oh, he'll be so disconsolate ! 
 LUCY. And charge him not to think of quarrelling 
 with young Absolute. 
 FAQ. Never fear ! never fear ! 
 LUCY. Be sure bid him keep up his spirits. 
 FAG. We will we will. [Exeunt severally. 
 
 ACT THE THIRD. 
 SCENE I. 
 
 The North Parade. 
 Enter CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE. 
 
 ABS. 'Tis just as Fag told me, indeed. Whimsical 
 enough, faith ! My father wants to force me to marry 
 the very girl I am plotting to run away with ! He must 
 not know of my connection with her yet awhile. He 
 has too summary a method of proceeding in these 
 matters. However, I'll read my recantation instantly. 
 My conversion iabsomething sudden, indeed but I can 
 assure him it is very sincere. So, so here he comes. 
 He looks plaguy gruff. [Slept aside. 
 
 Enter SIB ANTHONY ABSOLUTE. 
 
 SIB ANTH. No I'll die sooner than forgive him. Die, 
 did I say ? I'll live these fifty years to plague him. At 
 our last meeting his impudence had almost put me out 
 of temper. An obstinate, passionate, self-willed boy ! 
 Who can he take after ? This is my return for getting 
 him before all his brothers and sisters ! for putting 
 him, at twelve years old, into a marching regiment, and 
 allowing him fifty pounds a year, besides his pay, ever
 
 9C. I.] THE RIVALS. 39 
 
 since ! But I have done with him ; he's anybody's gou 
 for me. I never will see him more, never never 
 never. 
 
 ABS. [Aside, coming forward.] Now for a penitential 
 face. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Fellow, get out of my way ! 
 
 ABS. Sir, you see a penitent before you. 
 
 SIR ANTH. I see an impudent scoundrel before me. 
 
 ABS. A sincere penitent. I am come, sir, to acknow- 
 ledge my error, and to submit entirely to your will. 
 
 SIR ANTH. What's that ? 
 
 ABS. I have been revolving, and reflecting, and con 
 sidering on your past goodness, and kindness, and 
 condescension to me. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Well, sir ? 
 
 ABS. I have been likewise weighing and balancing 
 what you were pleased to mention concerning duty, and 
 obedience, and authority. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Well, puppy ? 
 
 ABS. Why then, sir, the result of my reflections is 
 a resolution to sacrifice every inclination of my own to 
 your satisfaction. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Why, now you talk sense absolute sense 
 I never heard anything more sensible in my life. 
 Confound you ! you shall be Jack again. 
 
 ABS. I am happy in the appellation. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Why then, Jack, my dear Jack, I will now 
 inform you who the lady really is. Nothing but your 
 passion and violence, you silly fellow, prevented my 
 telling you at first. Prepare, Jack, for wonder and 
 rapture prepare. What think you of Miss Lydia 
 Languish ? 
 
 ABS. Languish ! What, the Languishes of Worces- 
 tershire ? 
 
 SIR ANTH. Worcestershire ! no. Did you never meet
 
 40 THE RIVALS. [ACT III. 
 
 Mrs. Malaprop and her niece, Miss Languish, who came 
 into our country just before you were last ordered to 
 your regiment ? 
 
 ABS. Malaprop ! Languish ! I don't remember ever 
 to have heard the names before. Yet, stay I think I 
 do recollect something. Languish ! Languish ! She 
 squints, don't she ? A little red-haired girl ? 
 
 SIR ANTH. Squints ? A red-haired girl ! Zounds ! no. 
 
 ABS. Then I must have forgot ; it can't be the same 
 person. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Jack ! Jack ! what think you of blooming 
 love-breathing seventeen ? 
 
 ABS. As to that, sir, I am quite indifferent. If I can 
 please you in the matter, 'tis all I desire. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Nay, but Jack, such eyes ! such eyes ! so 
 innocently wild ! so bashfully irresolute ! not a glance 
 but speaks and kindles some thought of love ! Then, 
 Jack, her cheeks ! her cheeks, Jack ! so deeply blushing 
 at the insinuations of her tell-tale eyes ! Then, Jack, 
 her lips ! O Jack, lips smiling at their own discretion ; 
 and if not smiling, more sweetly pouting ; more lovely 
 in sullenness ! 
 
 ABS. That's she, indeed. Well done, old gentle- 
 man. [Aside. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Then, Jack, her neck ! O Jack ! Jack ! 
 
 ABS. And which is to be mine, sir, the niece or the 
 aunt? 
 
 SIR ANTH. Why, you unfeeling, insensible puppy, I 
 despise you ! When I was of your age, such a descrip- 
 tion would have made me fly like a rocket ! The aunt 
 indeed ! Odds life ! when I ran away with your mother, 
 I would not have touched anything old or ugly to gain 
 an empire. 
 
 ABS. Not to please your father, sir ? 
 
 SIR ANTH. To please my father ! zounds ! not to
 
 SC. I.] THE RIVALS. 41 
 
 please Oh, my father odd so ! yes yes ; if my 
 
 father indeed had desired that's quite another matter. 
 Though he wa'n't the indulgent father that I am, 
 Jack. 
 
 ABS. I dare say not, sir. 
 
 SIR ANTH. But, Jack, you are not sorry to find your 
 mistress is so beautiful? 
 
 ABS. Sir, I repeat it if I please you in this affair, 'tis 
 all I desire. Not that I think a woman the worse for 
 being handsome ; but, sir, if you please to recollect, you 
 before hinted something about a hump or two, one eye, 
 and a few more graces of that kind. Now, without 
 being very nice, I own I should rather choose a wife of 
 mine to have the usual number of limbs, and a limited 
 quantity of back ; and though one eye may be very 
 agreeable, yet as the prejudice has always run in favour 
 of two, I would not wish to affect a singularity in that 
 article. 
 
 SIB ANTH. What a phlegmatic sot it is ! Why, 
 sirrah, you're an anchorite ! a vile, insensible stock. 
 You a soldier ! you ; re a walking block, fit only to dust 
 the company's regimentals on ! Odds life ! I have a 
 great mind to marry the girl myself. 
 
 ABS. I am entirely at your disposal, sir. If you should 
 think of addressing Miss Languish yourself, I suppose 
 you would have me marry the aunt ; or if you should 
 change your mind, and take the old lady 'tis the same 
 to me I'll marry the niece. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Upon my word, Jack, thou'rt either a very 
 great hypocrite, or but come, I know your indifference 
 on such a subject must be all a lie I'm sure it must 
 come, now damn your demure face ! come, confess, 
 Jack you have been lying ha'n't you ? You have 
 been playing the hypocrite, hey ! I'll never forgive 
 you, if you ha'n't been lying and playing the hypocrite.
 
 42 THE RIVALS. [ACT III. 
 
 ABS. I'm sorry, sir, that the respect and duty which I 
 hear to yon should be so mistaken. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Hang your respect and duty ! But come 
 along with me ; I'll write a note to Mrs. Malaprop, and 
 you shall visit the lady directly. Her eyes shall be the 
 Promethean torch to you come along. I'll never for- 
 give you if you don't come back stark mad with rapture 
 and impatience if you don't, egad, I will marry the 
 girl myself 1 [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 JULIA'S Dressing-room. 
 FAULKLAND discovered alone. 
 
 FAULK. They told me Julia would return directly ; I 
 wonder she is not yet come ! How mean does this 
 captious, unsatisfied temper of mine appear to my cooler 
 judgment ! Yet I know not that I indulge it in any 
 other point ; but on this one subject, and to this one 
 subject, whom I think I love beyond my life, I am ever 
 ungenerously fretful and madly capricious ! I am con- 
 scious of it yet I cannot correct myself ! What tender, 
 honest joy sparkled in her eyes when we met ! how 
 delicate was the warmth of her expressions ! I waa 
 ashamed to appear less happy though I had come 
 resolved to wear a face of coolness and upbraiding. Sir 
 Anthony's presence prevented my proposed expostula- 
 tions ; yet I must be satisfied that she has not been so 
 very happy in my absence. She is coming ! Yes ! I 
 know the nimbleness of her tread, when she thinks 
 her impatient Faulkland counts the moments of her 
 stay.
 
 SC. II.] THK RIVALS. 43 
 
 Enter JULIA. 
 
 JOT* I had not hoped to see you again so soon. 
 
 FAULK. Could I, Julia, be contented with my first 
 welcome restrained as we were by the presence of a 
 third person ? 
 
 JUL. O Faulkland, when your kindness can make me 
 thus happy, let me not think that I discovered some- 
 thing of coldness in your first salutation. 
 
 FAULJC. Twas but your fancy, Julia. I was rejoiced 
 to see you to see you in such health. Sure I had no 
 cause for coldness ? 
 
 JUL. Nay, then, I see you have taken something ill. 
 You must not conceal from me what it is. 
 
 FAULK. Well, then shall 1 own to you that my joy 
 at hearing of your health and arrival here, by your 
 neighbour Acres, was somewhat damped by his dwelling 
 much on the high spirits you had enjoyed in Devon- 
 shire on your mirth your singing dancing, and 
 I know not what ! For such is my temper, Julia, that 
 I should regard every mirthful moment in your absence 
 as a treason to constancy. The mutual tear that steals 
 down the cheek of parting lovers is a compact that no 
 smile shall live there till they meet again. 
 
 JUL. Must I never cease to tax my Faulkland with 
 this teasing minute caprice? Can the idle reports of 
 a silly boor weigh in your breast against my tried 
 Affection ? 
 
 FAULK. They have no weight with me, Julia. No, 
 no I am happy if you have been so yet only say 
 that you did not sing with mirth say that you thought 
 of Faulkland in the dance. 
 
 JUL. I never can be happy in your absence. If I 
 wear a countenance of content, it is to show that my
 
 44 THE RIVALS. [ACT III. 
 
 mind holds no doubt of ray Faulkland's truth. If I 
 seemed sad, it were to make malice triumph, and say 
 that I had fixed my heart on one who left me to 
 lament his roving and my own credulity. Believe me, 
 Faulkland, I mean not to upbraid you when I say that 
 I have often dressed sorrow in smiles, lest my friends 
 should guess whose unkindness had caused my tears. 
 
 FAULK. You were ever all goodness to me. Oh, I 
 am a brute when I but admit a doubt of your true 
 constancy ! 
 
 JUL. If ever without such cause from you, as I will 
 not suppose possible, you find my affections veering 
 but a point, may I become a proverbial scoff for levity 
 and base ingratitude. 
 
 FAULK. Ah ! Julia, that last word is grating to me. 
 I would I had no title to your gratitude ! Search your 
 heart, Julia ; perhaps what you have mistaken for love 
 is but the warm effusion of a too thankful heart. 
 
 JUL. For what quality must I love you ? 
 
 FAULK. For no quality ! To regard me for any 
 quality of mind or understanding were only to esteem 
 me. And for person I have often wished myself 
 deformed, to be convinced that I owed no obligation 
 there for any part of your affection. 
 
 JUL. Where nature has bestowed a show of nice 
 attention in the features of a man, he should laugh at 
 it as misplaced. I have seen men, who in this vain 
 article, perhaps, might rank above you ; but my heart 
 has never asked my eyes if it were so or not. 
 
 FAULK. Now this is not well from you, Julia I 
 despise person in a man yet if you loved me as I 
 wish, though 1 were an ^Ethiop, you'd think none so fair. 
 
 JUL. I see you are determined to be unkind ! The 
 contract which my poor father bound us in gives you 
 more than a lover's privilege.
 
 SC. II.] THE RIVALS. 45 
 
 FAULK. Again, Julia, you raise ideas that feed and 
 justify my doubts. I would not have been more free. 
 No ! I am proud of my restraint. Yet yet perhaps 
 your high respect alone for this solemn compact has 
 fettered your inclinations, which else had made a 
 worthier choice. How shall I be sure, had you 
 remained unbound in thought and promise, that I 
 should still have been the object of your persevering 
 love? 
 
 JUL. Then try me now. Let us be free as strangers 
 as to what is past. My heart will not feel more 
 liberty ! 
 
 FAULK. There now ! so hasty, Julia ! so anxious 
 to be free ! If your love for me were fixed and 
 ardent, you would not lose your hold, even though 
 I wished it ! 
 
 JUL. Oh ! you torture me to the heart ! I cannot 
 bear it. 
 
 FAULK. I do not mean to distress you. If I loved 
 you less I should never give you an uneasy moment. 
 But hear me. All my fretful doubts arise from this. 
 Women are not used to weigh and separate the 
 motives of their affections. The cold dictates of 
 prudence, gratitude, or filial duty may sometimes 
 be mistaken for the pleadings of the heart. I would 
 not boast yet let me say that I have neither age, 
 person, nor character, to found dislike on ; my fortune 
 such as few ladies could be charged with indiscretion 
 in the match. O Julia ! when love receives such 
 countenance from prudence, nice minds will be sus- 
 picious of its birth. 
 
 JUL. I know not whither your insinuations would 
 tend ; but as they seem pressing to insult me, I will spare 
 you the regret of having done so. I have given you no 
 cause for this ! [Exit in tears.
 
 46 THE RIVALS. [ACT III. 
 
 FAULK. In tears ! Stay, Julia ; stay but for a moment. 
 The door is fastened ! Julia ! my soul ! but for 
 one moment ! I hear her sobbing ! 'Sdeath ! what 
 a brute am I to use her thus ! Yet stay. Ay, she is 
 coming now. How little resolution there is in woman ! 
 How a few soft words can turn them ! No, faith ! she 
 is not coming either. Why, Julia my love say but 
 that you forgive me come but to tell me that now 
 this is being too resentful. Stay ! she is coming too 
 I thought she would no steadiness in anything : her 
 going away must have been a mere trick then she 
 sha'n't see that I was hurt by it. I'll affect indifference. 
 [Hums a tune : then listens.] No zounds ! she's not 
 coming ! nor don't intend it, I suppose. This is not 
 steadiness, but obstinacy ! Yet I deserve it. What, 
 after so long an absence to quarrel with her tenderness ! 
 'Twas barbarous and unmanly ! I should be ashamed 
 to see her now. I'll wait till her just resentment is 
 abated ; and when I distress her so again, may I lose her 
 for ever ! and be linked instead to some antique virago, 
 whose gnawing passions and long-hoarded spleen shall 
 make me curse my folly half the day and all the night. 
 
 [Exit. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 MRS. MALAPROP'S Lodgings. 
 
 MRS. MALAPROP, with a letter in her hand, and 
 CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Your being Sir Anthony's son, captain, 
 would itself be a sufficient accommodation ; but from 
 the ingenuity of your appearance, I am convinced you 
 deserve the character here given of you. 
 
 ABS. Permit me to say, madam, that as I never yet 
 have had the pleasure of seeing Miss Languish, my
 
 8C. III.] THE RIVALS. 47 
 
 principal inducement in this affair at present is the 
 honour of being allied to Mrs. Malaprop, of whose 
 intellectual accomplishments, elegant manners, and 
 unaffected learning, no tongue is silent. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Sir, you do me infinite honour ! I beg, 
 captain, you'll be seated. [They sit.] Ah ! few gentle- 
 men nowadays know how to value the ineffectual 
 qualities in a woman ! Few think how a little know- 
 ledge becomes a gentlewoman ! Men have no sense 
 now but for the worthless flower of beauty ! 
 
 ABS. It is but too true, indeed, ma'am ; yet I fear 
 our ladies should share the blame. They think our 
 admiration of beauty so great, that knowledge in them 
 would be superfluous. Thus, like garden trees, they 
 seldom show fruit, till time has robbed them of the 
 more specious blossom. Few, like Mrs. Malaprop and 
 the orange-tree, are rich in both at once ! 
 
 MRS. MAL. Sir, you overpower me with good breed- 
 ing. He is the very pine-apple of politeness ! You are 
 not ignorant, captain, that this giddy girl has somehow 
 contrived to fix her affections on a beggarly, strolling, 
 eavesdropping ensign, whom none of us have seen, and 
 nobody knows anything of. 
 
 ABS. Oh, I have heard the Billy affair before. I'm 
 not at all prejudiced against her on that account. 
 
 MRS. MAL. You are very good and very considerate, 
 captain. 1 am sure I have done everything in my 
 power since I exploded the affair ; long ago I laid my 
 positive conjunctions on her never to think on the 
 fellow again. I have since laid Sir Anthony's preposi- 
 tion before her ; but, I am sorry to say, she seems 
 resolved to decline every particle that I enjoin her. 
 
 ABS. It must be very distressing indeed, ma'am. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Oh ! it gives me the hydrostatics to such 
 a degree. I thought she had persisted from correspond-
 
 48 THE RIVALS. [ACT III. 
 
 ing with him ; but behold, this very day, I have inter- 
 ceded another letter from the fellow. I believe I have 
 it in my pocket. 
 
 ABS. Oh, the devil ! my last note. [Aside. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Ay, here it is. 
 
 ABS. Ay, my note indeed ! Oh, the little traitress 
 Lucy. [Aside. 
 
 MKS. MAX.. There, perhaps you may know the writing. 
 
 {Gives him the letter. 
 
 ABS. I think I have seen the hand before yes, I 
 certainly must have seen this hand before 
 
 MRS. MAL. Nay, but read it, captain. 
 
 ABS. [Reads.] My soul's idol, my adoredi Lydidl 
 Very tender indeed. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Tender ; ay, and profane too, o' my 
 conscience. 
 
 ABS. [Reads.] I am excessively alarmed at the intelli- 
 gence you send me, the more so as my new rival 
 
 MRS. MAL. That's you, sir. 
 
 ABS. [Reads.] has universally the character of being 
 an accomplished gentleman and a man of honour. Well, 
 that's handsome enough. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Oh, the fellow has some design in 
 writing so. 
 
 ABS. That he had, I'll answer for him, ma'am. 
 
 MRS. MAL. But go on, sir you'll see presently. 
 
 ABS. [Reads.] As for the old weather-beaten she-dragon 
 who guards you Who can he mean by that? 
 
 MRS. MAL. Me, sir ! me ! he means me ! There 
 what do you think now? But go on a little further. 
 
 ABS. Impudent scoundrel ! [Reads.] it shall go hard, 
 but I will elude her vigilance, as I am told that the same 
 ridiculous vanity which makes her dress up her coarse 
 features, and deck her dull chat with hard words which she 
 don't understand
 
 SC. III.] THE RIVALS. 49 
 
 MRS. MAL. There, sir, an attack upon my language ! 
 What do you think of that? an aspersion upon my 
 parts of speech ! was ever such a brute ! Sure, if I 
 reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my 
 oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs ! 
 
 Ass. He deserves to be hanged and quartered ! Let 
 me see. [Reads.'] same ridiculous vanity 
 
 MRS. MAL. You need not read it again, sir. 
 
 ABS. I beg pardon, ma'am. \JReads.~\ does also lay her 
 open to the grossest deceptions from flattery and pretended 
 admiration an impudent coxcomb ! to that I have a 
 scheme to see you shortly with the old harridan's consent, 
 and even to make her a go-between in our interview. 
 Was ever such assurance ! 
 
 MRS. MAL. Did you ever hear anything like it? 
 He'll elude my vigilance, will he ? Yes, yes ! ha ! ha ! 
 he's very likely to enter these doors ! We'll try who 
 can plot best ! v , 
 
 ABS. So we will, ma'am so we will ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 a conceited puppy, ha ! ha ! ha ! Well, but Mrs. 
 Malaprop, as the girl seems so infatuated by this fellow, 
 suppose you were to wink at her corresponding with 
 him for a little time let her even plot an elopement 
 with him ; then do you connive at her escape while I, 
 just in the nick, will have the fellow laid by the heels, 
 and fairly contrive to carry her off in his stead. 
 
 MRS. MAL. I am delighted with the scheme ; never 
 was anything better perpetrated ! 
 
 ABS. But, pray, could not I see the lady for a few 
 minutes now ? I should like to try her temper a little. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Why, I don't know I doubt she is not 
 prepared for a visit of this kind. There is a decorum 
 in these matters. 
 
 ABS. O Lord ! she won't mind me. Only tell her 
 Beverley
 
 50 THE RIVALS. [ACT IIL 
 
 MRS. MAI,. Sir ! 
 
 ABS. Gently, good tongue. [Aside. 
 
 MRS. MAL. What did you say of Beverley ? 
 
 ABS. Oh, I was going to propose that you should tell 
 her, by way of jest, that it was Beverley who was below. 
 She'd come down fast enough then ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 
 MRS. MAL. 'Twould be a trick she well deserves ; 
 besides, you know, the fellow tells her he'll get my 
 consent to see her ha ! ha ! Let him if he can, I say 
 again. Lydia, come down here ! [Calling.] He'll make 
 me a go-between in their interviews ! ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 Come down, I say, Lydia ! I don't wonder at your 
 laughing ha ! ha ! ha ! His impudence is truly 
 ridiculous. 
 
 ABS. Tis very ridiculous, upon my soul, ma'am ha 
 ha ! ha ! 
 
 MRS. MAL. The little hussy won't hear. Well, I'll 
 go and tell her at once who it is she shall know that 
 Captain Absolute is come to wait on her. And I'll 
 make her behave as becomes a young woman. 
 
 ABS. As you please, ma'am. 
 
 MRS. MAL. For the present, captain, your servant. 
 Ah ! you've not done laughing yet, I see elude my 
 vigilance ; yes, yes ; ha ! ha ! ha ! [Exit. 
 
 i ABS. Ha ! ha ! ha ! one would think now that I 
 might throw off all disguise at once, and seize my prize 
 with security ; but such is Lydia's caprice, that to un- 
 deceive were probably to lose her. I'll see whether she 
 knows me. 
 
 [W'dks aside, and seems engaged in looking at the 
 pictures. 
 
 Enter LYDIA. 
 
 LTD. What a scene am I now to go through ! Surely 
 nothing can be more dreadful than to be obliged to
 
 8C. III.] THE RIVALS. 51 
 
 to the loathsome addresses of a stranger to one's heart. 
 I have heard of girls persecuted as I am, who have 
 appealed in behalf of their favoured lover to the 
 generosity of his riral : suppose I were to try it. There 
 stands the hated rival an officer, too ! but oh, how 
 unlike my Beverley ! I wonder he don't begin ; truly 
 he seems a very negligent wooer ! quite at his ease, 
 upon my word ! I'll speak first. Mr. Absolute 1 
 
 [Turn* round. 
 
 ABS. Ma'am. 
 
 LTD. O heavens ! Beverley ! 
 
 ABS. Hush ! hush, my life ! aoftly ! be not sur- 
 prised ! 
 
 LYD. I am ao astonished,, and so terrified, and so 
 overjoyed ! For Heaven's sake ! how came you 
 here? 
 
 ABS. Briefly, I have deceived your aunt I was 
 informed that my new rival was to visit here this 
 evening, and contriving to have him kept away, have 
 passed myself on her for Captain Absolute. 
 <&LYD. Oh, charming! And she really takes you for 
 young Absolute ? 
 
 ABS. Oh, she's convinced of it. 
 
 LYD. Ha ! ha ! ha ! I can't forbear laughing to think 
 how her sagacity is overreached 1 
 
 ABS. But we trifle with our precious moments such 
 another opportunity may not occur ; then let me now 
 conjure my kind, my condescending angel, to fix the 
 time when I may rescue her from undeserving persecu- 
 tion, and with a licensed warmth plead for my reward. 
 
 LYD. Will you, then, Beverley, consent to forfeit that 
 portion of my paltry wealth ? that burden on the wings 
 of love ? 
 
 ABS. Oh, come to me rich only thus in loveliness ! 
 Bring no portion to me but thy love. 'Twill be generous-
 
 52 THE RIVALS. [ACT III. 
 
 in you, Lydia for well you know, it is the only dower 
 your poor Beverley can repay. 
 
 LTD. How persuasive are his words ! how charming 
 will poverty be with him ! [Aside. 
 
 ABS. Ah ! my soul, what a life will we then live ! 
 Love shall be our idol and support I we will worship 
 him with a monastic strictness ; abjuring all worldly 
 toys, to centre every thought and action there. Proud 
 of calamity, we will enjoy the wreck of wealth ; while 
 the surrounding gloom of adversity shall make the 
 flame of our pure love show doubly bright. By 
 Heavens! I would fling all goods of fortune from me 
 with a prodigal hand, to enjoy the scene where I might 
 clasp my Lydia to my bosom and say, the world affords 
 no smile to me but here. [Embracing her.] If she holds 
 out now, the devil is in it ! [Aside. 
 
 LTD. Now could I fly with him to the antipodes ! but 
 my persecution is not yet come to a crisis. [Aside. 
 
 Re-enter MRS. MALAPROP, listening. 
 
 MRS. MAT,. I am impatient to know how the little 
 hussy deports herself. [Aside. 
 
 ABS. So pensive, Lydia ! Is, then, your warmth 
 abated ? 
 
 MRS. MAJU Warmth abated ! so ! she has been in a 
 passion, I suppose. [Aside. 
 
 LTD. No nor ever can while I have life. 
 
 MRS. MAL. An ill-tempered little devil ! She'll be in 
 a passion all her life, will she? [Aside. 
 
 LTD. Think not the idle threats of my ridiculous aunt 
 can ever have any weight with me. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Very dutiful, upon my word ! [Aside. 
 
 LYD. Let her choice be Captain Absolute, but Beverley 
 i* mine.
 
 SO. III.] THE RIVALS. 53 
 
 MRS. MAL. I am astonished at her assurance ! to his 
 face this is to his face ! [Aside. 
 
 Ass. Thus, then, let me enforce my suit. [Kneeling. 
 
 MRS. MAL. [Aside.] Ay, poor young man! Down 
 on his knees entreating for pity ! I can contain no 
 longer. [Coming forward.] Why, thou vixen ! I have 
 overheard you. 
 
 ABS. Oh, confound her vigilance ! [Aside. 
 
 MBS. MAL. Captain Absolute, I know not how to 
 apologise for her shocking rudeness. 
 
 ABS. [Aside.] So all's safe, I find. [Aloud.] I have 
 hopes, madam, that time will brin^ the young lady 
 
 MBS. MAL. Oh, there's nothing to be hoped for from 
 her ! She's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks 
 of Nile. 
 
 LYD. Nay, madam, what do you charge me with now ? 
 
 MBS. MAL. Why, thou unblushing rebel didn't you 
 tell this gentleman to his face that you loved another 
 better ? Didn't you say you never would be his ? 
 
 LYD. No, madam J did not. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Good Heavens ! what assurance ! Lydia, 
 Lydia, you ought to know that lying don't become a 
 young woman ! Didn't you boast that Beverley, that 
 stroller Beverley, possessed your heart? Tell me that, 
 I say. 
 
 LYD. 'Tis true, ma'am, and none but Beverley 
 
 MRS. MAL. Hold ! hold, Assurance ! you shall not 
 be so rude. 
 
 ABS. Nay, pray, Mrs. Malaprop, don't stop the young 
 lady's speech ; she's very welcome to talk thus it does 
 not hurt me in the least, I assure you. 
 
 MBS. MAL. You are too good, captain too amiably 
 patient but come with me, miss. Let us see you again 
 soon, captain. Remember what we have fixed. 
 
 ABS. I shall, ma'am.
 
 54- THE RIVALS. [ACT III. 
 
 MRS. MAI,. Come, take a graceful leave of the gentle- 
 man. 
 
 LYD. May every blessing wait on my Beverley, my 
 
 loved Bev 
 
 MRS. MAL. Hussy ! I'll choke the word in your 
 throat ! come along come along. 
 
 [Exeunt severally ; CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE kissing his 
 hand to LYDIA MRS. MALAPROP stopping her 
 from speaking. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 ACRES' Lodgings, 
 ACRES, as just dressed, and DAVID. 
 
 ACRES. Indeed, David do you think I hecome it so ? 
 
 DAV. You are quite another creature, believe me, 
 master. By the mass ! an' we've any luck we shall see 
 the Devon monkerony in all the print-shops in Bath ! 
 
 ACRES. Dress does make a difference, David. 
 
 DAV. "Tis all in all, I think. Difference ! why, an' 
 you were to go now to Clod Hall, I am certain the old 
 lady wouldn't know you : Master Butler wouldn't be- 
 lieve his own eyes, and Mrs. Pickle would cry, Lard 
 presarve me ! our dairymaid would come giggling to 
 the door, and I warrant Dolly Tester, your honour's 
 favourite, would blush like my waistcoat. Oons ! I'll 
 hold a gallon, there an't a dog in the house but would 
 bark, and I question whether Phillis would wag a hair 
 of her tail ! 
 
 ACRES. Ay, David, there's nothing like polishing. 
 
 DAV. So I says of your honour's boots ; but the boy 
 never heeds me ! 
 
 ACRES. But, David, has Mr. De-la-grace been here? 
 I must rub up my balancing, and chasing, and boring.
 
 8C. IV.] THE RIVALS. 55 
 
 DAY. I'll call again, sir. 
 
 ACRES. Do and see if there are any letters for me at 
 the post-office. 
 
 DAV. I will. By the mass ! I can't help looking at 
 your head ! if I hadn't been by at the cooking, I wish 
 I may die if I should have known the dish again 
 myself ! [Exit. 
 
 ACRBS. [Practising a dancing - step.'] Sink, slide 
 coupee. Confound the first inventors of cotillons ! say 
 I they are as bad as algebra to us country gentlemen. 
 I can walk a minuet easy enough when I am forced ! 
 and I have been accounted a good stick in a country- 
 dance. Odds jigs and tabors ! I never valued your 
 cross-over to couple figure in right and left and I'd 
 foot it with e'er a captain in the county ! but these 
 outlandish heathen allemandes and cotillons are quite 
 beyond me ! I shall never prosper at 'em, that's sure 
 mine are true-born English legs they don't understand 
 their curst French lingo ! their pas this, and pas that, 
 and pas t'other. Damn me ! my feet don't like to be 
 called paws ! No, 'tis certain I. have most Antigallican 
 toes ! 
 
 Enter SERVANT. 
 
 SKRV. Here is Sir Lucius O'Trigger to wait on you, 
 sir. 
 
 ACRES. Show him in. [Exit SERVANT. 
 
 Enter SIR Lucius O'TRIGGER. 
 
 SIR Luc. Mr. Acres, I am delighted to embrace you. 
 ACRES. My dear Sir Lucius, I kiss your hands. 
 SIR Luc. Pray, my friend, what has brought you so 
 suddenly to Bath ? 
 
 ACRES. Faith ! I have followed Cupid's Jack-a-
 
 56 THE RIVALS. [ACT III. 
 
 lantern, and find myself in a quagmire at last. In 
 short, I have been very ill-used, Sir Lucius. I don't 
 choose to mention names, but look on me as on a very 
 ill-used gentleman. 
 
 SIB Luc. Pray what is the case ? I ask no names. 
 
 ACRES. Mark me, Sir Lucius, I fall as deep as need 
 be in love with a young lady her friends take my 
 part I follow her to Bath send word of my arrival ; 
 and receive answer that the lady is to be otherwise 
 disposed of. This, Sir Lucius, I call being ill-used. 
 
 SIB Luc. Very ill, upon my conscience. Pray, can 
 you divine the cause of it ? 
 
 ACBES. Why, there's the matter ; she has another 
 lover, one Beverley, who, I am told, is now in Bath. 
 Odds slanders and lies ! he must be at the bottom 
 of it. 
 
 SIB Luc. A rival in the case, is there? And you 
 think he has supplanted you unfairly? 
 
 ACBES. Unfairly ! to be sure he has. He never could 
 have done it fairly. 
 
 SIB Luc. Then sure you know what is to be done ? 
 
 ACBES. Not I, upon my soul ! 
 
 SIB Luc. We wear no swords here, but you under- 
 stand me. 
 
 ACBES. What ! fight him ! 
 
 SIB Luc. Ay, to be sure. What can I mean else ? 
 
 ACBES. But he has given me no provocation. 
 
 SIB Luc. Now, I think he lias given you the greatest 
 provocation in the world. Can a man commit a more 
 heinous offence against another than to fall in love with 
 the same woman ? Oh, by my soul ! it is the most un- 
 pardonable breach of friendship. 
 
 ACBES. Breach of friendship ! Ay, ay, but I have no 
 acquaintance with this man. I never saw him in my 
 life.
 
 SC. IV.] THE RIVALS. 57 
 
 SIB Luc. That's no argument at all he has the less 
 right, then, to take such a liberty. 
 
 ACRES. Gad, that's true I grow full of anger, Sir 
 Lucius ! I fire apace ! Odds hilts and blades ! I find 
 a man may have a deal of valour in him and not know 
 it ! But couldn't I contrive to have a little right of my 
 side ? 
 
 SIB Luc. What the devil signifies right when your 
 honour is concerned ? Do you think Achilles, or my 
 little Alexander the Great, ever inquired where the 
 right lay? No, by my soul! they drew their broad- 
 swords, and left the lazy sons of peace to set . .' j the 
 justice of it. 
 
 ACRES. Your words are a grenadier's march to my 
 heart ! I believe courage must be catching ! I cer- 
 tainly do feel a kind of valour rising as it were a kind 
 of courage, as I IT.: y say. Odds flints, pans, and triggers ! 
 I'll challenge him directly. 
 
 SIR Luc. Ah, my little friend, if I had Blunderbuss 
 Hall here, I could show you a range of ancestry, in 
 the O'Trigger line, that would furnish the new room ; 
 every one of whom had killed his man ! For though 
 the mansion-house and dirty acres have slipped through 
 my fingers, I thank Heaven our honour and the family 
 pictures are as fresh as ever. 
 
 ACRES. Oh, Sir Lucius ! I have had ancestors too ! 
 every man of 'em colonel or captain in the militia ! 
 Odds balls and barrels ! say no more I'm braced for 
 it. The thunder of your words has soured the milk 
 of human kindness in my breast. Zounds ! as the man 
 in the play says, / could do such deeds ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Come, come, there must be no passion at 
 all in the case these things should always be done 
 civilly. 
 
 ACRES. I must be in a passion, Sir Lucius I must
 
 58 THE RIVALS. [ACT III. 
 
 be in a rage. Dear Sir Lucius, let me be in a rage, if 
 you love me. Come, here's pen and paper. [Sits down 
 to write.] 1 would the ink were red ! Indite, I say 
 indite ! How shall I begin ? Odds bullets and blades ! 
 I'll write a good bold hand, however. 
 
 SIR Luc. Pray compose yourself. 
 
 ACRES. Come now, shall I begin with an oath? Do, 
 Sir Lucius, let me begin with a damme. 
 
 SIR Luc. Pho ! pho ! do the thing decently, and like 
 a Christian. Began now Sir 
 
 ACRE3. That's too civil by half. 
 
 Sin LtTC. To prevent the confusion that might arise 
 
 ACRES. Well 
 
 SIR Luc. From our both addressing the same lady- 
 
 ACRES. Ay, there's the reason same lady well 
 
 SIR Luc. / shall expect the honour of your company 
 
 ACRES. Zounds ! I'm not asking him to dinner. 
 
 SIR Luc. Pray be easy. 
 
 ACRES. Well, then, honour of your company 
 
 SIR Luc. To settle our pretensions 
 
 ACRES. Well. 
 
 SIR Luc. Let me see ay, King's-Mead-Fields will do 
 in King's-Mead-Fields. 
 
 ACRES. So, that's done. Well, I'll fold it up pre- 
 sently ; my own crest a hand and dagger shall be 
 the seal. 
 
 SIR Luc. You see now this little explanation will put 
 a stop at once to all confusion or misunderstanding that 
 might arise between you. 
 
 ACRES. Ay, we fight to prevent any misunderstanding. 
 
 SIR Luc. Now, I'll leave you to fix your own time. 
 Take my advice, and you'll decide it this evening if you 
 can ; then let the worst come of it, 'twill be off your 
 mind to-morrow. 
 
 ACRES. Very true.
 
 SC. IV.J THE RIVALS. 59 
 
 SIR Luc. So I shall see nothing more of you, unless 
 it be by letter, till the evening. I would do myself the 
 honour to carry your message ; but, to tell you a secret, 
 I believe I shall have just such another affair on my 
 own hands. There is a gay captain here, who put a 
 jest on me lately at the expense of my country, and I 
 only want to fall in with the gentleman to call him out. 
 
 ACRES. By my valour, I should like to see you fight 
 first ! Odds life ! I should like to see you kill him if 
 it was only to get a little lesson. 
 
 SIR Luc. I shall be very proud of instructing you. 
 Well, for the present but remember now, when you 
 meet your antagonist, do everything in a mild and 
 agreeable manner. Let your courage be as keen, but 
 at the same time as polished, as your sword. 
 
 [Exeunt severally. 
 
 ACT THE FOURTH. 
 SCENE I. 
 
 ACRES' Lodgings. 
 ACRHS and DAVID. 
 
 DAV. Then, by the mass, sir ! I would do no such 
 thing ne'er a Sir Lucius O'Trigger in the kingdom 
 should make me fight, when 1 wa'n't so minded. 
 Oons ! what will the old lady say, when she hears o't? 
 
 ACRES. Ah ! David, if you had heard Sir Lucius ! 
 Odds sparks and flames ! he would have roused your 
 valour. 
 
 DAV. Not he, indeed. I hate such bloodthirsty cor- 
 morants. Look'ee, master, if you'd wanted a bout at 
 boxing, quarter-staff, or short-staff, I should never be 
 the man to bid you cry off : but for your curst sharps 
 and snaps, I never knew any good come of 'em.
 
 60 THE RIVALS. [ACT IV. 
 
 ACRES. But my honour, David, my honour ! I must 
 be very careful of my honour. 
 
 DAV. Ay, by the mass ! and I would be very careful 
 of it ; and 1 think in return my honour couldn't do less 
 than to be very careful of me. 
 
 ACRES. Odds blades ! David, no gentleman will ever 
 risk the loss of his honour ! 
 
 DAV. I say, then, it would be but civil in honour 
 never to risk the loss of a gentleman. Look'ee, master, 
 this honour seems to me to be a marvellous false friend : 
 ay, truly, a very courtier-like servant. Put the case, I 
 was a gentleman (which, thank God, no one can say of 
 me) ; well my honour makes me quarrel with another 
 gentleman of my acquaintance. So we fight. (Pleasant 
 enough that !) Boh ! I kill him (the more's my luck !) 
 now, pray, who gets the profit of it? Why, my honour. 
 But put the case that he kills me ! by the mass ! I 
 go to the worms, and my honour whips over to my 
 enemy. 
 
 ACRES. No, David in that case ! odds crowns and 
 laurels ! your honour follows you to the grave. 
 
 DAV. Now, that's just the place where I could make 
 a shift to do without it. 
 
 ACRES. Zounds ! David, you are a coward ! It doesn't 
 become my valour to listen to you. What, shall I dis- 
 grace my ancestors ? Think of that, David think what 
 it would be to disgrace my ancestors ! 
 
 DAV. Under favour, the surest way of not disgracing 
 them, is to keep as long as you can out of their com- 
 pany. Look'ee now, master, to go to them in such 
 haste with an ounce of lead in your brains I should 
 think might as well be let alone. Our ancestors are 
 very good kind of folks ; but they are the last people I 
 should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with. 
 
 ACRES. But, David, now, you don't think there is such
 
 SC. I.] THE RIVALS. 61 
 
 very, very, very great danger, hey ? Odds life ! people 
 often fight without any mischief done ! 
 
 DAV. By the mass, I think 'tis ten to one against 
 you ! Oons ! here to meet some lion-headed fellow, I 
 warrant, with his damned double-barrelled swords, and 
 cut-and-thrust pistols ! Lord bless us ! it makes me 
 tremble to think o't ! Those be such desperate bloody- 
 minded weapons ! Well, I never could abide 'em 
 from a child I never could fancy 'em ! I suppose there 
 an't been so merciless a beast in the world as your 
 loaded pistol ! 
 
 ACRES. Zounds ! I won't be afraid ! Odds fire and 
 fury ! you shan't make me afraid. Here is the chal- 
 lenge, and I have sent for my dear friend Jack Absolute 
 to carry it for me. 
 
 DAV. Ay, i' the name of mischief, let him be the 
 messenger. For my part, I wouldn't lend a hand to it 
 for the best horse in your stable. By the mass ! it 
 don't look like another letter ! It is, as I may say, a 
 designing and malicious-looking letter ; and I warrant 
 smells of gunpowder like a soldier's pouch ! Oons ! I 
 wouldn't swear it mayn't go off ! 
 
 ACRES. Out, you poltroon ! you ha'n't the valour of a 
 grasshopper. 
 
 DAV. Well, I say no more 'twill be sad news, to be 
 sure, at Clod Hall ! but I ha' done. How Phillis will 
 howl when she hears of it ! Ay, poor bitch, she little 
 thinks what shooting her master's going after ! And I 
 warrant old Crop, who has carried your honour, field 
 and road, these ten years, will curse the hour he was 
 born. [ Whimpering. 
 
 ACRES. It won't do, David I am determined to fight 
 so get along, you coward, while I'm in the mind.
 
 62 THE RIVALS. [ACT IV. 
 
 Enter SERVANT. 
 
 SERV. Captain Absolute, sir. 
 
 ACRES. Oh ! show him up. [Exit SERVANT. 
 
 DAV. Well, Heaven send we be all alive this time to- 
 morrow. 
 
 ACRES. What 5 s that ? Don't provoke me, David ! 
 
 DAV. Good-bye, master. [Whimpering. 
 
 ACRES. Get along, you cowardly, dastardly, croaking 
 raven ! [Suit DAVID. 
 
 Enter CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE. 
 
 ABS. What's the matter, Bob ? 
 
 ACRES. A vile, sheep-hearted blockhead ! If I hadn't 
 the valour of St. George and the dragon to boot 
 
 ABS. But what did you want with me, Bob ? 
 
 ACRES. Oh ! There [Gives him the challenge. 
 
 ABS. [^4#frfe.] To Ensign Beverley. So what's going 
 on now ! [Aloud.] Well, what's this? 
 
 ACRES. A challenge ! 
 
 ABS. Indeed 1 Why, yon won't fight him ; will you, 
 Bob? 
 
 ACRES. Egad, but I will, Jack. Sir Lucius has 
 wrought me to it. He has left me full of rage and 
 I'll fight this evening, that so much good passion 
 mayn't be wasted. 
 
 ABS. But what have I to do with this ? 
 
 ACRES. Why, as I think you know something of this 
 fellow, I want you to find him out for me, and give him 
 this mortal defiance. 
 
 ABS. Well, give it to me, and trust me he gets it. 
 
 ACRES. Thank you, my dear friend, my dear Jack ; 
 but it is giving you a great deal of trouble. 
 
 ABS. Not in the least I beg you won't mention it. 
 No trouble in the world, I assure you.
 
 SC. I.] 1'HE RIVALS. 63 
 
 ACRES. You are very kind. What it is to have a 
 friend I You couldn't be my second, could you, Jack ? 
 
 ABS. Why no, Bob not in this affair it would not 
 be quite so proper. 
 
 ACRES. Well, then, I must get my friend Sir Lucius. 
 I shall have your good wishes, however, Jack? 
 
 ABS. Whenever he meets you, believe me. 
 
 Re-enter SHBVANT. 
 
 SHBV. Sir Anthony Absolute is below, inquiring for 
 the captain. 
 
 ABS. I'll come instantly. {Exit SERVANT.] Well, my 
 little hero, success attend you. [Going. 
 
 ACRES. Stay stay, Jack. If Beverley should ask you 
 what kind of a man your friend Acres is, do tell him I 
 am a devil of a fellow will you, Jack ? 
 
 ABS. To be sure I shall. I'll say you are a determined 
 dog hey, Bob? 
 
 ACRES. Ay, do, do and if that frightens him, egad, 
 perhaps he mayn't come. So tell him I generally kill a 
 man a week will you, Jack ? 
 
 ABS. I will, I will ; I'll say you are called in the 
 country Fighting Bob. 
 
 ACRES. Right right 'tis all to prevent mischief; for 
 I don't want to take his life if I clear my honour. 
 
 ABS. No 1 that's very kind of you. 
 
 ACRES. Why, you don't wish me to kill him do you 
 Jack? 
 
 ABS. No, upon my soul, I do not. But a devil of a 
 fellow, hey? [Going. 
 
 ACRES. True, true but stay stay, Jack you may 
 add, that you never saw me in such a rage before a 
 most devouring rage ! 
 
 ABS I will, I will.
 
 64 THE RIVALS. [ACT IV. 
 
 ACRES. Remember, Jack a determined dog ! 
 
 ABS. Ay, ay, Fighting Bob ! [Exeunt severally. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 MRS. MALAPROP'S Lodgings. 
 MRS. MALAPROP and LYDIA. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Why, thou perverse one ! tell me what 
 you can object to him ? Isn't he a handsome man ? 
 tell me that. A genteel man ? a pretty figure of a 
 man? 
 
 LTD. [.4.9/de.] She little thinks whom she is praising ! 
 \AloudJ\ So is Beverley, ma'am. 
 
 MRS. MAI,. No caparisons, miss, if you please. Capa- 
 risons don't become a young woman. No ! Captain 
 Absolute is indeed a fine gentleman ! 
 
 LYD. Ay, the Captain Absolute you have seen. 
 
 [A side. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Then he's so well bred so full of alacrity 
 and adulation ! and has so much to say for himself 
 in such good language too ! His physiognomy so 
 grammatical ! Then his presence is so noble ! I 
 protest, when I saw him, I thought of what Hamlet 
 says in the play : 
 
 " Hesperian curls the front of Job himself ! 
 An eye, like March, to threaten at command ! 
 A station, like Harry Mercury, new " 
 
 Something about kissing on a hill however, the 
 similitude struck me directly. 
 
 LYD. How enraged she'll be presently, when she 
 discovers her mistake ! [Aside.
 
 SC. II.] THE RIVALS. 65 
 
 Enter SERVANT. 
 
 SERV. Sir Anthouy and Captain Absolute are below, 
 ma'am. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Show them up here. [Exit SERVANT.] 
 Now, Lydia, I insist on your behaving as becomes a 
 young woman. Show your good breeding, at least, 
 though you have forgot your duty. 
 
 LYD. Madam, I have told you my resolution ! I shall 
 not only give him no encouragement, but I won't even 
 speak to, or look at him. 
 
 [Flings herself into a chair, with her face from the 
 door. 
 
 Enter SIR ANTHONY ABSOLUTE and CAPTAIN 
 ABSOLUTE. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Here we are, Mrs. Malaprop; come to 
 mitigate the frowns of unrelenting beauty and diffi- 
 culty enough I had to bring this fellow. I don't know 
 what's the matter ; but if I had not held him by force, 
 he'd have given me the slip. 
 
 MRS. MAL. You have infinite trouble, Sir Anthony, 
 in the affair. I am ashamed for the cause ! [Aside to 
 LYDIA.] Lydia, Lydia, rise, I beseech you ! pay your 
 respects ! 
 
 SIR ANTH. I hope, madam, that Miss Languish has re- 
 flected on the worth of this gentleman, and the regard 
 due to her aunt's choice, and my alliance. [Aside to 
 CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE.] Now, Jack, speak to her. 
 
 ABS. [Aside.] What the devil shall I do ! [Aside to 
 SIR ANTHONY.] You see, sir, she won't even look at me 
 whilst you are here. I knew she wouldn't ! I told you 
 so. Let me entreat you, sir, to leave us together. 
 
 [Seems to expostulate with his father.
 
 66 THE RIVALS. [ACT IV. 
 
 LYD. [Aside.] I wonder I ha'n't heard my aunt ex- 
 claim yet ! Sure she can't have looked at him ! 
 perhaps their regimentals are alike, and she is some- 
 thing blind. 
 
 SIR ANTH. I say, sir, 1 won't stir a foot yet ! 
 
 MRS. MAL. I am sorry to say, Sir Anthony, that my 
 affluence over my niece is very small. [Aside to LYDIA.] 
 Turn round, Lydia : J blush for you ! 
 
 SIB ANTH. May I not flatter myself, that Miss 
 Languish will assign what cause of dislike she can 
 have to my son ! [Aside to CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE.] Why 
 don't you begin, Jack ? Speak, you puppy speak ! 
 
 MRS. MAL. It is impossible, Sir Anthony, she can 
 have any. She will not say she has. [Aside to LYDIA.] 
 Answer, hussy ! why don't you answer ? 
 
 SIR ANTH. Then, madam, I trust that a childish and 
 hasty predilection will be no bar to Jack's happiness. 
 [Aside to CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE.] Zounds ! sirrah ! why 
 don't you speak? 
 
 LYD. [Aside.] I think my lover seems as little in- 
 clined to conversation as myself. How strangely blind 
 my aunt must be ! 
 
 ABS. Hem ! hem ! madam hem ! [Attempts to speak, 
 then returns to SIR ANTHONY.] Faith ! sir, I am so 
 confounded ! and so so confused ! I told you I 
 should be so, sir I knew it. The the tremor of my 
 passion entirely takes away my presence of mind. 
 
 SIR ANTH. But it don't take away your voice, fool, 
 does it ? Go up, and speak to her directly ! 
 
 [CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE makes signs to MRS. MALAPROP 
 to leave them together. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Sir Anthony, shall we leave them to- 
 gether? [Aside to LYDIA.] Ah ! you stubborn little 
 vixen ! 
 
 SIR ANTH. Not yet, ma'am, not yet ! [Aside to
 
 SC. II.] THE RIVALS. 67 
 
 CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE.] What the devil are you at? 
 Unlock your jaws, sirrah, or - 
 
 ABS. [yixtde.] Now Heaven send she may be too sullen 
 to look round I I must disguise my voice. [Draws near 
 LYDIA, and speaks in a low hoarse tone.] Will not Miss 
 Languish lend an ear to the mild accents of true love ? 
 Will not - 
 
 SIB ANTH. What the devil ails the fellow? Why 
 don't you speak out? not stand croaking like a frog 
 in a quinsy ! 
 
 ABS. The the excess of my awe, and my my my 
 modesty, quite choke me ! 
 
 SIB ANTH. Ah ! your modesty again ! I'll tell you 
 what, Jack ; if you don't speak out directly and glibly 
 too, I shall be in such a rage ! Mrs. Malaprop, I wish 
 the lady would favour us with something more than a 
 side-front. [MRS. MALAPROP seems to chide LYDIA. 
 
 ABS. [Aside.] So all will out, I see ! [Goes up \to 
 LYDIA, speaks softly.] Be not surprised, my Lydia ; 
 suppress all surprise at present. 
 
 LYD. [Xrc'rfe.] Heavens ! 'tis Beverley's voice ! Sure 
 he can't have imposed on Sir Anthony too ! [Looks 
 round by degrees, then starts up.] Is this possible ! my 
 Beverley ! how can this be ? my Beverley ? 
 
 ABS. Ah ! 'tis all over. [Aside. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Beverley ! the devil Beverley ! What 
 can the girl mean ? This is my son, Jack Absolute. 
 
 MRS. MAL. For shame, hussy ! for shame ! your head 
 runs so on that fellow, that you have him always in 
 your eyes ! Beg Captain Absolute's pardon directly. 
 
 LYD. I see no Captain Absolute, but my loved 
 Beverley ! 
 
 SIR ANTH. Zounds ! the girl's mad ! her brain'* 
 turned by reading.
 
 68 THE RIVALS. [ACT IV. 
 
 MBS. MAI,. O' my conscience, I believe so ! What 
 do you mean by Beverley, hussy ? You saw Captain 
 Absolute before to-day. There he is your husband 
 that shall be. 
 
 LYD. With all my soul, ma'am when I refuse my 
 Beverley 
 
 SIB ANTH. Oh ! she's as mad as Bedlam ! or has this 
 fellow been playing us a rogue's trick ! Come here, 
 sirrah, who the devil are you? 
 
 ABS. Faith, sir, I am not quite clear myself; but I'll 
 endeavour to recollect. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Are you my son or not ? Answer for your 
 mother, you dog, if you won't for me. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Ay, sir, who are you ? Oh, mercy ! I 
 begin to suspect ! 
 
 ABS. [Aside.] Ye powers of impudence, befriend me ! 
 [Aloud.] Sir Anthony, most assuredly I am your wife's 
 son, and that I sincerely believe myself to be yours 
 also, I hope my duty lias always shown. Mrs. Malaprop, 
 I am your most respectful admirer, and shall be proud 
 to add affectionate nephew. I need not tell my Lydia, 
 that she sees her faithful Beverley, who, knowing the 
 singular generosity of her temper, assumed that name 
 and station, which has proved a test of the most dis- 
 interested love, which 1 he now hopes to enjoy in a more 
 elevated character. 
 
 LYD. So ! there will be no elopement after all ! 
 
 [Sullenly. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Upon my soul, Jack, thou art a very im- 
 pudent fellow ! To do you justice, I think I never saw 
 a piece of more consummate assurance ! 
 
 ABS. Oh, you flatter me, sir you compliment 'tis 
 my modesty, you know, sir my modesty that has stood 
 in my way. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Well, 1 am glad you are not the dull,
 
 8C. II.] THE RIVALS. 69 
 
 insensible varlet you pretended to be, however! Fm 
 glad you have made a fool of your father, you dog I 
 am. So this was your penitence, your duty and obedi- 
 ence ! I thought it was damned sudden ! You never 
 heard their names before, not you ! what, the Languishes 
 of Worcestershire, hey ? if you could please me in the 
 affair it was all you desired ! Ah ! you dissembling 
 villain ! What ! [pointing to LYDIA] she squints, don't 
 she? a little red-haired girl! hey? Why, you hypo- 
 critical young rascal ! I wonder you an't ashamed to 
 hold up your head ! 
 
 ABS. 'Tis with difficulty, sir. I am confused very 
 much confused, as you must perceive. 
 
 MRS. MAL. O Lud ! Sir Anthony ! a new light 
 breaks in upon me ! hey ! how ! what ! captain, did 
 you write the letters then ? What ! am I to thank 
 you for the elegant compilation of an old weather- 
 beaten she-dragon hey ? Oh, mercy ! was it you that 
 reflected on my parts of speech ? 
 
 ABS. Dear sir ! my modesty will be overpowered at 
 last, if you don't assist me I shall certainly not be 
 able to stand it ! 
 
 SIB ANTH. Come, come, Mrs. Malaprop, we must 
 forget and forgive odds life ! matters have taken so 
 clever a turn all of a sudden, that I could find in my 
 heart to be so good-humoured ! and so gallant ! hey ! 
 Mrs. Malaprop? 
 
 MRS. MAL. Well, Sir Anthony, since you desire it, we 
 will not anticipate the past ! so mind, young people 
 our retrospection will be all to the future. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Come, we must leave them together ; 
 Mrs. Malaprop, they long to fly into each other's arms, 
 1 warrant ! Jack isn't the cheek as I said, hey? and 
 the eye, you rogue ! and the lip hey ? Come, Mrs. 
 Malaprop, we'll not disturb their tenderness theirs
 
 70 THE RIVALS. [ACT IV. 
 
 is the time of life for happiness ! Youth's the season 
 made for joy [Sings] hey ! Odds life ! I'm in such 
 spirits I don't know what I could not do ! Permit me, 
 ma'am. [Gives his hand to MKS. MALAPROP.] Tol-de- 
 rol 'gad, I should like to have a little fooling myself. 
 Tol-de-rol! de-rol. 
 
 [Exit, singing and handing MRS. MALAPROP. LYDIA 
 tits sullenly in her chair. 
 
 ABS. [ylside.] So much thought bodes me no good. 
 [Aloud.] So grave, Lydia ! 
 
 LYD. Sir! 
 
 ABS. (yi*ite.] So ! egad ! I thought as much ! that 
 damned monosyllable has froze me ! [Aloud.] What, 
 Lydia, now that we are as happy in our friends' consent, 
 as in our mutual vows 
 
 LTD. Friends' consent indeed ! [Peevishly. 
 
 Ass. Come, come, we must lay aside some of our 
 romance a little wealth and comfort may be endured 
 after all. And for your fortune the lawyers shall make 
 snch settlements as 
 
 LYD. Lawyers ! I hate lawyers ! 
 
 ABS. Nay, then, we will not wait for their lingering 
 forms, but instantly procure the licence, and 
 
 LYD. The licence ! I hate licence ! 
 
 ABS. Oh my love ! be not so unkind ! thus let me 
 entreat [Kneeling. 
 
 LTD. Psha ! what signifies kneeling, when you know 
 I must have you ? 
 
 ABS. [Rising.] Nay, madam, there shall be no con- 
 straint upon your inclinations, I promise you. If I 
 have lost your heart I resign the rest. [Aside.] 'Gad, 
 I must try what a little spirit will do. 
 
 LYD. [Rising] Then, sir, let me tell you, the interest 
 you had there was acquired by a mean, unmanly imposi- 
 tion, and deserves the punishment of fraud. What, you
 
 SC. II.] THE RIVALS. 71 
 
 have been treating me like a child ! humouring my 
 romance ! and laughing, I suppose, at your success ! 
 
 ABS. You wrong me, Lydia, you wrong me only 
 hear 
 
 LTD. So, while I fondly imagined we were deceiving 
 my relations, and nattered myself that I should outwit 
 and incense them all behold my hopes are to be 
 crushed at once, by my aunt's consent and approbation 
 and I am myself the only dupe at last ! [Walking 
 about in a heat.] But here, sir, here is the picture 
 Beverley's picture ! [taking a miniature from her bosom] 
 which I have worn, night and day, in spite of threats 
 and entreaties ! There, sir ; [flings it to him] and 
 be assured I throw the original from my heart as 
 easily. 
 
 ABS. Nay, nay, ma'am, we will not differ as to that. 
 Here [taking out a picture] here is Miss Lydia Languish. 
 WTiat a difference ! ay, there is the heavenly assenting 
 smile that first gave soul and spirit to my hopes ! those 
 are the lips which sealed a vow, as yet scarce dry in 
 Cupid's calendar ! and there the half-resentful blush, 
 that would have checked the" ardour of my thanks ! 
 Well, all that's past ! all over indeed ! There, madam 
 in beauty, that copy is not equal to you, but in my 
 mind its merit over the original, in being still the same, 
 is such that I cannot find in my heart to part with it. 
 
 [Puts it up again. 
 
 LYD. [Softening.] 'Tis your own doing, sir I I I 
 suppose you are perfectly satisfied. 
 
 ABS. Oh, most certainly sure now this is much 
 better than being in love ! ha ! ha ! ha ! there's some 
 spirit in this ! What signifies breaking some scores of 
 solemn promises ? all that's of no consequence, you 
 know. To be sure people will say that miss don't know 
 her own mind but never mind that ! Or, perhaps,
 
 72 THE RIVALS. [ACT IV. 
 
 they may be ill-natured enough to hint, that the gentle- 
 man grew tired of the lady and forsook her but don't 
 let that fret you. 
 
 LYD. There is no bearing his insolence. 
 
 [Bursts into tears. 
 
 Re-enter MBS. MALAPBOP and SIB ANTHONY 
 ABSOLUTE. 
 
 MBS. MAI,. Come, we must interrupt your billing and 
 cooing awhile. 
 
 LYD. This is worse than your treachery and deceit, 
 you base ingrate ! [Sobbing. 
 
 SIB ANTH. What the devil's the matter now? 
 Zounds ! Mrs. Malaprop, this is the oddest billing and 
 cooing I ever heard ! but what the deuce is the mean- 
 ing of it ? I am quite astonished ! 
 
 ABS. Ask the lady, sir. 
 
 MBS. MAL. Oh, mercy ! I'm quite analysed, for my 
 part ! Why, Lydia, what is the reason of this ? 
 
 LYD. Ask the gentleman, ma'am. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Zounds ! I shall be in a frenzy ! Why, 
 Jack, you are not come out to be any one else, are you ? 
 
 MBS. MAL. Ay, sir, there's no more trick, is there? 
 you are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, are 
 you? 
 
 ABS. You'll not let me speak. I say the lady can 
 account for this much better than I can. 
 
 LYD. Ma'am, you once commanded me never to think 
 of Beverley again. There is the man I now obey you ! 
 for, from this moment, I renounce him for ever. [Exit. 
 
 MBS. MAL. Oh, mercy ! and miracles ! what a turn 
 here is why sure, captain, you haven't behaved dis- 
 respectfully to my niece. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! now I see
 
 SC. III.] THE RIVALS. 73 
 
 it. Ha ! ha ! ha ! now I see it. You have been too 
 lively, Jack. 
 
 ABS. Nay, sir, upon my word 
 
 SIB ANTH. Come, no lying, Jack I'm sure 'twas so. 
 
 MRS. MAI* O Lud ! Sir Anthony ! Oh, fy, captain ! 
 
 ABS. Upon my soul, ma'am 
 
 SIB ANTH. Come, no excuses, Jack ; why, your father, 
 you rogue, was so before you the blood of the Absolutes 
 was always impatient. Ha ! ha ! ha ! poor little Lydia ! 
 Why, you've frightened her, you dog, you have. 
 
 ABS. By all that's good, sir 
 
 SIB ANTH. Zounds ! say no more, I tell you Mrs. 
 Malaprop shall make your peace. You must make his 
 peace, Mrs. Malaprop. You must tell her 'tis Jack's 
 way tell her 'tis all our ways it runs in the blood of 
 our family ! Come away, Jack. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Mrs. 
 Malaprop a young villain ! [Pushing him out. 
 
 MBS. MAL. Oh ! Sir Anthony ! Oh, fy, captain ! 
 
 [Exeunt severally. 
 
 SCENE in. 
 
 The North Parade. 
 Enter SIB Lucius O'TBIGGER. 
 
 SIB Luc. I wonder where this Captain Absolute 
 hides himself! Upon my conscience ! these officers are 
 always in one's way in love affairs. I remember I 
 might have married Lady Dorothy Carmine, if it had 
 not been for a little rogue of a major, who ran away 
 with her before she could get a sight of me ! And I 
 wonder, too, what it is the ladies can see in them to be 
 so fond of them unless it be a touch of the old serpent 
 in 'em, that makes the little creatures be caught, like
 
 74 THE RIVALS. [ACT IV. 
 
 vipers, with a bit of red cloth. Ha ! isn't this the 
 captain coming ? faith it is ! There is a probability 
 of succeeding about that fellow, that is mighty 
 provoking ! Who the devil is he talking to ? 
 
 [Steps aside. 
 
 Enter CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE. 
 
 ABS. [Aside.] To what fine purpose I have been 
 plotting ! a noble reward for all my schemes, upon my 
 soul ! a little gipsy ! I did not think her romance 
 could have made her so damned absurd either. 'Sdeath, 
 I never was in a worse humour in my life ! I could cut 
 my own throat, or any other person's, with the greatest 
 pleasure in the world ! 
 
 SIB Luc. Oh, faith ! I'm in the luck of it. I never 
 could have found him in a sweeter temper for my 
 purpose to be sure, I'm just come in the nick ! Now 
 to enter into conversation with him, and so quarrel 
 genteelly. [Goes up to CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE.] With 
 regard to that matter, captain, I must beg leave to 
 differ in opinion with you. 
 
 ABS. Upon my word, then, you must be a very subtle 
 disputant, because, sir, I happened just then to be 
 giving no opinion at all. 
 
 SIR Luc. That's no reason. For give me leave to 
 tell you, a man may think an untruth as well as speak 
 one. 
 
 ABS. Very true, sir ; but if a man never utters his 
 thoughts, I should think they might stand a chance of 
 escaping controversy. 
 
 SIB Luc. Then, sir, you differ in opinion with me, 
 which amounts to the same thing. 
 
 ABS. Hark'ee, Sir Lucius, if 1 had not before known 
 you to be a gentleman, upon my soul, I should not
 
 SC. III.] THE RIVALS. 75 
 
 have discovered it at this interview ; for what you can 
 drive at, unless you mean to quarrel with me, I cannot 
 conceive ! 
 
 SIR Luc. 1 humbly thank you, sir, for the quickness 
 of your apprehension. [Bowing.] You have named the 
 very thing I would be at. 
 
 ABS. Very well, sir, I shall certainly not balk your 
 inclinations. But 1 should be glad you would please to 
 explain your motives. 
 
 SIR Luo. Pray, sir, be easy ; the quarrel is a very 
 pretty quarrel as it stands, we should only spoil it by 
 trying to explain it. However, your memory is very 
 short, or you could not have forgot an affront you 
 passed on me within this week. So, no more, but 
 name your time and place. 
 
 ABS. Well, sir, since you are so bent on it, the 
 sooner the better ; let it be this evening here, by the 
 Spring Gardens. We shall scarcely be interrupted. 
 
 SIR Luc. Faith ! that same interruption in affairs of 
 this nature shows very great ill-breeding. I don't 
 know what's the reason, but in England, if a thing 
 of this kind gets wind, people make such a pother, 
 that a gentleman can never fight in peace and quietness. 
 However, if it's the same to you, captain, J should take 
 it as a particular kindness if you'd let us meet in 
 King's-Mead-Fields, as a little business will call me 
 there about six o'clock, and I may despatch both 
 matters at once. 
 
 ABS. Tis the same to me exactly. A little after six, 
 then, we will discuss this matter more seriously. 
 
 SIR Luc. If you please, sir ; there will be very pretty 
 small-sword light, though it won't do for a long shot. 
 So that matter's settled, and my mind's at ease. [Exit.
 
 76 THE RIVALS. JACT IV. 
 
 Enter FAULKLAND. 
 
 ABS. Well met ! I was going to look for you. O 
 Faulkland ! all the demons of spite and disappointment 
 have conspired against me ! I'm so vexed, that if I had 
 not the prospect of a resource in being knocked o' the 
 head by-and-by, I should scarce have spirits to tell you 
 the cause. 
 
 FAULK. What can you mean ? Has Lydia changed 
 her mind? I should have thought her duty and 
 inclination would now have pointed to the same 
 object. 
 
 ABS. Ay, just as the eyes do of a person who squints. 
 When her love-eye was fixed on me, t'other, her eye of 
 duty, was finely obliqued : but when duty bid her point 
 that the same way, off t'other turned on a swivel, and 
 secured its retreat with a frown ! 
 
 FAULK. But what's the resource you 
 
 ABS. Oh, to wind up the whole, a good-natured 
 Irishman here has [mimicking SIR Lucius] begged leave 
 to have the pleasure of cutting my throat ; and I mean 
 to indulge him that's all. 
 
 FAULK. Prithee, be serious ! 
 
 ABS. 'Tis fact, upon my soul ! Sir Lucius OTrigger 
 you know him by sight for some affront, which I am 
 sure I never intended, has obliged me to meet him this 
 evening at six o'clock. 'Tis on that account I wished to 
 see you ; you must go with me. 
 
 FAULK. Nay, there must be some mistake, sure. Sir 
 Lucius shall explain himself, and I dare say matters 
 may be accommodated. But this evening, did you say ? 
 I wish it had been any other time. 
 
 ABS. Why ? there will be light enough ; there will 
 (as Sir Lucius says) be very pretty small-sword light,
 
 SC. III.] THE RIVALS. 77 
 
 though it will not do for a long shot. Confound his 
 long shots ! 
 
 FAULK. But I am myself a good deal ruffled by a 
 difference I have had with Julia. My vile tormenting 
 temper has made me treat her so cruelly, that I shall 
 not be myself till we are reconciled. 
 
 ABS. By Heavens ! Fan Ikland, you don't deserve her ! 
 
 Enter SERVANT, gives FAULKLAND a letter, and exit. 
 
 FAULK. Oh, Jack ! this is from Julia. I dread to 
 open it ! I fear it may be to take a last leave ! perhaps 
 
 to bid me return her letters, and restore Oh, how 
 
 I suffer for my folly ! 
 
 ABS. Here, let me see. [Takes the letter and open* it."] 
 Ay, a final sentence, indeed ! 'tis all over with you, faith ! 
 
 FAULK. Nay, Jack, don't keep me in suspense ! 
 
 ABS. Hear then. [Heads.] As I am convinced that 
 my dear Faulkland's own reflections have already up- 
 braided him for his last unkindness to me, I will not add 
 a word on the subject. I wish to speak with you as soon as 
 possible. Yours ever and truly, JULIA. There's stubborn- 
 ness and resentment for you 1 [Gives him the letter.] 
 Why, man, you don't seem one whit the happier at this ! 
 
 FAULK. Oh yes, I am ; but but 
 
 ABS. Confound your buts ! you never hear anything 
 that would make another man bless himself, but you 
 immediately damn it with a but ! 
 
 FAULK. Now, Jack, as you are my friend, own honestly 
 don't you think there is something forward, something 
 indelicate, in this haste to forgive? Women should 
 never sue for reconciliation : that should always come 
 from us. They should retain their coldness till wooed 
 to kindness ; and their pardon, like their love, should 
 "not unsought be won."
 
 78 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 ABS. I have not patience to listen to you ! Thou'rt 
 incorrigible ! so say no more on the subject. I must go 
 to settle a few matters. Let me see you before six, 
 remember, at my lodgings. A poor industrious devil 
 like me, who have toiled, andjdrudged, and plotted to 
 gain my ends, and am at last disappointed by other 
 people's folly, may in pity be allowed to swear and 
 grumble a little ; but a captious sceptic in love, a slave 
 to fretfulness and whim, who has no difficulties but of 
 his own creating, is a subject more fit for ridicule than 
 compassion. [Exit. 
 
 FAULK. I feel hig reproaches ; yet I would not change 
 this too exquisite nicety for the gross content with 
 which he tramples on the thorns of love ! His en- 
 gaging me in this duel has started an idea in my head, 
 which I will instantly pursue. I'll use it as the touch- 
 stone of Julia's sincerity and disinterestedness. If her 
 love prove pure and sterling ore, my name will rest on 
 it with honour ; and once I've stamped it there, I lay 
 aside my doubts for ever ! But if the dross of selfish- 
 ness, the alloy of pride, predominate, 'twill be best to 
 leave her as a toy for some less cautious fool to sigh 
 for ! [Exit. 
 
 ACT THE FIFTH. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 JUIJA'S Dressing-Room. 
 JULIA discovered alone. 
 
 JUL. How this message has alarmed me ! what dread- 
 ful accident can he mean ? why such charge to be alone ? 
 O Faulkland ! how many unhappy moments how many 
 tears have you cost me !
 
 SC. L] THE RIVALS. 79 
 
 Enter FAULKLAND. 
 
 JUL. What means this? why this caution, Faulk- 
 land? 
 
 FAULK. Alas ! Julia, I am come to take a long fare- 
 well. 
 
 JUL. Heavens ! what do you mean ? 
 
 FAULK. You see before you a wretch, whose life is 
 forfeited. Nay, start not ! the infirmity of my temper 
 has drawn all this misery on me. I left you fretful and 
 passionate an untoward accident drew me into a quarrel 
 the event is, that I must fly this kingdom instantly. 
 
 Julia, had I been so fortunate as to have called you 
 mine entirely, before this mischance had fallen on me, I 
 should not so deeply dread my banishment ! 
 
 JUL. My soul is oppressed with sorrow at the nature 
 of your misfortune. Had these adverse circumstances 
 arisen from a less fatal cause, 1 should have felt strong 
 comfort in the thought that I could now chase from 
 your bosom every doubt of the warm sincerity of my 
 love. My heart has long known no other guardian 
 
 1 now entrust my person to your honour we will fly 
 together. When safe from pursuit, my father's will 
 may be fulfilled and I receive a legal claim to be the 
 partner of your sorrows and tenderest comforter. Then 
 on the bosom of your wedded Julia, you may lull your 
 keen regret to slumbering ; while virtuous love, with a 
 cherub's hand, shall smooth the brow of upbraiding 
 thought, and pluck the thorn from compunction. 
 
 FAULK. O Julia ! I am bankrupt in gratitude ! but 
 the time is so pressing, it calls on you for so hasty a 
 resolution. Would you not wish some hours to 
 weigh the advantages you forego, and what little com- 
 pensation poor Faulkland can make you beside his soli- 
 tary love ?
 
 80 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 JUL. I ask not a moment. No, Faulkland, I have 
 loved you for yourself; and if I now, more than ever, 
 prize the solemn engagement which so long has pledged 
 us to each other, it is because it leaves no room for hard 
 aspersions on my fame, and puts the seal of duty to an 
 act of love. But let us not linger. Perhaps this 
 delay 
 
 FAULK. 'Twill be better I should not venture out 
 again till dark. Yet am I grieved to think what 
 numberless distresses will press heavy on your gentle 
 disposition ! 
 
 JUL,. Perhaps your fortune may be forfeited by this 
 unhappy act. I know not whether 'tis so ; but sure 
 that alone can never make us unhappy. The little I 
 have will be sufficient to support us ; and exile never 
 should be splendid. 
 
 FAULK. Ay, but in such an abject state of life, my 
 wounded pride perhaps may increase the natural fretful- 
 ness of my temper, till I become a rude, morose com- 
 panion, beyond your patience to endure. Perhaps the 
 recollection of a deed my conscience cannot justify may 
 haunt me in such gloomy and unsocial fits that I shall 
 hate the tenderness that would relieve me, break from 
 your arms, and quarrel with your fondness. 
 
 JUL. If your thoughts should assume so unhappy a 
 bent, you will the more want some mild and affectionate 
 spirit to watch over and console you : one who, by 
 bearing your infirmities with gentleness and resignation, 
 may teach you so to bear the evils of your fortune. 
 
 FAULK. Julia, I have proved you to the quick ! and 
 with this useless device I throw away all my doubts. 
 How shall I plead to be forgiven this last unworthy 
 effect of my restless, unsatisfied disposition ? 
 
 JUL. Has no such disaster happened as you related ? 
 
 FAULK. I am ashamed to own that it was pretended ;
 
 8C. I.] THE RIVALS. 81 
 
 yet in pity, Julia, do not kill me with resenting a fault 
 which never can be repeated : but sealing, this once, my 
 pardon, let me to-morrow, in the face of Heaven, receive 
 my future guide and monitress, and expiate my past 
 folly by years of tender adoration. 
 
 JUL. Hold, Faulkland ! that you are free from a 
 crime, which I before feared to name, Heaven knows 
 how sincerely I rejoice ! These are tears of thankful- 
 ness for that ! But that your cruel doubts should 
 have urged you to an imposition that has wrung my 
 heart, gives me now a pang more keen than I can 
 express ! 
 
 FAULK. By Heavens ! Julia 
 
 Jut. Yet hear me. My father loved you, Faulkland ' 
 and you preserved the life that tender parent gave me ; 
 in his presence I pledged my hand joyfully pledged it 
 where before I had given my heart. When, soon 
 after, I lost that parent, it seemed to me that Providence 
 had, in Faulkland, shown me whither to transfer without 
 a pause, my grateful duty, as well as my affection : hence, 
 I have been content to bear from you what pride and 
 delicacy would have forbid me from another. I will not 
 upbraid you, by repeating how you have trifled with my 
 sincerity 
 
 FAULK. I confess it all ! yet hear 
 
 JUL. After such a year of trial, I might have flattered 
 myself that I should not have been insulted with a 
 new probation of my sincerity, as cruel as unnecessary ! 
 I now see it is not in your nature to be content or 
 confident in love. With this conviction I never will 
 be yours. While I had hopes that my persevering 
 attention, and nnreproaching kindness, might in time 
 reform your temper, I should have been happy to have 
 gained a dearer influence over you ; but I will not 
 famish you with a licensed power to keep alive ar.
 
 82 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 incorrigible fault, at the expense of one who never 
 would contend with you. 
 
 FAULK. Nay, but, Julia, by my soul and honour, if 
 after this 
 
 JUL. But one word more. As my faith has once been 
 given to you, I never will barter it with another. I 
 shall pray for your happiness with the truest sincerity ; 
 and the dearest blessing I can ask of Heaven to send 
 you will be to charm you from that unhappy temper, 
 which alone has prevented the performance of our 
 solemn engagement. All I request of you is, that you 
 will yourself reflect upon this infirmity, and when you 
 number up the many true delights it has deprived you 
 of, let it not be your least regret, that it lost you the 
 love of one who would have followed you in beggary 
 through the world ! [Exit. 
 
 FAULK. She's gone for ever ! There was an awful 
 resolution in her manner that riveted me to my place. 
 O fool ! dolt ! barbarian ! Cursed as I am, with more 
 imperfections than my fellow- wretches, kind Fortune 
 sent a heaven-gifted cherub to my aid, and, like a 
 ruffian, I have driven her from my side ! I must now 
 haste to my appointment. Well, my mind is tuned for 
 such a scene. I shall wish only to become a principal 
 in it, and reverse the tale my cursed folly put me upon 
 forging here. O Love ! tormentor ! fiend ! whose 
 influence, like the moon's, acting on men of dull souls, 
 makes idiots of them, but meeting subtler spirits, 
 betrays their course, and urges sensibility to madness ! 
 
 [Exit. 
 
 MAID. My mistrasa, ma'am, I know, was here just 
 now perhaps she is only in the next room. [Emt
 
 SC. I.] THE RIVALS. 83 
 
 LYD. Heigh-ho ! Though he has used me so, this 
 fellow runs strangely in my head. I believe one lecture 
 from my grave cousin will make me recall him. [Re- 
 enter JULIA.] O Julia, I am come to you with such an 
 appetite for consolation. Lud ! child, what's the matter 
 with you ? You have been crying ! I'll be hanged if 
 that Faulkland has not been tormenting you ! 
 
 JUL. You mistake the cause of my uneasiness ! Some- 
 thing has flurried me a little. Nothing that you can 
 guess at. [-Airfe.] I would not accuse Faulkland to a 
 sister ! 
 
 LYD. Ah ! whatever vexations you may have, I can 
 assure you mine surpass them. You know who Beverley 
 proves to be ? 
 
 JUL. I will now own to you, Lydia, that Faulkland 
 had before informed me of the whole affair. Had young 
 Absolute been the person you took him for, I should 
 not have accepted your confidence on the subject, with- 
 out a serious endeavour to counteract your caprice. 
 
 LYD. So, then, I see I have been deceived by every 
 one. But I don't care I'll never have him. 
 
 JUL. Nay, Lydia 
 
 LTD. Why, is it not provoking ? when I thought we 
 were coming to the prettiest distress imaginable, to find 
 myself made a mere Smithfield bargain of at last ! 
 There had I projected one of the most sentimental 
 elopements ! so becoming a disguise ! so amiable a 
 ladder of ropes ! conscious moon four horses Scotch 
 parson with such surprise to Mrs. Malaprop and such 
 paragraphs in the newspapers ! Oh ! I shall die with 
 disappointment ! 
 
 JCL. I don't wonder at it ! 
 
 LYD. Now sad reverse ! what have I to expect, but, 
 after a deal of flimsy preparation with a bishop's licence, 
 and my aunt's blessing, to go simpering up to the altar ;
 
 84 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 or perhaps be cried three times in a country church, 
 and have an unmannerly fat clerk ask the consent of 
 every butcher in the parish to join John Absolute and 
 Lydia Languish, spinster ! Oh that I should live to 
 hear myself called spinster ! 
 
 JUL. Melancholy indeed ! 
 
 LYD. How mortifying, to remember the dear delicious 
 shifts I used to be put to, to gain half a minute's con- 
 versation with this fellow ! How often have I stole 
 forth, in the coldest night in January, and found him 
 in the garden, stuck like a dripping statue ! There 
 would he kneel to me in the snow, and sneeze and 
 cough so pathetically ! he shivering with cold and I 
 with apprehension ! and while the freezing blast 
 numbed our joints, how'warmly would he press me to 
 pity his flame, and glow with mutual ardour ! Ah, 
 Julia, that was something like being in love. 
 
 JUL. If I were in spirits, Lydia, 1 should chide you 
 only by laughing heartily at you ; but it suits more the 
 situation of my mind, at present, earnestly to entreat 
 you not to let a man, who loves you with sincerity, 
 suffer that unhappiuess from your caprice, which I know 
 too well caprice can inflict. 
 
 LYD. O Lud ! what has brought my aunt here ? 
 
 Enter MRS. MALAPBOP, FAG, and DAVID. 
 
 MBS. MAL. So ! so ! here's fine work ! here's fine 
 suicide, parricide, and simulation, going on in the fields ! 
 and Sir Anthony not to be found to prevent the antis- 
 trophe ! 
 
 JUL. For Heaven's sake, madam, what's the meaning 
 of this ? 
 
 MBS. MAL. That gentleman can tell you 'twas he 
 enveloped the affair to me
 
 BC. I.] THE RIVALS. 85 
 
 LYD. Do, sir will you, inform us ? \To FAG. 
 
 FAG. Ma'am, I should hold myself very deficient in 
 every requisite that forms the man of breeding, if I 
 delayed a moment to give all the information in my 
 power to a lady so deeply interested in the affair as 
 you are. 
 
 LYD. But quick ! quick, sir ! 
 
 FAG. True, ma'am, as you say, one should be quick 
 in divulging matters of this nature ; for should we 
 be tedious, perhaps while we are flourishing on the 
 subject, two or three lives may be lost ! 
 
 LYD. Oh, patience ! Do, ma'am, for heaven's sake ! 
 tell us what is the matter ? 
 
 MRS. MAL. Why, murder's the matter ! slaughter's 
 the matter ! killing's the matter ! but he can tell you 
 the perpendiculars. 
 
 LYD. Then, prithee, sir, be brief. 
 
 FAG. Why, then, ma'am, as to murder I cannot take 
 upon me to say and as to slaughter, or manslaughter, 
 that will be as the jury finds it. 
 
 LYD. But who, sir who are engaged in this ? 
 
 FAG. Faith, ma'am, one is a young gentleman whom 
 I should be very sorry anything was to happen to a 
 very pretty behaved gentleman ! We have lived much 
 together, and always on terms. 
 
 LYD. But who is this ? Who ! who ! who ? 
 
 FAG. My master, ma'am my master I speak of my 
 master. 
 
 LYD. Heavens ! What, Captain Absolute ? 
 
 MRS. MAL. Oh, to be sure, you are frightened now ! 
 
 JUL. But who are with him, sir ? 
 
 FAG. As to the rest, ma'am, this gentleman can 
 inform you better than I. 
 
 JUL. Do speak, friend. [To DAVID. 
 
 DAV. Look'ee, my lady by the mass ! there's
 
 86 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 mischief going on. Folks don't use to meet for 
 amusement with fire - arms, firelocks, fire - engines, 
 fire-screens, fire-office, and the devil knows what 
 other crackers beside ! This, my lady, I say, has an 
 angry favour. 
 
 JUL. But who is there beside Captain Absolute, friend? 
 
 DAV. My poor master under favour for mentioning 
 him first. You know me, my lady I am David and 
 my master of course is, or was, Squire Acres. Then 
 comes Squire Faulkland. 
 
 JUL. Do, ma'am, let us instantly endeavour to prevent 
 mischief. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Oh, fy ! it vould be very inelegant in us. 
 We should only participate things. 
 
 DAV. Ah ! do, Mrs. Aunt, save a few lives they are 
 desperately given, believe me. Above all, there is that 
 bloodthirsty Philistine, Sir Lucius O'Trigger. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Sir Lucius O'Trigger? Oh, mercy! have 
 they drawn poor little dear Sir Lucius into the scrape? 
 Why, how you stand, girl ! You have no more feeling 
 than one of the Derbyshire petrifactions ! 
 
 LYD. What are we to do, madam ? 
 
 MBS. MAL. Why, fly with the utmost felicity, to be 
 sure, to prevent mischief ! Here, friend, you can show 
 us the place ? 
 
 FAG. If you please, ma'am, I will conduct you 
 David, do you look for Sir Anthony. [Exit DAVID. 
 
 MBS. MAL. Come, girls ! this gentleman will exhort 
 us. Come, sir, you're our envoy lead the way, and 
 we'll precede. 
 
 FAG. Not a step before the ladies for the world ! 
 
 MBS. MAL. You're sure you know the spot ? 
 
 FAG. I think I can find it, ma'am ; and one good 
 thing is, we shall hear the report of the pistols as we 
 draw near, so we can't well miss them never fear, 
 ma'am, never fear. [Exeunt, he talking.
 
 8C. II.] THE RIVALS. 8? 
 
 SCENE DL 
 The South Parade. 
 
 Enter CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE, putting his tword under 
 his greatcoat. 
 
 ABS. A sword seen in the streets of Bath would raise 
 as great an alarm as a mad dog. How provoking this is 
 in Faulkland ! never punctual ! I shall be obliged to 
 go without him at last. Oh, the devil ! here's Sir 
 Anthony ! how shall I escape him ? 
 
 [Muffles up his face, and takes a circle to go off. 
 
 Enter SIR ANTHONY ABSOLUTE. 
 
 SIR ANTH. How one may be deceived at a little dis- 
 tance ; only that I see he don't know me, I could have 
 sworn that was Jack ! Hey ! Gad's life ! it is. Why, 
 Jack, what are you afraid of ? hey ! sure I'm right. 
 Why, Jack, Jack Absolute ! [Goes up to him. 
 
 ABS. Really, sir, you have the advantage of me. 
 I don't remember ever to have had the honour my 
 name is Saunderson, at your service. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Sir, I beg your pardon I took you hey? 
 why, zounds ! it is ! Stay ! [Looks up to his face.] 
 So, so your humble servant, Mr. Saunderson ! Why, 
 you scoundrel, what tricks are you after now ? 
 
 ABS. Oh, a joke, sir, a joke ! I came here on purpose 
 to look for you, sir. 
 
 SIR ANTH. You did ? Well, I am glad you were so 
 lucky but what are you muffled up so for? What's 
 this for ? hey ! 
 
 ABS. 'Tis cool, sir ; isn't it ? rather chilly somehow 
 but I shall be late I have a particular engagement.
 
 88 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Stay ! Why, I thought you were looking 
 for me ! Pray, Jack, where is't you are going ? 
 
 ABS. Going, sir? 
 
 SIB ANTH. Ay, where are you going ? 
 
 ABS. Where am I going ? 
 
 SIB ANTH. You unmannerly puppy ! 
 
 ABS. I was going, sir to to to to Lydia sir, to 
 Lydia to make matters up if I could and I was looking 
 for you, sir, to to 
 
 SIB ANTH. To go with you, I suppose. Well, come 
 along. 
 
 ABS. Oh ! zounds ! no, sir, not for the world ! I 
 
 wished to meet with you, sir to to to You find 
 
 it cool, I'm sure, sir you'd better not stay out. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Cool ! not at all. Well, Jack, and what 
 will you say to Lydia ? 
 
 ABS. Oh, sir, beg her pardon, humour her promise 
 and vow. But I detain you, sir. Consider the cold air 
 on your gout. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Oh, not at all ! not at all ! I'm in no 
 hurry. Ah ! Jack, you youngsters, when once you are 
 wounded here. [Putting his hand to CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE'S 
 breast.] Hey ! what the deuce have you got here ? 
 
 ABS. Nothing, sir nothing. 
 
 SIB ANTH. What's this ? here's something damned 
 hard. 
 
 ABS. Oh, trinkets, sir ! trinkets ! a bauble for Lydia! 
 
 SIB ANTH. Nay, let me see your taste. [Pulls his coat 
 open, the sword falls.] Trinkets ! a bauble for Lydia ! 
 Zounds ! sirrah, you are not going to cut her throat, 
 are you? 
 
 ABS. Ha ! ha ! ha ! I thought it would divert you, 
 sir, though I didn't mean to tell you till afterwards. 
 
 SIB ANTH. You didn't ? Yes, this is a very diverting 
 trinket, truly !
 
 SC. II.] THE RIVALS. 89 
 
 ABS. Sir, I'll explain to you. You know, sir, Lydia 
 is romantic, devilish romantic, and very absurd, of 
 course : now, sir, I intend, if she refuses to forgive me, 
 to unsheathe this sword, and swear I'll fall upon its 
 point, and expire at her feet ! 
 
 SIR ANTH. Fall upon a fiddlestick's end ! Why, I 
 suppose it is the very thing that would please her. Get 
 along, you fool ! 
 
 ABS. Well, sir, you shall hear of my success you 
 shall hear. Lydia /forgive me, or this pointed steel 
 says I. 
 
 SIR ANTH. booby ! stab away and welcome says she. 
 Get along ! and damn your trinkets ! 
 
 [Exit CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE. 
 
 Enter DAVID, running. 
 
 DAV. Stop him ! stop him ! Murder ! Thief ! Fire ! 
 Stop fire ! Stop fire ! O Sir Anthony call ! call ! bid 
 'm stop ! Murder ! Fire 1 
 
 SIR ANTH. Fire ! Murder ! Where ? 
 
 DAV. Oons ! he's out of sight ! and I'm out of breath ! 
 for my part ! O Sir Anthony, why didn't you stop him ? 
 why didn't you stop him ? 
 
 SIR ANTH. Zounds ! the fellow's mad ! Stop whom ? 
 Stop Jack ? 
 
 DAV. Ay, the captain, sir 1 there's murder and 
 slaughter 
 
 SIR ANTH. Murder ! 
 
 DAV. Ay, please you, Sir Anthony, there's all kinds 
 of murder, all sorts of slaughter to be seen in the fields : 
 there's fighting going on, sir bloody sword-and-gun 
 fighting ! 
 
 SIB ANTH. Who are going to fight, dunce ? 
 
 DAV. Everybody that I know of, Sir Anthony every-
 
 90 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 body is going to fight my poor master, Sir Lucius 
 O'Trigger, your son, the captain 
 
 SIR ANTH. Oh, the dog ! I see hia tricks. Do you 
 know the place ? 
 
 DAV. King's-Mead-Fields. 
 
 SIB ANTH. You know the way ? 
 
 DAV. Not an inch ; but I'll call the mayor aldermen 
 constables churchwardens and beadles. We can't 
 be too many to part them. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Come along give me your shoulder ! 
 We'll get assistance as we go the lying villain ! Well, 
 I shall be in such a frenzy ! So this was the history of 
 his trinkets 1 I'll bauble him ! [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE IIL 
 
 King's- Mead-Field*. 
 Enter SIR Luortrs O'TRIOGER and ACRES, with pistolt. 
 
 ACBHS. By my valour ! then, Sir Lucius, forty yards 
 is a good distance. Odds levels and aims ! I say it is a 
 good distance. 
 
 SIR Luc. Is it for muskets or small field-pieces ? 
 Upon my conscience, Mr. Acres, you must leave those 
 things to me. Stay now I'll show you. [Measure* 
 pace* along the stage.} There now, that is a very pretty 
 distance a pretty gentleman's distance. 
 
 ACRES. Zounds ! we might as well fight in a sentry- 
 box I I tell you, Sir Lucius, the farther he is off, the 
 cooler I shall take my aim. 
 
 SIR Loc. Faith 1 then, I suppose you would aim at 
 him best of all if he was out of sight ! 
 
 ACRES. No, Sir Lucius ; but I should think forty or 
 cight-nnd-thirty yards
 
 SC. III.] THE RIVALS. 91 
 
 SIB Luc. Pho ! pho ! nonsense ! three or tour feet 
 between the mouths of your pistols is as good as a mile. 
 
 ACRES. Odds bullets, no ! By my valour ! there is no 
 merit in killing him so near. Do, my dear Sir Lucius, 
 let me bring him down at a long shot a long shot, Sir 
 Lucius, if you love me ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Well, the gentleman's friend and I must 
 settle that. But tell me now, Mr. Acres, in case of an 
 accident, is there any little will or commission I could 
 execute for you ? 
 
 ACRES. I am much obliged to you, Sir Lucius but I 
 don't understand 
 
 SIR Luc. Why, you may think there's no being shot 
 at without a little risk and if an unlucky bullet should 
 carry a quietus with it I say it will be no time then to 
 be bothering you about family matters. 
 
 ACRES. A quietus ! 
 
 SIR Luc. For instance, now if that should be the 
 case would you choose to be pickled and sent home? 
 or would it 'be the same to you to lie here in the Abbey? 
 I'm told there is very snug lying in the Abbey . 
 
 ACRES. Pickled ! Snug lying in the Abbey ! Odds 
 tremors ! Sir Lucius, don't talk so 1 
 
 SIR Luc. I suppose, Mr. Acres, you never were en- 
 gaged in an affair of this kind before ? 
 
 ACRES. No, Sir Lucius, never before. 
 
 SIR Luc. Ah ! that's a pity ! there's nothing like 
 being used to a thing. Pray now, how would you 
 receive the gentleman's shot? 
 
 ACRES. Odds files ! I've practised that ! There, Sir 
 Lucius there. [Puts himself in an attitude. ] A side- 
 front, hey ? Odd 1 I'll make myself small enough ! I'll 
 stand edgeways. 
 
 SIR Luc. Now you're quite out for if you stand so 
 when I take, my aim [Levelling at him.
 
 92 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 ACRES. Zounds ! Sir Lucius are you sure it is not 
 cocked ? 
 
 SIB Luc. Never fear. 
 
 ACRES. But but you don't know it may go off of 
 its own head ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Pho ! be easy. Well now, if I hit you in 
 the body, my bullet has a double chance for if it misses 
 a vital part of your right side 'twill be very hard if it 
 don't succeed on the left ! 
 
 ACRES. A vital part ! 
 
 SIR Luc. But there fix yourself so. [Placing Aim.] 
 Let him see the broadside of your full front there. 
 Now a ball or two may pass clean through your body, 
 and never do any harm at all. 
 
 ACRES. Clean through me ! a ball or two clean 
 through me ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Ay may they and it is much the genteelest 
 attitude into the bargain. 
 
 ACRES. Look'ee ! Sir Lucius I'd just as lieve be shot 
 in an awkward posture as a genteel one ; so, by my 
 valour ! I will stand edgeways. 
 
 SIR Luc. {Looking at his watch.] Sure, they don't 
 mean to disappoint us Hah ! no, faith I think I see 
 them coming. 
 
 ACRES. Hey ! what ! coming ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Ay. Who are those yonder getting over the 
 stile? 
 
 ACRES. There are two of them indeed! Well let them 
 come hey, Sir Lucius ! we we we we won't run. 
 
 SIR Luc. Run ! 
 
 ACRES. No I say we won't run, by my valour ! 
 
 SIR Luc. What the devil's the matter with you ? 
 
 ACRES. Nothing nothing my dear friend my dear 
 Sir Lucius but I I I don't feel quite so bold, some- 
 how, as I did.
 
 SC. III.] THE RIVALS. 93 
 
 SIR Luc. Oh, fy ! consider your honour. 
 
 ACRES. Ay true my honour. Do, Sir Lucius, edge 
 in a word or two every now and then about my honour. 
 
 SIR Luc. Well, here they're coming. [Looking. 
 
 ACRES. Sir ; Lucius if I wa'n't with you, I should 
 almost think I was afraid. If my valour should leave 
 me ! Valour will come and go. 
 
 SIR Luc. Then pray keep it fast, while you.have it. 
 
 ACRES. Sir Lucius I doubt it is going yea my 
 valour is certainly going ! it is sneaking off ! I feel 
 it oozing out as it were at the palms of my hands ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Your honour your honour. Here they 
 are. 
 
 ACRES. Oh, mercy ! now that I was safe at Clod 
 Hall ! or could be shot before I was aware ! 
 
 Enter FAULKLAND and CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE. 
 
 SIR Luc. Gentlemen, your most obedient. Hah ! 
 what, Captain Absolute ! So, I suppose, sir, you are 
 come here, just like myself to do a kind office, first 
 for your friend then to proceed to business on your 
 own account. 
 
 ACRES. What, Jack ! my dear Jack ! my dear friend ! 
 
 ABS. Hark'ee, Bob, Beverley's at hand. 
 
 SIR Luc. Well, Mr. Acres I don't blame your 
 saluting the gentleman civilly. [To FAULKLAND.] So, 
 Mr. Beverley, if you'll choose your weapons, the captain 
 and I will measure the ground. 
 
 FAULK. My weapons, sir ! 
 
 ACRES. Odds life ! Sir Lucius, I'm not going to fight 
 Mr. Faulkland ; these are my particular friends. 
 
 SIR Luc. What, sir, did you not come here to fight 
 Mr. Acres ? 
 
 FAULK. Not 1, upon my word, sir.
 
 94 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 SIR Luc. Well now, that's mighty provoking ! But 
 I hope, Mr. Faulkland, as there are three of us come 
 on purpose for the game, you won't be so cantankerous 
 as to spoil the party by sitting out. 
 
 ABS. Oh, pray, Faulkland, fight to oblige Sir Lucius. 
 
 FAUI^K. Nay, if Mr. Acres is so bent on the 
 matter 
 
 ACRES. No, no, Mr. Faulkland ; I'll bear my dis- 
 appointment like ;a Christian. Look'ee, Sir Lucius, 
 there's no occasion at all for me to fight ; and if it is 
 the same to you, I'd as lieve let it alone. 
 
 SIR Luc. Observe me, Mr. Acres I must not be 
 trifled with. You have certainly challenged some- 
 body and you came here to fight him. Now, if that 
 gentleman is willing to represent him I can't see, for 
 my soul, why it isn't just the same thing. 
 
 ACRES. Why no Sir Lucius I tell you, 'tis one 
 Beverley I've challenged a fellow, you see, that dare 
 not show his face ! If he were here, I'd make him give 
 up his pretensions directly. 
 
 ABS. Hold, Bob let me set you right. There is no 
 such man as Beverley in the case. The person who 
 assumed that name is before you ; and as his preten- 
 sions are the same in both characters, he is ready to 
 support them in whatever way you please. 
 
 SIR Luc. Well, this is lucky. Now you have an 
 opportunity 
 
 ACRES. What, quarrel with my dear friend Jack 
 Absolute ? not if he were fifty Beverleys ! Zounds ! 
 Sir Lucius, you would not have me so unnatural. 
 
 SIR Luc. Upon my conscience, Mr. Acres, your valour 
 has oozed away with a vengeance ! 
 
 ACRKS. Not in the least ! Odds backs and abettors ! 
 I'll be your second with all my heart and if you 
 should get a quietus, you may command me entirely.
 
 8( . III.] THE RIVALS. 95 
 
 I'll get you snug lying in the Abbey here ; or pickle 
 you, and send you over to Blunderbuss Hall, or any- 
 thing of the kind, with the greatest pleasure. 
 
 SIR Luc. Pho ! pho ! you are little better than a 
 coward. 
 
 ACRES. Mind, gentlemen, he calls me a coward ; 
 coward was the word, by my valour ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Well, sir ? 
 
 ACRES. Look'ee, Sir Lucius, 'tisn't that I mind the 
 word coward coward may be said in joke. But 
 if you had called me a poltroon, odds daggers and 
 balls 
 
 SIR Luc. Well, sir ? 
 
 ACRES. I should have thought you a very ill-bred 
 man. 
 
 SIR Luc. Pho ! you are beneath my notice. 
 
 ABS. Nay, Sir Lucius, you can't have a better second 
 than my friend Acres. He is a most determined dog 
 called in the country, Fighting Bob. He generally kills 
 a man a week don't you, Bob? 
 
 ACRES. Ay at home ! 
 
 SIR Luc. Well, then, captain, 'tis we must begin so 
 come out, my little counsellor [Draws his sword], and 
 ask the gentleman, whether he will resign the lady, 
 without forcing you to proceed against him ? 
 
 ABS. Come on, then, sir [Drawt] ; since you won't let 
 it be an amicable suit, here's my reply. 
 
 Enter SIR ANTHONY ABSOLUTE, DAVID, 
 MRS. MALAPROP, LTDIA, and JULIA. 
 
 DAV. Knock 'em all down, sweet Sir Anthony ; 
 knock down my master in particular ; and bind his 
 hands over to their good behaviour !
 
 96 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Put up, Jack, put up, or I shall be in a 
 frenzy how came you in a duel, sir ? 
 
 ABS. Faith, 'sir, that gentleman can tell you better 
 than I ; 'twas he called on me, and you know, sir, I 
 serve his majesty. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Here's a pretty fellow ; I catch him going 
 to cut a man's throat, and he tells me he serves his 
 majesty ! Zounds ! sirrah, then how durst you draw 
 the king's sword against one of his subjects? 
 
 ABS. Sir, I tell you ! that gentleman called me out, 
 without explaining his reasons. 
 
 SIB ANTH. 'Gad ! sir, how came you to call my son 
 out, without explaining your reasons? 
 
 SIB Luc. Your son, sir, insulted me in a manner 
 which my honour could not brook. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Zounds ! Jack, how durst you insult the 
 gentleman in a manner which his honour could not 
 brook ? 
 
 MBS. MAL. Come, come, let's have no honour before 
 ladies. Captain Absolute, come here. How could you 
 intimidate us so? Here's Lydia has been terrified to 
 death for you. 
 
 ABS. For fear I should be killed, or escape, ma'am ? 
 
 MBS MAL. Nay, no delusions to the past. Lydia is 
 convinced. Speak, child. 
 
 SIB Luc. With your leave, ma'am, I must put in a 
 word here. I believe I could interpret the young lady's 
 silence. Now mark 
 
 LYD. What is it you mean, sir ? 
 
 SIB Luc. Come, come, Delia, we must be serious now 
 this is no time for trifling. 
 
 LYD. 'Tis true, sir ; and your reproof bids me offer 
 this gentleman my hand, and solicit the return of his 
 affections. 
 
 ABS. Oh ! my little angel, say you so ? Sir Lucius
 
 I.] THE RIVALS. 97 
 
 I perceive there must be some mistake here, with regard 
 to the affront which you affirm I have given you. I can 
 only say, that it could not have been intentional. And 
 as you must be convinced that I should not fear to 
 support a realjinjury you shall now see that I am not 
 ashamed to atone for an inadvertency I ask your 
 pardon. But for this lady, while honoured with her 
 approbation, I will support my claim against any man 
 whatever. 
 
 SIR ANTH. Well said, Jack, and I'll stand by you, 
 my boy. 
 
 ACRES. Mind, I give up all my claim I make no 
 pretensions to anything in the world ; and if I can't 
 get a wife without fighting for her, by my valour ! I'll 
 live a bachelor. 
 
 SIR Luc. Captain, give me your hand : an affront 
 handsomely acknowledged becomes an obligation ; and 
 as for the lady, if she chooses to deny her own hand- 
 writing, here {Takes out letters. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Oh, he will dissolve my mystery ! Sir 
 Lucius, perhaps there's some mistake perhaps I can 
 illuminate 
 
 SIR Luc. Pray, old gentlewoman, don't interfere 
 where you have no business. Miss Languish, are you 
 my Delia, or not ? 
 
 LYD. Indeed, Sir Lucius, I am not. 
 
 [ Walks aside with CAPTAIN ABSOLUTE. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Sir Lucius O'Trigger ungrateful as you 
 are I own the soft impeachment pardon my blushes, 
 I am Delia. 
 
 SIR Luc. You Delia pho ! pho ! be easy. 
 
 MRS. MAL. Why, thou barbarous Vandyke those 
 letters are mine. When you are more sensible of my 
 benignity perhaps I may be brought to encourage 
 your addresses. 
 
 o
 
 98 THE RIVALS. [ACT V. 
 
 SIB Luc. Mrs. Malaprop, I am extremely sensible of 
 your condescension ; and whether you or Lucy have 
 put this trick on me, I am equally beholden to you. 
 And, to show you I am not ungrateful, Captain 
 Absolute, since you have taken that lady from me, 
 I'll give you my Delia into the bargain. 
 
 ABS. I am much obliged to you, Sir Lucius ; but 
 here's my friend, Fighting Bob, unprovided for. 
 
 SIB Luc. Hah ! little Valour here, will you make 
 your fortune ? 
 
 ACRES. Odds wrinkles ! No. But give me your 
 hand, Sir Lucius, forget and forgive ; but if ever j I 
 give you a chance of pickling me again, say Bob Acres 
 is a dunce, that's all. 
 
 SIB ANTH. Come, Mrs. Malaprop, don't be cast down 
 you are in your bloom yet. 
 
 MBS. MAL. O Sir Anthony men are all barbarians. 
 [All retire but JULIA and FAULKLAND. 
 
 JUL. [AsideJ] He seems dejected and unhappy not 
 sullen ; there was some foundation, however, for the 
 tale he told me. O woman ! how true should be your 
 judgment when your resolution is so weak ! 
 
 FAULK. Julia ! how can I sue for what I so little 
 deserve? I dare not presume, yet Hope is the child 
 of Penitence. 
 
 JUL. Oh ! Faulkland, you have not been more faulty 
 in your unkind treatment of me, than I am now in 
 wanting inclination to resent it. As my heart honestly 
 bids me place my weakness to the account of love, I 
 should be ungenerous not to admit the same plea for 
 yours. 
 
 FAULK. Now I shall be blest indeed ! 
 
 SIB ANTH. [Coming forward.] What's going on here ? 
 So you have been quarrelling too, I warrant ! Come, 
 Julia, I never interfered before ; but let me have a
 
 SC. III.] THE RIVALS. 99 
 
 hand in the matter at last. All the faults I have ever 
 seen in my friend Faulkland seemed to proceed from 
 what he calls the delicacy and warmth of his affection 
 for you. There, marry him directly, Julia ; you'll find 
 he'll mend surprisingly ! [The rest come forward. 
 
 SIR Luc. Come, now, I hope there is no dissatisfied 
 person but what is content ; for as I have been dis- 
 appointed myself, it will be very hard if I have not the 
 satisfaction of seeing other people succeed better. 
 
 ACRES. You are right, Sir Lucius. So, Jack, I wish 
 you joy Mr. Faulkland the same. Ladies, come now, 
 to show you I'm neither vexed nor angry, odds tabors 
 and pipes ! I'll order the fiddles in half-an-hour to 
 the New Rooms and I insist on your all meeting me 
 there. 
 
 SIR ANTH. 'Gad ! sir, I like your spirit ; and at night 
 we single lads will drink a health to the young couples, 
 and a husband to Mrs. Malaprop. 
 
 FAULK. Our partners are stolen from us, Jack I 
 hope to be congratulated by each other yours for 
 having checked in time the errors of an ill-directed 
 imagination, which might have betrayed an innocent 
 heart ; and mine for having, by her gentleness and 
 candour, reformed the unhappy temper of one who by 
 it made wretched whom he loved most, and tortured 
 the heart he ought to have adored. 
 
 ABS. Well, Jack, we have both tasted the bitters, as 
 well as the sweets of love ; with this difference only, 
 that you always prepared the bitter cup for yourself, 
 while I 
 
 LYD. Was always obliged to me for it, hey ! Mr. 
 Modesty? But, come, no more of that our happi- 
 ness is now as unalloyed as general. 
 
 JCJL. Then let us study to preserve it so : and while 
 Hope pictures to us a flattering scene of future bliss,
 
 100 THE RIVALS. 
 
 let us deny its pencil those colours which are too bright 
 to be lasting. When hearts deserving happiness would 
 unite their fortunes, Virtue would crown them with an 
 unfading garland of modest hurtless flowers : but ill- 
 judging Passion will force the gaudier rose into the 
 wreath, whose thorn offends them when its leaves are 
 dropped ! [Exeunt omnes. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 SPOKEN BY MRS. BULKLEY. 
 
 LADIES, for you I heard our poet say 
 He'd try to coax some moral from his play : 
 " One moral's plain," cried I, "without more fuss ; 
 Man's social happiness all rests on us : 
 Through all the drama whether damn'd or not 
 Love gilds the scene, and women guide the plot. 
 From every rank obedience is our due 
 D'ye doubt? The world's great stage shall prove it 
 true. 
 
 The cit, well skill'd to shun domestic strife, 
 Will sup abroad ; but first he'll ask his wife : 
 John Trot, his friend, for once will do the same, 
 But then he'll just step home to tell his dame. 
 
 The surly squire at noon resolves to rule, 
 And half the day Zounds ! madam is a fool ! 
 Convinced at night, the vanquish'd victor says, 
 Ah, Kate ! you women have such coaxing ways.
 
 THE RIVALS. 101 
 
 The jolly toper chides each tardy blade, 
 Till reeling Bacchus calls on Love for aid : 
 Then with each toast he sees fair bumpers swim, 
 And kisses Chloe on the sparkling brim ! 
 
 Nay, I have heard that statesmen great and wise- 
 Will sometimes counsel with a lady's eyes ! 
 The servile suitors watch her various face, 
 She smiles preferment, or she frowns disgrace, 
 Curtsies a pension here there nods a place. 
 
 Nor with less awe, in scenes of humbler life, 
 Is view'd the mistress, or is heard the wife. 
 The poorest peasant of the poorest soil, 
 The child of poverty, and heir to toil, 
 Early from radiant Love's impartial light 
 Steals one small spark to cheer this world of night : 
 Dear spark ! that oft through winter's chilling woes 
 Is all the warmth his little cottage knows ! 
 
 The wandering tar, who not for years has press'd 
 The widow'd partner of his day of rest, 
 On the cold deck, far from her arms removed, 
 Still hums the ditty which his Susan loved ; 
 And while around the cadence rude is blown, 
 The boatswain whistles in a softer tone. 
 
 The soldier, fairly proud of wounds and toil, 
 Pants for the triumph of his Nancy's smile ; 
 But ere the battle should he list her cries, 
 The lover trembles and the hero dies ! 
 That heart, by war and honour steel'd to fear, 
 Droops on a sigh, and sickens at a tear ! 
 
 But ye more cautious, ye nice-judging few, 
 Who give to beauty only beauty's due, 
 Though friends to love ye view with deep regret 
 Our conquests marr'd, our triumphs incomplete, 
 Till polish'd wit more lasting charms disclose, 
 And judgment fix the darts which beauty throws !
 
 102 THE RIVALS. 
 
 la female breasts did sense and merit rule, 
 The lover's mind would ask no other school ; 
 Shamed into sense, the scholars of our eyes, 
 Our beaux from gallantry would soon be wise ; 
 Would gladly light, their homage to improve, 
 The lamp of knowledge at the torch of love !" 
 
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 London &f Edinburgh
 
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