.LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 OIFTT OK 
 
IOTSOBADASESEEI; 
 
 OR, 
 
 MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 
 21 (Eomebg in JTiue &cte, 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART. 
 
 AS FIRST PERFORMED AT DEVONSHIRE HOUSE, 
 
 IN THE PRESENCE OF 
 
 HER MAJESTY AND HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS 
 THEEfifflfiEALBERT. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 82 CLIFF STREET. 
 
 1851. 
 
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. K.G. 
 
 (TJNIVEESITY) 
 
 MY LORD DUKE, 
 
 THIS Play is respectfully dedicated to your 
 Grace in token of the earnest gratitude, both 
 of Author and Performers, for the genial and 
 noble sympathy which has befriended their 
 exertions in the cause of their brotherhood. 
 
 The debt that we can but feebly acknowledge, 
 may those who come after us seek to repay ; 
 and may each loftier Cultivator of Art and 
 Letters, whom the Institution established under 
 your auspices may shelter from care and penu- 
 ry, see on its corner-stone your princely name, 
 
VI DEDICATION. 
 
 and perpetuate to distant times the affection- 
 ate homage it commands from ourselves. 
 
 It is this hope that can alone render worthy 
 the tribute which, in my own name as Author, 
 and in the names of my companions the Per- 
 formers, of the Play first represented at Devon- 
 shire House, I now offer to your Grace, with 
 every sentiment that can deepen and endear 
 the respect and admiration 
 
 With which I have the honor to be, 
 
 My Lord Duke, 
 Your Grace's most obedient 
 
 and faithful servant, 
 E. BULWEE LYTTOIST. 
 
 May, 1851. 
 
DEAMATIS PEESON^E. 
 
 THE DUKE OF MIDDLESEX, ) Peers attach- ) MR. FRANK STONE. 
 THE EARL OF LOFTUS, $ ed to the Son ' MR. DUDLEY COSTELLO. 
 
 of James //., commonly called the First 
 
 Pretender. 
 LORD WILMOT, a Young Man at the Head ) 
 
 of the Mode more than a Century ago-, >MR. CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Son to LORD LOFTUS . . . . ) 
 MR. SHADOWLY SOFTHEAD, a Young Gen- ) 
 
 tie man from the City, Friend and > MR. DOUGLAS JERROLD. 
 
 Double to LORD WILMOT . . . > 
 MR. HARDMAN, a Rising Member of Par- i 
 
 liament, and Adherent to Sir Robert > MR. JOHN FORSTER. 
 
 Walpole ...... > 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY THORNSIDE, a Gentleman)*, \jf ir , v r. ru 
 
 of Good Family and Estate . . \ MR ' MARK LEMON - 
 MR. GOODKNOUGH EASY, in Business, ) 
 
 Highly Respectable, and a Friend of\ MR. F. W. TOPHAM. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY ..... > 
 
 LORD LE TRIMMER, ^ Frequenters of C MR - PETKR CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 SIR THOMAS TIMID, ( WilCs Coffee < MR. WESTLAND MARSTON. 
 COLONEL FLINT, ' House. ( MR R H HORNE. 
 
 MR. JACOB TONSON, a Bookseller . . MR. CHARLES KNIGHT. 
 
 SMART, Valet to LORD WILMOT . . MR. WILKIE COLLINS. 
 
 HODGE, Servant to SIR GEOFFREY > M - TENNIFI 
 THORNSIDE ...... j MR. Jo IENNIEL. 
 
 PADDY O'SULLIVAN, Mr. Fallen's Landlord MR. ROBERT BELL. 
 
 Orub street AMK r A T E 
 
 LORD STRONGBOW, SIR JOHN BRUIN, COFFEE-HOUSE LOUNGERS, 
 DRAWERS, NEWSMAN, WATCHMEN, &c., &a 
 
 LDC TlioS^T to . S ' R . GK .JM.S.COMPTON. 
 BARBARA, Daughter to MR. EASY . . Miss ELLEN CHAPLIN. 
 THE SILENT LADY OF DEADMAN'S LANE. 
 
 Date of Play. THE REIGN OF GEORGE I. 
 
 Scene. LONDON. 
 
 Time supposed to be occupied^ From the noon of the first day to the after' 
 noon of the second. 
 
NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM; 
 
 OE, 
 
 MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 LORD WILMOT'S Apartment in St. James's. A 
 Breakfast-table laid out. 
 
 SMART (as he arranges the breakfast-table). 
 JUST on the stroke of twelve, and my Lord not 
 risen. He never wants sleep more than once a week, 
 but when he does sleep, he sleeps as he does every 
 thing else better than any man in the three king- 
 doms. Well, he is a merry fine gentleman, to be 
 sure ; so kind-hearted and generous ; but, lauk, if one 
 judged by his words, and not by his actions, one 
 would say he was the wickedest dog that Mum ! 
 
 Enter LORD WILMOT, in his dressing-gown, from 
 side-door. 
 
 WILMOT (stretching himself). 
 "And sleepless lovers just at twelve awake!" 
 That little fellow Pope hits us off to a hair. Smart, 
 my chocolate. Any duels to-day ? I forget 
 
10 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 SMART (looking at his tablets). 
 No, my Lord, no duels. Only three drums, four 
 routs, five dinners, and six suppers. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Is that all ? Dull day before me. Not worth get- 
 ting up for. Smart, you have now lived with me six 
 months ; pray, what do you think of me 2 
 
 Oh, my Lord, I think there's not another gentle- 
 man in the world like your Lordship 
 
 WILMOT (interrupting). 
 
 Take care ! I discharged your predecessor for flat- 
 tery ! Go on, and let me see how you get out of that 
 dangerous exordium. 
 
 SMART. 
 
 Yes, my Lord ! not a gentleman like you for speak- 
 ing ill of yourself and doing good to another. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 This knave has been bribed by my enemies to ruin 
 my character. Doing good to another, you scandal- 
 ous libeler ! Am I not renowned from Soho to the 
 Mall as a headlong immovable reckless phlegm ati- 
 cal true King of the Mode frigid as Diogenes the 
 Cynic and fiery as Timour the Tartar ? Learn how 
 the wits of our day represent, on the stage, a fine 
 gentleman ; and beware how you disparage your 
 master. [Seats himself. 
 
 SMART (aside). 
 
 What hard words he does give himself ! If hard 
 words could break bones, I would not be in his skin 
 for something. 
 
80. I.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 11 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 What is this note ? The hand is unknown. Pshaw ! 
 the hand of a woman ! It must wait with the rest. 
 Ladies' letters don't cool man's chocolate does. 
 (Eating.) The Frenchman implies that a good diges- 
 tion is the sign of a bad heart. What a heart I must 
 have ! Could digest an anvil ! 
 
 SMART. 
 
 I beg pardon, my Lord ; but that note was left by 
 the lady herself. 
 
 WILMOT (indifferently). 
 
 Oh ! young and pretty, of course ! Heart not 
 moved in the least ! Petrified ! 
 
 SMART. 
 
 She wore the mask ladies sometimes wear, when 
 they go out alone ; but I don't think she was very 
 young. She seemed in very great distress of mind, 
 for when she gave me the letter, her hand trembled 
 so, that 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Distress, you blockhead ; why the duse did not you 
 say that before ? 
 
 (Reads.) " I pray you, my Lord, to forgive this 
 intrusion noticed your calling at the house of Sir 
 Geoffrey Thornside [Ha!] seen you walking in the 
 garden with Mistress Lucy, his daughter [Hum !] 
 heard you had rescued that young lady from danger 
 [What gossip !] many stories have reached me at- 
 testing the honor of your character and the kindness 
 of your heart [Stuff; where's my purse ?] venture 
 with reluctance to entreat you would honor me with a 
 visit ; you could render an inestimable service per- 
 form a most benevolent action [Wonder if there's 
 
12 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 eno' in the purse !] -for reasons I can not explain, 
 would not wish your Lordship to be seen entering my 
 house ; therefore, if you grant my request, any hour 
 in the evening, after dusk beg your Lordship not to 
 mention the contents of this letter to Sir Geoffrey 
 his daughter to any one ; strictly confidential -for 
 same reasons, can not give you my name must be con- 
 tent with subjoining my address, Crown and Port- 
 cullis* Deadmarts Lane " 
 
 Deadman's Lane ! It must be a church-yard, and 
 the writer a ghost! Smart, are you too lively to 
 know a place on this earth or below it called Dead- 
 man's Lane ? 
 
 SMART. 
 
 Yes, my Lord ; it is at the back of Sir Geoffrey 
 Thornside's. (Knock.) Is your Lordship at home ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Yes ; see who it is. (Exit SMART.) Very strange 
 letter ! in meaning mysterious in direction funereal. 
 I will call ; were it only for the sweet name of Lucy 
 that I kiss here in effigy ! Oh, that divine, innocent, 
 charming Lucy ! 
 
 Enter SMART. 
 
 SMART. 
 Mr. Shadowly Softhead. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 ' Softhead, my imitator, my double who cuts his 
 cloth (his father's a clothier) according to the coat of 
 a Lord ; and sets his puny constitution against my 
 frame of a Hercules. The best little man in the 
 
 * Numbers were not then assigned to houses, and some, 
 not known by the names of their proprietors, retained their 
 ancient signs. 
 
sc. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 13 
 
 world ! ambitious to be thought good for nothing ; 
 upset by a wine-glass, and frightened out of his 
 
 wits by a petticoat! (Enter SOFTHEAD.) Ha, 
 
 Softhead ! my Py lades my second self! Animce 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Enemy ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Dimidium mece. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Dimi! that's the oath last in fashion, I warrant. 
 ( With a swagger and a slap on the back.) Dimidum 
 mece, how d'ye do 1 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 But what a fellow you are ! Slunk off last night 
 at the third bottle. I thought you were a stanch 
 Bacchanalian. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 So I am ! stanch to the bone. But I say, don't 
 you sometimes feel rather qualmy the next morning ? 
 queerish and headachy a sort of uppish, downish, 
 all-overish Bacchanalian sensation ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 I ? never ! 0, if you are capable of such vulgar in- 
 firmities after a miserable third bottle or so, never 
 think of living with us : we Lords of Misrule are all 
 made of iron, like the man in Spenser's Fairy Queen. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 And so am I iron ! Nothing ever ails me ! I 
 only ask from curiosity I could have sate you all out ! 
 
 but 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Ah, I take it, an assignation ! Softhead, you know 
 you're a monster. 
 
14 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 A monster ! Are you a monster ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Ay, horrible. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Dimidum mece, and so am I ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 As we grow seasoned, 'tis astonishing how much 
 we require. Wine has now no effect upon me ! I think 
 of taking to aqua-fortis. We'll have a bout of it some 
 day. Aqua-fortis ! Vigorous fellows, like Sir John 
 Bruin, Colonel Flint, Lord Strongbow, me, and your- 
 self, could carry off a gallon apiece ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Charming ! Excellent ! Aqua-fortis, I'm a dead 
 man! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 As for women, they are duller than wine. A mere 
 harmless gallantry has no longer a charm for me. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Nor for me either ! (Aside.) Never had. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Nothing should excite us true men of pleasure but 
 some colossal atrocity, to bring our necks within an 
 inch of the gallows ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 He's a perfect demon ! Alas, I shall never come 
 up to his mark ! 
 
 Enter SMART. 
 
 SMART. 
 
 Mr. Hardman, my Lord. 
 
so. L] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 15 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Hush ! Must not shock Mr. Hardman, the most 
 friendly obliging man, and so clever will be a minister 
 some day. But not one of our set. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Oh, I've often heard of Mr. Hardman. We visit at 
 the same house ; the rising member of parliament ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Rising, yes ! Pray, what did he rise from ? Do 
 you know his origin ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 No. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 He's like the Sibyl of Cuma. Knows all about 
 every one ; and nobody knows aught about him. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Is that like a Sibyl of Cuma ? La ! there are plenty 
 such Sibyls in London ! 
 
 Enter HARDMAN. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 And how fares my dear Lord ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Bravely and you ? Ah ! you men who live for 
 others have a hard life of it. Let me present to you 
 my friend, Mr. Shadowly Softhead. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 The son of the great clothier who has such weight 
 in the Guild ? I have heard of you from Mr. Easy 
 
16 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 and others, though never so fortunate as to meet you 
 before, Mr. Softhead. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Shadowly Softhead : my grandmother was one of 
 the Shadowlys a genteel family that move about 
 Court. She married a Softhead, 
 
 WILMOT. 
 A race much esteemed in the city. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Esteemed in the city ! The Softheads ? No race 
 has more votes for it ! Your father's the head of that 
 House ; a most valuable man ! Ah, my Lord ! these 
 are critical times : we can't disguise from ourselves that 
 the Jacobites are daring and numerous. Our great 
 Prime Minister needs all the support he can get. 
 You've no notion, Lord Wilmot, how Sir Robert Wai- 
 pole esteems you. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Indeed I have : just like myself! One always 
 esteems a thing before one has bought it. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 A sorry joke, Mr. Softhead IVe known him more 
 witty. A new picture, my Lord ? I'm no very great 
 judge but it seems to me quite a master-piece. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 IVe a passion for art. Sold off my stud to buy 
 that picture. (Aside. And please my poor father.) 
 'Tis a Murillo. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 A Murillo! you know that Walpole, too, has a 
 passion for pictures. In despair at this moment that 
 
sc. ij OK, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 17 
 
 he can't find a Murillo to hang up in his gallery. If 
 ever you want to corrupt the Prime Minister's virtue, 
 you have only to say, " I have got a Murillo." 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Well, if, instead of the pictures, he'll just hang up 
 the men he has bought, you may tell him he shall 
 have my Murillo for nothing ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Bought ! now really, my Lord, this is so vulgar a 
 scandal against Sir Robert. Let me assure your Lord- 
 ship 
 
 WILMOT (earnestly). 
 
 Nay, it needs not, dear Hard man ; the best proof 
 of a Minister's merits is in the zeal and attachment of 
 men like yourself. 
 
 HARDMAN (affected). 
 I thank you, my Lord. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 But prithee, dear Hardman, where left you your 
 cloak? 
 
 HA RDM AN. 
 
 Cloak ? Outside the door. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Then, outside with the cloak, leave my Lord and 
 your Lordship. Plague on these titles among friends. 
 My Lord with the world ; Wilmot with my comrades ; 
 Frederick at my father's home ; and plain Fred in my 
 bachelor's lodgings. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 And 1 live to call a man Fred, who's called my 
 
18 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 Lord by the world ! Oh, sir, you don't know my 
 friend Fred as we do. Does he, Fred? 
 
 [Hanging on WILMOT. 
 
 WILMOT (looking down on him). 
 Hum. I'm not sure that two diminutives go well 
 together. But as for titles and all such tedious cere- 
 monials, they die in the air that hallows these rooms 
 to the freedom of youth, and the equality of friend- 
 ship. And if the Duke of Middlesex himself com- 
 monly styled "the Proud Duke" -who said to "his 
 Duchess, when she astonished his dignity one day 
 with a kiss, " Madam, my first wife was a Percy, and 
 she never took such a liberty ; "* 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Ha ! ha I well, if " the Proud Duke" 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Could deign to come here, we would say, " How 
 d'ye do, my dear Middlesex !" 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 So we would, Fred ! Middlesex. Shouldn't you 
 like to know a Duke, Mr. Hardman ? 
 
 * This well-known anecdote of the Proud Duke of Som- 
 erset, and some other recorded traits of the same eminent 
 personage, have been freely applied to the character, in- 
 tended to illustrate the humor of pride, in the comedy. 
 None of our English memoirs afford, however, instances of 
 that infirmity so extravagant as are to be found in the French. 
 Tallamant has an anecdote of the celebrated Duchesse de 
 Longueville, which enlivens the burlesque by a bull that no 
 Irish imagination ever surpassed. A surgeon having prob- 
 ably saved her life by bleeding her too suddenly and without 
 sufficient ceremonial, the Duchesse said, on recovering her- 
 self, that " he was an insolent fellow to have bled her in her 
 presence" 
 
so. L] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 19 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I have known one or two in opposition ; and had 
 rather too much of 'em. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Too much of a Duke ! La ! I could never have 
 eno' of a Duke ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You may live to think otherwise. But, my dear 
 Wilmot, you will soon have occasion for that well-bred 
 familiarity with which you threaten his Grace ; for, as 
 I left Lockett's, I saw the Duke stepping into his car- 
 riage and heard his lackeys order the coachman to 
 drive to your lodgings, stopping first at Bygrave's 
 the gunsmith (aside) who is suspected of selling 
 arms to the malcontents. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Ha ! The proud Duke ! 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 And that's one reason why I came hither. I would 
 
 know what mischief that Jacobite Duke is devising 
 
 [Knock at the door. 
 WILMOT. 
 
 No, it will never do ! Smart, I say not at home ! 
 (Running to the door) Confound it ! too late the 
 Duke's in the hall ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 But you'll not be so absurd as to do what you 
 boasted ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Not ! If a man with notions of honor not larger 
 than would cover the point of a pin were to boast that 
 he would put the Monument into his pocket why he 
 
20 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 must pocket the Monument, or throw himself from the 
 top of it. 
 
 SMART. 
 
 His Grace the Duke of Middlesex. 
 
 Enter DUKE. 
 
 DUKE. 
 My Lord Wilmot, your most obedient servant. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Now then, courage ! How d'ye do, my dear Mid- 
 dlesex ? 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 " How d'ye do ?" " Middlesex !" Gracious heaven ! 
 what will this age come to ? 
 
 HARDMAN to SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Well, it may be the fashion, yet I could hardly 
 advise you to adopt it. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 But if Fred 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Oh ! certainly Fred is an excellent model 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Yet, there's something very awful in a live Duke ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Tut ! a mere mortal like ourselves, after all. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 D'ye really think so ? upon your honor ? 
 
so. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 21 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Sir, I am sure of it, upon my honor, a mortal ! 
 
 DUKE (turning stiffly round, and half rising from 
 
 his chair in majestic condescension. 
 Your Lordship's friends ? A good-day to you, gen- 
 tlemen ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 And a good-day to yourself. My Lord Du I 
 
 mean, my dear boy ! Middlesex, how d'ye do 1 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Mid ! Boy ! sex ! dear ! my head is confused. 
 I must be in a dream, certainly a hideous dream. 
 And that small man is the nightmare ! He is coming 
 this way ! Powers above ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 He looks rather puzzled. Taking snuff? Fred 
 making signs ah, to put him up to it. I'll do so in 
 Fred's own easy, elegant way ! You see, as Fred 
 says, ceremonials and titles die in the youth of equality 
 and the friendship of freedom ! No, that comes after- 
 wards ! Prithee, dear Middlesex, where did you leave 
 your cloak ? 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Middlesex again! coupled, too, with such incon- 
 gruous expressions ; equality ! freedom ! My Lord 
 Wilmot, permit me to request of your Lordship to 
 order your people to convey to a distance, remote 
 from my person, that small man. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Small man ! 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 . I enjoy this. 
 
22 XOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; IACT j. 
 
 WILMOT tO HARDMAN. 
 
 Make him apologize to the Duke, then hurry him 
 off into the next room. Allow me to explain to your 
 Grace. 
 
 SOFTHEAD to HARDMAN. 
 
 But Fred himself 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Fred himself is apologizing. Mark how he bows 
 and cringes,- bow and cringe, too. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 But what shall I say ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Any thing most civil and servile. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I I my Lord Duke, I really most humbly en- 
 treat your Grace's pardon, I 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Small man, your pardon is granted, for your exist- 
 ence is effaced. So far as my recognition is necessary 
 to your sense of being, consider yourself henceforth 
 annihilated ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I humbly thank your Grace ! Annihilated ? what's 
 that? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Duke's English for excused. (SOFTHEAD wants to 
 get lack to the DUKE.) What ! have not you had 
 enough of the Duke ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 No, now we've made it up. I never bear malice. 
 
sc. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 23 
 
 I should like to know more of him ; one can't get at 
 a Duke every day. If he did call me " small man," 
 he is a Duke, and such a remarkably fine one ! 
 
 HARDMAN (drawing him away). 
 
 You deserve to be haunted by him ! No no ! 
 Come into the next room and talk of your father. He 
 carries a great many votes, and Sir Robert shall deal 
 with him for cloth and for any other commodity he 
 may desire to vend to the Premier. [Exeunt through 
 side-door. SOFTHEAD very reluctant to leave the DUKE. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 There's something portentous in that small man's 
 audacity. Quite an aberration of Nature ! Such 
 things do happen in critical eras of the world, like the 
 present.^Fie, my Lord, how can you associate with 
 such a very small man ! But we are alone now, 
 we two gentlemen. Your father is my friend, and his 
 son must have courage and honor. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Faith, I had the courage to say I would call your 
 Grace " Middlesex," and the honor to keep my word. 
 So I've given good proof that I've courage and honor 
 enough for any thing ! 
 
 DUKE (a fee tiona tely) . 
 
 You're a wild boy. You have levities and follies. 
 But alas ! even rank does not exempt its possessor 
 from the faults of humanity. Very strange ! My 
 own dead brother (with a look of disgust). 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Your brother, Lord Henry de Mowbray ? My dear 
 Duke, pray forgive me ; but I hope there's no truth 
 in what Tonson, the bookseller, told me at Will's 
 
24 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 that your brother had left behind, certain Confessions 
 or Memoirs, which are all that might be apprehended 
 from a man of a temper so cynical, and whose success 
 in the gay world was so terrible. (Aside. Deter- 
 mined seducer and implacable cut-throat !) 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Ha ! then those Memoirs exist ! My brother kept 
 his profligate threat. I shall be ridiculed, lampooned. 
 I, the head of the Mowbrays ! Powers above, is no- 
 thing on earth, then, left sacred ! My Lord, I thank 
 you sincerely. Can } 7 ou learn in whose hands is 
 this scandalous record ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 I will try. And I hope some honest man has got 
 hold of it, for Tonson told me he could not yet in- 
 duce him to sell it. You would wish it suppressed ? 
 
 DUKE. 
 Suppressed ! In the bottomless pit ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 And would buy it yourself ? 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Myself! No. I would mortgage the Castle of 
 Mowbray to save my name from the jests of a ribald, 
 that ribald, my kinsman ! But to buy, myself, what 
 
 was meant to expose me , men would say the 
 
 Duke of Middlesex feared 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Leave it to me. I know Lord Henry bore you a 
 grudge for renouncing his connection, on account of his 
 faults of humanity ! His wit might not spare you ; 
 
so. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 25 
 
 nor even what is more sacred, the sex on which his 
 life was one war. I remember an anecdote how he 
 fought with a husband, some poor devil named Mor- 
 land, for a boast in a tavern, which Oh, but we'll not 
 speak of that. We must get the Memoir. We 
 gentlemen have all common cause here. Woman's 
 name and man's hearth. 
 
 DUKE (taking his hand). 
 
 Worthy son of your father. You deserve, indeed, 
 the trust that I come to confide to you. Drop this 
 shameful digression. I have need of all my composure 
 you, of all your attention. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 What's coming, I wonder. 
 
 DUKE (taking snuff). 
 
 There is a Hanoverian gentleman of very good 
 family, in his own country, but a perfect stranger to 
 me George Guelph. Certain persons who call them- 
 selves the People but who, strange to say, did not do 
 me the honor to ask my opinion have placed this 
 gentleman on the throne of our lawful sovereign, 
 James the Third. 
 
 TVILMOT. 
 
 Hush, Duke, hush ! This confidence is really so 
 dangerous ! 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Dangerous, what one man of honor confides to an- 
 other ! Your interruption is unseemly. To proceed : 
 his Majesty, King James, having been deceived by 
 vague promises in the Expedition of 'Fifteen, has very 
 properly refused to imperil his rights again, unless 
 upon the positive pledge of a sufficient number of per- 
 sons of influence, to risk life and all in his service. 
 
26 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 Myself and some others, not wholly unknown to you, 
 propose to join in a pledge which our King with such 
 reason exacts. Your assistance, my Lord, would be 
 valuable, for you are the idol of the young. Doubts 
 were entertained of your loyalty. I have come to dispel 
 them a word will suffice. If we succeed, you restore 
 the son of a Stuart; if we fail, you will go to the 
 scaffold by the side of John Duke of Middlesex ! Can 
 you hesitate ; or, is silence assent ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Assent to surrender my country to the sword and 
 the flames of civil war for a cause that is hopeless ! 
 
 Hopeless ! But I can not stoop to argue 'tis eno' 
 for a man like me to invite. Does your Lordship re- 
 fuse my invitation ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 My dear Duke, forgive me that I dismiss with a 
 jest a subject so fatal, if gravely entertained. I have 
 so many other engagements at present that, just to rec- 
 ollect them, I must keep my head on my shoulders. 
 Accept my humblest excuses. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Accept mine for mistaking the son of Lord Loftus. 
 I have the honor to wish your Lordship good-day. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Lord Loftus again ! Stay. Your Grace spoke of 
 persons not wholly unknown to me. I entreat you to 
 explain. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 My Lord, I have trusted you with my own life ; but 
 to compromise by a word the life of another, permit 
 
BC. I.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 27 
 
 me once more to repeat to your Lordship that I am 
 John Duke of Middlesex. [Exit. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Go thy ways for the most prejudiced piece of ab- 
 surdity and bombast, valor and honor, that ever shook 
 a plot from the curls of a periwig, or drew a court 
 sword against the march of a nation. But can he 
 allude to my father ? Nay, scarcely ; my father would 
 surely have hinted to me if still, Fm uneasy. How 
 shall I find out ? Ha ! Hardman. Hardman, I say ! 
 Here's a man who finds every thing out. 
 
 Enter HARDMAN and SOFTHEAD. 
 Softhead, continue annihilated for the next five minutes 
 or so. These books will help to the cessation of your 
 existence mental and bodily. Mr. Locke, on the 
 Understanding, will show that you have not an 
 innate idea; and the Essay of Bishop Berkely will 
 prove you have not an atom of matter. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 But 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 No buts ! they're the fashion. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Oh, if they're the fashion 
 
 [Seats himself at the further end of the room ; com- 
 mences vigorously with Berkely and Locke, first 
 one and then the other, and after convincing him- 
 self that they are above his comprehension, grad- 
 ually subsides from despair into dozing. 
 
 WILMOT to HARDMAN. 
 
 My dear Hardman, you are the only one of my 
 
28 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 friends, whom, in spite of your politics, my high Tory 
 father condescends to approve of. 
 
 HARDMAN (smiling). 
 Why, there are many sides to a character ; 
 
 WILMOT. 
 A favorite saying of mine, too : 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 And if I have a talent it is that of finding the right 
 one. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Ah ! talk to my poor father of me ; and you are on 
 his blind side in a moment. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 In truth, he has shown that I have his esteem. 
 First, by asking me to lecture his son ; Secondly, by 
 forgiving the ill-success of the lectures. 
 
 Why, look you, this life ! it is such a sunny, glorious 
 thing ! It does so leap and sparkle in my veins that 
 I can not walk the thoroughfares of quiet men with 
 their sober footstep. Yet, dear as existence, thus joy- 
 ous, is, I would fling it from me as lightly as 1 toss 
 this glove, to save that sober, preaching father of 
 mine from a single peril ! 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 I could almost love this man, if he would let me. 
 Why do you so often belie yourself, by seeming worse 
 than you are ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Why, don't you think that rogues who pretend to 
 
sc. ij OB, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 29 
 
 be honest, have had their day long eno' ? and if we 
 honest folks set up a counter-hypocrisy, and pretend 
 to be rogues, 'gad, we may drive the other fellows out 
 of the fashion ! But to come back to my father, 
 every one knows that his family were stout cavaliers, 
 attached to the Stuarts. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 (Aside. Ah ! I guess why the Jacobite Duke has 
 been here. I must look up David Fallen ; he is in 
 all the schemes for the Stuarts.) Well and 
 
 And, as you said very justly, the Jacobites are 
 daring and numerous ; and, in short, I should just 
 like to know that my father views things with the eyes 
 of our more wise generation. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Why not ask him yourself? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Alas ! I'm in disgrace ; he even begs me not to 
 come to his house. You see he wants me to marry. 
 Just like fathers ! Ever since Agamemnon set them 
 the bad example of sacrificing Iphigenia for a favor- 
 able breeze, they never think they've a chance of 
 smooth sailing till they've bound us tight to the horns 
 of the altar ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 But your father bade me tell you, he would leave 
 your choice to yourself ; would marriage then seem 
 so dreadful a sacrifice ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Sacrifice! Leave my choice to myself? My dear 
 
30 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 Father! (Rings the hand-bell.) Smart! (Enter 
 SMART.) Order my coach. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 This impatience looks very like love. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Pooh ! what do you know about love ? you, who 
 love only ambition ! Solemn old jilt, with whom one's 
 never safe from a rival. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Yes ; always safe from a rival both in love and 
 ambition, if one will watch to detect, and then scheme 
 to destroy him. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Destroy ruthless exterminator ! May we never 
 be rivals ! Pray keep to ambition. 
 
 [Retires to complete his dress. 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 But ambition lures me to love. This fair Lucy 
 Thornside, as rich as she's fair ! Woe indeed to the 
 man who shall be my rival with her. I will call there 
 to-day. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Then, you'll see rny father, and sound him ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I will do so. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 You are the best friend I have. If ever I can 
 serve you in return 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Tut ; in serving my friends, 'tis myself that I serve. 
 
 [Exit. 
 
so. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 31 
 
 WILMOT (after a moment' 1 s thought). 
 Pooh ! there can be no danger. IVe been hearing 
 of plots ever since I was born, but nothing ever comes 
 of them ; and if I learn from Hardman that my 
 father meditates the innocent amusement of blowing 
 up the country I'll turn steady myself and shame 
 him out of such pranks ! Now to Lucy. Ha ! Soft- 
 head. 
 
 SOFTHEAD (waking Up). 
 
 Heh! 
 
 WILMOT (aside). 
 
 I must put this suspicious Sir Geoffrey on a wrong 
 scent. If Softhead were to make love to the girl 
 violently desperately. 
 
 SOFTHEAD (yawning). 
 
 I would give the world to be tucked up in bed 
 now ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 By Pluto and Hecate the man's actually yawning ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Is there any harm in that ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 IVe a project an intrigue be all life and all fire ! 
 Why, you tremble 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 With excitement. Proceed ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 There's a certain snarling suspicious Sir Geoffrey 
 Thornside, with a beautiful daughter, to whom he is 
 a sort of a one-sided bear of a father all growl and 
 no hug. 
 
32 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT i. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I know him ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 You. How? 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Why, his most intimate friend is Mr. Goodenougli 
 Easy. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Lucy presented me to a Mistress Barbara Easy. 
 Pretty girl ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 You are not courting her ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Not at present. Are you 1 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Why, my father wants me to marry her. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 They are all alike these fathers ! That vile Aga- 
 memnon ! You refused ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD 
 
 No. I did not. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Had she that impertinence ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 No ; but her father had. He wished for it once ; 
 but since I've become a man d-la-mode, and made a 
 sensation at St. James's, he says that his daughter 
 shall be courted no more by such a fine gentleman. 
 Oh! he's low, Mr. Easy; very good-humored and 
 hearty, but respectable, sober, and square-toed ; de- 
 cidedly low ! City bred 1 So I can't go much to his 
 house ; but I see Barbara sometimes at Sir Geoffrey's, 
 
so. i.] OB, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 38 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Excellent ! Listen : I am bent upon adding Lucy 
 Thornside to the list of my conquests. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 But 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 But how did I know her ? I'll tell you. Between 
 Hyde Park and Mayfair, there lie certain savage re- 
 cesses, which in some distant age may be brought into 
 fashion, but which now are frequented occasionally 
 by snipes and habitually by footpads. About a week 
 since, I chanced to be passing those desolate wilds 
 when I heard female cries, ran to the spot, found 
 two ruffians had stopped a sedan and dragged forth a 
 young lady. Your stout heart conjectures the rest : 
 a blow to the one and a kick to the other, and I 
 bear off the prettiest trembler that ever leant on the 
 arm of knight-errant, escorted her home, called 
 thrice since that fortunate hour, and my angel's name, 
 among mortals, is Lucy Thornside. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 But I don't as yet see how I 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 You are so hot and impatient ! Let me speak : her 
 churl of a father has already given me to understand 
 that he hates a lord 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Hates a lord ! Can such men be ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 And despises a man d-la-mode. 
 
34 KOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT I. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I knew he was eccentric, but this is downright in- 
 sanity. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Brief. I see very well that he'll soon shut his doors 
 in my face, unless I make him believe that it is not 
 his daughter who attracts me to his house ; so I tell 
 you what we will do ; You shall make love to Lucy 
 violent love, you rogue. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 But Sir Geoffrey knows I'm in love with the other. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 That's over. Father refused you transfer of affec- 
 tion ; natural pique and human inconstancy. And, 
 in return, to oblige you, I'll make love just as violent 
 to Mistress Barbara Easy. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Stop, stop ; I don't see the necessity of that. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Pooh ! nothing more clear. Having thus duped 
 the two lookers-on, we shall have ample opportunity 
 to change partners, and hands across, then down the 
 middle and up again. {Enter SMART. 
 
 SMART. 
 Your coach waits, my Lord. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Come along. Fie ! that's not the way to conduct a 
 cane. Has not Mr. Pope, our great poet of fashion, 
 given you the nicest instructions in that art ? 
 
sc. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 35 
 
 " Sir Plume, of amber snuft'-box justly vain, 
 And the nice conduct of a clouded cane." 
 
 The cane does not conduct you ; you conduct the 
 cane. Thus, with a debonnair swing. Now, t'other 
 hand on your haunch; easy, degage impudently 
 graceful ; with the air of a gentleman, and the heart 
 of a monster ! Allans ! Vive la joie. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Vive la jaw, indeed. I feel as if I were going to 
 be hanged. Allons ! Vive la jaw ! [Exeunt. 
 
 END OF ACT I. 
 
36 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM; [ACT 11. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 Library in the House of SIR GEOFFREY THORNSIDE. At the 
 back a large Window opening nearly to the ground. Side- 
 door to an adjoining room. Style of decoration, that intro- 
 duced from the Dutch in the reign of William III. (old- 
 fashioned, therefore, at the date assigned to the Play) 
 rich and heavy ; oak panels, partly gilt; high-backed 
 chairs, <&c. 
 
 Enter SIR GEOFFREY and HODGE. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 BUT, I say, the dog did howl last night, and it is a 
 most suspicious circumstance. 
 
 HODGE. 
 
 Fegs, my dear Measter, if you'se think that these 
 Lunnon thieves have found out that your honor's rents 
 were paid last woik, mayhap I'd best sleep here in the 
 loibery. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY (aside). 
 
 How does he know I keep my moneys here 1 
 
 HODGE. 
 
 Zooks ! I'se the old blunderbuss, and that will boite 
 better than any dog, I'se warrant ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 (Aside. I begin to suspect him. For ten years 
 
so, i.] OR, MAKY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 37 
 
 have I nursed that viper at my hearth, and now he 
 wants to sleep in my library, with a loaded blunder- 
 buss, in case I should come in and detect him. I see 
 murder in his very face. How blind I've been !) 
 Hodge, you are very good very ; come closer. 
 (Aside. 'What a felon step he has!) But I don't 
 keep my rents here, they're all gone to the banker's. 
 
 HODGE. 
 
 Mayhap I'd best go and lock up the pleate ; or 
 will you send that to the banker's ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 (Aside. I wonder if he has got an accomplice at 
 the banker's ! it looks uncommonly like it.) No, I'll 
 not send the plate to the banker's, I'll consider. 
 You've not detected the miscreant who has been 
 flinging flowers into the library the last four days ? 
 
 HODGE. 
 
 Noa, Sir Geoffrey ; I'se got 'em all safe in the coal- 
 hole ! but there beant any gunpowder in 'em. What 
 your honor took for the head of an adder was a 
 sweet-pea ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 (Aside. Ugh ! just like servants ! If they saw 
 their master in the folds of a boa constrictor, they'd 
 tell him it was a climbing honeysuckle.) Well, and 
 of course you've not observed any one watching your 
 master, when he walks in his garden, from the window 
 of that ugly old house in Deadman's Lane ? 
 
 HODGE. 
 
 With the sign of the Crown and Poor-Culley ! 
 Why, it maun be very leately. 'Tint a week ago sin' 
 it war empty. 
 
88 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT n. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 (Aside. How he evades the question ! -just as 
 they do at the Old Bailey.) Get along with you, and 
 feed the house-dog he's honest ! 
 
 HODGE. 
 Yes, your honor. [Exit. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 How eagerly he said " Yes" very suspicious. 
 Perhaps he wants to poison the dog not a doubt of 
 it. Hodge ! Hodge ! (Enter HODGE.) Don't feed 
 the dog ; I'll feed him myself. 
 
 HODGE. 
 Yes, your honor. [Exit. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I'm a very unhappy man, very ! Never did harm 
 to any one done good to many. And ever since I 
 was a babe in the cradle, all the world have been con- 
 spiring and plotting against me. It certainly is an 
 exceedingly wicked world ; and what its attraction can 
 be to the other worlds, that they should have kept it 
 spinning through space for six thousand years, I can't 
 possibly conceive unless they are as bad as itself; I 
 should not wonder. That new theory of attraction is 
 a very suspicious circumstance against the planets 
 there's a gang of 'em ! ( A bunch of flowers is thrown 
 in at the window.) Heaven defend me ! There it is 
 again ! This is the fifth bunch of flowers that's been 
 thrown at me through the window what can it pos- 
 sibly mean ? the most alarming circumstance ! (Cau- 
 tiously poking at the flowers ivith his sword.) 
 
 MR. GOODENOUGH EASY (without). 
 
 Yes, Barbara, go and find Mistress Lucy. Never 
 
BO. L] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 39 
 
 mind announcing me, Hodge, I'm at Lome here. 
 (Entering) How d'ye do, my hearty ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFRET. 
 
 Ugh ! hearty, indeed ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Why, what's the matter ? what are you poking at 
 those flowers for ; is there a snake in them ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Worse than that, I suspect ! Hem ! Goodenough 
 Easy, I believe I may trust you 
 
 EASY. 
 You trusted me once with five thousand pounds. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Dear, dear, I forgot that. But you paid me back, 
 Easy? 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Of course ; but the loan saved my credit, and made 
 my fortune ; so the favor's the same. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! Don't say that ; favors and perfidy go to- 
 gether I a truth I learned early in life. What favors 
 I heaped on my foster-brother ! And did he not con- 
 spire with my cousin to set my own father against me ; 
 and trick me out of my heritage ? 
 
 EASY. 
 
 But you've heaped favors as great on the son of that 
 scamp of a foster-brother ; and he 
 
40 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT TI. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ay ! but he don't know of them. And then there 
 was my that girl's mother 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Ah ! that was an affliction which might well turn a 
 man pre-inclined to suspicion, into a thorough self- 
 tormentor for the rest of his life. But she loved you 
 dearly once, old friend ; and were she yet alive, and 
 could be proved guiltless after all 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Guiltless! Sir? 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Well well ! we agreed never to talk upon that 
 subject. Come, come, what of the nosegay ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Yes, yes, the nosegay ! Hark ! I suspect some 
 design on my life. The dog howled last night. When 
 I walk in the garden, somebody or something (can't 
 see what it is) seems at the watch in a window in 
 Deadman's Lane pleasant name for a street at the 
 back of one's premises ! And what looks blacker than 
 all, for five days running, has been thrown in at me, 
 yonder, surreptitiously and anonymously, what you 
 call a nosegay ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! you lucky dog ! you are still not bad- 
 looking ! Depend on it, the flowers come from a 
 woman. 
 
 SIR GEOFFRET. 
 
 A woman ! my worst fears are confirmed ! In the 
 small city of Placentia, in one year, there were no less 
 than seven hundred cases of slow poisoning, and all by 
 
sc. T.J OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 41 
 
 women. Flowers were among the instruments they 
 employed, steeped in laurel-water, and other mephitic 
 preparations. Those flowers are poisoned. Not a 
 doubt of it ! how very awful ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 But why should any one take the trouble to poison 
 you, Geoffrey ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I don't know. But I don't know why seven hund- 
 red people in one year were poisoned in Placentia. 
 Hodge ! Hodge ! 
 
 Enter HODGE. 
 
 Bring a shovel and brush ! sweep away those 
 flowers ! lock 'em up with the rest in the coal-hole. 
 I'll examine them all chemically, by-and-by, with pre- 
 caution. [Exit HODGE. 
 EASY. 
 
 But, Geoffrey, when a man has a daughter of an 
 age in which flowers are not locked up in a coal-hole, 
 mayn't he suspect that such mephitic preparations are 
 intended for her ? 
 
 Enter HODGE to remove the flowers. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! as if I had not thought that at first ; but 
 why should they always be thrown into my special 
 sitting-room, at the very hour I enter it, only when 
 I'm alone? (To HODGE.) Don't smell at 'em; and, 
 above all, don't let the house-dog smell at 'em. 
 
 EASY. 
 Ha ! ha ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 (Aside. Ugh ! that brute's laughing ! no more 
 
42 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT n. 
 
 feeling than a brickbat !) Goodenough Easy, you are 
 a very happy man. 
 
 EASY. 
 Happy, yes. I could be happy on bread and water { 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 And would toast your bread at a conflagration, and 
 fill your jug from a deluge ! Ugh ! I've a trouble 
 you are more likely to feel for, as you've a girl of your 
 own to keep out of mischief. A man named Wilmot, 
 and styled " my Lord," has called here three times ; he 
 pretends he saved my ahem ! that is, Lucy, from 
 footpads, when she was coming home from your house 
 in a sedan chair. And T suspect that the man means 
 to make love to her ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Egad ! that's the only likely suspicion you've hit on 
 this many a day. I've heard of Lord Wilmot. Soft- 
 head professes to copy him. Rather a madcap. But 
 his companions adore him. Wish you joy 1 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Joy ! you have the strangest expressions ! there's 
 no wringing sympathy out of you. Joy, indeed ! a 
 gay man a-la-mode! I've seen eno' of such villains. 
 No girl whom I can control shall ever marry one of 
 these heroes of Congreve and Wycherley. Ugh ! you 
 did right, for once in your life, when you broke off the 
 match between Mr. Softhead and Barbara, on the 
 ground that the fool had become a fine gentleman ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 O Lord, just the reverse ! that the fool could never 
 become a fine gentleman ! I'm not severe ; but I am 
 independent If there's a thing I despise in the world, 
 
so. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 43 
 
 'tis a simpleton led away by example. Every class has 
 its faults and its merits. Let each stick to its own. 
 Softhead, the son of a trader ! he be a lounger at 
 White's and Will's, and dine with wits and fine gentle- 
 men ! He live with lords ! he mimic fashion ! No ! 
 I've respect for even the faults of a man ; but I've none 
 for the tricks of a monkey. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! you're so savage on Softhead, I suspect 'tis 
 from envy. Man and monkey, indeed ! If a ribbon 
 is tied to the tail of a monkey, it is not the man it 
 enrages ; it is some other monkey whose tail has no 
 ribbon ! 
 
 EASY (angrily). 
 
 I disdain your insinuations. Do you mean to imply 
 that I am a monkey? I won't praise myself; but at 
 least a more steady, respectable, sober 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! sober ! I suspect you'd get as drunk as a 
 lord, if a lord passed the bottle ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Now, now now. Take care ; you'll put me in a 
 passion. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 There there beg pardon. But I fear you've a 
 sneaking respect for a lord 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Sir, I respect the British Constitution and the House 
 of Peers as a part of it ; ' but as for a lord in himself, 
 with a mere handle to his name, a paltry title ! That 
 can have no effect on a Briton, of independence and 
 sense. And that's just the difference between Softhead 
 
44 NOT SO BAB AS WE SEEM ; [ACT IT. 
 
 and me. But as you don't like for a son-in-law, the 
 real fine gentleman ; perhaps you've a mind to the 
 copy. I am sure you are welcome to Softhead. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! I've other designs for the girl. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Have you ? What ? Perhaps your favorite, young 
 Hardman ? by the way, I've not met him here lately. 
 
 Enter LUCY and BARBARA. 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 O, my dear father, forgive me if I disturb you ; but 
 I did so long to see you I 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY 
 
 Why? 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Because Hodge told me you'd been alarmed last 
 night the dog howled ! But it was full moon last 
 night, and he will howl at the moon ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 How did she know it was full moon ? I suspect 
 she was looking out of the window 
 
 Enter HODGE announcing LORD WILMOT and 
 MR. SHADOWLY SOFTHEAD. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Wilmot ! my suspicions are confirmed ; she was 
 looking out of the window ! This comes of Shak- 
 speare having written that infernal incendiary trash 
 about Romeo and Juliet ! 
 
sc, L] OK, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 45 
 
 Enter WILMOT and SOFTHEAD. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Your servant, ladies ; Sir Geoffrey, your servant. 
 I could not refuse Mr. Softhead's request to inquire 
 after your health. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I thank your lordship ; but when my health wants 
 inquiring after, I send for the doctor. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Is it possible you can do any thing so dangerous 
 and rash? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 How ? how ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Send for the very man who has an interest in your 
 being ill ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 That's very true. I did not think he had so much 
 sense in him ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 I need not inquire how you are, ladies ? When 
 Hebe retired from the world, she divided her bloom 
 between you. Mistress Barbara, vouchsafe me the 
 honor a queen accords to the meanest of her gentle- 
 men. [Kisses BARBARA'S hand, and leads her 
 aside, conversing in dumb show. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Ah, Mistress Lucy, vouchsafe me the honor which 
 But she don't hold her hand in the same position. 
 
 LUCY (turning round). 
 What did you say, Mr. Softhead 1 
 
46 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT n. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Hem ! How was it ? oh, the meanest of your 
 majesty's gentlemen. [Imitates WILMOT. 
 
 EASY. 
 Bravo ! bravo ! Master Softhead ! Encore ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Bravo ! Encore ! I don't understand you, Mr. 
 Easy. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 That bow of yours ! Perfect ! Plain to see you 
 have not forgotten the old Dancing Master in Crooked 
 Lane. 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Fie, Mr. Easy ! your bow's charming, Mr. Sha- 
 dowly. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 It is not a common bow, I confess ; I and Lord 
 Wilmot that is my friend, Fred, yonder, have a bow 
 of our own. We are so alike in all things. We are 
 often mistaken for each other (Aside I'm not an 
 inconstant man ; but I'll show that City fellow, there 
 are other ladies in town besides his daughter) 
 Dimidum mece, how pretty you are, Mistress Lucy ! 
 
 [ Walks aside with her. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Ha I ha ! Geoffrey, I said you were welcome to 
 Softhead. Quick work. One would think he'd over- 
 heard, and was taking me at my word. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 And I see that popinjay of a lord is more attentive 
 to Barbara than ever he was to the other. 
 
so. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 47 
 EASY. 
 
 Hey ! hey ! D'ye think so ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I suspect he has heard how rich you are. He 
 seems a brisk, lively rogue. Best look sharp, just 
 one of those Hymen-men, who knock down a father 
 before he knows where he is, with ' Stand and de- 
 liver ! your child and your money !' 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Certainly I should scorn to ask a lord to marry my 
 daughter ; but if he were to ask me* 'Pon my 
 
 life, I think there's something in it. 
 
 WILMOT and BARBARA approaching 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Papa, Lord Wilmot begs to be presented to you. 
 
 [Bows interchanged. WILMOT offers snuff-box. 
 EASY at first declines, then accepts sneezes 
 violently ; unused to snuff. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 He ! he ! quite clear ! titled fortune-hunter. Over 
 head and ears in debt, I dare say. Found out from 
 poor Softhead that Easy's as rich as a Jew ; and now 
 the mercenary wretch is trying to supplant his own 
 friend. If so, Lucy's safe ! Nobody knows how rich 
 I am take very good care of that. But I'll make 
 all sure. (Takes WILMOT aside.) Pretty girl, Mis- 
 tress Barbara ! Eh ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Pretty! Say beautiful! 
 
48 NOT SO BAB AS WE SEEM ; [ACT n. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 He ! he ! Her father will give her fifty thousand 
 pounds down on her wedding-day. Better off than my 
 girl, who (if she marry with my consent) would only 
 have a poor little property of the worst land in Nor- 
 folk, and not a rood of that till I'm dead. And, 
 zounds, my Lord ! I'm vigorous, and intend to live these 
 thirty years. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 (Aside. The paternal enemy falls into the ambush.) 
 Fifty thousand pounds on the wedding-day ! She's 
 the loveliest creature I ever saw ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Tho' her father's in commerce, you fine gentlemen 
 don't live as if you had much respect for your ances- 
 tors : you are too liberal to think that a man's want 
 of birth should prevent him from satisfying your want 
 of money. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Indeed I am, and I venerate the British merchant 
 who can give his daughter fifty thousand pounds! 
 What a smile she has ! (Hooking his arm into SIR 
 GEOFFREY'S.) I say, Sir Geoffrey, you see I'm very 
 shy bashful indeed and Mr. Easy is watching every 
 word I say to his daughter : so embarrassing ! 
 Couldn't you get him out of the room ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Mighty bashful indeed ! Turn the oldest friend I 
 have out of my room, in order that you may make 
 love to his daughter. (Turns away.) 
 
 WILMOT tO EASY. 
 
 I say, Mr. Easy. My double there, Softhead, is so 
 shy bashful indeed and that suspicious Sir Geoffrey 
 
so. i.] OK, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 49 
 
 is watching every word he says to Mistress Lucy : so 
 embarrassing ! Do get your friend out of the room, 
 will you ? 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Ha! ha! Certainly, my Lord. (Aside. I see he 
 wants to be alone with my Barbara. What will 
 they say in Lombard-street when she's my Lady? 
 Shouldn't wonder if they returned me M.P. for the 
 City.) Come into the next room, Geoffrey ; and tell 
 me your designs for Lucy. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Oh, very well ! You wish to encourage that pam- 
 pered young Satrap ! How he does love a lord, and 
 how a lord does love 50,000/. ! He ! he ! I know a 
 little of the world. He ! he ! [Exit within. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Monstrous fine young man that, Mistress Lucy, 
 not a bit proud no airs and graces. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Oh, the best little fellow in the world, my friend 
 Fred 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Your friend Fred ! Mr. Softhead, I despise the man 
 who has his head so turned by a lord. 
 
 [Exit after SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 WILMOT (running to LUCY, and pushing aside 
 
 SOFTHEAD). 
 
 Return to your native allegiance. Truce with the 
 enemy, and exchange of prisoners. 
 
 [Leads LUCY aside She rather 
 grave and reluctant. 
 D 
 
50 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT n. 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 So, you'll not speak to me, Mr. Softhead ; words are 
 too rare with you fine gentlemen, to throw away upon 
 old friends. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Ahem ! 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 You don't remember the winter evenings you used 
 to pass at our fireside ? nor the mistletoe bough at 
 Christmas? nor the pleasant games at Blind-man's 
 Buff and Hunt the Slipper ? nor the strong tea I 
 made you when you had the migraine 1 nor how I 
 prevented your eating Banbury cake at supper, when 
 you know it always disagrees with you? But, I sup- 
 pose you are so hardened that you can eat Banbury 
 cake every night, now ! I'm sure it is nothing to me ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Those recollections of one's early innocence are very 
 melting ! One renounces a great deal of happiness 
 for renown and ambition. Barbara ! 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Shadow ly ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 However one may rise in life, however the fashion 
 may compel one to be a monster 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 A monster ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Yes, Fred and I are both monsters ! Still still 
 still 'Ecod, I do love you with all my heart, and 
 that's the truth of it. 
 
so. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER, 51 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Oh, Shadowly ! that dear Lord Wilmot ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD (alarmed and clapping his hand to his 
 
 siuord). 
 Ha ! the villain ! 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 fe says he's sure you've never been false. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Fred's a jewel ! what a pity your Cit of a father 
 can't abide the upper walks of society. 
 
 WILMOT and LUCY advancing. 
 
 LUCY. 
 Nay, my Lord, this looks so like deceit ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 But you must pardon a deceit that's so harmless. 
 Sir Geoffrey's prejudice against me must be humored 
 till I've time to remove it. I can not live without 
 seeing you you have bewitched me ! 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Ah my Lord ! I'm afraid you've been very often 
 bewitched ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Fie ! you are as suspicious as your father. 
 
 LUCY (courtesying). 
 
 Your Lordship's reputation is far beyond suspi- 
 cions ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 She's been inquiring into my reputation. An ex- 
 cellent symptom ! But, my charming Lucy when 
 
52 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT 11. 
 
 one takes up the character of a servant, 'tis a sort of 
 etiquette to engage him. 
 
 LUCY. 
 Surely that depends on the character ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 And what can be said against mine ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Only that your Lordship is not a very faithful 
 servant ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Her archness delights me. I have found what I 
 have sought all my life, the union of spirit and sweet- 
 ness, innocence and gayety. Oh, Lucy, if the renunci- 
 ation of all youthful levities and follies, if the most 
 steadfast adherence to your side despite all the 
 
 chances of life, all temptations, all dangers 
 
 [HARDMAN'S voice without. 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Hist ! some one coming. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Change partners ; hands across. My angel Barbara ! 
 
 Enter HARDMAN. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Lord Wilrnot here ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 What ! does lie know Sir Geoffrey ? 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Oh yes. Sir Geoffrey thinks there's nobody like him. 
 
sc. i.l OB, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 53 
 
 HARDMAN (who has been saluting LUCY). 
 Footpads ! Hum ! And pray how long since ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Well met, my dear Hardman. So you are intimate 
 here? 
 
 HARDMAN, 
 
 Ay ; and you ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 An acquaintance in its cradle ; just a week old. 
 Droll man, Sir Geoffrey ; I delight in odd characters. 
 Besides, here are other attractions. 
 
 [Returning to BARBARA. 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 If he be my rival ! Hum ! I hear from David 
 Fallen that his father's on the brink of high treason ! 
 That secret gives a hold on the son. [Joins LUCY. 
 
 WILMOT tO BARBARA. 
 
 You understand; 'tis a compact. You will favor 
 my stratagem ? 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Yes ; and you'll engage to cure Softhead of his taste 
 for the fashion, and send him back to the City. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Since you live in the City, and condescend to regard 
 such a monster ! 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Why, we were brought up together. His health is 
 so delicate ; I should like to take care of him. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 If that is not woman all over, I don't know what is ! 
 
64 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT n. 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 And he's not so bad as he seems. Heigho ! I am 
 afraid 'tis too late, and papa will never forgive his past 
 follies. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Yet papa seems very good-natured. Perhaps there's 
 another side to his character ? 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Oh yes ! He is such a very independent man, my 
 papa ! and has such a contempt for people who go out 
 of their own rank, and make fools of themselves for 
 the sake of example. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Never fear; I'll ask him to dine, and open his 
 heart with a cheerful glass. 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Cheerful glass ! You don't know papa the soberest 
 man ! If there's any thing on which he's severe, 'tis 
 a cheerful glass. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 So, so ! Does not he ever get a little excited ? 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Excited ! Don't think of it ! Besides, he is so in 
 awe of Sir Geoffrey, who would tease him out of his 
 life, if he could but hear that papa was so inconsistent 
 as to as to 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 As to get a little excited ? (Aside. These hints 
 should suffice me ! 'Gad, if I could make him tipsy 
 for once in a way ! I'll try.) Adieu, my sweet Bar- 
 
so. L] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 55 
 
 bara, and rely on the zeal of your faithful ally. Stay ; 
 tell Mr. Easy that he must lounge into Will's. I will 
 look out for him there in about a couple of hours. 
 He'll meet many friends from the City, and all the 
 wits and fine gentlemen. Don't forget. (Aside. Yes, 
 I shall find Tonson at Will's. Let me see. Set 
 Hardman to keep my wise father from mischief; get 
 at that diabolical Memoir ; intoxicate Easy ; cure 
 Softhead of fashion ; call to-night on the Lady of 
 Mystery, Deadman's Lane; meanwhile stole a march 
 on General " Ugh ! I suspect ;" and half-way to a 
 wife. 'Gad, 'tis not such a dull day after all !) 
 Allons ! Vive Id joie ! Softhead, we'll have a night 
 of it! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Ah ! those were pleasant nights when one went to 
 bed at half after ten. Heigho ! Adieu, Barbara. 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Adieu, Shadowly. [Exit WILMOT and SOFTHEAD. 
 
 LUCY. 
 Where are you going, dear ? 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Just into the garden, to have a good cry. I'll be 
 back presently. [Exit. LUCY takes her work, and sits. 
 
 HARDMAN, 
 
 Hum ! I'm perplexed. Can it be Barbara ? Yet 
 Lucy looks changed since I saw her last since Wil- 
 mot has known her more grave. I dread to 
 
 LUCY (sighing heavily). 
 Ah, Mr. Hardman ! 
 
50 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT 11. 
 Why that sigh ? You, sad, whose happy mirth 
 
 LUCY (coming forward). 
 
 Is not always sincere. Ah, Mr. Hardman, my father 
 confides to you many of his secrets. Did he ever tell 
 you what fault I can amend, so that he might love me 
 better ? Not once from my cradle has he even called 
 me by the sweet name of child. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Nay, 'tis but his humors that conceal from you his 
 heart. A parent's love is too precious a thing to be 
 doubted lightly. But perhaps it is a mother that 
 you miss ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 I never remember to have seen one ; but I miss her 
 daily. (Aside. And never more than now !) 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Be comforted. My lot is harder than yours. Far 
 as I can look back into childhood motherless, father- 
 less, homeless, friendless, lonely 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Poor Mr. Hardman. I did not dream that you 
 had such cause for sorrow. Seeing you so occupied 
 and ambitious, one would not guess you concealed 
 feelings thus deep. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 What ! are deep feelings the monopoly of triflers ? 
 Does the heart only beat under the velvet and laces of 
 those spoiled darlings of fortune ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 What spoiled darlings of fortune ? 
 
so. L] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 57 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Men like the sleek lord whom I found here ! Men 
 who are born to the hill-top that we sons of labor 
 reach but to die. Ah, were the world but a stage, 
 they might have their first choice of the pageant and 
 wardrobe ; I would grudge not the spangles and tinsel. 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Dear Mr. Hardman : you (Aside. I never saw 
 him so before 1) 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 But the world's something more than a stage. Man 
 is not always an actor. And woe to those darlings of 
 fortune, when in the great war of the passions they 
 strive, breast to breast, with us, stern sons of labor ! 
 They, unnerved by the sunshine, we, braced by the 
 storm. Ha ! ha ! we are stronger than they ! 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 You are strangely moved, Mr. Hardman. Have 
 you any quarrel with him with Lord Wilmot ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 (Aside. I betray myself like an infant.) Lord Wil- 
 mot ! 'Twas an old, very old, but very sore recollection 
 of very different persons mere triflers that made me 
 unjust for a moment to a man of the rarest accom- 
 plishments. Pray, what do you think of Lord Wil- 
 mot? 
 
 Enter BARBARA. 
 
 LUCY (resuming her work with her face turned away). 
 Tndeed I can't say ; I've seen him so seldom. 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 I think him 
 
58 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT n. 
 
 HA RDM AN (turning round). 
 You ! yes, you think him ? 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 The most charming, irresistible heigho ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Indeed ! he, seemed most attentive to yon. Now I 
 look at the girl, she's not ugly. I trust that the feel- 
 ing's reciprocal ? 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 It ought to be if there's any believing the promises 
 and vows of you dangerous, deceitful men. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Promises vows ! Now, I look again, the girl's 
 pretty decidedly pretty ! exceedingly pretty ! Why 
 not she, after all ? 
 
 BARBARA (glancing slyly toward LUCY). 
 Do you think a poor innocent girl may safely trust 
 her heart to Lord Wilmot ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Indeed I do ; the most honorable of men ! (Seating 
 himself.) (Aside. Even were it so, dare I hope for 
 myself ? So fair, and an heiress ! Tut ! Have I ever 
 yet failed in my struggle through life, aided but by my 
 will and my brain? And now this twofold prize. 
 Love for my happiness wealth for my ambition. 
 Scheme now, plotting brain, dare now, stubborn 
 will! 
 
 Enter SIR GEOFFREY and EASY. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 There he is seated apart will not even speak to 
 that girl in my absence. So punctiliously honorable ! 
 
sc. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 59 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 But the father's consent ! Bah ! I've already got at 
 the right side of his character. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Hush! Muttering some speech in defence of his 
 country. 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 If, too, I could get that place in the treasury ! 
 Make my suit less presumptuous. Shall I write to Sir 
 Robert? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY (advancing). 
 
 He ! he ! my dear Hardman. We guess your 
 thoughts. 
 
 HARDMAN. ^f^** ^^^S 
 
 Heh! Sir Geoffrey, you stating j IJT^Jg j *L 
 
 EASY. " 
 
 Hope it will succeed. 
 
 HARDMAN (falteringly). 
 What succeed ? 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Pooh ! don't look so embarrassed and awkward. 
 I'm a bit of an orator myself, and we all know that 
 young members get their speeches by heart. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Oh ! you are so shrewd, Mr. Easy. 
 
 EASY (taking him aside). 
 
 Not I; but you do know every thing. Intimate 
 with Lord Wilmot, eh ? Fine young man ! Smitten 
 with my little .girl ! But that suspicious old snarler 
 
60 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT a. 
 
 says, 'tis all for her money. Should not lik* that. My 
 Lord's not in debt, eh 1 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Debt! he abhors it. Generous; but prudent i 
 know all his affairs. 
 
 As HARDMAN leaves EASY, 
 SIR GEOFFREY (seizing him). 
 He ! he ! I did it. Said she'd fifty thousand pounds 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You are the most sagacious, incomparable man ! 
 (Aside. I am assured ! Wilmot is not my rival. I'll 
 save his father. David Fallen meets Lord Loftus at 
 Will's. I'll be there.) My dear Sir Geoffrey ! (Shakes 
 hands.) 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I'm not like Easy. I have a pedigree, as long as a 
 Welchman's much good it ever did me ! I'd rather 
 give my heiress to a man who made his own way 
 through life than to a 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You would ? (Aside. I will write to Wai pole at 
 once for that place.) Bless me, how late it is ! I 
 must be off. Good-by, Mr. Easy. My heartfelt con- 
 gratulations. I shall be at Will's myself later. 
 Good-by, Sir Geoffrey. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! always in a hurry. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 But always getting on. What's your secret ? 
 
sc. I.] OB, MANY SIDES TO A CHABAOTER. 61 
 
 HARDMAN (holding up Ms watch). 
 This. The way to get on is to be never behind 
 time. More than that, Mr. Easy what is mind with- 
 out action ? a watch without hands ! the wheels may 
 go round, the chainwork may lengthen what use in 
 either unless the hands make us sure of the moment 
 and hour ? Wheel and hands thought and action 
 brain and will. Your hand, Mistress Lucy ! \Exit. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Quite the man of business! So what I call 
 practical ! Very clever fellow ! 
 
 BARBARA (aside to LUCY, her finger on her Up). 
 Yet, I think I have puzzled him. 
 
 LUCY (aloud and thoughtfully). 
 I am sure he himself is a puzzle. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! as honest as Truth 
 
 EASY. 
 
 And as deep as her well ! 
 
 END OF ACT II. 
 
62 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT in. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 Will's Coffee-house ; occupying the depth of the stage. Vari- 
 ous groups : LORD LE TRIMMER, SIR THOMAS TIMID, 
 COLONEL FLINT, JACOB TONSON, <fec. ; some seated in boxes, 
 some standing. In a box at the side, DAVID FALLEN 
 seated, writing. Enter EASY. 
 
 EASY (speaking to various acquaintances as he 
 
 passes to the background). 
 
 How d'ye do ? Have you seen my Lord Wilmot ? 
 Good-day. Yes ; I seldom come here ; but I've 
 promised to meet an intimate friend of mine Lord 
 Wilmot. Servant, sir ! looking for my friend Wil- 
 mot: Oh! not come yet! hum ha! Charming 
 young man, Wilmot : head of the mode ; generous, 
 but prudent. I know all his affairs. 
 
 Enter Newsman. 
 
 Great news ! great news ! Suspected Jacobite 
 Plot ! Fears of ministers ! Army to be increased ! 
 Great news ! 
 
 [Coffee-house frequenters gather round Newsman 
 take papers form themselves into fresh 
 groups. Enter HARDMAN. 
 
 SEVERAL VOICES. 
 
 There's Hardman the rising Member of Parlia- 
 
so. L] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 63 
 
 ment hand in glove with Sir Robert ! knows every 
 thing ! 
 
 [Crowd round HARDMAN, and seem to question him 
 in dumb show. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! Sir Robert Walpole alarmed ? Never 
 saw him in such spirits. Oh, sir, must not believe 
 any newspaper except the ministerial ! Funds fallen, 
 you say ? Well, I should not let out state secrets ; 
 but this I will tell you in confidence keep in Sir 
 Robert, and the Funds will be up ten per cent, in a 
 fortnight. (Takes aside LORD LE TRIMMER.) My 
 dear lord, you're the very man I want to see. The 
 Lieutenancy for your county is just vacant. In these 
 critical times, who but your lordship should have that 
 office ? Go and call on Sir Robert. He only wants 
 that attention to make you the offer. 
 
 LORD LE TRIMMER. 
 
 Me ! But I don't quite agree with 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Make haste ; or your neighbor, Lord Graspall, will 
 be there before you. 
 
 LORD LE TRIMMER. 
 
 Graspall should not have it, if I went on my knees 
 for it. A thousand thanks to you, Mr. Hardman. 
 
 \Exit, hastily. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Secured a waverer. (Takes aside SIR THOMAS 
 TIMID.) Sir Thomas, a word with you. I am a plain 
 man, and I love you. There's a conspiracy afloat ; 
 your name is suspected. There's been talk of the 
 Tower. 
 
64 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT m. 
 
 SIR THOMAS. 
 
 Suspected ! The Tower ! What am I to do ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Vote with ministers for increasing the army, and 
 you are safe. 
 
 SIR THOMAS. 
 Why, as to increasing the army 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 When a man is suspected by the Government, 
 there is but one course to pursue. For that Govern- 
 ment he must vote thick and thin. 
 
 SIR THOMAS. 
 
 I'm eternally obliged to you, Mr. Hardman. The 
 Tower ! What an escape I have had ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You may just give a hint to your friends. (SiR 
 THOMAS retires to the background.) Frightened a 
 conspirator, and fright is contagious. Hit them both 
 on the right side of the character. (Advancing) I 
 serve Walpole well. The means may be doubtful ; 
 I'm content with the end. For at heart I love Eng- 
 land and freedom, and Walpole steers both through 
 Charybdis and Scylla civil war and the Stuart. I 
 have sent off my letter ; this place, he must give it ; 
 the first favor I have asked. Hope smiles ; I am at 
 peace with all men. Now to save Wilmot's father. 
 (Approaches the box at ivhich DAVID FALLEN is writ- 
 ing, and stoops down, as if arranging his bucMe.) 
 Hist ! Whatever the secret, remember, not a word 
 save to me. (Passes down the stage, and is eagerly 
 greeted by various frequenters of the Coffee-house.) 
 
sc. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 6& 
 Enter LORD LOFTUS. 
 
 ' LORD LOFTUS. 
 
 Drawer,! engage this box; give me the newspaper- 
 So 4 Rumored Jacobite plot ' 
 
 Entw the DUKE OF MIDDLESEX. 
 DUKE. 
 
 My dear lord, I obey your appointment. But is 
 not the place you select rather strange ? 
 
 LOFTUS. 
 
 Be seated, I pray you. No place so fit for our pur- 
 pose. First, because its very publicity prevents all 
 suspicion. We come to a coffee-house, where all 
 ranks and all parties assemble, to hear the -news, like 
 the rest. And, secondly, we could scarcely meet our 
 agent anywhere else. He is a Tory pamphleteer ; 
 was imprisoned for our sake in the time of William 
 and Mary. If we, so well known to be Tories, are 
 seen to confer with him here, 'twill only be thought 
 that we are suggesting some points in a pamphlet. 
 But you have read the papers ; a plot is suspected. 
 You are sure that King James is a Protestant 1 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Assured of it. I could not serve him if he were 
 not. My ancestors took part in the Reformation. 
 
 LORD LOFTUS. 
 
 The army's to be increased. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Let a thing called a Government levy its hirelings ; 
 the true force of the country is with the Barons of 
 England. We proved' that in the days of King 
 John. 
 
66 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT IIL 
 
 LOFTUS (aside). 
 
 That's a long time ago ! 'Tis my honor I obey, 
 not my reason. Thank heaven, in affecting to banish 
 my Frederic from my house, I have kept him clear 
 from even a suspicion that may attach to myself. 
 My gallant, joyous son ! May I beckon our agent ? 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Certainly. He risks his life for us ; he shall be 
 duly rewarded. Let him sit by our side. 
 
 [LORD LOFTUS motions to DAVID FALLEN, loho takes 
 up his pamphlet and approaches openly. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 I have certainly seen somewhere before that very 
 thin man. Be seated, sir. Honorable danger makes 
 all men equal. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 No, my lord Duke. I know you not. It is the 
 Earl I confer with. (Aside. I never stood in his 
 hall, with lackeys and porters.) 
 
 Powers above ! That scare-crow rejects my ac- 
 quaintance ! Portentous ! [Stunned and astonished. 
 
 LOFTUS. 
 
 Observe, Duke, we speak in a sort of a jargon. 
 Pamphlet means messenger. (To FALLEN, aloud.) 
 Well, Mr. Fallen, when will the pamphlet be ready ? 
 
 FALLEN (aloud). 
 
 To-morrow, my Lord, exactly at one o'clock. 
 
 DUKE (still bewildered.) 
 I don't understand 
 
sc. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 67 
 LOFTUS. 
 
 Hush ! Walpole laughs at pamphlets, but would 
 hang messengers. (Aloud.) To-morrow, not to-day ? 
 Well, more time for 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Subscribers. Thank you, my lord. ( Whispering.) 
 Where shall the messenger meet you ? 
 
 LOFTUS. 
 
 At the back of the Duke's new house in Bond 
 Street, there is a quiet, lone place 
 
 FALLEN (whispering). 
 
 By the wall of Lord Berkley's garden ? I know it. 
 The messenger shall be there. The signal word, 
 4 Marston Moor.' No conversation should pass. But 
 who brings the packet ? That's the first step of dan- 
 ger. 
 
 DUKE (suddenly rousing himself , and with dignity.) 
 Then 'tis mine, sir, in right of my birth. 
 
 FALLEN (aloud). 
 
 I'll attend to all your lordship's suggestions ; they're 
 excellent, and will startle this vile administration. 
 Many thanks to your lordship. 
 
 [Returns to his table and resumes his writing. 
 Groups point and murmur. JACOB TON- 
 SON advances. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 That pestilent scribbler, David Fallen ! Another 
 libelous pamphlet as bitter as the last, I'll swear. 
 
 TONSON. 
 
 Bitter as gall, sir, I am proud to say. Your ser- 
 
63 NQT SO BAD AS WE SEEM; [ACT in. 
 
 vant ; Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, at your service. 
 I advanced a pound upon it. 
 
 EASY. [. 
 
 I really wonder Walpole does not prosecute. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Prosecute ? He would rather pay for it. 'Tis his 
 maxim, that one scurrilous pamphlet saves a country 
 from fifty conspiracies* You look surprised, gentle- 
 men : why, I remember, three months ago, when' our 
 friend Mr. Easy here was teased with the nettle-rash, 
 that his doctor said ' Don't complain, Mr. Easy, a 
 strong constitution throws out an eruption ; a weak 
 one would have smoldered away in a fever.' Disaf- 
 fection when printed is only a nettle-rash, and the life 
 of nations is saved when disease is thrown out on the 
 surface. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 He knows I had the nettle-rash ! Wonderful man, 
 knows every thing ! 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 I will meet you in the Mall to-morrow, a quarter 
 after one precisely. We may go now ? Powers above 
 his mind's distracted he walks out before me ! 
 
 LOFTUS (draining back at the door.) 
 I follow you, Duke. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 My dear friend if you really insist on it ? [Ex- 
 eunt, bowing. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Mr. Easy, I'll bet you ten guineas I find out what 
 those Tories told David Fallen to put in his pamphlet. 
 
so. ij OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 69 
 
 EASY, 
 
 Well, you are certain to win, but I can afford to 
 lose ; . and I should like to know. Done ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 ; l)*awer a bottle of Claret at this table. 
 [Bows to FALLEN and sits down ; FALLEN scowling 
 at him. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 What a clever imperturbable dog it is -so thorough- 
 ly practical ! Finds out every thing, that Hard man ! 
 Sure to rise, eh ! 
 
 [Coffee-house frequenters evince their admiration 
 and assent. 
 
 HARDMAN as the Drawer places the wine, &c. on the 
 
 table. 
 
 Let me offer you a glass of wine, Mr. Fallen 
 (Aside.) well? 
 
 [FALLEN, who has been writing, pushes the paper 
 toward him. 
 
 HARDMAN (reading). 
 
 "At one to-morrow the wall by Lord Berkely's 
 Mars ton Moor The Duke in person" So ! We 
 must save these men. I will call on you in the morn- 
 ing, and concert the means. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Yes, save, not destroy, these enthusiasts. Fin re- 
 signed to the name of a hireling not to that of a 
 butcher! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You serve both Whig and Jacobite ; do you care 
 then for either ? 
 
70 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT m. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Sneering politician ! what has either cared for me ? 
 I entered the world, devoted heart and soul to two 
 causes the throne of the Stuart, the glory of Letters. 
 I saw them both as a poet. My father left me no her- 
 itage but loyalty and learning. He sold all he had to 
 levy troops for King Charles, and buried his gold in 
 the red field of Marston Moor. Charles the Second 
 praised my verse, and I starved ; James the Second 
 praised my prose, and I starved ; the reign of King 
 William I passed that in prison ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 But the ministers of Anne were gracious to writers. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 And offered me a pension to belie my past life, and 
 write Odes on the Queen who had dethroned her own 
 father. I was not then disenchanted I refused. 
 That's years ago. If I starved, I had fame. Now 
 came my worst foes, my own fellow-writers. What is 
 fame but a fashion ? A jest upon Grub Street, a 
 rhyme from young Pope, could jeer a score of day 
 laborers like me out of their last consolation. Time and 
 hunger tame all. I could still starve myself ; I have 
 six children at home they must live. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 This man has genius he might have been a grace 
 to his age. I'm perplexed ; Sir Robert 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Disdains Letters I've renounced them. He pays 
 services like these. Well I serve him. Leave me ; 
 go! 
 
 HARDMAN (rising). 
 
 Not so bad as he seems another side to the char- 
 
sc. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 71 
 
 acter : this moves me ; I've been a writer myself. But 
 the remedy ? A state may but humble by alms ; a 
 minister corrupt by a bribe : what Patron then for 
 Letters ! The public ? yes, for the Author, whose 
 talents the Public may chance to appreciate. And for 
 those who, with toils as severe, but with genius less 
 shaped to the taste of the many, can win not the ear 
 of the day, why perhaps in some far distant age, when 
 eno' of the strong have dropped to death broken-heart- 
 ed, and eno' of the weak (bowed down by the tyrant 
 Necessity) have veiled in shame and despair the eyes 
 that once looked to the stars ; these rival children of 
 light may learn at last, that the tie they now rend 
 should be the bond to unite them, and help one anoth- 
 er. I have lost the bet, Mr. Easy. 
 
 EASY (pocketing the money). 
 
 Hard man's not so clever as I thought he was, by 
 
 ten guineas. [Coffee-house frequenters evince their 
 
 assent, but no longer their admiration. 
 
 Enter DRAWER, with a letter to HARDMAN. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 From Wai pole ! Now then ! my fate my love 
 my fortunes ! 
 
 EASY (peeping over HARDMAN'S shoulder). 
 He has got a letter from the Prime Minister, marked 
 'private and confidential.' (Great agitation) After 
 all, he is a very clever fellow. 
 
 [Coffee-house frequenters evince the readiest 
 assent, and the liveliest admiration. 
 
 HARDMAN (advancing and reading the letter). 
 "My dear Hardman, Extremely sorry; in these 
 times Government must strengthen itself among the 
 
72 I NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iit 
 
 doubtful. Place in question absolutely wanted to con- 
 ciliate some noble family otherwise dangerous.* An- 
 other time, more fortunate. Fully sensible of your 
 valuable services. ROBERT WALPOLE." 
 
 .Refused! Let him' look to himself ! I will I will 
 ^Alas ! he is needed by my country; and I 'am 
 powerless against him. [Setits himself. 
 
 Enter WILMOT knd SOFTHEAD. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Drawer ! a private room covers for six dinner in 
 an hour If And drawer ! Tell Mr. Tonson not to 
 go yet. Softhead, we'll have an orgy to-night, worthy 
 the days of King Charles the Second. What's your 
 favorite wine ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 For Heaven's sake, not that diabolical Burgundy ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Disloyal to Burgundy ! the only wine now in 
 fashion,-r-unless, by-the-by, you prefer aqua-fortis? 
 Drawer ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 No no no ! Let it be Burgundy ! Homicide ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Just as you like. Let me see there'll be six of us 
 
 * As Walpole was little inclined to make it a part of his 
 policy to conciliate those whose opposition might 'be danger- 
 ous, while he was so fond of power as to be jealous of talent 
 not wholly subservient to him, the reluctance to promote Mr. 
 Hardman implied in the insincerity of his excuse, may be sup- 
 posed to arise from his knowledge of that gentleman's restless 
 ambition, and determined self-will. 
 
 f It was not the custom at Will's to serve dinners; and the 
 exception in favor of my Lord Wilmot proves his influence as 
 a man d-la-mode. 
 
SO. ij ... OK, MA:ST SIDES. TO A CHARACTER, 73 
 
 a dozen to each. Drawer, -send to Lockett's for 
 six dozen of Burgundy other wines in proportion. By 
 the way, Softhead, you smoke, of course ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Smoke ! that filthy tobacco ! Not L Tried it once 
 at the Twopenny Club,* and felt as if on board ship, 
 witk the sea rolling mountains L The beastliest 
 
 thing 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Not smoke, and pretend ta b& a man d-la-mode ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Come, come, that's too good ! All the fish women 
 in Billingsgate smoke seen them myself, and heard 
 them, too railing, abusive, impudent creatures ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Of course, they are. The impudence of Billingsgate 
 gives the mode to St. James's ! only here, names are 
 different. There abuse, . and here scandal. There 
 railing, here wit. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 As for wit, I'm a match for the best of you ! but 
 tobacco 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Is to wits the ambrosia. See, there Mr. Addison 
 smokes, and writes " Cato." See, there Mr. Pulteney 
 makes verses like Martial, speeches like Cicero, and 
 smokes like Mount Etna; while the great Duke of 
 .Wharton, who is the duke among wits, and the wit 
 among dukes, has just written an Ode upon Pigtail, in 
 imitation of Pindar ! Drawer, don't forget pipes and 
 tobacco ! the strongest Virginia ! 
 
 * Perhaps the club thus designated in the " Spectator." 
 
74 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT m. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Pindar ! What 1 s that, I wonder ! Something more 
 demoniac than all. Stop ! If the Duke of Wharton 
 is here, can't you present me to him ? You see I did 
 not get eno' of the other duke this morning. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Not eno' of him ! You are a cormorant of dukes, 
 and deserve to be haunted by one. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Hardman's very words ! Haunted by a duke. No 
 such good luck. 
 
 WILMOT (who has been shaking hands, and talking 
 apart with Lord Strongbow, Sir John Bruin, and 
 Colonel Flint ; showing, by his by-play, that he lets 
 them into his plot against Softhead and Easy). 
 Softhead, I must present you to our boon compan- 
 ions ; my friend, Lord Strongbow (hardest drinker in 
 England) ; Sir John Bruin, best boxer in England 
 threshed Figg; quarrelsome, but pleasant: Colonel 
 Flint finest gentleman in England, and, out and out, 
 the best fencer ; mild as a lamb, but can't bear contra- 
 diction, and, on the point of honor, inexorable. Now, 
 for the sixth. Ha, Mr. Easy ! (I ask him to serve 
 you.) Easy, your hand! So charmed that you've 
 come. You'll dine with us given up five invitations 
 on purpose. Do sans ceremonie. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Why, really, my Lord, a plain sober man like me 
 would be out of place 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 If that's all, never fear. Live with us, and we'll 
 make another man of you, Easy ! 
 
so. I.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 75 
 
 What captivating familiarity ! Well, I can not re- 
 sist your lordship. (Strutting down the room, and 
 speaking to his acquaintances.) Yes, my friend 
 Wilmot Lord Wilmot will make me dine with 
 him. Pleasant man, my friend Wilmot. We dine 
 together to-day. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Easy invited ? La ! how flattered he looks, 
 " asked to serve me," ha ! I understand such a 
 sober, steady fellow : never smokes, never drinks, and 
 so despises those who imitate others, that he'll keep 
 me company in shirking that villainous Burgundy, and 
 eschewing that damnable pigtail. Very considerate in 
 Fred. He's not so bad as he seems. 
 
 [SOFTHEAD retires to the background with the other 
 invited guests; but, trying hard to escape SIR 
 JOHN BRUIN, the boxer, and COL. FLINT, the 
 fencer, fastens himself on EASY with an air of 
 patronage. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Ah, Mr. Tonson. (Aside. Now to serve the dear 
 Duke.) You have not yet bought the Memoir of a 
 late Man of Quality ? 
 
 TONSON. 
 
 Not yet, my Lord ; just been trying ; hard work. 
 (Wipes his forehead.) But the person who has it is 
 luckily very poor ; one of my own authors. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 His eye turns to that forlorn-looking specter I saw 
 him tormenting. That must be one of your authors ; 
 he looks so lean, Mr. Tonson ? 
 
76 NOT SO BAD AS. WE SEEtt ; [ACT nt 
 
 TONSON. 
 
 Hush ! That's the man ; made a noise m his day ; 
 David Fallen. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 David Fallen, whose bopks ? yvhen I 5 was ; but a school- 
 boy, made me first take to readirig, not ^taskwork, 
 but pleasure. How much I do owe him ! 
 
 f \Bows very low to Mr. Fallen. 
 
 . . ,, .., , TQNSON; w | ffi M 
 
 My Lord bows very low! Oh, if your lordship 
 knows Mr. Fallen, pray tell him not to stand in his 
 own light. I would give him a vast sum for the Me- 
 moir, -two hundred guineas ; on my honor I would ! 
 ( Whispering^) Scandal, my Lord ; sell like wild-fire. 
 I say, Mr. Hardman, I observed you speak to poor 
 David. Can't you help me here ? ( Whispering^) Lord 
 Henry de Mowbray's Private Memoirs ! Fallen has 
 them, and refuses to sell. Love Adventures ; nuts for 
 the public. Only just go.t a peep myself. But such 
 a confession about the beautiful Lady Morland. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Hang Lady Morland ! 
 
 TONSON. 
 
 Besides shows up his own brother ! Jacobite 
 family secrets. Such a card for the Whigs ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Confound the Whigs ! What do I care ? 
 
 WILMOT. ^ 
 
 vEll see to it, Tonson. Give me Mr. Fallen's private 
 address. 
 
sc. i.J OR, MANY SID^S TO A CHARACTER. 77 
 
 TONSOJST.. < ; 
 
 But pray be discreet, my Lord. If that knave 
 Curll should get wind of the scent, he'd try to spoil 
 my market with my own author. The villain ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 "'\Aside. Curll ? ^Vhy, I've miraiqk'd Curll so ex- 
 actly, that Pope himself was deceived, and, stifling 
 with rage, ordered me out of the room. I have it ! 
 Mr. Curll shall call upon Fallen the first thing in the 
 morning, and outbid Mr. Tonson.) Thank you, sir. 
 (Taking the address.) Moody, my Hardman? some 
 problem in political ethics ? 
 
 II A RDM AN. 
 
 Ay, the oldest of all ! the grand social beehive ; 
 the toil and the idleness the bee and the drone. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 And thinking, no doubt, that the bee has the best 
 of it ! We may yet toil together, my Hardman. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 This, in you, is new language and noble ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 It comes from Love, the ennobler ! You turn away, 
 you have a grief you'll not tell me why, this morn- 
 ing I asked you a favor ; from that moment I had a 
 right to your confidence, for a favor degrades when it 
 does not come from a friend. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You charm, you subdue me, and I feel for once how 
 necessary to man is the sympathy of another. Your 
 hand, Wilmot. This is secret I, too, then presume 
 
78 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT m. 
 
 to love. One above me in fortune; it may be in 
 birth. But a free state lifts those it employs to a par 
 with its nobles. A post in the Treasury of such 
 nature is vacant ; I have served the minister, men say, 
 with some credit ; and I asked for the gift without 
 shame 'twas my due. Wai pole needs the office, not 
 for reward to the zealous, but for bribe to the doubtful. 
 See, (giving letter) " Noble family to conciliate." Ah, 
 the drones have the honey ! 
 
 WILMOT (reading and returning the letter). 
 And had you this post, you think you could gain 
 the lady you love ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 At least it would have given me courage to ask. 
 Well, well, well, a truce with my egotism, you at 
 least, my fair Wilmot, fair in form, fair in fortune, you 
 need fear no rebuff where you place your affections. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Why, the lady's father sees only demerits in what 
 you think my advantages. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You mistake, I know the man much better than you 
 do ; and look, even now he is gazing upon you as 
 fondly as if on the coronet that shall blazon the coach 
 of my lady, his daughter. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Gazing on me ? where ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Yonder Ha ! is it not Mr. Easy, whose 
 
sc. ij OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 79 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Mr. Easy ! you too taken in ! Hark, secret for se- 
 cret 'tis Lucy Thornside I love. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You stun me ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 But what a despot Love is, allows no thought, not 
 its slave ! They told me below, that my father had 
 been here ; have you seen him ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Ay. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 And sounded ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 No better than that -I have taken precautions, I 
 must leave you now ; you shall know the result to-mor- 
 row afternoon. (Aside. Your father's life in these 
 hands his ransom what I please to demand. Ah, 
 joy ! I am myself once again. Fool to think man 
 could be my friend ! Ah, joy ! born but for the strife 
 and the struggle, it is only 'mid foes that my invention 
 is quickened ! Half-way to my triumph, now that I 
 know the rival to vanquish !) (To FALLEN. Engage 
 the messenger at once, forget not. Nothing else till I 
 see you.) (To WILMOT.) Your hand once again. 
 To-day I'm your envoy ; (Aside : to-morrow your 
 master.) . [Exit. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 The friendliest man that ever lived since the days 
 of Damon and Pythias ; I'm a brute if I don't serve 
 him in return. To lose the woman he loves for want 
 of this pitiful place. Saint Cupid forbid ! " Conciliate 
 some noble family," Walpole has been trying these two 
 
80 
 
 years to conciliate Fred Wilmot. Knows there are at 
 least six young puppies who would vote as I asked 
 'em ; just to be brought into fashion. But I can't sell 
 myself. Let me consider ! Many sides to a character 
 I think I could here hit the right one better than 
 Hard man. Ha, ha ! Excellent ! My Murillo ! I'll not 
 sell myself, but I'll buy the prime minister ! Excuse 
 me, my friends ; urgent business ; I shall be back ere 
 the dinner hour ; the room is prepared. Drawer, 
 show in these gentlemen : Hardman shall have his 
 place and his wife, and I'll bribe the arch-briber ! Ho ! 
 my lackeys, my coach, there ! Ha, ha ! bribe the prime 
 minister ! There never was such a fellow as I am for 
 crime and audacity. \Exit WILMOT. 
 
 COLONEL FLINT. 
 
 Your arm, Mr. Softhead. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Thank you, I'll follow - 
 
 COLONEL FLINT (curling his mustache, and one hand 
 
 on his sword-hilt). 
 
 Am I to understand that the arm of Colonel Flint 
 is disdained by Mr. Softhead ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Disdained ; which arm left arm right arm ? 
 
 COLONEL FLINT. 
 
 Left, sir, the sword side; dangerous side of my 
 character, sir ! I ought to have observed, that, in 
 points of honor, I'm touchy ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 And Fred leaves me in the very paws of this tiger ! 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
so. ii.] OB, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 81 
 
 SCENE II. 
 The Library in SIR GEOFFREY'S House. 
 
 Enter SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I'm followed ! I'm dogged ! I go out for a walk 
 unsuspiciously; and behind creeps a step, pit, pat; 
 feline and stealthy ; I turn, not a soul to be seen I 
 walk on ; pit, pat, stealthy and feline ; turn again ; 
 and lo ! a dark form like a phantom, muffled and 
 masked just seen and just gone. Ouf ! The plot 
 thickens around me I can struggle no more. 
 
 \_SinJcs into a seat. 
 
 Enter LUCY. 
 A step ; ha, again ; who is there ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 But your child, my dear father. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Child, ugh ! What do you want ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Ah, speak to me gently. It is your heart that I 
 want! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Heart I suspect I'm to be coaxed out of some- 
 thing ! Eh ; eh ! Why, she's weeping. What ails 
 thee, poor darling ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 So kind. Now I have courage to tell you. I was 
 sitting alone, and I thought to myself * my father 
 often doubts of me doubts of all' 
 
82 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT HI. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh what now ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 'Yet his true nature is generous it could not 
 always have been so. Perhaps in old times he has 
 been deceived where he loved. Ah, his Lucy, at 
 least, shall never deceive him.' So I rose and listened 
 for your footstep I heard it and I am here 
 here, on your bosom, my own father ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 You'll never deceive me right, right go on, 
 pretty one, go on. (Aside. If she should be my 
 child after all ?) 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 There is one who has come here lately one who 
 appears to displease you- one whom you've been led 
 to believe comes not on my account, but my friend's. 
 It is not so, my father ; it is for me that he comes. 
 Let him come no more let me see him no more 
 for for I feel that his presence might make me too 
 happy and that would grieve you, O my father ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 (Aside. She must be my child ! Bless her !) I'll 
 never doubt you again. I'll bite out my tongue if it 
 says a harsh word to you. I'm not so bad as I seem. 
 Grieve me ? yes, it would break my heart. You 
 don't know these gay courtiers I do ! Knew just 
 such another they have no honor no mercy not 
 one of them tut tut tut don't cry. What shall 
 I say to console her ? Oh, he's not the only man in 
 the world I'll find you another, who will love you 
 in earnest ; who will make you happy ; worthy, 
 excellent man ! Why, she's crying worse than before ! 
 
sc. ii.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 83 
 
 HARDMAN'S voice without, 
 Is Sir Geoffrey at home ? 
 
 [LucY starts up. As HARDMAN enters, a figure 
 draped and masked passes by the open window 
 and looks in. Twilight during the preceding 
 dialogue in the scene, the stage has gradually 
 darkened. 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 My heart is less heavy ! Grief does not weigh like 
 deceit ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Excuse this late hour. Ah what is that yonder ? 
 Look ! [ The figure disappears. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 What ! where ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 At the window. It is gone. Nay, but an idler's 
 curiosity. (SiR GEOFFREY runs to the window and 
 looks out.) I have not very long since left my Lord 
 Wilmot. Hey ! Did you ask where ? 
 
 LUCY (faintly). 
 
 No. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I thought you did. 'Twas at his haunt in a coffee- 
 house ; preparing for what my Lord calls an orgy. 
 
 {Exit LUCY. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY (catching hold of him which prevents 
 
 his observing Lucy as she goes out.) 
 I don't see any one. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 A chance passer-by, I assure you. Sir Geoffrey, 
 
84 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT m. 
 
 you were deceived ; Lord Wilmot has no thought of 
 Mr. Easy's daughter. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREYv 
 
 He ! he ! I know that no one could long de- 
 ceive 'me ! Lucy has told me all, and begged me not 
 to let him come here again. 
 
 HARDMAN (joyfully). 
 
 She has ! Then she does not love this Lord Wil- 
 mot? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Love ; nonsense ! She has not seen him six times. 
 Can't say how it might be if she saw more of him ; 
 but that will not be. It is not so hard to say " Get 
 you gone" to a suitor ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 But the arts of corruption the emissary the 
 letter the go-between the spy ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Arts ! Spy ! Ha ! if Easy was right after all. If 
 those flowers thrown in at the window ; the watch 
 from that house in the lane ; the masked figure that 
 followed me ; all bode designs but on Lucy 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Flowers have been thrown in at the window ? 
 You've been watched ! A masked figure has followed 
 you? One question more. All this since Lord Wil- 
 mot knew Lucy ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Yes, to be sure ; how blind I have been ! 
 
 [ Masked figure reappears. 
 
so. in.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 85 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 7 Twas a face with the vizard women wear now-a- 
 days, that I saw at the window. Ha ! Look again. 
 Let me track this mystery (Figure disappears): and 
 if it conceal a scheme of Lord Wilmot's against your 
 daughter's honor, it shall need not your sword to pro- 
 tect her. [Leaps from the window. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 What does he mean ? Not my sword ? 'Zounds ! 
 he don't think of his own ! If he does, I'll discard 
 him. I'm not a coward, to let other men risk their 
 lives in my quarrel. Served as a volunteer under 
 Marlbro', at Blenheim ; and marched on a cannon ! 
 Whatever my faults, no one can say I'm. not brave. 
 (Starting.) Ha! bless my life! What is that? I 
 thought I heard something I'm all on a tremble ! 
 Who the duse can be brave when he's surrounded by 
 poisoners followed by phantoms ; with an ugly black 
 face peering in at his window ? Hodge ! come and 
 bar up the shutters lock the door let out the house- 
 dog ! Hodge ! Hodge ! Where on earth is that 
 scoundrel? [Exit. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 The Streets in perspective an Alley inscribed JDeadman's 
 Lane a large, old-fashioned, gloomy 'House in the Cor- 
 ner, with the door on the stage, above which is impaneled 
 a sign of the Crown and Portcullis. Enter a Female 
 Figure, masked looks round, pauses, and enters the door. 
 
 Enter HARDMAN. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Ha ! enters that house. I have my hand on the 
 
86 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT in. 
 
 clew ! Some pretext to call on the morrow, and 1 
 shall quickly unravel the skein. [Exit. 
 
 GOODENOUGH EASY (singing without). 
 
 " Old King Cole 
 Was a jolly old soul, 
 And a jolly old soul was he 
 
 [Entering, with LORD WILMOT and SOFTHEAD, EASY, 
 his derss disordered, a pipe in his mouth, in a 
 state of intoxication, hilarious, musical, and ora- 
 torical SOFTHEAD in a state of intoxication, ab- 
 ject, remorseful, and lachrymose WILMOT sober, 
 but affecting inebriety. 
 
 He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl, 
 And he called for his fiddlers three !" 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Ha, ha ! I imagine myself like Bacchus, between 
 Silenus and his ass ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 "Wilmot, you're a jolly old soul, and I'll give you 
 my Barbara. 
 
 SOFTHEAD (blubbering). 
 
 Hegh ! hegh ! hegh ! Betrayed in my tenderest 
 affection. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 My dear Mr. Easy, I've told you already that I'm 
 pre-engaged. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Pre-engaged ! that's devilish unhandsome ! But 
 now I look at you, you do seem double : and if you're 
 double, you're not single ; and if you're not single, 
 why, you can't marry Barbara, for that would be big- 
 amy ! But I don't care ; you're a jolly old soul ! 
 
BO. in.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 87 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Not a bit of it. Quite mistaken, Mr. Easy. But if 
 you want for a son-in-law, a jolly old soul there he is ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD (bursting out afresh). 
 Hegh! hegh! hegh! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Hang a lord ! What's a lord ? I'm a respectable, 
 independent family Briton ! Softhead, give us your 
 fist : you're a jolly old soul, and you shall have Bar- 
 bara ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Hegh ! hegh ! I'm not a jolly old soul. I'm a 
 sinful, wicked, miserable monster. Hegh ! hegh ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 What's a monster ? I like a monster ! My girl 
 shan't go a-begging any farther. You're a precious 
 good fellow, and your father's an alderman, and has 
 got a great many votes, and I'll stand for the City : 
 and you shall have my Barbara. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I don't deserve her, Mr. Easy ; I don't deserve such 
 an angel ! I'm not precious good. Lords and tigers 
 have corrupted my innocence. Hegh ! hegh ! I'm 
 as sick as a dog, and I'm going to be hanged. 
 
 WATCH (without). 
 
 Half-past eight o'clock ! 
 
 i 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Come along, gentlemen ; we shall have the watch 
 on us ! 
 
88 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ' [ACT in. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 " And the bands that guard the City, 
 Cried ' Rebels, yield or die !' " 
 
 Enter Watchman. 
 
 WATCHMAN. 
 
 Half -past eight o'clock ! Move on ! move on ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Order, order ! Mr. Vice and gentlemen, here's a 
 stranger disturbing the harmony of the evening. I 
 knock him down for a song. (Seizes the Watchman's 
 rattle.) Half-past Eight, Esq., on his legs ! Sing, sir ;' 
 I knock you down for a song. 
 
 WATCHMAN. 
 
 Help! help! Watch! watch! 
 
 [Cries within, Watch!" 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Hark ! the officers of justice ! My wicked career is 
 approaching its close ! 
 
 EASY (who has got astride on the Watchman's head, 
 and persuades himself that the rest of the 
 Watchman is the table). 
 
 Mr. Vice and gentlemen, the toast of the evening 
 
 what's the matter with the table 1 'Tis bobbing 
 
 up and down. The table's drunk ! Order for the 
 Chair you table, you ! (Thumps the Watchman 
 with the rattle.) Fill your glasses a bumper toast. 
 Prosperity to the City of London nine times nine 
 Hip, hip, hurrah ! ( Waves the rattle over his head ; 
 the rattle springs, and makes all the noise of which 
 rattles are capable.) (Amazed.) Why, the Chair- 
 man's hammer is as drunk as the table ! 
 
SC. III.] 
 
 Enter Watchmen with staves, springing their rattles. 
 
 WILMOT (drawing SOFTHEAD off into a corner). 
 Hold your tongue they'll not see us here ! 
 
 WATCHMAN (escaping). 
 
 Murder ! murder ! this is the fellow ! most des- 
 perate ruffian. 
 
 [EASY is upset by the escape of the Watchman, and, 
 after some effort to remove him otherwise, the 
 Guardians of the Night hoist him on their 
 shoulders. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 I'm being chaired member for the City ! Freemen 
 and Electors ! For this elevation to the post of mem- 
 ber for your metropolis, I return you my heartfelt 
 thanks ! Steady there, steady ! The proudest day 
 of my life. Tis the boast of the British Constitution 
 that a plain, sober man like me may rise to honors the 
 most exalted ! Long live the British Constitution. 
 Hip hip hurrah ! 
 
 [Is carried off waving the rattle. SOFTHEAD 
 continues to weep in speechless sorrow. 
 
 WILMOT (coming forth). 
 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! My family Briton being chaired for 
 the City. ! Stand up ; how do you feel 1 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Feel ! I'm a ruin ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Faith, I never saw a more mournful one ! It must 
 be near Sir Geoffrey's ! Led them here on my way 
 to this sepulchral appointment, Deadman's Lane ! 
 
90 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT in. 
 
 Where the plague can it be ? Ha ! the very place. 
 Looks like it ! How get rid of Softhead. Ha, ha ! I 
 have it. Softhead, awake ! the night has begun the 
 time for monsters and their prey. Now will I lift the 
 dark vail from the mysteries of London. Behold that 
 house, Deadman's Lane ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Deadman's Lane ! I'm in a cold perspiration ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 In that house under the antique sign of Crown 
 and Portcullis are such delightful horrors at work as 
 would make the wigs of holy men stand on end ! The 
 adventure is dangerous, but deliriously exciting. Into 
 that abode which woman were lost did she enter, 
 which man is oft hanged when he leaves into that 
 abode will we plunge, and gaze, like Macbeth, " on 
 deeds without a name." 
 
 SOFTHEAD (in a paroxysm of terror and ivoe). 
 Hegh ! hegh ! hegh ! I won't gaze on deeds with- 
 out a name ! I won't plunge into dead men's abodes ! 
 I'll go home to my mother ! Hegh ! hegh ! hegh ! 
 Let me go let me go. [Exit. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Ha, ha ! I've at least kept my promise to Barbara. 
 I think her poor lover's half-way to the City already ! 
 And as for papa, who has just been chaired member 
 for it " such a very independent man" " so severe 
 on a cheerful glass" he has chosen a son-in-law drunk, 
 and egad, he shall keep to him sober. So this is the 
 house not too late to call. No, it is not yet nine 
 the writer fixes the evening -the inducement Lucy's 
 name, and a benevolent action. She knows how to 
 enlist the heart of a lover. Whatever our own faults 
 
so. IH.J OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 91 
 
 may be, 'tis so pleasant to couple with kind thought 
 or good deed, the name of the woman we love ! By 
 Venus Urania, no man's a monster on that side his 
 character. [Knocks and enters. 
 
 END OF ACT III. 
 
92 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; L A r iv. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 The library in SIB, GEOFFREY'S house. 
 
 Enter SIR GEOFFREY, with a nosegay in his hand. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 No, no! these pestilent flowers cant come from 
 Wilmot ; they must come from that villain, mine old 
 friend and enemy ; meant as a jest to insult me. That 
 man ! my blood boils ! I'll find him out, and I'll 
 fight him again ; and if I'm killed, what's to become, 
 then, of Lucy ? Why not marry her to Hardman at 
 once ? At her age, a girl's notions of love can not be 
 very decided. 
 
 Enter HODGE. 
 
 HODGE. 
 Mr. Hardman, sir. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Show him in. (Exit HODGE.) Yes, he is clever ; 
 but perhaps he is too clever ! Ugh ! I'd better first 
 try him. Suppose I ask him to tell me his birth and 
 his history ; and as he speaks truly or falsely, discard 
 him as a liar or adopt him as a son. 
 
sc. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 93 
 Enter HARDMAN. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I come early. I tracked the figure to the house that 
 you spoke of. But what flowers again ! This inso- 
 lent lord 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 No, no 1 the flowers don't come from Wilmot. I 
 tell you, they don't. Hardman, draw near. I've 
 known you patient and brave, laborious and earnest ; 
 but you are ambitious. Ambition sometimes puzzles 
 the simple. For my part, I think you really love 
 fame and your country. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I do. I love fame, for her voice lifted thought into 
 hope ; I love my country, because, though her customs 
 be harsh to the lowly, she has not one law that forbids 
 the lowly to rise. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Well said ! Look me straight in the face. Ugh, I 
 don't know ; you have a look of a man whom I loved as 
 a boy ; my own foster-brother, the son of a yeoman. 
 I made him my equal. He aided my cousin to trick 
 me out of my birthright, by false tales to my father. 
 Very nearly succeeded. And in dying (I pardoned 
 him, dying,) he had the effrontery to say that he had 
 never betrayed, if I had never suspected. 
 
 HARDMAN (smilinff). 
 Might not that have been true ?, 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 You think so. Well, I'll not suspect you, at least, 
 I'll try. Look me still in the face. Can I trust you ? 
 A grave trust, sir, the happiness of another ! 
 
94: NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Thus appealed to, I say fearlessly, trust me ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Hem ! I've seen that you're not indifferent to Lucy. 
 ^3ut before I approve or discourage, just tell me more 
 ^ yourself, your birth, your fortune, past life. Of 
 course, you are the son of a gentleman ? He turns 
 aside. (Aside. He will lie !) 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Sir, at the risk of my hopes, I will speak the hard 
 truth. " The son of a gentleman !" I think not. My 
 infancy passed in the house of a farmer ; the children 
 with whom I played told me I was an orphan. I was 
 next dropt, how I know not, in the midst of that 
 rough world called school. When the holidays came, 
 my companions went home. There was no home for 
 me. I asked, " Why ?" and the master said, " Why ? 
 but because you're an orphan." Then he looked at 
 me with a stern sort of kindness. " You have talent," 
 said he, " but you're idle ; you've no right to holidays ; 
 you must force your way through life ; you are sent 
 here by charity." 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Charity ! There, the old fool was wrong ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Wrong or right, sir, he changed my whole nature ; 
 my idleness vanished I became the head of the 
 school. Then I resolved no longer to be the pupil of 
 Charity. At the age of sixteen I escaped, and took 
 for my motto the words of the master " You must 
 force your way thro' life." Hope and pride whispered 
 "You'll force it!" 
 
so. L] OB, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 95 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Poor fellow ! What then ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Eight years of wandering, adventure, hardship, and 
 trial, I often wanted bread never courage. At the 
 end of those years I had risen to what ? A desk at 
 a lawyer's office in Norfolk. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY (aside). 
 
 My own lawyer ? where I first caught trace of him 
 again. He is true ! I like him better and better. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I was then four-and-twenty. It was Walpole's 
 native county. Party spirit ran high in the town. 
 Politics began to bewitch me. There was a Speaking 
 Club, and I spoke. Squires and yeomen rode from a 
 distance to hear young Hard man discuss what neither 
 he nor themselves understood. My ambition rose 
 higher took the flight of an author. I came up to 
 London with ten pounds in my pocket, and a work on 
 the " State of the Nation." 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 He! he! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 After fifty refusals, I found a bookseller to publish 
 my treatise. It sold well ; the publisher brought me 
 four hundred pounds. " Vast fortunes," said he, " are 
 made in the South Sea Scheme. Venture your hun- 
 dreds, I'll send you a broker." 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 He ! he ! I hope he was clever, that broker ? 
 
96 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Clever indeed : in a fortnight he said to me, " Your 
 hundreds have swelled into thousands. For this money 
 I can get you an Annuity on land, just enough for a 
 parliamentary qualification." The last hint fired me 
 I bought the Annuity. You now know my fortune, 
 and how it was made. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY (aside). 
 
 He ! he ! I must tell this to Easy ; how he'll en- 
 joy it. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Not long after, at a political coffee-house, a man took 
 me aside. " Sir," said he, " you are Mr. Hardman, 
 who wrote the famous work on ' The State of the Na- 
 tion.' Will you come into Parliament ? We want a 
 man like you for our borough ; we'll return you free 
 of expense ; not a shilling of bribery." 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 He ! he ! Wonderful ! not a shilling of bribery ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 The man kept his word, and I came into Parliament 
 inexperienced and friendless not a soul there cared 
 a straw for me or the " State of the Nation." I 
 spoke, and was laughed at ; spoke again, and was lis- 
 tened to ; failed often ; succeeded at last. Here, yes- 
 terday, in ending my tale I must have said, looking 
 down, " Can you give your child to a man of birth 
 so doubtful ; and of fortunes so humble ?" Yet aspir- 
 ing even then to the hand of your heiress, I wrote to 
 Sir Robert for a place just vacated by a man of high 
 rank, who is raised to the Peerage. He refused. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Of course. (Aside. I suspect he's very rash and 
 presuming.) 
 
sc. L] OB, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 97 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 To-day the refusal is retracted the office is mine. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY (astonished and aside). 
 Ha ! I had no hand in that ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I am now one if not of the highest yet still one 
 of that Government through which the Majesty of 
 England administers her laws. And, with front erect, 
 I say to you as I would to the first peer of the realm 
 " I have no charts of broad lands, and no roll of 
 proud fathers. But alone and unfriended, I have 
 fought my way against Fortune. Did your ancestors 
 more ? My country has trusted the new man to her 
 councils, and the man whom she honors is the equal 
 of all." 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Brave fellow, your hand. I look you again in the 
 face, not to doubt you this time. I see you are can- 
 did, I believe you are good. 
 
 HARDMAX. 
 
 Oh, generous friend, not so good as you deem me. 
 Such trust makes me fear lest indeed I deceive you. 
 There goes on here, forever, a struggle between evil 
 and good. Nature made me combative as the mastiff; 
 and the zest of the chase trains the instinct to double 
 and wind with the hound. Place before me a foe, 
 and my soul leaps to war. Vanish all thoughts, save 
 of conflict, stratagem, conquest ! But friendship, affec- 
 tion, kindness, love these have been so strange since 
 my birth, that, finding them now, I stand amazed at 
 myself! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 If this is not honesty, where on earth shall I find 
 
98 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT IT. 
 
 it? Enough. Win Lucy's consent, and you have 
 mine. Hush ! Win it soon, for she may soon need a 
 protector. You are combative, are you ? So much 
 the better ; good English quality ; no getting on with- 
 out it. Hark ! I have been jeered at, insulted ; these 
 flowers are sent to me in mockery. I'll fight the vile 
 ribald. Look him up. I make you my second. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 (Aside. Poor man ! So shrewd when his humor is 
 not on him. What strange whim is this ?) How can 
 mockery be meant by these flowers ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! Sixteen years ago, I'd a wife 
 
 HARDMAN (insinuatingly). 
 
 Yes? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 With her head full of poetry ; a romantic fair lady, 
 forsooth. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Yes ? And these flowers ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! She taught me the language of flowers. 
 This posy is made up, like those that I gave her in- 
 tended to express trust in fidelity. I had a friend, 
 too ; a very gay gentleman, who used to laugh at my 
 conjugal gallantries ; he was fond of a laugh ; and 
 now this friend Curse him ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Sends you these flowers after sixteen years ? But, 
 my dear sir, so pointless a joke 
 
so. i.J OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 99 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Pointless ! it goes to the heart. You are dull ! I 
 said I'd a wife. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Well? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 And a friend ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Well? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Well ! all is told. I'd a friend and a wife ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Hum ! the wife was romantic, the friend a gay 
 gentleman and you suspected 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Suspected ! I was in the room of a tavern. I sate 
 in the corner heard a laugh, and my name ; heard 
 my friend boast that my wife was his mistress, and 
 struck the laugh from his lips with this hand ! Ugh ! 
 don't talk of it ! Not been quite right here ever since 
 I suspect. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 He boasted but did she confess ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! hold your tongue. Did you ever hear of a 
 woman who did confess ? Proud as Lucifer said a 
 question was insult common trick of the sex. I 
 would have thrust her from my house but she left it 
 herself. Heaven forgive her I can not. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Any proof to back this gay gentleman's boast ? 
 
100 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Yes, sir, I had a proof: a menial confessed that he 
 took a letter from her to the paramour secretly ; and 
 on the very day of the boast. 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 Hem the very day, too ! that looks bad. And it 
 is only now that you would punish this man ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Could not kill him before, sir. I tried the next day, 
 and was run through the body. Fine gentlemen fence 
 well. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 But if he wanted to remind you of his own infamy, 
 why should he wait so long ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Could not find me out, I suppose. Went abroad 
 ere my wounds were yet healed, to get away from dis- 
 grace. Did not come back till a kinsman left me an 
 estate, on condition that I took his name, for mine 
 then was Morland 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Morland ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Returned shut myself up here like a rat in a hole. 
 Thought I was safe from all gibe. Not so ! I'm found 
 out. (Aside. Heavens ! and this man was my friend 
 a year before Lucy was born ! and I never yet dared 
 to call her my child !) No more words I will fight 
 him again ! Take the challenge at once. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You have not told me the name. 
 
sc. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 101 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! 'tis very well known ; Lord Henry de Mow- 
 bray. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 The reprobate brother of the Duke of Middlesex? 
 He is dead ! Died a few months ago. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 He is dead ! (Aside.) Don't believe it ! 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 Temper romantic the masked figure must be his 
 wife ! This does not look like guilt. Ha ! what did 
 Tonson say of Lord Henry's Memoir ? confession 
 about Lady Morland in Fallen's hands. I'll go to 
 Fallen at once. (Aloud.) Forgive my abruptness. I 
 will follow up the new clew you have given me. When 
 can I see you again ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I'm going to Easy's, you'll find me there all the 
 morning. But don't forget Lucy, we must save her 
 from Wilmot. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Fear Wilmot no more. This day he shall abandon 
 his suit. [Exit HARDMAN. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 No I don't believe he is dead. No one else knew 
 my habits no one else could insult me. Hardman 
 says it, to prevent my being run thro' the body again. 
 Easy shall get at the truth. Hodge ! 
 
 Enter LUCY and HODGE. 
 
 Hodge, take your hat and your bludgeon attend 
 me to the City. 
 
102 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Ah ! going out, sir ? one kiss, do you trust me 
 now? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY (caressing her). 
 
 Trust you ! with all my heart, though there is not 
 much left of it. She'll be happy with Hardman. 
 You must never cry again. Ah ! if she were my own 
 child after all. [JZxeunt SIR GEOFFREY and LUCY. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 DAVID FALLEN'S Garret. [The scene resembling that of No- 
 garth's " Distressed Poet"] 
 
 FALLEN (opening the casement). 
 So, the morning air breathes fresh ! One moment's 
 respite from drudgery. Another line to this poem, my 
 grand bequest to my country ! Ah ! this description ; 
 unfinished ; good, good. 
 
 " Methinks we walk in dreams on fairy land 
 Where golden ore lies mixed with "* 
 
 Enter PADDY. 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 'Plase, sir, the milkwoman's score ! 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Stay, stay ; 
 
 "Lies mixed with common sand !" 
 
 * As it would be obviously presumptuous to assign to an 
 author so eminent as Mr. David Fallen, any verses composed 
 by a living writer, the two lines in the text are taken from 
 Mr. Dryden's Indian Emperor. 
 
so. IL] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 103 
 
 Eh ? Milkworaan ? She must be paid, or the children 
 I I (Fumbling in his pocket, and looking about 
 the table.) There's another blanket on the bed ; 
 pawn it. 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 Agh, now ! don't be so ungrateful to your ould 
 friend, the blanket. When Mr. Tonson, the great 
 bookshiller, tould me, says he, " Paddy, I'd giv two 
 h under gould guineas for the papursh Mr. Fallen has 
 in his disk !" 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Go, go ! {Knock. 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 Agh, murther ! Who can that be disturbin' the 
 door at the top of the mornin' ? [Exit. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Oh ! that fatal Memoir ! My own labors scarce 
 keep me from starving, and this wretched scrawl of a 
 profligate worth what to me were Golconda ! Heaven 
 sustain me ! I'm tempted. 
 
 Enter PADDY, and WILMOT disguised as 
 EDMUND CURLL. 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 Stoop your head, sir. 'Tis not a dun, sir ; 'tis Mr. 
 Curll ; says he's come to outbid Mr. Tonson, sir. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Go quick ; pawn the blanket. Let me think my 
 children are fed. (Exit PADDY.) Now, sir, what do 
 you want? 
 
 WILMOT (taking out his handkerchief and whimpering'). 
 My dear good Mr. Fallen no offence I do so feel 
 
104: NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 for the distresses of genius. I am a bookseller, but I 
 have a heart and I'm come to buy 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Have you 1 this poem ? it is nearly finished twelve 
 books twenty years' labor twenty-four thousand 
 lines ! 10J., Mr. Curll, 10J. ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Price of Paradise Lost ! Can't expect such prices 
 for poetry now-a-days, my dear Mr. Fallen. Nothing 
 takes that is not sharp and spicy. Hum ! I hear you 
 have some most interesting papers ; private Memoirs 
 and Confessions of a Man of Quality recently deceased. 
 Nay, nay, Mr. Fallen ; don't shrink back ; I'm not like 
 that shabby dog, Tonson. Three hundred guineas for 
 the Memoir of Lord Henry de Mowbray ! 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Three hundred guineas for that garbage ! not ten 
 for the Poem ! and the children ! Well (takes out 
 the Memoir in a portfolio, splendidly bound, with the 
 arms and supporters of the Mowbrays blazoned on the 
 sides). Ah ! but the honor of a woman the secrets 
 of a family the 
 
 WILMOT (grasping at the portfolio which FALLEN still 
 
 detains). 
 
 Nothing sells better, my dear, dear Mr. Fallen ! 
 But how, how did you come by these treasures, my 
 excellent friend ? 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 How ? Lord Henry gave them to me himself, on 
 his death-bed. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Nay ; what could he give them for, but to publish, 
 
so. ii.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER, 105 
 
 my sweet Mr. Fallen ; no doubt to immortalize all the 
 ladies who loved him. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 No, sir ; profligate as he was, and vile as may be 
 much in this Memoir, that was not his dying intention, 
 though it might be hig first. There was a lady he 
 had once foully injured the sole woman he had ever 
 loved eno' for remorse. This Memoir contains a con- 
 fession that might serve the name he himself had 
 aspersed ; and in the sudden repentance of his last 
 moments, he bade me seek the lady, and place the 
 whole in her hands, to use, as might best serve to 
 establish her innocence. 
 
 AVILMOT. 
 
 (Aside. What ! did even he have a good side to his 
 character ?) How could you know the lady, my be- 
 nevolent friend ? 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 I did not ; but she was supposed to be abroad with 
 her father, a Jacobite exile, and I, then a Jacobite 
 agent, had the best chance to trace her. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 And you did ? 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 But to hear she had died somewhere in France. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Then, of course you may now gratify our intelligent 
 Public, for your own personal profit. Clear as day, 
 my magnanimous friend ! 
 
 I thought so ; sent for Tonson broke the seal ; but 
 when I came to read No, no ! Let go, sir. 
 
106 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Three hundred guineas ! I have 'em here in a bag ! 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 No, stop ; let me just look again ! Ha ! this be- 
 trayal of his brother's most private correspondence 
 this faugh ! Shame, shame on you, base huckster 
 of conscience ! You know I am penniless, starving ! 
 you know I have tarnished my name, played fast 
 and loose with all parties ; but this were worse than 
 deceit to placemen and jobbers. These Memoirs would 
 give up to lewd gossip and scoff, whatever is sacred in 
 the temple of home. Begone ! I will not sell man's 
 hearth to the public. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 (Aside. Noble fellow !) Gently, gently, my too 
 warm, but high-spirited friend ! To say the truth, I 
 don't come on my own account. To whom, my dear 
 sir, since the lady is dead, should be given these papers, 
 if unfit for a virtuous, but inquisitive, public ? Why, 
 surely to Lord Henry's nearest relation. I am em- 
 ployed by the rich Duke of Middlesex. Name your 
 terms. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! Then at last he comes crawling to me, 
 your proud Duke ? Sir, years ago, when a kind word 
 from his Grace, a nod of his head, a touch of his hand, 
 would have turned my foes into flatterers, I had the 
 meanness to name him my patron inscribed to him a 
 work, took it to his house, and waited in his hall 
 among porters and lackeys till, sweeping by to his 
 carriage, he said, " Oh ! you are the poet ? take this," 
 and extended his alms, as if to a beggar. " You 
 look very thin, sir; stay and dine with my people." 
 People his servants ! 
 
sc. ii.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 107 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Calm yourself, my good Mr. Fallen ; 'tis his Grace's 
 innocent way with us all. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Go ! Let him know what this Household Treason 
 contains ! Lord Henry was a cynic and a wit ; his 
 brother had galled and renounced him ; much of these 
 Memoirs are meant for revenge. They would make 
 the proud Duke the butt of the town the jeer of the 
 lackeys, who jeered at my rags ; expose his frailties, 
 his follies, his personal secrets. Tell him this; and 
 then say that my poverty shall not be the tool of his 
 brother's revenge ; but my pride shall not stoop from 
 its pedestal to take money from him. Now, sir, am I 
 right ? Reply, not as tempter to pauper ; but, if one 
 spark of manhood be in you, as man speaks to man. 
 
 WILMOT (resuming his own manner). 
 I reply, sir, as man to man, and gentleman to gentle- 
 man. I am Frederick, Lord Wilmot. Pardon this 
 imposture. The Duke is my father's friend. I am 
 here to obtain, what it is clear that he alone should 
 possess. Mr. Fallen, your works first raised me from 
 the world of the senses, and taught me to believe in 
 such nobleness as I now hope for in you. Give me 
 this record to take to the Duke no price, sir ; for 
 such things are priceless and let me go hence with 
 the sight of this poverty before my eyes, and on my 
 soul the grand picture of the man who has spurned 
 the bribe to his honor, and can humble by a gift the 
 great prince who insulted him by alms. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Take it take it ! (Gives the portfolio.) I am saved 
 from temptation. God bless you, young man ! 
 
108 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Now you indeed make me twofold your debtor in 
 your books, the rich thought ; in yourself, the heroic 
 example. Accept from my superfluities, in small part 
 of such debt, a yearly sum equal to that which your 
 poverty refused as a bribe from Mr. Tonson. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 My Lord my Lord (Bursts into tears.) 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Oh, trust me, the day shall come, when men will 
 feel that it is not charity we owe to the ennoblers of 
 life it is tribute ! When your Order shall rise with 
 the civilization it called into being ; and, amidst an 
 assembly of all that is lofty and fair in the chivalry of 
 birth, it shall refer its claim to just rank among free- 
 men, to some Queen whom even a Milton might have 
 sung, and even a Hampden have died for. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 O dream of my youth ! My heart swells and 
 chokes me ! 
 
 Enter HARDMAN. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 What's this? Fallen weeping? Ah! is not that 
 the tyrannical sneak, Edmund Curll ! 
 
 WILMOT (changing Ms tone to FALLEN into one of 
 imperiousness). 
 
 Can't hear of the poem, Mr. Fallen. Don't tell me. 
 Ah ! Mr. Hardman (concealing the portfolio), your 
 most humble ! Sir sir if you want to publish some- 
 thing smart and spicy Secret Anecdotes of Cabinets 
 Sir Robert Walpole's Adventures with the Ladies 
 
sc. ii.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 109 
 
 I'll come down as handsomely as any man in the Row 
 smart and spicy 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Offer to bribe me you insolent rascal 1 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Oh, my dear good Mr. Hardman, I've bribed the 
 Premier himself. Ha ! ha ! Servant, sir ; servant. 
 
 [Exit, 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Loathsome vagabond ! My dear Mr. Fallen, you 
 have the manuscript Memoir of Lord Henry de Mow- 
 bray. I know its great value. Name your own price 
 to permit me just to inspect it. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 It's gone ; and to the hands of his brother, the 
 Duke. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 The Duke ! This is a thunderstroke ! Say, sir : 
 You have read this Memoir does it contain aught 
 respecting a certain Lady Morland I 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 It does. It confesses that Lord Henry slandered 
 her reputation as a woman, in order to sustain his 
 own as a seducer. That part of the Memoir was writ 
 on his death-bed. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 His boast then 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 Was caused by the scorn of her letter rejecting his 
 suit. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 What joy for Sir Geoffrey ! And that letter ? 
 
110 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 Is one of the documents that make up the Memoir. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 And these documents are now in the hands of the 
 Duke ! 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 They are. For, since Lady Morland is dead 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 Dead ! (Aside. Yet who but Lady Morland can 
 this mask be ? I will go at once to the house and 
 clear up that doubt myself. But the Duke's appoint- 
 ment ! Ah, that must not be forgotten ; my rival 
 must be removed ere Lucy can be won. And what 
 hold on the Duke himself to produce the Memoir, if I 
 get the dispatch.) Well, Mr. Fallen, there is no more 
 to be said as to the Memoir. Your messenger will 
 meet his Grace, as we settled. I shall be close at 
 hand ; and mark ! the messenger must give to me the 
 dispatch which is meant for the Pretender. 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 To you but 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 But me no buts, sir. Fail not to obey me : your 
 life be the forfeit ! [Exit HARDMAN. 
 
 My life ! He deceived me ; he wants to destroy, 
 not to save, the conspirators. I will fly and put off 
 the messenger write meanwhile to caution Lord 
 Loftus ay, and the Duke himself. 'Tis another re- 
 venge on him. ( Writing.) 
 
so. IL] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. Ill 
 Enter PADDY. 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 'Plase, sur, an IVe paid the milk-score an there's 
 five shillings you're as welcome as day to. For I'd an 
 illigant new coat o' my own that does more credit 
 than the blanket to the honor of the house, and makes 
 a mighty fine show at the pawn-shop. 
 
 Good friend one favor more. You know the space 
 by the wall of Lord Berkely's garden. You must go 
 there presently, and look about for a gentleman who 
 will be on the spot at one o'clock. 'Tis the Duke of 
 Middlesex. You will know him by his saying to you, 
 " Marston Moor." 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 Marshton Moor 2 
 
 FALLEN. 
 
 When he says those words, give him that letter. 
 Then hasten with this to the Earl of Loftus's house, 
 Piccadilly if not at home, find him out. First help 
 me down stairs, and call a coach. Oh, yes ! I can af- 
 ford it 
 
 " Methinks I walk in dreams on fairy land." 
 
 I'm to be rich so rich ! 'Tis my turn now. I've 
 shared your pittance, you shall share my plenty ! my 
 children ! mv children ! ( Weeps.) 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 Agh now, and plenty will be the death of yees. But 
 cheer up ! More power to your elbow, and ye'll get 
 through that unexpicted misfortin'. [Exeunt. 
 
112 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 The Mall. 
 
 Enter SOFTHEAD, with his arms folded, and in deep 
 thought. He is forming a virtuous resolution. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Little did I foresee in the days of my innocence, 
 when Mr. Lillo read to me his affecting tragedy of 
 George Barnwell,* how I myself was to be led on, 
 step by step, to the brink of deeds without a name. 
 
 Enter EASY, recently dismissed from the Watch-house ; 
 slovenly, skulking, and crestfallen. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Not a coach on the stand ! A pretty pickle I'm in 
 if any one sees me ! A sober, respectable man like me, 
 to wake in the watch-house, be kept there till noon 
 among thieves and pickpockets, and at last to be fined 
 five shillings for drunkenness and disorderly conduct ; 
 all from dining with a lord who had no thoughts of 
 making Barbara my lady after all ! Duse take him ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 And if there was any pleasure in it 2 Pleasure ! 
 
 EASY. 
 Precious thing this high life ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Is it too late to repent? Is notDeadman's Lane, 
 
 * "We have only, I fear, Mr. Softhead's authority for sup- 
 posing George Barnwell to be then written : it was not acted 
 till some vears afterward. 
 
so. m.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 113 
 
 Crown and Portcullis, a warning to start the most 
 obdurate conscience? 
 
 EASY (discovering SOFTHEAD). 
 Softhead ! how shall I escape him ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD (discovering EASY). 
 Easy ! W T here shall I creep ? 
 
 EASY. 
 How he'll crow over me ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Yet no ! I've a dim recollection of what passed, ere 
 my sense was restored by my horror ; but I think he 
 was more drunk than myself. WHAT A FALL ! I'll 
 appear not to remember. Barbara's father should not 
 feel degraded in the eyes of a wretch like myself! 
 How d'ye do, Mr. Easy ? You're out early to-day. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 (Aside. Ha ! He was so drunk himself, he has 
 forgotten all about it.) Yes, a headache. You were 
 so pleasant at dinner. I wanted the air of the park. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Why, you look rather poorly, Mr. Easy ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Indeed, I feel so. A man in business can't afford to 
 be laid up so I thought before I went home to the 
 City, that I'd just look into Ha, ha ! a seasoned 
 toper like you will laugh when I tell you I thought 
 I'd just look into the 'pothecary's ! 
 
114 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Just been there myself, Mr. Easy. (Showing a 
 phial.) 
 
 EASY (regarding it with mournful disgust). 
 Not taken physic since I was a boy ! It looks very 
 nasty! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 'Tis worse than it looks! And this is called 
 Pleasure ! Ah ! Mr. Easy, don't give way to Fred's 
 fascination ; you don't know how it ends. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Indeed I do (Aside it ends in the watch-house). 
 And I'm shocked to think what will become of your- 
 self, if you are thus every night led away by a lord, 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Hush! talk of the devil look! he's coming up 
 the Mall ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 He is ? then I'm off; I see a sedan-chair. Chair ! 
 chair ! stop ! chair ! chair ! [Exit. 
 
 Enter WILMOT and DUKE. 
 DUKE (looking at portfolio). 
 
 Infamous indeed ! His own base lie against that 
 poor lady, whose husband he wounded. Her very 
 letter attached to it. Ha ! what is this ? Such 
 ribaldry on me ! Gracious Heavens ! My name thus 
 dragged through the dirt, and by a son of my House ! 
 Oh, my Lord, how shall I thank you ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Thank not me ; but the poet, whom your Grace 
 left in the hall. 
 
so. in.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 115 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Name it not I'll beg his pardon myself! (Aside.) 
 And the arms the third Edward gave to my ancestor 
 (tears in his voice) affixed to this cess-pool ! Adieu ; 
 I must go home, and lock up the scandal till I've 
 leisure to read and destroy it ; never again shall it 
 come to the day ! And then, sure that no blot shall 
 be seen in my 'scutcheon, I can peril my life without 
 fear in the cause of my king. [Exit DUKE. 
 
 WILMOT (chanting). 
 
 " Gather you rosebuds while you may, 
 For time is still a-flying." 
 
 Since my visit last night to Deadman's Lane, and 
 my hope to give Lucy such happiness, I feel as if I 
 trod upon air. Ah, Softhead ! why, you stand there, 
 as languid and lifeless, as if you were capable of 
 fishing ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I've been thinking 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Thinking ! you do look fatigued ! What a horrid 
 exertion it must have been to you ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Ah! Fred, Fred, don't be so hardened. What 
 atrocity did you perpetrate last night ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Last night ? Oh, at Deadman's Lane : monstrous, 
 indeed. And this morning, too, another ! Never 
 had so many atrocities on my hands as within the last 
 twenty-four hours. But they are all nothing to that 
 which I perpetrated yesterday, just before dinner. 
 Hark ! I bribed the Prime Minister ! 
 
116 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Saints in Heaven ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Ha ! Ha ! Hit him plump on the jolly blunt side 
 of his character ! I must tell you about it. Drove 
 home from Will's ; put my Murillo in the carnage, 
 and off to Sir Kobert's shown into his office, " Ah ! 
 my Lord Wilmot," says he, with that merry roll of 
 his eye ; " this is an honor, what can I do for you ?" 
 " Sir Kobert," says I, " we men of the world soon 
 come to the point ; 'tis a maxim of yours that all have 
 their price." " Not quite that," says Sir Robert, " but 
 let us suppose that it is." Another roll of his eye, as 
 much as to say, " I shall get this rogue a bargain !" 
 " So, Sir Robert," quoth 1, with a bow, " I've come 
 to buy the Prime Minister." " Buy me," cried Sir 
 Robert, and he laughed till I thought he'd have 
 choked ; " my price is rather high, I'm afraid." Then 
 I go to the door, bid ray lackeys bring in the Murillo. 
 " Look at that, if you please ; about the mark is it 
 not ?" Sir Robert runs to the picture, his breast 
 heaves, his eyes sparkle: "A Murillo!" cries he, 
 " name your price !" " I have named it." Then he 
 looks at me so, and I look at him so ! turn out the 
 lackeys, place pen, ink, and paper before him ; ic That 
 place in the Treasury just vacant, and the Murillo is 
 yours." "For yourself? I am charmed," cried Sir 
 Robert. " No, 'tis for a friend of your own, who's in 
 want of it." " Oh, that alters the case : I've so many 
 friends troubled with the same sort of want." " Yes, 
 but the Murillo is genuine, pray what are the friends ?" 
 Out laughed Sir Robert. " There's no resisting you 
 and the Murillo together ! There's the appointment, 
 and now, since your Lordship has bought me, I must 
 insist upon buying your Lordship. Fair play is a 
 jewel." Then I take my grand holyday air ; " Sir 
 Robert," said I, " you've bought me long ago ! you've 
 
sc. in.] OB, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 117 
 
 given us peace when we feared civil war ; and a Con- 
 stitutional King instead of a despot. And if that's 
 not enough to buy the vote of an Englishman, believe 
 me, Sir Robert, he's not worth the buying." Then he 
 stretched out his bluff hearty hand, and I gave it a 
 bluff hearty shake. He got the Murillo Hardman 
 the place. And here stand I, the only man in all 
 England, who can boast that he bought the Prime 
 Minister ! Faith, you may well call me hardened : I 
 don't feel the least bit of remorse. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Hardman ! you got Hardman the place 1 
 
 WILMOT. 
 I did not say Hardman 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 You did say Hardman. But as 'tis a secret that 
 might get you into trouble, I'll keep it. Yet Dimidum 
 mece, that's not behaving much like a monster ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Why, it does seem betraying the Good Old Cause ; 
 but if there's honor among thieves, there is among 
 monsters ; and Hardman is in the same scrape as our- 
 selves in love ; this place may secure him the hand 
 of the Lady. But mind he's not to know I've been 
 meddling with his affairs. Hang it ! no one likes 
 that. Not a word then 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Not a word. My dear Fred, I'm so glad you're 
 not so bad as you seem. I'd half a mind to desert 
 you ; but I have not the heart ; and I'll stick by you 
 as long as I live ! 
 
118 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 WILMOT (aside). 
 
 Whew! This will never do! Poor dear little 
 fellow ! I'm sorry to lose him ; but my word's passed 
 to Barbara ; and 'tis all for his good. As long as you 
 live ? Alas ! that reminds me of your little affair. 
 I'm to be your second, you know ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Second ! affair ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 With that fierce Colonel Flint. I warned you 
 against him ; but you have such a duse of a spirit. 
 Don't you remember ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 No ; why, what was it all about ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Let me see oh, Flint said something insolent about 
 Mistress Barbara. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 He did ? Ruffian ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 So you called him out ! But if you'll empower 
 me in your name to retract and apologize 
 
 SOFTHEAD. , 
 
 Not a bit of it. Insolent to Barbara ! Dimidum 
 mece, I'd fight him if he were the first swordsman in 
 England. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Why, that's just what he is ! 
 
so. in.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 119 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Don't care ; I'm his man though a dead one. 
 
 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 (Aside. Hang it he's as brave as myself, on that 
 side of his character. I must turn to another.) No, 
 Softhead, that was not the cause of the quarrel said 
 it to rouse you, as you seemed rather low. The fact 
 is that it was a jest on yourself, that you took up rather 
 warmly. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Was that all only myself? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 No larger subject ; and Flint is such a good fencer ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 My dear Fred ; I retract, I apologize ; I despise 
 dueling absurd and unchristianlike. Tell Colonel 
 Flint, I beg his pardon most humbly. I shall never 
 forgive myself if I wounded his fine sense of honor. 
 The tiger said he was touchy ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Leave all to me. Dismiss the subject. I'll settle 
 it ; only, Softhead, you see our set has very stiff rules 
 on such matters. And if you apologize to a bravo 
 like Flint ; nay, if you don't actually, cheerfully, rap- 
 turously fight him though sure to be killed I fear 
 you must resign all ideas of high life ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Dimidum mece, but low life is better than no life 
 at all ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 There's no denying that proposition. It will console 
 
120 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 you to think that Mr. Easy's kind side is Cheapside. 
 And you may get upon one, if you return to the other. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I was thinking so, when you found me thinking 
 (hesitatingly) But to leave you 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Oh, not yet ? Retire at least with eclat. Share 
 with me one grand crowning, last, daring and des- 
 perate adventure. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Deadman's Lane, again, I suppose 1 I thank you 
 for nothing. Fred, I have long been your faithful fol- 
 lower. ( With emotion.) Now, my Lord, Pm your 
 humble servant.* (Aside. Barbara will comfort me. 
 She's perhaps at Sir Geoffrey's.) 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Well ! his love will repay him, and the City of 
 London will present me with her freedom, in a gold 
 box, for restoring her prodigal son to her Metropolitan 
 bosom. Deadman's Lane that was an adventure, 
 indeed. Lucy's mother still living some mystery she 
 will not yet explain implores me to get her the sight 
 of her child. Will Lucy believe me ? Will (Enter 
 SMART.) Ha, Smart ? Well Well ? You baffled 
 Sir Geoffrey ? 
 
 SMART. 
 
 He was out, 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 And you gave the young lady my letter 1 ? 
 
 * A play upon words plagiarized from Farquhar. The 
 reader must regret that the author had not the courage to 
 plagiarize more from Farquhar. 
 
sc. iv.J OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 121 
 SMART. 
 
 Hist ! my Lord, it so affected her that here she 
 comes. [Exit SMART. 
 
 Enter LUCY. 
 
 Oh, my Lord, is this true ? Can it be ? A mother 
 lives ! Do you wonder that I forget all else ? that I 
 am here and with but one prayer, lead me to a 
 mother ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 But - 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Ah, do not refuse ! Do not reason with me. Yet 
 yet I am young inexperienced. My father trusts 
 me. You do not ask the daughter to wrong the 
 father's trust this is no snare you do not deceive 
 me? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Deceive you ! Oh Lucy I have a sister myself at 
 the hearth of my father. 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Forgive me lead on quick, quick oh mother, 
 mother ! [Exeunt LUCY and WILMOT. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 Space at the back of Bond Street, now Berkely Square. 
 Enter HARDMAN. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 It is the wife. She is innocent ! I feel it ; but no 
 proof of innocence, save her own letter and her si an- 
 
122 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 derer's confession, in the hands of the Duke. Will 
 this haughtiest of men ever yield such memorials, 
 even admit the base lie of his brother. Still her story 
 has that which may touch him. Meanwhile I must 
 secure the dispatch to the Pretender ; clear my path 
 of a rival ; and then gain Lucy's heart by restoring a 
 mother. Fallen's envoy should be here ! Who is this ? 
 
 Enter PADDY, the Porter. 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 'Plase your Highness and Grace is it the grand 
 Juke o' Middlesheeks I make bould to addresh ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 From Mr. Fallen ? Marston Moor ? 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 Agh ! and that's what it is ! Marsh ton Moor. 
 
 (Gives a letter?) (Aside. His coat's mighty plane and 
 \. , i r T 1 -j i c j *j 
 
 jmteel for a Juke wid a jewel of a sword, wid no 
 
 jewel at all. But, tunder and turf! if yees could jist 
 see the coat o' Sir Phelim O'Donohue, all scarlet an' 
 gould, putting the sun out o' consate of itself at the 
 Fair of Carrickashaughlan ! Oh, King of Glory, I 
 must rin on to the Yearl !) [Exit. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 W^hat can this be ? Ha, I guess ; Fallen repents a 
 letter to warn the conspirators. By his leave ! ( Opens 
 the letter and reads) " My Lord Duke, I hasten to 
 warn you. Give the packet to none. Your plot is 
 detected. DAVID FALLEN." 
 
 Distraction ! What to do ? Where find a man to 
 personate the messenger, and deceive the Duke ? The 
 clock strikes not a minute to lose ! 
 
'so. iv.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 123 
 Enter SOFTHEAD. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Oh dear ! What have I seen ! Wilmot taking 
 poor innocent Lucy into that house, Deadman's Lane, 
 which * Woman is lost if she enter, man is hanged 
 when he leave' ran to Sir Geoffrey's ; he's out ; Hodge 
 too. Where go next ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Ah ! he'll do. A fool ! but the man he will meet 
 is not wise. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Oh, that clever Mr. Hard man ; Sir, I must speak 
 with you. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Yes, by-and-by. But now, in the King's name I 
 command you to act in his Majesty's service. Wrap 
 this cloak round you the Duke of Middlesex comes. 
 Stand here as he passes. Say " Marston Moor." 
 
 SOFTHEAD (rapidly hurried through the various 
 
 phases of bewilderment). 
 Marston Moor ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Not a word else. If he speak, do not answer. Lay 
 your hand on your lips. He will give you a packet. 
 You will transfer it to me. I shall wait in yon angle. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Duke! Stuff! I can't and I won't. I've had 
 enough of dukes and 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You said yourself you never could have eno' of a 
 Duke. But 'tis no time for jesting. Your king com- 
 
124 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 pels you to this. I, who speak, am a Minister. Ac- 
 cept, and no danger; refuse, and there's matter for 
 hanging. He comes ! " Marston Moor," and then 
 silence ! [Retires behind the wall. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Matter for hanging! Why, I'm doomed to be 
 hanged ! 
 
 Enter DUKE of MIDDLESEX. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 That's the man ahem (Passes SOFTHEAD, who 
 remains silent.) I don't know. 
 
 [Passing on to the end of the Stage. 
 
 HARDMAN (starting forth). 
 
 'Sdeath! "Marston Moor!" Would you go to 
 Tyburn for treason ? 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Lord ! Lord ! Why did I say I could never have 
 eno' of a Duke ? 
 
 DUKE (returning). 
 Duke ! Ha ! You spoke, friend ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 "Marston Moor!" 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 So ! Powers above ! 'tis that small man again ! 
 I thought his familiarity concealed something mysteri- 
 ous. This explains it. We have met before, sir. 
 (SOFTHEAD puts his hand on his lips.) But 'tis not 
 because you risk your life for King James, that you 
 should forget what is due to John, Duke of Middlesex. 
 (Aside. He looks humbled. I've awed him. He'll 
 
sc. iv.] OK, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 125 
 
 not speak. Ah, true ! no conversation was to pass. 
 He's discreet.) There's the packet ; and delay not 
 a moment till it reach you know whom. (SOFTHEAD 
 as before.) He's discretion itself I'll walk on to the 
 Mall, and tell that poor timid Lord Loftus ! How an 
 Earl can be timid ! [Exit. 
 
 SOFTHEAD (giving the cloak and the packet to 
 
 HARDMAN). 
 
 There, thank Heaven, I've done with that awful 
 Duke forever, and ever, and ever ! Now I must speak 
 to you. I've just seen 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 See first that the Duke does not turn back. 
 
 SOFTHEAD (looking down the side-scene). 
 Turn back Lord forbid ! 
 
 HARDMAN (opening and reading the Requisition). 
 
 Ho ! Wilmot's in my power ; here ends his rivalry ! 
 The Duke's life too, in exchange for the Memoir ? No, 
 no ! Fear's not his weak point. Now, the honor of 
 a family, the happiness of a home, Lucy's grateful con- 
 sent to my suit, all depend on my chance to hit the 
 right side of a character (As he goes out, flings his 
 cloak over SOFTHEAD'S head .) Keep my cloak, 1 shall 
 be back in five minutes. 
 
 Enter PADDY. 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 Agh, plase your Highness I would spake to your 
 Grace. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Speak to that gentleman there in my cloak. [Exit. 
 
126 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT iv. 
 
 SOFTHEAD (who is entangled in the cloak). 
 Mr. Hard man, how can you, sir ? Stay, now I've 
 got you ! (Seizes blindly on PADDY, and, throwing 
 back the cloak, stands face to face with the porter.) 
 Who the devil are you ? 
 
 PADDY. 
 'Plase, sir, the Juke 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Oh, bother the Duke ! have not I done with him 
 yet? 
 
 [Tries to look after HARDMAN, the Porter obstruct- 
 ing him, and speaking rapidly. 
 
 Agh ! asy now ; yees sees I've a bit of a letter for 
 his honor the Yearl o' Loftus, which I was to give to 
 the Yearl, myself and intirely. Asy now, asy ! and it 
 is not at home that the Yearl is. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 What's that to me ? get out ! 
 
 PADDY (unheeding him). 
 
 And I thought I'd ax the big Juke where to find 
 him, and the Juke said, says he, Paddy spake to that 
 jantleman ; an' he did, the Juke ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Duke again ! Retribution ! Why, why, did I say, 
 " I could never have eno' of a Duke." Plague on it, 
 man, which way did he go ? 
 
 PADDY. 
 Is it the Juke? 
 
80. iv.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 127 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I tell you I have done with the Duke ! No, the 
 other ? 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 Sorra another in life, sure, ixcipt the grand Juke 
 
 SOFTHEAD (with an angry look and an expostulatory 
 
 gesture to heaven). 
 But it isn't fair, now I repent ! 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 Agh, murther ! and is it in the kennel ye'd be trail- 
 ing the iligant cloak of the Juke ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Take the cloak ! and be hanged to you ; Ah, there 
 he goes 
 
 PADDY (running after him). 
 
 Agh, and bad luck to yees ! Is it poor Paddy ye'd 
 hang for staling the cloak of the Juke ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I'm Duke-haunted, I'm haunted. 
 
 PADDY. 
 
 Stop, and the devil go after you ! The cloak o' the 
 Juke. (Exit SOFTHEAD by a violent effort.) The 
 Juke, the Juke ! 
 
 END OF ACT IV. 
 
128 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; - [ACT v. 
 
 ACT V. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 TJie Mall. Enter DUKE OF MIDDLESEX. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 LORD LOFTUS not here yet ! Strange ! Certainly, 
 he is my friend ; nobody more so, but that is no reason 
 why he should forget what is due to the head of the 
 Mowbrays. Keep me waiting, Powers above ! five 
 minutes and a half ! I'll go ! 
 
 Enter HARDMAN. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 My Lord Duke forgive this intrusion ! 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 T'other man I met at Lord Wilmot's. Sir, your 
 servant, I'm somewhat in haste. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Still I presume to delay your Grace ; for it is on a 
 question of honor ! 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Honor ! that goes before all ! Sir, my time is your 
 own. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Your Grace is the head of a house, whose fame is a 
 
sc. i.] OK, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 129 
 
 part of our history ; it is, therefore, that I speak to you 
 boldly, since it may be that wrongs were inflicted by 
 one of its members 
 
 DUKE. 
 How, sir ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Assured, that if so (and should it be still in your 
 power,) your Grace will frankly repair them, as a duty 
 you took with the ermine and coronet. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 You speak well, sir. (Aside. Very much like a 
 gentleman !) 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Your Grace had a brother, Lord Henry de Mowbray. 
 
 DUKE. 
 Ah ! Sir, to the point. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 At once, my Lord Duke ! Sixteen years ago a duel 
 took place between Lord Henry and Sir Geoffrey Mor- 
 land your Grace knows the cause. 
 
 DUKE. 
 Hem ! yes ; a lady who who 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Was banished her husband's home, and her infant's 
 cradle, on account of suspicions based, my Lord Duke, 
 on what your Grace can not wonder that the husband 
 believed the word of a Mowbray ! 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 (Aside. Villain !) But what became of the hus- 
 band, never since heard of? He 
 
130 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Fled abroad from men's tongues, and dishonor. He 
 did not return to his native land, till he had changed 
 for another the name that a Mowbray had blighted. 
 Unhappy man ! he lives still. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 And the lady the lady 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Before the duel, had gone to the house of her father, 
 who was forced that very day to fly the country. His 
 life was in danger. 
 
 DUKE. 
 How? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 He was loyal to the Stuarts, and a Plot was dis- 
 covered. 
 
 DUKE. 
 Brave, noble gentleman ! Go on, sir. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Her other ties wrenched from her, his daughter 
 went with him into exile his stay, his hope, his all. 
 His lands were confiscated. She was high-born : she 
 worked for a father's bread. Conceive yourself, my 
 Lord Duke, in the place of that father loyal and 
 penniless ; noble ; proscribed ; dependent on the toils 
 of a daughter; and that daughter's name sullied 
 by 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 A word? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 From the son of that house to which all the Chivalry 
 of England looked for example. 
 
so. i.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 131 
 
 DUKE (aside). 
 
 Oh, Heaven ! can my glory thus be turned to my 
 shame ? But they said she had died, sir. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 When her father had gone to the grave, she herself 
 spread or sanctioned that rumor for she resolved to 
 die to the world. She entered a convent, prepared to 
 take the novitiate when she suddenly learned that a 
 person had been inquiring for her at Paris, who stated 
 that Lord Henry de Mowbray had left behind him a 
 
 Memoir 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Ah! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Which acquits her. She learned, too, the clew 
 to her husband resolved to come hither arrived six 
 days since. No proof of her innocence save those for 
 which I now appeal to your Grace ! 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 pride, be my succor ! (Haughtily.) Appeal to 
 me, sir, and wherefore ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 The sole evidence alledged against this lady are the 
 fact of a letter sent from herself to Lord Henry, and 
 the boast of a man now no more. She asserts that 
 that letter would establish her innocence. She believes 
 that, on his death-bed, your brother retracted his 
 boast ; and that the Memoir he left will attest to its 
 falsehood. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Asserts believes go on go on. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 No, my Lord Duke, I have done. I know that that 
 
132 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 letter, that Memoir exist ; that they are now in your 
 hands. If her assertion be false if they prove not her 
 innocence a word, nay, a sign, from the chief of a 
 house so renowned for its honor, suffices. I take my 
 leave, and condemn her. But if her story be true, you 
 have heard the last chance of a wife and a mother to 
 be restored to the husband she loves and forgives, to 
 the child who has grown into womanhood remote from 
 her care ; and these blessings I pledged her my faith 
 to obtain, if that letter, that Memoir, should prove that 
 the boast was 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 A lie, sir, a lie, a black lie ! The cow rd's worst 
 crime a lie on the fair name of woman ! Sir, this 
 heat, perhaps, is unseemly ; thus to brand my own 
 brother ! But if we, the peers of England, and the 
 representatives of her gentlemen, can hear, can think, 
 of vile things done, whoever the doer, with calm pulse 
 and cold heart, perish our titles ! where would be the 
 use of a Duke 1 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 A very bright side of his character. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Sir, you are right. The Memoir you speak of is in 
 my hands ; and with it Lady Morland's own letter. 
 Much in that Memoir relates to myself; and so galls 
 all the pride I am said to possess, that not ten minutes 
 since methought I had rather my Duchy were forfeit 
 than have exposed its contents to the pity or laugh of 
 a stranger. I think no more of myself. A woman 
 has appealed for her name to mine honor as man. 
 Now, sir, your commands ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 No passage is needed, save that which acquits Lady 
 
sc. ij OB, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 133 
 
 Morland. Let the Memoir still rest in your hands. 
 Condescend but to bring it forthwith to my house ; 
 and if I am not there to receive you, 'tis solely because 
 elsewhere engaged (pardon the epithet) in assisting 
 the proud Duke of Middlesex in the duties that justify 
 pride. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Your address, sir ; I will but return home for the 
 documents, and proceed at once to your house. Hurry 
 not ; I will wait. Allow me to take your hand, sir. 
 You know how to speak to the heart of a gentleman. 
 (Aside. He must be very well born.) 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 Yet how ignorant we are of men's hearts till we see 
 them lit up by a passion ! 
 
 DUKE (looking off). 
 
 Ha ! Here comes the Earl at last. Sir, will you 
 permit Lord Loftus, my intimate friend, to accompany 
 me to your house ? I have other matters, of immediate 
 importance, on which to consult him ; and 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Nay, I shall be glad to know that my Lord Loftus 
 is with your Grace ; for I, too, have an affair of great 
 moment, on which, somewhat later, I would speak to 
 you both. 
 
 DUKE. 
 In all times at your service, sir. [Exit DUKE. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 So, all are shaped to my purpose the good or the 
 bad. Nay, why is it bad to serve my own happiness ? 
 Yet this noble has made what is honor so clear to my 
 
134: NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 eyes. Let me pause let me think let me choose ! 
 I feel as if I stood at the crisis of life. 
 
 Enter SOFTHEAD. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Got rid at last of that damnable porter. Mr. Hard- 
 man ! you shall hear me now. You're a friend of 
 Lord Wilmot's, of Sir Geoffrey's, of Lucy's ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Speak quick to the purpose. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 On my way to Sir Geoffrey's, I passed by a house 
 of the most villainous character. I dare not say how 
 Wilmot himself has described it (earnestly). Oh, sir, 
 you know Wilmot ! you know his sentiments on mar- 
 riage. I saw Wilmot and Lucy Thornside enter that 
 infamous house ! deeds without a name ! Deadinan's 
 Lane! 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 Deadman's Lane ! He takes her to the arms of her 
 mother ! forestalls my own plan, will reap my reward. 
 Have I schemed, then, for him ? No, by yon heavens ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I ran on to Sir Geoffrey's he was out ; not a man 
 in the house women did not know where he was 
 gone. I thought of going to Easy, to the Justice's, 
 I don't know what I thought of, I've been haunted, 
 and I can't say whether I stand on my head or my 
 heels. 
 
 HARDMAN (who has been writing in his tablets, tears 
 
 out a page). 
 Take this to Justice Kite's, hard by : he will send 
 
so. ii.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 135 
 
 two special officers, placed at the door, Deadman's Lane, 
 to wait my instructions. They must go instantly arrive 
 as soon as myself. Then, hasten to Mr. Easy's : Sir 
 Geoffrey is there. Break your news with precaution, 
 and bring him straight to that house. Leave the rest 
 to my care. Away with you ; quick. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I know he will kill me ! But I'm right. And 
 when I'm right, Dimidum mece. [Exit. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Ho ! ho ! It is war ! My choice is made. I am 
 armed at all points, and I strike for the victory. [Exit. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 Apartment in the house, Deadmarfs Lane, Crown and Port- 
 cullis, very old-fashioned and somber, faded tapestry on 
 the walls, high mantlepiece, with deep ingles ; furniture 
 rude and simple ; general air of the room not mean, but 
 forlorn, as of that in some house, neglected and little in- 
 habited, since the days of Elizabeth; the tapestry drawn 
 aside at the back, shows a door into an inner room. 
 WILMOT seated. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 They are still in the next room. It grows late : I 
 fear she will be missed. But I have not the heart to 
 disturb them the first interview between child ani 
 mother. 
 
 Enter HARDMAN. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Alone ! Where is Lucy, my Lord ? 
 
136 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 In the next room with 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Her mother ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 What ! you know ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I know that between us two there is strife, and I am 
 come to decide it ; you love Lucy Thornside. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Well ! I told you so. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You told it, my Lord, to a rival. Ay, smile. You 
 have wealth, rank, fashion, and wit ; I have none of 
 these, and I need them not. But I say to you that 
 ere the hand on which this dial moves to that near 
 point in time, your love will be hopeless and your suit 
 withdrawn. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 The man's mad ! Unless, sir, you wish me to be- 
 lieve that my life hangs on your sword, I can not quite 
 comprehend why my love should go by your watch. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I command you, Lord Wilmot, to change this tone 
 of levity ; I command it in the name of a life which, 
 I think, you prize more than your own ; a life that is 
 now in my hands. You told me to sound your father. 
 I have not done so I have detected 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Detected ! Hold, sir ! that word implies crime. 
 
so. ii.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 137 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Ay, the crime of the great. History calls it ZEAL. 
 Law styles it HIGH TREASON. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 What do I hear ? Heavens ! my father ! Sir, 
 your word is no proof? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 But this is ! (Producing the Requisition to the 
 Pretender.) 'Tis high treason, conspiring to levy 
 arms against the King on the throne ; here called the 
 Usurper. High treason to promise to greet with ban- 
 ner and trump a pretender here called James the 
 Third. Such is the purport of the paper I hold 
 and here is the name of your father. 
 
 WILMOT (aside). 
 Both are armed, and alone. 
 
 [Locks the outer door by which he is standing. 
 
 HARDMAN (aside). 
 
 So, I guess his intention. ( Opens the window and 
 looks out.) Good, the officers are come. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 What the law calls high treason I know not ; what 
 the honest call treason I know. Traitor thou, who 
 hast used the confidence of a son against the life of a 
 father, thou shalt not quit these walls with that life in 
 thy grasp yield the proof thou hast plundered or 
 forged. [Seizes him. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 S't ! the officers of justice are below ; loose thine 
 hold, or the life thou demandest falls from these 
 hands into theirs ! 
 
138 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 WILMOT (recoiling). 
 
 Foiled ! Foiled ! How act ! what do ! And thy 
 son set yon bloodhound on thy track, my father ! 
 
 LUCY appears at the threshold of the inner room. 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Ha, Mr. Hardman ! what means this ? Your 
 voices raised and 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I pray you, leave us nay, be not alarmed. But 
 five minutes more ! we are devising to save a parent 
 for a child ; your father will be here anon ; entreat 
 your mother, whatever she hears, not to stir till I 
 summon. 
 
 [Hurrying back LUCY within, and closing the door. 
 He unlocks the other and comes forward. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Sir, you say you are my rival ; I guess the terms 
 you now come to impose ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I impose no terms. But for your rash attempt on 
 this scroll, how know you but what I had placed it 
 unasked in your keeping ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Without demanding me to sacrifice the love, that 
 you yourself said was hopeless ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 What needs the demand ? Have you an option ? 
 I think better of you. We both love the same 
 woman ; I have loved her a year, you a week ; you 
 have her father's dislike, I his consent. One must 
 
so. ii.] OK, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 139 
 
 yield why should I ? Rude son of the people 
 though I be, why must I be thrust from the sunshine 
 because you cross my path as the fair and the high- 
 born ? What have I owed to your order or you ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 To me, sir ? Well, if to me you owed some slight 
 favor, I should scorn at this moment to speak it. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I owe favor, the slightest, to no man ; 'tis my boast. 
 Listen still, I schemed to save your father, not to in- 
 jure. Had you rather this scroll had fallen into the 
 hands of a spy ? And now, if I place it in yours 
 save your name from attainder, your fortunes from 
 confiscation, your father from the axe of the heads- 
 man why should I ask terms ? Would it be possible 
 for you to say, " Sir, I thank you ; and in return I will 
 do my best to rob your life of the woman you love, 
 and whom I have just known a week ?" Could you, 
 Peer's son and gentleman, thus reply, -when if I 
 know aught of this grand people of England, not a 
 mechanic who walks thro' yon streets, from the loom 
 to the hovel, but what would cry " Shame" on such 
 answer ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Sir, your words are are This blow is so sudden, 
 my mind is not clear ; I might perhaps answer, that 
 the true point between us is not, whose love be the 
 longer in date, but whose love is the purer from in- 
 terest and has the more chance of return ? Nay, 
 sir ! I can not argue with, I can not rival, the man who 
 has my father's life at his will, whether to offer it as 
 a barter, or to yield it as a boon. Either way, rivalry 
 is henceforth impossible. Fear mine no more ! Give 
 me the scroll I depart. 
 
140 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 (Aside. His manliness moves me !) Nay, let me 
 pray your permission to give it myself to your father, 
 and with such words as will save him and others 
 whose names are hereto attached, from such perilous 
 hazards in future. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 In this too I fear that you leave me no choice ; I 
 must trust as I may to your honor ; but heed well 
 if 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Menace not ; you doubt, then, my honor ? 
 
 WILMOT (with suppressed passion). 
 Plainly, I do; our characters differ. I had held 
 myself dishonored forever if our positions had been 
 reversed, if I had taken such confidence as was 
 placed in you, concealed the rivalry, prepared the 
 scheme, timed the moment, forced the condition in 
 the guise of benefit. No, sir, no, that may be talent, 
 it is not honor. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 (Aside. This stings ! scornful fool that he is, not 
 to see that I was half relenting. And now I feel but 
 the foe ! How sting again ? I will summon him 
 back to witness himself my triumph.) Stay, my 
 Lord ! ( Writing at the table.) You doubt that I 
 should yield up the document to your father? Bring 
 him hither at once ! He is now at my house with 
 the Duke of Middlesex ; pray them both to come 
 here, and give this note to the Duke. ( With a smile.) 
 You will do it, my Lord ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Ay, indeed, and when my father is safe I will try 
 
sc. ii.] OK, MANY SIDES TO A CHAKACTER. 
 
 to think that I wronged you. (Aside. And not one 
 parting word to to S'death I'm unmanned. Show 
 such emotion to him No, no ! And if I can not 
 watch over that gentle life, why the angels will !) I 
 I go, sir, fulfill the compact ; I have paid the price. 
 
 [Exit 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 He loves her more than I thought for. But she ? 
 Does she love him ? (Goes to the door.) Mistress 
 Lucy ! [Leads forth LUCY. 
 
 LUCY. 
 Lord Wilmot gone ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Nay, speak not of him. If ever he hoped that your 
 father could have overcome a repugnance to his suit, 
 he is now compelled to resign that hope, and forever. 
 (LUCY turns aside, and weeps quietly.) Let us speak 
 of your parents your mother 
 
 LUCY. 
 Oh, yes my dear mother I so love her already. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 You have heard her tale ! Would you restore her, 
 no blot on her name, to the hearth of your father ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 Speak ! speak ! can it be so ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 If it cost you some sacrifice ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 Life has none for an object thus holy. 
 
142 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM J [ACT v. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Hear, and decide. Lord Wilmot has all to charm 
 the eye and the fancy ; but human life is so long, and 
 you have known him a week ! Lucy, I have loved 
 you in secret ever since I first entered your house. 
 You were then just emerging from childhood. It is 
 the wish of your father that I should ask for this 
 hand 
 
 LUCY. 
 No ! no ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Is the sacrifice so hard 1 Wait and hear the atone- 
 ment. You have come from the stolen embrace of a 
 mother ; I will make that mother the pride of your 
 home. You have yearned for the love of a father ; I 
 will break down the wall between yourself and his 
 heart I will dispel all the clouds that have darkened 
 his life. 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 You will you will ! O blessings upon you ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Those blessings this hand can confer ! 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 But but the heart the heart that does not 
 go with the hand. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Later, it will. I only pray for a trial. If, after 
 some months, my suit still displease you, say the word, 
 I renounce it. I ask but to conquer that heart, not to 
 break it. Your father will soon be here every mo- 
 ment I expect him. He comes in the full force of 
 suspicion deeming you lured here by Wilmot fear- 
 ing (pardon the vile word) your dishonor. How ex- 
 
so. it.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 143 
 
 plain ? You can not speak of your mother till I first 
 prove her guiltless. Could they meet till I do, words 
 would pass that would make even union hereafter too 
 bitter to her pride as a woman. Give me the power 
 at once to destroy suspicion, remove fear, delay other 
 explanations. Let me speak let me act as your 
 betrothed, your accepted. Hark ! voices below your 
 father comes ! I have no time to plead ; excuse what 
 is harsh seems ungenerous 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY (without). 
 
 Out of my way ! loose my sword ! 
 
 LUCY. 
 Oh, save my mother ! Let him not see my mother 1 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Grant me this trial pledge this hand now retract 
 hereafter if you will. Your mother's name, your pa- 
 rents' reunion ! Ay or no ! will you pledge it ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 Can you doubt their child's answer ? I pledge it ! 
 
 Enter SIR GEOFFREY, struggling from EASY, SOFT- 
 HEAD, BARBARA. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Where is he? where is this villain ? let me get at 
 him ! What, what, gone ? (Falling on HARDMAN'S 
 breast.) Oh, Hardman ! You came, you came ! I 
 dare not look at her yet. Is she saved ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Your daughter is innocent in thought as in deed I 
 speak in the name of the rights she has given me ; you 
 permitted me to ask for her hand ; and here, she has 
 pledged it ! 
 
144 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 O, my child, my child ! I never called you that 
 name before. Did I ? Hush ! I know now, that 
 thou art my child ; know it by my anguish ; know it 
 by my joy. Who could wring from me tears like these, 
 but a child ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 But how is it all, Mr. Hardman ? you know every 
 thing ! That fool Softhead, with his cock and bull 
 story, frightened us out of our wits ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 That's the thanks I get ! How is it all, Mr. Hard- 
 man ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh, what so clear? He came here he saved 
 her ! My child was grateful. Approach, Hardman, 
 near, near. Forgive me, if your childhood was lonely ; 
 forgive me, if you seemed so unfriended. Your father 
 made me promise that you should not know the 
 temptations that he thought had corrupted himself, 
 should not know of my favors, to be galled by what he 
 called my suspicions, should not feel the yoke of de- 
 pendence ; should believe that you forced your own 
 way through the world till it was made. Now it is 
 so. Ah, not in vain did I pardon him his wrongs 
 against me ; not in vain fulfill that sad promise which 
 gave a smile to his lips in dying ; not in vain have I 
 bestowed benefits on you. You have saved I know 
 it I feel it ; saved from infamy my child. 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Hush, sir, hush ! [Throws herself into BARBARA'S 
 arms. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 My father? Benefits? You smile, Mr. Easy. 
 
so. ii.] OK, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 145 
 
 What means he ? No man on this earth ever be- 
 stowed benefits on me ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! Nay, excuse me ; but when I think 
 that that's said by a clever fellow like you ha ! ha ! 
 the jest is too good ; as if any one ever drove a coach 
 through this world but what some other one built the 
 carriage, or harnessed the horses ! Why, who gave 
 you the education that helped to make you what you 
 are ? Who slyly paid Tonson, the publisher, to bring 
 out the work that first raised you into notice ? Who 
 sent you the broker with the tale of the South Sea 
 Scheme? From whose purse came the sum that 
 bought your annuity ? Whose land does the annuity 
 burthen 1 Who told Fleece'em, the boroughmonger, 
 to offer you a seat in Parliament ? Who paid for the 
 election that did not cost you a shilling ? who but 
 my suspicious, ill-tempered, good-hearted friend there ? 
 And you are the son of his foster-brother, the man 
 who first wronged and betrayed him ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 And this is the gentleman who knows every body 
 and every thing ? Did not even know his own father ! 
 La ! why he's been quite a take-in ! Ha ! ha ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Ha! ha! ha! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 And all the while I thought I was standing apart 
 from others, needing none ; served by none ; mas- 
 tering men; molding them, the man whom my 
 father had wronged went before me with noiseless be- 
 neficence, and opened my path through the mountain 
 I fancied this right hand had hewn ! 
 
146 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Tut ! I did but level the ground ; till you were 
 strong eno' to rise of yourself; /did not give you the 
 post that you named with so manly a pride ; / did 
 not raise you to the councils of your country as the 
 " Equal of All !" 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 No! for that you'll thank Fred. He bribed the 
 prime minister with his favorite Murillo. He said you 
 wanted the post to win the lady you loved. Dimidum 
 mece, I think you might have told him what lady it 
 was. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 So ! Wilmot ! It needed but this! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Pooh, Mr. Softhead ! Sir Geoffrey would never con- 
 sent to a lord. Quite right. What's a lord, hang 
 him. (Aside. Lets a respectable man be carried off to 
 the watch-house, and don't marry one's daughter after 
 all.) Practical, steady fellow is Mr. Hard man ; and 
 as to his father, a disreputable connection quite right 
 not to know him ! All you want, Geoffrey, is to se- 
 cure Lucy's happiness. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 All ! That, now, is his charge. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I accept it. But first I secure yours, O my bene- 
 factor ! This house, in which you feared to meet in- 
 famy, is the home of sorrow and virtue ; the home of 
 a woman unsullied, but slandered. Of her who, lov- 
 ing you still, followed your footsteps ; watched you 
 night and day from yon windows ; sent you those 
 flowers, the tokens of innocence and youth ; in ro- 
 
sc. ii.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 147 
 
 mance, it is true the romance only known to a woman 
 the romance only known to the pure ! Lord Wil- 
 mot is guiltless ! He led your child to the arms of a 
 mother ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Silence him ! silence him ! 'tis a snare ! I retract ! 
 He shall not have this girl ! Her house ? Do I 
 breathe the same air as the woman so loved and so 
 faithless ? 
 
 LUCY. 
 
 Pity for my mother ! No, no ; justice for her ! 
 Pity for yourself and for me ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Come away, or you shall not be my child ; Til dis- 
 own you. That man speaks 
 
 Enter WILMOT, DUKE, and LORD LOFTUS. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 I speak, and I prove (To the DUKE) The Me- 
 moirs (Glancing over them.) Here is the very letter 
 that the menial informed you your wife sent to Lord 
 Henry. Read it; and judge if such scorn would not 
 goad such a man to revenge. What revenge could he 
 wield ? Why, a boast ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY (reading). 
 
 The date of the very day that he boasted. Ha ! 
 brave words ! proud heart ! I suspect ! I suspect ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Lord Henry's Confession ! It was writ on his 
 death-bed. 
 
 LORD LOFTUS. 
 
 Tis his hand. I attest it. 
 
148 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 I too, John, Duke of Middlesex, whose word no 
 man ever doubted ; and that is one use of a Duke ! 
 And more, sir ; my Duchess comes of a race whose 
 sons were all brave, and whose daughters all chaste. 
 She entreats your Lady's friendship ; to hold it an 
 honor. Let her name be the answer to scandal. And 
 that is one use of a Duchess. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY (who has been reading the confession): 
 Heaven forgive me ! Can she ? The flowers ; the 
 
 figure ; the How blind I've been ! Where is she ? 
 
 where is she ? You said she was here ! Ellin or ! Elli- 
 nor ! to my arms to my heart O my wife ! 
 
 [Exeunt SIR GEOFFREY and LUCY into the 
 inner room. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 My eyes overflow. (Perceiving SOFTHEAD.) Ha ! 
 Powers above ! Is that the small man once more ? 
 Has he betrayed us ? Sir, sir, you ought to be half- 
 way to France ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD (who, since the Duke's entrance, has been 
 trying to creep into the earth, now running to 
 HARDMAN). 
 
 France ! Am I to be banished and haunted from 
 my own native country ? Mr. Hardman, sir ! Mr. 
 Hardman ! 
 
 HARDMAN to LOFTUS and DUKE. 
 
 Hush ! my Lords, destroy this Requisition ! When 
 you signed it, you doubtless believed that the Prince 
 you would serve was of the Church of your Protestant 
 fathers ? 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Certainly ; we were assured so. 
 
so. ii.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 149 
 
 LOFTUS. 
 
 Or we never had signed it. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Then you are safe evermore ; for your honor is 
 freed. The Prince has retired to Kome, and abjured 
 your faith. I will convince you of this later. 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 What ! then perhaps that mysterious small man 
 saved our lives! Sir, sir ! He flies me ! He gesticu- 
 lates ! A most supernatural small man ! Portentous ! 
 He awes me ! [DUKE and SOFTHEAD continue to shun 
 each other with mutual apprehension. 
 
 EASY to WILMOT. 
 
 Glad to find you are not so bad as you seemed, my 
 Lord ; and now that Lucy is engaged to Mr. Hard- 
 man 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Engaged already ? (Aside. So ! he asked me here 
 to insult me with his triumph !) Well ! 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Hush, papa ! Oh, Softhead, how you wronged that 
 dear Lord Wilmot ; who meant so kindly to us too. 
 How dejected he looks ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD (whimpering). 
 
 Why would you make yourself out such a monster, 
 Fred? Don't do it again. It might take in wiser 
 men than your poor little Softhead. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Never more such gay follies for me ! So this then is 
 grief ! I never knew it before ; how it changes a man ! 
 
150 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 Enter SIR GEOFFREY and Lucy : SIR GEOFFREY ra- 
 diant with joy, his form erect, his whole appear- 
 ance changed. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I am young ! I am young ! A load's taken off 
 from my breast. Ha ! ha ! ha ! {Laughing heartily. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 La ! is that old Sir Geoffrey ? What a laugh ! Joy 
 I suppose ! How it changes a man ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Lucy, your parents are united my promise ful- 
 filled; permit me (Takes her hand.) Sir Geoffrey, 
 the son of him who so wronged you, and whose wrongs 
 you pardoned, now reminds you, that he is intrusted 
 with the charge to insure the happiness of your child ! 
 Behold the man of her choice, and take from his pres- 
 ence your own cure of distrust. With his faults on 
 the surface, and with no fault that is worse than that 
 of concealing his virtues; Here she loves and is 
 loved ! And thus I discharge the trust, and insure 
 the happiness ! [Placing her hand in WILMOT'S. 
 
 EASY. 
 How! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Peace! Good Hardman, I can not gainsay you. 
 Her mother has told me already the secret of her 
 heart. Well, well, take her, you satrap, and never 
 let me see a tear in those eyes ; or, in spite of Hard- 
 man's rebuke, I will rack you to death with sus- 
 picion. 
 
 [DUKE, LORD LOFTUS, EASY, BARBARA, SOFTHEAD, 
 <c., gather round SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
so. IL] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 151 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Hardman 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Noble friend ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 VV 1JUUO.\J 1 
 
 How can I accept at the price of- 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Hush ! For the third time to-day, you have but 
 one option. You can not affect to be generous to 
 me at the cost of a heart all your own. Take your 
 right. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Oh, Hardman ! I trust I should feel speak as 
 you, were our positions reversed. 
 
 HARDMAN (smiling). 
 
 " Tho' our characters differ" Come, my Lord, lest 
 I tell all the world how you bribed the Prime Minis- 
 ter. Say no more, for your own sake. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Oh, name not so paltry a service. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Paltry ! 'Tis the power to serve a nation ! On 
 mine honor as a man, this is the sole happy moment 
 I have known to-day the happiest I have known 
 in my war with the world. Here was the true strife ; 
 here, between good and evil, the good has prevailed. 
 My life henceforth, is clear. Men I never guessed of, 
 have served me : I will serve men hereafter, as I dreamed 
 that I served but myself : and, faithful still, Lucy, to 
 you, have no bride but my country. 
 
152 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Nay, Lucy, we must not leave him to that mourn- 
 ful fidelity. I have a sister, worthy to replace even 
 your image ; and who is already so disposed to ad- 
 mire, that I think she may be pleased to console, him. 
 
 SOFTHEAD (who has taken EASY aside). 
 But, indeed, Mr. Easy, I reform ; I repent. Mr. 
 Hard man will have a bride in the country let me 
 have a bride in the city. After all, I was not such a 
 very bad monster. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Pooh. Won't hear of it ! Want to marry only 
 just to mimic my Lord. 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Dear Lord Wilmot ; do say a good word for us. 
 
 EASY. 
 No, . sir ; no ! Your head's been turned by a lord. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Not the first man whose head's been turned by a 
 lord, with the help of the Duke of Burgundy eh, 
 Mr. Easy ? I'll just appeal to Sir Geoffrey. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 No no hold your tongue, my Lord. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 And you insisted upon giving your daughter to 
 Mr. Softhead ; forced her upon him. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 I never ! When ? 
 
sc. ii.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 153 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Last night, when you were chaired member for the 
 City of London. I'll just explain the case to Sir 
 Geoffrey 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Confound it hold hold ! Never hear the end 
 of it ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 And we must claim your promise ; because as you 
 so justly remarked, Mr. Softhead is a jolly old soul ! 
 My dear Sir Geoffrey, I say 
 
 {EASY (putting hi hands to WILMOT'S lips). 
 There there that will do. But if ever a lord 
 gets me again into 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 The watch-house ? But you would go, of yourself. 
 " Proudest day of your life." Sir Geoffrey 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 EASY (running to BARBARA). 
 Only another wedding on foot, Geoffrey ! You like 
 this young reprobate, Barbara ? 
 
 BARBARA. 
 
 Dear papa, his health is so delicate ! I should like 
 to take care of him. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 There, go, and take care of each other. Well, Al- 
 derman Softhead is a warm man has a great many 
 votes and if I should stand for the City ? Ha ! ha ! 
 I suppose it is all for the best. 
 
 [Duke, takes forth, and puts on, his spectacles : ex- 
 
154: NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM ; [ACT v. 
 
 amines SOFTHEAD curiously is convinced that 
 he is human, approaches, and offers his hand, 
 which SOFTHEAD, emboldened by BARBARA, the? 
 not without misgivings, accepts. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ugh ! Mr. Goodenough Easy. I suspect I 
 suspect 
 
 EASY. 
 
 That you've done with suspicion, plagued yourself 
 and all round you quite long eno 7 . A great deal of dry 
 stuff, called philosophy, is written about life. But the 
 grand thing is to take it coolly, and have a good-hu- 
 mored indulgence 
 
 WILMOT. 
 For the force of example, Mr. Easy ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Ha! ha! ha! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 For the follies of fashion, and the crimes of mon- 
 sters like myself, and that terrible Softhead ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ha! ha! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 For infirmities of temper ? 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 When they are but as weather-stains on the oak 
 that discolor the rind, but mar not the worth of the 
 tree 
 
sc. ii.] OR, MANY SIDES TO A CHARACTER. 155 
 
 DUKE. 
 
 Good! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 For the pride of a patrician 
 
 DUKE. 
 Eh! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 When it spreads thro' the heart of a land, the ex- 
 ample of honor ! 
 
 DUKE (aside). 
 
 A perfect gentleman, tho' he may not have an an- 
 cestor ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 And more than indulgence for the daring plebeian 
 with all his sharp struggles between evil and good, 
 when he fights his way up to fortune, and sees those 
 before him as foes. \TaJdng HARDMAN'S hand. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Let him, like Hardman, love fame and his country, 
 and I suspect that, like Hardman, he'll be, one day, 
 surprised by his friends. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 My thanks to you both. But, alas ! my dear Wil- 
 mot, many sides to a character ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Plague on it, yes ! But get at them all, and we're 
 not so bad as we seem 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 No, Fred, not quite so bad ! 
 
156 NOT SO BAD AS WE SEEM. [ACT v. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Not even poor David Fallen, the Author. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Egad, if the Author himself were here, I should still 
 hope that we might say * not quite so bad' taking 
 us as we stand ALTOGETHER ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
"DAVID FALLEN IS DEAD!" 
 
 OR, 
 
 A KEY TO THE PLAY. 
 
 (AN AFTER SCENE, BY WAY OF AN EPILOGUE.) 
 
 SCENE. 
 
 WILMOT'S Apartment. WILMOT, SIR GEOFFREY, SOFTHEAD, 
 EASY, and HARDMAN, seated at a Table. Wine, Fruits, &c. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Pass the wine what's the news ? 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Funds have risen to-day. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I suspect it will rain. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 Well, I've got in my hay. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 DAVID FALLEN is DEAD ! 
 
 OMNES. 
 
 DAVID FALLEN ! 
 
158 DAVID FALLEN IS DEAD; 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Poor fellow ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I should like to have seen him ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 / saw him ! So yellow ! 
 
 HARD MAN. 
 
 Your annuity killed him. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 How how ? to the point. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 By the shock on his nerves at the sight of a joint 
 A very great genius 
 
 EASY. 
 
 I own now he's dead, 
 That a writer more charming 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Was never worse fed ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 His country was grateful 
 
 SOFTHEAD (surprised). 
 
 He looked very shabby ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 His bones 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 You might count them ! 
 
OB, A KEY TO THE PLAY. 159 
 
 HARDMAff. 
 
 Kepose in the Abbey ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD (after a stare of astonishment). 
 So THAT is the way that a country is grateful ! 
 'Ere his nerves grew so weak, if she'd sent him a 
 plateful. 
 
 EASY (hastily producing a long paper). 
 MY TAXES ! Your notions are perfectly hateful ! 
 
 [PAUSE. Evident feeling that there's no 
 getting over Mr. EASY'S paper. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Pope's epigram stung him. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Yes, Pope has a sting. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 But who writes the epitaph ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Pope : a sweet thing ; 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 'Gad, if I were an author, I'd rather, instead, 
 Have the epitaph living the epigram dead. 
 If Pope had but just reconsidered that matter, 
 Poor David 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Had gone to the Abbey much fatter ! 
 
 EASY. 
 He was rather a scamp ! 
 
160 DAVID FALLEN IS DEAD ; 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Put yourself in his place. 
 
 EASY (horror-struck). 
 Heaven forbid ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Let us deem him the Last of a Race ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 But the race that succeeds may have little more pelf 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Ay ; and trials as sharp. I'm an author myself. 
 But the remedy? Wherefore should authors not 
 build 
 
 EASY. 
 
 An alms-house? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 No, merchant, their own noble guild ! 
 Some fortress for youth in the battle for fame ; 
 Some shelter that Age is not humbled to claim ; 
 Some roof from the storm for the Pilgrim of Knowl- 
 edge; 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Not unlike what our ancestors meant by a College ; 
 Where teacher and student alike the subscriber, 
 Untaxing the Patron, 
 
 EASY. 
 
 The State, 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Or the briber,- 
 
OB, A KEY TO THE PLAY. 161 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 The son of proud Learning shall knock at the door, 
 And cry This* is rich, and not whine That\ is poor. 
 
 HARDMAX. 
 
 Oh right ! For these men govern earth from their 
 
 graves 
 Shall the dead be as kings, and the living as slaves ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 It is all their own fault they so slave one another ; 
 Not a son of proud Learning but knocks down his 
 
 brother ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Yes ! other vocations, from Thames to the Border, 
 Have some esprit de corps, and some pride in their 
 
 order ; 
 
 Lawyers, soldiers, and doctors, if quarrels do pass, 
 Still soften their spite from respect to their class ; 
 Why should authors be spitting and scratching like 
 
 tabbies, 
 To leave but dry bones 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 For those grateful cold Abbeys \ 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Worst side of their character ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 True to the letter. 
 Are their sides, then, so fat, we can't hit on a better ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Why the sticks in the fable ! Our Guild be the tether, 
 * The head. f The pocket. 
 
162 DAVID FALLEN IS DEAD; 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Ay : the thorns are rubbed off when the sticks cling 
 together. 
 
 SOFTHEAD (musingly). 
 
 I could be yes I could be a Pilgrim of Knowledge, 
 If you'd change Deadman's Lane to a snug little Col- 
 lege. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh ! stuff ! it takes money a College to found. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 I will head the subscription myself with a pound ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Quite enough from a friend ; for we authors should feel 
 We must put our own shoulders like men to the wheel. 
 Be thrifty when thriving take heed of the morrow, 
 
 EASY. 
 
 And not get in debt 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Where the duse could they borrow ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Let us think of a scheme. 
 
 EASY. 
 
 He is always so knowing. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 A scheme ! I have got one ; the wheel's set a-going ! 
 A play from one author. 
 
OB, A KEY TO THE PLAY. 163 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 With authors for actors, 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 And some benefit nights, 
 
 BOTH. 
 
 For the world's benefactors. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Who'll give you the play ? it will not be worth giving. 
 Authors now are so bad ; always are while they're 
 living ! 
 
 EASY. 
 Ah ! if David Fallen, great genius, were here 
 
 OMNES. 
 Great genius ! 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 A man whom all Time shall revere ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD (impatiently). 
 But he's dead. 
 
 OMNES (lugubriously). 
 He is dead ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 The true Classical School, sir! 
 Ah ! could he come back ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 He'll not be such a fool, sir. 
 [Talcing HARDMAN aside, whispers. 
 We know of an author. 
 
DAVID FALLEN IS DEAD; 
 HARDMAN (doubtfully.) 
 
 Ye s s, David was brighter. 
 
 OMNES. 
 
 But he's dead. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 This might do as a live sort of writer. 
 
 EASY. 
 Alive ! that looks bad. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Must we take a live man ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 To oblige us he'll be, sir, as dead as he can ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Alive ; and will write, sir ? 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 With pleasure, sir. 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 PLEASURE \ 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 With less than your wit, he has more than your 
 
 leisure. 
 Coquets with the Muse 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Lucky dog to afford her ! 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Can we get his good side ? 
 
OR, A KEY TO THE PLAY. 165 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Yes, he's proud of his order. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Then he'll do ! 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 As for wit he has books on his shelves. 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Now the actors ? 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 By Jove, we will act it ourselves. 
 
 [OMNES, at first surprised into enthusiasm, suc- 
 ceeded by great consternation. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 Ugh, not I ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Lord ha' mercy ! 
 
 EASY. 
 
 A plain, sober, steady 
 
 WILMOT. 
 I'll appeal to Sir Geoffrey- There's one caught 
 
 already ! 
 This suspicious old knight ; to his blind side, direct us. 
 
 HARDMAN, 
 
 Your part is to act 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 True ; and his to suspect us. 
 I rely upon you. 
 
 HARDMAN (looTcmg at his watch). 
 Me ! I have not a minute ! 
 
166 DAVID FALLEN IS DEAD. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 If the Play has a plot, he is sure to be in it. 
 Come, Softhead ! 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 I won't. I'll go home to my mother. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 Pooh ! monsters like us always help one another. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 I suspect you will act. 
 
 Still to imitate one 
 
 SOFTHEAD. 
 
 Well, I've this consolation 
 
 HARDMAN. 
 
 Who defies imitation. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Let the public but favor the plan we have hit on, 
 And we'll chair through all London, our Family 
 Briton. 
 
 SIR GEOFFREY. 
 
 What? what? Look at Easy! He's drunk, or I 
 dream 
 
 EASY (rising). 
 The toast of the evening, SUCCESS TO THE SCHEME ! 
 
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