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　　SCENE.—An inner Apartment.

　　(John is discovered kneeling.—Margaret standing over him.)

　　JOHN (rises)

　　I cannot bear

　　To see you waste that youth and excellent beauty,

　　('Tis now the golden time of the day with you,)

　　In tending such a broken wretch as I am.

　　MARGARET

　　John will break Margaret's heart, if he speak so.

　　O sir, sir, sir, you are too melancholy,

　　And I must call it caprice. I am somewhat bold

　　Perhaps in this. But you are now my patient,

　　(You know you gave me leave to call you so,)

　　And I must chide these pestilent humours from you.

　　JOHN

　　They are gone.—

　　Mark, love, how cheerfully I speak!

　　I can smile too, and I almost begin

　　To understand what kind of creature Hope is.

　　MARGARET

　　Now this is better, this mirth becomes you, John.

　　JOHN

　　Yet tell me, if I over-act my mirth.

　　(Being but a novice, I may fall into that error,)

　　That were a sad indecency, you know.

　　MARGARET

　　Nay, never fear.

　　I will be mistress of your humours,

　　And you shall frown or smile by the book.

　　And herein I shall be most peremptory,

　　Cry, "this shews well, but that inclines to levity,

　　This frown has too much of the Woodvil in it,

　　But that fine sunshine has redeem'd it quite."

　　JOHN

　　How sweetly Margaret robs me of myself!

　　MARGARET

　　To give you in your stead a better self!

　　Such as you were, when these eyes first beheld

　　You mounted on your sprightly steed, White Margery,

　　Sir Rowland my father's gift,

　　And all my maidens gave my heart for lost.

　　I was a young thing then, being newly come

　　Home from my convent education, where

　　Seven years I had wasted in the bosom of France:

　　Returning home true protestant, you call'd me

　　Your little heretic nun. How timid-bashful

　　Did John salute his love, being newly seen.

　　Sir Rowland term'd it a rare modesty,

　　And prais'd it in a youth.

　　JOHN

　　Now Margaret weeps herself.

　　(A noise of bells heard.)

　　MARGARET

　　Hark the bells, John.

　　JOHN

　　Those are the church bells of St. Mary Ottery.

　　MARGARET

　　I know it.

　　JOHN

　　Saint Mary Ottery, my native village

　　In the sweet shire of Devon.

　　Those are the bells.

　　MARGARET

　　Wilt go to church, John?

　　JOHN

　　I have been there already.

　　MARGARET How canst say thou hast been there already? The bells are only now ringing for morning service, and hast thou been at church already?

　　JOHN

　　I left my bed betimes, I could not sleep,

　　And when I rose, I look'd (as my custom is)

　　From my chamber window, where I can see the sun rise;

　　And the first object I discern'd

　　Was the glistering spire of St. Mary Ottery.

　　MARGARET

　　Well, John.

　　JOHN

　　Then I remember'd 'twas the sabbath-day.

　　Immediately a wish arose in my mind,

　　To go to church and pray with Christian people.

　　And then I check'd myself, and said to myself,

　　"Thou hast been a heathen, John, these two years past,

　　(Not having been at church in all that time,)

　　And is it fit, that now for the first time

　　Thou should'st offend the eyes of Christian people

　　With a murderer's presence in the house of prayer?

　　Thou would'st but discompose their pious thoughts,

　　And do thyself no good: for how could'st thou pray,

　　With unwash'd hands, and lips unus'd to the offices?"

　　And then I at my own presumption smiled;

　　And then I wept that I should smile at all,

　　Having such cause of grief! I wept outright;

　　Tears like a river flooded all my face,

　　And I began to pray, and found I could pray;

　　And still I yearn'd to say my prayers in the church.

　　"Doubtless (said I) one might find comfort in it."

　　So stealing down the stairs, like one that fear'd detection,

　　Or was about to act unlawful business

　　At that dead time of dawn,

　　I flew to the church, and found the doors wide open,

　　(Whether by negligence I knew not,

　　Or some peculiar grace to me vouchsaf'd,

　　For all things felt like mystery).

　　MARGARET

　　Yes.

　　JOHN

　　So entering in, not without fear,

　　I past into the family pew,

　　And covering up my eyes for shame,

　　And deep perception of unworthiness,

　　Upon the little hassock knelt me down,

　　Where I so oft had kneel'd,

　　A docile infant by Sir Walter's side;

　　And, thinking so, I wept a second flood

　　More poignant than the first;

　　But afterwards was greatly comforted.

　　It seem'd, the guilt of blood was passing from me

　　Even in the act and agony of tears,

　　And all my sins forgiven.

　　THE WITCH

　　A DRAMATIC SKETCH OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (1798)

　　CHARACTERS

　　Old Servant in the Family of Sir Francis Pairford. Stranger.

　　SERVANT

　　One summer night Sir Francis, as it chanced,

　　Was pacing to and fro in the avenue

　　That westward fronts our house,

　　Among those aged oaks, said to have been planted

　　Three hundred years ago

　　By a neighb'ring prior of the Fairford name.

　　Being o'er-task'd in thought, he heeded not

　　The importunate suit of one who stood by the gate,

　　And begged an alms.

　　Some say he shoved her rudely from the gate

　　With angry chiding; but I can never think

　　(Our master's nature hath a sweetness in it)

　　That he could use a woman, an old woman,

　　With such discourtesy: but he refused her—

　　And better had he met a lion in his path

　　Than that old woman that night;

　　For she was one who practised the black arts,

　　And served the devil, being since burnt for witchcraft.

　　She looked at him as one that meant to blast him,

　　And with a frightful noise,

　　('Twas partly like a woman's voice,

　　And partly like the hissing of a snake,)

　　She nothing said but this:—

　　(Sir Francis told the words)

　　A mischief, mischief, mischief,

　　And a nine-times-killing curse,

　　By day and by night, to the caitiff wight,

　　Who shakes the poor like snakes from his door,

　　And shuts up the womb of his purse.

　　And still she cried

　　A mischief,

　　And a nine-fold-withering curse:

　　For that shall come to thee that will undo thee,

　　Both all that thou fearest and worse.

　　So saying, she departed,

　　Leaving Sir Francis like a man, beneath

　　Whose feet a scaffolding was suddenly falling;

　　So he described it.

　　STRANGER

　　A terrible curse! What followed?

　　SERVANT

　　Nothing immediate, but some two months after

　　Young Philip Fairford suddenly fell sick,

　　And none could tell what ailed him; for he lay,

　　And pined, and pined, till all his hair fell off,

　　And he, that was full-fleshed, became as thin

　　As a two-months' babe that has been starved in the nursing.

　　And sure I think

　　He bore his death-wound like a little child;

　　With such rare sweetness of dumb melancholy

　　He strove to clothe his agony in smiles,

　　Which he would force up in his poor pale cheeks,

　　Like ill-timed guests that had no proper dwelling there;

　　And, when they asked him his complaint, he laid

　　His hand upon his heart to shew the place,

　　Where Susan came to him a-nights, he said,

　　And prick'd him with a pin.—

　　And thereupon Sir Francis called to mind

　　The beggar-witch that stood by the gateway

　　And begged an alms.

　　STRANGER

　　But did the witch confess?

　　SERVANT

　　All this and more at her death.

　　STRANGER

　　I do not love to credit tales of magic.

　　Heaven's music, which is Order, seems unstrung,

　　And this brave world

　　(The mystery of God) unbeautified,

　　Disorder'd, marr'd, where such strange things are acted.

　　Mr. H——

　　A FARCE IN TWO ACTS

　　As it was performed at Drury Lane Theatre, December, 1806

　　"Mr. H——, thou wert DAMNED. Bright shone the morning on the play-bills that announced thy appearance, and the streets were filled with the buzz of persons asking one another if they would go to see Mr. H——, and answering that they would certainly; but before night the gaiety, not of the author, but of his friends and the town, was eclipsed, for thou wert DAMNED! Hadst thou been anonymous, thou haply mightst have lived. But thou didst come to an untimely end for thy tricks, and for want of a better name to pass them off——."

　　—Theatrical Examiner.

　　CHARACTERS

　　Mr. H—— Mr. Elliston.

　　BELVIL Mr. Bartley.

　　LANDLORD PRY Mr. Wewitzer.

　　MELESINDA Miss Mellon.

　　Maid to Melesinda. Mrs. Harlowe.

　　Gentlemen, Ladies, Waiters, Servants, &c.

　　SCENE.—Bath

　　PROLOGUE

　　Spoken by Mr. Elliston

　　If we have sinn'd in paring down a name,

　　All civil well-bred authors do the same.

　　Survey the columns of our daily writers—

　　You'll find that some Initials are great fighters.

　　How fierce the shock, how fatal is the jar,

　　When Ensign W. meets Lieutenant R.

　　With two stout seconds, just of their own gizard,

　　Cross Captain X. and rough old General Izzard!

　　Letter to Letter spreads the dire alarms,

　　Till half the Alphabet is up in arms.

　　Nor with less lustre have Initials shone,

　　To grace the gentler annals of Crim. Con.

　　Where the dispensers of the public lash

　　Soft penance give; a letter and a dash—

　　Where vice reduced in size shrinks to a failing,

　　And loses half her grossness by curtailing.

　　Faux pas are told in such a modest way,—

　　The affair of Colonel B—— with Mrs. A——

　　You must forgive them—for what is there, say,

　　Which such a pliant Vowel must not grant

　　To such a very pressing Consonant?

　　Or who poetic justice dares dispute,

　　When, mildly melting at a lover's suit,

　　The wife's a Liquid, her good man a Mute?

　　Even in the homelier scenes of honest life,

　　The coarse-spun intercourse of man and wife,

　　Initials I am told have taken place

　　Of Deary, Spouse, and that old-fashioned race;

　　And Cabbage, ask'd by Brother Snip to tea,

　　Replies, "I'll come—but it don't rest with me—

　　I always leaves them things to Mrs. C."

　　O should this mincing fashion ever spread

　　From names of living heroes to the dead,

　　How would Ambition sigh, and hang the head,

　　As each lov'd syllable should melt away—

　　Her Alexander turned into Great A——

　　A single C. her Caesar to express—

　　Her Scipio shrunk into a Roman S——

　　And nick'd and dock'd to these new modes of speech,

　　Great Hannibal himself a Mr. H——.

　　MR. H——

　　A FARCE IN TWO ACTS

　　ACT I SCENE.—_A Public Room in an Inn—Landlord, Waiters, Gentlemen, &c.

　　Enter Mr. H._

　　MR. H.

　　Landlord, has the man brought home my boots?

　　LANDLORD

　　Yes, Sir.

　　MR. H.

　　You have paid him?

　　LANDLORD

　　There is the receipt, Sir, only not quite filled up, no name, only

　　blank—"Blank, Dr. to Zekiel Spanish for one pair of best hessians."

　　Now, Sir, he wishes to know what name he shall put in, who he shall say

　　"Dr."

　　MR. H.

　　Why, Mr. H. to be sure.

　　LANDLORD So I told him, Sir; but Zekiel has some qualms about it. He says, he thinks that Mr. H. only would not stand good in law.

　　MR. H. Rot his impertinence, bid him put in Nebuchadnezzar, and not trouble me with his scruples.

　　LANDLORD

　　I shall, Sir. [Exit.]

　　Enter a Waiter.

　　WAITER Sir, Squire Level's man is below, with a hare and a brace of pheasants for Mr. H.

　　MR. H. Give the man half-a-crown, and bid him return my best respects to his master. Presents it seems will find me out, with any name, or no name.

　　Enter Second Waiter.

　　SECOND WAITER

　　Sir, the man that makes up the Directory is at the door.

　　MR. H.

　　Give him a shilling, that is what these fellows come for.

　　SECOND WAITER He has sent up to know by what name your Honour will please to be inserted.

　　MR. H. Zounds, fellow, I give him a shilling for leaving out my name, not for putting it in. This is one of the plaguy comforts of going anonymous.

　　[Exit Second Waiter.]

　　Enter Third Waiter.

　　THIRD WAITER

　　Two letters for Mr. H. [Exit.]

　　MR. H. From ladies (opens them). This from Melesinda, to remind me of the morning call I promised; the pretty creature positively languishes to be made Mrs. H. I believe I must indulge her (affectedly). This from her cousin, to bespeak me to some party, I suppose (opening it)—Oh, "this evening"—"Tea and cards"—(surveying himself with complacency). Dear H., thou art certainly a pretty fellow. I wonder what makes thee such a favourite among the ladies: I wish it may not be owing to the concealment of thy unfortunate—pshaw!

　　Enter Fourth Waiter.

　　FOURTH WAITER

　　Sir, one Mr. Printagain is enquiring for you.

　　MR. H. Oh, I remember, the poet; he is publishing by subscription. Give him a guinea, and tell him he may put me down.

　　FOURTH WAITER

　　What name shall I tell him, Sir?

　　MR. H.

　　Zounds, he is a poet; let him fancy a name.

　　[Exit Fourth Waiter.]

　　Enter Fifth Waiter.

　　FIFTH WAITER

　　Sir, Bartlemy the lame beggar, that you sent a private donation to last

　　Monday, has by some accident discovered his benefactor, and is at the

　　door waiting to return thanks.

　　MR. H. Oh, poor fellow, who could put it into his head? Now I shall be teazed by all his tribe, when once this is known. Well, tell him I am glad I could be of any service to him, and send him away.

　　FIFTH WAITER I would have done so, Sir; but the object of his call now, he says, is only to know who he is obliged to.

　　MR. H.

　　Why, me.

　　FIFTH WAITER

　　Yes, Sir.

　　MR. H.

　　Me, me, me, who else, to be sure?

　　FIFTH WAITER

　　Yes, Sir; but he is anxious to know the name of his benefactor.

　　MR. H. Here is a pampered rogue of a beggar, that cannot be obliged to a gentleman in the way of his profession, but he must know the name, birth, parentage, and education of his benefactor. I warrant you, next he will require a certificate of one's good behaviour, and a magistrate's licence in one's pocket, lawfully empowering so and so to—give an alms. Any thing more? FIFTH WAITER

　　Yes, Sir: here has been Mr. Patriot, with the county petition to sign; and Mr. Failtime, that owes so much money, has sent to remind you of your promise to bail him.

　　MR. H. Neither of which I can do, while I have no name. Here is more of the plaguy comforts of going anonymous, that one can neither serve one's friend nor one's country. Damn it, a man had better be without a nose, than without a name. I will not live long in this mutilated, dismembered state; I will to Melesinda this instant, and try to forget these vexations. Melesinda! there is music in the name; but then, hang it, there is none in mine to answer to it. [Exit.]

　　(While Mr. H. has been speaking, two Gentlemen have been observing him curiously.)

　　FIRST GENTLEMAN

　　Who the devil is this extraordinary personage?

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN

　　Who? why 'tis Mr. H.

　　FIRST GENTLEMAN

　　Has he no more name?

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN None that has yet transpired. No more! why that single letter has been enough to inflame the imaginations of all the ladies in Bath. He has been here but a fortnight, and is already received into all the first families.

　　FIRST GENTLEMAN

　　Wonderful! yet nobody knows who he is, or where he comes from!

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN He is vastly rich, gives away money as if he had infinity; dresses well, as you see; and for address, the mothers are all dying for fear the daughters should get him; and for the daughters, he may command them as absolutely as—. Melesinda, the rich heiress, 'tis thought, will carry him.

　　FIRST GENTLEMAN

　　And is it possible that a mere anonymous—

　　SECOND GENTLEMAN Phoo! that is the charm, Who is he? and What is he? and What is his name?—The man with the great nose on his face never excited more of the gaping passion of wonderment in the dames of Strasburg, than this new-comer with the single letter to his name, has lighted up among the wives and maids of Bath; his simply having lodgings here, draws more visitors to the house than an election. Come with me to the parade, and I will shew you more of him. [Exeunt.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4