Scene
I
Lady Sneerwell’s dressing-room
Lady Sneerwell discovered at her dressing table; Snake drinking chocolate.
Lady Sneerwell
The paragraphs, you say, Mr. Snake, were all inserted?
Snake
They were, madam; and, as I copied them myself in a feigned hand, there can be no suspicion whence they came.
Lady Sneerwell
Did you circulate the report of Lady Brittle’s intrigue with Captain Boastall?
Snake
That’s in as fine a train as your ladyship could wish. In the common course of things, I think it must reach Mrs. Clackitt’s ears within four-and-twenty hours; and then, you know, the business is as good as done.
Lady Sneerwell
Why, truly, Mrs. Clackitt has a very pretty talent, and a great deal of industry.
Snake
True, madam, and has been tolerably successful in her day. To my knowledge, she has been the cause of six matches being broken off, and three sons being disinherited; of four forced elopements, and as many close confinements; nine separate maintenances, and two divorces. Nay, I have more than once traced her causing a tête-á-tête in The Town and Country Magazine, when the parties, perhaps, had never seen each other’s face before in the course of their lives.
Lady Sneerwell
She certainly has talents, but her manner is gross.
Snake
’T is very true. She generally designs well, has a free tongue and a bold invention; but her colouring is too dark, and her outlines often extravagant. She wants that delicacy of tint, and mellowness of sneer, which distinguish your ladyship’s scandal.
Lady Sneerwell
You are partial, Snake.
Snake
Not in the least; everybody allows that Lady Sneerwell can do more with a word or look than many can with the most laboured detail, even when they happen to have a little truth on their side to support it.
Lady Sneerwell
Yes, my dear Snake; and I am no hypocrite to deny the satisfaction I reap from the success of my efforts. Wounded myself, in the early part of my life, by the envenomed tongue of slander, I confess I have since known no pleasure to equal to the reducing others to the level of my own reputation.
Snake
Nothing can be more natural. But, Lady Sneerwell, there is one affair in which you have lately employed me, wherein, I confess, I am at a loss to guess your motives.
Lady Sneerwell
I conceive you mean with respect to my neighbour, Sir Peter Teazle, and his family?
Snake
I do. Here are two young men, to whom Sir Peter has acted as a kind of guardian since their father’s death; the eldest possessing the most amiable character, and universally well spoken of—the youngest, the most dissipated and extravagant young fellow in the kingdom, without friends or character: the former an avowed admirer of your ladyship, and apparently your favourite; the latter attached to Maria, Sir Peter’s ward, and confessedly beloved by her. Now, on the face of these circumstances, it is utterly unaccountable to me, why you, the widow of a city knight, with a good jointure, should not close with the passion of a man of such character and expectations as Mr. Surface; and more so why you should be so uncommonly earnest to destroy the mutual attachment subsisting between his brother Charles and Maria.
Lady Sneerwell
Then, at once to unravel this mystery, I must inform you that love has no share whatever in the intercourse between Mr. Surface and me.
Snake
No!
Lady Sneerwell
His real attachment is to Maria, or her fortune; but, finding in his brother a favoured rival, he has been obliged to mask his pretensions, and profit by my assistance.
Snake
Yet still I am more puzzled why you should interest yourself in his success.
Lady Sneerwell
Heavens! how dull you are! Cannot you surmise the weakness which I hitherto, through shame, have concealed even from you? Must I confess that Charles—that libertine, that extravagant, that bankrupt in fortune and reputation—that he it is for whom I am thus anxious and malicious, and to gain whom I would sacrifice everything?
Snake
Now, indeed, your conduct appears consistent: but how came you and Mr. Surface so confidential?
Lady Sneerwell
For our mutual interest. I have found him out a long time since. I know him to be artful, selfish, and malicious—in short, a sentimental knave; while with Sir Peter, and indeed with all his acquaintance, he passes for a youthful miracle of prudence, good sense, and benevolence.
Snake
Yes; yet Sir Peter vows he has not his equal in England—and, above all, he praises him as a man of sentiment.
Lady Sneerwell
True; and with the assistance of his sentiment and hypocrisy he has brought Sir Peter entirely into his interest with regard to Maria; while poor Charles has no friend in the house—though, I fear, he has a powerful one in Maria’s heart, against whom we must direct our schemes.
Enter Servant.
Servant
Mr. Surface.
Lady Sneerwell
Show him up.
Exit Servant.
He generally calls about this time. I don’t wonder at people’s giving him to me for a lover.
Enter Joseph Surface.
Joseph Surface
My dear Lady Sneerwell, how do you do today—your most obedient.
Lady Sneerwell
Snake has just been rallying me on our mutual attachment; but I have informed him of our real views. You know how useful he has been to us; and believe me the confidence is not ill placed.
Joseph Surface
Madam, it is impossible for me to suspect a man of Mr. Snake’s sensibility and discernment.
Lady Sneerwell
Well, well, no compliments now; but tell me when you saw your mistress, Maria—or, what is more material to me, your brother.
Joseph Surface
I have not seen either since I left you; but I can inform you that they never meet. Some of your stories have taken a good effect on Maria.
Lady Sneerwell
Ah! my dear Snake the merit of this belongs to you. But do your brother’s distresses increase?
Joseph Surface
Every hour. I am told he has had another execution in his house yesterday. In short, his dissipation and extravagance exceed anything I have ever heard of.
Lady Sneerwell
Poor Charles!
Joseph Surface
True madam; notwithstanding his vices one can’t help feeling for him. Poor Charles! I’m sure I wish it was in my power to be of any essential service to him; for the man who does not share in the distresses of a brother, even though merited by his own misconduct, deserves—
Lady Sneerwell
O Lud! you are going to be moral, and forget that you are among friends.
Joseph Surface
Egad, that’s true! I’ll keep that sentiment till I see Sir Peter. However it is certainly a charity to rescue Maria from such a libertine who, if he is to be reclaimed, can be so only by a person of your ladyship’s superior accomplishments and understanding.
Snake
I believe, Lady Sneerwell, here’s company coming; I’ll go and copy the letter I mentioned to you. Mr. Surface, your most obedient.
Joseph Surface
Sir, your very devoted—
Exit Snake.
Lady Sneerwell, I am very sorry you have put any farther confidence in that fellow.
Lady Sneerwell
Why so?
Joseph Surface
I have lately detected him in frequent conference with old Rowley who was formerly my father’s steward, and has never, you know, been a friend of mine.
Lady Sneerwell
And do you think he would betray us??
Joseph Surface
Nothing more likely; take my word for’t, Lady Sneerwell, that fellow hasn’t virtue enough to be faithful even to his own villany.—Ah, Maria!
Enter Maria.
Maria, my dear, how do you do?—what’s the matter?
Maria
Oh! there is that disagreeable lover of mine, Sir Benjamin Backbite, has just called at my guardian’s with his odious uncle, Crabtree—so I slipt out and ran hither to avoid them.
Lady Sneerwell
Is that all?
Joseph Surface
If my Brother Charles had been of the party, madam, perhaps you would not have been so much alarmed.
Lady Sneerwell
Nay, now you are severe; for I dare swear the truth of the matter is, Maria heard you were here. But my dear, what has Sir Benjamin done that you should avoid him so?
Maria
Oh He has done nothing—but ’tis for what he has said: his conversation is a perpetual libel on all his acquaintance.
Joseph Surface
Ay, and the worst of it is there is no advantage in not knowing him; for he’ll abuse a stranger just as soon as his best friend: and his uncle’s as bad.
Lady Sneerwell
Nay, but we should make allowance; Sir Benjamin is a wit and a poet.
Maria
For my part, I own madam, wit loses its respect with me, when I see it in company with malice. What do you think, Mr. Surface?
Joseph Surface
Certainly, madam; to smile at the jest which plants a thorn on another’s breast is to become a principal in the mischief.
Lady Sneerwell
Pshaw! there’s no possibility of being witty without a little ill nature: the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick. What’s your opinion, Mr. Surface?
Joseph Surface
To be sure madam: that conversation where the spirit of raillery is suppressed, will ever appear tedious and insipid.
Maria
Well I’ll not debate how far scandal may be allowable; but in a man, I am sure it is always contemptible. We have pride, envy, rivalship, and a thousand motives to depreciate each other; but the male slanderer must have the cowardice of a woman before he can traduce one.
Reenter Servant.
Servant
Madam, Mrs. Candour is below, and, if your ladyship’s at leisure, will leave her carriage.
Lady Sneerwell
Beg her to walk in.—
Exit Servant.
Now, Maria, however here is a character to your taste; for though Mrs. Candour is a little talkative, everybody allows her to be the best-natured and best sort of woman.
Maria
Yes—with a very gross affectation of goodnature and benevolence, she does more mischief than the direct malice of old Crabtree.
Joseph Surface
I’ faith that’s true, Lady Sneerwell: whenever I hear the current running against the characters of my friends, I never think them in such danger as when Candour undertakes their defence.
Lady Sneerwell
Hush!—here she is!—
Enter Mrs. Candour.
Mrs. Candour
My dear Lady Sneerwell, how have you been this century?—Mr. Surface—what news do you hear?—though indeed it is no matter, for I think one hears nothing else but scandal.
Joseph Surface
Just so, indeed, ma’am.
Mrs. Candour
Oh Maria! child—what, is the whole affair off between you and Charles?—His extravagance, I presume—the town talks of nothing else.
Maria
I am very sorry, ma’am, the town has so little to do.
Mrs. Candour
True, true, child: but there’s no stopping people’s tongues. I own I was hurt to hear it, as I indeed was to learn, from the same quarter, that your guardian, Sir Peter, and Lady Teazle have not agreed lately so well as could be wished.
Maria
’Tis strangely impertinent for people to busy themselves so.
Mrs. Candour
Very true, child: but what’s to be done? People will talk—there’s no preventing it. Why it was but yesterday I was told that Miss Gadabout had eloped with Sir Filagree Flirt. But, Lord! there’s no minding what one hears; though to be sure I had this from very good authority.
Maria
Such reports are highly scandalous.
Mrs. Candour
So they are, child—shameful, shameful! But the world is so censorious no character escapes.—Lord, now who would have suspected your friend, Miss Prim, of an indiscretion? Yet such is the ill-nature of people, that they say her uncle stopped her last week, just as she was stepping into York diligence with her dancing-master.
Maria
I’ll answer for’t there are no grounds for the report.
Mrs. Candour
Oh, no foundation in the world I dare swear: no more probably than for the story circulated last month, of Mrs. Festino’s affair with Colonel Cassino—though, to be sure, that matter was never rightly cleared up.
Joseph Surface
The license of invention some people take is monstrous indeed.
Maria
’Tis so; but in my opinion, those who report such things are equally culpable.
Mrs. Candour
To be sure they are; talebearers are as bad as the tale-makers—’tis an old observation, and a very true one: but what’s to be done, as I said before? how will you prevent people from talking? Today, Mrs. Clackitt assured me, Mr. and Mrs. Honeymoon were at last become mere man and wife, like the rest of their acquaintance. She likewise hinted that a certain widow, in the next street, had got rid of her dropsy and recovered her shape in a most surprising manner. At the same time Miss Tattle, who was by affirmed, that Lord Buffalo had discovered his lady at a house of no extraordinary fame; and that Sir Harry Bouquet and Tom Saunter were to measure swords on a similar provocation.—But, Lord, do you think I would report these things? No, no! talebearers as I said before, are just as bad as the tale-makers.
Joseph Surface
Ah! Mrs. Candour, if everybody had your forbearance and good nature—
Mrs. Candour
I confess, Mr. Surface I cannot bear to hear people attacked behind their backs; and when ugly circumstances come out against our acquaintances I own I always love to think the best.—By the by, I hope ’tis not true that your brother is absolutely ruined?
Joseph Surface
I am afraid his circumstances are very bad indeed, ma’am.
Mrs. Candour
Ah! I heard so—but you must tell him to keep up his spirits: everybody almost is in the same way: Lord Spindle, Sir Thomas Splint, Captain Quinze, and Mr. Nickit—all up, I hear, within this week; so, if Charles is undone, he’ll find half his acquaintance ruined too, and that, you know, is a consolation—
Joseph Surface
Doubtless, ma’am—a very great one.
Reenter Servant.
Servant
Mr. Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite.
Exit Servant.
Lady Sneerwell
So, Maria, you see your lover pursues you: positively you shan’t escape.
Enter Crabtree and Sir Benjamin Backbite.
Crabtree
Lady Sneerwell, I kiss your hand. Mrs. Candour, I don’t believe you are acquainted with my nephew Sir Benjamin Backbite? Egad, ma’am, He has a pretty wit, and is a pretty poet, too. Isn’t he Lady Sneerwell?
Sir Benjamin
O fie, uncle!
Crabtree
Nay egad it’s true; I back him at a rebus or a charade against the best rhymer in the kingdom.—Has your ladyship heard the epigram he wrote last week on Lady Frizzle’s Feather catching fire?—Do, Benjamin repeat it, or the charade you made last night extempore at Mrs. Drowzie’s conversazione. Come now; your first is the name of a fish, your second a great naval commander, and—
Sir Benjamin
Dear Uncle—now—prithee—
Crabtree
I’ faith, ma’am, ’twould surprise you to hear how ready he is at all these things.
Lady Sneerwell
I wonder, Sir Benjamin, you never publish anything.
Sir Benjamin
To say truth, ma’am, ’tis very vulgar to print: and as my little productions are mostly satires and lampoons on particular people, I find they circulate more by giving copies in confidence to the friends of the parties.—However I have some love elegies, which, when favoured with this lady’s smile, I mean to give to the public. Pointing to Maria.
Crabtree
To Maria. ’Fore Heaven, ma’am, they’ll immortalize you!—you will be handed down to posterity, like Petrarch’s Laura, or Waller’s Sacharissa.
Sir Benjamin
To Maria. Yes madam, I think you will like them, when you shall see in a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin.—’Fore Gad they will be the most elegant things of their kind!
Crabtree
But, ladies, that’s true—have you heard the news?
Mrs. Candour
What, sir, do you mean the report of—
Crabtree
No ma’am that’s not it.—Miss Nicely is going to be married to her own footman.
Mrs. Candour
Impossible!
Crabtree
Ask Sir Benjamin.
Sir Benjamin
’Tis very true, ma’am: everything is fixed, and the wedding livery bespoke.
Crabtree
Yes—and they do say there were pressing reasons for it.
Lady Sneerwell
Why, I have heard something of this before.
Mrs. Candour
It can’t be—and I wonder anyone should believe such a story of so prudent a Lady as Miss Nicely.
Sir Benjamin
O Lud! ma’am, that’s the very reason ’twas believed at once. She has always been so cautious and so reserved, that everybody was sure there was some reason for it at bottom.
Lady Sneerwell
Why, to be sure, a tale of scandal is as fatal to the credit of a prudent lady of her stamp as a fever is generally to those of the strongest constitutions. But there is a sort of puny, sickly reputation, that is always ailing, yet will outlive the robuster characters of a hundred prudes.
Sir Benjamin
True, madam, there are valetudinarians in reputation as well as constitution, who, being conscious of their weak part, avoid the least breath of air, and supply their want of stamina by care and circumspection.
Mrs. Candour
Well, but this may be all mistake. You know, Sir Benjamin very trifling circumstances often give rise to the most injurious tales.
Crabtree
That they do, I’ll be sworn ma’am. Did you ever hear how Miss Piper came to lose her lover and her character last summer at Tunbridge?—Sir Benjamin you remember it?
Sir Benjamin
Oh, to be sure!—the most whimsical circumstance.
Lady Sneerwell
How was it, pray?
Crabtree
Why, one evening at Mrs. Ponto’s assembly, the conversation happened to turn on the breeding Nova Scotia sheep in this country. Says a young lady in company, “I have known instances of it; for Miss Letitia Piper, a first cousin of mine, had a Nova Scotia sheep that produced her twins.”—“What!” cries the old Dowager Lady Dundizzy (who you know is as deaf as a post), “has Miss Piper had twins?”—This mistake, as you may imagine, threw the whole company into a fit of laughter. However ’twas the next morning everywhere reported, and in a few days believed by the whole town, that Miss Letitia Piper had actually been brought to bed of a fine boy and girl: and in less than a week there were people who could name the father, and the farmhouse where the babies were put to nurse.
Lady Sneerwell
Strange indeed!
Crabtree
Matter of fact, I assure you—O Lud! Mr. Surface pray is it true that your uncle, Sir Oliver, is coming home?
Joseph Surface
Not that I know of, indeed, sir.
Crabtree
He has been in the East Indies a long time. You can scarcely remember him, I believe—Sad comfort, whenever he returns, to hear how your brother has gone on!
Joseph Surface
Charles has been imprudent, sir to be sure; but I hope no busy people have already prejudiced Sir Oliver against him. He may reform.
Sir Benjamin
To be sure he may: for my part, I never believed him to be so utterly void of principle as people say; and, though he has lost all his friends, I am told nobody is better spoken of by the Jews.
Crabtree
That’s true, egad, nephew. If the Old Jewry was a ward, I believe Charles would be an alderman: no man more popular there, ’fore Gad! I hear he pays as many annuities as the Irish tontine and that whenever he’s sick, they have prayers for the recovery of his health in the synagogue.
Sir Benjamin
Yet no man lives in greater splendour. They tell me, when he entertains his friends he will sit down to dinner with a dozen of his own securities; have a score of tradesmen waiting in the antechamber, and an officer behind every guest’s chair.
Joseph Surface
This may be entertainment to you gentlemen but you pay very little regard to the feelings of a brother.
Maria
Aside. Their malice is intolerable!—Aloud. Lady Sneerwell, I must wish you a good morning: I’m not very well.
Exit Maria.
Mrs. Candour
O dear! She changes colour very much!
Lady Sneerwell
Do, Mrs. Candour, follow her; she may want your assistance.
Mrs. Candour
That I will, with all my soul ma’am—Poor dear girl, who knows—what her situation may be!
Exit Mrs. Candour.
Lady Sneerwell
’Twas nothing but that she could not bear to hear Charles reflected on, notwithstanding their difference.
Sir Benjamin
The young lady’s penchant is obvious.
Crabtree
But Benjamin, you mustn’t give up the pursuit for that: follow her and put her into good humour. Repeat her some of your own verses. Come, I’ll assist you.
Sir Benjamin
Mr. Surface, I did not mean to hurt you; but depend on’t your brother is utterly undone.
Crabtree
O Lud, aye! undone as ever man was—can’t raise a guinea!—
Sir Benjamin
And everything sold, I’m told, that was movable.—
Crabtree
I have seen one that was at his house.—Not a thing left but some empty bottles that were overlooked, and the family pictures, which I believe are framed in the wainscots—
Sir Benjamin
And I’m very sorry to hear some bad stories against him. Going.
Crabtree
Oh, he has done many mean things, that’s certain!
Sir Benjamin
But, however, as he is your brother—Going.
Crabtree
We’ll tell you all another opportunity.
Exeunt Crabtree and Sir Benjamin.
Lady Sneerwell
Ha! ha! ’tis very hard for them to leave a subject they have not quite run down.
Joseph Surface
And I believe the abuse was no more acceptable to your ladyship than Maria.
Lady Sneerwell
I doubt her affections are farther engaged than we imagine. But the family are to be here this evening, so you may as well dine where you are, and we shall have an opportunity of observing farther; in the meantime, I’ll go and plot mischief and you shall study sentiment.
Exeunt.