Henry Fielding - The Works of Henry Fielding, vol. 12

Mar. sen . Those two last lines again if you please.

Luck . "Thou'st made," &c.

Mar. jun .

" – Thou flood of joy,

Mix with my soul and rush thro' ev'ry vein."

Those are two excellent lines indeed: I never writ better myself: but, Sar —

Luck .

There ends act the first, and such an act as, I believe, never was on this stage yet.

Mar. jun . Nor never will, I hope.

Mar. sen . Pray, sir, let me look at one thing. "Falernian wines seem bitter to my taste."

Pray, sir, what sort of wines may your Falernian be? for I never heard of them before; and I am sure, as I keep the best company, if there had been such sorts of wines, I should have tasted them. Tokay I have drank, and Lacrimas I have drank, but what your Falernian is, the devil take me if I can tell.

Mar. jun . I fancy, father, these wines grow at the top of Parnassus.

Luck . Do they so, Mr Pert? why then I fancy you have never tasted them.

Mar. sen . Suppose you should say the wines of Cape are bitter to my taste.

Luck . Sir, I cannot alter it.

Mar. sen . Nor we cannot act it. It won't do, sir, and so you need give yourself no farther trouble about it.

Luck . What particular fault do you find?

Mar. jun . Sar, there's nothing that touches me, nothing that is coercive to my passions.

Luck . Fare you well, sir: may another play be coercive to your passions.

Mar. sen . Ha, ha, ha!

Mar. jun . What do you think of the play?

Mar. sen . It may be a very good one, for aught I know: but I am resolved, since the town will not receive any of mine, they shall have none from any other. I'll keep them to their old diet.

Mar. jun . But suppose they won't feed on't?

Mar. sen . Then it shall be crammed down their throats.

Mar. jun . I wish, father, you would leave me that art for a legacy, since I am afraid I am like to have no other from you.

Mar. sen . 'Tis buff, child, 'tis buff – true Corinthian brass; and, heaven be praised, tho' I have given thee no gold, I have given thee enough of that, which is the better inheritance of the two. Gold thou might'st have spent, but this is a lasting estate that will stick by thee all thy life.

Mar. jun . What shall be done with that farce which was damned last night?

Mar. sen . Give it them again to-morrow. I have told some persons of quality that it is a good thing, and I am resolved not to be in the wrong: let us see which will be weary first, the town of damning, or we of being damned.

Mar. jun . Rat the town, I say.

Mar. sen . That's a good boy; and so say I: but, prithee, what didst thou do with the comedy which I gave thee t'other day, that I thought a good one?

Mar. jun . Did as you ordered me; returned it to the author, and told him it would not do.

Mar. sen . You did well. If thou writest thyself, and that I know thou art very well qualified to do, it is thy interest to keep back all other authors of any merit, and be as forward to advance those of none.

Mar. jun . But I am a little afraid of writing; for my writings, you know, have fared but ill hitherto.

Mar. sen . That is because thou hast a little mistaken the method of writing. The art of writing, boy, is the art of stealing old plays, by changing the name of the play, and new ones, by changing the name of the author.

Mar. jun . If it was not for these cursed hisses and catcalls —

Mar. sen . Harmless musick, child, very harmless musick, and what, when one is but well seasoned to it, has no effect at all: for my part, I have been used to them.

Mar. jun . Ay, and I have been used to them too, for that matter.

Mar. sen . And stood them bravely too. Idle young actors are fond of applause, but, take my word for it, a clap is a mighty silly, empty thing, and does no more good than a hiss; and, therefore, if any man loves hissing, he may have his three shillings worth at me whenever he pleases. [ Exeunt .

Dash . Pox on't, I'm as dull as an ox, tho' I have not a bit of one within me. I have not dined these two days, and yet my head is as heavy as any alderman's or lord's. I carry about me symbols of all the elements; my head is as heavy as water, my pockets are as light as air, my appetite is as hot as fire, and my coat is as dirty as earth.

Blot . Lend me your Bysshe, Mr Dash, I want a rhime for wind.

Dash . Why there's blind, and kind, and behind, and find, and mind: it is of the easiest termination imaginable; I have had it four times in a page.

Blot . None of those words will do.

Dash . Why then you may use any that end in ond, or and, or end. I am never so exact: if the two last letters are alike, it will do very well. Read the verse.

Blot . "Inconstant as the seas or as the wind."

Dash . What would you express in the next line?

Blot . Nay, that I don't know, for the sense is out already. I would say something about inconstancy.

Dash . I can lend you a verse, and it will do very well too.

"Inconstancy will never have an end."

End rhimes very well with wind.

Blot . It will do well enough for the middle of a poem.

Dash . Ay, ay, anything will do well enough for the middle of a poem. If you can but get twenty good lines to place at the beginning for a taste, it will sell very well.

Quib . So that, according to you, Mr Dash, a poet acts pretty much on the same principles with an oister-woman.

Dash . Pox take your simile, it has set my chaps a watering: but come, let us leave off work for a while, and hear Mr Quibble's song.

Quib . My pipes are pure and clear, and my stomach is as hollow as any trumpet in Europe.

Dash . Come, the song.

Book . Fie upon it, gentlemen! what, not at your pens? Do you consider, Mr Quibble, that it is a fortnight since your Letter to a Friend in the Country was published? Is it not high time for an Answer to come out? At this rate, before your Answer is printed, your Letter will be forgot. I love to keep a controversy up warm. I have had authors who have writ a pamphlet in the morning, answered it in the afternoon, and answered that again at night.