"Eliza. Well, cousin, this, I confess, was reasonable hypocrisy; you were the better for 't. Olivia. What hypocrisy ? E. Why, this last deceit of your husband was lawful, since in your own defence. 0. What deceit? I'd have you know I never deceived my husband. E. You do not understand me, sure; I say, this was an honest come-off, and a good one. But 'twas a sign your gallant had had enough of your conversation, since he could so dexterously cheat your husband in passing for a woman. 0. What d'ye mean, once more, with my gallant, and passing for a woman? E. What do you mean? you see your husband took him for a woman! O. Whom? E. Heyday! why, the man he found with. . . . O. Lord, you rave sure! E. Why, did you not tell me last night. is so insipid, 'tis offensive. ... Fy, this fooling 0. And fooling with my honour will be more offensive. . . . E. O admirable confidence! ... 0. Confidence, to me! to me such language! nay, then I'll never see your face again. . . . Lettice, where are you? Let us begone from this censorious ill woman. . . . E. One word first, pray, madam; can you swear that whom your husband found you with ... O. Swear! ay, that whosoever 'twas that stole up, unknown, into my room, when 'twas dark, I know not, whether man or woman, by heavens, by all that's good; or, may I never more have joys here, or in the other world! Nay, may I eternally E. Be damned. So, so, you are damned enough already by your oaths. . . . Yet take this advice with you, in this plaindealing age, to leave off forswearing yourself. . . O. O hideous, hideous advice! let us go out of the hearing of it. She will spoil us, Lettice." 1 Here is animation; and if I dared to relate the boldness and the asseveration in the night scene, it would easily appear that Mme. Marneffe2 had a sister, and Balzac a predecessor. There is a character who shows in a concise manner Wycherley's talent and his morality, wholly formed of energy and indelicacy,— Manly, the "plain dealer," so manifestly the author's favourite, that his contemporaries gave him the name of his hero for a surname. 3 Manly is copied after Alceste, and the great difference between the two heroes shows the difference between the two societies and the two countries. Manly is not a courtier, but a ship-captain, with the bearing of a sailor of the time, his cloak stained with tar, and smelling of brandy, ready with blows or foul oaths, calling those he came across dogs and slaves, and when they displeased him, kicking them down stairs. And he speaks in this fashion to a lord with a voice like a mastiff. Then, when the poor nobleman tries to whisper something in his ear, "My lord, all that you have made me know by your whispering which I knew not before, is that you 2 See note, vol. i. page 41. 1 The Plain Dealer, v. 1. 3 Compare with the sayings of Alceste, in Molière's Misanthrope, such tirades as this: "Such as you, like common whores and pickpockets, are only dangerous to those you embrace." And with the character of Philinte, in the same French play, such phrases as these : "But, faith, could you think I was a friend to those I hugged, kissed, flattered, bowed to? When their backs were turned, did not I tell you they were rogues, villains, rascals, whom I despised and hated?" Olivia says: "Then shall I have again my alcove smell like a cabin, my chamber perfumed with his tarpaulin Brandenburgh; and hear vollies of brandy-sighs, enough to make a fog in one's room.”— The Plain Dealer, ii. 1. have a stinking breath; there's a secret for your secret.' When he is in Olivia's drawing-room, with "these fluttering parrots of the town, these apes, these echoes of men," he bawls out as if he were on his quarter-deck, "Peace, you Bartholomew fair buffoons!" He seizes them by the collar, and says: "Why, you impudent, pitiful wretches, . . . you are in all things so like women, that you may think it in me a kind of cowardice to beat you. Begone, I say. . . . No chattering, baboons; instantly begone, or" . . . Then he turns them out of the room. These are the manners of a plain-dealing man. He has been ruined by Olivia, whom he loves, and who dismisses him. Poor Fidelia, disguised as a man, and whom he takes for a timid youth, comes and finds him while he is fretting with anger: "Fidelia. I warrant you, sir; for, at worst, I could beg or steal for you. me. Manly. Nay, more bragging! . . . You said you'd beg for F. I did, sir. M. Then you shall beg for me. F. With all my heart, sir. M. That is, pimp for me. F. How, sir? M. D'ye start?... No more dissembling: here (I say,) you must go use it for me to Olivia. . . . Go, flatter, lie, kneel, promise, anything to get her for me: I cannot live unless I have her." 1 And when Fidelia returns to him, saying that Olivia has embraced her, by force, in a fit of love, he exclaims; "Her love a whore's, a witch's love!1 The Plain Dealer, iii. 1. VOL. II. 2 B But what, did she not kiss well, sir? I'm sure, I thought her lips-but I must not think of 'em more 1 but yet they are such I could still kiss,-grow to,— and then tear off with my teeth, grind 'em into mammocks, and spit 'em into her cuckold's face." These savage words indicate savage actions. He goes by night to enter Olivia's house with Fidelia, and under her name; and Fidelia tries to prevent him, through jealousy. Then his blood boils, a storm of fury mounts to his face, and he speaks to her in a whispering, hissing voice: "What, you are my rival, then! and therefore you shall stay, and keep the door for me, whilst I go in for you; but when I'm gone, if you dare to stir off from this very board, or breathe the least murmuring accent, I'll cut her throat first; and if you love her, you will not venture her life.-Nay, then I'll cut your throat too, and I know you love your own life at least. Not a word more, lest I begin my revenge on her by killing you." He knocks over Olivia's husband, another traitor seizes from her the casket of jewels he had given her, casts her one or two of them, saying, "Here, madam, I never yet left my wench unpaid," and gives this same casket to Fidelia, whom he marries. All these actions then appeared natural. Wycherley took to himself in his dedication the title of his hero, Plain Dealer; he fancied he had drawn the portrait of a frank, honest man, and praised himself for having set the public a fine example; he had only given them the model of an unreserved and energetic brute. That was all the manliness that was left in this pitiable world. Wycherley deprived man of his ill-fitting French cloak, 1 The Plain Dealer, iv. 1. 2 Ibid. iv. 2. and displayed him with his framework of muscles, and in his naked shamelessness. And in the midst of all these, a great poet, blind, and sunk into obscurity, his soul saddened by the misery of the times, thus depicted the madness of the infernal rout: "Belial came last, than whom a spirit more lewd 2. THE WORLDLINGS. I. In the seventeenth century a new mode of life was inaugurated in Europe, the worldly, which soon took the lead of and shaped every other. In France especially, and in England, it appeared and gained ground, from the same causes and at the same time. In order to people the drawing-rooms, a certain political condition is necessary; and this condition, which is the supremacy of the king in combination with a regular system of police, was established at the same period on both sides of the Channel. A regular police brings about peace among men, draws them out of their 1 Paradise Lost, book i. l. 490-502. |