PROLOGUE. BY DAVID GARRICK, ESQ. Enter MR. WOODWARD,1 dressed in black, and holding a Handkerchief to his Eyes. EXCUSE me, sirs, I pray I can't yet speak 4 They'll turn us out, and no one else will take us. 1 Woodward was one of the Covent Garden actors. He played the rôle of Lofty in The Good-Natured Man. 2 A parody on Hamlet, I., ii., 77 and 85. 3 Ned Shuter, the actor who played the rôle of Hardcastle in this play and of Croaker in The Good-Natured Man. 4 In this play the prevailing sentimental or "genteel" comedy received a decisive blow. See the Dedication and the fourth Epilogue, and compare the second Prologue to The Rivals. See also Introduction and Appendix. But why can't I be moral? Let me try My heart thus pressing fix'd my face and eye Thus I begin All is not gold that glitters, Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters. Learning is better far than house and land. I give it up morals won't do for me; 1 To make you laugh, I must play tragedy. The College, you, must his pretentions back, SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER; OR, THE MISTAKES OF A NIGHT. ACT I. SCENE I.—A Chamber in an old-fashioned House. Enter MRS. HARDCASTLE and MR. HARDCASTLE. Mrs. Hard. I vow, Mr. Hardcastle, you're very particular. Is there a creature in the whole country, but ourselves, that does not take a trip to town now and then, to rub off the rust a little? There's the two Miss Hoggs, and our neighbour Mrs. Grigsby, go to take a month's polishing every winter. Hard. Ay, and bring back vanity and affectation to last them the whole year. I wonder why London cannot keep its own fools at home. In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stage-coach. Its fopperies come down, not only as inside passengers, but in the very basket.2 1 "What now stands as the second title, The Mistakes of a Night, was originally the only one; but it was thought undignified for a comedy. The Old House a New Inn was suggested in place of it, but dismissed as awkward. Reynolds then named it The Belle's Stratagem. This name was still under discussion, and had well-nigh been snatched from Mrs. Cowley, when Goldsmith (in whose ears perhaps Dryden's line may have lingered, 'But kneels to conquer, and but stoops to rise') hit upon She Stoops to Conquer." — FORSTER, IV., xv. 2 The two back seats on the outside of a stage-coach. Compare page 72. Mrs. Hard. Ay, your times were fine times, indeed; you have been telling us of them for many a long year. Here we live in an old rumbling mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn,1 but that we never see company. Our best visitors are old Mrs. Oddfish, the curate's wife, and little Cripplegate, the lame dancing-master; and all our entertainment your old stories of Prince Eugene 2 and the Duke of Marlborough. I hate such old-fashioned trumpery. Hard. And I love it. I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; and, I believe, Dorothy [taking her hand], you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife. Mrs. Hard. Lord, Mr. Hardcastle, you're for ever at your Dorothys and your old wifes. You may be a Darby, but I'll be no Joan,3 I promise you. I'm not so old as you'd make me, by more than one good year. Add twenty to twenty, and make money of that. Hard. Let me see; twenty added to twenty, makes just fifty and seven! Mrs. Hard. It's false, Mr. Hardcastle: I was but twenty when I was brought to bed of Tony, that I had by Mr. Lumpkin, my first husband; and he's not come to years of discretion yet. Hard. Nor ever will, I dare answer for him. Ay, you have taught him finely! Mrs. Hard. No matter; Tony Lumpkin has a good fortune. My son is not to live by his learning. I don't think a boy wants much learning to spend fifteen hundred a year. Hard. Learning, quotha! A mere composition of tricks and mischief. Mrs. Hard. Humour, my dear; nothing but humour. Come, Mr. Hardcastle, you must allow the boy a little humour. 1 Observe how the author is preparing the way for the mistake which follows. 2 Prince Eugene of Savoy, ally of Marlborough at Blenheim (1704), Oudenarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709). 3 Darby and Joan, an old-fashioned couple, hero and heroine of the ballad of The Happy Old Couple, variously ascribed to Prior and to Henry Woodfall. |