II

My inward pangs, my secret grief,
My soft consenting looks betray.
He loves, but gives me no relief;
Why speaks not he who may?

It remains to say a word concerning Terence, and I am extremely surprised to find what Mr. Cibber told me prove a truth:8 that what I valued myself so much upon—the translation of him9—should be imputed to me as a reproach. Mr. Cibber’s zeal for the work, his care and application in instructing the actors and altering the disposition of the scenes, when I was, through sickness, unable to cultivate such things myself, has been a very obliging favour and friendship to me. For this reason I was very hardly persuaded10 to throw away Terence’s celebrated funeral, and take only the bare authority of the young man’s character; and how I have worked it into an Englishman, and made use of the same circumstances of discovering a daughter when we least hoped for one, is humbly submitted to the learned reader.

“Illud genus narrationis, quod in personis positum est, debet habere sermones festivitatem, animorum dissimilitudinem, gravitatem, lenitatem, spem, metum, suspicionem, desiderium, dissimulationem, misericordiam, rerum varietates, fortunae commutationem, insperatum incommodum, subitam letitiam, jucundum exitum rerum.”11

Dramatis Personae

Scene—London.

The Conscious Lovers

Prologue

By Mr. Welsted.12

Spoken by Mr. Wilks.

To win your hearts and to secure your praise,
The comic writers strive by various ways;
By subtle stratagems they act their game,
And leave untried no avenue to fame.
One writes the spouse a beating from his wife,
And says each stroke was copied from the life.
Some fix all wit and humour in grimace,
And make a livelihood of Pinkey’s13 face.
Here, one gay show and costly habits tries,
Confiding to the judgment of your eyes;
Another smuts his scene (a cunning shaver),
Sure of the rakes’ and of the wenches’ favour.
Oft have these arts prevailed, and one may guess,
If practised o’er again, would find success.
But the bold sage—the poet of tonight—
By new and desperate rules resolved to write;
Fain would he give more just applauses rise,
And please by wit that scorns the aids of vice;
The praise he seeks from worthier motives springs,
Such praise as praise to those that give it brings.

Your aid most humbly sought, then, Britons lend,
And liberal mirth like liberal men defend.
No more let ribaldry, with licence writ,
Usurp the name of eloquence or wit;
No more let lawless farce uncensured go,
The lewd dull gleanings of a Smithfield show.14
’Tis yours with breeding to refine the age,
To chasten wit, and moralise the stage.

Ye modest, wise and good, ye fair, ye brave,
Tonight the champion of your virtues save;
Redeem from long contempt the comic name,
And judge politely for your country’s fame.

Act I

Scene I. Sir John Bevil’s House.

They may be false who languish and complain,
But they who part with money never feign.

Scene II. Bevil Jr.’s Lodgings.

All his disquiets by my own I prove,
The greatest grief’s perplexity in love.

Act II

Scene I. Bevil Jr.’s Lodgings.

To hope for perfect happiness is vain,
And love has ever its allays of pain.

Scene II. Indiana’s Lodgings.

As conscious honour all his actions steers,
So conscious innocence dispels my fears.

Act III28

Scene I. Sealand’s House.

Truth is too simple, of all art bereaved:
Since the world will—why let it be deceived.

Act IV

Scene I. Bevil Jr.’s Lodgings.31