Part 10 (1/2)

For as the sun s.h.i.+nes every day, So, of our coachman I may say--

_Brisk._ I'm afraid that simile won't do in wet weather;--because you say the sun s.h.i.+nes every day.

_Lady Froth._ No, for the sun it won't, but it will do for the coachman; for you know there's more occasion for a coach in wet weather.

_Brisk._ Right, right, that saves all.

_Lady Froth._ Then, I don't say the sun s.h.i.+nes all the day, but that he peeps now and then; yet he does s.h.i.+ne all the day too, you know, though we don't see him.

_Brisk._ Right, but the vulgar will never comprehend that.

_Lady Froth._ Well, you shall hear.--Let me see.

[_Reads._

For as the sun s.h.i.+nes every day, So, of our coachman I may say, He shows his drunken fiery face, Just as the sun does, more or less.

_Brisk._ That's right, all's well, all's well!--More or less.

_Lady Froth._ [_Reads._]

And when at night his labour's done, Then too, like heaven's charioteer the sun--

Ay, charioteer does better.

Into the dairy he descends, And there his whipping and his driving ends; There's he's secure from danger of a bilk, His fare is paid him, and he sets in milk.

For Susan, you know, is Thetis, and so--

_Brisk._ Incomparably well and proper, egad!--But I have one exception to make:--don't you think _bilk_ (I know it's good rhyme), but don't you think _bilk_ and _fare_ too like a hackney-coachman?

_Lady Froth._ I swear and vow, I am afraid so.--And yet our Jehu was a hackney-coachman when my lord took him.

_Brisk._ Was he? I'm answered, if Jehu was a hackney-coachman.--You may put that in the marginal notes though, to prevent criticism.--Only mark it with a small asterism, and say, Jehu was formerly a hackney-coachman.

_Lady Froth._ I will; you'd oblige me extremely to write notes to the whole poem.

_Brisk._ With all my heart and soul, and proud of the vast honour, let me peris.h.!.+'

Congreve excels not only in dialogue, but in painting a character by a single speech. How thoroughly we realize the inward and outward man of old Foresight the omen-monger, from a single pa.s.sage in _Love for Love_:

'_Nurse._ Pray heaven send your wors.h.i.+p good luck! marry and amen with all my heart; for you have put on one stocking with the wrong side outward.

_Fore._ Ha! hm? faith and troth I'm glad of it. And so I have; that may be good luck in troth, in troth it may, very good luck: nay I have had some omens: I got out of bed backwards too this morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too; but then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad omens these, some bad, some good, our lives are chequered; mirth and sorrow, want and plenty, night and day, make up our time. But in troth I am pleased at my stocking; very well pleased at my stocking.'

Or Mr. Bluffe, the _miles gloriosus_ of _The Old Bachelor_:

'You must know, sir, I was resident in Flanders the last campaign, had a small part there, but no matter for that.

Perhaps, sir, there was scarce anything of moment done but an humble servant of yours that shall be nameless, was an eye-witness of--I won't say had the greatest share in it; though I might say that too, since I name n.o.body, you know.

Well, Mr. Sharper, would you think it? in all this time this rascally gazette writer never so much as once mentioned me--not once, by the wars!--took no more notice than as if Nol. Bluffe had not been in the land of the living!