THE MAN OF MODE or SIR FOPLING FLUTTER
by George Etherege, 1676
ACT I Prologue ( by Sir Car Scroope, Baronet )
Like dancers on the ropes poor poets fare,
Most perish young, the rest in danger are;
This, one would think, should make our authors wary,
But, gamester like, the giddy fools miscarry.
A lucky hand or two so tempts ’em on,
They cannot leave off play till they’re undone.
With modest fears a muse does first begin,
Like a young wench newly enticed to sin;
But tickled once with praise, by her good will,
The wanton fool would never more lie still.
’Tis an old mistress you’ll meet here to-night,
Whose charms you once have look’d on with delight;
But now of late such dirty drabs have known ye,
A muse o’th’ better sort’s ashamed to own ye.
Nature well drawn, and wit, must now give place
To gaudy nonsense and to dull grimace:
Nor is it strange that you should like so much
That kind of wit, for most of yours is such.
But I’m afraid that while to France we go,
To bring you home fine dresses, dance, and show,
The stage, like you, will but more foppish grow.
Of foreign wares why should we fetch the scum
When we can be so richly served at home?
For, heaven be thank’d, ’tis not so wise an age
But your own follies may supply the stage.
Though often plough’d, there’s no great fear the soil
Should barren grow by the too frequent toil,
While at your doors are to be daily found
Such loads of dunghill to manure the ground.
’Tis by your follies that we players thrive,
As the physicians by diseases live;
And as each year some new distemper reigns,
Whose friendly poison helps t’increase their gains,
So among you there starts up every day
Some new unheard-of fool for us to play.
Then for your own sakes be not too severe,
Nor what you all admire at home, damn here:
Since each is fond of his own ugly face,
Why should you, when we hold it, break the glass?
(DRAMATIS PERSONAE)
Mr. Dorimant, Mr. Medley, Old Bellair, - Gentlemen.
Young Bellair, Sir Fopling Flutter. - Gentlemen.
Lady Townley, Emilia, Mrs. Loveit, - Gentlewomen.
Belinda, Lady Woodvil, Harriet, her daughter. - Gentlewomen.)
Act II SCENE I
Enter my Lady Townley and Emilia.
Lady Town: I was afraid, Emilia, all had been discovered.
Emil: I tremble with the apprehension still.
Lady Town: That my brother should take lodgings i’ the very house where you lie!
Emil: ’Twas lucky we had timely notice to warn the people to be secret; he seems to be a mighty good- humoured old man.
Lady Town: He ever had a notable smirking way with him.
Emil: He calls me rogue, tells me he can’t abide me, and does so bepat me.
Lady Town: On my word you are much in his favour then.
Emil: He has been very inquisitive, I am told, about my family, my reputation, and my fortune.
Lady Town: I am confident he does not i’ the least suspect you are the woman his son’s in love with.
Emil: What should make him then inform himself so particularly of me?
Lady Town: He was always of a very loving temper himself; it may be he has a doting fit upon him; who knows?
Emil: It cannot be.
Enter Young Bellair.
Lady Town: Here comes my nephew. Where did you leave your father?
Y. Bell: Writing a note within. Emilia, this early visit looks as if some kind jealousy would not let you rest at home.
Emil: The knowledge I have of my rival gives me a little cause to fear your constancy.
Y. Bell: My constancy! I vow—
Emil: Do not vow—Our love is frail as is our life, and full as little in our power; and are you sure you shall outlive this day?
Y. Bell: I am not; but when we are in perfect health ’twere an idle thing to fright ourselves with the thoughts of sudden death
Lady Town: Pray what has passed between you and your father i’ the garden?
Y. Bell: He’s firm in his resolution, tells me I must marry Mrs. Harriet, or swears he’ll marry himself and disinherit me; when I saw I could not prevail with him to be more indulgent, I dissembled an obedience to his will which has composed his passion, and will give us time, and I hope opportunity, to deceive him.
Enter Old Bellair with a note in his hand.
Lady Town: Peace, here he comes.
Act III, Scene I —Lady Woodvil’s Lodgings
Enter Harriet and Busy her woman.
Busy: Dear madam! Let me set that curl in order.
Har: Let me alone, I will shake ’em all out of order.
Busy: Will you never leave this wildness?
Har: Torment me not.
Busy: Look! there’s a knot falling off.
Har: Let it drop.
Busy: But one pin, dear madam.
Har: How do I daily suffer under thy officious fingers!
Busy: Ah, the difference that is between you and my Lady Dapper! How uneasy she is if the least thing be amiss about her!
Har: She is indeed most exact; nothing is ever wanting to make her ugliness remarkable.
Busy: Jeering people say so.
Har: Her powdering, painting, and her patching never fail in public to draw the tongues and eyes of all the men upon her.
Busy: She is indeed a little too pretending.
Har: That women should set up for beauty as much in spite of nature as some men have done for wit!
Busy: I hope, without offence, one may endeavour to make oneself agreeable.
Har: Not when ’tis impossible. Women then ought to be no more fond of dressing than fools should be talking Hoods and modesty, masks and silence, things that shadow and conceal: they should think of nothing else.
Busy: Jesu! madam, what will your mother think is become of you? For heaven’s sake, go in again.
Har: I won’t.
Busy: This is the extravagant’st thing that ever you did in your life, to leave her and a gentleman who is to be your husband.
Har: My husband! Hast thou so little wit to think I spoke what I meant when I overjoyed her in the country with a low curtsey and What you please, madam, I shall ever be obedient?
Busy: Nay, I know not, you have so many fetches.
Har: And this was one to get her up to London; nothing else, I assure thee.
Busy: Well, the man, in my mind, is a fine man.
Act IV, Scene I —The scene opens with the fiddles playing a country dance...
Enter DORIMANT, Lady WOODVIL, YOUNG BELLAIR, and Mrs. HARRIET, OLD BELLAIR, and EMILIA, Mr. MEDLEY and Lady TOWNLEY, as having just ended the dance.
O. Bell: So, so, so, a smart bout, a very smart bout, adod!
Lady Town: How do you like Emilia’s dancing, brother?
O. Bell: Not at all, not at all.
Lady Town: You speak not what you think, I am sure.
O. Bell: No matter for that; go, bid her dance no more, it don’t become her, it don’t become her, tell her I say so. [Aside.] Adod, I love her.
Dor. [to Lady WOODVIL]: All people mingle nowadays, madam, and in public places women of quality have the least respect showed ’em.
Lady Wood: I protest you say the truth, Mr. Courtage.
Dor: Forms and ceremonies, the only things that uphold quality and greatness, are now shamefully laid aside and neglected.
Lady Wood: Well! this is not the women’s age, let ’em think what they will; lewdness is the business now, love was the business in my time.
Dor: The women indeed are little beholding to the young men of this age; they’re generally only dull admirers of themselves, and make their court to nothing but their periwigs and their cravats, and would be more concerned for the disordering of ’em, though on a good occasion, than a young maid would be for the tumbling of her head or handkerchief.
Lady Wood: I protest you hit ’em.
Dor: They are very assiduous to show themselves at Court well dressed to the women of quality, but their business is with the stale mistresses of the town, who are prepared to receive their lazy addresses by industrious old lovers who have cast ’em off and made ’em easy.
Har: He fits my mother’s humour so well, a little more and she’ll dance a kissing dance with him anon.
Med: Dutifully observed, madam.
Dor: They pretend to be great critics in beauty; by their talk you would think they liked no face, and yet can dote on an ill one if it belong to a laundress or a tailor’s daughter; they cry a woman’s past her prime at twenty, decayed at four-and-twenty, old and unsufferable at thirty.
Lady Wood: Unsufferable at thirty! That they are in the wrong, Mr. Courtage, at five-and-thirty there are living proofs enough to convince ’em.
Dor: Ay, madam, there’s Mrs. Setlooks, Mrs. Droplip, and my Lady Lowd; show me among all our opening buds a face that promises so much beauty as the remains of theirs.
Lady Wood: The depraved appetite of this vicious age tastes nothing but green fruit, and loathes it when ’tis kindly ripened.
Dor: Else so many deserving women, madam, would not be so untimely neglected.
SCENE I Enter Mistress LOVEIT and PERT, her woman.
Pert: Well, in my eyes Sir Fopling is no such despicable person.
Lov: You are an excellent judge!
Pert: He’s as handsome a man as Mr. Dorimant, and as great a gallant.
Lov: Intolerable! is’t not enough I submit to his impertinences, but I must be plagued with yours too?
Pert: Indeed, madam—
Lov: ’Tis false, mercenary malice—
(Enter her Footman)
Footman: Mrs. Belinda, madam
Lov: What of her?
Footman: She’s below.
Lov: How came she?
Footman: In a chair; ambling Harry brought her.
Lov: He bring her! His chair stands near Dorimant’s door, and always brings me from thence—Run and ask him where he took her up; go, there is no truth in friendship neither. Women as well as men—all are false, or all are so to me at least.
Pert: You are jealous of her too.
Lov: You had best tell her I am. ’Twill become the liberty you take of late. This fellow’s bringing of her, her going out by five o’clock—I know not what to think.
(Enter BELINDA. Belinda, you are grown an early riser, I hear)
Bel: Do you not wonder, my dear, what made me abroad so soon?
Lov: You do not use to be so.
Bel: The country gentlewomen I told you of (Lord! they have the oddest diversions!) would never let me rest till I promised to go with them to the markets this morning to eat fruit and buy nosegays.
Lov: Are they so fond of a filthy nosegay?
Bel: They complain of the stinks of the town, and are never well but when they have their noses in one.
Lov: There are essences and sweet waters.
Bel: Oh! they cry out upon perfumes they are unwholesome, one of ’em was falling into a fit with the smell of these narolii.
Lov: Methinks, in complaisance you should have had a nosegay too.
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