The Works of Henry Fielding Part 30

_Sir H_. Halloo, hark forwards: hark, honest Ned, good-morrow to you; how dost, Master Mayor? What, you are driving it about merrily this morning? Come, come, sit down; the squire and I will take a pot with you. Come, Mr Mayor, here's--liberty and property and no excise.

_May_. Sir Harry, your health.

_Sir H_. What, won't you pledge me? Won't you drink no excise?

_May_. I don't love party healths, Sir Harry.

_All Ald_. No, no; no party healths, no party healths.

_Sir H_. Say ye so, gentlemen? I begin to smoke you; your pulses have been felt, I perceive: and will you be bribed to sell your country? Where do you think these courtiers get the money they bribe you with, but from yourselves? Do you think a man who will give a bribe won't take one? If you would be served faithfully, you must choose faithfully, and give your vote on no consideration but merit; for my part, I would as soon suborn an evidence at an a.s.size as a vote at an election.

_May_. I do believe you, Sir Harry.

_Sir H_. Mr Mayor, I hope you received those three bucks I sent you, and that they were good.

_May_. Sir Harry, I thank you for them; but 'tis so long since I eat them that I have forgot the taste.

_Sir H_. We'll try to revive it--I'll order you three more to-morrow morning.

_May_. You will surfeit us with venison: you will indeed; for it is a dry meat, Sir Harry, a very dry meat.

_Sir H_. We'll find a way to moisten it, I'll warrant you, if there be any wine in town. Mr Alderman St.i.tch, your bill is too reasonable; you certainly must lose by it: send me in half a dozen more greatcoats, pray; my servants are the dirtiest dogs! Mr Damask, I believe you are afraid to trust me, by those few yards of silk you sent my wife; she likes the pattern so extremely she is resolved to hang her rooms with it; pray let me have a hundred yards of it; I shall want more of you. Mr Timber, and you, Mr Iron, I shall get into your books too.

_Fust_. Would not that getting into books have been more in the character of the courtier, Mr Trapwit?

_Trap_. Go on, go on, sir.

_Sir H_. That gentleman interrupts one so.--Oh, now I remember--Mr Timber, and you Mr Iron, I shall get into your books too; though if I do, I a.s.sure you I won't continue in them long.

_Trap_. Now, sir, would it have been more in the character of a courtier? But you are like all our modern criticks, who d.a.m.n a man before they have heard a man out; when, if they would but stay till the joke came--

_Fust_. They would stay to hear your last words, I believe.

[_Aside_.

_Sir H_. For you must know, gentlemen, that I intend to pull down my old house, and build a new one.

_Trap_. Pray, gentlemen, observe all to start at the word _house_. Sir Harry, that last speech again, pray.

_Sir H_. For you, &c.----Mr Mayor, I must have all my bricks of you.

_May_. And do you intend to rebuild your house, Sir Harry?

_Sir H_. Positively.

_May_. Gentlemen, methinks Sir Harry's toast stands still; will n.o.body drink liberty and property, and no excise?

[_They all drink and huzza_.

_Sir H_. Give me thy hand, mayor; I hate bribery and corruption: if this corporation will not suffer itself to be bribed, there shall not be a poor man in it.

_May_. And he that will, deserves to be poor; for my part, the world should not bribe me to vote against my conscience.

_Trap_. Do you take that joke, sir?

_Fust_. No, faith, sir.

_Trap_. Why, how can a man vote against his conscience who has no conscience at all?

_1 Ald_. Come, gentlemen, here's a Fox-chace and a Tankard!

_Omnes_. A Fox-chace and a Tankard! huzza!

_Sir H_. Come, let's have one turn in the marketplace, and then we'll to dinner.

_May_. Let's fill the air with our repeated cries Of liberty, and property, and no excise.

[_Exeunt_ Mayor _and_ Aldermen.

_Trap_. How do you like that couplet, sir?

_Fust_. Oh! very fine, sir!

_Trap_. This is the end of the first act, sir.

_Fust_. I cannot but observe, Mr Trapwit, how nicely you have opposed squire Tankard to colonel Promise; neither of whom have yet uttered one syllable.

_Trap_. Why, you would not have every man a speaker, would you?

One of a side is sufficient; and let me tell you, sir, one is full enough to utter all that the party has to say for itself.

_Fust_. Methinks, sir, you should let the audience know they can speak, if it were but an _ay_ or a _no_.

_Trap_. Sir, the audience must know that already; for if they could not say _ay_ and _no_, they would not be qualified for candidates.

_Fust_. Oh! your humble servant, I am answered; but pray, sir, what is the action of this play?

_Trap_. The action, sir?

_Fust_. Yes, sir, the fable, the design?

_Trap_. Oh! you ask who is to be married? Why, sir, I have a marriage; I hope you think I understand the laws of comedy better than to write without marrying somebody.

_Fust_. But is that the main design to which everything conduces?

_Trap_. Yes, sir.

_Fust_. Faith, sir, I can't for the soul of me see how what has. .h.i.therto past can conduce at all to that end.

_Trap_. You can't? indeed, I believe you can't; for that is the whole plot of my play: and do you think I am like your shallow writers of comedy, who publish the bans of marriage between all the couples in their play in the first act? No, sir, I defy you to guess my couple till the thing is done, slap all at once; and that too by an incident arising from the main business of the play, and to which everything conduces.