A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage: Together with the Sense of Antiquity on this ArgumentCollier, Jeremy
General
A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage: Together with the Sense of Antiquity on this Argument
Collier, Jeremy
Theater -- England -- Early works to 1800; Theater -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Early works to 1800
Sir _Tun-belly_ accosts Young _Fashion_ much at the same rate of
Accomplishment.[418] My Lord,----_I humbly crave leave to bid you Welcome
in a Cup of Sack-wine_. One would imagine the _Poet_ was overdozed before
he gave the _Justice_ a Glass. For _Sack-wine_ is too low for a _Petty
Constable_. This peasantly expression agrees neither with the Gentlemans
Figure, nor with the rest of his Behaviour. I find we should have a
Creditable _Magistracy_, if the _Relapser_ had the Making them. Here the
_Characters_ are pinch'd in Sense, and stinted to short Allowance. At an
other time they are over-indulged, and treated above Expectation.
For the purpose. Vanity and Formalizing is Lord _Foplingtons_ part. To let
him speak without Aukwardness, and Affectation, is to put him out of his
Element. There must be Gumm and stiffening in his Discourse to make it
natural However, the _Relapser_ has taken a fancy to his Person, and given
him some of the most Gentile raillery in the whole _Play_. To give an
Instance or two. This Lord in Discourse with _Fashion_ forgets his Name,
flies out into Sense, and smooth expression, out talks his Brother, and
abating the starch'd Similitude of a _Watch_, discovers nothing of
Affectation, for almost a _Page_ together.[419] He relapses into the same
Intemperance of good Sense, in an other Dialogue between him and his
Brother. I shall cite a little of it.
_Y._ Fash. _Unless you are so kind to assist me in redeeming my Annuity, I
know no Remedy, but to go take a Purse_.
_L._ Fopl. _Why Faith_ Tam----_to give you my Sense of the Thing, I do
think taking a Purse the best Remedy in the World, for if you succeed, you
are releiv'd that way, if you are taken----you are reliev'd to'ther_.[420]
_Fashion_ being disappointed of a supply quarrels his Elder Brother, and
calls him _the Prince of Coxcombs_.[421]
_L._ Fopl. _Sir I am proud of being at the Head of so prevailing a party._
_Y._ Fash. _Will nothing then provoke thee? draw Coward._
_L._ Fopl. _Look you_ Tam, _your poverty makes your Life so burdensome to
you, you would provoke me to a Quarrel, in hopes either to slip through my
Lungs into my Estate, or else to get your self run through the Guts, to put
an end to your Pain. But I shall disappoint you in both_. &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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