ISABELLA; OR, THE FATAL MARRIAGE. ALTERED FROM SOUTHERN. PROLOGUE. SPOKEN BY MRS BRACEGIRDLE. WHEN once a poet settles an ill name, ACT I. SCENE I.-Before Count BALDWIN'S House. Enter VILLEROY and CARLOS. Car. This constancy of yours will establish an immortal reputation among the women. Vil. If it would establish me with IsabellaCar. Follow her, follow her: Troy town was won at last. Vil. I have followed her these seven years, and now but live in hopes. Car. But live in hopes! Why, hope is the ready road, the lover's baiting-place; and, for aught you know, but one stage short of the possession of your mistress. Vil. But my hopes, I fear, are more of my own making than her's; and proceed rather from my wishes, than any encouragement she has given me. Car. That I cannot tell the sex is very various; there are no certain measures to be prescribed or followed, in making our approaches to the women. All that we have to do, I think, is to attempt them in the weakest part. Press them but hard, and they will all fall under the necessity of a surrender at last. That favour comes at once; and sometimes when we least expect it. Vil. I shall be glad to find it so. Car. You will find it so. Every place is to be taken, that is not to be relieved: she must comply. Vil. I am going to visit her. Car. What interest a brother-in-law can have with her, depend upon. Vil. I know your interest, and I thank you. Car. You are prevented; see, the mourner I would transplant her into Villeroy's Perhaps, at last, she seeks my father's doors; [Retires. Enter VILLEROY, with ISABELLA and her little Son. Isa. Why do you follow me? you know I am A bankrupt every way; too far engaged Ever to make return: I own you have been More than a brother to me, my friend; And at a time when friends are found no more, A friend to my misfortunes. Vil. I must be always your friend. Isa. I have known, and found you Truly my friend; and would I could be yours; But the unfortunate cannot be friends: Fate watches the first motion of the soul, To disappoint our wishes; if we pray For blessings, they prove curses in the end, To ruin all about us. Pray, be gone; Take warning, and be happy. Vil. Happiness! There's none for me without you: Riches, name, me. Long life itself, the universal prayer, Isa. I must not hear you. Vil. Thus, at this awful distance, I have served A seven years' bondage-Do I call it bondage, When I can never wish to be redeemed? No, let me rather linger out a life Of expectation, that you may be mine, Than be restored to the indifference Of seeing you, without this pleasing pain: I've lost myself, and never would be found, But in these arms. Isa. Oh, I have heard all this! But must no more the charmer is no more: My buried husband rises in the face Of my dear boy, and chides me for my stay: Canst thou forgive me, child? Child. Why, have you done a fault? You cry as if you had. Indeed now, I have done nothing to offend you: but if you kiss me, and look se very sad upon me, I shall cry too. Isa. My little angel, no, you must not cry; Vil. What can I say! The arguments that make against my hopes When yet a virgin, free, and undisposed, And long experience of your growing goodness: What then was passion, is my judgment now, Through all the several changes of your life, Confirmed and settled in adoring you. Isa. Nay, then, I must be gone. If you are my friend, If you regard my little interest, No more of this; you see, I grant you all I am going to my father; he needs not an excuse have me, The creature of your power, and must obey; Locked! and fast! [Exit. [Knocks. Where is the charity that used to stand, Enter SAMPSON to her. Samp. Well, what's to do now, I trow? You knock as loud as if you were invited; and that is more than I heard of; but I can tell you, you may look twice about you for a welcome in a great man's family, before you find it, unless you bring it along with you. Isa. I hope I bring my welcome along with me: Is your lord at home? Count Baldwin lives here still? Samp. Ay, ay, Count Baldwin does live here; and I am his porter: but what's that to the purpose, good woman, of my lord's being at home? Isa. Why, dont you know me, friend? Samp. Not I, not I, mistress; I may have seen you before, or so; but men of employment must forget their acquaintance; especially such as we are never to be the better for. [Going to shut the door, Nurse enters, having overheard him. Nurse. Handsomer words would become you, and mend your manners, Sampson: do you know who you prate to? Isa. I am glad you know me, nurse. Nurse. Marry, Heaven forbid, madam, that I should ever forget you, or my little jewel: pray, go in [ISABELLA goes in with her child.] Now my blessing go along with you wherever you go, or whatever you are about. Fie, Sampson, how could'st thou be such a Saracen! A Turk would have been a better Christian, than to have done so barbarously by a good lady. Samp. Why look you, nurse, I know you of old: by your good-will you would have a finger in every body's pye: but mark the end of it; if I am called to account about it, I know what I have to say. Nurse. Marry come up here! say your pleasure, and spare not. Refuse his eldest son's widow, and poor child, the comfort of seeing him? She does not trouble him so often. Samp. Not that I am against it, nurse: but we are but servants, you know: we must have no likings, but our lord's; and must do as we are ordered. Nurse. Nay, that's true, Sampson. Samp. Besides, what I did was all for the best: I have no ill-will to the young lady, as a body may say, upon my own account; only that I hear she is poor; and indeed I naturally hate your decayed gentry: they expect as much waiting upon as when they had money in their pockets, and were able to consider us for the trouble. Nurse. Why, that is a grievance indeed in great families, where the gifts, at good times, are better than the wages. It would do well to be reformed. Samp. But what is the business, nurse? You have been in the family before I came into the world: what is the reason, pray, that this daughter-in-law, who has so good a report in every body's mouth, is so little set by, by my lord? Nurse. Why, I tell you, Sampson, more or less: I will tell the truth, that's my way, you know, without adding or diminishing. Samp. Ay, marry, nurse. Nurse. My lord's eldest son, Biron by name, the son of his bosom, and the son that he would have loved best, if he had as many as king Pyramus of Troy Sump. How! King Pyramus of Troy! Why, how many had he? Nurse. Why, the ballad sings he had fifty sons: but no matter for that. This Biron, as I was saying, was a lovely sweet gentleman, and, indeed, nobody could blame his father for loving him: he was a son for the king of Spain; God bless him, for I was his nurse. But now I come to the point, Sampson; this Biron, without asking the advice of his friends, hand over head, as young men will have their vagaries, not having the fear of his father before his eyes, as I may say, wilfully marries this Isabella. Samp. How, wilfully! he should have had her consent, methinks. Nurse. No, wilfully marries her; and, which was worse, after she had settled all her fortune upon a nunnery, which she broke out of to run away with him. They say they had the church's forgiveness, but I had rather it had been his father's. Sump. Why, in good truth, these nunneries I see no good they do. I think the young lady was in the right to run away from a nunnery: and I think our young master was not in the wrong but in marrying without a portion. Nurse. That was the quarrel, I believe, Sampson: upon this, my old lord would never 2 G see him; disinherited him; took his younger brother, Carlos, into favour, whom he never cared for before; and at last forced Biron to go to the siege of Candy, where he was killed. Samp. Alack-a-day, poor gentleman! Nurse. For which my old lord hates her, as if she had been the cause of his going thither. Samp. Alas, alas, poor lady! she has suffered for it: she has lived a great while a widow. Nurse. A great while indeed, for a young woman, Sampson. Samp. Gad so! here they come; I will not venture to be seen. Enter Count BALDWIN, followed by ISABELLA and her Child. C. Bald. Whoever of your friends directed you, Misguided and abused you there's your way; Isa. Oh, I have nothing to expect on earth! But misery is very apt to talk: I thought I might be heard. C. Bald. What can you say? Is there in eloquence, can there be in words A reparation of the injuries, The great calamities, that you have brought I fondly raised, through my declining life, C. Bald. Speak it again! Say still you are undone, and I will hear Isa. Would my ruin please you? C. Bald. Beyond all other pleasures. undone. you, -for I am most The measure of my sorrow then was full: Makes room for woes, and adds them to the sum. But now its last supporting means are gone. Speak in this little one, who never wronged you, Your perjured vows; your plighted, broken faith Isa. There, there, began my woes. C. Bald. Your own inconstancy, your graceless thoughts, Debauched and reconciled you to the world: To catch his soul, to be the instrument, Who could have served the turn, had been as welcome. Isa. Oh! I have sins to Heaven, but none to him. C. Bald. Had my wretched son Married a beggar's bastard; taken her Out of her rags, and made her of my blood, The mischief might have ceased, and ended there. But bringing you into a family, Entails a curse upon the name and house C. Bald. I almost pity the unhappy child: Isa. Look on him as your son's; Oh, save, defend him, save him from the wrongs, That fall upon the poor! C. Bald. It touches me, And I will save him. But to keep him safe, Isa. What! take him from me! No, we must never part: 'tis the last hold No, let me pray in vain, and beg my bread C. Bald. Then have your child, and feed him You, rascal, slave, what do I keep you for? Samp. Why, indeed, my lord, I did as good s tell her, before, my thoughts upon the mat er C. Bald. Did you so, sir? Now, then, tell her Tell her, I sent you to her. [Thrusts him towards her Samp. Good my lord, what I did was in perfect obedience to the old nurse there. I told her what it would come to. C. Bald. What! this was a plot upon me.→ And you, too, beldam, were you in the conspiracy? Begone, go altogether: I have provided you an equipage, now set up when you please. She's old enough to do you service; I have none for her. The wide world lies before you : begone! take any road but this to beg or starve in-I shall be glad to hear of you: but never, never, see me more. [He drives them off before him. Isa. Then Heaven have mercy on me! [Exit with her Child, followed by SampSON and Nurse. SCENE I.-Continues. ACT II. for Carlos' sake; thou art no son of his. here needs not this to endear thee more to me. [Embrace. Car. My Villeroy, the fatherless, the widow, Are terms not understood within these gatesYou must forgive him, sir; he thinks this woman s Biron's fate, that hurried him to deathmust not think on't, lest my friendship stagger. My friend's, my sister's mutual advantage Have reconciled my bosom to its task. Vil. Advantage! think not I intend to raise An interest from Isabella's wrongs. Your father may have interested ends n her undoing; but my heart has none: Her happiness must be my interest, And that I would restore. Car. Why, so I mean. These hardships that my father lays upon her, am sorry for, and wish I could prevent; But he will have his way. Since there's no hope from her prosperity, her change of fortune may alter the condition of her thoughts, and make for you. Vil. She is above her fortune. Car. Try her again. Women commonly love according to the circumstances they are in. Vil. Common women may. Car. Since you are not accessary to the injus tice, you may be persuaded to take the advan tage of other people's crimes. Vil. I must despise all those advantages, That indirectly can advance my love. No, though I live but in the hopes of her, And languish for the enjoyment of those hopes, I'd rather pine in a consuming want Of what I wish, than have the blessing mine, From any reason but consenting love. Oh! let me never have it to remember, I could betray her coldly to comply! When a clear generous choice bestows her on me, I know to value the unequalled gift: I would not have it, but to value it. Car. Take your own way; remember what I offered came from a friend. Vil. I understand it so. I'll serve her for her self, without the thought of a reward. [Exit. Car. Agree that point between you. If you marry her any way, you do my business. I know him-What his generous soul intends Ripens my plots-I'll first to Isabella. I must keep up appearances with her too. SCENE II-ISABELLA'S House. [Exit. |