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ISABELLA;

OR,

THE FATAL MARRIAGE.

ALTERED FROM

SOUTHERN.

PROLOGUE.

SPOKEN BY MRS BRACEGIRDLE.

WHEN once a poet settles an ill name,
Let him write well, or ill, 'tis all the same:
For critics now-a-days, like flocks of sheep,
All follow, when the first has made the leap.
And, do you justice, most are well inclin'd
To censure faults you know not how to find:
Some cavil at the style, and some the actors;
For, right or wrong, we pass for malefactors.
Some well-bred persons carp at the decorum,
As if they bore the drawing-room before 'em.
Sometimes your soft respectful spark discovers,
Our ladies are too coming to their lovers;
For they who still pursue, but ne'er enjoy,
In ev'ry case expect a siege of Troy.

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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

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I would transplant her into Villeroy's
There is an evil fate that waits upon her,
To which I wish him wedded-Only him :
His upstart family, with haughty brow,
(Though Villeroy and myself are seeming friends)
Looks down upon our house; his sister, too,
Whose hand I asked, and was with scorn refused,
Lives in my breast, and fires me to revenge.-
They bend this way—

Perhaps, at last, she seeks my father's doors;
They shall be shut, and be prepared to give
The beggar and her brat a cold reception.
That boy's an adder in my path-they come;
I'll stand apart, and watch their motions.

[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,
Health, fame, distinction, place, and quality,
Are the incumbrances of groaning life,
To make it but more tedious without you.
What serve the goods of fortune for? To raise
My hopes, that you at last will share them with

me.

Long life itself, the universal prayer,
And Heaven's reward of well-deservers here,
Would prove a plague to me; to see you always,
And never see you mine! still to desire,
And never to enjoy!

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;
Sorrow will overtake thy steps too soon:
I should not hasten it.

Vil. What can I say!

The arguments that make against my hopes
Prevail upon my heart, and fix me more;
Those pious tears you hourly throw away
Upon the grave, have all their quickening charms,
And more engage my love, to make you mine:

When yet a virgin, free, and undisposed,
I loved, but saw you only with my eyes;
I could not reach the beauties of your soul:
I have since lived in contemplation,

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
That friendship will allow: be still my friend:
That's all I can receive, or have to give.

I am going to my father; he needs not an excuse
To use me ill: pray leave me to the trial.
Vil. I am only born to be what you would

have me,

The creature of your power, and must obey;
In every thing obey you. I am going:
But all good fortune go along with you.
Isa. I shall need all
your wishes-

Locked! and fast!

[Exit. [Knocks.

Where is the charity that used to stand,
In our forefathers' hospitable days,
At great men's doors, ready for our wants,
Like the good angel of the family,
With open arms taking the needy in,
To feed and clothe, to comfort and relieve them!
Now even their gates are shut against their poor.
[She knocks again.

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
VOL. I.

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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;
I can afford to shew you out again.
What could you expect from me?

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 recompensing power, a remedy,

A reparation of the injuries,

The great calamities, that you have brought
On me and mine? You have destroyed those
hopes

I fondly raised, through my declining life,
To rest my age upon; and most undone me.
Isa. I have undone myself too.

C. Bald. Speak it again!

Say still you are undone, and I will hear
With pleasure hear you.

Isa. Would my ruin please you?

C. Bald. Beyond all other pleasures.
Isa. Then you are pleased-

undone.

you,

-for I am most

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The measure of my sorrow then was full:
But every moment of my growing days

Makes room for woes, and adds them to the sum.
I lost with Biron all the joys of life:

But now its last supporting means are gone.
All the kind helps that Heaven in pity raised,
In charitable pity to our wants,
At last have left us: now bereft of all,
But this last trial of a cruel father,
To save us both from sinking. Oh, my child!
Kneel with me, knock at nature in his heart!
Let the resemblance of a once-loved-son

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Speak in this little one, who never wronged you,
And plead the fatherless and widow's cause!
Oh, if you ever hope to be forgiven,
As you will need to be forgiven too,
Forget our faults, that Heaven may pardon yours!
C. Bald. How dare you mention Heaven!
Call to mind

Your perjured vows; your plighted, broken faith
To Heaven, and all things holy: were you not
Devoted, wedded to a life recluse,
The sacred habit on, professed and sworn,
A votary for ever? Can you think
The sacrilegious wretch, that robs the shrine,
Is thunder-proof?

Isa. There, there, began my woes.
Let women all take warning at my fate;
Never resolve, or think they can be safe,
Within the reach and tongue of tempting men.
Oh! had I never seen my Biron's face,
Had he not tempted me, I had not fallen,
But still continued innocent and free
Of a bad world, which only he had power
To reconcile, and make me try again.

C. Bald. Your own inconstancy, your graceless thoughts,

Debauched and reconciled you to the world:
He had no hand to bring you back again,
But what you gave him. Circe, you prevailed
Upon his honest mind, transforming him
From virtue, and himself, into what shapes
You had occasion for; and what he did
Was first inspired by you. A cloister was
Too narrow for the work you had in hand:
Your business was more general; the whole world
To be the scene: therefore you spread your
charms

To catch his soul, to be the instrument,
The wicked instrument, of your cursed flight.
Not that you valued him; for any one,

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
That takes you in: the only part of me
That did receive you, perished for his crime.
'Tis a defiance to offended Heaven
Barely to pity you: your sins pursue you:
The heaviest judgments that can fall upon you,
Are your just lot, and but prepare your doom:
Expect them, and despair Sirrah, rogue,
How durst thou disobey me? [To the Porter.
Isa. Not for myself-for I am past the hopes
Of being heard—but for this innocent-
And then I never will disturb you more.

C. Bald. I almost pity the unhappy child:
But being yours—

Isa. Look on him as your son's;
And let his part in him answer for mine.

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,
Never come near him more.

Isa. What! take him from me!

No, we must never part: 'tis the last hold
Of comfort I have left; and, when he fails,
All goes along with him: Oh! could you be
The tyrant to divorce life from my life?
Hive but in my child.

No, let me pray in vain, and beg my bread
From door to door, to feed his daily wants,
Rather than always lose him.

C. Bald. Then have your child, and feed him
with your prayers.-

You, rascal, slave, what do I keep you for?
How came this woman in ?

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
mine;

Tell her, I sent you to her.
There's one more to provide for.

[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.

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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.

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