The Man Of The World (1792) by Charles Macklin

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The Augustan Reprint Society

Charles Macklin
THE MAN OF THE WORLD
(1792)

With an Introduction by
Dougald MacMillan

Publication Number 26

Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1951

_GENERAL EDITORS_

H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_

_ASSISTANT EDITOR_

W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_

_ADVISORY EDITORS_

EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_
LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_
H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_

INTRODUCTION

During his extraordinarily long career as an actor, Charles Macklin wrote
several plays. The earliest is _King Henry VII; or, The Popish Imposter_,
a tragedy based on the Perkin Warbeck story, performed at Drury Lane 18
January 1745/6 and published the same year. As the Preface states, it "was
design'd as a Kind of Mirror to the present Rebellion"; and it provided
the author with a part in which he could express, through the character of
Lord Huntley, his own aversion to foreign influences in the land, to
"_French_ and Priest-rid Weakness" and "Romish Tyranny." This and his
succeeding plays were obviously composed to provide parts for himself; so
no others were published until he had retired. They were his stock in
trade, since Macklin seldom maintained a stable connection with one of the
theatres. Instead he appeared now here now there for brief engagements or
on special occasions, rather than as a regular member of the company,
often carrying his plays with him. Thus a number have survived only in
manuscript. The Larpent Collection contains seven,--the tragedy just
mentioned, four farces, and two five-act comedies, one of these in three
states.[1] This is _The Man of the World_ here reproduced for the first
time in over a century and a half, despite the opinion expressed by Isaac
Reed, in 1782, that "This play, ... in respect to originality, force of
mind, and well-adapted satire, may dispute the palm with any dramatic
piece that has appeared within the compass of half a century...."[2]
Originally it had been performed in Dublin in 1764 under the title _The
True-born Scotchman_, but in 1770 the Examiner of Plays in London refused
to license it. It was re-submitted in 1779 and again forbidden, but was
finally allowed and performed at Covent Garden on 10 May 1781, with the
author in the part of Sir Pertinax Macsycophant.

Himself irascible and passionate, Macklin had been the most admired
Shylock of his century. His specialty was the performance of character
parts, often dialect roles, either broadly comic or cruel and ironic. The
central figure of this, his best comedy, is such a part. It combines those
features that the author could portray so effectively, the broad dialect,
the callous selfishness, the hypocrisy, the passionate resistance to all
appeals to sentiment and the imperviousness to affection. One can detect
in the creation strong resemblances to Macklin's interpretation of
Shylock, something of Sir Giles Overreach, who was also known to
eighteenth-century play-goers, and possibly of Tartuffe. In his resolute
defiance of the conventions of comedy of sensibility, Macklin resisted the
pressure to allow Sir Pertinax to soften in the end and terminate the play
on a note of happy reconciliation and family harmony.

In thus preserving the toughness of Sir Pertinax consistently to the end,
Macklin remained true to the tradition of critical, satiric comedy that he
had been bred in but that by this time had almost disappeared. Protesting
against the refusal of a license for his play, in 1779, Macklin composed a
defense of satiric comedy. He insists upon the reformatory function of
comedy and upon the satiric method of performing this task. "The business
of the Stage," he says, "is to correct vice, and laugh at folly ... This
piece is in support of virtue, morality, decency, and the Laws of the
Land: it satirizes both public and private venality, and reprobates
inordinate passions and tyrannical conduct in a parent ... Now, with
regard to my comedy is it not just and salutary that the subtilty [_sic_],
pride, insolence, cunning, and the thorough-paced villany [_sic_] of a
backbiting Scotchman should be ridiculed? What a wretched state the Comic
Muse and the Stage would be reduced to, were the prohibition of laughing
at the corruption and other vices of the age to prevail!"[3] True the
Comic
Muse, long sick, as Garrick said in his prologue to _She Stoops to
Conquer_, had almost died, though farces had done something to sustain
her. Fielding's and Garrick's little satires had largely avoided
sentiment; and the personal, often gross farces of Foote had continued to
use ridicule. But even these lack the forceful pertinacity of Macklin's
denunciation of hypocrisy and vice. It is perhaps too bad that he fell so
far into caricature in the portraits of Lord Lumbercourt and his daughter,
that the main love stories do smack of sensibility, and that he turned his
hero into a mouthpiece for the opposition to the Tory ministries of the
early years of George III. And it is perhaps true that all the characters,
including Sir Pertinax, are more true to the theatre than to the actual
life of the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Still, Sir Pertinax is
vigorous, and the author's position is unmistakable.

The earliest portion of _The Man of the World_ in the Larpent Collection
is a passage in the fourth act of _The School for Husbands_, performed at
Covent Garden as _The Married Libertine_ on 28 January 1761, twenty years
before _The Man of the World_ was finally presented in London. Elsewhere I
have compared the three complete versions submitted to the Examiner and
have shown why the Lord Chamberlain could not permit it to be licensed.[4]

_The Man of the World_ was first published in England, with Macklin's
farce _Love a la Mode_, by subscription, in a handsome quarto. Facing the
title-page is a portrait of the author, "in his 93.^d Year," engraved by
John Conde after Opie, for which the trustees of the fund paid 25 guineas.
Preceding the text of the play are the list of subscribers, which contains
many eminent names, an "Advertisement from the Editor," explaining the
occasion and method of publication and giving an account of the handling
of the fund by the trustees, and a dedication to Lord Camden, dated 10
December 1792, and signed by Macklin, though one rather suspects that
Arthur Murphy had a hand in its composition. These pieces of front matter
have been omitted from the present reproduction as containing nothing
material to the reading or interpretation of the play. The _Dramatis
Personae_ follow, and the text begins with signature B page 1, and runs to
signature K2^{V}. _Love a la Mode_, not reprinted here, then follows,
with separate title-page and pagination.

Dougald MacMillan

The University of North Carolina

Notes to the Introduction

[Footnote 1: See _Catalogue of the Larpent Plays in the Huntington
Library_ (1939), Nos. 55, 58, 64, 96, 184, 274, 311, 500, 558.]

[Footnote 2: _Biographia Dramatica_ (1812), III, 15.]

[Footnote 3: Quoted by Edward Abbot Parry, _Charles Macklin_ (1891), p.
179.]

[Footnote 4: See _The Huntington Library Bulletin_, No. 10 (October,
1936), pp. 79-101.]

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

A COMEDY.

BY

MR. CHARLES MACKLIN.

AS PERFORMED AT THE

_THEATRES-ROYAL, DRURY-LANE AND COVENT-GARDEN_.

_LONDON_:

PRINTED BY J. BELL, BOOKSELLER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE PRINCE OF WALES,
AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY, STRAND.

MDCCXCIII.

[Illustration: CHARLES MACKLIN (COMEDIAN) _in his 93d. Year_.

Printed for the Author by John Bell British Library London July 1792]

_Dramatis Personae_.

COVENT-GARDEN.

Men.

_SIR PERTINAX MACSYCOPHANT_, MR. WILSON.
_EGERTON_, MR. LEWIS.
_LORD LUMBERCOURT_ MR. THOMPSON.
_SIDNEY_, MR. AICKIN.
_MELVILLE_, MR. HULL.
_COUNSELLOR PLAUSIBLE_ MR. CUBITT.
_SERJEANT EITHERSIDE_, MR. MACREADY.
_SAM_, MR. LEDGER.
_JOHN_, MR. ROCK
_TOMLINS_, MR. EVATT.

Women

_LADY MACSYCOPHANT_ MISS. PLATT.
_LADY RODOLPHA LUMBERCOURT_, MRS. POPE.
_CONSTANTIA_, MRS. MOUNTAIN.
_BETTY HINT_, MRS. ROCK.
_NANNY_, MRS. DEVERETT.

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

_ACT I. SCENE I_.

_A Library_. _Enter_ BETTY _and_ SAM.

_Betty_. The Postman is at the gate, Sam; pray step and take in the
letters.

_Sam_. John the gardener is gone for them, Mrs. Betty.

_Bet_. Bid John bring them to me, Sam: tell him I am here in the Library.

_Sam_. I'll send him to your ladyship in a crack, madam. [_Exit_.

_Enter_ NANNY.

_Nan_. Miss Constantia desires to speak to you, Mrs. Betty.

_Bet_. How is she now? any better, Nanny?

_Nan_. Something; but very low spirited still. I verily believe it is as
you say.

_Bet_. O! I would take my book oath of it. I can not be deceived in that
point, Nanny.--Ay, ay, her business is done, she is certainly breeding,
depend upon it.

_Nan_. Why so the housekeeper thinks too.

_Bet_. Nay, I know the father--the man that ruined her.

_Nan_. The deuce you do?

_Bet_. As sure as you are alive, Nanny;--or I am greatly deceived,--and
yet--I can't be deceived neither.--Was not that the cook that came
gallopping so hard over the common just now?

_Nan_. The same:--how very hard he gallopped;---he has been but three
quarters of an hour, he says, coming from Hyde Park Corner.

_Bet_. And what time will the family be down?

_Nan._ He has orders to have dinner ready by five; there are to be lawyers
and a great deal of company here--he fancies there is to be a private
wedding to night between our young Master Charles and Lord Lumbercourt's
Daughter, the Scotch lady, who he says is just come post from Bath in
order to be married to him.

_Bet._ Ay, ay--Lady Rodolpha--nay, like enough--for I know it has been
talked of a good while;--well, go tell Miss Constantia that I will be with
her immediately.

_Nan._ I shall, Mrs. Betty. [_Exit._

_Bet._ Soh! I find they all believe the impertinent creature is
breeding--that's pure! it will soon reach my lady's ears, I warrant.

_Enter_ JOHN.

Well, John, ever a letter for me?

_John._ No, Mrs. Betty, but here is one for Miss Constantia.

_Bet._ Give it me.--Hum!--my lady's hand.

_John._ And here is one which the postman says is for my young master--but
it's a strange direction. [_reads._] '_To_ Charles Egerton, _Esq._'

_Bet._ O! yes, yes,--that is for Master Charles, John:--for he has dropped
his father's name of Macsycophant, and has taken up that of Egerton--the
parliament has ordered it.

_John._ The parliament!--pr'ythee, why so, Mrs. Betty?

_Bet._ Why you must know, John, that my lady, his mother, was an Egerton
by her father:--she stole a match with our old master, for which all her
family on both sides have hated Sir Pertinax and the whole crew of the
Macsycophants ever since.

_John._ Except Master Charles, Mrs. Betty.

_Bet._ O! they dote upon him, though he is a Macsycophant--he is the pride
of all my lady's family:--and so, John,--my lady's uncle, Sir Stanley
Egerton dying an old bachelor, and, as I said before, mortally hating our
old master, and all the crew of the Macsycophants, left his whole estate
to Master Charles, who was his godson,--but on condition that he should
drop his father's name of Macsycophant, and take up that of Egerton--and
that is the reason, John, why the parliament has made him change his name.

_John._ I am glad that Master Charles has got the estate, however--for he
is a sweet tempered gentleman.

_Bet._ As ever lived:--but come, John, as I know you love Miss Constantia,
and are fond of being where she is--I will make you happy;--you shall
carry her letter to her.

_John._ Shall I, Mrs. Betty?--I am very much obliged to you.--Where is
she?

_Bet._ In the housekeeper's room settling the dessert.--Give me Mr.
Egerton's letter, and I'll leave it on the table in his dressing room. I
see it's from his brother Sandy.--So,--now go and deliver your letter to
your sweetheart, John.

_John._ That I will;--and I am much beholden to you for the favour of
letting me carry it to her:--for though she should never have me, yet I
shall always love her, and wish to be near her, she is so sweet a
creature.--Your servant, Mrs. Betty. [_Exit._

_Bet._ Your servant, John. Ha, ha, ha! poor fellow! he perfectly dotes on
her--and daily follows her about with nosegays and fruit and the first of
every thing in the season.--Ay, and my young Master Charles too is in as
bad a way as the gardener:--in short--every body loves her,--and that's
one reason why I hate her.--For my part, I wonder what the deuce the men
see in her--a creature that was taken in for charity.--I am sure she's not
so handsome.--I wish she was out of the family once:--if she was, I might
then stand a chance of being my lady's favourite myself;--ay, and perhaps
of getting one of my young masters for a sweetheart,--or at least the
chaplain: but as to him, there would be no such great catch if I should
get him. I will try for him however,--and my first step shall be to tell
the doctor all I have discovered about Constantia's intrigues with her
spark at Hadley.--Yes,--that will do,--for the doctor loves to talk with
me,--loves to hear _me_ talk too,--and I verily believe--he, he, he!--that
he has a sneaking kindness for me,--and this story will make him have a
good opinion of my honesty,--and that, I am sure, will be one step
towards----O! bless me,--here he comes,--and my young master with him.--
I'll watch an opportunity to speak to him as soon as he is alone,--for I
will blow her up I am resolved,--as great a favourite and as cunning as
she is. [_Exit._

_Enter_ EGERTON _in great warmth and emotion_;
SIDNEY _following, as in conversation_.

_Sid_. Nay, dear Charles, but why are you so impetuous?--why do you break
from me so abruptly?

_Eger. [With great warmth_.] I have done, sir,--you have refused.--I have
nothing more to say upon the subject.--I am satisfied.

_Sid. [With a glow of tender friendship_.] Come, come--correct this
warmth,--it is the only weak ingredient in your nature, and you ought to
watch it carefully. If I am wrong,--I will submit without reserve;--but
consider the nature of your request--and how it would affect me:--from
your earliest youth, your father has honoured me with the care of your
education, and the general conduct of your mind; and, however singular and
morose his temper may be to others,--to me--he has ever been respectful
and liberal.--I am now under his roof too,--and because I will not abet an
unwarrantable passion by an abuse of my sacred character, in marrying you
beneath your rank,--and in direct opposition to your father's hopes and
happiness,--you blame me--you angrily break from me--and call me unkind.

_Eger. [With tenderness and conviction_.] Dear Sidney,--for my warmth I
stand condemned: but for my marriage with Constantia, I think I can
justify it upon every principle of filial duty,--honour,--and worldly
prudence.

_Sid_. Only make that appear, Charles, and you know you may command me.

_Eger. [With great filial regret_.] I am sensible how unseemly it appears
in a son to descant on the unamiable passions of a parent;--but, as we are
alone, and friends,--I cannot help observing in my own defence,--that when
a father will not allow the use of reason to any of his family--when his
pursuit of greatness makes him a slave abroad--only to be a tyrant at
home,--when a narrow partiality to Scotland, on every trivial occasion,
provokes him to enmity even with his wife and children, only because they
dare give a national preference where they think it most justly due;--and
when, merely to gratify his own ambition, he would marry his son into a
family he detests,--[_great warmth_.] sure, Sidney, a son thus
circumstanced (from the dignity of human reason and the feelings of a
loving heart) has a right--not only to protest against the blindness of a
parent, but to pursue those measures that virtue and happiness point out.

_Sid_. The violent temper of Sir Pertinax, I own, cannot be defended on
many occasions, but still--your intended alliance with Lord Lumbercourt--

_Eger_. [_With great impatience._] O! contemptible!--a trifling, quaint,
haughty, voluptuous, servile tool,--the mere lackey of party and
corruption; who, for the prostitution of near thirty years and the ruin of
a noble fortune, has had the despicable satisfaction, and the infamous
honour--of being kicked up and kicked down--kicked in and kicked out,--
just as the insolence, compassion, or convenience of leaders
predominated:--and now--being forsaken by all parties, his whole political
consequence amounts to the power of franking a letter, and the right
honourable privilege of not paying a tradesman's bill.

_Sid_. Well, but, dear Charles, you are not to wed my lord,--but his
daughter.

_Eger_. Who is as disagreeable to me for a companion, as her father for a
friend, or an ally.

_Sid_. What--her Scotch accent, I suppose, offends you?

_Eger_. No, upon my honour--not in the least,--I think it entertaining in
her;--but were it otherwise--in decency--and indeed in national affection
(being a Scotchman myself), I can have no objection to her on that
account,--besides, she is my near relation.

_Sid_. So I understand. But pray, Charles, how came Lady Rodolpha, who, I
find, was born in England, to be bred in Scotland?

_Eger_. From the dotage of an old, formal, obstinate, stiff, rich, Scotch
grandmother, who, upon a promise of leaving this grandchild all her
fortune, would have the girl sent to her to Scotland, when she was but a
year old, and there has she been ever since, bred up with this old lady in
all the vanity and unlimited indulgence that fondness and admiration could
bestow on a spoiled child--a fancied beauty and a pretended wit.

_Sid_. O! you are too severe upon her.

_Eger_. I do not think so, Sidney; for she seems a being expressly
fashioned by nature to figure in these days of levity and dissipation:--
her spirits are inexhaustible: her parts strong and lively; with a
sagacity that discerns, and a talent not unhappy in painting out the weak
side of whatever comes before her:--but what raises her merit to the
highest pitch in the laughing world is her boundless vanity and spirits in
the exertion of those talents, which often render her much more ridiculous
than the most whimsical of the characters she exposes--[_in a tone of
friendly affection._] and is _this_ a woman fit to make _my_ happiness?--
_this_ the partner that Sidney would recommend to me for life?--to _you_,
who best know me, I appeal.

_Sid_. Why, Charles, it is a delicate point,--unfit for _me_ to
determine--besides, your father has set his heart upon the match.

_Eger_. [_Impatiently._] All that I know:--but still I ask and insist upon
your candid judgment,--is she the kind of woman that you think could
possibly contribute to my happiness? I beg you will give me an explicit
answer.

_Sid_. The subject is disagreeable;--but, since I must speak,--I do not
think she is.

_Eger_. [_a start of friendly rapture._] I know you do not; and I am sure
you never will advise the match.

_Sid_. I never did. I never will.

_Eger_. [_With a start of joy._] You make me happy,--which I assure you I
never could be with your judgment against me in this point.

_Sid_. And yet, Charles, give me leave to observe, that Lady Rodolpha,
with all her ridiculous and laughing vanity, has a goodness of heart, and
a kind of vivacity that not only entertains,--but upon seeing her two or
three times, she improves upon you; and when her torrent of spirits
abates, and she condescends to converse gravely--you really like her.

_Eger_. Why ay! she is sprightly, good humoured, and, though whimsical,
and often too high in her colouring of characters, and in the trifling
business of the idle world,--yet I think she has principles, and a good
heart,--[_with a glow of conjugal tenderness._] but in a partner for life,
Sidney, (you know your own precept, and your own judgment)--affection,
capricious in its nature, must have something even in the external
manners,--nay in the very mode, not only of beauty, but of virtue itself--
which both heart and judgment must approve, or our happiness in that
delicate point cannot be lasting.

_Sid_. I grant it.

_Eger_. And that mode,--that amiable essential I never can meet--but in
Constantia. You sigh.

_Sid_. No. I only wish that Constantia had a fortune equal to yours. But
pray, Charles, suppose I had been so indiscreet as to have agreed to marry
you to Constantia--would _she_ have consented, think you?

_Eger_. That I cannot say positively,--but I suppose so.

_Sid_. Did you never speak to her upon that subject then?

_Eger_. In general terms only;--never directly requested her consent in
form,--[_he starts into a warmth of amorous resolution._] but I will this
very moment--for I have no asylum from my father's arbitrary design, but
my Constantia's arms.--Pray do not stir from hence:--I will return
instantly. I know she will submit to your advice--and I am sure you will
persuade her to my wish, as my life, my peace, my earthly happiness,
depend on my Constantia. [_Exit._

_Sid_. Poor Charles! he little dreams that I love Constantia too,--but
to what degree I knew not myself, till he importuned me to join their
hands.--Yes--I love--but must not be a rival; for he is dear to me as
fraternal affinity:--my benefactor--my friend--and that name is sacred:--
it is our better self; and ever ought to be preferred;--for the man who
gratifies his passions at the expence of his friend's happiness, wants but
a head to contrive--for he has a heart capable of the blackest vice.

_Enter_ BETTY, _running up to_ Sidney.

_Bet_. I beg pardon for my intrusion, sir. I hope, sir, I do not disturb
your reverence!

_Sid_. Not in the least, Mrs. Betty.

_Bet_. I humbly beg you will excuse me, sir:--but I wanted to break my
mind to your honour--about a scruple that lies upon my conscience:--and
indeed I should not have presumed to trouble you, sir, but that I know you
are my young master's friend,--and my old master's friend,--and indeed--a
friend to the whole family: [_runs up to him and curtsies very low._] for
to give you your due, sir, you are as good a preacher as ever went into a
pulpit.

_Sid_. Ha, ha, ha! do you think so, Mrs. Betty?

_Bet_. Ay, in truth do I; and as good a gentleman too as ever came into a
family, and one that never gives a servant a bad word, nor that does any
one an ill turn neither behind their back, nor before their face.

_Sid_. Ha, ha, ha! why you are a mighty well spoken woman, Mrs. Betty, and
I am mightily beholden to you for your good character of me.

_Bet_. Indeed, sir, it is no more than you deserve, and what all the world
and all the servants say of you.

_Sid_. I am much obliged to them, Mrs. Betty.--But pray what are your
commands with me?

_Bet_. Why, I'll tell you, sir:--to be sure I am but a servant, as a body
may say--and every tub should stand upon its own bottom;--but--[_she takes
hold of him familiarly, looks first about cautiously, and speaks in a
low familiar tone of great secrecy._] my young master is now in the china
room in close conference with Miss Constantia;--I know what they are
about--but that is no business of mine--and therefore I made bold to
listen a little--because you know, sir, one would be sure--before one took
away any body's reputation.

_Sid_. Very true, Mrs. Betty,--very true indeed.

_Bet_. O! heavens forbid that I should take away any young woman's good
name--unless I had a good reason for it; but, sir, [_with great
solemnity._] if I am in this place alive, as I listened, with my ear close
to the door,--I heard my young master ask Miss Constantia the plain
marriage question--upon which I started--and trembled--nay my very
conscience stirred within me so,--that I could not help peeping through
the key-hole.

_Sid_. Ha, ha, ha! and so your conscience made you peep through the
key-hole, Mrs. Betty?

_Bet_. It did indeed, sir:--and there I saw my young master upon his
knees--lord bless us--and what do you think he was doing?--kissing her
hand as if he would eat it--and protesting--and assuring her--he knew that
you, sir, would consent to the match--and then the tears ran down her
cheeks as fast--

_Sid._ Ay!

_Bet._ They did indeed. I would not tell your reverence a lie for the
world.

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