Act Ii. Scene I.

Enter CHARLOTTE and LETITIA.

CHARLOTTE [at entering].

BETTY, take those things out of the carriage and carry them to my chamber; see that you don't tumble them. My dear, I protest, I think it was the homeliest of the whole. I declare I was almost tempted to return and change it.

LETITIA

Why would you take it?

CHARLOTTE

Didn't Mrs. Catgut say it was the most fashionable?

LETITIA

But, my dear, it will never fit becomingly on you.

CHARLOTTE

I know that; but did you not hear Mrs. Catgut say it was fashionable?

LETITIA

Did you see that sweet airy cap with the white sprig?

CHARLOTTE

Yes, and I longed to take it; but, my dear, what could I do? Did not Mrs. Catgut say it was the most fashionable; and if I had not taken it, was not that awkward, gawky, Sally Slender, ready to purchase it immediately?

LETITIA

Did you observe how she tumbled over the things at the next shop, and then went off without purchasing anything, nor even thanking the poor man for his trouble? But, of all the awkward creatures, did you see Miss Blouze endeavouring to thrust her unmerciful arm into those small kid gloves?

CHARLOTTE

Ha, ha, ha, ha!

LETITIA

Then did you take notice with what an affected warmth of friendship she and Miss Wasp met? when all their acquaintance know how much pleasure they take in abusing each other in every company.

CHARLOTTE

Lud! Letitia, is that so extraordinary? Why, my dear, I hope you are not going to turn sentimentalist. Scandal, you know, is but amusing ourselves with the faults, foibles, follies, and reputations of our friends; indeed, I don't know why we should have friends, if we are not at liberty to make use of them. But no person is so ignorant of the world as to suppose, because I amuse myself with a lady's faults, that I am obliged to quarrel with her person every time we meet: believe me, my dear, we should have very few acquaintance at that rate.

SERVANT enters and delivers a letter to CHARLOTTE, and--[Exit.

CHARLOTTE

You'll excuse me, my dear.

LETITIA

Oh, quite excusable.

CHARLOTTE

As I hope to be married, my brother Henry is in the city.

LETITIA

What, your brother, Colonel Manly?

CHARLOTTE

Yes, my dear; the only brother I have in the world.

LETITIA

Was he never in this city?

CHARLOTTE

Never nearer than Harlem Heights, where he lay with his regiment.

LETITIA

What sort of a being is this brother of yours? If he is as chatty, as pretty, as sprightly as you, half the belles in the city will be pulling caps for him.

CHARLOTTE

My brother is the very counterpart and reverse of me: I am gay, he is grave; I am airy, he is solid; I am ever selecting the most pleasing objects for my laughter, he has a tear for every pitiful one. And thus, whilst he is plucking the briars and thorns from the path of the unfortunate, I am strewing my own path with roses.

LETITIA

My sweet friend, not quite so poetical, and a little more particular.

CHARLOTTE

Hands off, Letitia. I feel the rage of simile upon me; I can't talk to you in any other way. My brother has a heart replete with the noblest sentiments, but then, it is like--it is like--Oh! you provoking girl, you have deranged all my ideas--it is like--Oh! I have it--his heart is like an old maiden lady's bandbox; it contains many costly things, arranged with the most scrupulous nicety, yet the misfortune is that they are too delicate, costly, and antiquated for common use.

LETITIA

By what I can pick out of your flowery description, your brother is no beau.

CHARLOTTE

No, indeed; he makes no pretension to the character. He'd ride, or rather fly, an hundred miles to relieve a distressed object, or to do a gallant act in the service of his country; but should you drop your fan or bouquet in his presence, it is ten to one that some beau at the farther end of the room would have the honour of presenting it to you before he had observed that it fell. I'll tell you one of his antiquated, anti-gallant notions. He said once in my presence, in a room full of company,--would you believe it?--in a large circle of ladies, that the best evidence a gentleman could give a young lady of his respect and affection was to endeavour in a friendly manner to rectify her foibles. I protest I was crimson to the eyes, upon reflecting that I was known as his sister.

LETITIA

Insupportable creature! tell a lady of her faults! if he is so grave, I fear I have no chance of captivating him.

CHARLOTTE

His conversation is like a rich, old-fashioned brocade,--it will stand alone; every sentence is a sentiment. Now you may judge what a time I had with him, in my twelve months' visit to my father. He read me such lectures, out of pure brotherly affection, against the extremes of fashion, dress, flirting, and coquetry, and all the other dear things which he knows I doat upon, that I protest his conversation made me as melancholy as if I had been at church; and heaven knows, though I never prayed to go there but on one occasion, yet I would have exchanged his conversation for a psalm and a sermon. Church is rather melancholy, to be sure; but then I can ogle the beaux, and be regaled with "here endeth the first lesson," but his brotherly here, you would think had no end. You captivate him! Why, my dear, he would as soon fall in love with a box of Italian flowers. There is Maria, now, if she were not engaged, she might do something. Oh! how I should like to see that pair of pensorosos together, looking as grave as two sailors' wives of a stormy night, with a flow of sentiment meandering through their conversation like purling streams in modern poetry.

LETITIA

Oh! my dear fanciful--

CHARLOTTE

Hush! I hear some person coming through the entry.

Enter SERVANT.

SERVANT.

Madam, there's a gentleman below who calls himself Colonel Manly; do you chuse to be at home?

CHARLOTTE

Shew him in. [Exit Servant.] Now for a sober face.

Enter Colonel MANLY.

MANLY

My dear Charlotte, I am happy that I once more enfold you within the arms of fraternal affection. I know you are going to ask (amiable impatience!) how our parents do,--the venerable pair transmit you their blessing by me. They totter on the verge of a well-spent life, and wish only to see their children settled in the world, to depart in peace.

CHARLOTTE

I am very happy to hear that they are well. [Coolly.] Brother, will you give me leave to introduce you to our uncle's ward, one of my most intimate friends?

MANLY [saluting Letitia].

I ought to regard your friends as my own.

CHARLOTTE

Come, Letitia, do give us a little dash of your vivacity; my brother is so sentimental and so grave, that I protest he'll give us the vapours.

MANLY

Though sentiment and gravity, I know, are banished the polite world, yet I hoped they might find some countenance in the meeting of such near connections as brother and sister.

CHARLOTTE

Positively, brother, if you go one step further in this strain, you will set me crying, and that, you know, would spoil my eyes; and then I should never get the husband which our good papa and mamma have so kindly wished me--never be established in the world.

MANLY

Forgive me, my sister,--I am no enemy to mirth; I love your sprightliness; and I hope it will one day enliven the hours of some worthy man; but when I mention the respectable authors of my existence,--the cherishers and protectors of my helpless infancy, whose hearts glow with such fondness and attachment that they would willingly lay down their lives for my welfare,--you will excuse me if I am so unfashionable as to speak of them with some degree of respect and reverence.

CHARLOTTE

Well, well, brother; if you won't be gay, we'll not differ; I will be as grave as you wish. [Affects gravity.] And so, brother, you have come to the city to exchange some of your commutation notes for a little pleasure?

MANLY

Indeed you are mistaken; my errand is not of amusement, but business; and as I neither drink nor game, my expenses will be so trivial, I shall have no occasion to sell my notes.

CHARLOTTE

Then you won't have occasion to do a very good thing. Why, here was the Vermont General--he came down some time since, sold all his musty notes at one stroke, and then laid the cash out in trinkets for his dear Fanny. I want a dozen pretty things myself; have you got the notes with you?

MANLY

I shall be ever willing to contribute, as far as it is in my power, to adorn or in any way to please my sister; yet I hope I shall never be obliged for this to sell my notes. I may be romantic, but I preserve them as a sacred deposit. Their full amount is justly due to me, but as embarrassments, the natural consequences of a long war, disable my country from supporting its credit, I shall wait with patience until it is rich enough to discharge them. If that is not in my day, they shall be transmitted as an honourable certificate to posterity, that I have humbly imitated our illustrious WASHINGTON, in having exposed my health and life in the service of my country, without reaping any other reward than the glory of conquering in so arduous a contest.

CHARLOTTE

Well said heroics. Why, my dear Henry, you have such a lofty way of saying things, that I protest I almost tremble at the thought of introducing you to the polite circles in the city. The belles would think you were a player run mad, with your head filled with old scraps of tragedy; and as to the beaux, they might admire, because they would not understand you. But, however, I must, I believe, introduce you to two or three ladies of my acquaintance.

LETITIA

And that will make him acquainted with thirty or forty beaux.

CHARLOTTE

Oh! brother, you don't know what a fund of happiness you have in store.

MANLY

I fear, sister, I have not refinement sufficient to enjoy it.

CHARLOTTE

Oh! you cannot fail being pleased.

LETITIA

Our ladies are so delicate and dressy.

CHARLOTTE

And our beaux so dressy and delicate.

LETITIA

Our ladies chat and flirt so agreeably.

CHARLOTTE

And our beaux simper and bow so gracefully.

LETITIA

With their hair so trim and neat.

CHARLOTTE

And their faces so soft and sleek.

LETITIA

Their buckles so tonish and bright.

CHARLOTTE

And their hands so slender and white.

LETITIA

I vow, Charlotte, we are quite poetical.

CHARLOTTE

And then, brother, the faces of the beaux are of such a lily-white hue! None of that horrid robustness of constitution, that vulgar corn-fed glow of health, which can only serve to alarm an unmarried lady with apprehension, and prove a melancholy memento to a married one, that she can never hope for the happiness of being a widow. I will say this to the credit of our city beaux, that such is the delicacy of their complexion, dress, and address, that, even had I no reliance upon the honour of the dear Adonises, I would trust myself in any possible situation with them, without the least apprehensions of rudeness.

MANLY

Sister Charlotte!

CHARLOTTE

Now, now, now, brother [interrupting him], now don't go to spoil my mirth with a dash of your gravity; I am so glad to see you, I am in tiptop spirits. Oh! that you could be with us at a little snug party. There is Billy Simper, Jack Chaffe, and Colonel Van Titter, Miss Promonade, and the two Miss Tambours, sometimes make a party, with some other ladies, in a side-box at the play. Everything is conducted with such decorum. First we bow round to the company in general, then to each one in particular, then we have so many inquiries after each other's health, and we are so happy to meet each other, and it is so many ages since we last had that pleasure, and if a married lady is in company, we have such a sweet dissertation upon her son Bobby's chin-cough; then the curtain rises, then our sensibility is all awake, and then, by the mere force of apprehension, we torture some harmless expression into a double meaning, which the poor author never dreamt of, and then we have recourse to our fans, and then we blush, and then the gentlemen jog one another, peep under the fan, and make the prettiest remarks; and then we giggle and they simper, and they giggle and we simper, and then the curtain drops, and then for nuts and oranges, and then we bow, and it's pray, Ma'am, take it, and pray, Sir, keep it, and oh! not for the world, Sir; and then the curtain rises again, and then we blush and giggle and simper and bow all over again. Oh! the sentimental charms of a side-box conversation! [All laugh.]

MANLY

Well, sister, I join heartily with you in the laugh; for, in my opinion, it is as justifiable to laugh at folly as it is reprehensible to ridicule misfortune.

CHARLOTTE

Well, but, brother, positively I can't introduce you in these clothes: why, your coat looks as if it were calculated for the vulgar purpose of keeping yourself comfortable.

MANLY

This coat was my regimental coat in the late war. The public tumults of our state have induced me to buckle on the sword in support of that government which I once fought to establish. I can only say, sister, that there was a time when this coat was respectable, and some people even thought that those men who had endured so many winter campaigns in the service of their country, without bread, clothing, or pay, at least deserved that the poverty of their appearance should not be ridiculed.

CHARLOTTE

We agree in opinion entirely, brother, though it would not have done for me to have said it: it is the coat makes the man respectable. In the time of the war, when we were almost frightened to death, why, your coat was respectable, that is, fashionable; now another kind of coat is fashionable, that is, respectable. And pray direct the taylor to make yours the height of the fashion.

MANLY

Though it is of little consequence to me of what shape my coat is, yet, as to the height of the fashion, there you will please to excuse me, sister. You know my sentiments on that subject. I have often lamented the advantage which the French have over us in that particular. In Paris, the fashions have their dawnings, their routine, and declensions, and depend as much upon the caprice of the day as in other countries; but there every lady assumes a right to deviate from the general ton as far as will be of advantage to her own appearance. In America, the cry is, what is the fashion? and we follow it indiscriminately, because it is so.

CHARLOTTE Therefore it is, that when large hoops are in fashion, we often see many a plump girl lost in the immensity of a hoop-petticoat, whose want of height and en-bon-point would never have been remarked in any other dress. When the high head-dress is the mode, how then do we see a lofty cushion, with a profusion of gauze, feathers, and ribband, supported by a face no bigger than an apple! whilst a broad full-faced lady, who really would have appeared tolerably handsome in a large head-dress, looks with her smart chapeau as masculine as a soldier.

MANLY

But remember, my dear sister, and I wish all my fair country-women would recollect, that the only excuse a young lady can have for going extravagantly into a fashion is because it makes her look extravagantly handsome.--Ladies, I must wish you a good morning.

CHARLOTTE

But, brother, you are going to make home with us.

MANLY

Indeed I cannot. I have seen my uncle and explained that matter.

CHARLOTTE

Come and dine with us, then. We have a family dinner about half-past four o'clock.

MANLY

I am engaged to dine with the Spanish ambassador. I was introduced to him by an old brother officer; and instead of freezing me with a cold card of compliment to dine with him ten days hence, he, with the true old Castilian frankness, in a friendly manner, asked me to dine with him to-day--an honour I could not refuse. Sister, adieu--Madam, your most obedient--[Exit.

CHARLOTTE

I will wait upon you to the door, brother; I have something particular to say to you. [Exit.

LETITIA, alone.

What a pair!--She the pink of flirtation, he the essence of everything that is outre and gloomy.--I think I have completely deceived Charlotte by my manner of speaking of Mr. Dimple; she's too much the friend of Maria to be confided in. He is certainly rendering himself disagreeable to Maria, in order to break with her and proffer his hand to me. This is what the delicate fellow hinted in our last conversation. [Exit.

SCENE II. The Mall.

Enter JESSAMY.

Positively this Mall is a very pretty place. I hope the cits won't ruin it by repairs. To be sure, it won't do to speak of in the same day with Ranelagh or Vauxhall; however, it's a fine place for a young fellow to display his person to advantage. Indeed, nothing is lost here; the girls have taste, and I am very happy to find they have adopted the elegant London fashion of looking back, after a genteel fellow like me has passed them.--Ah! who comes here? This, by his awkwardness, must be the Yankee colonel's servant. I'll accost him.

Enter JONATHAN.

JESSAMY

Votre tres-humble serviteur, Monsieur. I understand Colonel Manly, the Yankee officer, has the honour of your services.

JONATHAN

Sir!--

JESSAMY

I say, Sir, I understand that Colonel Manly has the honour of having you for a servant.

JONATHAN

Servant! Sir, do you take me for a neger,--I am Colonel Manly's waiter.

JESSAMY

A true Yankee distinction, egad, without a difference. Why, Sir, do you not perform all the offices of a servant? do you not even blacken his boots?

JONATHAN

Yes; I do grease them a bit sometimes; but I am a true blue son of liberty, for all that. Father said I should come as Colonel Manly's waiter, to see the world, and all that; but no man shall master me. My father has as good a farm as the colonel.

JESSAMY

Well, Sir, we will not quarrel about terms upon the eve of an acquaintance from which I promise myself so much satisfaction;--therefore, sans ceremonie--

JONATHAN

What?--

JESSAMY

I say I am extremely happy to see Colonel Manly's waiter.

JONATHAN

Well, and I vow, too, I am pretty considerably glad to see you; but what the dogs need of all this outlandish lingo? Who may you be, Sir, if I may be so bold?

JESSAMY

I have the honour to be Mr. Dimple's servant, or, if you please, waiter. We lodge under the same roof, and should be glad of the honour of your acquaintance.

JONATHAN

You a waiter! by the living jingo, you look so topping, I took you for one of the agents to Congress.

JESSAMY

The brute has discernment, notwithstanding his appearance.--Give me leave to say I wonder then at your familiarity.

JONATHAN

Why, as to the matter of that, Mr.--; pray, what's your name?

JESSAMY

Jessamy, at your service.

JONATHAN

Why, I swear we don't make any great matter of distinction in our state between quality and other folks.

JESSAMY

This is, indeed, a levelling principle.--I hope, Mr. Jonathan, you have not taken part with the insurgents.

JONATHAN

Why, since General Shays has sneaked off and given us the bag to hold, I don't care to give my opinion; but you'll promise not to tell--put your ear this way--you won't tell?--I vow I did think the sturgeons were right.

JESSAMY

I thought, Mr. Jonathan, you Massachusetts men always argued with a gun in your hand. Why didn't you join them?

JONATHAN

Why, the colonel is one of those folks called the Shin--Shin--dang it all, I can't speak them lignum vitae words--you know who I mean--there is a company of them--they wear a china goose at their button-hole--a kind of gilt thing.--Now the colonel told father and brother,--you must know there are, let me see--there is Elnathan, Silas, and Barnabas, Tabitha--no, no, she's a she--tarnation, now I have it--there's Elnathan, Silas, Barnabas, Jonathan, that's I--seven of us, six went into the wars, and I staid at home to take care of mother. Colonel said that it was a burning shame for the true blue Bunker Hill sons of liberty, who had fought Governor Hutchinson, Lord North, and the Devil, to have any hand in kicking up a cursed dust against a government which we had, every mother's son of us, a hand in making.

JESSAMY

Bravo!--Well, have you been abroad in the city since your arrival? What have you seen that is curious and entertaining?

JONATHAN

Oh! I have seen a power of fine sights. I went to see two marble-stone men and a leaden horse that stands out in doors in all weathers; and when I came where they was, one had got no head, and t'other wern't there. They said as how the leaden man was a damn'd tory, and that he took wit in his anger and rode off in the time of the troubles.

JESSAMY

But this was not the end of your excursion?

JONATHAN

Oh, no; I went to a place they call Holy Ground. Now I counted this was a place where folks go to meeting; so I put my hymn-book in my pocket, and walked softly and grave as a minister; and when I came there, the dogs a bit of a meeting-house could I see. At last I spied a young gentlewoman standing by one of the seats which they have here at the doors. I took her to be the deacon's daughter, and she looked so kind, and so obliging, that I thought I would go and ask her the way to lecture, and--would you think it?--she called me dear, and sweeting, and honey, just as if we were married: by the living jingo, I had a month's mind to buss her.

JESSAMY

Well, but how did it end?

JONATHAN

Why, as I was standing talking with her, a parcel of sailor men and boys got round me, the snarl-headed curs fell a-kicking and cursing of me at such a tarnal rate, that I vow I was glad to take to my heels and split home, right off, tail on end, like a stream of chalk.

JESSAMY

Why, my dear friend, you are not acquainted with the city; that girl you saw was a--[whispers.]

JONATHAN

Mercy on my soul! was that young woman a harlot!--Well! if this is New-York Holy Ground, what must the Holy-day Ground be!

JESSAMY

Well, you should not judge of the city too rashly. We have a number of elegant, fine girls here that make a man's leisure hours pass very agreeably. I would esteem it an honour to announce you to some of them.--Gad! that announce is a select word; I wonder where I picked it up.

JONATHAN

I don't want to know them.

JESSAMY

Come, come, my dear friend, I see that I must assume the honour of being the director of your amusements. Nature has given us passions, and youth and opportunity stimulate to gratify them. It is no shame, my dear Blueskin, for a man to amuse himself with a little gallantry.

JONATHAN

Girl huntry! I don't altogether understand. I never played at that game. I know how to play hunt the squirrel, but I can't play anything with the girls; I am as good as married.

JESSAMY

Vulgar, horrid brute! Married, and above a hundred miles from his wife, and thinks that an objection to his making love to every woman he meets! He never can have read, no, he never can have been in a room with a volume of the divine Chesterfield.--So you are married?

JONATHAN

No, I don't say so; I said I was as good as married, a kind of promise.

JESSAMY

As good as married!--

JONATHAN

Why, yes; there's Tabitha Wymen, the deacon's daughter, at home; she and I have been courting a great while, and folks say as how we are to be married; and so I broke a piece of money with her when we parted, and she promised not to spark it with Solomon Dyer while I am gone. You wouldn't have me false to my true-love, would you?

JESSAMY

May be you have another reason for constancy; possibly the young lady has a fortune? Ha! Mr. Jonathan, the solid charms: the chains of love are never so binding as when the links are made of gold.

JONATHAN

Why, as to fortune, I must needs say her father is pretty dumb rich; he went representative for our town last year. He will give her--let me see--four times seven is--seven times four--nought and carry one,-- he will give her twenty acres of land--somewhat rocky though--a Bible, and a cow.

JESSAMY

Twenty acres of rock, a Bible, and a cow! Why, my dear Mr. Jonathan, we have servant-maids, or, as you would more elegantly express it, waitresses, in this city, who collect more in one year from their mistresses' cast clothes.

JONATHAN

You don't say so!--

JESSAMY

Yes, and I'll introduce to one of them. There is a little lump of flesh and delicacy that lives at next door, waitress to Miss Maria; we often see her on the stoop.

JONATHAN

But are you sure she would be courted by me?

JESSAMY

Never doubt it; remember a faint heart never--blisters on my tongue--I was going to be guilty of a vile proverb; flat against the authority of Chesterfield. I say there can be no doubt that the brilliancy of your merit will secure you a favourable reception.

JONATHAN

Well, but what must I say to her?

JESSAMY

Say to her! why, my dear friend, though I admire your profound knowledge on every other subject, yet, you will pardon my saying that your want of opportunity has made the female heart escape the poignancy of your penetration. Say to her! Why, when a man goes a-courting, and hopes for success, he must begin with doing, and not saying.

JONATHAN

Well, what must I do?

JESSAMY

Why, when you are introduced you must make five or six elegant bows.

JONATHAN

Six elegant bows! I understand that; six, you say? Well--

JESSAMY

Then you must press and kiss her hand; then press and kiss, and so on to her lips and cheeks; then talk as much as you can about hearts, darts, flames, nectar, and ambrosia--the more incoherent the better.

JONATHAN

Well, but suppose she should be angry with I?

JESSAMY

Why, if she should pretend--please to observe, Mr. Jonathan--if she should pretend to be offended, you must-- But I'll tell you how my master acted in such a case: He was seated by a young lady of eighteen upon a sofa, plucking with a wanton hand the blooming sweets of youth and beauty. When the lady thought it necessary to check his ardour, she called up a frown upon her lovely face, so irresistibly alluring, that it would have warmed the frozen bosom of age; remember, said she, putting her delicate arm upon his, remember your character and my honour. My master instantly dropped upon his knees, with eyes swimming with love, cheeks glowing with desire, and in the gentlest modulation of voice he said: My dear Caroline, in a few months our hands will be indissolubly united at the altar; our hearts I feel are already so; the favours you now grant as evidence of your affection are favours indeed; yet, when the ceremony is once past, what will now be received with rapture will then be attributed to duty.

JONATHAN

Well, and what was the consequence?

JESSAMY

The consequence!--Ah! forgive me, my dear friend, but you New England gentlemen have such a laudable curiosity of seeing the bottom of everything;--why, to be honest, I confess I saw the blooming cherub of a consequence smiling in its angelic mother's arms, about ten months afterwards.

JONATHAN

Well, if I follow all your plans, make them six bows, and all that, shall I have such little cherubim consequences?

JESSAMY

Undoubtedly.--What are you musing upon?

JONATHAN

You say you'll certainly make me acquainted?-- Why, I was thinking then how I should contrive to pass this broken piece of silver--won't it buy a sugar-dram?

JESSAMY

What is that, the love-token from the deacon's daughter?--You come on bravely. But I must hasten to my master. Adieu, my dear friend.

JONATHAN

Stay, Mr. Jessamy--must I buss her when I am introduced to her?

JESSAMY

I told you, you must kiss her.

JONATHAN

Well, but must I buss her?

JESSAMY

Why, kiss and buss, and buss and kiss, is all one.

JONATHAN

Oh! my dear friend, though you have a profound knowledge of all, a pungency of tribulation, you don't know everything. [Exit.

JESSAMY, alone.

Well, certainly I improve; my master could not have insinuated himself with more address into the heart of a man he despised. Now will this blundering dog sicken Jenny with his nauseous pawings, until she flies into my arms for very ease. How sweet will the contrast be between the blundering Jonathan and the courtly and accomplished Jessamy!

END OF THE SECOND ACT.