and write my mark-I can be an honesht man myshelf, and keep a great rogue for my clark. Herm. Would. Well, well, you shall be taken care of. And now, captain, we set out for happiness : Let none despair whate'er their fortunes be, [Exeunt omnes. EPILOGUE, SPOKEN BY MRS. HOOK. OUR poet open'd with a loud warlike blast, And I, you know, had a hard struggling part: He would have ended here-out I thought meet, To keep the wits, as she the world, in awe: And if you won't protect, the men will damn him there. Then save the Muse, that flies to ye for aid; RR2 THE RECRUITING OFFICER. A Comedy. Captique dolis, donisque coacti. VIRGIL. Æneid. ii. 196. TO ALL FRIENDS ROUND THE WREKIN. MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,-Instead of the mercenary expectations that attend addresses of this nature, I hambly beg, that this may be received as an acknowledgment for the favours you have already conferred. I have transgressed the rules of dedication in offering you anything in that style, without first asking your leave: but the entertainment I found in Shropshire commands me to be grateful, and that's all I intend. "Twas my good fortune to be ordered some time ago into the place which is made the scene of this comedy; I was a perfect stranger to everything in Salop, but its character of loyalty, the number of its inhabitants, the alacrity of the gentlemen in recruiting the army, with their generous and hospitable reception of strangers. This character I found so amply verified in every particular, that you made recruiting, which is the greatest fatigue upon earth to others, to be the greatest pleasure in the world to me. The kingdom cannot show better bodies of men, better inclinations for the service, more generosity, more good understanding, nor more politeness, than is to be found at the foot of the Wrekin. Some little turns of humour that I met with almost within the shade of that famous hill, gave the rise to this comedy; and people were apprehensive that, by the example of some others, I would make the town merry at the expense of the country-gentlemen. But they forgot that I was to write a comedy, not a libel; and that whilst I held to nature, no person of any character in your country could suffer by being exposed. I have drawn the justice and the clown in their puris naturalibus; the one an apprehensive, sturdy, brave blockhead; and the other a worthy, honest, generous gentleman, hearty in his country's cause, and of as good an understanding as I could give him, which I must confess is far short of his own. I humbly beg leave to interline a word or two of the adventures of the Recruiting Officer upon the stage. Mr. Rich, who commands the company for which those recruits were raised, has desired me to acquit him before the world of a charge which he thinks lies heavy upon him, for acting this play on Mr. Durfey's third night. Be it known unto all men by these presents, that it was my act and deed, or rather Mr. Durfey's; for he would play his third night against the first of mine. He brought down a huge flight of frightful birds upon me; when (Heaven knows!) I had not a feathered fowl in my play, except one single Kite; but I presently made Plume a bird, because of his name, and Brazen another, because of the feather in his hat; and with these three I engaged his whole empire, which I think was as great a Wonder as any in the Sun. But to answer his complaints more gravely, the season was far advanced; the officers that made the greatest figures in my play were all commanded to their posts abroad, and waited only for a wind, which might possibly turn in less time than a day and I know none of Mr. Durfey's birds that had posts abroad but his Woodcocks, and their season is over; so that he might put off a day with less prejudice than the Recruiting Officer could; who has this farther to say for himself, that he was posted before the other spoke, and could not with credit recede from his station. These and some other rubs this comedy met with before it appeared. But on the other hand, it had powerful helps to set it forward. The Duke of Ormond encouraged the author, and the Earl of Orrery approved the play. My recruits were reviewed by my general and my colonel, and could not fail to pass muster; and still to add to my success, they were raised among my friends round the Wrekin. This health has the advantage over our other celebrated toasts, never to grow worse for the wearing: 'tis a lasting beauty, old without age, and common without scandal. That you may live long to set it cheerfully round, and to enjoy the abundant pleasures of your fair and plentiful country, is the hearty wish of, my Lords and Gentlemen, your most obliged, and most obedient servant, IN ancient times when Helen's fatal charms PROLOGUE. Him fate had warn'd to shun the Trojan blows: arms. Ulysses caught the young aspiring boy, SCENE I.-The Market Place. ACT I. Enter Drummer, beating the “Grenadier's March," Serjeant KITE, COSTAR PEARMAIN, THOMAS APPLETREE, and Mob, following. : Kite. [Making a speech.] If any gentlemen soldiers, or others, have a mind to serve her majesty, and pull down the French king if any prentices have severe masters, any children have undutiful parents : if any servants have too little wages, or any husband too much wife let them repair to the noble serjeant Kite, at the sign of the Raven in this good town of Shrewsbury, and they shall receive present relief and entertainment.-Gentlemen, I don't beat my drums here to ensnare or inveigle any man; for you must know, gentlemen, that I am a man of honour. Besides, I don't beat up for common soldiers; no, I list only grenadiers, grenadiers, gentlemen.— Pray, gentlemen, observe this cap. This is the cap of honour, it dubs a man a gentleman in the drawing of a tricker; and he that has the good fortune to be born six foot high, was born to be a great man.-[To CoSTAR PEARMAIN.] Sir, will you give me leave to try this cap upon your head? Pear. Is there no harm in't? won't the cap list me? for we don't care for feeling one another.-But do folk sleep sound in this same bed of honour? Kite. Sound! ay, so sound that they never wake. Pear. Wauns! I wish again that my wife lay there. Kite. Say you so? then, I find, brother Pear. Brother! hold there, friend; I am no kindred to you that I know of yet. Look'ee, serjeant, no coaxing, no wheedling, d'ye see: if I have a mind to list, why so; if not, why 'tis not so: therefore take your cap and your brothership back again, for I an't disposed at this present writing. -No coaxing, no brothering me, faith! Kile. I coax! I wheedle! I'm above it! sir, I have served twenty campaigns. But, sir, you talk well, and I must own that you are a man every inch of you, a pretty young sprightly fellow. I love a fellow with a spirit; but I scorn to coax, 'tis base: though I must say, that never in my life have I seen a better built man; how firm and strong he treads! he steps like a castle; but I scorn to wheedle any man.-Come, honest lad, will you take share of a pot? Pear. Nay, for that matter, I'll spend my penny with the best he that wears a head, that is, begging your pardon, sir, and in a fair way. Kite. Give me your hand then; and now, gen Kite. No, no, no more than I can.-Come, lettlemen, I have no more to say, but this-here's a me see how it becomes you? Pear. Are you sure there be no conjuration in it? no gunpowder plot upon me? Kite. No, no, friend; don't fear, man. Pear. My mind misgives me plaguily.-Let me see it.-[Going to put it on.] It smells woundily of sweat and brimstone. Pray, serjeant, what writing is this upon the face of it? Kite. The crown, or the bed of honour. Pear. Pray now, what may be that same bed of honour? Kite. Oh a mighty large bed! bigger by half than the great bed of Ware-ten thousand people may lie in it together, and never feel one another. Pear My wife and I would do well to lie in't, purse of gold, and there is a tub of humming ale at my quarters: 'tis the queen's money, and the queen's drink. She's a generous queen, and loves her subjects-I hope, gentlemen, you won't refuse the queen's health? his watch.] At ten yesterday morning I left London. A hundred and twenty miles in thirty hours is pretty smart riding, but nothing to the fatigue of recruiting. Re-enter Serjeant KITE. Kite. Welcome to Shrewsbury, noble captain! From the banks of the Danube to the Severn side, noble captain, you're welcome! Plume. A very elegant reception indeed, Mr. Kite! I find you are fairly entered into your recruiting strain: pray, what success? Kite. I have been here but a week, and I have recruited five. Plume. Five! pray what are they? Kite. I have listed the strong man of Kent, the king of the gipsies, a Scotch pedlar, a scoundrel attorney, and a Welsh parson. Plume. An attorney! wert thou mad? List a lawyer! Discharge him, discharge him this minute. Kite. Why, sir? Plume. Because I will have nobody in my company that can write; a fellow that can write, can draw petitions.-I say this minute discharge him. Kite. And what shall I do with the parson? Plume. Can he write? Kite. Hum! he plays rarely upon the fiddle. Plume. Keep him by all means. But how stands the country affected? were the people pleased with the news of my coming to town? Kite. Sir, the mob are so pleased with your honour, and the justices and better sort of people are so delighted with me, that we shall soon do our business. But, sir, you have got a recruit here that you little think of. Plume. Who? Kite. One that you beat up for last time you were in the country: you remember your old friend Molly at the Castle? Plume. She's not with child, I hope? Kite. No, no, sir-she was brought to bed yesterday. Plume. Kite, you must father the child. Kite. And so her friends will oblige me to marry the mother! Plume. If they should, we'll take her with us; she can wash, you know, and make a bed upon occasion. Kite. Ay, or unmake it upon occasion. But your honour knows that I am married already. Plume. To how many? Kite. I can't tell readily-I have set them down here upon the back of the muster-roll.—[Draws it out] Let me see,-Imprimis, Mrs. Sheely Snikereyes; she sells potatoes upon Ormond Key in Dublin-Peggy Guzzle, the brandy-woman at the Horse-guard at Whitehall-Dolly Waggon, the carrier's daughter at Hull Mademoiselle VanBottomflat at the Buss.-Then Jenny Oakham, the ship-carpenter's widow, at Portsmouth; but I don't reckon upon her, for she was married at the same time to two lieutenants of marines, and a man-of-war's boatswain. Plume. A full company !-You have named five -come, make 'em half-a-dozen, Kite. Is the child a boy or a girl? Kite. A chopping boy. Plume. Then set the mother down in your list, and the boy in mine: enter him a grenadier by the name of Francis Kite, absent upon furlough. I'll allow you a man's pay for his subsistence; and now go comfort the wench in the straw. Kite. I shall, sir. Plume. But hold; have you made any use of your German doctor's habit since you arrived? Kite. Yes, yes, sir, and my fame's all about the country for the most famous fortune-teller that ever told a lie.-I was obliged to let my landlord into the secret, for the convenience of keeping it so; but he's an honest fellow, and will be trusty to any roguery that is confided to him. This device, sir, will get you men, and me money, which, I think, is all we want at present.-But yonder comes your friend Mr. Worthy.-Has your honour any farther commands? Plume. None at present. [Exit Serjeant KITE.] 'Tis indeed the picture of Worthy, but the life's departed. Enter Mr. WORTHY. What! arms a-cross, Worthy! Methinks, you should hold 'em open when a friend's so near.The man has got the vapours in his ears, I believe : I must expel this melancholy spirit. Spleen, thou worst of fiends below, Fly, I conjure thee by this magic blow. [Slaps Mr. WORTHY on the shoulder. Wor. Plume! my dear captain, welcome. Safe and sound returned? Plume. I 'scaped safe from Germany, and sound, I hope, from London; you see I have lost neither leg, arm, nor nose; then for my inside, 'tis neither troubled with sympathies nor antipathies; and I have an excellent stomach for roastbeef. Wor. Thou art a happy fellow; once I was so. Plume. What ails thee, man? No inundations nor earthquakes in Wales, I hope? Has your father rose from the dead, and reassumed his estate? Wor. No. Plume. Then you are married surely? Plume. Then you are mad, or turning quaker? Wor. Come, I must out with it.-Your once gay, roving friend is dwindled into an obsequious, thoughtful, romantic, constant coxcomb. Plume. And, pray, what is all this for? Plume. Shake hands, brother; if you go to that, behold me as obsequious, as thoughtful, and as constant a coxcomb as your worship. Wor. For whom? Plume. For a regiment.-But for a woman!— 'Sdeath! I have been constant to fifteen at a time, but never melancholy for one; and can the love of one bring you into this pickle? Pray, who is this miraculous Helen? Wor. A Helen indeed, not to be won under a ten years' siege, as great a beauty, and as great a jilt. Plume. A jilt! pho! is she as great a whore? Wor. No, no. Plume. 'Tis ten thousand pities. But who is she? do I know her? Wor. Very well. Plume. Impossible !-I know no woman that will hold out a ten years' siege. Wor. What think you of Melinda ? Plume. Melinda! why, she began to capitulate this time twelvemonth, and offered to surrender upon honourable terms; and I advised you to propose a settlement of five hundred pounds a year to her, before I went last abroad. Wor. I did, and she hearkened to't, desiring only one week to consider: when, beyond her hopes, the town was relieved, and I forced to turn my siege into a blockade. Plume. Explain, explain! Wor. My lady Richly, her aunt, in Flintshire dies, and leaves her, at this critical time, twenty thousand pounds. Plume. Oh, the devil! what a delicate woman was there spoiled! But, by the rules of war now, Worthy, your blockade was foolish. After such a convoy of provisions was entered the place, you could have no thought of reducing it by famine; you should have redoubled your attacks, taken the town by storm, or have died upon the breach. Wor. I did make one general assault, and pushed it with all my forces; but I was so vigorously repulsed, that, despairing of ever gaining her for a mistress, I have altered my conduct, given my addresses the obsequious and distant turn, and court her now for a wife. Plume. So as you grew obsequious, she grew haughty; and because you approached her as a goddess, she used you like a dog? Wor. Exactly. Plume. "Tis the way of 'em all. Come, Worthy, your obsequious and distant airs will never bring you together; you must not think to surmount her pride by your humility. Would you bring her to better thoughts of you, she must be reduced to a meaner opinion of herself. Let me see; the very first thing that I would do, should be to lie with her chambermaid, and hire three or four wenches in the neighbourhood to report that I had got them with child. Suppose we lampooned all the pretty women in town, and left her out? Or, what if we made a ball, and forgot to invite her with one or two of the ugliest? Wor. These would be mortifications, I must confess; but we live in such a precise, dull place, that we can have no balls, no lampoons, no Plume. What! no bastards! and so many recruiting officers in town! I thought 'twas a maxim among them to leave as many recruits in the country as they carried out. Wor. Nobody doubts your good-will, noble captain, in serving your country with your best blood; witness our friend Molly at the Castle. There have been tears in town about that business, captain. Plume. I hope Silvia has not heard of 't? Wor. O sir, have you thought of her? I began to fancy you had forgot poor Silvia. Plume. Your affairs had put my own quite out of my head. 'Tis true, Silvia and I had once agreed to go to bed together, could we have adjusted preliminaries; but she would have the wedding before consummation, and I was for consummation before the wedding; we could not agree. She was a pert, obstinate fool, and would lose her maidenhead her own way, so she may keep it for Plume. Wor. But do you intend to marry upon no other conditions? Plume. Your pardon, sir, I'll marry upon no conditions at all. If I should, I am resolved never to bind myself to a woman for my whole life, till I know whether I shall like her company for half an hour. Suppose I married a woman that wanted a leg! such a thing might be, unless I examined the goods beforehand. If people would but try one another's constitutions before they engaged, it would prevent all these elopements, divorces, and the devil knows what. Wor. Nay, for that matter, the town did not stick to say, that Plume. I hate country towns for that reason.. If your town has a dishonourable thought of Silvia it deserves to be burned to the ground. I love Silvia, I admire her frank, generous disposition. There's something in that girl more than woman, her sex is but a foil to her. The ingratitude, dissimulation, envy, pride, avarice, and vanity of her sister females, do but set off their contraries in her. In short, were I once a general I would marry her. Wor. Faith, you have reason; for were you but a corporal she would marry you. But my Melinda coquettes it with every fellow she sees. I'll lay fifty pound she makes love to you. Plume. I'll lay fifty pound that I return it, if she does. Look'ee, Worthy, I'll win her, and give her to you afterwards. Wor. If you win her you shall wear her, faith; I would not give a fig for the conquest without the credit of the victory. Re-enter Serjeant KITE. Kite. Captain, captain, a word in your ear. Plume. You may speak out, here are none but friends. Kite. You know, sir, that you sent me to comfort the good woman in the straw, Mrs. Mollymy wife, Mr. Worthy. Wor. O ho! very well! wish you joy, Mr. Kite. Kite. Your worship very well may, for I have got both a wife and a child in half an hour. But, as I was a-saying, you sent me to comfort Mrs. Molly, my wife I mean; but what d'ye think, sir? she was better comforted before I came. Plume. As how ! Kite. Why, sir, a footman in a blue livery had brought her ten guineas to buy her baby-clothes. Plume. Who, in the name of wonder, could send them? Kite. Nay, sir, I must whisper that-Mrs. Silvia, [Whispers. Plume. Silvia! generous creature! Kile. Here be the guineas, sir; I took the gold as part of my wife's portion. Nay, farther, sir, she sent word that the child should be taken all imaginable care of, and that she intended to stand godmother. The same footman, as I was coming to you with this news. called after me, and told me, that his lady would speak with me. I went. and, upon hearing that you were come to town, she gave me half-a-guinea for the news; and ordered me to tell you, that justice Balance, her father, who is just come out of the country, would be glad to see you. Plume. There's a girl for you, Worthy! Is there anything of woman in this? No, 'tis noble and generous, manly friendship. Show me another woman that would lose an inch of her prerogative, that way, without tears, fits, and reproaches! The common jealousy of her sex, which is nothing but their avarice of pleasure, she despises; and can |