قراءة كتاب The Fatal Falsehood: A Tragedy. In Five Acts

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The Fatal Falsehood: A Tragedy. In Five Acts

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg

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THE

FATAL FALSEHOOD:

A TRAGEDY.

IN FIVE ACTS.

AS IT WAS ACTED AT THE

THEATRE ROYAL, COVENT GARDEN.

Drawn from:

THE

WORKS

OF

HANNAH MORE.

VOL. II.

LONDON

PRINTED FOR T. CADELL, STRAND
1830.

TO THE

COUNTESS BATHURST,

THIS TRAGEDY

IS

VERY RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,

AS

A SMALL TRIBUTE TO HER MANY VIRTUES,

AND

AS A GRATEFUL TESTIMONY

OF THE FRIENDSHIP WITH WHICH SHE HONOURS

HER MOST OBEDIENT

AND MOST OBLIGED

HUMBLE SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Earl Guildford,	Mr. Clarke.
Rivers, his Son,	Mr. Lewis.
Orlando, a young Italian Count,	Mr. Wroughton.
Bertrand,	Mr. Aickin.

Emmelina,	Miss Younge.
Julia,	Mrs. Hartley.

Scene—Earl Guildford's Castle.

PROLOGUE.

WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR OF THE TRAGEDY.

SPOKEN BY MR. HULL.

Our modern poets now can scarcely choose
A subject worthy of the Tragic Muse;
For bards so well have glean'd th' historic field,
That scarce one sheaf th' exhausted ancients yield;
Or if, perchance, they from the golden crop
Some grains, with hand penurious, rarely drop;
Our author these consigns to manly toil,
For classic themes demand a classic soil,
A vagrant she, the desert waste who chose,
Where Truth and History no restraints impose.
To her the wilds of fiction open lie,
A flow'ry prospect, and a boundless sky;
Yet hard the task to keep the onward way,
Where the wide scenery lures the foot to stray;
Where no severer limits check the Muse,
Than lawless fancy is dispos'd to choose.
Nor does she emulate the loftier strains
Which high heroic Tragedy maintains:
Nor conquests she, nor wars, nor triumphs sings,
Nor with rash hand o'erturns the thrones of kings.
No ruin'd empires greet to night your eyes,
No nations at our bidding fall or rise;
To statesmen deep, to politicians grave,
These themes congenial to their tastes we leave.
Of crowns and camps, a kingdom's weal or woe,
How few can judge, because how few can know!
But here you all may boast the censor's art;
Here all are critics who possess a heart.
Of the mix'd passions we display to-night,
Each hearer judges like the Stagyrite.
The scenes of private life our author shows,
A simple story of domestic woes;
Nor unimportant is the glass we hold,
To show th' effect of passions uncontroll'd;
To govern empires is the lot of few,
But all who live have passions to subdue.
Self-conquest is the lesson books should preach,
Self-conquest is the theme the Stage should teach.
Vouchsafe to learn this obvious duty here,
The verse though feeble, yet the moral's clear.
O mark to-night the unexampled woes
Which from unbounded self-indulgence flows.
Your candour once endur'd our author's lays,
Endure them now—it will be ample praise.

THE FATAL FALSEHOOD.

ACT I.

Scene—An Apartment in Guildford Castle.

Enter Bertrand.

Ber. What fools are serious melancholy villains!
I play a surer game, and screen my heart
With easy looks and undesigning smiles;
And while my plots still spring from sober thought,
My deeds appear th' effect of wild caprice,
And I the thoughtless slave of giddy chance.
What but this frankness could have won the promise
Of young Orlando, to confide to me
That secret grief which preys upon his heart?
'Tis shallow, indiscreet hypocrisy
To seem too good: I am the careless Bertrand,
The honest, undesigning, plain, blunt man.
The follies I avow cloak those I hide;
For who will search where nothing seems conceal'd?
'Tis rogues of solid, prudent, grave demeanour
Excite suspicion; men on whose dark brow
Discretion, with his iron hand, has grav'd
The deep-mark'd characters of thoughtfulness.
Here comes my uncle, venerable Guildford,
Whom I could honour, were he not the sire
Of that aspiring boy, who fills the gap
'Twixt me and fortune: Rivers, how I hate thee!

Enter Guildford.

How fares my noble uncle?

Guild.Honest Bertrand!
I must complain we have so seldom met:
Where do you keep? believe me, we have miss'd you.

Ber. O, my good lord! your pardon—spare me, sir,
For there are follies in a young man's life,
Vain schemes and thoughtless hours which I should blush
To lay before your wise and temperate age.

Guild. Well, be it so—youth has a privilege,
And I should be asham'd could I forget
I have myself been young, and harshly chide
This not ungraceful gaiety. Yes, Bertrand,
Prudence becomes moroseness, when it makes
A rigid inquisition of the fault,
Not of the man, perhaps, but of his youth.
Foibles that shame the head on which old Time
Has shower'd his snow are then more pardonable,
And age has many a weakness of its own.

Ber. Your gentleness, my lord, and mild reproof,
Correct the wand'rings of misguided youth,
More than rebuke, and shame me into virtue.

Guild. Saw you my beauteous ward, the Lady Julia?

Ber. She past this way, and with her your fair daughter,
Your Emmelina.

Guild. Call them both my daughters;
For scarce is Emmelina more belov'd
Than Julia, the dear child of my adoption.
The hour approaches too, (and bless it, heav'n,
With thy benignest kindliest influence!)
When Julia shall indeed become my daughter,
Shall, in obedience to her

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