The Heiress (Burgoyne, 1786)/Act 1, Scene 1

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There, it is compleat——— (reads conceit­edly)

There's phrase———There's a period——— Match it if you can.}}

​Blandish.Not I indeed: I am working upon a quite different plan: but you are as welcome to my cast off style, as you shou'd be to my old embroidery. Pick out the gold if it be of any use.

Mrs. Blandish.Cast off style! Excellent assur­ance! And pray, Sir, to whom are you indebted for the very elements of wheedling, and all that has attended it's progress, from the plaything in your nursery, to the brilliant upon your finger?

Blandish.For the elements, my honour'd sister, and partner, I confess the obligation; but for the proficiency, I have attain'd the sublime of the science, while you with more experience are still a novice; like a Miss at her stuttering harpsicord, with a nimble finger, but no ear;—You keep in tune, 'tis true, for that is the merit of the instru­ment, but you are continually out of time, and all-ways thrumming the same key.

Mrs. Blandish.Which in plain English is as much as to say———

Blandish.That human vanity is an instrument of such ease and compass, the most unskilful can play something upon it: but to touch it to the true purpose———

Mrs. Blandish.Well, Sir, and look round you pray; these apartments were not furnished from the interest of two miserable thousand pounds in the three per cents, any more than our table and equipage have been maintained by your patri­mony—A land estate of three hundred a year, out of repair, and mortgaged for nearly it's value. I believe I have stated our original fa­mily circumstances pretty accurately.

Blandish.They wanted improvement, it must be acknowledg'd. But before we bring our in­​dustry to a comparison, in the name of the old father of flattery, to whom is that perfect phrase address'd?

Mrs. Blandish.To one worth the pains, I can tell you.———Miss Alscrip.

Blandish.What, sensibility to Miss Alscrip! my dear sister, this is too much, even in your own way; had you run changes upon her fortune, stocks, bonds and mortgages; upon Lord Gay­ville's coronet at her feet, or forty other coro­nets, to make footballs of, if she pleased,—it would have been plausible; but the quality you have selected———

Mrs. Blandish.Is one she has no pretensions to, therefore the flattery is more persuasive—that's my maxim.

Blandish.And mine also, but I don't try it quite so high—Sensibility to Miss Alscrip! you might as well have applied it to her Uncle's Pig-iron, from which she derives her first fifty thousand; or the harder heart of the old Usurer, her Father, from whom she expects the second. But come (rings) to the business of the morning.

Here Prompt—send out the chairmen with the billets and cards.— Have you any orders, ma­dam?

Mrs. Blandish (delivering her letter).This to Miss Alscrip, with my impatient enquiries after her last night's rest, and that she shall have my personal statute in half an hour.———You take care to send to all the lying-in ladies?

Prompt.At their doors, Madam, before the first load of straw.

​Blandish.And to all great men that keep the house—Whether for their own disorders, or those of the nation?

Prompt.To all, Sir—their secretaries, and prin­cipal clerks.

Blandish. (aside to Prompt.)How goes on the business you have undertaken for Lord Gayville?

Prompt.I have convey'd his letter, and expect this morning to get an answer.

Blandish.He does not think me in the secret?

Prompt.Mercy forbid you should be! (archly)

Blandish.I should never forgive your medling.—

Prompt.Oh! never, never!

Blandish. (aloud).Well, dispatch.—

Mrs. Blandish.Hold!—apropos, to the lying in list—at Mrs. Barbara Winterbloom's to enquire after the Angola kittens, and the last hatch of Java sparrows.

Prompt. (Reading his memorandum as he goes out.)Ladies in the straw—Ministers, &c.—Old Maids, Cats and Sparrows, never had a better list of how d'ye's since I had the honour to collect for the Blandish family. [Exit.

Mrs. Blandish.These are the attentions that establish valuable friendships in female life. By adapting myself to the whims of one, submitting to the jest of another, assisting the little plots of a third, and taking part against the husbands with all, I am become an absolute essential in the polite world; the very soul of every fashionable party in town or country.

Blandish.The country! Pshaw! Time thrown away.

Mrs. Blandish.Time thrown away! As if women of fashion left London, to turn freckled shep​pherdesses.—No, no; cards, cards and backgam­mon, are the delights of rural life; and slightly as you may think of my skill, at the year's end I am no inconsiderable sharer in the pin-money of my society.

Blandish.A paltry resource—Gambling is a damn'd trade, and I have done with it.

Mrs. Blandish.Indeed!

Blandish.Yes, 'twas high time.—The women don't pay.— And as for the men, the age grows circumspect in proportion to it's poverty: It's odds but one loses a character to establish a debt, and must fight a duel to obtain the payment. I have a thousand better plans, but two principal ones—And I am only at a loss, which to chuse.

Mrs. Blandish.Out with them, I beseech you.

Blandish.Whether I shall marry my friend's in­tended bride, or his sister.

Mrs. Blandish.Marry his intended bride?—What pig-iron and usury?—Your opinion of her must advance your addresses admirably.

Blandish.My Lord's opinion of her will advance them; he can't bear the sight of her, and defiance of his uncle, Sir Clement Flint's eagerness for the match, is running mad after an adventure, which I, who am his confidant shall keep going till I determine.—There's news for you.

Mrs. Blandish.And his sister, Lady Emily, the alternative! The first match in England in beauty, wit, and accomplishment.

Blandish.Pooh! A fig for her personal charms, she will bring me connexion that wou'd soon sup­ply fortune; the other wou'd bring fortune enough to make connexion unnecessary.

Mrs. Blandish.And as to the certainty of success with the one or the other.———

​Blandish.Success!—Are they not women? Why even you can cajole them—What then must I do who have advantage of sex, and am equally ready to adore every feature of the face, or to fall incor­poreally in love with the mind.—But no more of theory, I must away to practise.—And first for Gayville, and his fellow student Clifford, who is come home with a wise face, and a conceited con­fidence in his old ascendancy over his Lordship; but thanks to the accident that kept him two months behind, Mr. Monitor will find himself mistaken.

Mrs. Blandish.Beware of the Monitor notwith­standing in another quarter. Lady Emily and he were acquainted at the age of first impressions.

Blandish.I dare say he always meant to be the compleat friend of the family, tho' without a single talent for the purpose. I question whether he ever made a compliment in his life.

Mrs. Blandish.Oh, the brute.

Blandish.His game I find, has been to work upon Lord Gayville's understanding; he thinks he must finally establish himself in his esteem, by in­exorably opposing all his follies—Poor simple­ton!—Now my touch of opposition goes only to inhance the value of my acquiescence. So adieu for the morning—You to Miss Alscrip with an unction of flattery fit for a house painter's brush; I to Sir Clement, and his family, with a compo­sition as delicate as aether, and to be applied with the point of a feather. [Going.

Mrs. Blandish.Hark you, Blandish, a good wish before you go: To make your success compleat, may you find but half your own vanity in those you have to work on!

​Blandish.Thank you, my dear Letty; this is not the only tap you have hit me to-day, and you are right; for if you and I did not sometimes speak truth to each other, we should forget there was such a quality incident to the human mind.

[Exeunt.