The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 96

_Robert_. G.o.d bless your honour for your kindness to my poor father.

_John_. Pray, now make haste. You may chance to come in time.

[_Robert goes out_.]

_John_. Go get some firewood, Francis, And get my supper ready. [_Francis goes out_.]

The night is bitter cold.

They in their graves feel nothing of the cold, Or if they do, how dull a cold-- All clayey, clayey. Ah G.o.d! who waits below?

Come up, come quick. I saw a fearful sight.

_Francis returns in haste with wood_.

_John_. There are such things as spirits, deny it who may.

Is it you, Francis? Heap the wood on thick, We two shall sup together, sup all night, Carouse, drink drunk, and tell the merriest tales-- Tell for a wager, who tells merriest-- But I am very weak. O tears, tears, tears, I feel your just rebuke. [_Goes out_.]

Scene changes to a bed-room. John sitting alone: a lamp burning by him.

"Infinite torments for finite offences." I will never believe it. How divines can reconcile this monstrous tenet with the spirit of their Theology! They have palpably failed in the proof, for to put the question thus:--If he being infinite--have a care, Woodvil, the lat.i.tude of doubting suits not with the humility of thy condition. What good men have believed, may be true, and what they profess to find set down clearly in their scriptures, must have probability in its defence[40].

Touching that other question the Casuists with one consent have p.r.o.nounced the sober man accountable for the deeds by him in a state of drunkenness committed, because tho' the action indeed be such as he, sober, would never have committed, yet the drunkenness being an act of the will, by a moral fiction, the issues are accounted voluntary also. I lose my sleep in attending to these intricacies of the schoolmen. I lay till daybreak the other morning endeavouring to draw a line of distinction between sin of direct malice and sin of malice indirect, or imputable only by the sequence. My brain is overwrought by these labours, and my faculties will shortly decline into impotence. [_Throws himself on a bed_.]

End of the Fourth Act.

[Footnote 40: Lamb had crossed out this pa.s.sage from "Infinite torments," and written at "touching" "begin here."]

In the fifth act of the printed play [page 192] we have simply "Margaret enters." In the MS. Sandford prepares his master for her advent, and announces her thus:--

_Sandford_. Wilt please you to see company to-day, Sir?

_John_. Who thinks me worth the visiting?

_Sandford_. One that traveled hard last night to see you, She waits to know your pleasure.

_John_. A lady too! pray send her to me-- Some curiosity, I suppose.

[_Sandford goes out and returns with Margaret_.]

_Margaret_. Woodvil![41]

[Footnote 41: "Woodvil!" and some illegible words struck out, and nothing subst.i.tuted.]

_John_. Comes Margaret here, etc.

When, a page further on [page 194], John has declared to Margaret that

This earth holds not alive so poor a thing as I am-- I was not always thus,

the MS. went on (but the pa.s.sage is struck out as "bad"):--

You must bear with me, Margaret, as a child, For I am weak as tender Infancy And cannot bear rebuke-- Would'st think it, Love!

They hoot and spit upon me as I pa.s.s In the public streets: one shows me to his neighbour, Who shakes his head and turns away with horror-- I was not always thus--

_Margaret_. Thou n.o.ble nature, etc.

The next scene--the last [page l95]--is much cut about. The long speech of Margaret beginning,

To give you in your stead a better self,

and John's reply [both printed at pages 196-7], are struck out, and "Nimis" written by Lamb's pen in large characters in the margin; but after that all goes on in harmony with the print, to the end:--

It seem'd the guilt of blood was pa.s.sing from me Even in the act and agony of tears And all my sins forgiven.

At this point in the MS. Simon arrives:--

[_A noise is heard as of one without, clamorous to come in_.]

_Margaret_. 'Tis your brother Simon, John.

_Enter Simon, with his sword in a menacing posture, John staggers towards him and falls at his feet, Margaret standing over him._

_Simon_. Is this the man I came so far to see-- The perfect Cavalier, the finish'd courtier Whom Ladies lov'd, the gallant curled Woodvil, Whom brave men fear'd, the valiant, fighting Woodvil, The haughty high-ambitioned Parricide-- The same that sold his father's secret in his cups, And held it but an after-dinner's trick?-- So humble and in tears, a crestfallen penitent, And crawling at a younger brother's feet!

The sinews of my [_stiff_] revenge grow slack.

My brother, speak to me, my brother John.

(_Aside_) Now this is better than the beastly deed Which I did meditate.

_John (rising and resuming his old dignity)_. You come to take my life, I know it well.

You come to fight with me--[_Laying his hand upon his sword_.]

This arm was busy on the day of Naseby: 'Tis paralytic now, and knows no use of weapons.

The luck is yours, Sir. [_Surrenders his sword_.]

_Simon_. My errand is of peace: A dying father's blessing and lost prayers For his misguided son.

Sir Walter sends it with his parting breath.

He bade me with my brother live in peace, He bade me fall upon his neck and weep, (As I now do) and love my brother John; For we are only left in the wide world The poor survivors of the Woodvil name. [_They embrace_.]

_Simon_. And Margaret here shall witness our atonement-- (For Margaret still hath followed all your fortunes).

And she shall dry thy tears and teach thee pray.

So we'll together seek some foreign land, Where our sad story, John, shall never reach.

_End of "Pride's Cure" and Charles Lamb's Dramatic Works!!_

After all this [Mr. Campbell adds finally] is the reader prepared to think Manning altogether wrong and Lamb altogether right as to what was done in the process of transforming Pride's Cure into _John Woodvil_?

The version of 1818 here printed differs practically only in minor matters of typography and punctuation from that of 1802.

There are, however, a few alterations which should be noted. On page 176, in John's first speech, "fermentations" was, in 1802, "stimuli." On page 178, in the speech of the Third Gentleman, there is a change. In 1802 he said "(_das.h.i.+ng his gla.s.s down_) Pshaw, d.a.m.n these acorn cups, they would not drench a fairy.

Who shall pledge," &c. And at the end of Act III, one line is omitted. In 1802 John was made to say, after disarming Lovel (page 186):--