Gore On Stage

The Plays of Catherine Gore

John Franceschina

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781135580667
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

It is a generally accepted fact that in the first half of the nineteenth century, Catherine Gore became the most prolific, if not most popular writer of fashionable novels in England. It is less well known that Mrs. Gore's 200-volume output included eleven extremely popular, if not always critically successful, plays, performed at all three of the Theatres Royal in London: Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket. While several of the plays held the stage in England and the United States well into the second half of the nineteenth century, modern critical appraisals of the works have been hampered by the lack of available texts. Gore on Stage, for the first time provides performance texts of all of Mrs. Gore's work for the stage, including original cast lists, criticial responses, illustrations, and glossaries of foreign words and nineteenth-century jargon. Students of drama and nineteenth-century literature will delight in the intricacies of plot and theatrical effects in this collection of historical melodramas, comedies of manners, and farces; and they will marvel at the contemporary nature of the plays' themes, trading on a balance of power between male and female characters.

Quid Pro Quo; or, The Day of Dupes

Quid Pro Quo; or, The Day of Dupes

a comedy in five acts

Playbill for the twentieth performance of the “Prize Comedy,” Quid Pro Quo at the Haymarket Theatre.

Dramatis Personae

Earl of Hunsdon (a retired statesman)
Lord Bellamont (his son, a public schoolboy)
Jeremy Grigson (a retired tradesman)
Henry (a lieutenant R.N., his nephew)
Captain Sippet (a tuft-hunter)
Sir George Mordent (kinsman to the Earl)
Rivers (kinsman to the Earl)
Cogit (agent to the Earl)
Spraggs (servant to Grigson)
Charles (page to the Earl)
Countess of Hunsdon (wife to the Earl)
Lady Mary Rivers (her daughter)
Mrs. Grigson (wife to the tradesman)
Ellen (her daughter)
Bridget Prim (servant to Mrs. Grigson)

Prologue

If, as established rule from age to age
Hath authorized the lessons of the stage,
With comedy the pleasant duty lies
To paint “the manners living as they rise”;
Present fair folly’s face reflected here.
School with a smile, and chasten by a sneer.
’Tis time to turn some newer page, and show
Life as it is, and manners as they go!
“The way to keep him” keeps no lover now;
“All in the wrong” forstalls not broken vow;
Tie-wigs and stiff brocades our faith defeat,
And trite moralities are obsolete!
Sententious prose hath said its parting say;
Steam, with a thousand arms, hath clear’d the way;
No railroad waits for speechifying man,
The world’s a game of “Catch him if you can!”

But if, in its perplex’d and motley scene,
Some pleasant interludes there intervene,
The stage should show—a true and wise recorder,
Confusion worse confounded, brought to order!
Such is our aim! Tonight, our cost and care,
Would picture English manners as they are.
Be yours the kind requital of our task,
A patient audience is the boon we ask,
Submitted long to your supreme behest,
Writer and manager have done their best.
Should you condemn, to your decree we bow,
But oh! In justice, hear us, hear us now. ¹

Act 1. Scene 1.

(Road before the inn of the Hunsdon Arms. The inn R.Enter Henry and Sippet, ² 2 E.L. with Countrymen, who carry baggage into the inn.)

Sip. This way, my dear sir! I told you it was but a step from the station.

Hen. A step for a pair of seven-leagued boots! Why ’tis nearly a mile.

Sip. A mile it would be hard to miss, for ’tis straight in our road. (Points.) [Neat little country inn, eh? The Hunsdon Arms used to afford good entertainment for man and horse; but men are the only brutes now left on the road to entertain; quadrupeds, divided by two, eh?] ³

Hen. How then are you to proceed to Hunsdon Castle, where you told me you were going on a visit?

Sip. Why mails being no longer horsed here, the charming Countess’s son, Lord Bellamont, will drive over and fetch me.

[ Hen. Your charming Countess, old enough to have a grown-up son?]

Sip. The heir apparent to an Earldom, is a man in his teens. Public schoolboys have become rising young men! ’Tis but a step from leading strings to the ribbons, from the swaddling clothes to a pea jacket! My angel has a brace of precocious cherubs. But surely you spoke of having an engagement in the neighborhood?

Hen. I have relations residing hereabouts.

Sip. Whom you’ve just arrived in England to visit, eh?

Hen. My ship has been three years on the India station. (Aside.) How the deuce shall I get rid of this inquisitive fellow! ⁴ My aunt Grigson must be arrived!

Sip. Your relations visit, of course, their neighbours, at Hunsdon Castle?

Hen. I really can’t say! My uncle purchased his property during my absence.

Sip. Purchased it? Young man! if you respect yourself never talk of buying a seat, unless its Parliament. ⁵ The ancestors of the Hunsdons gave a dejeuner à la fourchette at their castle to William the Conqueror, on his landing from Normandy.

Hen. The more sneaks they!

Sip. Sneaks, [sir!] The Earl of Hunsdon is the most considerable man, and his castle the most considerable castle, in this part of the country.

Hen. [With all my heart! They may be the Elephant and Castle, for what I care to the contrary.] (Aside.) How shall I shake the fellow off?

Sip. (Seizing him by the button.) [Between friends (Henry shows surprise.)—that is, between acquaintances—] I’m come here to organize the dear Countess’s private theatricals! As if all theatricals were not private enough in these days, [the drama gives herself the airs of retiring into private life, enjoying her otium cum dignitate, and so forth!]

Hen. [Come, come,] if steam have done up the mail, don’t let us blow up the stage.

Sip. [(Aside.) Not so bad for a snob! Memo, book that for the Castle.] In short, I’m here to enjoy a month’s shooting and rehearsals. We men about town, are entitled to quarter ourselves nine months of the twelve in country-houses. [Last autumn I’d a touch at the pheasants of forty-two noblemen and gentlemen’s seats (Houses of Lords and Commons,) betwixt Alnwick Castle and St. Michael’s Mount.]

Hen. (Aside.) Would he were safe at either! The old lady will be out of patience. (A window opens, Mrs. Grigson appears, and retreats on seeing Sippet.) My aunt, by Jupiter!

Sip. That dear fanciful creature, Lady Hunsdon, brings down some new craze with her every season from town; the last new folly in vogue—guano—the Polka—the unknown tongues—[teetotalism—capering or vapouring for the million— ]mesmerism—hydropathy! This year, she is all for theatricals. The dear creature has turned decidedly blue.

Hen. A curious complexion for an angel!

Sip.In fashionable parlance, my dear fellow, a blue means any literary lady who is not deep read. (A carriage heard without, and crash.) [Hark! Bellamont, for a thousand! Carried off a post. Needs must, when a school-boy drives.]

Lord B. (Without.) Give them their heads, and be hanged to ye! Easy, easy! (Enter Lord Bellamont, R., dressed in the extreme of the slang fashion, cutting through a crowd of stable boys.)

Lord B. Out of the way, rascals! [Where the deuce has this marmoset of my lady mother’s hid himself?] Oh, there you are, Sippet! How are you? (Extends a finger.)

[ Sip. (Greeting him eagerly.) Not hurt, I hope?]

Lord B. [Not I!] ⁶ Hard as nails. [Expected though to have been brought t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction
• The School for Coquettes
• Lords and Commons
• The Queen’s Champion
• Salvoisy; or, The Queen’s Lover
• Modern Honour; or, The Sharper in High Life
• The King’s Seal
• The Maid of Croissey; or, Theresa’s Vow
• King O’Neil; or, The Irish Brigade
• Don Juan of Austria
• The Tale of a Tub
• A Good Night’s Rest; or, Two in the Morning
• Quid Pro Quo; or, The Day of Dupes
• Glossary
• Bibliography