Short Plays

merely of literature, but almost of humanity.

Yet some of the worst of these post-Shakespearean duffers, from Jonson to Heywood, suddenly became poets when they turned from the big drum of pseudo-Shakespearean drama to the pipe and tabor of the masque, exactly as Shakespeare himself recovered the old charm of the rigmarole when he turned from Prospero to Ariel and Caliban. Cyril Tourneur and Heywood could certainly have produced very pretty rigmarole plays if they had begun where Shakespeare began, instead of trying to begin where he left off. Jonson and Beaumont would very likely have done themselves credit on the same terms: Marston would have had at least a chance. Massinger was in his right place, such as it was; and one would not disturb the gentle Ford, who was never born to storm the footlights. Webster could have done no good anyhow or anywhere: the man was a fool. And Chapman would always have been a blathering unreadable pedant, like Landor, in spite of his classical amateurship and respectable strenuosity of character. But with these exceptions it may plausibly be held that if Marlowe and Shakespeare could have been kept out of their way, the rest would have done well enough on the lines of Peele and Greene. However, they thought otherwise; and now that their freethinking paganism, so dazzling to the pupils of Paley and the converts of Wesley, offers itself in vain to the disciples of Darwin and Nietzsche, there is an end of them. And a good riddance, too.

Accordingly, I have poetasted “The Admirable Bashville” in the rigmarole style. And lest the Webster worshippers should declare that there is not a single correct line in all my three acts, I have stolen or paraphrased a few from Marlowe and Shakespeare (not to mention Henry Carey); so that if any man dares quote me derisively, he shall do so in peril of inadvertently lighting on a purple patch from Hamlet or Faustus.

I have also endeavored in this little play to prove that I am not the heartless creature some of my critics take me for. I have strictly observed the established laws of stage popularity and probability. I have simplified the character of the heroine, and summed up her sweetness in the one sacred word: Love. I have given consistency to the heroism of Cashel. I have paid to Morality, in the final scene, the tribute of poetic justice. I have restored to Patriotism its usual place on the stage, and gracefully acknowledged The Throne as the fountain of social honor. I have paid particular attention to the construction of the play, which will be found equal in this respect to the best contemporary models.

And I trust the result will be found satisfactory.

Dramatis Personae

• Lydia Carew

• Cashel Byron

• Bob Mellish

• Lucian Webber

• Bashville

• Lord Worthington

• Cetewayo

• Paradise

• The Master of the Revels

• A Policeman

• Adelaide Gisborne

• Voice of a Newsboy

• Spectators; Persions of Fashion; Zulu Chiefs; Constables; and Others

Act I

A glade in Wiltstoken Park.

	Enter Lydia.
Lydia	Ye leafy breasts and warm protecting wings Of mother trees that hatch our tender souls, And from the well of Nature in our hearts Thaw the intolerable inch of ice That bears the weight of all the stamping world. Hear ye me sing to solitude that I, Lydia Carew, the owner of these lands, Albeit most rich, most learned, and most wise, Am yet most lonely. What are riches worth When wisdom with them comes to show the purse bearer That life remains unpurchasable? Learning Learns but one lesson: doubt! To excel all Is, to be lonely. Oh, ye busy birds, Engrossed with real needs, ye shameless trees With arms outspread in welcome of the sun, Your minds, bent singly to enlarge your lives, Have given you wings and raised your delicate heads High heavens above us crawlers.
	A rook sets up a great cawing; and the other birds chatter loudly as a gust of wind sets the branches swaying. She makes as though she would show them her sleeves.
	Lo, the leaves That hide my drooping boughs! Mock me⁠—poor maid!⁠— Deride with joyous comfortable chatter These stolen feathers. Laugh at me, the clothed one. Laugh at the mind fed on foul air and books. Books! Art! And Culture! Oh, I shall go mad. Give me a mate that never heard of these, A sylvan god, tree born in heart and sap; Or else, eternal maidhood be my hap.
	Another gust of wind and bird-chatter. She sits on the mossy root of an oak and buries her face in her hands. Cashel Byron, in a white singlet and breeches, comes through the trees.
Cashel	What’s this? Whom have we here? A woman!
Lydia	Looking up. Yes.
Cashel	You have no business here. I have. Away! Women distract me. Hence!
Lydia	Bid you me hence? I am upon mine own ground. Who are you? I take you for a god, a sylvan god. This place is mine: I share it with the birds, The trees, the sylvan gods, the lovely company Of haunted solitudes.
Cashel	A sylvan god! A goat-eared image! Do your statues speak? Walk? heave the chest with breath? or like a feather Lift you⁠—like this?
	He sets her on her feet.
Lydia	Panting. You take away my breath! You’re strong. Your hands off, please. Thank you. Farewell.
Cashel	Before you go: when shall we meet again?
Lydia	Why should we meet again?
Cashel	Who knows? We shall. That much I know by instinct. What’s your name?
Lydia	Lydia Carew.
Cashel	Lydia’s a pretty name. Where do you live?
Lydia	I’ the castle.
Cashel	Thunderstruck. Do not say You are the lady of this great domain.
Lydia	I am.
Cashel	Accursed luck! I took you for The daughter of some farmer. Well, your pardon. I came too close: I looked too deep. Farewell.
Lydia	I pardon that. Now tell me who you are.
Cashel	Ask me not whence I come, nor what I am. You are the lady of the castle. I Have but this hard and blackened hand to live by.
Lydia	I have felt its strength and envied you. Your name? I have told you mine.
Cashel	My name is Cashel Byron.
Lydia	I never heard the name; and yet you