Chapter I: Introduction

Susanna Centlivre (1667?-1723) in _The Busie Body_ (1709) contributed to the stage one of the most successful comedies of intrigue of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This play, written when there was a decided trend in England toward sentimental drama, shows Mrs. Centlivre a strong supporter of laughing comedy. She had turned for a time to sentimental comedy and with one of her three sentimental plays, _The Gamester_ (1704), had achieved a great success. But her true bent seems to have been toward realistic comedies, chiefly of intrigue: of her nineteen plays written from 1700 to 1723, ten are realistic comedies. Three of these proved very popular in her time and enjoyed a long stage history: _The Busie Body_ (1709); _The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret_ (1714); and _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_ (1717). _The Busie Body_ best illustrates Mrs. Centlivre's preference for laughing comedy with an improved moral tone. The characters and the plot are amusing but inoffensive, and, compared to those of Restoration drama, satisfy the desire of the growing eighteenth-century middle-class audience for respectability on the stage.

The theory of comedy on which _The Busie Body_ rests is a traditional one, but Mrs. Centlivre's simple pronouncements on the virtues of realistic over sentimental comedy are interesting because of the controversy on this subject among critics and writers at this time. In the preface to her first play, _The Perjur'd Husband_ (1700), she takes issue with Jeremy Collier on the charge of immorality in realistic plays. The stage, she believes, should present characters as they are; it is unreasonable to expect a "Person, whose inclinations are always forming Projects to the Dishonor of her Husband, should deliver her Commands to her Confident in the Words of a Psalm." In a letter written in 1700 she says: "I think the main design of Comedy is to make us laugh." (Abel Boyer, _Letters of Wit, Politicks, and Morality_, London, 1701, p. 362). But, she adds, since Collier has taught religion to the "Rhiming Trade, the Comick Muse in Tragick Posture sat" until she discovered Farquhar, whose language is amusing but decorous and whose plots are virtuous. This insistence on decorum and virtue indicates a concession to Collier and to the public. Thus in the preface to _Love's Contrivance_ (1703), she reiterates her belief that comedy should amuse but adds that she strove for a "modest stile" which might not "disoblige the nicest ear." This modest style, not practiced in early plays, is achieved admirably in _The Busie Body_. Yet, as she says in the epilogue, she has not followed the critics who balk the pleasure of the audience to refine their taste; her play will with "good humour, pleasure crown the Night." In dialogue, in plot, and particularly in the character of the amusing but inoffensive Marplot, she fulfills her simple theory of comedy designed not for reform but for laughter.

Mrs. Centlivre followed the practices of her contemporaries in borrowing the plot for _The Busie Body_. The three sources for the play are: _The Devil Is an Ass_ (1616) by Jonson; _L'Etourdi_ (1658) by Molière; and _Sir Martin Mar-all or The Feigned Innocence_ (1667) by Dryden. From _The Devil Is an Ass_, Mrs. Centlivre borrowed minor details and two episodes, one of them the amusing dumb scene. This scene, though a close imitation, seems more amusing in _The Busie Body_ than in Jonson's play, perhaps because the characters, especially Sir Francis Gripe and Miranda, are more credible and more fully portrayed. From the second source for _The Busie Body_, Molière's _L'Etourdi_, I believe Mrs. Centlivre borrowed the framework for her parallel plots, the theme of Marplot's blundering, and the name and general character of Marplot. But she has improved what she borrowed. She places in Molière's framework more credible women characters than his, especially in the charming Miranda and the crafty Patch; she constructs a more skillful intrigue plot for the stage than his subplot and emphasizes Spanish customs in the lively Charles-Isabinda-Traffick plot. Mrs. Centlivre concentrates on Marplot's blundering, whereas Molière concentrates on the servant Mascarille's schemes. Marplot's funniest blunder, in the "monkey" scene, is entirely original as far as I know (IV, iv). But her greatest change is in the character of Marplot, who in her hands becomes not so much stupid as human and irresistibly ludicrous. Mrs. Centlivre's style is of course inferior to that of Molière. In the preface to _Love's Contrivance_ (1703), in speaking of borrowings from Molière, she said that borrowers "must take care to touch the Colors with an English Pencil, and form the Piece according to our Manners." Of course her touching the "Colors with an English Pencil" meant changing the style of Molière to suit the less delicate taste of the middle-class English audience.

A third source for _The Busie Body_ is Dryden's _Sir Martin Mar-all_ (1667). Since Dryden followed Molière with considerable exactness, it would be difficult to prove beyond doubt that Mrs. Centlivre borrowed from Molière rather than from Dryden. Yet I believe, after a careful analysis of the plays, that she borrowed from Molière. She made of _The Busie Body_ a comedy of intrigue based on the theme and plot used by both Molière and Dryden, but she omitted the scandalous Restoration third plot which Dryden had added to Molière. Her characters are English in speech and action, but they lack the coarseness apparent in Dryden's _Sir Martin Mar-all_. Though it is impossible to prove the exact sources of Mrs. Centlivre's borrowings, there is no doubt that she has improved what she borrowed.

Whatever the truth may be about Mrs. Centlivre's use of her sources, her play remained in the repertory of acting plays long after _L'Etourdi_ and _Sir Martin Mar-all_ had disappeared. _The Busie Body_ opened at the Drury Lane Theater on May 12, 1709. Steele, who listed the play in _The Tatler_ for May 14, 1709, does not mention the length of the run. Thomas Whincop says that the play ran thirteen nights (_Scanderbeg_, London, 1747, p. 190), but Genest says the play had an opening run of seven nights (_Some Account of the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830_, II, 419). The play remained popular throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Genest lists it as being presented in twenty-three seasons from 1709 to 1800. It was certainly presented much more frequently than this record shows, for Dougald MacMillan in _The Drury Lane Calendar_ lists fifty-three performances from 1747-1776, whereas Genest records two performances in this period. The greatest number of performances in any season was fourteen in 1758-59, the year David Garrick appeared in the play. From the records available _The Busie Body_ seems to have reached its greatest popularity in England in the middle and late eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century. William Hazlitt, in the "Prefatory Remarks" to the Oxberry acting edition of 1819, says _The Busie Body_ has been acted a "thousand times in town and country, giving delight to the old, the young, and the middle-aged."

_The Busie Body_ enjoyed a similar place of importance in the stage history of America but achieved its greatest popularity, in New York at least, in the nineteenth century. First performed in Williamsburg on September 10, 1736, the play was presented fifteen times in New York in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century forty-five performances were given in New York in sixteen seasons from 1803 to 1885 (George Odell, _Annals of the New York Stage_). _The Busie Body_ is frequently cited with _The Rivals_ and _The School for Scandal_ for opening seasons and for long runs by great actors.

The text here reproduced is from a copy of the first edition now in the library of the University of Michigan.

_Jess Byrd_
_Salem College_

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THE
BUSIE BODY:

A
COMEDY.

As it is Acted at the
THEATRE-ROYAL
in
_DRURY-LANE_,

By Her Majesty's Servants.

Written by Mrs. SUSANNA CENTLIVRE.

Quem tulit ad scenam ventoso Gloria curru,
Exanimat lentus Spectator, sedulus inflat.
Sic Leve, sic parvum est, animum quod laudis avarum
Subruit aut reficit--

Horat. Epist. Lib. II. Ep. 1.

_LONDON_,

Printed for BERNARD LINTOTT, at the _Cross-Keys_ between the Two _Temple-Gates_ in _Fleet-street_.

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To The
RIGHT HONOURABLE

_JOHN_ Lord _SOMMERS_,

Lord-President of Her HAJESTY's most
Honourable Privy-Council.

_May it please Your Lordship,_

As it's an Establish'd Custom in these latter Ages, for all Writers, particularly the Poetical, to shelter their Productions under the Protection of the most Distinguish'd, whose Approbation produces a kind of Inspiration, much superior to that which the _Heathenish_ Poets pretended to derive from their Fictitious _Apollo_: So it was my Ambition to Address one of my weak Performances to Your Lordship, who, by Universal Consent, are justly allow'd to be the best Judge of all kinds of Writing.

I was indeed at first deterr'd from my Design, by a Thought that it might be accounted unpardonable Rudeness to obtrude a Trifle of this Nature to a Person, whose sublime Wisdom moderates that Council, which at this Critical Juncture, over-rules the Fate of all _Europe_. But then I was encourag'd by Reflecting, that _Lelius_ and _Scipio_, the two greatest Men in their Time, among the _Romans_, both for Political and Military Virtues, in the height of their important Affairs, thought the Perusal and Improving of _Terence_'s Comedies the noblest way of Unbinding their Minds. I own I were guilty of the highest Vanity, should I presume to put my Composures in Parallel with those of that Celebrated _Dramatist_. But then again, I hope that Your Lordship's native Goodness and Generosity, in Condescension to the Taste of the Best and Fairest part of the Town, who have been pleas'd to be diverted by the following SCENES, will excuse and overlook such Faults as your nicer Judgment might discern.

And here, my Lord, the Occasion seems fair for me to engage in a Panegyrick upon those Natural and Acquired Abilities, which so brightly Adorn your Person: But I shall resist that Temptation, being conscious of the Inequality of a Female Pen to so Masculine an Attempt; and having no other Ambition, than to Subscribe my self,

My Lord,
Your Lordship's
Most Humble and
Most Obedient Servant,

SUSANNA CENTLIVRE.