Chapter VIII: Epilogue: Spoken by Sir Timothy Tawdrey

_Sir_ Timothy, _Gallants, at last is come To know his Sentence, and receive his Doom, But pray before you are resolv’d to be Severe, look on your selves, and then on me; Observe me well, I am a Man of Show, Of Noise, and Nonsense, as are most of you. Though all of you don’t share with me in Title, In Character you differ very little. Tell me in what you find a Difference? It may be you will say, you’re Men of Sense; But Faith-- Were one of you o’th’ Stage, and I i’th’ Pit, He might be thought the Fop, and I the Wit. On equal Grounds you’ll scarce know one from t’other; We are as like, as Brother is to Brother. To judge against me then wou’d be Ill-Nature, For Men are kind to those they’re like in Feature. For Judges therefore I accept you all; By you, Sir_ Timothy _will stand or fall. He’s too faint-hearted that his Sentence fears, Who has the Honour to be try’d by’s Peers_.

Written by Mr. _E.R_.

THE FALSE COUNT.

ARGUMENT.

Don Carlos, Governor of Cadiz, who has been contracted to Julia, now married to a rich old churl, Francisco, in order to gain her, mans a galley, which has been captured from the Turks, with some forty or fifty attendants disguised as ferocious Ottomans; and whilst she, her husband and a party of friends are taking a pleasure trip in a yacht, they are suddenly boarded and all made prisoners by the supposed corsairs, who carry them off to a country villa a few miles from the town belonging to Carlos’ friend, Antonio, which, however, they are firmly convinc’d is a palace inhabited by the Great Turk himself. Here Carlos appears, dressed as the Sultan, with much pomp, and Francisco, overwhelmed with terror, speedily relinquishes Julia to his captor. In order to punish her for her intolerable arrogance, Isabella, Francisco’s daughter by his former wife, who is designed to wed Antonio, is introduced to a chimney-sweep, Guiliom, masquerading as a noble of high degree. She forthwith strikes up a match with the False Count, leaving Antonio free to marry Clara, Julia’s sister, whom he loves. No sooner, however, has the knot been securely tied than Guiliom, appearing in his sooty rags and with smutched face, publicly demands and humiliates his haughty bride. The trick of the feigned Turks is discovered by the arrival at the villa of Baltazer, Julia’s father. Don Carlos, however, claims his mistress by reason of his former contract, which is perforce allowed.

SOURCE.

Guiliom, masquerading as a Count, is of course directly derived from _Les Précieuses Ridicules_, first performed 18 November, 1659, and Isabella is a close copy of Cathos and Magdelon. Flecknoe had already adapted Molière in _The Damoiselles à la Mode_, unacted (4to 1667); and seven years later than Mrs. Behn, Shadwell, in his fine comedy, _Bury Fair_ (1689), drew largely from the same source. His mock noble is a French peruke-maker, La Roch, who marries Lady Fantast’s affected daughter. Miller, in his _The Man of Taste; or, The Guardian_ (1735), blended the same plot with _L’Ecole des Maris_. The stratagem of the feigned Turkish ship capturing the yacht is a happy extension of a hint from the famous galley scene (Que diable allait-il faire à cette galère?), Act ii, 7, _Les Fourberies de Scapin_. This, however, is not original with Molière, being entirely borrowed from _Le Pédant Joué_, Act ii, 4, of Cyrano de Bergerac (1654). What is practically a translation of _Les Fourberies de Scapin_ by Otway, was produced at the Duke’s Theatre in 1677, and in the same year Ravenscroft included a great part of it in his _Scaramouch a Philosopher, Harlequin a Schoolboy, Bravo, Merchant, and Magician_.

In the Epilogue Mrs. Behn asserts that she wrote _The False Count_ with ease in something less than a week. This may be a pardonable exaggeration; but there are certainly distinct marks of haste in the composition of the play. In Act iii, I, she evidently intended Francisco and his party to be seized as they were returning home by sea, at the end of the act she arranges their sea trip as an excursion on a yacht.

THEATRICAL HISTORY.

_The False Count; or, A New Way to Play an Old Game_ was produced at the Duke’s Theatre, Dorset Garden, in the autumn of 1682, not later than the end of October. An excellent rattling farce, it seems to have kept the stage at intervals for some twenty years. On 11 August, 1715, there was a revival at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It is billed as ‘not acted ten years’. Spiller played Guiliom, Mrs. Moor Isabella, and Mrs. Thurmond Julia. There is no further record of its performance.

THE FALSE COUNT: or, A New Way to play an old Game.