The Lamplighter – by Charles Dickens (1838)

Foreword

The story of how The Lamplighter came to be, begins with William Charles Macready, actor and theatre manager, and one of the great dramatic figures of Dickens’s time. Macready was ranked among the finest of Shakespearean actors, second only to Kean, and Dickens idolized the great performer for much of his young life. He wrote Macready: “I think I have told you sometimes, my much-loved friend, how, when I was a mere boy, I was one of your faithful and devoted adherents in the Pit—I believe as true a member of that true host of followers as it has ever boasted. As I improved myself and was improved by favoring circumstances in mind and fortune, I only became the more earnest (if it were possible) in my study of you” (Pilgrim 6:301).

Dickens and Macready had finally met, while Dickens was still writing the monthly Pickwick Papers. After a rehearsal of Macready in Othello, theatre critic Forster had taken his friend Dickens backstage, and introduced him to his boyhood idol (16 Jun 1837). The two men became among the closest of friends. Both were to stand godfather to a child of the other, and during the Dickenses’ first trip to America, it was to be the Macreadys who cared for their children (1842). Naturally enough, Dickens wanted to support Macready’s work as a theatre manager, and he soon conceived the idea of writing a comedy for the manager of Covent Garden Theatre.

But could he really write something good enough? He had his doubts. Dickens wrote to his friend Forster (3 Nov 1837): “Talking of Comedies, I still see ‘No Thoroughfare’ staring me in the face, every time I look down that road” (Pilgrim 1:328). “No Thoroughfare” here means a dead-end road; Dickens felt that any attempt he made to write a comedy for Macready, might end up a dead-end. But he wanted to try. Forster wrote, in his biography of Dickens: “The allusion to the comedy expresses a fancy he at this time had of being able to contribute some such achievement in aid of Macready’s gallant efforts at Covent-garden to bring back to the stage its higher associations of good literature and intellectual enjoyment” (96–97).

Just over a year later, Dickens finally began to write a comedy for Macready—The Lamplighter (probably begun 28 Nov 1838). The lead role of Tom Grig was written for J.P. Harley, the popular comic actor who had had the best roles in Dickens’s first three plays. (At the St. James Theatre, Harley had played the Strange Gentleman, Martin Stokes, and Felix Tapkins.) It was Harley, a friend, like Macready, who suggested to Dickens a joke about Tom Grig’s uncle, an old oil lamplighter, who had extinguished himself after gas lighting was installed (Pilgrim 7:794–5). Preoccupied with Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens spent as little as one week writing Lamplighter, or even less. The day before Dickens was to present the play, he was still scrambling to finish it (Pilgrim 1:465). The comedy was given two trial readings before Macready, who recorded in his diary his notes:

December 5th.—Dickens brought me his farce, which he read to me. The dialogue is very good, full of point, but I am not sure about the meagreness of the plot. He reads as well as an experienced actor would—he is a surprising man.

December 11th.—Dickens came with Forster and read his farce. There was manifest disappointment; it went flatly, a few ready laughs, but generally an even smile, broken in upon by the horse-laugh of Forster, the most indiscreet friend that ever allied himself to any person. He has goaded Dickens to write this farce, and now (without testing its chances of success) would drive it upon the stage. Defend me from my friends! It was agreed that it should be put into rehearsal, and, when nearly ready, should be seen and judged of by Dickens! I cannot sufficiently condemn the officious folly of this marplot, Forster, who embroils his friends in difficulties and distress in this most determined manner. It is quite too bad.

December 12th.—A long discussion on Dickens’s farce; called in for their opinion Messrs. Bartley and Harley. The result was that Forster decided on withdrawing the farce.

December 13th.—Wrote to Bulwer, and to Dickens, about his farce, explaining to him my motives for wishing to withdraw it, and my great obligation to him. He returned to me an answer which is an honour to him. How truly delightful it is to meet with high-minded and warm-hearted men. Dickens and Bulwer have been certainly to me noble specimens of human nature… (1:480–82).

In Dickens’s answer to Macready, he had written (13 Dec 1838): “I can have but one opinion on the subject—withdraw the farce at once, by all means. | I perfectly concur in all you say, and thank you most heartily and cordially for your kind and manly conduct which is only what I should have expected from you, though under such circumstances I sincerely believe there are few but you—if any—who would have adopted it. | Believe me that I have no other feeling of disappointment connected with this matter, but that arising from the not having been able to be of some use to you. And trust me that if the opportunity should ever arise, my ardour will only be increased—not damped—by the result of this experiment” (Pilgrim 1:468). Dickens wrote a similar letter to his actor friend J.P. Harley, assuring him that he felt no resentment about the rejection (Pilgrim 1:480–481)

In later years, Dickens well remembered these two trial readings of The Lamplighter, and remembered also the reactions of the managers Macready and Bartley. Macready, as seen from his diary, was impressed, at least by Dickens’s skill as an actor, if not as a playwright. Dickens had claimed to know his part by heart—Macready tested him on this, and was surprised to find it true. Bartley was also watching, and for Dickens, this had a special meaning. When Dickens was much younger, before he had had any success as a writer, it was Bartley who had actually agreed to audition him as an actor—but Dickens caught a terribly bad cold, and missed the audition. Dickens suspected his entire life might have been different, if he only he had made that audition (Pilgrim 4:244–45). And now, here he was, reading before Bartley at last. Dickens wrote: “I had an odd fancy, when I was reading the unfortunate little farce at Covent-garden, that Bartley looked as if some struggling recollection and connection were stirring up within him—but it may only have been his doubts of that humorous composition” (Pilgrim 4:322). Working with Bartley apparently was not meant to be, and, as noted, the play was withdrawn.

So The Lamplighter, as a play, turned out to be a bit of a dead-end after all. Fortunately, Dickens was, ultimately, able to do a bit to promote Macready’s theatre efforts—though not as a playwright. As a speaker, Dickens chaired the dinner given to Macready at the Shakespeare Club (30 Mar 1839). Macready described his speech thus: “It took a review of my enterprise at Covent Garden, and summed up with an eulogy on myself that quite overpowered me” (Macready, 1:505). Dickens was also a steward and speaker at the banquet to honour Macready at the end of his tenure of Covent Garden (20 Jul 1839). Macready went on to manage Drury Lane. As a theatre reviewer, Dickens wrote a few good notices for Macready in the Examiner, and as a journalist, he gave Macready (by then retired) two good mentions, in his Household Words, and in All the Year Round. The two men remained warm friends for life.

It would take a lot of hubris for Forster or Dickens to claim that The Lamplighter provides “good literature and intellectual enjoyment”, and it would take a brazen face for anyone to read it before Macready, who was presenting Othello and Macbeth on the stage. The little play The Lamplighter may not be worthy of Shakespeare, nor of Dickens, but it is worthy of your time to read it. Like most of Dickens’s plays, it is weak in many parts, but contains enough good matter to justify study with perseverance.

The initial hurdle for the reader to clear is the opening scene. It is dense with topical references, but with a bit of explanation they will be gotten over. So: 1) A grig is a cricket, and the Lamplighter, Tom Grig, is supposed to be as merry as a cricket. 2) Merry Tom Grig opens the play with his own cockneyfied version of a sentimental ballad from Charles XII, a historical drama by J.R. Planché. (Dickens’s amateur actors later staged the play.) 3) Tom fails to find a rhyme for “kivver” (i.e. cover)—to understand the joke, note that: “Once upon a time it was considered the height of indelicacy and low breeding to mention the ‘liver’ or any portion of one’s internal machinery” (Corelli, chap. 5). 4) Alderman Robert Waithman had recently died (6 Feb 1833), and had a obelisk erected “by his friends and fellow citizens” the same year, near the corner of Fleet Street and New Bridge Street, where he had kept his linendraper shop. Grig calls the monument an “obstacle”, just as Dickens was to later call Temple Bar a “leaden-headed old obstruction” to Fleet Street traffic (in the opening of Bleak House). 5) Halley’s Comet had recently passed the Earth (most visibly in Sep-Oct 1835), and, as ever, was much noted, as an event and an omen, in the newspapers and almanacs. 6) From Tom’s ladder-top in the first scene, he can see a coach yard, where coaches come and go, drawn by four horses. Coaches were privately owned, and had—not numbers—but colourful names; Tom Grig mentions two such names.

Leap the fence of the first scene, and rest will be an easy canter. Watch particularly for the section when it begins to rain; this is Dickens at his finest. Take notice, too, of Betsy Martin; she is the waiting-maid of the house (though Dickens forgets to mention this). Betsy’s a common Dickens “type”; knowing, sharp-tongued, clever, working-class; but Betsy is a woman, and it’s not common to have a complicated and effective woman in Dickens. There’s also much humour toward the end of the play, in the astrologer’s laboratory; this will remind some readers of Our Mutual Friend, and Mr. Venus’s disturbing shop of natural curiosities. Those are just some points a reader might bear in mind, while the play unfolds. Some may trot through The Lamplighter with an even smile, but many, like Forster (and, I must confess, myself), will gallop through with horse-laughs, however indiscrete. So now, lights down, curtain up.

THE LAMPLIGHTER

A FARCE

IN ONE ACT

[by Charles Dickens – 1838]

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

MR. STARGAZER.

MASTER GALILEO ISAAC NEWTON FLAMSTEAD STARGAZER (his son).

TOM GRIG (the Lamplighter).

MR. MOONEY (an Astrologer).

SERVANT.

BETSY MARTIN.

EMMA STARGAZER.

FANNY BROWN.

THE LAMPLIGHTER

SCENE I.—The Street, outside of MR. STARGAZER’S house.

Two street Lamp-posts in front.

TOM GRIG (with ladder and lantern, singing as he enters).

Day has gone down o’er the Baltic’s proud bil-ler;

Evening has sigh’d, alas! to the lone wil-ler;

Night hurries on, night hurries on, earth and ocean to kiv-ver;

Rise, gentle moon, rise, gentle moon, and guide me to my—

That ain’t a rhyme, that ain’t—kiv-ver and lover! I ain’t much of a poet; but if I couldn’t make better verse than that, I’d undertake to be set fire to, and put up, instead of the lamp, before Alderman Waithman’s obstacle in Fleet-street. Bil-ler, wil-ler, kiv-ver—shiver, obviously. That’s what I call poetry. (Sings.)

Day has gone down o’er the Baltic’s proud bil-ler—

(During the previous speech he has been occupied in lighting one of the lamps. As he is about to light the other, MR. STARGAZER appears at window, with a telescope.)

MR. STARGAZER (after spying most intently at the clouds). Holloa!

TOM (on ladder). Sir, to you! And holloa again, if you come to that.

MR. STARGAZER. Have you seen the comet?

TOM. What Comet—The Exeter Comet?

MR. STARGAZER. What comet? The comet—Halley’s comet!

TOM. Nelson’s, you mean. I saw it coming out of the yard, not five minutes ago.

MR. STARGAZER. Could you distinguish anything of a tail?

TOM. Distinguish a tail? I believe you—four tails!

MR. STARGAZER. A comet with four tails; and all visible to the naked eye! Nonsense, it couldn’t be.

TOM. You wouldn’t say that again if you was down here, old Bantam. (Clock strikes five.) You’ll tell me next, I suppose, that that isn’t five o’clock striking, eh?

MR. STARGAZER. Five o’clock—five o’clock! Five o’clock P.M. on the thirtieth day of November, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight! Stop till I come down—stop! Don’t go away on any account—not a foot, not a step. (Closes window.)

TOM (descending, and shouldering his ladder). Stop! stop, to a lamplighter, with three hundred and seventy shops and a hundred and twenty private houses waiting to be set a light to! Stop, to a lamplighter!

As he is running off, enter MR. STARGAZER from his

house, hastily.

MR. STARGAZER (detaining him). Not for your life!—not for your life! The thirtieth day of November, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight! Miraculous circumstance! extraordinary fulfilment of a prediction of the planets!

TOM. What are you talking about?

MR. STARGAZER (looking about). Is there nobody else in sight, up the street or down? No, not a soul! This, then, is the man whose coming was revealed to me by the stars, six months ago!

TOM. What do you mean?

MR. STARGAZER. Young man, that I have consulted the Book of Fate with rare and wonderful success,—that coming events have cast their shadows before.

TOM. Don’t talk nonsense to me,—I ain’t an event; I’m a lamplighter!

MR. STARGAZER. (aside). True!—Strange destiny that one, announced by the planets as of noble birth, should be devoted to so humble an occupation. (Aloud.) But you were not always a lamplighter?

TOM. Why, no. I wasn’t born with a ladder on my left shoulder, and a light in my other hand. But I took to it very early, though,—I had it from my uncle.

MR. STARGAZER (aside). He had it from his uncle! How plain, and yet how forcible, is his language! He speaks of lamplighting, as though it were the whooping-cough or measles! (To him.) Ay!

TOM. Yes, he was the original. You should have known him!—’cod! he was a genius, if ever there was one. Gas was the death of him! When gas lamps was first talked of, my uncle draws himself up, and says, ‘I’ll not believe it, there’s no sich a thing,’ he says. ‘You might as well talk of laying on an everlasting succession of glow-worms!’ But when they made the experiment of lighting a piece of Pall Mall—

MR. STARGAZER. That was when it first came up?

TOM. No, no, that was when it was first laid down. Don’t mind me; I can’t help a joke, now and then. My uncle was sometimes took that way. When the experiment was made of lighting a piece of Pall Mall, and he had actually witnessed it, with his own eyes, you should have seen my uncle then!

MR. STARGAZER. So much overcome?

TOM. Overcome, sir! He fell off his ladder, from weakness, fourteen times that very night; and his last fall was into a wheelbarrow that was going his way, and humanely took him home. ‘I foresee in this,’ he says, ‘the breaking up of our profession; no more polishing of the tin reflectors,’ he says; ‘no more fancy-work, in the way of clipping the cottons at two o’clock in the morning; no more going the rounds to trim by daylight, and dribbling down of the ile on the hats and bonnets of the ladies and gentlemen, when one feels in good spirits. Any low fellow can light a gas-lamp, and it’s all up!’ So he petitioned the government for—what do you call that that they give to people when it’s found out that they’ve never been of any use, and have been paid too much for doing nothin?

MR. STARGAZER. Compensation?

TOM. Yes, that’s the thing,—compensation. They didn’t give him any, though! And then he got very fond of his country all at once, and went about, saying how that the bringing in of gas was a death-blow to his native land, and how that its ile and cotton trade was gone for ever, and the whales would go and kill themselves, privately, in spite and vexation at not being caught! After this, he was right-down cracked, and called his ’bacco pipe a gas pipe, and thought his tears was lamp ile, and all manner of nonsense. At last, he went and hung himself on a lamp iron, in St. Martin’s Lane, that he’d always been very fond of; and as he was a remarkably good husband, and had never had any secrets from his wife, he put a note in the twopenny post, as he went along, to tell the widder where the body was.

MR. STARGAZER (laying his hand upon his arm, and speaking mysteriously). Do you remember your parents?

TOM. My mother I do, very well!

MR. STARGAZER. Was she of noble birth?

TOM. Pretty well. She was in the mangling line. Her mother came of a highly respectable family,—such a business, in the sweetstuff and hardbake way!

MR. STARGAZER. Perhaps your father was—

TOM. Why, I hardly know about him. The fact is, there was some little doubt, at the time, who was my father. Two or three young gentlemen were paid the pleasing compliment; but their incomes being limited, they were compelled delicately to decline it.

MR. STARGAZER. Then the prediction is not fulfilled merely in part, but entirely and completely. Listen, young man,—I am acquainted with all the celestial bodies—

TOM. Are you, though?—I hope they are quite well,—every body.

MR. STARGAZER. Don’t interrupt me. I am versed in the great sciences of astronomy and astrology; in my house there I have every description of apparatus for observing the course and motion of the planets. I’m writing a work about them, which will consist of eighty-four volumes, imperial quarto; and an appendix, nearly twice as long. I read what’s going to happen in the stars.

TOM. Read what’s going to happen in the stars! Will anything particular happen in the stars in the course of next week, now?

MR. STARGAZER. You don’t understand me. I read in the stars what’s going to happen here. Six months ago I derived from this source the knowledge that, precisely as the clock struck five, on the afternoon of this very day, a stranger would present himself before my enraptured sight,—that stranger would be a man of illustrious and high descent,—that stranger would be the destined husband of my young and lovely niece, who is now beneath that roof (points to his house);—that stranger is yourself: I receive you with open arms!

TOM. Me! I, the man of illustrious and high—I, the husband of a young and lovely—Oh! it can’t be, you know! the stars have made a mistake—the comet has put ’em out!

MR. STARGAZER. Impossible! The characters were as plain as pike-staves. The clock struck five; you were here; there was not a soul in sight; a mystery envelopes your birth; you are a man of noble aspect. Does not everything combine to prove the accuracy of my observations?

TOM. Upon my word, it looks like it! And now I come to think of it, I have very often felt as if I wasn’t the small beer I was taken for. And yet I don’t know,—you’re quite sure about the noble aspect?

MR. STARGAZER. Positively certain.

TOM. Give me your hand.

MR. STARGAZER. And my heart, too! (They shake hands heartily.)

TOM. The young lady is tolerably good-looking, is she?

MR. STARGAZER. Beautiful! A graceful carriage, an exquisite shape, a sweet voice; a countenance beaming with animation and expression; the eye of a startled fawn.

TOM. I see; a sort of game eye. Does she happen to have any of the—this is quite between you and me, you know,—and I only ask from curiosity,—not because I care about it,—any of the ready?

MR. STARGAZER. Five thousand pounds! But what of that? what of that? A word in your ear. I’m in search of the philosopher’s stone! I have very nearly found it—not quite. It turns everything to gold; that’s its property.

TOM. What a lot of property it must have!

MR. STARGAZER. When I get it, we’ll keep it in the family. Not a word to any one! What will money be to us? We shall never be able to spend it fast enough.

TOM. Well, you know, we can but try,—I’ll do my best endeavours.

MR. STARGAZER. Thank you,—thank you! But I’ll introduce you to your future bride at once:—this way, this way!

TOM. What, without going my rounds first?

MR. STARGAZER. Certainly. A man in whom the planets take especial interest, and who is about to have a share in the philosopher’s stone, descend to lamplighting!

TOM. Perish the base idea! not by no means! I’ll take in my tools, though, to prevent any kind inquiries after me, at your door. (As he shoulders the ladder the sound of violent rain is heard.) Holloa.

MR. STARGAZER (putting his hand on his head in amazement). What’s that?

TOM. It’s coming down, rather.

MR. STARGAZER. Rain!

TOM. Ah! and a soaker, too!

MR. STARGAZER. It can’t be!—it’s impossible!—(Taking a book from his pocket, and turning over the pages hurriedly.) Look here,—here it is,—here’s the weather almanack,—‘Set fair,’—I knew it couldn’t be! (with great triumph).

TOM (turning up his collar as the rain increases). Don’t you think there’s a dampness in the atmosphere?

MR. STARGAZER (looking up). It’s singular,—it’s like rain!

TOM. Uncommonly like.

MR. STARGAZER. It’s a mistake in the elements, somehow. Here it is, ‘set fair,’—and set fair it ought to be. ‘Light clouds floating about.’ Ah! you see, there are no light clouds;—the weather’s all wrong.

TOM. Don’t you think we had better get under cover?

MR. STARGAZER (slowly retreating towards the house). I don’t acknowledge that it has any right to rain, mind! I protest against this. If Nature goes on in this way, I shall lose all respect for her,—it won’t do, you know; it ought to have been two degrees colder, yesterday; and instead of that, it was warmer. This is not the way to treat scientific men. I protest against it!

[Exeunt into house, both talking, TOM pushing

STARGAZER on, and the latter continually

turning back, to declaim against the weather.

SCENE II.—A room in STARGAZER’S house. BETSY MARTIN, EMMA STARGAZER, FANNY BROWN, and GALILEO, all murmuring together as they enter.

BETSY. I say, again, young ladies, that it’s shameful! unbearable!

ALL. Oh! shameful! shameful!

BETSY. Marry Miss Emma to a great, old, ugly, doting, dreaming As-tron-o-Magician, like Mr. Mooney, who’s always winking and blinking through telescopes and that, and can’t see a pretty face when it’s under his very nose!

GALILEO (with a melancholy air). There never was a pretty face under his nose, Betsy, leastways, since I’ve known him. He’s very plain.

BETSY. Ah! there’s poor young master, too; he hasn’t even spirits enough to laugh at his own jokes. I’m sure I pity him, from the very bottom of my heart.

FANNY and EMMA. Poor fellow!

GALILEO. Ain’t I a legitimate subject for pity? Ain’t it a dreadful thing that I, that am twenty-one come next Lady-day, should be treated like a little boy?—and all because my father is so busy with the moon’s age that he don’t care about mine; and so much occupied in making observations on the sun round which the earth revolves, that he takes no notice of the son that revolves round him! I wasn’t taken out of nankeen frocks and trousers till I became quite unpleasant in ’em.

ALL. What a shame!

GALILEO. I wasn’t, indeed. And look at me now! Here’s a state of things. Is this a suit of clothes for a major,—at least, for a gentleman who is a minor now, but will be a major on the very next Lady-day that comes? Is this a fit—

ALL (interrupting him). Certainly not!

GALILEO (vehemently). I won’t stand it—I won’t submit to it any longer. I will be married.

ALL. No, no, no! don’t be rash.

GALILEO. I will, I tell you. I’ll marry my cousin Fanny. Give me a kiss, Fanny; and Emma and Betsy will look the other way the while. (Kisses her.) There!

BETSY. Sir—sir! here’s your father coming!

GALILEO. Well, then, I’ll have another, as an antidote to my father. One more, Fanny. (Kisses her.)

MR. STARGAZER (without). This way! this way! You shall behold her immediately.

Enter MR. STARGAZER, TOM following bashfully.

MR. STARGAZER. Where is my—? Oh, here she is! Fanny, my dear, come here. Do you see that gentleman? (Aside.)

FANNY. What gentleman, uncle? Do you mean that elastic person yonder who is bowing with so much perseverance?

MR. STARGAZER. Hush! Yes; that’s the interesting stranger.

FANNY. Why, he is kissing his hand, uncle. What does the creature mean?

MR. STARGAZER. Ah, the rogue! Just like me, before I married your poor aunt,—all fire and impatience. He means love, my darling, love. I’ve such a delightful surprise for you. I didn’t tell you before, for fear there should be any mistake; but it’s all right, it’s all right. The stars have settled it all among ’em. He’s to be your husband!

FANNY. My husband, uncle? Goodness gracious, Emma! (Converses apart with her.)

MR. STARGAZER (aside). He has made a sensation already. His noble aspect and distinguished air have produced an instantaneous impression. Mr. Grig, will you permit me? (TOM advances awkwardly.)—This is my niece, Mr. Grig,—my niece, Miss Fanny Brown; my daughter, Emma,—Mr. Thomas Grig, the favourite of the planets.

TOM. I hope I see Miss Hemmer in a conwivial state. (Aside to MR. STARGAZER.) I say, I don’t know which is which.

MR. STARGAZER (aside). The young lady nearest here is your affianced bride. Say something appropriate.

TOM. Certainly; yes, of course. Let me see. Miss (crosses to her)—I—thank ’ee! (Kisses her, behind his hat. She screams.)

GALILEO (bursting from BETSY, who has been retaining him). Outrageous insolence! (Betsy runs off.)

MR. STARGAZER. Halloa, sir, halloa!

TOM. Who is this juvenile salamander, sir?

MR. STARGAZER. My little boy,—only my little boy, don’t mind him. Shake hands with the gentleman, sir, instantly (to GALILEO).

TOM. A very fine boy, indeed! and he does you great credit, sir. How d’ ye do, my little man? (They shake hands, GALILEO looking very wrathful, as TOM pats him on the head.) There, that’s very right and proper. ‘’Tis dogs delight to bark and bite’; not young gentlemen, you know. There, there!

MR. STARGAZER. Now let me introduce you to that sanctum sanctorum,—that hallowed ground,—that philosophical retreat—where I, the genius loci,—

TOM. Eh?

MR. STARGAZER. The genius loci—

TOM (aside). Something to drink, perhaps. Oh, ah! yes, yes!

MR. STARGAZER. Have made all my greatest and most profound discoveries! where the telescope has almost grown to my eye with constant application; and the glass retort has been shivered to pieces from the ardour with which my experiments have been pursued. There the illustrious Mooney is, even now, pursuing those researches which will enrich us with precious metal, and make us masters of the world. Come, Mr. Grig.

TOM. By all means, sir; and luck to the illustrious Mooney, say I,—not so much on Mooney’s account as for our noble selves.

MR. STARGAZER. Emma!

EMMA. Yes, papa.

MR. STARGAZER. The same day that makes your cousin Mrs. Grig, will make you and that immortal man, of whom we have just now spoken, one.

EMMA. Oh! consider, dear papa,—

MR. STARGAZER. You are unworthy of him, I know; but he,—kind, generous creature,—consents to overlook your defects, and to take you, for my sake,—devoted man!—Come, Mr. Grig!—Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead!

GALILEO. Well? (Advancing sulkily.)

MR. STARGAZER. In name, alas! but not in nature; knowing, even by sight, no other planets than the sun and moon,—here is your weekly pocket-money,—sixpence! Take it all!

TOM. And don’t spend it all at once, my man! Now, sir!

MR. STARGAZER. Now, Mr. Grig,—go first, sir, I beg!

[Exeunt TOM and MR. STARGAZER.

GALILEO. ‘Come, Mr. Grig!’—‘Go first, Mr. Grig!’—‘Day that makes your cousin Mrs. Grig!’—I’ll secretly stick a penknife into Mr. Grig, if I live to be three hours older!

FANNY (on one side of him). Oh! don’t talk in that desperate way,—there’s a dear, dear creature!

EMMA (on the other side). No! pray do not;—it makes my blood run cold to hear you.

GALILEO. Oh! if I was of age!—if I was only of age!—or we could go to Gretna Green, at threepence a head, including refreshments and all incidental expenses. But that could never be! Oh! if I was only of age!

FANNY. But what if you were? What could you do, then?

GALILEO. Marry you, cousin Fanny; I could marry you then lawfully, and without anybody’s consent.

FANNY. You forget that, situated as we are, we could not be married, even if you were one-and-twenty;—we have no money!

EMMA. Not even enough for the fees!

GALILEO. Oh! I am sure every Christian clergyman, under such afflicting circumstances, would marry us on credit. The wedding-fees might stand over till the first christening, and then we could settle the little bill altogether. Oh! why ain’t I of age!—why ain’t I of age?

Enter BETSY, in haste.

BETSY. Well! I never could have believed it! There, Miss! I wouldn’t have believed it, if I had dreamt it, even with a bit of bride-cake under my pillow! To dare to go and think of marrying a young lady, with five thousand pounds, to a common lamplighter!

ALL. A lamplighter?

BETSY. Yes, he’s Tom Grig the lamplighter, and nothing more nor less, and old Mr. Stargazer goes and picks him out of the open street, and brings him in for Miss Fanny’s husband, because he pretends to have read something about it in the stars. Stuff and nonsense! I don’t believe he knows his letters in the stars, and that’s the truth; or if he’s got as far as words in one syllable, it’s quite as much as he has.

FANNY. Was such an atrocity ever heard of? I, left with no power to marry without his consent, and he almost possessing the power to force my inclinations.

EMMA. It’s actually worse than my being sacrificed to that odious and detestable Mr. Mooney.

BETSY. Come, Miss, it’s not quite so bad as that neither; for Thomas Grig is a young man, and a proper young man enough too, but as to Mr. Mooney,—oh, dear! no husband is bad enough in my opinion, Miss; but he is worse than nothing,—a great deal worse.

FANNY. You seem to speak feelingly about this same Mr. Grig.

BETSY. Oh, dear no, Miss, not I. I don’t mean to say but what Mr. Grig may be very well in his way, Miss; but Mr. Grig and I have never held any communication together, not even so much as how-d’ ye-do. Oh, no indeed, I have been very careful, Miss, as I always am with strangers. I was acquainted with the last lamplighter, Miss, but he’s going to be married, and has given up the calling, for the young woman’s parents being very respectable, wished her to marry a literary man, and so he has set up as a bill-sticker. Mr. Grig only came upon this beat at five to-night, Miss.

FANNY. Which is a very sufficient reason why you don’t know more of him.

BETSY. Well, Miss, perhaps it is; and I hope there’s no crime in making friends in this world, if we can, Miss.

FANNY. Certainly not. So far from it, that I most heartily wish you could make something more than a friend of this Mr. Grig, and so lead him to falsify this prediction.

GALILEO. Oh! don’t you think you could, Betsy?

EMMA. You could not manage at the same time to get any young friend of yours to make something more than a friend of Mr. Mooney, could you, Betsy?

GALILEO. But, seriously, don’t you think you could manage to give us all a helping hand together, in some way, eh, Betsy?

FANNY. Yes, yes, that would be so delightful. I should be grateful to her for ever. Shouldn’t you?

EMMA. Oh, to the very end of my life!

GALILEO. And so should I, you know, and lor’! we should make her so rich, when—when we got rich ourselves,—shouldn’t we?

BOTH. Oh, that we should, of course.

BETSY. Let me see. I don’t wish to have Mr. Grig to myself, you know. I don’t want to be married.

ALL. No! no! no! Of course she don’t.

BETSY. I haven’t the least idea to put Mr. Grig off this match, you know, for anybody’s sake, but you young people’s. I am going quite contrairy to my own feelings, you know.

ALL. Oh, yes, yes! How kind she is!

BETSY. Well, I’ll go over the matter with the young ladies in Miss Emma’s room, and if we can think of anything that seems likely to help us, so much the better; and if we can’t, we’re none the worst. But Master Galileo mustn’t come, for he is so horrid jealous of Miss Fanny that I dursn’t hardly say anything before him. Why, I declare (looking off), there is my gentleman looking about him as if he had lost Mr. Stargazer, and now he turns this way. There—get out of sight. Make haste!

GALILEO. I may see ’em as far as the bottom stair, mayn’t I, Betsy?

BETSY. Yes, but not a step farther on any consideration. There, get away softly, so that if he passes here, he may find me alone. (They creep gently out, GALILEO returns and peeps in.)

GALILEO. Hist, Betsy!

BETSY. Go away, sir. What have you come back for?

GALILEO (holding out a large pin). I wish you’d take an opportunity of sticking this a little way into him for patting me on the head just now.

BETSY. Nonsense, you can’t afford to indulge in such expensive amusements as retaliation yet awhile. You must wait till you come into your property, sir. There.—Get you gone!

[Exit GALILEO.

Enter TOM GRIG.

TOM (aside). I never saw such a scientific file in my days. The enterprising gentleman that drowned himself to see how it felt, is nothing to him. There he is, just gone down to the bottom of a dry well in an uncommonly small bucket, to take an ex