The Conscious Lovers

“But this incident in the case of the father and daughter are esteemed by some people no subjects of comedy; but I cannot be of their mind, for anything that has its foundation and happiness and success must be allowed to be the object of comedy, and sure it must be an improvement of it to introduce a joy to exquisite for laughter, that can have no spring but in delight, which is the case of this young lady.”

In his Preface, Richard Steele defends his play from criticism that it’s not funny: He argues that the play is instead moving and emotional. His response is essentially that happiness of any kind, either in tears or laughter, counts as comedy, resolving that Indiana’s story is a happy one. Steele wants to go back to the traditional definition of stage comedy: Comedy is any play that ends in marriage, as opposed to tragedy, which ends in death.

“Your aid most humbly sought, then, Britons lend,

And lib’ral mirth like lib’ral men defend.

No more let ribaldry, with license writ,

Usurp the name of eloquence or wit;

No more let lawless farce uncensured go,

The lewd dull gleanings of a Smithfield show. 

‘Tis yours with breeding to refine the age,

To chasten wit, and moralize the stage.

Ye modest, wise and good, ye fair, ye brave,

Tonight the champion of your virtues save;

Redeem from long contempt the comic name,

And judge politely for your country’s fame.”

The Prologue, spoken by the actor playing Myrtle, asks that the audience join Steele in rejecting the “ribaldry” and “license” of earlier Restoration comedies. Instead, Steele wants wit without sexual explicitness, and he calls on the audience to equate England with the morality he wrote into the play.

“SIR JOHN SIR BEVIL. Thou hast a brave constitution; you are a year or two older than I am, sirrah.

HUMPHREY. You have ever been of that mind, sir.

SIR JOHN SIR BEVIL. You knave, you know it; I took thee for thy gravity and sobriety, in my wild years.

HUMPHREY. Ah, sir, our manners were formed from our different fortunes, not our different age. Wealth gave a loose to your youth, and poverty put a restraint upon mine.

SIR JOHN SIR BEVIL. Well, Humphry, you know I have been a kind master to you; I have used you, for the ingenuous nature I observed in you from the beginning, more like an humble friend than a servant.”

Sir Bevil recounts how he was a libertine in his youth, and how Humphrey helped him to overcome his excessive lifestyle. This backstory marks Sir Bevil as representing the transition in morals that Steele wanted to push into the culture via his sentimental comedies: While the past was full of profligate behavioral models, Steele’s contemporaries should put that kind of lifestyle aside in favor of a more sober approach.