The Double-Dealer | Page 3

derive profits, no royalty is
due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each
date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your
annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU

DON'T HAVE TO? The Project gratefully accepts contributions in
money, time, scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts,
royalty free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution you
can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association /
Carnegie-Mellon University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
THE DOUBLE-DEALER--A COMEDY
by William Congreve
Interdum tamen et vocem Comoedia tollit.--HOR. Ar. Po.
Huic
equidem consilio palmam do: hic me magnifice
effero, qui vim
tantam in me et potestatem habeam
tantae astutiae, vera dicendo ut
eos ambos fallam.
SYR. in TERENT. Heaut.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES MONTAGUE,

ONE OF THE LORDS OF THE TREASURY.
Sir,--I heartily wish this play were as perfect as I intended it, that it
might be more worthy your acceptance, and that my dedication of it to
you might be more becoming that honour and esteem which I, with
everybody who is so fortunate as to know you, have for you. It had
your countenance when yet unknown; and now it is made public, it
wants your protection.
I would not have anybody imagine that I think this play without its
faults, for I am conscious of several. I confess I designed (whatever
vanity or ambition occasioned that design) to have written a true and
regular comedy, but I found it an undertaking which put me in mind of
SUDET MULTUM, FRUSTRAQUE LABORET AUSUS IDEM. And
now, to make amends for the vanity of such a design, I do confess both
the attempt and the imperfect performance. Yet I must take the
boldness to say I have not miscarried in the whole, for the mechanical

part of it is regular. That I may say with as little vanity as a builder may
say he has built a house according to the model laid down before him,
or a gardener that he has set his flowers in a knot of such or such a
figure. I designed the moral first, and to that moral I invented the fable,
and do not know that I have borrowed one hint of it anywhere. I made
the plot as strong as I could because it was single, and I made it single
because I would avoid confusion, and was resolved to preserve the
three unities of the drama. Sir, this discourse is very impertinent to you,
whose judgment much better can discern the faults than I can excuse
them; and whose good nature, like that of a lover, will find out those
hidden beauties (if there are any such) which it would be great
immodesty for me to discover. I think I don't speak
improperly when
I call you a LOVER of poetry; for it is very well known she has been a
very kind mistress to you: she has not denied you the last favour, and
she has been fruitful to you in a most beautiful issue. If I break off
abruptly here, I hope everybody will understand that it is to avoid a
commendation which, as it is your due, would be most easy for me to
pay, and too troublesome for you to receive.
I have since the acting of this play harkened after the objections which
have been made to it, for I was conscious where a true critic might have
put me upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack, and am pretty
confident I could have vindicated some parts and excused others; and
where there were any plain miscarriages, I would most ingenuously
have confessed 'em. But I have not heard anything said sufficient to
provoke an answer. That which looks most like an objection does not
relate in particular to this play, but to all or most that ever have been
written, and that is soliloquy. Therefore I will answer it, not only for
my own sake, but to save others the trouble, to whom it may hereafter
be objected.
I grant that for a man to talk to himself appears absurd and unnatural,
and indeed it is so in most cases; but the circumstances which may
attend the occasion make great alteration. It oftentimes happens to a
man to have designs which require him to himself, and in their nature
cannot admit of a confidant. Such for certain is all villainy, and other
less mischievous intentions may be very improper to be communicated

to a second person. In such a case, therefore, the audience must observe
whether the person upon the stage takes any notice of them at all or no.
For if he supposes any one to be by when he