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Richard Steele and the Genealogy of Sentimental Drama: A Reading of The Conscious Lovers
Papers on Language and Literature, Spring 2004 by Hynes, Peter
Humphrey's version is as follows: "Well, tho' this Father and Son live as well together as possible, yet their fear of giving each other Pain, is attended with constant mutual Uneasiness. I'm sure I have enough to do to be honest, and yet keep well with them both: But they know I love 'em, and that makes the Task less painful however" (1.1.116-120). Thereafter Humphrey is kept extremely busy. His first task is to pump Tom to find out how much he knows about his master's amours; then he intervenes to calm an incipient quarrel between father and son before receiving Bevil Jr.'s confidences about how he met Indiana. He reassures Bevil Jr. that the marriage to Lucinda will never go through, and he reassures Sir John that his son's secret love is "a Woman of Honour" (4.2.136). Finally, he shows Sealand the way to Indiana's door, helping to precipitate the climactic recognition scene. Oddly enough, he is not on stage for the last gathering of all the characters and the announcements of the multiple weddings to come. In sum, Humphrey's structural purpose in the play is almost at odds with the emotional allegiances he suggests. He unites the sentimental appeal of the old family servant with the tricky slave's facility at meddling.
Steele's underplots, then, provide important clues about the weight and status to be accorded relics of the older dramatic forms. The high plot is essentially drained of activity, emphasizing the superiority of morals over movement, while a devalued bustle is handed down to lesser actors. High characters embrace a new sentimental tone in their dealings with one another, while the inhabitants of the low plot hang on to the ribaldry of the past. The message of this contrast remains constant when transmitted through a different set of thematic preoccupations: those having to do with the idea of genealogy. Family history and family descent play important literal and metaphorical roles in Steele's play, serving ultimately to highlight the aesthetic ambitions of the new dramatic form.
The genealogical idea in The Conscious Lovers is delivered by way of two major examples. In the first, Sealand and Sir John Bevil, working out the terms of the forthcoming marriage between Lucinda and Bevil Jr., hit a rough spot in negotiations. To Sir John, an ancient name is a powerful incentive, easily equivalent to the cash Sealand brings to the union of the two houses: "Genealogy and Descent," he claims, "are to be of some Consideration, in an Affair of this sort" (4.2.3-4). Sealand's reply is scathing: he trots out a pompous-sounding list of names drawn from his own family tree, and when Bevil expresses incredulity, he explains that these names refer to his father's fighting cocks. Bevil is at least acute enough to see that 'You are laughing at my laying any Stress upon Descent" (4.2.18-19). The altercation continues, culminating in one of the play's most often-quoted passages, Sealand's praise of the newly-respectable merchant class: "We Merchants are a Species of Gentry, that have grown into the World this last Century, and are as honourable, and almost as useful, as you landed folks, that have always thought your selves so much above us" (4.2.50-53).It follows that ancestry and title are not the gems their possessors think, and, although it is clear that one of Sealand's motives in pursuing the match is to unite his family with the aristocracy, he is perfectly willing to break off on the purely moral grounds that Bevil Jr.'s affections are otherwise-and quite mysteriously-engaged. The whole transaction, in fact, suggests that Sealand is in the dominant position: he can afford to walk away from this marriage much more readily than the cash-strapped Sir John.
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