in A New Trick to Cheat the Devil — Davenport, Robert
Metadata
Play
A New Trick to Cheat the Devil
Author
Davenport, Robert
Year (catalogued)
1639
First performance
1625
Decade
1630s
Genre
Comedy
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
Queen Henrietta Maria's Men (?); Lady Elizabeth's Men (?)
Speech prefix(es)
Gen. 1.
Words
258
Characters
1347
Typicality
0.41 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A19888
BritDrama no.
2198
Cluster
Cluster 12 — Wooers, gallants & courtly love-talk
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
But did she break so with you? Troth I commend you, that, so loving her, You do not tak't to heart. What, so general, I pray? is't possible One that hath loved sincerely, as you say You once did, should with such and easiness Change his affection? This is not possible. Prompt us that. Name you any here? No better motion. The whole house? It hath been common, though not in these days Frequent, might I advice, I would seek out for some Religious man to exorcise the Spirit, and by that means To banish thence the vision. Would we might see him to make proof of his cunning. On my life Acadna then. A harmless Spirit fashioned from the Air, And yet assuming substance, shape and form, That where she loves, does all the Offices Of a fair Lady: can supply with gold. Come, come we know it, And this withal; in what men are most expect, In that they are most dainty, and so you; In Dancers and Musicians it's found true; Of all men, where they are most excellent, They are most curious to express their skill, So no question, you. Or make us at our death's, Give Legacies unto your holy Covent. Not I. I know not why you ask sir, But the time was he ought me some few pieces, I thought them desperate once, but nobly, since He to the full hath seen me satisfied. The Like to you; I wonder what the Devil Slightall ails, he looks so strangely on us?
Plot summary
Plot — A New Trick to Cheat the Devil
Anne Changeable wants to marry Slightall, with her father’s consent, but her mother persuades her that marriage to Lord Scales will be better for her social standing. Slightall takes rejection badly: he turns to misogyny and voluptuous hedonism. One of his servants, Roger, tries unsuccessfully to dissuade him from squandering his money, while the other, Geoffrey, helps make an arrangement with a usurer to supply him with a further £1,000 — the usurer’s objective being to acquire his land. Lord Scales visits Anne, and she finds that he is not a good kisser: Slightall is the better catch in every respect save his lack of a title; but when she tries to reactivate the romance, Slightall rejects her. He has been ruined by prodigality and pays off his servants; Geoffrey is taken on by Lord Scales, but Roger declines a similar offer. Anne insults everyone who persuaded her to jilt Slightall, but this only makes Lord Scales more attracted to her. Changeable promises Anne that he will get Slightall back for her. Driven out of his wits with melancholy, Slightall conjures up Beelzebub, and makes a contract: the devil will give him enough money to pay his debts in exchange for the right to take his soul when he no longer owes anyone anything. On the day his debt to the usurer falls due, he turns out to have ample money to pay, so the usurer gets his money back rather than the lands he coveted. Asked by Anne to give Slightall some financial support, Lord Scales finds his offer rejected with contempt. The Changeables’ house is troubled by a female spirit; Slightall agrees to help exorcise it by spending the night in the haunted room. When he does so, he is visited by the ghost in Anne’s form. Beelzebub comes for Slightall’s soul, but Slightall demonstrates that he is not yet clear of debt: he paid the usurer with money loaned by Beelzebub. The devil accepts the situation and offers to marry him to the she-devil who haunts the Changeables’ house. Anne’s mother and Lord Scales give their consent, and watch as a friar performs the ceremony. In fact it is not a ghost in Anne’s form, but Anne herself; and ‘Beelzebub’ was really Changeable: Anne has finally got her man back. In the sub-plot, two friars are detained until late by charitable visitation, and find themselves locked out of their abbey. They ask Nan to give them a bed for the night. She is expecting an assignation with the Constable in her husband’s absence, but agrees to lodge them in a garret so long as she…