Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

GEOFFREY

in A New Trick to Cheat the Devil — Davenport, Robert

Metadata

PlayA New Trick to Cheat the Devil
AuthorDavenport, Robert
Year (catalogued)1639
First performance1625
Decade1630s
GenreComedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyQueen Henrietta Maria's Men (?); Lady Elizabeth's Men (?)
Speech prefix(es)Gef.
Words539
Characters2837
Typicality0.41 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA19888
BritDrama no.2198
ClusterCluster 11 — Tosspots & tavern railers

Important excerpts

No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).

Full speech

What Roger, all amort, me thinks th'art off o'th'hookes? Faith I was never on a merrier pinn, Nor my breast lighter hearted. Would? Thou wilt not swagger, Hodge? Are we not of one House? Pander? I could answer thee, but that I spy two Gentlemen, With whom I have business of my Master's. All's plotted, we want money, fell we must, The rate we live at must have fresh supply; I'll give you the whole project. I have gone through sir. A Thousand pounds brought in to night. Trifles sir, acknowledging a Statute, nothing else; It's finished in a moment. Three sir. It shall be done, I'll be your Mercury. If any thing to whet dull appetite, To heighten pleasure, and inflame delight Be this night wanting, ere Sun rise to morrow Cashier me from your service. Good Wine, good Victuals, Liveries; And the countenance of a good Master. That's as your worship shall be pleased to call it. All this sir? And how for mine? If this he all, as where no more is left What more can be expected? this's my portion, I'll husband't for my self; he that gets this, Or partly of this, must have more share in me Than either man or Master. And my neglect; so I be stored my self, Which hand with him goes forward. It's most true, you never saw a man so strange debauched; He hath not only run out all his fortune, But even his senses; I had once my Lord, Some small dependence on him, but his riot Hath almost ruined me. Your Lordship's Cloth and countenance. One of my fellows once. Brave my Lord? And nothing more than truth. Speak it not, I'll not believe it Mistress. But all this Mistress, makes not me a Pander. Where I'll try how near of Kin I am to this Gentleman, and show my self and Eate-well. Exeunt. Him I saw but now cross by the door. Sir I shall doe't. Remember Islington, my Host, my Hostess, and the Constable, Should we be silent, every Oysterwife, Fishwife, and those cry Milk and Oranges Can speak of your rare supper; fie, Friar John, And so dainty to your friends? A man of Art, no more; so much we know you are. Offer my self to the Devil before my time? You might accuse my folly. What, grown so brave? he hath sure lighted on some cheat? A Bankrupt idle fellow brave your Lordship? Beat him to's wits, or let me kick him for you. Endure this? Dash out's brains. I think we made him fly, for I am sure some there Gave shameful ground. Here comes your husband, he hath perhaps some news He says true sir, Let all your anger then conclude in this, And bid the Devil take him. Faith And I. Would I were hence. My lord these Friars I know. My Lord see, my Fellow Roger's damned, for he's God in Among the Fiends and Furies. Is she not dead to night, and Now her Ghost there walks? Now I have't; Upon my life the Devil can be no better; she the illusive Spirit by whom this room was haunted, contracted Now unto yond desperate Ruffian.

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…