The Planetary System of 

ROSA MATILDA

 d

Cast

Lord Byron

Fletcher

SB Davies

James Perry

Rosa Matilda

(a mystical presence)

 Colonel McMahon

(private sec. to H.M. the Regent)

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d

 

​SCENE 1

 

Byron's rooms, Bennet Street, London, 1812

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B: Fletcher?

F: Yes my Lord

B: We have travelled far together haven't we?

F: Yes my Lord

B: You have drest, washed and and doused me?

F: Gladly, my Lord

B: In which case - I feel you are one of the few I can trust with a highly confidential document

F: Oh most certainly my Lord

B: Know you the HQ of  The Morning Chronicle? Mark now - the CHRONICLE not the Regent-worshiping POST!

F: Yes, my lord - 'tis in yon Grub Street - an open sewer in t' town

B: What know you of the Town, Fletcher? Never mind (hands F a portmanteau) - deliver this to the desk of James Perry

F: Will it explode on me my Lord? I have Sally to mind for!

B: Not literally my good man - now take heed - say not a word - I can rely on you can I not?

F: Haven't I already said you can - my Lord

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F inexplicably salutes - and departs

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B: I must trust to my instincts (bites nails)

SBD(barges in): Roll on - thou deep rattle of sevens!

B: We are winning Scrope? 

SBD: We most certainly are (pats overstuffed pockets) - to the Dog & Duck! - to D'Egville and his ballarinas! to the low-life of the east-end!

B: I am a-frazzle my dear Scrope (still biting nails) - I have launched my - and another's - reputation upon a sea of ribald speculation

SBD: We shall not indulge in self-doubt when much more pleasant indulgences are now within our grubby guineas reach (hands B coat and stick) - come - lobster salad and champagne await!

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The lads depart in high spirits for a ruinous night on the Town 

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d

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​SCENE 2

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Offices of  the Morning Chronicle - editor James Perry has published Byron's (anonymous) review of  poet/novelist Rosa Matilda's latest (anonymous) paean to the Prince Regent

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JP(laughing - with great satisfaction): “The New Epic: an Epic Poem, in twenty-four books, upon the Solar System" (brandy is swilled in cheering quantities) - 'tis an undoubtedly saucy review - my Lord - mocking said fair, far-famed authoress - but it is benign - an Edinburgh reviewer would've sent the epic regent-worshipper into a convent, or Bedlam - or an interplanetary orbit - along with the object of her adoration

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Thundering footsteps and door-slamming are heard - Colonel McMahon is displeased

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McM: Perry! - you Francophilic scoundrel! - this review (waves Morning Chronicle vigorously) hath bought attention to a most embarrassing paean to his Highness! I shall meet you at Golders Green tomorrow morn! (hears a guffaw behind the brandy cellar) - what? who is that? (B steps forward) - goodness! such a beautiful visage I never saw! eyes like portals of the sun!

JP: May I introduce (pauses, smugly) - Lord Byron

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B bows - McM freezes

 

McM: er - (regains composure, bows - resumes rant) Our newly-sovereign Prince is a “ new-risen Sun" is he!! “Lo! his fair hand! consolidated snow! High rears his handkerchief his nose, What rival views of emulating snows -The hand, the handkerchief, that blow"!  It will take all my limited talents to ensure such a mortifying pamphlet does not reach his Highness - never mind this rascally review of yours!

B: Ah! the regent's capricious vanity!  - “When smooth, as smooth as summer's snowy smile; When rough, as rough as the rough crocodile" - I suspect it may be too late, Colonel - the lady's poem is said to be surreptitiously circulating at some of the leading conversationes - Lady Holland found it riotous - esp. the bits about the Whigs “Thieves, cut-throats, robbers, rascals, all the crew! And whores; they would be, were they women too!"

McM: Jesus save us! Have you read it? Has your literary acquaintance? Murray?

JP: Murray? - nay - McMahon - Mr. Murray's standards for publication led him to decline a poem by Rosa Matilda - rightly - as it was promptly sold for waste paper

B: I have read it indeed, Colonel - so moved was I when that Poetess - after some exquisite lines, descriptive of the pustulous and exanthematous spots and eruptions which so beautify the disk of this planet - is led into an episodical eulogium about the small pox - why! I cried into my snuffbox

McM: Yes - well - I'm no judge of poesy - but I know an infuriating squib from an otherwise ponderous, populist poet yet (looks just beyond B's ear, with menace) - his Highness already has the Judiciary primed in your direction, Perry, after you published those heinous verses re. his lachrymosical daughter (B shifts, indistinctively) - but these - these mocking - reviews must cease!

JP(laughs, drunkenly): You must be off your bone-box! why our (idiotically looks at B) - cockles are barely warm! - the second instalment is much more irritating to the inflammations of that strange, interplanetary female and her Sovereign (whispers) - a telescopic lens is focused on Venus and her conjunctions with the Sun himself - proper royal love-making!(winks)

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JP is dangerously stepping on B's anonymity

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B(better able to hold his brandy): Rest assured, McMahon - the reviewer may yet be bored by the rhyming blue-stocking and her “ R-l H-ss" - and be distracted by some other cultural disgrace - the Waltz, for instance

JP(unstoppable): Our noble reviewer hast but paraphrased the Epic - though even I was startled by “That face, more glorious than a mid-day sun, Causeth all things to grow that it doth look upon!" - nearly spilt my brandy

McM: Perry! - you  had better see to it that this is the last instalment - the Regent - and the obsequious Miss Matilda are creatures of diabolic - albeit tardy - revenge! - it will not stand!

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B and JP snort like drunken sailors​

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d

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SCENE 3

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The Albany, 1814 - ‘Lines to a Lady Weeping’ has been published with ‘The Corsair’

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SBD(cautiously): Good morning Byron (bows) Fletcher, two glasses of your best Scottish wine, if you would, please - (coughs) there's commotion at The Cocoa Tree, Byron - did I hear rightly? - our rotund Regent's “Heav'n-born eye" - sheesh! - is fixed upon you - can it be true? He has notions of removing your title?
B: Heigh ho! A scrape quite unexpected, my dear Scrope (hands over latest edition of the Morning Post) - I have been regaled at every inn - and not with the pleasantries such establishments usually provide, I may add - but with ministerial gazettes containing anonymous lampoons and merry conceits re. myself 

SBD: humph! (reading) - these hysterics are really quite amusing - 'twould appear our “voluptuous deity of love"  is causing an almighty fracas at Carlton House - squawking over the re-publication of two stanzas inserted in the Chronicle - anonymously - in 1812! - comme c'est ridicule!

B: All of which I mean to take with “the calm indifference” of Sir Fretful Plagiary (scowls)

F(with tray of early afternoon brandy): Have you seen them assailgements in the Post, my Lord? Very rough they be - so Mule tells me

B:Devil I have! - the first is upon my person - which has been denounced in verses somewhat alike the subject, inasmuch as they halt exceedingly - the second, upon my deformity - which certainly will, we must agree Fletcher, admit of no “historic doubts" - did you not many times St. Bartholomew me with roiling foot-baths? (both laugh wistfully)

SBD(reads): Here you are described as an atheist! no - that's not quite so clear - a rebel - mmm - at last, very downrightly, the Devil - boiteux, I presume!

B(grabs paper): My demonism would seem to be a female conjecture - be damned! Such a commonplace is suspiciously Rosa-Matilda-ish - or whatever name she now adopts to confound her critics

F(excitedly): It must be Miss Matilda, my Lord - did she not slap Mr. Perry about - then yell out loud that thee - your Lordship - were but a (stretches memory) er - a “Vile, vicious, vulgar villain - may Damnation seize him - God willin'"  

B: If it is she, it would not be difficult to convince her I am a mere man, if a queen of the Amazons may be believed, who says “αριστον χωλος οιφει"

F: “αριστον χωλος οιφει"? 

SBD: “The lame beast covers best", Fletcher - heh - oons! 

B: She is certainly high in the fermentation of her wrath - having taken two years to brew - and convinced, with her usual vivacity of allusion, the PR to become grievously offended

F: But - what will become of us my Lord! - what will my'sen and Mule call you? - Mister Byron? - please lord no!!

B: Calm down you senseless goat - if that Regal fool attempts to de-Baronize me - he will yet again be mortified by the adorations of Miss Matilda (rummages through trunk) here! Lady Holland - knowing well the petulance of the PR - kept back the poetess' most luscious verse in case I ever had need of it - fetch the handkerchiefs Fletcher - we shall be requiring them forthwith! (reads to SBD & F) 

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“O thou that with surpassing Glory crown'd,
Thy garters streaming, and thy hose Unbound,

They're like the mud you tread Beneath your feet,

Your pretty, pretty feet, so Dainty small and sweet;
Look'st from thy chamber window like a Man,
The like of whom we ne'er shall see Again"​​

 

B(upon recovery): Fletcher - take that to Perry - he will either publish it or blackmail the Morning Post - one way or another - Miss “Venus" Matilda and that gaseous “New-Risen Sun" she so longs to embrace - shall be hurtled shame-faced into the eternal silence of disgrace! 

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B & SBD head off to The Cocoa Tree - Fletcher and Mrs. Mule lovingly polish B's coronet

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​d

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END