Prologue Summary

The Prologue precedes the beginning of Act 1. Invoking the play’s title, a narrator named Lord Wormwood ridicules the idea of “a school [to teach] this modish art.” In other words, scandal is so ubiquitous that teaching someone about it would be akin to teaching them “to eat and drink.” Scandal-mongering comes naturally to people in the society depicted in this play.

The narrator’s wife, Lady Wormwood, reads the papers and shares some of the juiciest headlines with her husband. He remarks that people may publicly chastise gossip but still enjoy and engage in it privately. Lord Wormwood also says it’s wrong to talk badly about “our friends.” He wonders aloud whether the playwright – Richard Sheridan – thinks he can stop people from spreading scandals when Wormwood clearly believes such a feat would be heroic if not impossible.

Scene i Summary

The play opens with Lady Sneerwell and Snake discussing rumors about Lady Brittle. Snake remarks that if Mrs. Clackitt hears about the scandal, it will quickly spread, as Mrs. Clackitt is a well-known gossip. He adds that Mrs. Clackitt has been responsible for several divorces, broken engagements, disheritances, and elopements. Lady Sneerwell comments that while Mrs. Clackitt is a prodigious scandal-mongerer, “her manner is gross,” causing Snake to compliment Lady Sneerwell’s “delicacy of hint” in the way she spreads rumors.

Lady Sneerwell reveals that her motive in furthering gossip is revenge: she was once a victim “of slander.” Snake admits he is unclear on the lady’s involvement in the scandal of her neighbor, Sir Peter Teazle. After explaining that Teazle is the guardian of two young men – Joseph and Charles Surface – the former of whom is “amiable and universally well spoken of” and the latter “the most dissipated and extravagant young fellow,” Snake wonders why Lady Sneerwell wouldn’t want to marry Joseph Surface herself, and why she is bent on breaking up Charles and Teazle’s ward, Maria.

Lady Sneerwell confesses that Joseph wants to marry Maria and has sought the lady’s help because Charles is a considerable rival for Maria’s affections. She also wants to bring Charles down and expose him as a “libertine.” When Snake asks how her relationship with Joseph came out, she admits that he is “artful” and given to moralizing but is admired by Sir Peter.

Joseph enters, reporting that some of Lady Sneerwell’s stories seem to be working on Maria. He remarks that his brother Charles may be subject to another debt seizure. When Joseph begins to sympathize with Charles, Lady Sneerwell reminds him that he doesn’t have to act morally upstanding around herself or Snake. After Snakes leaves the room, Joseph suggests he may be disloyal; Joseph’s steward, Rowley, has previously noted Snake’s lack of virtue.

Maria suddenly arrives, trying to evade Sir Benjamin Backbite and his uncle Crabtree, who are trying to engage Maria to Sir Benjamin. Maria objects because the man speaks so poorly of his acquaintances; in other words, he is a scandal-mongerer. 

A servant announces Mrs. Candour, but Maria describes her as sly and dangerous in her style of gossip before she enters. When she arrives, she tells Maria that spreading and listening to rumors is the way of the “censorious” world in which they live.

Joseph and Maria agree that those who invent scandals about others are “monstrous”; however, Maria also sees those who spread rumors by repeating them as just as bad. Mrs. Candour agrees but also thinks it’s inevitable because people cannot be prevented from talking. Ironically, Mrs. Candour suggests that she would never be one to report on the very...