repartee, and his wealth of incident and variety of character; but the absence of the higher virtues which ennoble life-the beauty and gracefulness of woman's virtue; the feelings of generosity, truth, honour, affection, modesty, and tenderness-leaves his pages barren and lacking in any permanent interest. His glittering, artificial life palls on the lovers of nature or of poetry. His second comedy, the Double Dealer, was in every way stronger than the Old Bachelor, but either the satire on the heartless sexual morals of the time was too serious to please the people satirised, or even Congreve's complaisant public were shocked by the outrageous immorality of Maskwell and Lady Touchwood. The play was a failure at first, but its merits were soon fully recognised. The Mourning Muse of Alexis, a poetic dialogue on Queen Mary's death, was as full of artificial conceits as Incognita. Love for Love is, no doubt, the finest prose comedy in the English language. So late as 1842 Macready revived it (modified, of course) at Drury Lane, and there have been still later revivals (as in 1871). Mr Watts-Dunton has said of it that, abundant and brilliant as is the wit, the coruscations do not, as in Congreve's other plays, outdazzle the sweeter and softer light of the humour; and the characterisation is true, some of it beautiful. In the character of Ben, Congreve gave here the first really humorous and effective presentation of the rollicking English tar, afterwards so frequent and fertile a subject in the hands of Smollett and other novelists and dramatists. The Mourning Bride, Congreve's only tragedy, possesses higher merit than most of the serious plays of that day. As Macaulay said, it is poor compared with Shakespeare and with the best plays of Ford or Massinger, but stands high amongst the tragedies of the age in which it was written. To find anything so good one must go back to Otway's Venice Preserved or forward to Rowe's Fair Penitent. It has the stiffness of the French school, with no small affectation of fine writing, without passion, yet it possesses poetical scenes and admirable passages, nobly worded. The opening lines have often been quoted:

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
I've read that things inanimate have moved,
And, as with living souls, have been informed
By magic numbers and persuasive sound.
What then am I? Am I more senseless grown
Than trees or flint? O force of constant woe!

Congreve was next busily occupied in the famous Jeremy Collier controversy, defending the morality of the new stage (see page 35). It would have been wiser had he, like Dryden, remained silent; his answer to Collier's trenchant polemic was voted dull even by his own party. Collier produced a powerful repartee; and the public were mainly on the side of the Nonjuring High Churchman. Congreve's last play, The Way of the World (1700), though quite as full of intellectual brilliance as

Love for Love, and evidently written with more care, not to say labour, lacks the humorous impulse seen in Congreve's masterpiece. The wit of the dialogue is not sufficiently held in hand to work out the characters and the plot. It comes more completely than does any other of Congreve's plays within the scope of the Duke of Buckingham's strictures (see Vol. I. p. 788) upon the comedy of repartee:

Another fault, which often does befal,

Is when the wit of some great poet shall
So overflow, that is, be none at all,

That ev'n his fools speak sense, as if possest,

And each by inspiration breaks his jest,

If once the justness of each part be lost,

Well may we laugh, but at the poet's cost.

The Way of the World was received with comparative coldness, and Congreve wrote no more for the stage; for the next twenty-eight years he did not add to his literary reputation.

Dr Johnson thought the following extract from the Mourning Bride, describing a cathedral, the most poetical paragraph in the whole range of the drama-finer than any in Shakespeare-and by such extravagant eulogy injured the piece. Had he said it was better than anything in the tragedies of Dryden, Lee, Otway, Rowe, Southerne, or Addison, he would not, in Macaulay's judgment and ours, have been far wrong :

Almeria. It was a fancied noise, for all is hushed. Leonora. It bore the accent of a human voice. Alm. It was thy fear, or else some transient wind Whistling through hollows of this vaulted aisle. We'll listen.

Leon. Hark!

constant

of dialogue and incident. He was a master of dramatic rules and art, but was often careless and sometimes too complicated in his plots. From the sparkling, highly wrought love-scenes of Congreve it would be perilous to quote. 'I have read two or three of Congreve's plays over before speaking of him,' said Thackeray in one of his famous lectures; and my feelings were rather like those which I dare say most of us here have had at Pompeii, looking at Sallust's house and the relics of an orgya dried wine - jar or two, a charred supper-table, the breast of a dancing-girl pressed against the ashes, the laughing skull of a jester, a perfect stillness round about, as the cicerone twangs his moral, and the blue sky shines calmly over the ruin. The Congreve muse is dead, and her song choked in Time's ashes. We gaze at the skeleton, and wonder at the life which revelled in its mad veins. We take the skull up, and muse over the frolic and daring, the wit, scorn, passion, hope, desire, with which that empty bowl once fermented. We think of the

once

as you see, sir-[Showing letters]-and business must be followed, or be lost.

Bell. Business! And so must time, my friend, be close pursued or lost. Business is the rub of life, perverts our aim, casts off the bias, and leaves us wide and short of the intended mark."

Vain. Pleasure, I guess you mean.
Bell. Ay, what else has meaning?
Vain. Oh, the wise will tell you-
Bell. More than they believe or understand.

glances that allured, the tears that melted; of the bright eyes that shone in those vacant sockets, and of lips whispering love and cheeks dimpling with smiles that once covered yon ghastly framework. They used to call those teeth pearls once. See! there's the cup she drank from, the gold chain she wore on her neck, the vase which held the rouge for her cheeks, her looking-glass, and the harp she used to dance to. Instead of a feast we find a grave-stone, and in place of a mistress a few bones!'

From 'The Old Bachelor.'

Bellmour. Vainlove, and abroad so early! Goodmorrow. I thought a contemplative lover could no more have parted with his bed in a morning, than he could have slept in 't.

Vainlove. Bellmour, good-morrow. Why, truth on 't is, these early sallies are not usual to me; but business,

Vain. How; how, Ned? a wise man says more than he understands?

Bell. Ay, ay, wisdom's nothing but a pretending to know and believe more than we really do. You read of but one wise man, and all that he knew was, that he knew nothing. Come, come, leave business to

idlers, and wisdom

are, I have a lure may make you stoop. [Flinging a letter.

(From Act i. sc. 1.)

From the Same.

Sir Joseph Wittol. Oh, here a' comes. Ay, my Hector of Troy; welcome, my bully, my back; egad, my heart has gone pit-a-pat for thee.

Bluffe. How now, my young knight? Not for fear, I hope? He that knows me must be a stranger to fear. Sir Jos. Nay, egad, I hate fear ever since I had like to have died of fright-but

Bluffe. But! Look you here, boy; here's your antidote; here's your Jesuit's Powder for a shaking fit. But who hast thou got with thee; is he of mettle? [Laying his hand on his sword. Sir Jos. Ay, bully, a devilish smart fellow; a' will fight like a cock. Bluffe. Say you so? Then I'll honour him. But has he been abroad? for every cock will fight upon his own dunghill.

Sir Jos. I don't know; but I'll present you. Bluffe. I'll recommend myself. Sir, I honour you; I understand you love fighting. I reverence a man that loves fighting, sir, I kiss your hilts.

Captain Sharper. Sir, your servant, but you are misinformed; for unless it be to serve my particular friend, as Sir Joseph here, my country, or my religion, or in some very justifiable cause, I'm not for it.

Bluffe. O Lord, I beg your pardon, sir! I find you are not of my palate; you can't relish a dish of fighting without sweet sauce. Now, I think

Fighting for fighting's sake 's sufficient cause.
Fighting to me's religion and the laws!

Sir Jos. Ah, well said, my hero! Was not that great, sir? By the Lord Harry, he says true; fighting is meat, drink, and cloth to him. But, back, this gentleman is one of the best friends I have in the world, and saved my life last night. You know I told you.

Bluffe. Ay, then I honour him again.—Sir, may I crave your name?

Sharper. Ay, sir, my name 's Sharper.

Sir Jos. Pray, Mr Sharper, embrace my back-very well. By the Lord Harry, Mr Sharper, he is as brave a fellow as Cannibal; are you not, bully-back?

Sharper. Hannibal, I believe you mean, Sir Joseph ? Bluffe. Undoubtedly he did, sir. Faith, Hannibal was a very pretty fellow; but, Sir Joseph, comparisons are odious. Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days, it must be granted; but alas, sir, were he alive he would be nothing, nothing in the earth. Sharper. How, sir? I make a doubt if there be at this day a greater general breathing.

now,

Bluffe. Oh, excuse me, sir; have you served abroad, sir?

Sharper. Not I, really, sir.

Bluffe. Oh, I thought so.-Why, then, you can know nothing, sir. I am afraid you scarce know the history of the late war in Flanders with all its particulars.

Sharper. Not I, sir; no more than public papers or gazettes tell us.

Bluffe. Gazette! Why, there again now-why, sir, there are not three words of truth, the year round, put into the Gazette.-I'll tell you a strange thing now as to that. You must know, sir, I was resident in Flanders the last campaign, had a small post there; but no matter for that. Perhaps, sir, there was scarce anything of moment done but a humble servant of yours that shall be nameless was an eye-witness of--I won't say had the greatest share in 't; though I might say that too, since I name nobody, you know. Well, Mr Sharper, would you think it? In all this time, as I hope for a truncheon, that rascally gazette-writer never so much as once mentioned me-not once, by the wars! Took no more notice than as if Nol Bluffe had not been in the land of the living.

Sharper. Strange!

Sir Jos. Let me but tell Mr Sharper a little, how you ate fire once out of the mouth of a cannon; egad, he did; those impenetrable whiskers of his have confronted flames.

Bluffe. Death! What do you mean, Sir Joseph?

Sir Jos. Look you now, I tell you he's so modest, he 'll own nothing.

Bluffe. Pish; you have put me out; I have forgot what I was about. Pray, hold your tongue, and give me leave[Angrily.

Sir Jos. I am dumb.

Bluffe. This sword I think I was telling you of, Mr Sharper, this sword I'll maintain to be the best divine, anatomist, lawyer, or casuist in Europe; it shall decide a controversy, or split a cause.

Sir Jos. Nay, now, I must speak; it will split a hair; by the Lord Harry, I have seen it.

Bluffe. Zounds, sir, it's a lie! you have not seen it, nor shan't see it: sir, I say you can't see. What d' ye say to that, now?

Sir Jos. I am blind.

Bluffe. Death! had any other man interrupted me— Sir Jos. Good Mr Sharper, speak to him; I dare not look that way.

Sharper. Captain, Sir Joseph's penitent.

Bluffe. Oh, I am calm, sir, calm as a discharged culverin-but 'twas indiscreet, when you know what will provoke me. Nay, come, Sir Joseph; you know my heat 's soon over.

Sir Jos. Well, I am a fool sometimes, but I'm sorry. Bluffe. Enough.

Sir Jos. Come, we'll go take a glass to drown animosities. Mr Sharper, will you partake? Sharper. I wait on you, sir; nay, pray Captain,—you are Sir Joseph's back. (From Act ii. sc. 1.)

From 'The Double Dealer.'

Lady Froth. Then you think that episode between Susan the dairy-maid and our coachman is not amiss? You know I may suppose the dairy in town, as well as in the country.

Brisk. Incomparable, let me perish! But, then, being an heroic poem, had you not better call him a charioteer? Charioteer sounds great. Besides, your ladyship's coachman having a red face, and you comparing him to the sun-and you know the sun is called Heaven's charioteer.

Lady F. Oh! infinitely better; I am extremely beholden to you for the hint. Stay; we'll read over those half-a-score lines again. [Pulls out a paper.] Let me see here; you know what goes before-the comparison you know. [Reads]

For as the sun shines every day,

So of our coachman I may say Brisk. I am afraid that simile won't do in wet weather, because you say the sun shines every day.

Lady F. No; for the sun it won't, but it will do for the coachman; for you know there's most occasion for a coach in wet weather.

Brisk. Right, right; that saves all.

Lady F. Then I don't say the sun shines all the day, but that he peeps now and then; yet he does shine all the day, too, you know, though we don't see him. Brisk. Right; but the vulgar will never comprehend [Reads]

that.

Lady F. Well, you shall hear.

Let me see.

Then, too, like heaven's charioteer, the sun

Ay, charioteer does better

Into the dairy he descends,

And there his whipping and his driving ends;
There he's secure from danger of a bilk;
His fare is paid him, and he sets in milk.

For Susan, you know, is Thetis, and so

Brisk. Incomparable well and proper, egad! But I have one exception to make: don't you think ‘bilk'I know it's a good rhyme-but don't you think ‘bilk' and 'fare' too like a hackney coachman?

Lady F. I swear and vow I'm afraid so. And yet our Jehu was a hackney coachman when my lord took him.

Brisk. Was he? I'm answered, if Jehu was a hackney coachman. You may put that in the marginal notes though, to prevent criticism; only mark it with a small asterisk, and say, 'Jehu was formerly a hackney coachman.'

Lady F. I will; you'd oblige me extremely to write notes to the whole poem.

Brisk. With all my heart and soul, and proud of the vast honour, let me perish!

Lord Froth. Hee, hee, hee! my dear, have you done? Won't you join with us? We were laughing at my Lady Whifler and Mr Sneer.

Lady F. Ay, my dear, were you? Oh! filthy Mr Sneer; he's a nauseous figure, a most fulsamic [fulsome] fop, foh! He spent two days together in going about Covent Garden to suit the lining of his coach with his complexion.

Lord F. O silly! Yet his aunt is as fond of him as if she had brought the ape into the world herself.

Brisk. Who? my Lady Toothless? Oh, she's a mortifying spectacle; she's always chewing the cud like an old ewe.

Cynthia. Fy, Mr Brisk! eringos for her cough.

Lord F. I have seen her take 'em half chewed out of her mouth, and then put them in again-foh!

Lady F. Foh!

Lord F. Then she's always ready to laugh when Sneer offers to speak; and sits in expectation of his no-jest, with her gums bare, and her mouth open

Brisk. Like an oyster at low ebb, egad! Ha, ha, ha! Cynthia. [Aside.] Well, I find there are no fools so inconsiderable in themselves but they can render other people contemptible by exposing their infirmities.

Lady F. Then that t' other great strapping lady; I can't hit of her name; the old fat fool that paints so exorbitantly.

From 'Love for Love.'

Ben Legend. Where's father?

Servant. There, sir; his back 's towards you. Sir Sampson. My son, Ben! Bless thee, my dear boy; body o' me, thou art heartily welcome. Ben. Thank you, father; and I'm glad to see you. Sir S. Odsbud, and I'm glad to see thee. Kiss me, boy; kiss me again and again, dear Ben. [Kisses him. Ben. So, so; enough, father. Mess, I'd rather kiss these gentlewomen.

Sir S. And so thou shalt. Mrs Angelica, my son Ben. Ben. Forsooth, if you please. [Salutes her.] Nay, Mistress, I'm not for dropping anchor here; about ship i' faith. [Kisses Mrs Frail.] Nay, and you too, my little cock-boat-so. [Kisses Miss Prue.] Tattle. Sir, you're welcome ashore.

Ben. Thank you, thank you, friend.

Sir S. Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben,

since I saw thee.

Ben. Ey, ey, been! been far enough, an that be all Well, father, and how do all at home? How does brother Dick and brother Val?

Sir. S. Dick! body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years; I writ you word when you were at Leghorn.

Ben. Mess, that's true: marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you say. Well, and how? I have a many questions to ask you. Well, you ben't married again, father, be you?'

Sir S. No, I intend you shall marry, Ben; I would not marry for thy sake.

Ben. Nay, what does that signify?—an you marry again, why, then, I'll go to sea again; so there's one for t'other, an that be all. Pray, don't let me be your hindrance; e'en marry a God's name, an the wind sit that way. As for my part, mayhap I have no mind to marry.

Mrs Frail. That would be a pity; such a handsome young gentleman.

Ben. Handsome! he, he, he; nay, forsooth, an you be for joking, I'll joke with you, for I love my jest, an the ship were sinking, as we say'n at sea. But I'll tell you why I don't much stand towards matrimony. I love to roam about from port to port, and from land to land: I could never abide to be port-bound, as we call it Now, a man that is married has, as it were, d'ye see, his feet in the bilboes, and mayhap mayn't get 'em out again when he would.

Sir S. Ben's a wag.

Ben. A man that is married, d'ye see, is no more like another man than a galley-slave is like one of us free

sailors. He is chained to an oar all his life; and mayhap forced to tug a leaky vessel into the bargain.

Sir S. A very wag! Ben's a very wag! only a little rough; he wants a little polishing.

Mrs F. Not at all; I like his humour mightily; it's plain and honest; I should like such a humour in a husband extremely.

Ben. Say'n you so, forsooth? Marry, and I should like such a handsome gentlewoman hugely. How say you, mistress! would you like going to sea? Mess, you're a tight vessel, and well rigged. . . . But I'll tell you one thing, an you come to sea in a high wind, or that, lady, you mayn't carry so much sail o' your head. Top and topgallant, by the mess.

Miss F. No? why so?

Ben. Why, an you do, you may run the risk to be overset, and then you'll carry your keels above water; he, he, he.

Angelica. I swear Mr Benjamin is the veriest wag in nature-an absolute sea-wit.

Sir S. Nay, Ben has parts; but, as I told you before, they want a little polishing. You must not take anything ill, madam.

Ben. No; I hope the gentlewoman is not angry; I mean all in good part; for if I give a jest, I take a jest ; and so, forsooth, you may be as free with me.

Ang. I thank you, sir; I am not at all offended. But methinks, Sir Sampson, you should leave him alone with his mistress. Mr Tattle, we must not hinder lovers. Tattle. Well, Miss, I have your promise. Sir S. Body o' me, madam, you say true. Ben, this is your mistress. Come, Miss, you must not be shame-faced; we 'll leave you together.

[Aside. Look you,

Miss Prue. I can't abide to be left alone; mayn't my cousin stay with me?

Sir S. No, no; come, let's away.

Ben. Look you, father, mayhap the young woman mayn't take a liking to me.

Sir S. I warrant thee, boy; come, come, we 'll be gone; I'll venture that. [They leave Ben and Miss Prue alone. Ben. Come, mistress, will you please to sit down? for an you stand astern a that'n, we shall never grapple together. Come, I'll haul a chair; there, an you please to sit, I'll sit beside you.

Miss Prue. You need not sit so near one; if you have anything to say, I can hear you farther off; I an't deaf.

Ben. Why, that's true as you say, nor I an't dumb; I can be heard as far as another. I'll heave off to please you. [Sits further off.] An we were a league asunder, I'd undertake to hold discourse with you, an 'twere not a main high wind indeed, and full in my teeth. Look you, forsooth, I am as it were bound for the land of matrimony; 'tis a voyage, d' ye see, that was none of my seeking, I was commanded by father; and if you like of it, mayhap I may steer into your harbour.

How say

you, mistress? The short of the thing is, that if you like me, and I like you, we may chance to swing in

a hammock together.

Miss P. I don't know what to say to you, nor I don't care to speak with you at all.

Ben. No? I'm sorry for that. But pray, why are you so scornful?

Miss P. As long as one must not speak one's mind, one had better not speak at all, I think; and truly I won't tell a lie for the matter.

Ben. Nay, you say true in that; it's but a folly to lie;

for to speak one thing, and to think just the contrary way, is, as it were, to look one way and to row another. Now, for my part, d'ye see, I'm for carrying things above-board, I'm not for keeping anything under hatches; so that if you ben't as willing as I, say so a God's name, there's no harm done. Mayhap you may be shame-faced; some maidens, thof they love a man well enough, yet they don't care to tell 'n so to's face. If that's the case, why, silence gives consent.

Miss P. But I'm sure it is not so, for I'll speak sooner than you should believe that; and I'll speak truth, though one should always tell a lie to a man; and I don't care, let my father do what he will; I'm too big to be whipt; so I'll tell you plainly I don't like you, nor love you at all, nor never will, that's more. So there's your answer for you, and don't trouble me no more, you ugly thing!

Ben. Look you, young woman, you may learn to give good words, however. I spoke you fair, d'ye see, and civil. As for your love or your liking, I don't value it of a rope's end; and mayhap I like you as little as you do me. What I said was in obedience to father: I fear a whipping no more than you do. But I tell you one thing, if you should give such language at sea,' you'd have a cat-o'-nine-tails laid across your shoulders. Flesh! who are you? You heard t'other handsome young woman speak civilly to me of her own accord. Whatever you think of yourself, I don't think you are any more to compare to her than a can of small beer to a bowl of punch.

Miss P. Well, and there's a handsome gentleman, and a fine gentleman, and a sweet gentleman, that was here, that loves me, and I love him; and if he sees you speak to me any more, he'll thrash your jacket for you, he will, you great sea-calf!

Ben. What do you mean that fair-weather spark that was here just now? Will he thrash my jacket? Let'n, let 'n but an he comes near me, mayhap I may give him a salt-eel for 's supper, for all that. What does father mean, to leave me alone, as soon as I come home, with such a dirty dowdy? Sea-calf! I an't calf enough to lick your chalked face, you cheese-curd you. Marry thee! oons, I'll marry a Lapland witch as soon, and live upon selling contrary winds and wrecked vessels.

Miss P. I won't be called names, nor I won't be abused thus, so I won't. If I were a man [Cries] you durst not talk at this rate; no, you durst not, you stinking tarbarrel ! (From Act iii. sc. 3.)

A good edition of Congreve's comedies is that by Mr Henley (1895); all the plays were edited for the 'Mermaid Series' by A. C. Ewald (1888); and there is a short Life by Mr Gosse (1888).

Nathaniel Lee (1653?-92) was possessed of no small share of the fire of genius, though in him genius was near allied to madness. The son of a Hertfordshire clergyman, a Presbyterian and a pluralist, who conformed at the Restoration, Lee received a classical education at Westminster School and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He tried the stage both as an actor and author, was patronised by Rochester, lived a dissipated and vicious life, and was five years in Bedlam from wild insanity. Recovering his reason, he lived on precarious gifts or charity; and falling into intemperance again, died from