magnificence in compliment, and his polished sarcasm.

He writes

as if he was so accustomed to conquer, that he has a poor opinion of his victims. Nothing's new except their faces, says he: "every woman is the same." He says this in his first comedy, which he wrote languidly in illness, when he was an "excellent young man." Richelieu at eighty could have hardly said a more excellent thing.

When he advances to make one of his conquests, it is with a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and with the fiddles playing, like Grammont's French dandies attacking the breach of Lerida.

"Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young lady at the Wells at Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnificent compliment

"Cease, cease to ask her name,

The crowned Muse's noblest theme,
Whose glory by immortal fame

Shall only sounded be.

But if you long to know,

Then look round yonder dazzling row:

Who most does like an angel show,

You may be sure 'tis she."

Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was not so well pleased at the poet's manner of celebrating her—

"When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair,
With eyes so bright and with that awful air,
I thought my heart which durst so high aspire
As bold as his who snatched celestial fire.

your crime; and strive as much as can be against it-strive, be sure; but don't be melancholick-don't despair; but never think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no; but be sure you lay all thoughts aside of the marriage, for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only as a blind for your passion to me-yet it will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say? Jealous! No, I can't be jealous; for I must not love you. Therefore don't hope; but don't despair neither. They're coming; I must fly."-The Double Dealer: Act 2, sc. v. page 156.

* "There seems to, be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance. The 'Old Bachelor' was written for amusement in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dialogue and incessant ambition of wit."-JOHNSON: Lives of the Poets.

But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke,
Forth from her coral lips such folly broke:

Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound,

And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound."

Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, but the poet does not seem to respect one much more than the other; and describes both with exquisite satirical humour—

"Fair Amoret is gone astray:

Pursue and seek her every lover.
I'll tell the signs by which you may
The wandering shepherdess discover.

Coquet and coy at once her air,

Both studied, though both seem neglected;
Careless she is with artful care,

Affecting to be unaffected.

With skill her eyes dart every glance,

Yet change so soon you 'd ne'er suspect them;

For she'd persuade they wound by chance,
Though certain aim and art direct them.

She likes herself, yet others hates

For that which in herself she prizes;
And, while she laughs at them, forgets
She is the thing which she despises."

What could Amoret have done to bring down such shafts of ridicule upon her? Could she have resisted the irresistible Mr. Congreve? Could anybody? Could Sabina, when she woke and heard such a bard singing under her window? "See," he writes

"See! see, she wakes-Sabina wakes!

And now the sun begins to rise?

Less glorious is the morn, that breaks

From his bright beams, than her fair eyes.

With light united, day they give;

But different fates ere night fulfil :

How many by his warmth will live!

How many will her coldness kill!"

Are you melted? Don't you think him a divine man? If not touched by the brilliant Sabina, hear the devout Selinda :—

"Pious Selinda goes to prayers,

If I but ask her favour;
And yet the silly fool's in tears,
If she believes I'll leave her :
Would I were free from this restraint,
Or else had hopes to win her :
Would she could make of me a saint,

Or I of her a sinner!"

What a conquering air there is about these! What an irresistible Mr. Congreve it is! Sinner! of course he will be a sinner, the delightful rascal! Win her! of course he will win her, the victorious rogue! He knows he will: he must-with such a grace, with such a fashion, with such a splendid embroidered suit. You see him with red-heeled shoes deliciously turned out, passing a fair jewelled hand through his dishevelled periwig, and delivering a killing ogle along with his scented billet. And Sabina? What a comparison that is between the nymph and the sun! The sun gives Sabina the pas, and does not venture to rise before her ladyship: the morn's bright beams are less glorious than her fair eyes: but before night everybody will be frozen by her glances: everybody but one lucky rogue who shall be nameless. Louis Quatorze in all his glory is hardly more splendid than our Phoebus Apollo of the Mall and Spring Gardens.*

When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, the latter rather affected to despise his literary reputation, and in this perhaps the great Congreve was not far wrong.† A touch of Steele's tenderness is

* 66

Among those by whom it (Wills's') was frequented, Southerne and Congreve were principally distinguished by Dryden's friendship. . . . But Congreve seems to have gained yet farther than Southerne upon Dryden's friendship. He was introduced to him by his first play, the celebrated Old Bachelor' being put into the poet's hands to be revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations to fit it for the stage, returned it to the author with the high and just commendation, that it was the best first play he had ever seen."-SCOTT's Dryden, vol. i. p. 370.

It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), that Voltaire visited him, in the decline of his life. [The anecdote

worth all his finery; a flash of Swift's lightning, a beam of Addison's pure sunshine, and his tawdry playhouse taper is invisible. But the ladies loved him, and he was undoubtedly a pretty fellow.*

The anecdote relating to his saying that he wished "to be visited on no other footing than as a gentleman who led a life of plainness and simplicity," is common to all writers on the subject of Congreve, and appears in the English version of Voltaire's "Letters concerning the English Nation," published in London, 1733, as also in Goldsmith's "Memoir of Voltaire." But it is worthy of remark, that it does not appear in the text of the same Letters in the edition of Voltaire's "Euvres Complètes" in the "Panthéon Littéraire." Vol. v. of his works. (Paris, 1837.)

"Celui de tous les Anglais qui à porté le plus loin la gloire du théâtre comique est feu M. Congreve. Il n'a fait que peu de pièces, mais toutes sont excellentes dans leur genre. . . . Vous y voyez partout le langage des honnêtes gens avec des actions de fripon; ce qui prouve qu'il connaissait bien son monde, et qu'il vivait dans ce qu'on appelle la bonne compagnie."-VOLTAIRE: Lettres sur les Anglais. Let. 19.

* On the death of Queen Mary he published a Pastoral-“The Mourning Muse of Alexis." Alexis and Menalcas sing alternately in the orthodox way. The Queen is called PASTORA.

"I mourn PASTORA dead, let Albion mourn,

And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn,"

says Alexis. Among other phenomena, we learn that

"With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound,

And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground

(a degree of sensibility not always found in the Satyrs of that period) . . continues

"Lord of these woods and wide extended plains,

Stretch'd on the ground and close to earth his face,
Scalding with tears the already faded grass.

*

To dust must all that Heavenly beauty come?
And must Pastora moulder in the tomb?
Ah Death! more fierce and unrelenting far
Than wildest wolves and savage tigers are;

With lambs and sheep their hunger is appeased,
But ravenous Death the shepherdess has seized."

It

This statement that a wolf eats but a sheep, whilst Death eats a shepherdessthat figure of the "Great Shepherd " lying speechless on his stomach, in a state of despair which neither winds nor floods nor air can exhibit-are to be remembered in poetry surely: and this style was admired in its time by the admirers of the great Congreve !

[In the

We have seen in Swift a humourous philosopher, whose truth frightens one, and whose laughter makes one melancholy. We have had in Congreve a humourous observer of another school, to whom

In the "Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas" (the young Lord Blandford, the great Duke of Marlborough's only son), Amaryllis represents Sarah Duchess!

The tigers and wolves, nature and motion, rivers and echoes, come into work here again. At the sight of her grief—

'Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forego,
And dumb distress and new compassion show,
Nature herself attentive silence kept,

And motion seemed suspended while she wept!"

And Pope dedicated the "Iliad" to the author of these lines-and Dryden wrote to great hand :

him in his

"Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought,

But Genius must be born and never can be taught.

This is your portion, this your native store;

Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,

TO SHAKSPEARE gave as much she could not give him more.

Maintain your Post: that's all the fame you need,

For 'tis impossible you should proceed;

Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage:
Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expence,
I live a Rent-charge upon Providence :
But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
Be kind to my remains, and oh! defend
Against your Judgment your departed Friend!
Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue;
But shade those Lawrels which descend to You:
And take for Tribute what these Lines express;
You merit more, nor could my Love do less."

This is a very different manner of welcome to that of our own day. In Shadwell, Higgons, Congreve, and the comic authors of their time, when gentlemen meet they fall into each other's arms, with "Jack, Jack, I must buss thee;" or, "Fore George, Harry, I must kiss thee, lad.” And in a similar manner the poets saluted their brethren. Literary gentlemen do not kiss now; I wonder if they love each other better?

Steele calls Congreve "Great Sir" and "Great Author;" says "Well-dressed barbarians knew his awful name," and addresses him as if he were a prince; and speaks of "Pastora" as one of the most famous tragic compositions.