obstructed by cataracts in his eyes, which at last terminated in blindness. This melancholy state was aggravated by the gout', for which he sought relief by a journey to Bath; but being overturned in his chariot, complained from that time of a pain in his side, and died, at his house in Surrey-street in the Strand, Jan. 292, 1728-9. Having lain in state in the Jerusalem-chamber he was buried in Westminster-abbey, where a monument is erected to his memory by Henrietta dutchess of Marlborough 3, to whom, for reasons either not known or not mentioned, he bequeathed a legacy of about ten thousand pounds; the accumulation of attentive parsimony, which, though to her superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that time by the imprudence of his relation reduced to difficulties and distress*. I ' Congreve wrote in 1712:—' As to my gout I am pretty well; but shall never jump one and twenty feet at one jump upon North-hall Common again.' G. M. Berkeley's Lit. Relics, p. 378. Swift wrote of him:-'Oct. 26, 1710. Mr. Congreve is almost blind with cataracts growing on his eyes. ... Besides he is never rid of the gout.' 'Jan. 5, 1711-12. He is almost blind of both eyes.' 'Feb. 17, 1728-9. He had the misfortune to squander away a very good constitution in his younger days.' Works, ii. 57, 447, xvii. 213. 2 Jan. 19. Dict. Nat. Biog. 3 On the death of the great Duke she succeeded to the title by act of parliament. 'When the younger Duchess exposed herself by placing a monument and silly epitaph of her own composition and bad spelling to Congreve, her mother, quoting the words, said, “ I know not what pleasure she might have in his company; but I am sure it was no honour." Walpole's Letters, Preface, p. 139. The words on the monument are 'the happiness and honour she enjoyed in the sincere friendship,' &c. The old Duchess, by changing happiness into pleasure, and friendship into company, gave a scandalous turn to the epitaph. For the epitaph see Pope's Works (E. & C.), iii. 100 n. Pope hints at the connexion in Moral Essays, ii. 76 :— 'She sins with poets through pure love of wit.' It must be remembered how long Congreve had been broken in health. Hawthorne says of Poets' Corner: -'It is observable that the bust and monument of Congreve are in a distant part of the Abbey. His duchess probably thought it a degradation to bring a gentleman among the beggarly poets.' English Note Books, 1870, i. 386. Dean Stanley in his Westminster Abbey, 1868, p. 284, apparently confuses the poet with his own contemporary at Oxford, the Positivist, for he calls him Richard Congreve. 4 The Duchess showed me a diamond necklace that cost £7,000, and was purchased with the money Congreve left her. How much better would it have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle !' DR. YOUNG, Spence's Anec. p. 376. See also Warton's Pope's Works, Preface, p. 36. 'Bravo, Dr. Young! With leave of thy very gloomy, mitre-missing, and more To that which had too much.' As You Like It, ii. 1. 47. 33 CONGREVE has merit of the highest kind: he is an original writer, who borrowed neither the models of his plot nor the manner of his dialogue 1. Of his plays I cannot speak distinctly, for since I inspected them many years have passed; but what remains upon my memory is that his characters are commonly fictitious and artificial, with very little of nature, and not much of life. He formed a peculiar idea of comick excellence, which he supposed to consist in gay remarks and unexpected answers; but that which he endeavoured, he seldom failed of performing. His scenes exhibit not much of humour, imagery, or passion; his personages are a kind of intellectual gladiators; every sentence is to ward or strike; the contest of smartness is never intermitted; his wit is a meteor playing to and fro with alternate coruscations 2. His comedies have therefore, in some degree, the operation of tragedies they surprise rather than divert, and raise admiration oftener than merriment. But they are the works of a mind replete with images, and quick in combination 3. Dr. Warton contrasts this statement with Johnson's assertion (ante, CONGREVE, 10) that The Old Bachelor 'might be made by a mind vigorous and acute, and furnished with comick characters by the perusal of other poets, without much actual commerce with mankind.' Pope's Works, 1822, viii. 153. He does not notice that Johnson, in the second passage, is speaking of 'the models of his plot and the manner of his dialogue,' and that, in the next sentence, he confirms what he had previously said. Congreve's ignorance of one side of nature is shown by his making cuckoos sing in August. Dennis's Letters upon Several Occasions, p. 102. 2 Congreve wrote in 1695:- The distance of the stage requires the figure represented to be something larger than the life.... If a poet should steal a dialogue of any length from the extempore discourse of the wittiest men upon earth, he would find the scene but coldly received by the town.' Ib. p. 88. 'I never knew anybody that had so much wit as Congreve.' LADY M. W. MONTAGU, Spence's Anec. p. 232. 'We must confess we find the "wit" becomes tiresome.... Wit for wit's sake becomes a task and a trial.' LEIGH HUNT, Wycherley, &c., p. 36. See also Macaulay's Essays, iii, 273. Voltaire says of Congreve :-'Il n'a fait que peu de pièces, mais toutes sont excellentes dans leur genre. Les règles du théâtre y sont rigoureusement observées. Elles sont pleines de caractères nuancés avec une extrême finesse; on n'y essuie pas la moindre mauvaise plaisanterie ; 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.' Euvres, xxiv. 113. Horace Walpole wrote in 1787:'Why are there so few genteel comedies but because most comedies are written by men not of that sphere [of high life]? Etherege, Congreve, Vanbrugh and Cibber wrote genteel comedy because they lived in the best company.' Letters, ix. 96. 'Congreve is at present [1764] justly allowed the foremost in that species of dramatic poesy [comedy].' GOLDSMITH, Works, iii. 432. E. FitzGerald, after asserting that The School for Scandal is the best comedy in the English language,? Of his miscellaneous poetry I cannot say any thing very 34 favourable. The powers of Congreve seem to desert him when he leaves the stage, as Antæus was no longer strong than he could touch the ground. It cannot be observed without wonder that a mind so vigorous and fertile in dramatick compositions should on any other occasion discover nothing but impotence and poverty. He has in these little pieces neither elevation of fancy, selection of language, nor skill in versification; yet, if I were required to select from the whole mass of English poetry the most poetical paragraph', I know not what I could prefer to an exclamation in The Mourning Bride": 'ALMERIA. It was a fancy'd noise; for all is hush'd. LEONORA. It bore the accent of a human voice. ALMERIA. It was thy fear, or else some transient wind Hark! LEONORA. ALMERIA. No, all is hush'd, and still as death.-'Tis dreadful! continues :-'Not wittier than Con- 'On 'paragraph' Leigh Hunt remarks:-'Observe the instinct of that word!' Wycherley, &c., Preface, p. 39. 2 Act ii. sc. I. 'Sir,' said Johnson, 'this is not comparing Congreve on the whole, with Shakespeare on the whole; but only maintaining that Congreve has one finer passage than any that can be found in Shakespeare. Sir, a man may have no more than ten guineas in the world, but he may have those ten guineas in one piece; and so may have a finer piece than a man who has ten thousand pounds: but then he has only one ten-guinea piece. What I mean is, that you can show me no passage where there is simply a description of material objects, without any intermixture of moral notions, which produces such an effect.' Boswell's Johnson, ii. 86. See also ib. p. 96. 'Johnson told me,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'how he used to tease Garrick by commendations of the tomb scene in Congreve's Mourning Bride, protesting that Shakespeare had in the same line of excellence nothing as good: "All which is strictly true (said he); but that is no reason for supposing Congreve is to stand in competition with Shakespeare: these fellows know not how to blame, nor how to commend."' John. Misc. i. 186. 35 36 Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, And terror on my aching sight; the tombs He who reads those lines enjoys for a moment the powers of a poet: he feels what he remembers to have felt before, but he feels it with great increase of sensibility; he recognises a familiar image, but meets it again amplified and expanded, embellished with beauty, and enlarged with majesty 1. Yet could the author, who appears here to have enjoyed the confidence of nature, lament the death of queen Mary in lines like these: 'The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rills And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his wanting urn. In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear, And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair. With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound, And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground. Dejected lies, his pipe in pieces broke. And to the piercing winds her bosom bare. 'This description was a great stretch of Congreve's poetic genius. It has, however, been over-rated, particularly by Dr. Johnson, who could have done nearly as well himself for a single passage in the same style of moralising and sentimental description.' HAZLITT, Hunt's Wycherley, &c. p. 92. 'Had Johnson contented himself with saying that it was finer than anything that had been written for the stage since the days of Charles I he would not have been in the wrong.' MACAULAY, Essays, iii. 256. "Theatric genius turned to tuneful nonsense in The Mourning Bride! HORACE WALPOLE [postscript to The Mysterious Mother, 1768, p. 10]. Dr. Warton calls the play 'a despicable performance.' Pope's Works, 1822, i. 237. See how she wrings her hands, and beats her breast, And many years after he gave no proof that time had improved his wisdom or his wit, for on the death of the marquis of Blandford this was his song: 'And now the winds, which had so long been still, The water-nymphs, who motionless remain'd, Now loos'd their streams: as when descending rains Nothing but groans and sighs were heard around, In both these funeral poems, when he has yelled out many syllables of senseless dolour, he dismisses his reader with senseless consolation: from the grave of Pastora rises a light that forms a star, and where Amaryllis wept for Amyntas from every tear sprung up a violet 5. But William is his hero, and of William he will sing: 'The hovering winds on downy wings shall wait around, And catch, and waft to foreign lands, the flying sound".' 'Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 136; ante, CONGREVE, 13. causes the other to make complaints, 'When Damon's soul shall take its 129. 37 |