highest in his school. He was in truth a worse Congreve. His chief merit, like Congreve, lies in the style of his dialogue. But the wit which lights up the "Plain Dealer" and the Country Wife" is pale and flickering, when compared with the gorgeous blaze which dazzles us almost to blindness in "Love for Love" and the "Way of the World." Like Congreve —and, indeed, even more than Congreve Wycherley is ready to sacrifice dramatic propriety to the liveliness of his dialogue. The poet speaks out of the mouths of all his dunces and coxcombs, and makes them describe themselves with a good sense and acuteness which puts them on a level with the wits and heroes. We will give two instances, the first which occur to us, from the "Country Wife." There are to be found in the world fools who find the society of old friends insipid, and who are always running after new companions. Such a character is a fair subject for comedy. But nothing can be more absurd than to introduce a man of this sort saying to his comrade-"I can deny you nothing; for though I have known thee a great while, never go if I do not love thee as well as a new acquaintance." That town wits, again, have always been rather a heartless class, is true. But none of them, we will answer for it, ever said to a young lady to whom he was making love-" We wits rail and make love often but to show our parts: as we have no affections, so we have no malice." Wycherley's plays are said to have been the produce of long and patient labour. The epithet of "slow" was early given to him by Rochester, and was frequently repeated. In truth, his mind, unless we are greatly mistaken, was naturally a very meager soil, and was forced only by great labour and outlay to bear fruit, which, after all, was not of the highest flavour. He has scarcely more claim to originality than Terence. It is not too much to say, that there is hardly any thing of the least value in his plays, of which the hint is not to be found elsewhere. The best scenes in the "Gentleman Dancing-Master," were suggested by Calderon's Maestro de Danzar, not by any means one of the happiest comedies of the great Castilian poet. The "Country Wife" is borrowed from the Ecole des Maris and the Ecole des Femmes. The groundwork of the "Plain Dealer" is taken from the Misanthrope of Molière. One whole scene is almost translated from the Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes; Fidelia is Shakspeare's Viola stolen, and marred in the stealing; and the Widow Blackacre, beyond comparison Wycherley's best comic character, is the Countess in Racine's Plaideurs, talking the jargon of English instead of that of French chicane. The only thing original about Wycherley the only thing which he could furnish from his own mind in inexhaustible abundance-was profligacy. It is curious to observe how every thing that he touched, however pure and noble, took in an instant the colour of his own mind. Compare the Ecole des Femmes with the "Country Wife." Agnes is a simple and amiable girl, whose heart is indeed full of love, but of love sanctioned by honour, morality, and region. Her natural talents are great. They have been hidden, and, as it might appear, destroyed by an education elaborately bad. But they are called forth into full energy by a virtuous passion. Her lover, while he adores her beauty, is too honest a man to abuse the confiding tenderness of a creature so charming and inexperienced. Wycherley takes this plot into his hands; and forthwith this sweet and graceful courtship becomes a licentious intrigue of the lowest and least sentimental kind, between an impudent London rake and the idiot wife of a country squire. We will not go into details. In truth, Wycherley's indecency is protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters. It is safe, because it is too filthy to handle, and too noisome even to approach. It is the same with the "Plain Dealer." How careful has Shakspeare been in "Twelfth Night," to preserve the dignity and delicacy of Viola, under her disguise! Even when wearing a page's doublet and hose, she is never mixed up with any transaction which the most fastidious mind could regard as leaving a stain on her. She is employed by the Duke on an embassy of love to Olivia; but on an embassy of the most honourable kind. Wycherley borrows Viola-and Viola forthwith becomes a pander of the basest sort. But the character of Manly is the best illustration of our meaning. Molière exhibited in his misanthrope a pure and noble mind, which had been sorely vexed by the sight of perfidy and malevolence, disguised under the forms of politeness. As every extreme naturally generates its contrary, Alceste adopts a standard of good and evil dírectly opposed to that of the society which surrounds him. Courtesy seems to him a vice; and those stern virtues which are neglected by the fops and coquettes of Paris become too exclusively the objects of his veneration. He is often to blame; he is often ridiculous; but he is always a good man; and the feeling which he inspires is regret that a person so estimable should be so unamiable. Wycherley borrowed Alceste, and turned him-we quote the words of so lenient a critic as Mr. Leigh Hunt-into "a ferocious sensualist, who believed himself as great a rascal as he thought everybody else." The surliness of Molière's hero is copied and caricatured. But the most nause ous libertinism and the most dastardly fraud are substituted for the purity and integrity of the original. And, to make the whole complete, Wycherley does not seem to have been aware that he was not drawing the portrait of an eminently honest man. So depraved was his moral taste, that, while he firmly believed he was producing a picture of virtue too exalted for the commerce of this world, he was really delineating the greatest rascal that is to be found, even in his own writings. We pass a very severe censure on Wycherley, when we say that it is a relief to turn from him to Congreve. Congreve's writings, indeed, are by no means pure, nor was he, as far as we are able to judge, a warm-hearted or high-minded man. Yet, in coming to him, we feel that the worst is over-that we are one remove farther from the Restoration-that we are past the Nadir of national taste and morality. WILLIAM CONGREVE was born in 1670, at having written a good play, and shame at Bardsey, in the neighbourhood of Leeds. His having done an ungentlemanlike thing-pre father, a younger son of a very ancient Staf- tended that he had merely scribbled a few fordshire family, had distinguished himself scenes for his own amusement, and affected to among the Cavaliers in the Civil War, was set yield unwillingly to the importunities of those down after the Restoration for the Order of the who pressed him to try his fortune on the Royal Oak, and subsequently settled in Ire- stage. The "Old Bachelor" was seen in land, under the patronage of the Earl of Bur- manuscript by Dryden; one of whose best lington. qualities was a hearty and generous admiration for the talents of others. He declared that he had never seen such a first play; and lent his services to bring it into a form fit for re Congreve passed his childhood and youth in Ireland. He was sent to school at Kilkenny, and thence went to the University of Dublin. His learning does great honour to his instruct-presentation. Nothing was wanting to the ers. From his writings it appears, not only that he was well acquainted with Latin literature, but that his knowledge of the Greek poets was such as was not, in his time, common even in a college. success of the piece. It was so cast as to bring into play all the comic talent, and to exhibit on the boards in one view all the beauty which Drury Lane Theatre, then the only theatre in London, could assemble. The result was a complete triumph; and the author was gratified with rewards more substantial than the applauses of the pit. Montagu, then a Lord of the Treasury, immediately gave him a place, and, in a short time, added the reversion of another place of much greature value, which, however, did not become vacant till many years had elapsed. When he had completed his academical studies, he was sent to London to study the law, and was entered of the Middle Temple. He troubled himself, however, very little about pleading or conveyancing; and gave himself up to literature and society. Two kinds of ambition early took possession of his mind, and often pulled it in opposite directions. He was conscious of great fertility of thought, and In 1694, Congreve brought out the "Doublepower of ingenious combination. His lively Dealer," a comedy in which all the powers conversation, his polished manners, and his which had produced the "Old Bachelor" show highly respectable connections had obtained themselves, matured by time and improved by for him ready access to the best company. He exercise. But the audience was shocked by longed to be a great writer. He longed to be a the characters of Maskwell and Lady Touchman of fashion. Either object was within his wood. And, indeed, there is something strangely reach. But could he secure both? Was there revolting in the way in which a group that not something vulgar in letters-something seems to belong to the house of Laius or of inconsistent with the easy apathetic graces of a Pelops, is introduced into the midst of the man of the mode? Was it aristocratical to be Brisks, Froths, Carelesses, and Plyants. The confounded with creatures who lived in the play was unfavourably received. Yet, if the cocklofts of Grub Street, to bargain with pub-praise of distinguished men could compensate lishers, to hurry printers' devils, to squabble with managers, to be applauded or hissed by pit, boxes, and galleries? Could he forego the renown of being the first wit of his age? Could he attain that renown without sullying what he valued quite as much-his character for gentility? The history of his life is the history of a conflict between these two impulses. In his youth the desire of literary fame had the mastery; but soon the meaner ambition overpowered the higher, and obtained supreme dominion over his mind. an author for the disapprobation of the multitude, Congreve had no reason to repine. Dryden, in one of the most ingenious, magnificent. and pathetic pieces that he ever wrote, extolled the author of the " Double-Dealer" in terms which now appear extravagantly hyperbolical. Till Congreve came forth-so ran this exquisite flattery-the superiority of the poets who preceded the civil wars was acknowledged. "Theirs was the giant race before the flood.” Since the return of the royal house, much art and ability had been exerted, but the old mas ters had been still unrivalled. "Our builders were with want of genius curst, At length a writer had arisen who, just emerg His first work, a novel of no great value, he published under the assumed name of "Cleophil." His second was the "Old Bachelor," acted in 1693, a play inferior indeed to his other comedies, but, in its own line, inferior to them alone. The plot is equally destitute of interest and of probability. The characters are either not distinguishable, or are distinguished only by peculiarities of the most glaring kind. But the dialogue is resplendent with left to contend with. wit and eloquence-which indeed are so abundant that the fools come in for an ample share and yet preserves a certain colloquial air, a certain indescribable ease, of which Wycherley had given no example, and which Sheridan in vain attempted to imitate. The author, divided between pride and shame-pride at Mr. Leigh Hunt says 1669. But the Old Style has misled him. VOL. IV.-57 "Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, To Shakspeare gave as much, he could not give him more." Some lines near the end of the poem are sin "Already am I worn with cares and age, 2 F 2 Be kind to my remains; and, oh, defend The crowd, as usual, gradually came over to the opinion of the men of note; and the "Double-Dealer" was before long quite as much admired, though perhaps never so much liked as the "Old Bachelor." many important points, we can never mention without respect. Jeremy Collier was a clergyman of the Church of England, bred at Cambridge. His talents and attainments were such as might have been expected to raise him to the highest honours of his profession. He had an extensive knowledge of books, and yet he had mingled with polite society, and is said not to have wanted either grace or vivacity in conversation. There were few branches of literature to which he had not paid some attention. But ecclesiastical antiquity was his favourite study. In religious opinions he belonged to that section of the Church of England which lies furthest from Geneva and nearest to Rome. His notions touching Episcopal government, holy orders, the efficacy of the sacraments, the authority of the Fathers, the guilt of schism, the importance of vestments, ceremonies, and solemn days, differed little from those which are now held by Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman. Towards the close of his life, indeed, Collier took some steps which brought him still nearer to Popery-mixed water with the wine in the Eucharist, made the sign of the cross in confirmation, employed oil in the visitation of the sick, and offered up prayers for the dead. His politics were of a piece with his divinity. He was a Tory of the highest sort, such as in the cant of that age was called a Tantivy. Not even the tyranny of James, not even the persecution of the bishops and the spoliation of the universities, could shake that steady loyalty. While the Convention was sitting, Collier wrote with vehemence in defence of the fugitive king, and was in consequence arrested. But his dauntless spirit was not to be so tamed. He refused to take the oaths, renounced all his In 1695 appeared "Love for Love," superior both in wit and in scenic effect to either of the preceding plays. It was performed at a new theatre which Betterton and some other actors, disgusted by the treatment which they received in Drury Lane, just opened in a tennis-court near Lincoln's Inn. Scarcely any comedy within the memory of the oldest man had been equally successful. The actors were so elated that they gave Congreve a share in their theatre, and he promised, in return, to furnish them with a play every year, if his health would permit. Two years passed, however, before he produced the "Mourning Bride;" a play which, paltry as it is when compared, we do not say with Lear or Macbeth, but with the best dramas of Massinger and Ford, stands very high among the tragedies of the age in which it was written. To find any thing so good we must go twelve years back to "Venice Preserved" or six years forward to the "Fair Penitent." The noble passage which Johnson, in writing and in conversation, extolled above any other in the English drama, has suffered greatly in the public estimation from the extravagance of his praise. Had he contented himself with saying that it was finer than any thing in the tragedies of Dryden, Otway, Lee, Rowe, Southern, Hughes, and Addison-than any thing, in short, that had been written for the stage since the time of Charles the First-preferments, and, in a succession of pamphlets he would not have been in the wrong. The success of the "Mourning Bride" was even greater than that of "Love for Love." Congreve was now allowed to be the first tragic, as well as the first comic dramatist of his time; and all this at twenty-seven. We believe that no English writer, except Lord Byron, has, at so early an age, stood so high in the estimation of his contemporaries. At this time took place an event which deserves, in our opinion, a very different sort of notice from that which has been bestowed on it by Mr. Leigh Hunt. The nation had now nearly recovered from the demoralizing effect of the Puritan austerity. The gloomy follies of the reign of the Saints were but faintly remembered. The evils produced by profaneness and debauchery were recent and glaring. The court, since the Revolution, had ceased to patronise licentiousness. Mary was strictly pious; and the vices of the cold, stern, and silent William, were not obtruded on the public eye. Discountenanced by the government, and falling in the favour of the people, the profligacy of the Restoration still maintained its ground in some parts of society. Its strong holds were the places where men of wit and fashion congregated, and above all, the thea tres. At this conjuncture arose a great reformer, whom, widely as we differ from him in written with much violence and with some ability, attempted to excite the nation against its new masters. In 1692, he was again ar rested on suspicion of having been concerned in a treasonable plot. So unbending were his principles that his friends could hardly persuade him to let them bail him; and he afterwards expressed his remorse for having been induced thus to acknowledge, by implication, the authority of a usurping government. He was soon in trouble again. Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkins were tried and convicted of high treason for planning the murder of King William. Collier administered spiritual consolation to them, attended them to Tyburn, and just before their execution laid his hands on their heads, and by the authority which he derived from Christ, solemnly absolved them. This scene gave indescribable scandal. Tories joined with Whigs in blaming the conduct of the daring priest. There are, it was said, some acts which fall under the definition of treason into which a good man may, in troubled times, be led even by his vir tues. It may be necessary for the protection of society to punish such a man. But even in punishing him we consider him as legally rather than morally guilty, and hope that his honest error, though it cannot be pardoned here, will not be counted to him for sin here after. But such was not the case of Collier's to wink at the excesses of a body of zealous penitents. They were concerned in a plot for and able allies, who covered Roundheads and waylaying and butchering, in an hour of secu- Presbyterians with ridicule. If a Whig raised rity, one who, whether he were or were not his voice against the impiety and licentioustheir king, was at all events their fellow-crea-ness of the fashionable writers, his mouth was ture. Whether the Jacobite theory about the instantly stopped by the retort-You are one rights of governments, and the duties of sub- of those who groan at a light quotation from jects, were or were not well founded, assassi- Scripture, and raise estates out of the plunder nation must always be considered as a great of the Church.-who shudder at a double encrime. It is condemned even by the maxims tendre, and chop off the heads of kings. A of worldly honour and morality. Much more Baxter, a Burnet, even a Tillotson, would have must it be an object of abhorrence to the pure done little to purify our literature. But when Spouse of Christ. The Church cannot surely, a man, fanatical in the cause of Episcopacy, without the saddest and most mournful fore- and actually under outlawry for his attachbodings, see one of her children who has been ment to hereditary right, came forward as the guilty of this great wickedness, pass into eter- champion of decency, the battle was already nity without any sign of repentance. That half won. these traitors had given any sign of repentance was not alleged. It might be that they had privately declared their contrition; and, if so, the minister of religion might be justified in privately assuring them of the Divine forgiveness. But a public remission ought to have been preceded by a public atonement. The regret of these men, if expressed at all, had been expressed in secret. The hands of Collier had been laid on them in the presence of thousands. The inference which his enemies drew from his conduct was, that he did not consider the conspiracy against the life of William as sinful. But this inference he very vehemently, and, we doubt not, very sincerely denied. In 1698, Collier published his "Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage," a book which threw the whole literary world into commotion, but which is now much less read than it deserves. The faults of the work, indeed, are neither few nor small. The dissertations on the Greek and Latin Drama do not at all help the argument; and, whatever may have been thought of them by the generation which fancied that Christchurch had refuted Bentley, are such as in the present day, a scholar of very humble pretensions may venture to pronounce boyish, or rather babyish. The censures are not sufficiently discriminating. The authors whom Collier accused had been guilty of such gross The storm raged. The bishops put forth a sins against decency, that he was certain to solemn censure of the absolution. The At- weaken, instead of strengthening his case, by torney-General brought the matter before the introducing into his charge against them any Court of King's Bench. Collier had now matter about which there could be the smallest made up his mind not to give bail for his ap-dispute. He was, however, so injudicious as pearance before any court which derived its to place among the outrageous offences, which authority from the usurper. He accordingly absconded, and was outlawed. He survived these events about thirty years. The prosecution was not pressed, and he was soon suffered to resume his literary pursuits in quiet. At a later period, many attempts were made to shake his perverse integrity by offers of wealth and dignity, but in vain. When he died, towards the end of the reign of George L., he was still under the ban of the law. he justly arraigned, some things which are really quite innocent; and some slight instances of levity, which, though not perhaps strictly correct, would easily be paralleled from the works of writers who had rendered great services to morality and religion. Thus he blames Congreve, the number and gravity of whose real transgressions made it quite unnecessary to tax him with any that were not real, for using the words "martyr" and "inWe shall not be suspected of regarding spiration" in a light sense: as if an archbishop either the politics or the theology of Collier might not say that a speech was inspired by with partiality; but we believe him to have claret, or that an alderman was a martyr to been as honest and courageous a man as ever the gout. Sometimes, again, Collier does not lived. We will go further, and say that, sufficiently distinguish between the dramatist though passionate and often wrong-headed, he and the persons of the drama. Thus he was a singularly fair controversialist-candid, blames Vanbrugh for putting into Lord Fopgenerous, too high-spirited to take mean ad-pington's mouth some raillery on the Church vantages even in the most exciting disputes, service; though it is obvious that Vanbrugh and pure from all taint of personal malevolence. It must also be admitted that his opinions on ecclesiastical and political affairs, though in themselves absurd and pernicious. eminently qualified him to be the reformer of our lighter literature. The libertinism of the press and of the stage, was, as we have said, the effect of the reaction against the Puritan strictness. Profligacy was, like the oak leaf on the twenty-ninth of May, the badge of a Cavalier and a High Churchman. Decency was associated with conventicles and calves' head. Grave prelates were too much disposed could not better express reverence than by making Lord Foppington express contempt. There is also throughout the "Short View" too strong a display of professional feeling. Collier is not content with claiming for his order an immunity from insult and indiscriminate scurrility; he will not allow that, in any case, any word or act of a divine can be a proper subject for ridicule. Nor does he confine this benefit of clergy to the ministers of the Established Church; he extends the privilege to Catholic priests, and, what in him is more surprising, to Dissenting prearners. This, however, is a mere trifle. Imauns, Brahmins, priests of Jupiter, priests of Baal, are all to be held sacred. Dryden is blamed for making the Mufti in "Don Sebastian" talk nonsense. Lee is called to a severe account for his incivility to Tiresias. But the most curious passage is that in which Collier resents some uncivil reflections thrown by Cassandra, in "Cleomenes," on the calf Apis and his hierophants. The words, "grass-eating, foddered god,"-words which really are much in the style of several passages in the Old Testament, give as much offence to this Christian divine as they could have given to the priests at Memphis. But, when all these deductions have been made, great merit must be allowed to this work. There is hardly any book of that time from which it would be possible to select specimens of writing so excellent and so various. To compare Collier with Pascal would indeed be absurd. Yet we hardly know where, except in the "Provincial Letters," we can find mirth so harmoniously and beco weapon, offensive or defensive, of which he was not master. But his conscience smote him; he stood abashed, like the fallen archangel at the rebuke of Zephon, "And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely; saw and pined His loss." At a later period he mentioned the “Short View" in the preface to his "Fables." He complained, with some asperity, of the harsh ness with which he had been treated, and urged some matters in mitigation. But on the whole, he frankly acknowledged that he had been justly reproved. "If," said he, "Mr. Col. lier be my enemy, let him triumph. If he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance." It would have been wise in Congreve to follow his master's example. He was precisely in that situation in which it is madness to attempt a vindication; for his guilt was so clear, that no address or eloquence could obly blend-tain an acquittal. On the other hand, there were, in his case, many extenuating circumstances, which, if he had acknowledged his error, and promised amendment, would have procured his pardon. The most rigid censor could not but make great allowances for the faults into which so young a man had been seduced by evil example, by the luxuriance of a vigorous fancy, and by the inebriating effect of popular applause. The esteem, as well as the admiration, of the public was still within the reach. He might easily have effaced all memory of his transgressions, and have shared with Addison the glory of showing that the most brilliant wit may be the ally of virtue. But in any case, prudence should have re strained him from encountering Collier. The non-juror was a man thoroughly fitted by nature, education, and habit, for polemical dispute. Congreve's mind, though one of no common fertility and vigour, was of a different class. No man understood so well the art of polishing epigrams and repartees into the clearest effulgence, and setting them tastefully in easy and familiar dialogue. In this sort of jewellery he attained to a mastery unprecedented and inimitable. But he was altogether rude in the art of controversy, and he had a cause to defend which scarcely any art could have ren dered victorious. ed with solemnity as in the " View." In truth, all the modes of ridicule, ¡rom broad fun to polished and antithetical sarcasm, were at Collier's command. On the other hand, he was complete master of the rhetoric of honest indignation. We scarcely know any volume which contains so many bursts of that peculiar eloquence which comes from the heart, and goes to the heart. Indeed, the spirit of the book is truly heroic. In order fairly to appreciate it, we must remember the situation in which the writer stood. He was under the frown of power. His name was already a mark for the invectives of one half of the writers of the age; when, in the case of good taste, good sense, and good morals, he gave battle to the other half. Strong as his political prejudices were, he seems on this occasion to have entirely laid them aside. He has forgotten that he was a Jacobite, and remembers only that he is a citizen and a Christian. Some of his sharpest censures are directed against poetry which had been hailed with delight by the Tory party, and had inflicted a deep wound on the Whigs. It is really inspiriting to see how gallantly the solitary outlaw advances to attack enemies, formidable separately, and it might have been thought, irresistible when combined-distributes his swashing blows right and left among Wycherley, Congreve, and Vanbrugh-treads the wretched D'Urfey down in the dirt beneath his feet-and strikes with all his strength full at the towering crest of Dryden. The event was such as might have been foreseen. Congreve's answer was a complete failure. He was angry, obscure, and dull. Even the Green Room and Wills' Coffee-House were compelled to acknowledge, that in wit The effect produced by the "Short View" the parson had a decided advantage over the was immense. The nation was on the side of poet. Not only was Congreve unable to make Collier. But it could not be doubted that, in any show of a case where he was in the wrong, the great host which he had defied, some cham- but he succeeded in putting himself completely pion would be found to lift the gauntlet. The in the wrong where he was in the right. Collier general belief was, that Dryden would take the had taxed him with profaneness for calling a field; and all the wits anticipated a sharp clergyman Mr. Prig, and for introducing a coachcontest between two well-paired combatants. man named Jehu, in allusion to the King of Israel, The great poet had been singled out in the who was known at a distance by his furious most marked manner. It was well known that driving. Had there been nothing worse in the he was deeply hurt, that much smaller provo-"Old Bachelor" and "Double Dealer," Concations had formerly roused him to violent greve might pass for as pure a writer as Cow resentment, and that there was no literary per himself; who in poems revised by so |