austere a censor as John Newton, calls a fox- A new race of wits and poets arose, who genehunting squire Nimrod, and gives to a chaplain rally treated with reverence the great ties which the disrespectful name of Smug. Congreve bind society together; and whose very indemight with good effect have appealed to the cencies were decent when compared with those public whether it might not be fairly presumed of the school which flourished during the last that, when such frivolous charges were made, forty years of the seventeenth century. there were no very serious charges to make. Instead of doing this, he pretended that he meant no allusion to the Bible by the name of Jehu, and no reflection by the name of Prig. Strange that a man of such parts should, in order to defend himself against imputations which nobody could regard as important, tell untruths which it was certain that nobody would believe.

One of the pleas which Congreve set up for himself and his brethren was, that, though they might be guilty of a little levity here and there. they were careful to inculcate a moral, packed close into two or three lines, at the end of every play. Had the fact been as he stated it, the defence would be worth very little. For no man acquainted with human nature could think that a sententious couplet would undo all the mischief that five profligate acts had done. But it would have been wise in Congreve to have looked again at his own comedies before he used this argument. Collier did so; and found that the moral of the "Old Bachelor". the grave apophthegm which is to be a set-off against all the libertinism of the piece-is contained in the following triplet:

"What rugged ways attend the noon of life!

This controversy probably prevented Congreve from fulfilling the engagements into which he had entered with the actors. It was not till 1700 that he produced the "Way of the World," the most deeply meditated, and the most brilliantly written, of all his works. It wants, perhaps, the constant movement, the effervescence of animal spirits, which we find in "Love for Love." But the hysterical rants of Lady Wishfort, the meeting of Witwould and his brother, the country knight's courtship and his subsequent revel, and above all, the chase and surrender of Milamant, are superior to any thing that is to be found in the whole range of English comedy from the Civil War downwards. It is quite inexplicable to us that this play should have failed on the stage. Yet so it was; and the author, already sore with the wounds which Collier had inflicted, was galled past endurance by this new stroke. He resolved never more to expose himself to the rudeness of a tasteless audience, and took leave of the theatre forever.

He lived twenty-eight years longer, without adding to the high literary reputation which he had attained. He read much while he retained his eyesight, and now and then wrote a short essay, or an idle tale in verse; but appears never to have planned any considerable work. "Love for Love," says Collier, "may have in 1710 are of little value, and have long been The miscellaneous pieces which he published

Our sun declines, and with what anxious strife,
What pain, we tug that galling load-a wife."

a somewhat better farewell, but it would do a man little service should he remember it to his dying day:"

"The miracle to-day is, that we find

forgotten.

The stock of fame which he had acquired by his comedies was sufficient, assisted by the graces of his manner and conversation, to secure for him a high place in the estimation of the world. During the winter, he lived among the most distinguished and agreeable people in London. His summers were passed at the splendid country-seats of ministers and peers. Literary envy, and political faction, which in that age respected nothing else, respected his repose. He professed to be one of the party of which his patron Montagu, now Lord Halifax, was the head. But he had civil words and small good offices for men of every shade of opinion. And men of every shade of opinion spoke well of him in return.

A lover true, not that a woman's kind." Collier's reply was severe and triumphant. One of his repartees we will quote, not as a favourable specimen of his manner, but because it was called forth by Congreve's characteristic affectation. The poet spoke of the "Old Bachelor" as a trifle to which he at tached no value, and which had become public by a sort of accident. "I wrote it," he said, to amuse myself in a slow recovery from a fit of sickness."-" What his disease was," replied Collier, "I am not to inquire: but it must be a very ill one to be worse than the remedy." All that Congreve gained by coming forward His means were for a long time scanty. The on this occasion was, that he completely de- place which he had in possession, barely enprived himself of the excuse which he might abled him to live with comfort. And when with justice have pleaded for his early offences. the Tories came into power, some thought that "Why," asked Collier, "should the man laugh he would lose even this moderate provision. at the mischief of the boy, and make the dis- But Harley, who was by no means disposed to orders of his nonage his own, by an after ap-adopt the exterminating policy of the October probation?"

Congreve was not Collier's only opponent. Vanbrugh, Denis, and Settle took the field. And, from the passage in a contemporary satire, we are inclined to think that among the answers to the "Short View," was one written, or supposed to be written, by Wycherley. The victory remained with Collier. A great and rapid reform in all the departments of our lighter literature was the effect of his labours.

club, and who, with all his faults of under-
standing and temper, had a sincere kindness
for men of genius, reassured the anxious poet
by quoting very gracefully and happily the
lines of Virgil—

"Non obtusa adeo gestamos pectora Pœni,

Nec tam aversus equos Tyriâ sol jungit ab urbe."

The indulgence with which Congreve was treated by the Tories, was not purchased by

!

any concession on his part which could justly offend the Whigs. It was his rare good-fortune to share the triumph of his friends without having shared their proscription. When the house of Hanover came to the throne, his fortunes began to flourish. The reversion to which he had been nominated twenty years before, fell in. He was made a secretary to the island of Jamaica; and his whole income amounted to 1200 a year-a fortune which, for a single man, was, in that age, not only easy, but splendid. He continued, however, to practise the frugality which he had learned when he could scarcely spare, as Swift tells us, a shilling to pay the chairman who carried him to Lord Halifax's. Though he had nobody to save for, he laid up at least as much as he spent.

The infirmities of age came early upon him. His habits had been intemperate; he suffered much from gout; and when confined to his chamber, had no longer the solace of literature. Blindness, the most cruel misfortune that can befall the lonely student, made his books useless to him. He was thrown on society for all his amusement, and, in society, his good breeding and vivacity made him always welcome.

neither the ministers nor the leaders of the op position could be offended.

The singular affectation which had from the first been characteristic of Congreve, grew stronger and stronger as he advanced in life. At last it became disagreeable to him to hear his own comedies praised. Voltaire, whose soul was burned up by the raging desire for literary renown, was half puzzled, half disgusted by what he saw, during his visit to England, of this extraordinary whim. Congreve disclaimed the character of a poet-declared that his plays were trifles produced in an idle hour, and begged that Voltaire would consider him merely as a gentleman. "If you had been merely a gentleman," said Voltaire, "I should not have come to see you."

Congreve was not a man of warm affections. Domestic ties he had none; and in the temporary connections which he formed with a succession of beauties from the green-room, his heart does not appear to have been at all interested. Of all his attachments, that to Mrs. Bracegirdle lasted the longest, and was the most celebrated. This charming actress, who was, during many years, the idol of all London; whose face caused the fatal broil in By the rising men of letters he was consi- which Mountfort fell, and for which Lord Modered not as a rival, but as a classic. He had hun was tried by the Peers; and to whom the left their arena; he never measured his Earl of Scarsdale was said to have made strength with them; and he was always loud honourable addresses, had conducted herself, in applause of their exertions. They could, in very trying circumstances, with extraordi therefore, entertain no jealousy of him; and nary discretion. Congreve at length became thought no more of detracting from his fame her confidential friend. They constantly rode than of carping at the great men who had been out together, and dined together. Some people lying a hundred years in Poet's Corner. Even said that she was his mistress, and others that the inmates of Grub Street, even the heroes of she would soon be his wife. He was at last the Dunciad, were for once just to living drawn away from her by the influence of a merit. There can be no stronger illustration wealthier and haughtier beauty. Henrietta, of the estimation in which Congreve was held, daughter of the great Marlborough, and wife than the fact that Pope's Iliad, a work which of the Earl of Godolphin, had, on her father's appeared with more splendid auspices than death, succeeded to his dukedom, and to the any other in our language, was dedicated to greater part of his immense property. Her him. There was not a duke in the kingdom husband was an insignificant man, of whom who would not have been proud of such a Lord Chesterfield said, that he came to the compliment. Dr. Johnson expresses great House of Peers only to sleep, and that he admiration for the independence of spirit might as well sleep on the right as on the left which Pope showed on this occasion, and of the woolsack. Between the duchess and some surprise at his choice. "He passed over Congreve sprung up a most eccentric friendpeers and statesmen to inscribe his 'Iliad' to ship. He had a seat every day at her table, Congreve, with a magnanimity of which the and assisted in the direction of her concerts. praise had been complete, had his friend's That malignant old hag, the Dowager Duchess virtue been equal to his wit. Why he was Sarah, who had quarrelled with her daughter, chosen for so great an honour, it is not now as she had quarrelled with everybody else, possible to know." It is certainly impossible affected to suspect that there was something to know; yet, we think, it is possible to guess. wrong. But the world in general appears to The translation of the “Iliad” had been zeal- have thought that a great lady might, without ously befriended by men of al! political opi- any imputation on her character, pay attention nions. The poet who at an early age had to a man of eminent genius, who was nearly been raised to affluence by the emulous libe- sixty years old, who was still older in appear rality of Whigs and Tories, could not with pro-ance and in constitution, who was confined to priety inscribe to a chief of either party, a his chair by gout, and was unable to read from work which had been munificently patronised blindness. by both. It was necessary to find some person In the summer of 1728, Congreve was or who was at once eminent and neutral. It was dered to try the Bath waters. During his exherefore necessary to pass over peers and cursion he was overturned in his chariot, and statesmen. Congreve had a high name in received some severe internal injury, from letters. He had a high name in aristocratic which he never recovered. He came back circles. He lived on terms of civility with to London in a dangerous state, complained men of all parties. By a courtesy paid him constantly of a pain in his side, and con

tinued to sink, till, in the following January, that is a bold word) the ugliest and most absurd
he expired.
of the buildings at Stowe.

He left 10,000 saved out of the emolu- We have said that Wycherley was a worse
ments of his lucrative places. Johnson says Congreve. There was, indeed, a remarkable
that this money ought to have gone to the Con- analogy between the writings and lives of these
greve family, which was then in great distress. two men. Both were gentlemen liberally edu-
Doctor Young and Mr. Leigh Hunt, two gen-cated. Both led town lives, and knew human
tlemen who seldom agree with each other, but nature only as it appears between Hyde Park
with whom, on this occasion, we are happy to and the Tower. Both were men of wit. Nei-
agree, think that it ought to have gone to Mrs. ther had much imagination. Both at an early
Bracegirdle. Congreve bequeathed 2001. to age produced lively and profligate comedies.
Mrs. Bracegirdle, and an equal sum to a cer-Both retired from the field while still in early
tain Mrs. Jellat; but the bulk of his accumu-manhood, and owed to their youthful achieve
lations went to the Duchess of Marlborough,
in whose immense wealth such a legacy was
as a drop in the bucket. It might have raised
the fallen fortunes of a Staffordshire squire
it might have enabled a retired actress to en-
joy every comfort, and, in her sense, every
luxury-but it was not sufficient to defray the
duchess's establishment for two months.

The great lady buried her friend with a pomp seldom seen at the funerals of poets. The corpse lay in state under the ancient roof of the Jerusalem Chamber, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. The pall was borne by the Duke of Bridgewater, Lord Cobham, the Earl of Wilmington, who had been Speaker, and who was afterwards First Lord of the Treasury, and other men of high consideration. Her grace laid out her friend's bequest in a superb diamond necklace, which she wore in honour of him; and, if report is to be believed, showed her regard in ways much more extra ordinary. It is said that she had a statue of him in ivory, which moved by clockwork, and was placed daily at her table; that she had a wax doll made in imitation of him, and that the feet of this doll were regularly blistered and anointed by the doctors, as poor Congreve's feet had been when he suffered from the gout. A monument was erected to the poet in Westminster Abbey, with an inscription written by the duchess; and Lord Cobham honoured him with a cenotaphy, which seems to us (though

ments in literature the consideration which
they enjoyed in later life. Both, after they had
ceased to write for the stage, published volumes
of miscellanies, which did little credit either to
their talents or their morals. Both, during
their declining years, hung loose upon society;
and both, in their last moments, made eccentric
and unjustifiable dispositions respecting their
estates.

But in every point Congreve maintained his
superiority to Wycherley. Wycherley had wit;
but the wit of Congreve far outshines that of
every comic writer, except Sheridan, who has
arisen within the last two centuries. Congreve
had not, in a large measure, the poetical facul
ty, but, compared with Wycherley, he might be
called a great poet. Wycherley had some
knowledge of books, but Congreve was a man
of real learning. Congreve's offences against
decorum, though highly culpable, were not so
gross as those of Wycherley; nor did Congreve,
like Wycherley, exhibit to the world the deplo
rable spectacle of a licentious dotage. Con-
greve died in the enjoyment of high considera-
tion; Wycherley forgotten or despised. Con-
greve's will was absurd and capricious; but
Wycherley's last actions appeared to have
been prompted by obdurate malignity.

Here, at least for the present, we must stop, Vanbrugh and Farquhar are not men to be hastily dismissed, and we have not left our selves space to do them justice.

H

THE LATE LORD HOLLAND."

[EDINBURGH REVIEW FOR JULY, 1841.]

It is impossible not to be struck by the strong family likeness which, in spite of diversities arising from education and position, appears in these three distinguished persons. In their faces and figures there was a resemblance, such as is common enough in novels, where "We are," says he, "well aware that the one picture is good for ten generations, but privileges of the people, the rights of free dis- such as in real life is seldom found. The ample cussion, and the spirit and letter of our popular person, the massy and thoughtful forehead, the institutions, must render and they are intend-large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip; the ex

As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family, so was it with their minds. Nature had done much for them all. She had moulded them all of that clay of which she is most sparing. To all she had given strong reason and sharp wit; a quick relish for every physical and intellectual enjoyment; constitutional intrepidity, and that frankness by which constitutional intrepidity is generally accompanied; spirits which nothing could depress; tempers easy, generous, and placable; and that genial courtesy which has its seat in the heart, and of which artificial politeness is only a faint and cold imitation. Such a disposition is the richest inheritance that ever was entailed on any family.

for the time when birds of prey should make their nests in Westminster Abbey, and unclean beasts burrow in St. Paul's.

pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens people with the bayonet. Many of his contem. have handed them down to us, were disagree- poraries had a morality quite as lax as his; but ably harsh and exaggerated. In his descend- very few among them had his talents, and none ants, the aspect was preserved; but it was had his hardihood and energy. He could not, softened, till it became, in the late lord, the like Sandys and Doddington, find safety in conmost gracious and interesting countenance that tempt. He therefore became an object of such was ever lighted up by the mingled lustre of general aversion as no statesman since the fall intelligence and benevolence. of Strafford has incurred-of such general aversion as was probably never in any country incurred by a man of so kind and cordial a disposition. A weak mind would have sunk under such a load of unpopularity. But that resolute spirit seemed to derive new firmness from the public hatred. The only effect which reproaches appeared to produce on him, was to sour, in some degree, his naturally sweet temper. The last steps of his public life were marked, not only by that audacity which he had derived from nature-not only by that immorality which he had learned in the school of Walpole-but by a harshness which almost amounted to eruelty, and which had never been supposed to belong to his character. His se verity increased the unpopularity from which But training and situation greatly modified it had sprung. The well-known lampoon of the fine qualities which nature lavished with Gray may serve as a specimen of the feeling such profusion on three generations of the of the country. All the images are taken from house of Fox. The first Lord Holland was shipwrecks, quicksands, and cormorants. Lord a needy political adventurer. He entered Holland is represented as complaining, that the public life at a time when the standard of in- cowardice of his accomplices had prevented tegrity among statesmen was low. He started him from putting down the free spirit of the as the adherent of a minister who had in-city of London by sword and fire, and as pining deed many titles to respect; who possessed eminent talents both for administration and for debate; who understood the public interest well, and who meant fairly by the country; Within a few months after the death of this but who had seen so much perfidy and mean- remarkable man, his second son Charles apness, that he had become skeptical as to the peared at the head of the party opposed to the existence of probity. Weary of the cant of American War. Charles had inherited the patriotism, Walpole had learned to talk a cant bodily and mental constitution of his father, of a different kind. Disgusted by that sort of and had been much-far too much-under his hypocrisy which is at least a homage to virtue, father's influence. It was indeed impossible he was too much in the habit of practising the that a son of so affectionate and noble a spirit less respectable hypocrisy which ostentatiously should not have been warmly attached to a displays and sometimes even stimulates vice. parent who possessed many fine qualities, and To Walpole, Fox attached himself politically who carried his indulgence and liberality toand personally, with the ardour which belonged wards his children even to a culpable extent. to his temperament. And it is not to be denied, The young man saw that the person to whom that in the school of Walpole he contracted he was bound by the strongest ties, was, in the faults which destroyed the value of his many highest degree, odious to the nation; and the great endowments. He raised himself, indeed, effect was what might have been expected to the first consideration in the House of Com- from his strong passions and constitutional mons; he became a consummate master of the boldness. He cast in his lot with his father, and art of debate; he attained honours and im- took, while still a boy, a deep part in the most mense wealth-but the public esteem and con- unjustifiable and unpopular measures that had fidence were withheld from him. His private been adopted since the reign of James the friends, indeed, justly extolled his generosity Second. In the debates on the Middlesex and good-nature. They maintained, that in election, he distinguished himself, not only by those parts of his conduct which they could his precocious powers of eloquence, but by the least defend, there was nothing sordid; and vehement and scornful manner in which he that, if he was misled, he was misled by bade defiance to public opinion. He was at amiable feelings-by a desire to serve his that time regarded as a man likely to be the friends, and by anxious tenderness for his most formidable champion of arbitrary governchildren. But by the nation he was regarded ment that had appeared since the Revolution as a man of insatiable rapacity and desperate to be a Bute with far greater powers-a ambition; as a man ready to adopt, without scruple, the most immoral and the most unconstitutional measures; as a man perfectly fitted, by all his opinions and feelings, for the work of managing the Parliament by means of secret service-money, and of keeping down the VOL. IV.-58

Mansfield with far greater courage. Happily his father's death liberated him early from the pernicious influence by which he had been misled. His mind expanded. His range of observation became wider. His genius broke through early prejudices. His natural bene

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