In all one writ, you find the scholar or the sophist; and in all the other, the tyrant and the commander."1 Fine rhetoric truly; it is sad that a passage so aptly turned should cover so many stupidities. All this appeared very triumphant; and the universal applause with which this fine oratorical bombast was greeted demonstrates the taste and the culture, the hollowness and the politeness, of the elegant world of which Temple was the marvel, and which, like Temple, loved only the varnish of truth. IV. Such were the ornate and polished manners which gradually pierce through debauchery and assume the ascendant. Gradually the current grows clearer, and marks out its course, like a stream, which forcibly entering a new bed, moves with difficulty at first through a heap of mud, then pushes forward its still murky waters, which are purified little by little. These debauchees try to be men of the world, and sometimes succeed in it. Wycherley writes well, very clearly, without the least trace of euphuism, almost in the French manner. He makes Dapperwit say of Lucy, in measured phrase, "She is beautiful without affectation, amorous without impertinence, . . . frolic without rudeness. When he wishes it he is ingenious, and his gentlemen exchange happy comparisons. "Mistresses," says one," are like books: if you pore upon them too much, they doze you, and make you unfit for company; but if used discreetly, you are the fitter for conversation by 'em." "Yes," says another, "a mistress should be "2 1 An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning, 178. Love in a Wood, iii. 2. 2 c VOL. II. like a little country retreat near the town; not to dwell in constantly, but only for a night and away, to taste the town the better when a man returns.” 1 These folk have style, even out of place, often not in accordance with the situation or condition of the persons. A shoemaker in one of Etherege's plays says: "There is never a man in the town lives more like a gentleman with his wife than I do. I never mind her motions; she never inquires into mine. We speak to one another civilly, hate one another heartily." There is perfect art in this little speech; everything is complete, even to the symmetrical antithesis of words, ideas, sounds: what a fine talker is this same satirical shoemaker! After a satire, a madrigal. In one place a certain character exclaims, in the very middle of a dialogue, and in sober prose, Pretty pouting lips, with a little moisture hanging on them, that look like the Provence rose fresh on the bush, ere the morning sun has quite drawn up the dew." Is not this the graceful gallantry of the court? Rochester himself sometimes might furnish a parallel. Two or three of his songs are still to be found in the expurgated books of extracts in use amongst modest young girls. It matters nothing that such men are really scamps; they must be every moment using compliments and salutations: before women whom they wish to seduce they are compelled to warble tender words and insipidities: they acknowledge but one check, the necessity to appear well-bred; yet this check suffices to restrain them. Rochester is correct even in the midst of his filth; if he talks lewdly, it is in the able and exact manner of Boileau. All these roisterers aim at being wits and men of the world. Sir Charles Sedley The Country Wife, i. 1. ruins and pollutes himself, but Charles II. calls him "the viceroy of Apollo." Buckingham extols "the magic of his style." He is the most charming, the most sought-after of talkers; he makes puns and verses, always agreeable, sometimes refined; he handles dexterously the pretty jargon of mythology; he insinuates into his airy, flowing verses all the dainty and somewhat affected prettinesses of the drawing-room. sings thus to Chloris : 66 "My passion with your beauty grew, While Cupid at my heart, Still as his mother favour'd you, And then sums up: "Each gloried in their wanton part: To make a lover, he Employ'd the utmost of his art; There is no love whatever in these pretty things; they are received as they are presented, with a smile; they form part of the conventional language, the polite attentions due from gentlemen to ladies. I suppose they would send them in the morning with a nosegay, or a box of preserved fruits. Roscommon indites some verses on a dead lapdog, on a young lady's cold; this naughty cold prevents her singing cursed be the winter! And hereupon he takes the winter to task, abuses it at length. Here you have the literary amusements of the worldling. They first treat love, then 1 Sir Charles Sedley's Works, ed. Briscoe, 1778, 2 vols.: The Mulberry Garden, ii. danger, most airily and gaily. On the eve of a naval contest, Dorset, at sea, amidst the pitching of his vessel, addresses a celebrated song to the ladies. There is nothing weighty in it, either sentiment or wit; people hum the couplets as they pass; they emit a gleam of gaiety; the next moment they are forgotten. Dorset at sea writes to the ladies, on the night before an engagement: "Let's hear of no inconstancy, We have too much of that at sea." And again: "Should foggy Opdam chance to know Our sad and dismal story, The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe, And quit their fort at Goree. For what resistance can they find From men who've left their hearts behind?" Then come jests too much in the English style : "Then if we write not by each post, Think not we are unkind; . . . Our tears we'll send a speedier way; The tide shall bring them twice a day.” Such tears can hardly flow from sorrow; the lady regards them as the lover sheds them, good-naturedly. She is "at a play" (he thinks so, and tells her so): "Whilst you, regardless of our woe, Sit careless at a play, Perhaps permit some happier man To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan.” 1 1 Works of the Earls of Rochester, Roscommon, and Dorset, 2 vols., 1731, ii. 54. |