per subject for ridicule. Nor does he gotten that he is a Jacobite, and reconfine this benefit of clergy to the members only that he is a citizen and ministers of the Established Church. a Christian. Some of his sharpest cenHe extends the privilege to Catholic sures are directed against poetry which priests, and, what in him is more sur- had been hailed with delight by the prising, to Dissenting preachers. This, Tory party, and had inflicted a deep however, is a mere trifle. Imaums, wound on the Whigs. It is inspiriting Brahmins, priests of Jupiter, priests of to see how gallantly the solitary outBaal, are all to be held sacred. Dry-law advances to attack enemies, forden is blamed for making the Mufti in midable separately, and, it might have Don Sebastian talk nonsense. Lee is been thought, irresistible when comcalled to a severe account for his inci-bined, distributes his swashing blows vility to Tiresias. But the most curious right and left among Wycherley, Conpassage is that in which Collier resents greve,and Vanbrugh, treads the wretched some uncivil reflections thrown by Cas- D'Urfey down in the dirt beneath his sandra, in Dryden's Cleomenes, on the feet, and strikes with all his strength calf Apis and his hierophants. The full at the towering crest of Dryden. 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 of Memphis. But, when all 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 becomingly blended with solemnity as in the Short View. In truth, all the modes of ridicule, from 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 cause 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 for The effect produced by the Short "And felt how awful goodness is, and saw At a later period he mentioned the Short View in the preface to his Fables. He complained, with some asperity, of the harshness 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. Collier 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 | known at a distance by his furious it is madness to attempt a vindication; driving. Had there been nothing worse for his guilt was so clear, that no ad- in the Old Bachelor and Double Dealer, dress or eloquence could obtain an ac- Congreve might pass for as pure a quittal. On the other hand, there were writer as Cowper himself, who, in in his case many extenuating circum-poems revised by so austere a censor as stances which, if he had acknowledged John Newton, calls a fox-hunting squire his error and promised amendment, Nimrod, and gives to a chaplain the would have procured his pardon. The disrespectful name of Smug. Conmost rigid censor could not but make greve might with good effect have apgreat allowances for the faults into pealed to the public whether it might which so young a man had been se- not be fairly presumed that, when such duced by evil example, by the luxu- frivolous charges were made, there were riance of a vigorous fancy, and by the no very serious charges to make. Ininebriating effect of popular applause. stead of doing this, he pretended that The esteem, as well as the admiration, he meant no allusion to the Bible by of the public was still within his reach. the name of Jehu, and no reflection by He might easily have effaced all me- the name of Prig. Strange, that a man mory of his transgressions, and have of such parts should, in order to defend shared with Addison the glory of show- himself against imputations which noing that the most brilliant wit may be body could regard as important, tell the ally of virtue. But, in any case, untruths which it was certain that noprudence should have restrained him body would believe! from encountering Collier. The nonjuror was a man thoroughly fitted by nature, education, and habit, for polemical dispute. Congreve's mind, though a mind 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 neatly 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 rendered victorious. 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 event was such as might have the moral of the Old Bachelor, the been foreseen. Congreve's answer was grave apophthegm which is to be a a complete failure. He was angry, ob-set-off against all the libertinism of the scure, and dull. Even the Green Room piece, is contained in the following and Will's Coffee-House were com- triplet: pelled to acknowledge that in wit, as well as in argument, the parson had a decided advantage over the poet. Not only was Congreve unable to make any show of a case where he was in the wrong; but he succeeded in putting himself completely in the wrong where he was in the right. Collier had taxed him with profaneness for calling a clergyman Mr. Prig, and for introducing a coachman named Jehu, in allusion to the King of Israel, who was "What rugged ways attend the noon of life! Our sun declines, and with what anxious strife, What pain, we tug that galling load—a wife." "Love for Love," says Collier, "may have 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 A lover true, not that a woman's kind." 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 Collier's reply was severe and tri- | above all, the chase and surrender of umphant. One of his repartees we Millamant, are superior to any thing 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 attached no value, and which had become public by a sort of accident. "I wrote it," he said, "to amuse my-past endurance by this new stroke. self 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." He resolved never again to expose himself to the rudeness of a tasteless audience, and took leave of the theatre for ever. He lived twenty-eight years longer, without adding to the high literary reputation which he had attained. He All that Congreve gained by coming forward on this occasion, was that he completely deprived himself of the ex-read much while he retained his eyecuse which he might with justice have pleaded for his early offences. " Why," asked Collier, "should the man laugh at the mischief of the boy, and make the disorders of his nonage his own, by an after approbation?" sight, and now and then wrote a short essay, or put an idle tale into verse; but he appears never to have planned any considerable work. The miscellaneous pieces which he published in 1710 are of little value, and have long been forgotten. He pro Congreve was not Collier's only opponent. Vanbrugh, Dennis, and Settle The stock of fame which he had actook the field. And from a passage inquired by his comedies was sufficient, a contemporary satire, we are inclined assisted by the graces of his manner to think that among the answers to the and conversation, to secure for him a Short View was one written, or sup-high place in the estimation of the posed to be written, by Wycherley. world. During the winter, he lived The victory remained with Collier. A among the most distinguished and great and rapid reform in almost all agreeable people in London. His the departments of our lighter litera- summers were passed at the splendid ture was the effect of his labours. A country-seats of ministers and peers. new race of wits and poets arose, who Literary envy and political faction, generally treated with reverence the which in that age respected nothing great ties which bind society together, else, respected his repose. and whose very indecencies were de- fessed to be one of the party of which cent when compared with those of the his patron Montagu, now Lord Halifax, school which flourished during the last was the head. But he had civil words forty years of the seventeenth century. and small good offices for men of every This controversy probably prevented shade of opinion. And men of every Congreve from fulfilling the engage- shade of opinion spoke well of him in ments into which he had entered with return. 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, His means were for a long time scanty. The place which he had in possession barely enabled him to live with comfort. And, when the Tories came into power, some thought that he would lose even this moderate provision. But Harley, who was by no means disposed to adopt the exterminating policy of the October club, and who, with all his faults of understanding and temper, had a sincere kindness for men of genius, reassured the anx- of the Dunciad, were for once just to ious poet by quoting very gracefully and happily the lines of Virgil, "Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni, Nec tam aversus equos Tyria 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, he partook largely of the prosperity of those with whom he was connected. The reversion to which he had been nominated twenty years before fell in. He was made secretary to the island of Jamaica; and his whole income amounted to twelve hundred 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 scarce 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, he 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. By the rising men of letters he was considered not as a rival, but as a classic. He had left their arena; he never measured his strength with them; and he was always loud in applause of their exertions. They could, therefore, entertain no jealousy of him, and thought no more of detracting from his fame than of carping at the great men who had been lying a hundred years in Poets' Corner. Even the inmates of Grub Street, even the heroes living merit. There can be no stronger illustration of the estimation in which Congreve was held than the fact that the English Iliad, a work which appeared with more splendid auspices than any other in our language, was dedicated to him. There was not a duke in the kingdom who would not have been proud of such a compliment. Dr. Johnson expresses great admiration for the independence of spirit which Pope showed on this occasion. "He passed over peers and statesmen to inscribe his Iliad to Congreve, with a magnanimity of which the praise had been complete, had his friend's virtue been equal to his wit. Why he was chosen for so great an honour, it is not now possible to know." It is certainly impossible to know; yet we think it is possible to guess. The translation of the Iliad had been zealously befriended by men of all political opinions. The poet who, at an early age, had been raised to affluence by the emulous liberality of Whigs and Tories, could not with propriety inscribe to a chief of either party a work which had been munificently patronised by both. It was necessary to find some person who was at once eminent and neutral. It was therefore necessary to pass over peers and statesmen. Congreve had a high name in letters. He had a high name in aristocratic circles. He lived on terms of civility with men of all parties. By a courtesy paid to him, neither the ministers nor the leaders of the opposition 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 and 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." In the summer of 1728, Congreve was ordered to try the Bath waters. During his excursion he was overturned in his chariot, and received some severe internal injury from which he never recovered. He came back to London in a dangerous state, complained constantly of a pain in his side, and continued to sink, till in the following January he expired. He left ten thousand pounds, saved out of the emoluments of his lucrative places. Johnson says that this money ought to have gone to the Congreve family, which was then in great distress. Doctor Young and Mr. Leigh Hunt, two gentlemen who seldom agree with each other, but with whom, on this occasion, we are happy to agree, think that it ought to have gone to Mrs. Bracegirdle. Congreve bequeathed two hundred pounds to Mrs. Bracegirdle, and an equal sum to a certain Mrs. Jellat; but the bulk of his accumulations 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 enjoy every comfort, and, in her sense, every luxury: but it was hardly sufficient to defray the Duchess's establishment for three months. 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 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 which Mountfort fell, and for which Lord Mohun was tried by the Peers, and to whom the Earl of Scarsdale was said to have made honourable addresses, had conducted herself, in very trying circumstances, with extraordinary discretion. Congreve at length became her confidential friend. They constantly rode out together and dined together. Some people said that she was his mistress, and others that she would soon be his wife. He was at last drawn away from her by the influence of a wealthier and haughtier beauty. Henrietta, daughter of the great Marlborough, and Countess of Godolphin, had, on her father's death, succeeded to his dukedom, and to the greater part of his immense property. Her husband was an insignificant man, of whom Lord Chesterfield said that he came to the House of Peers only to The great lady buried her friend sleep, and that he might as well sleep with a pomp seldom seen at the funeon the right as on the left of the wool-rals of poets. The corpse lay in state sack. Between the Duchess and Con-under the ancient roof of the Jerusagreve sprang up a most eccentric friend-lem Chamber, and was interred in ship. He had a seat every day at her table, and assisted in the direction of her concerts. That malignant old beldame, the Dowager Duchess Sarah, who had quarrelled with her daughter as she had quarrelled with every body else, affected to suspect that that there was something wrong. But the world in general appears to have thought that a great lady might, without any imputation on her character, pay marked at-regard in ways much more extraorditention to a man of eminent genius who was near sixty years old, who was still older in appearance and in constitution, who was confined to his chair by gout, and who was unable to read from blindness. Westminster Abbey. The pall was borne by the Duke of Bridgewater, Lord Cobham, the Earl of Wilmington, who had been Speaker, and 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 nary. It is said that a statue of him in ivory, which moved by clockwork, was placed daily at her table, that she had a wax doll made in imitation of him, and that the feet of the doll were regularly blistered and anointed by the |