his plays are generally without poetry or imagination, and his comedies are inextricably associated with sensuality and profaneness. We admire his brilliant dialogue and repartee, and his exuberance of dramatic incident and character; but the total absence of the higher virtues which ennoble lifethe beauty and grace of female virtue, the feelings of generosity, truth, honor, affection, modesty, and tenderness-leaves his pages barren and unproductive of any permanent interest or popularity. His glittering artificial life possesses but few charms to the lovers of nature or poetry, and is not recommended by any moral purpose of sentiment. The Mourning Bride' possesses higher dramatic merit than most of the serious plays of that day. Though generally destitute of passion, yet it contains numerous poetical scenes and much poetical language. The following opening lines are familiar to most readers:

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
I've read that things inanimate have moved,
And as with living souls, have been informed
By magic numbers and persuasive sound.

Dr. Johnson considered the description of the cathedral in the following extract, the most poetical paragraph in the whole range of the English drama :

[Almeria-Leonora.]

Alm. It was a fancied noise, for all is hushed.

Leon. It bore the accent of a human voice.

Alm. It was thy fear, or else some transient wind
Whistling through hollows of this vaulted aisle.

We'll listen.

Leon. Hark!

Alm. No; all is hush'd and still as death. 'Tis dreadful!

How reverend is the face of this tall pile,

Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads

To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,

By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity. It strikes an awe
And terror on my aching sight; the tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.
Give me thy hand and let me hear thy voice;
Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear
Thy voice-my own affrights me with its echoes.
Leon. Let us return; the horror of this place

And silence will increase your melancholy.

Alm. It may my fears, but can not add to that.

No, I will on; show me Anselmo's tomb,

Lead me o'er bones and skulls and mouldering earth

Of human bodies; for I'll mix with them;

Or wind me in the shroud of some pale corse

Yet green in earth, rather than be the bride Of Garcia's more detested bed: that thought VOL. II.-G

Exerts my spirits, and my present fears
Are lost in dread of greater ill.

Of Congreve's comedies it is difficult, through quotations, to convey an adequate idea. It is not in particular passages that he shines, but in a constant stream of wit and liveliness, and the quick interchange of dialogue and incident. We will, however, venture the following scene from 'The Double Dealer:'

SCANDAL AND LITERATURE IN HIGH LIFE.

CYNTHIA-LORD AND LADY FROTH-BRISK.

Lady Froth. Then you think that episode between Susan the dairy-maid and our coachman is not amiss. You know, I may suppose the dairy in town, as well as in the country.

Brisk. Incomparable, let me perish! But, then, being an heroic poem, had not you better call him a charioteer. Charioteer sounds great. Besides, your ladyship's coachman having a red face, and you comparing him to the sun-and you know the sun is called 'heaven's charioteer.'

Lady F. Oh! infinitely better; I am extremely beholden to you for the hint. Stay; we'll read over those half a score lines again. [Pulls out a paper.] Let me see here; you know what goes before-the comparison you know. [Reads.]

For as the sun shines every day,

So of our coachman I may say.

Brisk. I am afraid that simile won't do in wet weather, because you say the sun shines every day.

Lady F. No; for the sun it won't, but it will do for the coachman; for you know there's most occasion for a coach in wet weather.

Brisk. Right, right; that saves all.

Lady F. Then I don't say the sun shines all the day, but that he peeps now and then; yet he does shine all the day, too, you know, though we don't see him.

Brisk. Right; but the vulgar will never comprehend that.

Lady F. Well, you shall hear. Let me see

For as the sun shines every day

So of our coachman I may say,

He shows his drunken fiery face

Just as the sun does, more or less.

Brisk. That's right; all's well, all's well. More or less.
Lady F. [Reads.]

And when at night his labour's done,
Then, too, like heaven's charioteer, the sun--

Ay, charioteer does better

Into the dairy he descends,

And there his whipping and his driving ends;
There he 's secure from danger of a bilk;
His fare is paid him, and he sets in milk.

For Susan, you know, is Thetis, and so

Brisk. Incomparable well and proper, egad! But I have one exception to make:

don't you think bilk (I know it's a good rhyme)—but don't you think bilk and fare too like a hackney coachman?

Lady F. I swear and vow I'm afraid so. And yet our John was a hackney coachman when my lord took him.

Brisk. Was he? I'm answered, if John was a hackney coachman. You may put that in the marginal notes; though to prevent criticism, only mark it with a small asterisk, and say, 'John was formerly a hackney coachman.'

Lady F. I will; you'd oblige me extremely to write notes to the whole poem. Brisk. With all my heart and soul, and proud of the vast honour, let me perish! Lord F. Hee, hee, hee! my dear, have you done? Won't you join with us? We were laughing at my Lady Whister and Mr. Sneer.

Lady F. Ay, my dear, were you? Oh! filthy Mr. Sneer; he's a nauseous figure, a most fulsamic fop. Foh! He spent two days together in going about Covent Garden to suit the lining of his coach with his complexion.

Lord F. O silly! Yet his aunt is as fond of him as if she had brought the ape into the world herself.

Brisk. Who? my Lady Toothless? O she's a mortifying spectacle; she's always chewing the cud like an old ewe.

Lord F. Foh!

Lady F. Then she's always ready to laugh when Sneer offers to speak; and sits in expectation of his no-jest, with her gums bare, and her mouth open.

Brisk. Like an oyster at low ebb, egad! Ha, ha, ha!

Cynthia. [Aside.] Well, I find there are no fools so inconsiderable in themselves but they can render other people contemptible by exposing their infirmities.

Lady F. Then that t'other great strapping lady; I can't hit of her name; the old fat fool that pants so exorbitantly.

Brisk. I know whom you mean. But, deuce take me, I can't hit of her name either. Paints d'ye say? Why, she lays it on with a trowel. Then she has a great beard that bristles through it, and makes her look as if she were plastered with lime and hair, let me perish!

Lady F. Oh! you made a song upon her, Mr. Brisk!

Brisk.

Her, egad! so I did. My lord can sing it.

Cynthia. O good, my lord; let us hear it.

Brisk. 'Tis not a song neither. It's a sort of epigram, or rather an epigrammatic sonnet. I don't know what to call it, but it's satire. Sing it, my lord.

Lord F. [Sings.]

Ancient Phyllis has young graces;

'Tis a strange thing, but a true one;
Shall I tell you how?

She herself makes her own faces,

And each morning wears a new one

Where's the wonder now?

Brisk. Short, but there's salt in 't. My way of writing, egad!

Contemporary with Congreve were Vanburgh, Farquhar, Cibber, and Mrs. Centlivre in comedy, and Lillo in tragedy.

SIR JOHN VANBRUGH was descended from an ancient family in Cheshire, which came from France, though his name would seem to indicate a Dutch extraction. His birth occurred in 1666. His education can not be traced to any university, and in what manner it was conducted, is uncertain. His father, originally a sugar-baker, rose to eminence, and eventually became

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comptroller of the treasury chamber. Vanbrugh himself united the rently incompatible geniuses of comic writer and architect, in both of which he remarkably excelled. In the nineteenth year of his age he went to France, and remained in that country a number of years, but with what specific object is unknown. In 1697, he produced his first comedy, The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger; the success of which induced him to continue writing for the stage, which he did until he had produced, in rapid succession, The Provoked Wife, Esop, The False Friend, The Confederacy, and other plays to the number of eleven. The reputation which his dramas gave him was rewarded more liberally than was usual, even in that age. Besides holding the office of secretary to the commission for endowing Greenwich hospital, Lord Carlisle appointed him clarencieux king-at-arms, a heraldic office, which highly gratified Vanbrugh's vanity. In 1706, he was commissioned, by Queen Anne, to carry the habit and ensigns of the order of the garter to the Elector of Hanover; and in the same year he commenced his design for the great national structure at Blenheim. He built various other mansions, was knighted by George the First, and died of a quinsy, at his house in Whitehall, on the twenty-sixth of March, 1726. At the time of his death he was engaged in writing a comedy, The Provoked Husband, which Colley Cibber afterward successfully finished.

The architectural designs of Vanbrugh have been liberally praised by Sir Joshua Reynolds and other eminent artists, for their display of imagination, and their originality of invention. Though ridiculed by Swift, and other wits of the day, for heaviness and incongruity of design, still Castle Howard and Blenheim are noble structures, and do honor to the boldness of conception and picturesque taste of their architect.

As a dramatist, the first thing in Vanbrugh's plays that attracts our attention, is the liveliness and ease of his dialogue. Congreve had more wit, but less nature, and less genuine unaffected humor and gayety. Vanbrugh drew more from living originals, and depicted more accurately the manners of his times the coarse debauchery of the country knight, the gallantry of townwits and fortune-hunters, and the love of French intrigue and French manners in his female characters. Lord Foppington, in the 'Relapse,' is the original of most of those empty coxcombs that abound in modern comedy, intent only on dress and fashion.

The plays of Congreve and Vanbrugh gave new life to the English stage, and restored it to reputation, when it had, in reality, for some time, been sinking in public estimation. Though their portraitures were exaggerated and heightened for dramatic effect, yet, on the whole, they are faithful and characteristic likenesses. The picture, however, is far from being a pleasing one, for it is dashed with the most unblushing licentiousness. A tone of healthful vivacity, and the absence of all hypocrisy, form its most genial feature. How much more to the credit of these splendid dramatists would it have been, had they preserved their wit from that licentious obscenity in which they so freely indulged, and exerted it, as they so easily might have

done, to benefit their audiences instead of corrupting them. In the language of Lord Kames, 'if their comedies did not rack them with remorse in their last hours, they must have been lost to all sense of virtue.' It is said, indeed, that Vanbrugh lived to see his error, and in deep penitence to bewail it.

The following picture of the life of a woman of fashion, is from the 'Provoked Wife.' Sir John Brute, disguised in his lady's dress, joins in a drunken midnight frolic, and is taken by some Watchmen before a Justice of the Peace.

Justice. Pray, madam, what may be your ladyship's common method of life? if I may presume so far.

Sir John. Why, sir, that of a woman of quality.

Justice. Pray, how may you generally pass your time, madam? Your morning, for example.

Sir John. Sir, like a woman of quality. I wake about two o'clock in the afternoon-I stretch, and make a sign for my chocolate. When I have drank three cups, I slide down again upon my back, with my arms over my head, while my two maids put on my stockings. Then, hanging upon their shoulders, I'm trailed to my great chair, where I sit and yawn for my breakfast. If it don't come presently, I lie down upon my couch, to say my prayers, while my maid reads me the play-bills. Justice. Very well, madam.

Sir John. When the tea is brought in, I drink twelve regular dishes, with eight slices of bread and butter; and half an hour after, I send to the cook to know if the dinner is almost ready.

Justice. So, madam.

Sir John. By that time my head is half dressed, I hear my husband swearing himself into a state of perdition that the meat's all cold upon the table; to amend which I come down in an hour more, and have it sent back to the kitchen, to be all dressed over again.

Justice. Poor man!

Sir John. When I have dined, and my idle servants are presumptuously set down at their ease to do so too, I call for my coach, to go to visit fifty dear friends, of whom I hope I never shall find one at home while I shall live.

Justice. So! there's the morning and afternoon pretty well disposed of. Pray, how, madam, do you pass your evenings?

Sir John. Like a woman of spirit, sir; a great spirit. Seven's the main! Oons, sir, I set you a hundred pounds. are married now-a-days to sit at home and mend napkins? head!

Give me a box and dice.
Why, do you think women
Oh, the Lord help your

Justice. Mercy on us, Mr. Constable! What will this age come to?

Const. What will it come to indeed, if such women as these are not set in the stocks?