through ten years: but at last Comedy grew more modest; and Collier lived to see the reward of his labour in the reformation of the theatre. Of the powers by which this important victory was achieved, a quotation from 'Love for love,' and the remark upon it, may afford a specimen. "Sir Samps.-Sampson's a very good name; for your Sampsons were strong dogs from the beginning. "Angel. Have a care-if you remember, the strongest Sampson of your name pull'd an old house over his head at last. "Here you have the Sacred History burlesqued; and Sampson once more brought into the house of Dagon, to make sport for the Philistines!" Congreve's last play was 'The Way of the World;"" which, though as he hints in his dedication it was written with great labour and much thought, was received with so little favour, that, being in a high degree offended and disgusted, he resolved to commit his quiet and his fame no more to the caprices of an audience. From this time his life ceased to be public; he lived for himself and for his friends; and among his friends was able to name every man of his time whom wit and elegance had raised to reputation. It may be therefore reasonably supposed that his manners were polite and his conversation pleasing. He seems not to have taken much pleasure in writing, as he contributed nothing to 'The Spectator,' and only one paper to 'The Tatler,' though published by men with whom he might be supposed willing to associate; and though he lived many years after the publication of his Miscellaneous Poems, yet he added nothing to them, but lived on in literary indolence: engaged in no controversy, contending with no rival, neither soliciting flattery by public commendations, nor provoking enmity by malignant criticism, but passing his time among the great and splendid, in the placid enjoyment of his fame and fortune. Having owed his fortune to Halifax, he continued always of his patron's party, but, as it seems, without violence or acrimony; and his firmness was naturally esteemed, as his abilities were reverenced. 11 Acted 1700 at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. His security, therefore, was never violated; and when, upon the extrusion of the Whigs, some intercession was used lest Congreve should be displaced, the Earl of Oxford made this answer: "Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Pœni, Nec tam aversus equos Tyriâ sol jungit ab urbe.” 12 He that was thus honoured by the adverse party, might naturally expect to be advanced when his friends returned to power, and he was accordingly made Secretary for the island of Jamaica: a place, I suppose, without trust or care, but which, with his post in the Customs, is said to have afforded him twelve hundred pounds a year. 13 His honours were yet far greater than his profits. Every writer mentioned him with respect ;" and, among other testimonies to his merit, Steele made him the patron of his Miscellany, and Pope inscribed to him his translation of the 'Iliad.' ' But he treated the Muses with ingratitude; for, having long conversed familiarly with the great, he wished to be considered rather as a man of fashion than of wit; and, when he received a visit from Voltaire, disgusted him by the despicable foppery of desiring to be considered not as an author, but a gentleman; to which the Frenchman replied, "that if he had been only a gentleman, he should not have come to visit him." 10 12 SWIFT to Pope, January 10, 1721. 13 He had at least four sinecure appointments, so that the censure of Halifax by Swift (see vol. i. p. 498) is sadly overcharged. 14 There are two fragments of Homer translated in this Miscellany-one by Mr. Congreve (whom I cannot mention without the honour which is due to his excellent parts, and that entire affection which I bear him), the other by myself. . . . . . I wish Mr. Congreve had the leisure to translate Homer, and the world the good nature and justice to encourage him in that noble design, of which he is more capable than any man I know.-DRYDEN: Dedication of Third Miscellany, 1693. Dryden, moreover, honoured him with an Epistle in verse, and entrusted him with the revisal of his Virgil (Dedication of Eneid). 16 It was my fate to be much with the wits: my father was acquainted with all of them. Addison was the best company in the world. I never knew anybody that had so much wit as Congreve -LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU: Spence by Singer, p. 232. 16 Voltaire has been charmingly absurd. He who laughed at Congreve for despising the rank of author and affecting the gentleman, set out post for a hovel he has in France, to write from thence and style himself Gentleman of the Bedchamber, to Lord Lyttelton, who, in his Dialogues of the Dead,' had called him an exile.-WALPOLE to Mann, March 8, 1761, I think the impertinent Frenchman was properly answered. I should just serve any member of the French Institute in the same manner that wished to be introduced to me.-CHARL LAMB. (Letters,' p. 186.) In his retirement he may be supposed to have applied himself to books; for he discovers more literature than the poets have commonly attained. But his studies were in his latter das obstructed by cataracts in his eyes, which at last terminated in blindness. This melancholy state was aggravated by the gout, for which he sought relief by a journey to Bath;" but being overturned in his chariot, complained from that time of a pain in his side, and died, at his house in Surrey-street in the Strand, Jan. 19, 1728-9." Having lain in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, he was buried in Westminster Abbey," where a monument is erected to his memory by Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough," to whom, for reasons either not known or not mentioned, he bequeathed a legacy of about ten thousand pounds; the accumulation of attentive parsimony, which, though to her superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that time by the imprudence of his relation reduced to difficulties and distress." 17 He had long been a sufferer from gout, and cataracts in both eyes. Addison tells him, In a letter from Blois in 1699, that he believes him to be the first English poet that has been complimented with the gout. "As to my gout," Congreve says, writing to Keally, May 6, 1712, "I am pretty well; but shall never jump one-and-twenty feet at one jump upon Northhall Common again.—Berkeley's Literary Relics, 8vo., 1789, p. 878. 18 He was very handsome. The best portrait of him is that among the Kit Kat series presented to Jacob Tonson, and now at Bayfordbury, Herts. 19 The pall-bearers were the Duke of Bridgewater, Earl Godolphin (husband of Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough), Lord Cobham, Earl of Wilmington, Mr. George Berkeley (husband of Mrs. Howard), and General Churchill, a name known to the readers of Mrs. Oldfield's 'Life.' (See 'Suffolk Papers,' 2 vols. 8vo., 1824, i. 830.) 20 When the younger Duchess [of Marlborough] exposed herself by placing a monument and silly epitaph of her own composition and bad spelling to Congreve in Westminster Abbey, her mother, quoting the words, said, “I know not what pleasure [happiness] she might have in his company, but I am sure it was no honour."- Walpole's Reminiscences, The charms of his [Congreve's] conversation must have been very powerful, since nothing could console Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough for the loss of his company, so much as an automaton, or small statue of ivory, made exactly to resemble him, which every day was brought to table. A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was supposed to bow to her Grace and to nod in approbation of what she spoke to it.-Davies's Dram. Mis. iii. 882. Thomson published anonymously (8vo. 1729) A Poem to the Memory of Mr. Congreve, inscribed to her Grace Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough,' reprinted by me in 1843 for the Percy Society, and now universally admitted to be by Thomson. 21 Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and lived in the same street, his house very near hers, until his acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. He then quitted that house. The Duchess showed me a diamond necklace (which Lady Di used afterwards to wear) that cost seven thousand pounds, and was purchased with the money Con greve left her. How much better would it have been to have given it to Mrs. Bracegirdle!-Dr. YOUNG: Spence by Singer, p. 876. Congreve has merit of the highest kind; he is an original writer, who borrowed neither the models of his plot, nor the manner of his dialogue. O his plays I cannot speak distinctly; for since I inspected them many years have passed; but what remains upon my memory is, that his characters are commonly fictitious and artificial, with very little of nature and not much of life. He formed a peculiar idea of comic excellence, which he supposed to consist in gay remarks and unexpected answers; but that which he endeavoured, he seldom failed of performing. His scenes exhibit not much of humour, imagery, or passion: his personages are a kind of intellectual gladiators; every sentence is to ward or strike; the contest of smartness is never intermitted; his wit is a meteor playing to and fro with alternate coruscations. His comedies have therefore, in some degree, the operation of tragedies; they surprise rather than divert, and raise admiration oftener than merriment. But they are the works of a mind replete with images, and quick in combination." Of his miscellaneous poetry, I cannot say anything very favourable. The powers of Congreve seem to desert him when he leaves the stage, as Antæus was no longer strong than when he could touch the ground. It cannot be observed without wonder, that a mind so vigorous and fertile in dramatic compositions should on any other occasion discover nothing but impotence and poverty. He has in these little pieces neither elevation of fancy, selection of language, nor skill in versification; yet if I were required to select from the whole mass of English Poetry the most poetical paragraph, I know not what I could prefer to an exclamation in "The Mourning Bride :' ALMERIA. "It was a fancied noise; for all is hush'd. LEONORA. It bore the accent of a human voice. 22 Of Congreve's four comedies, two are concluded by a marriage in a mask, by a deception which perhaps never happened, and which, whether likely or not, he did not invent.-JoHNSON: Preface to Shakespeare. In Dennis's Works,' ii. 514, is a long and capital letter from Congreve concerning humour in comedy, that deserves to find a place in any reprint of his works. No: all is hush'd and still as death.-'Tis dreadful! Thy voice-my own affrights me with its echoes." He who reads these line enjoys for a moment the powers of a poet; he feels what he remembers to have felt before, but he feels it with great increase of sensibility; he recognises a familiar image but meets it again amplified and expanded, embellished with beauty, and enlarged with majesty." Yet could the author, who appears here to have enjoyed the confidence of nature, lament the death of Queen Mary in lines like these : 23 Johnson said [16th Oct. 1769] that the description of the temple in 'The Mourning Bride' was the finest poetical passage he had ever read; he recollected none in Shakespeare equal to it. "But," said Garrick, all alarmed for the god of his idolatry, “we know not the extent and variety of his powers. We are to suppose that there are such passages in his works. Shakespeare must not suffer from the badness of our memories." Johnson, diverted by this enthusiastic jealousy, went on with great ardour: "No, Sir, Congreve has nature" (smiling on the tragic eagerness of Garrick); but composing himself he added, "Sir, this is not comparing Congreve on the whole with Shakespeare on the whole; but only maintaining that Congreve has one finer passage than any that can be found in Shakespeare. Sir, a man may have no more than ten guineas in the world, but he may have those ten guineas in one piece, and so may have a finer piece than a man who has ten thousand pounds; but then he has only one ten-guinea piece."-Boswell by Croker, p. 208. VOL. II. 2 |