Mrs. A. T. Thomson

When and where was he born?—The Middle Temple.—Congreve finds his Vocation.—Verses to Queen Mary.—The Tennis-court Theatre.—Congreve abandons the Drama.—Jeremy Collier.—The Immorality of the Stage.—Very improper Things.—Congreve's Writings.—Jeremy's 'Short Views.'—Rival Theatres.—Dryden's Funeral.—A Tub-Preacher.—Horoscopic Predictions.—Dryden's Solicitude for his Son.—Congreve's Ambition.—Anecdote of Voltaire and Congreve.—The Profession of MÆcenas.—Congreve's Private Life.—'Malbrook's' Daughter.—Congreve's Death and Burial.

When 'Queen Sarah' of Marlborough read the silly epitaph which Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, had written and had engraved on the monument she set up to Congreve, she said, with one of the true Blenheim sneers, 'I know not what happiness she might have in his company, but I am sure it was no honour,' alluding to her daughter's eulogistic phrases.

Queen Sarah was right, as she often was when condemnation was called for: and however amusing a companion the dramatist may have been, he was not a man to respect, for he had not only the common vices of his age, but added to them a foppish vanity, toadyism, and fine gentlemanism (to coin a most necessary word), which we scarcely expect to meet with in a man who sets up for a satirist.

It is the fate of greatness to have falsehoods told of it, and of nothing in connection with it more so than of its origin. If the converse be true, Congreve ought to have been a great man, for the place and time of his birth are both subjects of dispute. Oh! happy Gifford! or happy Croker! why did you not—perhaps you did—go to work to set the world right on this matter—you, to whom a date discovered is the highest palm (no pun intended, I assure you) of glory, and who would rather Shakespere had never written 'Hamlet,' or Homer the 'Iliad,' than that some miserable little forgotten scrap which decided a year or a place should have been consigned to flames before it fell into your hands? Why did you not bring the thunder of your abuse and the pop-gunnery of your satire to bear upon the question, 'How, when, and where was William Congreve born?'

It was Lady Morgan, I think, who first 'saw the light' (that is, if she was born in the day-time) in the Irish Channel. If it had been only some one more celebrated, we should have had by this time a series of philosophical, geographical, and ethnological pamphlets to prove that she was English or Irish, according to the fancies or prejudices of the writers. It was certainly a very Irish thing to do, which is one argument for the Milesians, and again it was done in the Irish Channel, which is another and a stronger one; and altogether we are not inclined to go into forty-five pages of recondite facts and fine-drawn arguments, mingled with the most vehement abuse of anybody who ever before wrote on the subject, to prove that this country had the honour of producing her ladyship—the Wild Irish Girl. We freely give her up to the sister island. But not so William Congreve, though we are equally indifferent to the honour in his case.

The one party, then, assert that he was born in this country, the other that he breathed his first air in the Emerald Isle. Whichever be the true state of the case, we, as Englishmen, prefer to agree in the commonly received opinion that he came into this wicked world at the village of Bardsea, or Bardsey, not far from Leeds in the county of York. Let the Bardseyans immediately erect a statue to his honour, if they have been remiss enough to neglect him heretofore.

But our difficulties are not ended, for there is a similar doubt about the year of his birth. His earliest biographer assures us he was born in 1672, and others that he was baptized three years before, in 1669. Such a proceeding might well be taken as a proof of his Hibernian extraction, and accordingly we find Malone supporting the earlier date, producing, of course, a certificate of baptism to support himself; and as we have a very great respect for his authority, we beg also to support Mr. Malone.

This being settled, we have to examine who were his parents: and this is satisfactorily answered by his earliest biographer, who informs us that he was of a very ancient family, being 'the only surviving son of William Congreve, Esq. (who was second son to Richard Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in that county),' to wit, Yorkshire. Congreve pÈre held a military command, which took him to Ireland soon after the dramatist's birth, and thus young William had the incomparable advantage of being educated at Kilkenny, and afterwards at Trinity, Dublin, the 'silent sister,' as it is commonly called at our universities.

At the age of nineteen, this youth sought the classic shades of the Middle Temple, of which he was entered a student, but by the honourable society of which he was never called to the bar; but whether this was from a disinclination to study 'Coke upon Lyttleton,' or from an incapacity to digest the requisite number of dinners, the devouring of which qualify a young gentleman to address an enlightened British jury, we have no authority for deciding. He was certainly not the first, nor the last, young Templar who has quitted special pleading on a crusade to the heights of Parnassus, and he began early to try the nib of his pen and the colour of his ink in a novel. Eheu! how many a novel has issued from the dull, dirty chambers of that same Temple! The waters of the Thames just there seem to have been augmented by a mingled flow of sewage and Helicon, though the former is undoubtedly in the greater proportion. This novel, called 'Incognita; or, Love and Duty Reconciled,' seems to have been—for I confess that I have not read more than a chapter of it, and hope I never may be forced to do so—great rubbish, with good store of villains and ruffians, love-sick maidens who tune their lutes—always conveniently at hand—and love-sick gallants who run their foes through the body with the greatest imaginable ease. It was, in fact, such a novel as James might have written, had he lived a century and a half ago. It brought its author but little fame, and accordingly he turned his attention to another branch of literature, and in 1693 produced 'The Old Bachelor,' a play of which Dryden, his friend, had so high an opinion that he called it the 'best first-play he had ever read.' However, before being put on the stage it was submitted to Dryden, and by him and others prepared for representation, so that it was well fathered. It was successful enough, and Congreve thus found his vocation. In his dedication—a regular piece of flummery of those days, for which authors were often well paid, either in cash or interest—he acknowledges a debt of gratitude to Lord Halifax, who appears to have taken the young man by the hand.

The young Templar could do nothing better now than write another play. Play-making was as fashionable an amusement in those days of Old Drury, the only patented theatre then, as novel-writing is in 1860; and when the young ensign, Vanbrugh, could write comedies and take the direction of a theatre, it was no derogation to the dignity of the Staffordshire squire's grandson to do as much. Accordingly, in the following year he brought out a better comedy, 'The Double Dealer,' with a prologue which was spoken by the famous Anne Bracegirdle. She must have been eighty years old when Horace Walpole wrote of her to that other Horace—Mann: 'Tell Mr. Chute that his friend Bracegirdle breakfasted with me this morning. As she went out and wanted her clogs, she turned to me and said: "I remember at the playhouse they used to call, Mrs. Oldfield's chair! Mrs. Barry's clogs! and Mrs. Bracegirdle's pattens!"' These three ladies were all buried in Westminster Abbey, and, except Mrs. Cibber, the most beautiful and most sinful of them all—though they were none of them spotless—are the only actresses whose ashes and memories are hallowed by the place, for we can scarcely say that they do it much honour.

The success of 'The Double Dealer,' was at first moderate, although that highly respectable woman, Queen Mary, honoured it with her august presence, which forthwith called up verses of the old adulatory style, though with less point and neatness than those addressed to the Virgin Queen:

'Wit is again the care of majesty,'

said the poet, and

'Thus flourished wit in our forefathers' age,

And thus the Roman and Athenian stage.

Whose wit is best, we'll not presume to tell,

But this we know, our audience will excell;

For never was in Rome, nor Athens seen

So fair a circle, and so bright a queen.'

But this was not enough, for when Her Majesty departed for another realm in the same year, Congreve put her into a highly eulogistic pastoral, under the name of Pastora, and made some compliments on her, which were considered the finest strokes of poetry and flattery combined, that an age of addresses and eulogies could produce.

'As lofty pines o'ertop the lowly steed,

So did her graceful height all nymphs exceed,

To which excelling height she bore a mind

Humble as osiers, bending to the wind.

* * * *

I mourn Pastora dead; let Albion mourn,

And sable clouds her chalkie cliffs adorn.'

This play was dedicated to Lord Halifax, of whom we have spoken, and who continued to be Congreve's patron.

The fame of the young man was now made; but in the following year it was destined to shine out more brilliantly still. Old Betterton—one of the best Hamlets that ever trod the stage, and of whom Booth declared that when he was playing the Ghost to his Hamlet, his look of surprise and horror was so natural, that Booth could not for some minutes recover himself—was now a veteran in his sixtieth year. For forty years he had walked the boards, and made a fortune for the patentees of Drury. It was very shabby of them, therefore, to give some of his best parts to younger actors. Betterton was disgusted, and determined to set up for himself, to which end he managed to procure another patent, turned the Queen's Court in Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn, into a theatre, and opened it on the 30th of April, 1695. The building had been before used as a theatre in the days of the Merry Monarch, and Tom Killegrew had acted here some twenty years before; but it had again become a 'tennis-quatre of the lesser sort,' says Cibber, and the new theatre was not very grand in fabric. But Betterton drew to it all the best actors and actresses of his former company; and Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Bracegirdle remained true to the old man. Congreve, to his honour, espoused the same cause, and the theatre opened with his play of 'Love for Love,' which was more successful than either of the former. The veteran himself spoke the prologue, and fair Bracegirdle the epilogue, in which the poet thus alluded to their change of stage:

'And thus our audience, which did once resort

To shining theatres to see our sport,

Now find us tost into a tennis-court.

Thus from the past, we hope for future grace:

I beg it——

And some here know I have a begging face.'

The king himself completed the success of the opening by attending it, and the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields might have ruined the older house, if it had not been for the rapidity with which Vanbrugh and Cibber, who wrote for Old Drury, managed to concoct their pieces; while Congreve was a slower, though perhaps better, writer. 'Love for Love' was hereafter a favourite of Betterton's, and when in 1709, a year before his death, the company gave the old man—then in ill health, poor circumstances, and bad spirits—a benefit, he chose this play, and himself, though more than seventy, acted the part of Valentine, supported by Mrs. Bracegirdle as Angelina, and Mrs. Barry as Frail.

The young dramatist with all his success, was not satisfied with his fame, and resolved to show the world that he had as much poetry as wit in him. This he failed to do; and, like better writers, injured his own fame, by not being contented with what he had. Congreve—the wit, the dandy, the man about town—took it into his head to write a tragedy. In 1697 'The Mourning Bride' was acted at the Tennis Court Theatre. The author was wise enough to return to his former muse, and some time after produced his best piece, so some think, 'The Way of the World,' which was also performed by Betterton's company; but, alas! for overwriting—that cacoËthes of imprudent men—it was almost hissed off the stage. Whether this was owing to a weariness of Congreve's style, or whether at the time of its first appearance Collier's attacks, of which anon, had already disgusted the public with the obscenity and immorality of this writer, I do not know: but, whatever the cause, the consequence was that Mr. William Congreve, in a fit of pique, made up his mind never to write another piece for the stage—a wise resolution, perhaps—and to turn fine gentleman instead. With the exception of composing a masque called the 'Judgment of Paris,' and an opera 'Gemele,' which was never performed, he kept this resolution very honestly; and so Mr. William Congreve's career as a playwright ends at the early age of thirty.

But though he abandoned the drama, he was not allowed to retire in peace. There was a certain worthy, but peppery little man, who, though a Jacobite and a clergyman, was stanch and true, and as superior in character—even, indeed, in vigour of writing—to Congreve, as Somers was to every man of his age. This very Jeremy Collier, to whom we owe it that there is any English drama fit to be acted before our sisters and wives in the present day. Jeremy, the peppery, purged the stage in a succession of Jeremiads.

Born in 1650, educated at Cambridge as a poor scholar, ordained at the age of twenty-six, presented three years later with the living of Ampton, near Bury St. Edmunds, Jeremy had two qualities to recommend him to Englishmen—respectability and pluck. In an age when the clergy were as bad as the blackest sheep in their flocks, Jeremy was distinguished by purity of life; in an age when the only safety lay in adopting the principles of the Vicar of Bray, Jeremy was a Nonjuror, and of this nothing could cure him. The Revolution of 1688 was scarcely effected, when the fiery little partizan published a pamphlet, which was rewarded by a residence of some months in Newgate, not in capacity of chaplain. But he was scarcely let out, when again went his furious pen, and for four years he continued to assail the new government, till his hands were shackled and his mouth closed in the prison of 'The Gate-house.' Now, see the character of the man. He was liberated upon giving bail, but had no sooner reflected on this liberation than he came to the conclusion that it was wrong, by offering security, to recognize the authority of magistrates appointed by a usurper, as he held William to be, and voluntarily surrendered himself to his judges. Of course he was again committed, but this time to the King's Bench, and would doubtless in a few years have made the tour of the London prisons, if his enemies had not been tired of trying him. Once more at liberty, he passed the next three years in retirement.

After 1693, Jeremy Collier's name was not brought before the public till 1696, when he publicly absolved Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins, at their execution, for being concerned in a plot to assassinate King William. His 'Essays on Moral Subjects' were published in 1697; 2nd vol., 1705; 3rd vol., 1709. But the only way to put out a firebrand like this is to let it alone, and Jeremy, being, no longer persecuted, began, at last, to think the game was grown stupid, and gave it up. He was a well-meaning man, however, and as long as he had the luxury of a grievance, would injure no one.

He found one now in the immorality of his age, and if he had left politics to themselves from the first, he might have done much more good than he did. Against the vices of a court and courtly circles it was useless to start a crusade single-handed; but his quaint clever pen might yet dress out a powerful Jeremiad against those who encouraged the licentiousness of the people. Jeremy was no Puritan, for he was a Nonjuror and a Jacobite, and we may, therefore, believe that the cause was a good one, when we find him adopting precisely the same line as the Puritans had done before him. In 1698 he published, to the disgust of all Drury and Lincoln's Inn, his 'Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, together with the Sense of Antiquity upon this Argument.'

While the King of Naples is supplying his ancient Venuses with gowns, and putting his Mars and Hercules into pantaloons, there are—such are the varieties of opinion—respectable men in this country who call Paul de Kock the greatest moral writer of his age, and who would yet like to see 'The Relapse,' 'Love for Love,' and the choice specimens of Wycherley, Farquhar, and even of Beaumont and Fletcher, acted at the Princess's and the Haymarket in the year of grace 1860. I am not writing 'A Short View' of this or any other moral subject; but this I must say—the effect of a sight or sound on a human being's silly little passions must of necessity be relative. Staid people read 'Don Juan,' Lewis's 'Monk,' the plays of Congreve, and any or all of the publications of Holywell Street, without more than disgust at their obscenity and admiration for their beauties. But could we be pardoned for putting these works into the hands of 'sweet seventeen,' or making Christmas presents of them to our boys? Ignorance of evil is, to a certain extent, virtue: let boys be boys in purity of mind as long as they can: let the unrefined 'great unwashed' be treated also much in the same way as young people. I maintain that to a coarse mind all improper ideas, however beautifully clothed, suggest only sensual thoughts—nay, the very modesty of the garments makes them the more insidious—the more dangerous. I would rather give my boy Jonson, Massinger, or Beaumont and Fletcher, whose very improper things 'are called by their proper names,' than let him dive in the prurient innuendo of these later writers.

But there is no need to argue the question—the public has decided it long since, and, except in indelicate ballets, and occasional rather French passages in farce, our modern stage is free from immorality. Even in Garrick's days, when men were not much more refined than in those of Queen Anne, it was found impossible to put the old drama on the stage without considerable weeding. Indeed I doubt if even the liberal upholder of Paul de Kock would call Congreve a moral writer; but I confess I am not a competent judge, for risum teneatis, my critics, I have not read his works since I was a boy, and what is more, I have no intention of reading them. I well remember getting into my hands a large thick volume, adorned with miserable woodcuts, and bearing on its back the title 'Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar.' I devoured it at first with the same avidity with which one might welcome a bottle-imp, who at the hour of one's dulness turned up out of the carpet and offered you delights new and old for nothing but a tether on your soul: and with a like horror, boy though I was, I recoiled from it when any better moment came. It seemed to me, when I read this book, as if life were too rotten for any belief, a nest of sharpers, adulterers, cut-throats, and prostitutes. There was none—as far as I remember—of that amiable weakness, of that better sentiment, which in Ben Jonson or Massinger reconcile us to human nature. If truth be a test of genius, it must be a proof of true poetry, that man is not made uglier than he is. Nay, his very ugliness loses its intensity and palls upon our diseased tastes, for want of some goodness, some purity and honesty to relieve it. I will not say that there is none of this in Congreve. I only know, that my recollection of his plays is like that of a vile nightmare, which I would not for anything have return to me. I have read, since, books as bad, perhaps worse in some respects, but I have found the redemption here and there. I would no more place Shandy in any boy's hands than Congreve and Farquhar; and yet I can read Tristram again and again with delight; for amid all that is bad there stand out Trim and Toby, pure specimens of the best side of human nature, coming home to us and telling us that the world is not all bad. There may be such touches in 'Love for Love,' or 'The Way of the World'—I know not and care not. To my remembrance Congreve is but a horrible nightmare, and may the fates forbid I should be forced to go through his plays again.

Perhaps, then, Jeremy was not far wrong, when he attacked these specimens of the drama with an unrelenting Nemesis; but he was before his age. It was less the obvious coarseness of these productions with which he found fault than their demoralizing tendency in a direction which we should now, perhaps, consider innocuous. Certainly the Jeremiad overdid it, and like a swift, but not straight bowler at cricket, he sent balls which no wicket-keeper could stop, and which, therefore, were harmless to the batter. He did not want boldness. He attacked Dryden, now close upon his grave: Congreve, a young man; Vanbrugh, Cibber, Farquhar, and the rest, all alive, all in the zenith of their fame, and all as popular as writers could be. It was as much as if a man should stand up to-day and denounce Dickens and Thackeray, with the exception that well-meaning people went along with Jeremy, whereas very few would do more than smile at the zeal of any one who tilted against our modern pets. Jeremy, no doubt, was bold, but he wanted tact, and so gave his enemy occasion to blaspheme. He made out cases where there were none, and let alone what we moderns should denounce. So Congreve took up the cudgels against him with much wit and much coarseness, and the two fought out the battle in many a pamphlet and many a letter. But Jeremy was not to be beaten. His 'Short View' was followed by 'A Defence of the Short View,' a 'Second Defence of the Short View,' 'A Farther Short View,' and, in short, a number of 'Short Views,' which had been better merged into one 'Long Sight.' Jeremy grew coarse and bitter; Congreve coarser and bitterer; and the whole controversy made a pretty chapter for the 'Quarrels of Authors.' But the Jeremiad triumphed in the long run, because, if its method was bad, its cause was good, and a succeeding generation voted Congreve immoral. Enough of Jeremy. We owe him a tribute for his pluck, and though no one reads him in the present day, we may be thankful to him for having led the way to a better state of things.[15]

Congreve defended himself in eight letters addressed to Mr. Moyle, and we can only say of them, that, if anything, they are yet coarser than the plays he would excuse.

The works of the young Templar, and his connection with Betterton, introduced him to all the writers and wits of his day. He and Vanbrugh, though rivals, were fellow-workers, and our glorious Haymarket Theatre, which has gone on at times when Drury and Covent Garden have been in despair, owes its origin to their confederacy. But Vanbrugh's theatre was on the site of the present Opera House, and the Haymarket was set up as a rival concern. Vanbrugh's was built in 1705, and met the usual fate of theatres, being burnt down some eighty-four years after. It is curious enough that this house, destined for the 'legitimate drama'—often a very illegitimate performance—was opened by an opera set to Italian music, so that 'Her Majesty's' has not much departed from the original cast of the place.

Perhaps Congreve's best friend was Dryden. This man's life and death are pretty well known, and even his funeral has been described time and again. But Corinna—as she was styled—gave of the latter an account which has been called romantic, and much discredited. There is a deal of characteristic humour in her story of the funeral, and as it has long been lost sight of, it may not be unpalatable here: Dryden died on May-day, 1701, and Lord Halifax[16] undertook to give his body a private funeral in Westminster Abbey.

'On the Saturday following,' writes Corinna, 'the Company came. The Corps was put into a Velvet Hearse, and eighteen Mourning Coaches filled with Company attending. When, just before they began to move, Lord Jeffreys, with some of his rakish Companions, coming by, in Wine, ask'd whose Funeral? And being told; "What!" cries he, "shall Dryden, the greatest Honour and Ornament of the Nation, be buried after this private Manner? No, Gentlemen! let all that lov'd Mr. Dryden, and honour his Memory, alight, and join with me in gaining my Lady's Consent, to let me have the Honour of his Interment, which shall be after another manner than this, and I will bestow £1000 on a Monument in the Abbey for him." The Gentlemen in the Coaches, not knowing of the Bishop of Rochester's Favour, nor of Lord Halifax's generous Design (these two noble Spirits having, out of Respect to the Family, enjoin'd Lady Elsabeth and her Son to keep their Favour concealed to the World, and let it pass for her own Expense), readily came out of the Coaches, and attended Lord Jeffreys up to the Lady's Bedside, who was then sick. He repeated the purport of what he had before said, but she absolutely refusing, he fell on his knees, vowing never to rise till his request was granted. The rest of the Company, by his Desire, kneeled also; she being naturally of a timorous Disposition, and then under a sudden surprise, fainted away. As soon as she recover'd her Speech, she cry'd, "No, no!" "Enough gentlemen," reply'd he (rising briskly), "My Lady is very good, she says, Go, go!" She repeated her former Words with all her Strength, but alas in vain! her feeble voice was lost in their Acclamations of Joy! and Lord Jeffreys order'd the Hearseman to carry the Corps to Russell's, an undertaker in Cheapside, and leave it there, till he sent orders for the Embalment, which, he added, should be after the Royal Manner. His Directions were obey'd, the Company dispersed, and Lady Elsabeth and Mr. Charles remained Inconsolable. Next Morning Mr. Charles waited on Lord Halifax, &c., to excuse his Mother and self, by relating the real Truth. But neither his Lordship nor the Bishop would admit of any Plea; especially the latter, who had the Abbey lighted, the ground open'd, the Choir attending, an Anthem ready set, and himself waiting for some Hours, without any Corps to bury. Russell, after three days' Expectance of Orders for Embalment, without receiving any, waits on Lord Jeffreys, who, pretending Ignorance of the Matter, turn'd it off with an ill-natured Jest, saying, "Those who observed the orders of a drunken Frolick, deserved no better; that he remembered nothing at all of it, and he might do what he pleased with the Corps." On this Mr. Russell waits on Lady Elsabeth and Mr. Dryden; but alas, it was not in their power to answer. The season was very hot, the Deceas'd had liv'd high and fast; and being corpulent, and abounding with gross Humours, grew very offensive. The Undertaker, in short, threaten'd to bring home the Corps, and set it before the Door. It cannot be easily imagin'd what grief, shame, and confusion seized this unhappy Family. They begged a Day's Respite, which was granted. Mr. Charles wrote a very handsome Letter to Lord Jeffreys, who returned it with this cool Answer, "He knew nothing of the Matter, and would be troubled no more about it." He then addressed the Lord Halifax and Bishop of Rochester, who were both too justly tho' unhappily incensed, to do anything in it. In this extream Distress, Dr. Garth, a man who entirely lov'd Mr. Dryden, and was withal a Man of Generosity and great Humanity, sends for the Corps to the College of Physicians in Warwick Lane, and proposed a Funeral by Subscription, to which himself set a most noble example. Mr. Wycherley, and several others, among whom must not be forgotten Henry Cromwell, Esq., Captain Gibbons, and Mr. Christopher Metcalfe, Mr. Dryden's Apothecary and intimate Friend (since a Collegiate Physician), who with many others contributed most largely to the Subscription; and at last a Day, about three weeks after his Decease, was appointed for the Interment at the Abbey. Dr. Garth pronounced a fine Latin Oration over the Corps at the College; but the Audience being numerous, and the Room large, it was requisite the Orator should be elevated, that he might be heard. But as it unluckily happen'd there was nothing at hand but an old Beer-Barrel, which the Doctor with much good-nature mounted; and in the midst of his Oration, beating Time to the Accent with his Foot, the Head broke in, and his Feet sunk to the Bottom, which occasioned the malicious Report of his Enemies, "That he was turned a Tub-Preacher." However, he finished the Oration with a superior grace and genius, to the loud Acclamations of Mirth, which inspir'd the mix'd or rather Mob-Auditors. The Procession began to move, a numerous Train of Coaches attended the Hearse: But, good God! in what Disorder can only be express'd by a Sixpenny Pamphlet, soon after published, entitled "Dryden's Funeral." At last the Corps arrived at the Abbey, which was all unlighted. No Organ played, no Anthem sung; only two of the Singing boys preceded the Corps, who sung an Ode of Horace, with each a small candle in their Hand. The Butchers and other Mob broke in like a Deluge, so that only about eight or ten Gentlemen could gain Admission, and those forced to cut the Way with their drawn Swords. The Coffin in this Disorder was let down into Chaucer's Grave, with as much confusion, and as little Ceremony, as was possible; every one glad to save themselves from the Gentlemen's Swords, or the Clubs of the Mob. When the Funeral was over, Mr. Charles sent a Challenge to Lord Jeffreys, who refusing to answer it, he sent several others, and went often himself, but could neither get a Letter deliver'd, nor Admittance to speak to him, that he resolved, since his Lordship refused to answer him like a Gentleman, he would watch an Opportunity to meet him, and fight off hand, tho' with all the Rules of Honour; which his Lordship hearing, left the Town, and Mr. Charles could never have the satisfaction to meet him, tho' he sought it till his death with the utmost Application.'

Dryden was, perhaps, the last man of learning that believed in astrology; though an eminent English author, now living, and celebrated for the variety of his acquirements, has been known to procure the casting of horoscopes, and to consult a noted 'astrologer,' who gives opinions for a small sum. The coincidences of prophecy are not more remarkable than those of star-telling; and Dryden and the author I have referred to were probably both captivated into belief by some fatuitous realization of their horoscopic predictions. Nor can we altogether blame their credulity, when we see biology, table-turning, rapping, and all the family of imposture, taken up seriously in our own time.

On the birth of his son Charles, Dryden immediately cast his horoscope. The following account of Dryden's paternal solicitude for his son, and its result, may be taken as embellished, if not apocryphal. Evil hour, indeed—Jupiter, Venus, and the Sun were all 'under the earth;' Mars and Saturn were in square: eight, or a multiple of it, would be fatal to the child—the square foretold it. In his eighth, his twenty-fourth, or his thirty-second year, he was certain to die, though he might possibly linger on to the age of thirty-four. The stars did all they could to keep up their reputation. When the boy was eight years old he nearly lost his life by being buried under a heap of stones out of an old wall, knocked down by a stag and hounds in a hunt. But the stars were not to be beaten, and though the child recovered, went in for the game a second time in his twenty-third year, when he fell, in a fit of giddiness, from a tower, and, to use Lady Elsabeth's words, was 'mash'd to a mummy.' Still the battle was not over, and the mummy returned in due course to its human form, though considerably disfigured. Mars and Saturn were naturally disgusted at his recovery, and resolved to finish the disobedient youth. As we have seen, he in vain sought his fate at the hand of Jeffreys; but we must conclude that the offended constellations took Neptune in partnership, for in due course the youth met with a watery grave.

After abandoning the drama, Congreve appears to have come out in the light of an independent gentleman. He was already sufficiently introduced into literary society; Pope, Steele, Swift, and Addison were not only his friends but his admirers, and we can well believe that their admiration was considerable, when we find the one dedicating his 'Miscellany,' the other his translation of the 'Iliad,' to a man who was qualified neither by rank nor fortune to play MÆcenas.

At what time he was admitted to the Kit-kat I am not in a position to state, but it must have been after 1715, and by that time he was a middle-aged man, his fame was long since achieved; and whatever might be thought of his works and his controversy with Collier, he was recognised as one of the literary stars at a period when the great courted the clever, and wit was a passport to any society. Congreve had plenty of that, and probably at the Kit-kat was the life of the party when Vanbrugh was away or Addison in a graver mood. Untroubled by conscience, he could launch out on any subject whatever; and his early life, spent in that species of so-called gaiety which was then the routine of every young man of the world, gave him ample experience to draw upon. But Congreve's ambition was greater than his talents. No man so little knew his real value, or so grossly asserted one which he had not. Gay, handsome, and in good circumstances, he aspired to be, not Congreve the poet, not Congreve the wit, not Congreve the man of mind, but simply Congreve the fine gentleman. Such humility would be charming if it were not absurd. It is a vice of scribes to seek a character for which they have little claim. Moore loved to be thought a diner-out rather than a poet; even Byron affected the fast man when he might have been content with the name of 'genius;' but Congreve went farther, and was ashamed of being poet, dramatist, genius, or what you will. An anecdote of him, told by Voltaire, who may have been an 'awfu' liar,' but had no temptation to invent in such a case as this, is so consistent with what we gather of the man's character, that one cannot but think it is true.

The philosopher of Ferney was anxious to see and converse with a brother dramatist of such celebrity as the author of 'The Way of the World.' He expected to find a man of a keen satirical mind, who would join him in a laugh against humanity. He visited Congreve, and naturally began to talk of his works. The fine gentleman spoke of them as trifles utterly beneath his notice, and told him, with an affectation which perhaps was sincere, that he wished to be visited as a gentleman, not as an author. One can imagine the disgust of his brother dramatist. Voltaire replied, that had Mr. Congreve been nothing more than a gentleman, he should not have taken the trouble to call on him, and therewith retired with an expression of merited contempt.

It is only in the present day that authorship is looked upon as a profession, though it has long been one. It is amusing to listen to the sneers of men who never wrote a book, or who, having written, have gained thereby some more valuable advantage than the publisher's cheque. The men who talk with horror of writing for money, are glad enough if their works introduce them to the notice of the influential, and aid them in procuring a place. In the same way, Congreve was not at all ashamed of fulsome dedications, which brought him the favour of the great. Yet we may ask, if, the labourer being worthy of his hire, and the labour of the brain being the highest, finest, and most exhausting that can be, the man who straight-forwardly and without affectation takes guineas from his publisher, is not honester than he who counts upon an indirect reward for his toil? Fortunately, the question is almost settled by the example of the first writers of the present day; but there are still people who think that one should sit down to a year's—ay, ten years'—hard mental work, and expect no return but fame. Whether such objectors have always private means to return to, or whether they have never known what it is to write a book, we do not care to examine, but they are to be found in large numbers among the educated; and indeed, to this present day, it is held by some among the upper classes to be utterly derogatory to write for money.

Whether this was the feeling in Congreve's day or not is not now the question. Those were glorious days for an author, who did not mind playing the sycophant a little. Instead of having to trudge from door to door in Paternoster Row, humbly requesting an interview, which is not always granted—instead of sending that heavy parcel of MS., which costs you a fortune for postage, to publisher after publisher, till it is so often 'returned with thanks' that you hate the very sight of it, the young author of those days had a much easier and more comfortable part to play. An introduction to an influential man in town, who again would introduce you to a patron, was all that was necessary. The profession of MÆcenas was then as recognized and established as that of doctor or lawyer. A man of money could always buy brains; and most noblemen considered an author to be as necessary a part of his establishment as the footmen who ushered them into my lord's presence. A fulsome dedication in the largest type was all that he asked: and if a writer were sufficiently profuse in his adulation, he might dine at MÆcenas's table, drink his sack and canary without stint, and apply to him for cash whenever he found his pockets empty. Nor was this all: if a writer were sufficiently successful in his works to reflect honour on his patron, he was eagerly courted by others of the noble profession. He was offered, if not hard cash, as good an equivalent, in the shape of a comfortable government sinecure; and if this was not to be had, he was sometimes even lodged and boarded by his obliged dedicatee. In this way he was introduced into the highest society; and if he had wit enough to support the character, he soon found himself facile princeps in a circle of the highest nobility in the land. Thus it is that in the clubs of the day we find title and wealth mingling with wit and genius; and the writer who had begun life by a cringing dedication, was now rewarded by the devotion and assiduity of the men he had once flattered. When Steele, Swift, Addison, Pope, and Congreve were the kings of their sets, it was time for authors to look and talk big. Eheu! those happy days are gone!

Our dramatist, therefore, soon discovered that a good play was the key to a good place, and the Whigs took care that he should have it. Oddly enough, when the Tories came in they did not turn him out. Perhaps they wanted to gain him over to themselves; perhaps, like the Vicar of Bray, he did not mind turning his coat once or twice in a life-time. However this may be, he managed to keep his appointment without offending his own party; and when the latter returned to power, he even induced them to give him a comfortable little sinecure, which went by the name of Secretary to the Island of Jamaica, and raised the income from his appointments to £1200 a year.

From this period he was little before the public. He could afford now to indulge his natural indolence and selfishness. His private life was perhaps not worse than that of the majority of his contemporaries. He had his intrigues, his mistresses, the same love of wine, and the same addiction to gluttony. He had the reputation of a wit, and with wits he passed his time, sufficiently easy in his circumstances to feel no damping to his spirits in the cares of this life. The Island of Jamaica probably gave him no further trouble than that of signing a few papers from time to time, and giving a receipt for his salary. His life, therefore, presents no very remarkable feature, and he is henceforth known more on account of his friends than for aught he may himself have done. The best of these friends was Walter Moyle, the scholar, who translated parts of Lucian and Xenophon, and was pretty well known as a classic. He was a Cornish man of independent means, and it was to him that Congreve addressed the letters in which he attempted to defend himself from the attacks of Collier.

It was not to be expected that a wit and a poet should go through life without a platonic, and accordingly we find our man not only attached, but devoted to a lady of great distinction. This was no other than Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, the daughter of 'Malbrook' himself, and of the famous 'Queen Sarah.' Henrietta was the eldest daughter, and there was no son to inherit the prowess of Churchill and the parsimony of his wife. The nation—to which, by the way, the Marlboroughs were never grateful—would not allow the title of their pet warrior to become extinct, and a special Act of Parliament gave to the eldest daughter the honours of the duchy.[17] The two Duchesses of Marlborough hated each other cordially. Sarah's temper was probably the main cause of their bickering; but there is never a feud between parent and child in which both are not more or less blameable.

The Duchess Henrietta conceived a violent fancy for the wit and poet, and whatever her husband, Lord Godolphin, may have thought of it, the connection ripened into a most intimate friendship, so much so that Congreve made the duchess not only his executrix, but the sole residuary legatee of all his property.[18] His will gives us some insight into the toadying character of the man. Only four near relations are mentioned as legatees, and only £540 is divided among them; whereas, after leaving £200 to Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress; £100, 'and all my apparel and linnen of all sorts' to a Mrs. Rooke, he divides the rest between his friends of the nobility, Lords Cobham and Shannon, the Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Mary Godolphin, Colonel Churchill (who receives 'twenty pounds, together with my gold-headed cane'), and, lastly, 'to the poor of the parish,' the magnificent sum of ten pounds. 'Blessed are those who give to the rich;' these words must surely have expressed the sentiment of the worldly Congreve.

However, Congreve got something in return from the Duchess Henrietta, which he might not have received from 'the poor of the parish,' to wit, a monument, and an inscription on it written by her own hand. I have already said what 'Queen Sarah' thought of the latter, and, for the rest, those who care to read the nonsense on the walls of Westminster Abbey can decide for themselves as to the honour the poet received from his titled friend.

The latter days of William Congreve were passed in wit and gout: the wine, which warmed the one, probably brought on the latter. After a course of ass's milk, which does not seem to have done him much good, the ex-dramatist retired to Bath, a very fashionable place for departing life in, under easy and elegant circumstances. But he not only drank of the springs beloved of King Bladud, of apocryphal memory, but even went so far as to imbibe the snail-water, which was then the last species of quack cure in vogue. This, probably, despatched him. But it is only just to that disagreeable little reptile that infests our gardens, and whose slime was supposed to possess peculiarly strengthening properties, to state that his death was materially hastened by being overturned when driving in his chariot. He was close upon sixty, had long been blind from cataracts in his eyes, and as he was no longer either useful or ornamental to the world in general, he could perhaps be spared. He died soon after this accident in January, 1729. He had the sense to die at a time when Westminster Abbey, being regarded as a mausoleum, was open to receive the corpse of any one who had a little distinguished himself, and even of some who had no distinction whatever. He was buried there with great pomp, and his dear duchess set up his monument. So much for his body. What became of the soul of a dissolute, vain, witty, and unprincipled man, is no concern of ours. Requiescat in pace, if there is any peace for those who are buried in Westminster Abbey.