year before it was acted, the manager allowed its author the privilege of the house.

Few plays have ever been fo beneficial to the writer; for it procured him the patronage of Halifax, who immediately made him one of the commiffioners for licensing coaches, and foon after gave him a place in the pipe-office, and another in the customs of fix hundred pounds a year. Congreve's converfation muft furely have been at least equally pleafing with his writings.

Such a comedy, written at fuch an age, requires fome confideration. As the lighter fpecies of dramatick poetry profeffes the imitation of common life, of real manners, and daily incidents, it apparently prefuppofes a familiar knowledge of many characters, and exact obfervation of the paffing world; the difficulty therefore is, to conceive how this knowledge can be obtained by a boy.

But if The Old Bachelor be more nearly examined, it will be found to be one of those comedies which may be made by a mind vigorous and acute, and furnished with comick characters by the perufal of other poets, without much actual commerce with mankind. The dialogue is one conftant reciprocation of conceits, or clash of wit, in which nothing flows neceffarily from the occafion, or is dictated by nature. The characters both of men and women are either fictitious and artificial, as thofe of Heartwell and the Ladies; or eafy and common, as Wittol a tame idiot, Bluff a fwaggering coward, and Fondlewife a jealous puritan; and the catastrophe arifes from a mistake not very probably produced, by marrying a woman in a mask.

Yet

Yet this gay comedy, when all thefe deductions are made, will ftill remain the work of very powerful and fertile faculties; the dialogue is quick and sparkling, the incidents fuch as feize the attention, and the wit fo exuberant that it "o'er-informs its tene"""ment." Next year he gave another fpecimen of his abilities in The Double Dealer, which was not received with equal kindness. He writes to his patron the lord Halifax a dedication, in which he endeavours to reconcile the reader to that which found few friends among the audience. Thefe apologies are always ufelefs: "de guftibus non eft difputandum;" men may be convinced, but they cannot be pleafed, against their will. But, though tafte is obftinate, it is very variable; and time often prevails when arguments have failed.

Queen Mary conferred upon both thofe plays the honour of her prefence; and when fhe died, foon after, Congreve teftified his gratitude by a defpicable effufion of elegiac paftoral; a compofition in which all is unnatural, and yet nothing is new.

In another year (1695) his prolifick pen produced Love for Love; a comedy of nearer alliance to life, and exhibiting more real manners than either of the former. The character of Forefight was then common. Dryden calculated nativities; both Cromwell and king William had their lucky days; and Shaftefbury himself, though he had no religion, was faid to regard predictions. The Sailor is not accounted very natural, but he is very pleafant.

With this play was opened the New Theatre, under the direction of Betterton the tragedian; where

he

he exhibited two years afterwards (1687) The Mourn= ing Bride, a tragedy, fo written as to fhew him fufficiently qualified for either kind of dramatick poetry.

In this play, of which, when he afterwards revised it, he reduced the verfification to greater regularity, there is more buftle than fentiment; the plot is bufy and intricate, and the events take hold on the attention; but, except a very few paffages, we are rather amufed with noife, and perplexed with ftratagem, than entertained with any true delineation of natural characters. This, however, was received with more benevolence than any other of his works, and ftill continues to be acted and applauded.

But whatever objections may be made either to his comick or tragick excellence, they are loft at once in the blaze of admiration, when it is remembered that he had produced these four plays before he had paffed his twenty-fifth before other men, year, even fuch as are fome time to shine in eminence, have paffed their probation of literature, or prefume to hope for any other notice than fuch as is beftowed on diligence and enquiry. Among all the efforts of hiftory records, I doubt

early genius which literary whether any one can be produced that more furpaffes the common limits of nature than the plays of Congreve.

About this time began the long-continued controverfy between Collier and the poets. In the reign of Charles the Firft the Puritans had raised a violent clamour against the drama, which they confidered as an entertainment not lawful to Chriftians, an opinion held by them in common with the church of Rome; and Prynne published Hiftrio-maflix, a huge volume,

volume, in which stage-plays were cenfured. The outrages and crimes of the Puritans brought aftewards their whole fyftem of doctrine into disrepute, and from the Restoration the poets and players were left at quiet; for to have molefted them would have had the appearance of tendency to puritannical malignity.

This danger, however, was worn away by time; and Collier, a fierce and implacable Non-juror, knew that an attack upon the theatre would never make him fufpected for a Puritan; he therefore (1698) published A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, I believe with no other motive than religious zeal and honeft indignation. He was formed for a controvertift; with fufficient learning; with diction vehement and pointed, though often vulgar and incorrect; with unconquerable pertinacity; with wit in the higheft degree keen and sarcastick; and with all those powers exalted and invigorated by juft confidence in his caufe.

Thus qualified, and thus incited, he walked out to battle, and affailed at once moft of the living writers, from Dryden to D'Urfey. His onfet was violent; those paffages, which while they ftood fingle had paffed with little notice, when they were accumulated and exposed together, excited horror; the wife and the pious caught the alarm; and the nation wondered why it had so long suffered irreligion and licentiousness to be openly taught at the publick charge.

Nothing now remained for the poets but to refift or fly. Dryden's confcience, or his prudence, angry as he was, withheld him from the conflict 1 Congreve and Vanbrugh attempted anfwers. Congreve,

a very young man, elated with success, and impatient of cenfure, affumed an air of confidence and fecurity. His chief artifice of controverfy is to retort upon his adversary his own words: he is very angry, and, hoping to conquer Collier with his own weapons, allows himfelf in the ufe of every term of contumely and, contempt; but he has the fword without the arm of Scanderbeg; he has his antagonift's coarseness, but not his ftrength. Collier replied; for conteft was his delight, he was not to be frighted from his purpose or his prey.

The caufe of Congreve was not tenable; whatever gloffes he might ufe for the defence or palliation of fingle paffages, the general tenour and tendency of his plays muft always be condemned. It is acknowledged, with univerfal conviction, that the perufal of his works will make no man better; and that their ultimate effect is to reprefent pleafure in alliance with vice, and to relax thofe obligations by which life ought to be regulated.

The ftage found other advocates, and the difpute was protracted through ten years: but at laft Comedy grew more modeft; and Collier lived to fee the reward of his labour in the reformation of the theatre.

Of the powers by which this important victory was atchieved, a quotation from Love for Love, and the remark upon it, may afford a fpecimen :

66

Sir Sampf. "Sampfon's a very good name; for your Sampfons were ftrong dogs from the beginning."

Angel. "Have a care-If you remember, the "ftrongest Sampfon of your name pull'd an old "house over his head at laft."

"Here