Horace by his contemporaries may give an idea of his power, of his grace, of his daring manner, his magnificence in compliment, and his polished sarcasm. He writes as if he was so accustomed to conquer, that he has a poor opinion of his victims. Nothing's new except their faces, says he; "every woman is the same." He says this in his first comedy, which he wrote languidly* in illness, when he was an "excellent young man." Richelieu at eighty could have hardly said a

more excellent thing.

When he advances to make one of his conquests, it is with a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and with the fiddles playing, like Grammont's French dandies attacking the breach of Lerida.

"Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young lady at the Wells at Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnificent compliment

"Cease, cease to ask her name,

The crowned Muse's noblest theme,
Whose glory by immortal fame
Shall only sounded be.

But if you long to know,

Then look round yonder dazzling row:
Who most does like an angel show,
You may be sure 'tis she."

Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was not so well pleased at the poet's manner of celebrating her

"When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair,
With eyes so bright and with that awful air,
I thought my heart which durst so high aspire
As bold as his who snatched celestial fire.

"But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke,
Forth from her coral lips such folly broke:

Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound,
And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound."

despair; but never think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no; but be sure you lay aside all thoughts of the marriage, for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only as a blind to your passion for meyet it will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say? Jealous! No, no, I can't be jealous; for I must not love you. Therefore, don't hope; but don't despair neither. Oh, they're coming; I must fly." The Double Dealer: Act 2, sc. v. page 156.

*There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance. The 'Old Bachelor' was written for amusement in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dialogue and incessant ambition of wit."JOHNSON: Lives of the Poets.

Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, but the poet does not seem to respect one much more than the other; and described both with exquisite satirical humor

"Fair Amoret is gone astray:

Pursue and seek her every lover.
I'll tell the signs by which you may
The wandering shepherdess discover.

"Coquet and coy at once her air,

tr

Both studied, though both seem neglected;
Careless she is with artful care,

Affecting to seem unaffected.

"With skill her eyes dart every glance,

Yet change so soon you'd ne'er suspect them;
For she'd persuade they wound by chance,
Though certain aim and art direct them.

"She likes herself, yet others hates

For that which in herself she prizes;
And, while she laughs at them, forgets
She is the thing that she despises."

What could Amoret have done to bring down such shafts of ridicule upon her? Could she have resisted the irresistible Mr. Congreve? Could anybody? Could Sabina, when she woke and heard such a bard singing under her window? "See," he writes

"See! see, she wakes-Sabina wakes!

And now the sun begins to rise?

Less glorious is the morn, that breaks

From his bright beams, than her fair eyes.

With light united, day they give;

But different fates ere night fulfil:
How many by his warmth will live!
How many will her coldness kill!"

Are you melted? Don't you think him a divine man? not touched by the brilliant Sabina, hear the devout Selinda :

"Pious Selinda goes to prayers,

If I but ask the favor;

And yet the tender fool's in tears,

When she believes I'll leave her:

Would I were free from this restraint,
Or else had hopes to win her:
Would she could make of me a saint,
Or I of her a sinner!"

What a conquering air there is about these!

If

What an

irresistible Mr. Congreve it is! Sinner! of course he will be a

sinner, the delightful rascal! Win her! of course he will win her, the victorious rogue! He knows he will: he must-with such a grace, with such a fashion, with such a splendid embroidered suit. You see him with red-heeled shoes deliciously turned out, passing a fair jewelled hand through his dishevelled periwig, and delivering a killing ogle along with his scented billet. And Sabina? What a comparison that is between the nymph and the sun! The sun gives Sabina the pas, and does not venture to rise before her ladyship: the morn's bright beams are less glorious than her fair eyes: but before night everybody will be frozen by her glances: everybody but one lucky rogue who shall be nameless. Louis Quatorze in all his glory is hardly more splendid than our Phœbus Apollo of the Mall and Spring Gardens.*

When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, the latter rather affected to despise his literary reputation, and in this perhaps the great Congreve was not far wrong.† A touch of Steele's tenderness is worth all his finery; a flash of Swift's lightning, a beam of Addison's pure sunshine, and his tawdry playhouse taper is invisible. But the ladies loved him, and he was undoubtedly a pretty fellow.‡

"Among those by whom it (Will's ') was frequented, Southerne and Congreve were principally distinguished by Dryden's friendship. . . . But Congreve seems to have gained yet farther than Southerne upon Dryden's friendship. He was introduced to him by his first play, the celebrated 'Old Bachelor' being put into the poet's hands to be revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations to fit it for the stage, returned it to the author with the high and just commendation, that it was the best first play he had ever seen." - ScorT's Dryden, vol. i. p. 370.

It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), that Voltaire visited him, in the decline of his life.

The anecdote relating to his saying that he wished "to be visited on no other footing than as a gentleman who led a life of plainness and simplicity," is common to all writers on the subject of Congreve, and appears in the English version of Voltaire's "Letters concerning the English Nation," published in London, 1733, as also in Goldsmith's "Memoir of Voltaire." But it is worthy of remark, that it does not appear in the text of the same Letters in the edition of Voltaire's "Euvres Complètes" in the "Panthéon Littéraire." Vol. v. of his works. (Paris, 1837.)

"Celui de tous les Anglais qui a porté le plus loin la gloire du théâtre comique est feu M. Congreve. Il n'a fait que peu de pièces, mais toutes sont excellentes dans leur genre. Vous y voyez partout le langage des honnêtes gens avec des actions de fripon; ce qui prouve qu'il connaissait bien son monde, et qu'il vivait dans ce qu'on appelle la bonne compagnie." VOLTAIRE: Lettres sur les Anglais. Let. 19.

On the death of Queen Mary he published a Pastoral-"The Mourning Muse of Alexis." Alexis and Menalcas sing alternately in the orthodox way. The Queen is called PASTORA.

We have seen in Swift a humorous philosopher, whose truth frightens one, and whose laughter makes one melancholy. We

"I mourn PASTORA dead, let Albion mourn,
And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn,"

says Alexis. Among other phenomena, we learn that—

"With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound,

And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground”.

(a degree of sensibility not always found in the Satyrs of that period). It continues

"Lord of these woods and wide extended plains,

Stretch'd on the ground and close to earth his face,
Scalding with tears the already faded grass.

To dust must all that Heavenly beauty come?
And must Pastora moulder in the tomb ?

Ah Death! more fierce and unrelenting far
Than wildest wolves or savage tigers are;

With lambs and sheep their hungers are appeased,
But ravenous Death the shepherdess has seized."

This statement that a wolf eats but a sheep, whilst Death eats a shepherdess ― that figure of the "Great Shepherd " lying speechless on his stomach, in a state of despair which neither winds nor floods nor air can exhibit― are to be remembered in poetry surely and this style was admired in its time by the admirers of the great Congreve!

:

In the "Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas" (the young Lord Blandford, the great Duke of Marlborough's only son), Amaryllis represents Sarah Duchess!

The tigers and wolves, nature and motion, rivers and echoes, come into work here again. At the sight of her grief

Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forego,
And dumb distress and new compassion show,
Nature herself attentive silence kept,

And motion seemed suspended while she wept!"

And Pope dedicated the "Iliad" to the author of these lines and Dryden wrote to him in his great hand:

"Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought,
But Genius must be born and never can be taught.

This is your portion, this your native store;

Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,

To SHAKSPEARE gave as much she could not give him more.

Maintain your Post: that's all the fame you need,

For 'tis impossible you should proceed;

Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage:
Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expence,
I live a Rent-charge upon Providence:
But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,

have had in Congreve a humorous observer of another school, to whom the world seems to have no moral at all, and whose ghastly doctrine seems to be that we should eat, drink, and be merry when we can, and go to the deuce (if there be a deuce) when the time comes. We come now to a humor that flows from quite a different heart and spirit—a wit that makes us laugh, and leaves us good and happy; to one of the kindest benefactors that society has ever had; and I believe you have divined already that I am about to mention Addison's honored

name.

From reading over his writings, and the biographies which we have of him, amongst which the famous article in the Edinburgh Review* may be cited as a magnificent statue of the great writer and moralist of the last age, raised by the love and the marvellous skill and genius of one of the most illustrious artists of our own; looking at that calm, fair face, and clear countenance those chiselled features pure and cold, I can't but fancy that this great man in this respect, like him of whom we spoke in

Be kind to my remains, and oh! defend
Against your Judgment your departed Friend!
Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue;
But shade those Lawrels which descend to You:
And take for Tribute what these Lines express;
You merit more, nor could my Love do less."

This is a very different manner of welcome to that of our own day. In Shadwell, Higgons, Congreve, and the comic authors of their time, when gentlemen meet they fall into each other's arms, with "Jack, Jack, I must buss thee;" or, "Fore George, Harry, I must kiss thee, lad." And in a similar manner the poets saluted their brethren. Literary gentlemen do not kiss now; I wonder if they love each other better?

Steele calls Congreve "Great Sir" and "Great Author;" says "Welldressed barbarians knew his awful name," and addresses him as if he were a prince; and speaks of "Pastora" as one of the most famous tragic compositions.

* "To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much like affection as any sentiment can be which is inspired by one who has been sleeping a hundred and twenty years in Westminster Abbey. . . . After full inquiry and impartial reflection we have long been convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as can justly be claimed by any of our infirm and erring race." — MACAULAY.

Many who praise virtue do no more than praise it. Yet it is reasonable to believe that Addison's profession and practice were at no great variance; since, amidst that storm of faction in which most of his life was passed, though his station made him conspicuous, and his activity made him formidable, the character given him by his friends was never contradicted by his enemies. Of those with whom interest or opinion united him, he had not only the esteem but the kindness; and of others, whom the violence of opposition drove against him, though he might lose the love. he retained the reverence." JOHNSON.