Page images
PDF
EPUB

Collier's reply was severe and tri- | above all, the chase and surrender of umphant. One of his repartees we Millamant, are superior to any thing will quote, not as a favourable spe- that is to be found in the whole range cimen of his manner, but because it of English comedy from the civil war was called forth by Congreve's charac-downwards. It is quite inexplicable teristic affectation. The poet spoke to us that this play should have failed of the Old Bachelor as a trifle to which on the stage. Yet so it was; and the he attached no value, and which had author, already sore with the wounds become public by a sort of accident. which Collier had inflicted, was galled "I wrote it," he said, "to amuse my-past endurance by this new stroke. self in a slow recovery from a fit of He resolved never again to expose sickness." "What his disease was," re- himself to the rudeness of a tasteless plied Collier, "I am not to inquire: audience, and took leave of the theatre but it must be a very ill one to be for ever. worse than the remedy."

He lived twenty-eight years longer, without adding to the high literary reputation which he had attained. He

All that Congreve gained by coming forward on this occasion, was that he completely deprived himself of the ex-read much while he retained his eye cuse which he might with justice have pleaded for his early offences. "Why," asked Collier, "should the man laugh at the mischief of the boy, and make the disorders of his nonage his own, by an after approbation ?"

sight, and now and then wrote a short essay, or put an idle tale into verse; but he appears never to have planned any considerable work. The miscellaneous pieces which he published in 1710 are of little value, and have long been forgotten.

His

He pro

agrecable people in London.
summers were passed at the splendid
country-seats of ministers and peers.
Literary envy and political faction,
which in that age respected nothing
else, respected his repose.
fessed to be one of the party of which
his patron Montagu, now Lord Halifax,
was the head. But he had civil words
and small good offices for men of every
shade of opinion. And men of every
shade of opinion spoke well of him in
return.

Congreve was not Collier's only opponent. Vanbrugh, Dennis, and Settle The stock of fame which he had actook the field. And from a passage in quired by his comedies was sufficient, a contemporary satire, we are inclined assisted by the graces of his manner to think that among the answers to the and conversation, to secure for him a Short View was one written, or sup-high place in the estimation of the posed to be written, by Wycherley. world. During the winter, he lived The victory remained with Collier. A among the most distinguished and great and rapid reform in almost all the departments of our lighter literature was the effect of his labours. A new race of wits and poets arose, who generally treated with reverence the great ties which bind society together, and whose very indecencies were decent when compared with those of the school which flourished during the last forty years of the seventeenth century. This controversy probably prevented Congreve from fulfilling the engagements into which he had entered with the actors. It was not till 1700 that he produced the Way of the World, the most deeply meditated and the most brilliantly written of all his works. It wants, perhaps, the constant movement, the effervescence of animal spirits, which we find in Love for Love. But the hysterical rants of Lady Wishfort, the meeting of Witwould and his brother, the country knight's courtship and his subsequent revel, and,

His means were for a long time scanty. The place which he had in possession barely enabled him to live with comfort. And, when the Tories came into power, some thought that he would lose even this moderate provision. But Harley, who was by no means disposed to adopt the exterminating policy of the October club, and who, with all his faults of understanding and temper, had a sincere kindness

for men of genius, reassured the anx- of the Dunciad, were for once just to

ious poet by quoting very gracefully and happily the lines of Virgil,

"Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poni, Nec tam aversus equos Tyría Sol jungit ab

urbe."

living merit. There can be no stronger illustration of the estimation in which Congreve was held than the fact that the English Iliad, a work which appeared with more splendid auspices than any other in our language, was dedicated to him. There was not a duke in the kingdom who would not have been proud of such a compliment. Dr. Johnson expresses great admiration for the independence of spirit which Pope showed on this occasion.

The indulgence with which Congreve was treated by the Tories was not purchased by any concession on his part which could justly offend the Whigs. It was his rare good fortune to share the triumph of his friends without having shared their proscription." He passed over peers and statesmen When the House of Hanover came to the throne, he partook largely of the prosperity of those with whom he was connected. The reversion to which he had been nominated twenty years before fell in. He was made secretary to the island of Jamaica; and his whole income amounted to twelve hundred a year, a fortune which, for a single man, was in that age not only easy but splendid. He continued, however, to practise the frugality which he had learned when he could scarce spare, as Swift tells us, a shilling to pay the chairman who carried him to Lord Halifax's. Though he had nobody to save for, he laid up at least as much as he spent.

The infirmities of age came early upon him. His habits had been intemperate; he suffered much from gout; and, when confined to his chamber, he had no longer the solace of literature. Blindness, the most cruel misfortune that can befall the lonely student, made his books useless to him. He was thrown on society for all his amusement; and in society his good breeding and vivacity made him always welcome.

By the rising men of letters he was considered not as a rival, but as a classic. He had left their arena; he never measured his strength with them; and he was always loud in applause of their exertions. They could, therefore, entertain no jealousy of him, and thought no more of detracting from his fame than of carping at the great men who had been lying a hundred years in Poets' Corner. Even the inmates of Grub Street, even the heroes

to inscribe his Iliad to Congreve, with a magnanimity of which the praise had been complete, had his friend's virtue been equal to his wit. Why he was chosen for so great an honour, it is not now possible to know." It is certainly impossible to know; yet we think it is possible to guess. The translation of the Iliad had been zealously befriended by men of all political opinions. The poet who, at an early age, had been raised to affluence by the emulous liberality of Whigs and Tories, could not with propriety inscribe to a chief of either party a work which had been munificently patronised by both. It was necessary to find some person who was at once eminent and neutral. It was therefore necessary to pass over peers and statesmen. Congreve had a high name in letters. He had a high name in aristocratic circles. He lived on terms of civility with men of all parties. By a courtesy paid to him, neither the ministers nor the leaders of the opposition could be offended.

The singular affectation which had from the first been characteristic of Congreve grew stronger and stronger as he advanced in life. At last it became disagreeable to him to hear his own comedies praised. Voltaire, whose soul was burned up by the raging desire for literary renown, was half puzzled and half disgusted by what he saw, during his visit to England, of this extraordinary whim. Congreve disclaimed the character of a poet, declared that his plays were trifles produced in an idle hour, and begged that Voltaire would consider him merely as a gentleman. "If you had been merely

a gentleman," said Voltaire, "I should not have come to see you."

In the summer of 1728, Congreve was ordered to try the Bath waters. During his excursion he was overturned in his chariot, and received some severe internal injury from which he never recovered. He came back to London in a dangerous state, complained constantly of a pain in his side and continued to sink, till in the fol lowing January he expired.

Congreve was not a man of warm affections. Domestic ties he had none; and in the temporary connections which he formed with a succession of beauties from the green-room his heart does not appear to have been interested. Of all his attachments that to Mrs. Bracegirdle lasted the longest and was the most celebrated. This charming ac- He left ten thousand pounds, saved tress, who was, during many years, out of the emoluments of his lucrative the idol of all London, whose face places. Johnson says that this money caused the fatal broil in which Mount- ought to have gone to the Congreve fort fell, and for which Lord Mohun family, which was then in great diswas tried by the Peers, and to whom tress. Doctor Young and Mr. Leigh the Earl of Scarsdale was said to have Hunt, two gentlemen who seldom agree made honourable addresses, had con- with each other, but with whom, on ducted herself, in very trying circum- this occasion, we are happy to agree, stances, with extraordinary discretion. think that it ought to have gone to Congreve at length became her confi- Mrs. Bracegirdle. Congreve bequeathed dential friend. They constantly rode two hundred pounds to Mrs. Braceout together and dined together. Some girdle, and an equal sum to a certain people said that she was his mistress, Mrs. Jellat; but the bulk of his accuand others that she would soon be his mulations went to the Duchess of Marlwife. He was at last drawn away from borough, in whose immense wealth such her by the influence of a wealthier and a legacy was as a drop in the bucket. haughtier beauty. Henrietta, daughter It might have raised the fallen fortunes of the great Marlborough, and Countess of a Staffordshire squire; it might have of Godolphin, had, on her father's death, succeeded to his dukedom, and to the, greater part of his immense property. Her husband was an insignificant man, of whom Lord Chesterfield said that he came to the House of Peers only to The great lady buried her friend sleep, and that he might as well sleep with a pomp seldom seen at the funeon the right as on the left of the wool- rals of poets. The corpse lay in state sack. Between the Duchess and Con under the ancient roof of the Jerusagreve sprang up a most eccentric friend- lem Chamber, and was interred in ship. He had a seat every day at her Westminster Abbey. The pall was table, and assisted in the direction of borne by the Duke of Bridgewater, her concerts. That malignant old el-Lord Cobham, the Earl of Wilmingdame, the Dowager Duchess Sarah, who ton, who had been Speaker, and was had quarrelled with her daughter as afterwards First Lord of the Treasury, she had quarrelled with every body else, and other men of high consideration. affected to suspect that that there was Her Grace laid out her friend's bequest something wrong. But the world in in a superb diamond necklace, which general appears to have thought that a she wore in honour of him, and, if great lady might, without any imputa-report is to be believed, showed her tion on her character, pay marked attention to a man of eminent genius who was near sixty years old, who was still older in appearance and in constitution, who was confined to his chair by gout, and who was unable to read from blindness.

enabled a retired actress to enjoy every comfort, and, in her sense, every luxury. but it was hardly sufficient to defray the Duchess's establishment for three months.

regard in ways much more extraordinary. It is said that a statue of him in ivory, which moved or clockwork, was placed daily at her table, that she had a wax doll made in imitation of him, and that the feet of the doll were regularly blistered and anointed by the

doctors, as poor Congreve's feet had been when he suffered from the gout. A monument was erected to the poet in Westminster Abbey, with an inscription written by the Duchess; and Lord Cobham honoured him with a cenotaph, which seems to us, though that is a bold word, the ugliest and most absurd of the buildings at Stowe.

must stop. Vanbrugh and Farquhar are not men to be hastily dismissed, and we have not left ourselves space to do them justice.

LORD HOLLAND. (JULY, 1841.) The Opinions of Lord Holland, as recorded We have said that Wycherley was a in the Journals of the House of Lords, worse Congreve. There was, indeed, from 1797 to 1841. Collected and edited a remarkable analogy between the writby D. C. MOTLAN, of Lincoln's Inn, Barríster-at-Law. 8vo. London: 1841. ings and lives of these two men. Both were gentlemen liberally educated. MANY reasons make it impossible for Both led town lives, and knew human us to lay before our readers, at the prenature only as it appears between Hyde sent moment, a complete view of the Park and the Tower. Both were men character and public career of the late of wit. Neither had much imagina- Lord Holland. But we feel that we tion. Both at an early age produced have already deferred too long the lively and profligate comedics. Both duty of paying some tribute to his retired from the field while still in early memory. We feel that it is more manhood, and owed to their youthful becoming to bring without further deachievements in literature whatever lay an offering, though intrinsically of consideration they enjoyed in later life. little value, than to leave his tomb Both, after they had ceased to write longer without some token of our refor the stage, published volumes of mis- verence and love. cellanies which did little credit either to their talents or to their morals. Both, during their declining years, hung loose upon society; and both, in their last moments, made eccentric and unjustifiable dispositions of their estates.

We shall say very little of the book which lies on our table. And yet it is a book which, even if it had been the work of a less distinguished man, or had appeared under circumstances less interesting, would have well repaid But in every point Congreve main- an attentive perusal. It is valuable, tained his superiority to Wycherley. both as a record of principles and as a Wycherley had wit; but the wit of model of composition. We find in it Congreve far outshines that of every all the great maxims which, during comic writer, except Sheridan, who has more than forty years, guided Lord arisen within the last two centuries. Holland's public conduct, and the chief Congreve had not, in a large measure, reasons on which those maxims rest, the poetical faculty; but compared with condensed into the smallest possible Wycherley he might be called a great space, and set forth with admirable poct. Wycherley had some know- perspicuity, dignity, and precision. To ledge of books; but Congreve was a his opinions on Foreign Policy we for man of real learning. Congreve's the most part cordially assent; but offences against decorum, though highly now and then we are inclined to think culpable, were not so gross as those of them imprudently generous. We could Wycherley; nor did Congreve, like not have signed the protest against the Wycherley, exhibit to the world the detention of Napoleon. The Protest deplorable spectacle of a licentious respecting the course which England dotage. Congreve died in the enjoy-pursued at the Congress of Verona, ment of high consideration; Wycher- though it contains much that is excelley forgotten or despised. Congreve's lent, contains also positions which, we will was absurd and capricious; but are inclined to think, Lord Holland, Wycherley's last actions appear to have would, at a later period, have admitted been prompted by obdurate malignity. to be unsound. But to all his doctrines Here, at least for the present, we on constitutional questions, we give our

hearty approbation; and we firmly believe that no British government has ever deviated from that line of internal policy which he has traced, without detriment to the public.

We will give, as a specimen of this little volume, a single passage, in which a chief article of the political creed of the Whigs is stated and explained, with singular clearness, force, and brevity. Our readers will remember that, in 1825, the Catholic Association raised the cry of emancipation with most formidable effect. The Tories acted after their kind. Instead of removing the grievance they tried to put down the agitation, and brought in a law, apparently sharp and stringent, but in truth utterly impotent, for restraining the right of petition. Lord Holland's Protest on that occasion is excellent.

"We are," says he, "well aware that the privileges of the people, the rights of free discussion, and the spirit and letter of our popular institutions, must render,-and they are intended to render,-the continuance of an extensive grievance, and of the dissatisfaction consequent thereupon, dangerous to the tranquillity of the country; and ultimately subversive of the authority of the state. Experience and theory alike forbid us to deny that effect of a free constitution; a sense of justice and a love of liberty equally deter us from lamenting it. But we have always been taught to look for the remedy of such disorders in the redress of the grievances which justify them, and in the removal of the dissatisfaction from which they flow-not in restraints on ancient privileges, not in inroads on the right of public discussion, nor in violations of the principles of a free government. If, therefore, the legal method of seeking redress, which has been resorted to by persons labouring under grievous disabilities, be fraught with immediate or remote danger to the state, we draw from that circumstance a conclusion long since foretold by great authority-namely, that the British constitution, and large exclusions, cannot subsist together; that the constitution must destroy them, or they will destroy the constitution."

It was not, however, of this little book, valuable and interesting as it is, but of the author, that we meant to speak; and we will try to do so with calmness and impartiality.

In order to fully appreciate the character of Lord Holland, it is necessary to go far back into the history of his family; for he had inherited something more than a coronet and an estate. To

the House of which he was the head belongs one distinction which we believe to be without a parallel in our annals. During more than a century, there has never been a time at which a Fox has not stood in a prominent station among public men. Scarcely had the chequered career of the first Lord Holland closed, when his son, Charles, rose to the head of the Opposition, and to the first rank among English debaters. And before Charles was borne to Westminster Abbey a third Fox had already become one of the most conspicuous politicians in the kingdom.

It is impossible not to be struck by the strong family likeness which, in spite of diversities arising from education and position, appears in these three distinguished persons. In their faces and figures there was a resemblance, such as is common enough in novels, where one picture is good for ten generations, but such as in real life is seldom found. The ample person, the massy and thoughtful forehead, the large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip, the expression, so singularly compounded of sense, humour, courage, openness, a strong will and a sweet temper, were common to all. But the features of the founder of the House, as the pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens have handed them down to us, were disagreeably harsh and exaggerated. In his descendants, the aspect was preserved, but it was softened, till it became, in the late lord, the most gracious and interesting countenance that was ever lighted up by the mingled lustre of intelligence and benevolence.

As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family, so was it also with their minds. Nature had done much for them all. She had moulded them all of that clay of which she is most sparing. To all she had given strong reason and sharp wit, a quick relish for every physical and intellectual enjoyment, constitutional intrepidity, and that frankness by which constitutional intrepidity is generally accompanied, spirits which nothing could depress, tempers easy, generous, and placable, and that genial courtesy which has its seat in

« PreviousContinue »