for men of genius, reassured the anx-| of the Dunciad, were for once just to ious poet by quoting very gracefully living merit. There can be no stronger and happily the lines of Virgil, 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. 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 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. "He passed over peers and statesmen 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. He left ten thousand pounds, saved out of the emoluments of his lucrative places. Johnson says that this money ought to have gone to the Congreve family, which was then in great distress. Doctor Young and Mr. Leigh Hunt, two gentlemen who seldom agree with each other, but with whom, on this occasion, we are happy to agree, think that it ought to have gone to Mrs. Bracegirdle. Congreve bequeathed two hundred pounds to Mrs. Bracegirdle, and an equal sum to a certain Mrs. Jellat; but the bulk of his accumulations went to the Duchess of Marlborough, in whose immense wealth such a legacy was as a drop in the bucket. It might have raised the fallen fortunes of a Staffordshire squire; it might have 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. 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 actress, who was, during many years, the idol of all London, whose face caused the fatal broil in which Mountfort fell, and for which Lord Mohun was tried by the Peers, and to whom the Earl of Scarsdale was said to have made honourable addresses, had conducted herself, in very trying circumstances, with extraordinary discretion. Congreve at length became her confidential friend. They constantly rode out together and dined together. Some people said that she was his mistress, and others that she would soon be his wife. He was at last drawn away from her by the influence of a wealthier and haughtier beauty. Henrietta, daughter of the great Marlborough, and Countess 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 sleep, and that he might as well sleep on the right as on the left of the woolsack. Between the Duchess and Congreve 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 bel- 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 at- regard in ways much more extraorditention to a man of eminent genius nary. It is said that a statue of him in who was near sixty years old, who was ivory, which moved by clockwork, was still older in appearance and in con-placed daily at her table, that she had stitution, who was confined to his chair a wax doll made in imitation of him, by gout, and who was unable to read and that the feet of the doll were refrom blindness. gularly blistered and anointed by the The great lady buried her friend with a pomp seldom seen at the funerals of poets. The corpse lay in state under the ancient roof of the Jerusa 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 in the Journals of the House of Lords, from 1797 to 1841. Collected and edited by D. C. MOYLAN, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. 8vo. London: 1841. We have said that Wycherley was a worse Congreve. There was, indeed, a remarkable analogy between the writings 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 comedies. 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 poet. 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 be- the House of which he was the head lieve 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. 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, We are," says he, "well aware that the such as is common enough in novels, privileges of the people, the rights of free where one picture is good for ten genediscussion, and the spirit and letter of our rations, but such as in real life is popular institutions, must render,-and they are intended to render,-the continu- seldom found. The ample person, the ance of an extensive grievance, and of the massy and thoughtful forehead, the dissatisfaction consequent thereupon, dan-large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip, gerous to the tranquillity of the country, the expression, so singularly comand ultimately subversive of the authority of the state. Experience and theory alike pounded of sense, humour, courage, forbid us to deny that effect of a free con- openness, a strong will and a sweet stitution; a sense of justice and a love of But the liberty equally deter us from lamenting it. temper, were common to all. But we have always been taught to look for features of the founder of the House, the remedy of such disorders in the redress as the pencil of Reynolds and the of the grievances which justify them, and chisel of Nollekens have handed them in the removal of the dissatisfaction from which they flow-not in restraints on an- down to us, were disagreeably harsh cient privileges, not in inroads on the right and exaggerated. In his descendants, of public discussion, nor in violations of the the aspect was preserved, but it was prínciples of a free government. If, therefore, the legal method of seeking redress, softened, till it became, in the late lord, which has been resorted to by persons the most gracious and interesting counlabouring under grievous disabilities, be tenance that was ever lighted up by fraught with immediate or remote danger to the state, we draw from that circum- the mingled lustre of intelligence and stance a conclusion long since foretold by benevolence. 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. 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 In order to fully appreciate the cha-frankness by which constitutional intreracter 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 pidity is generally accompanied, spirits which nothing could depress, tempers easy, generous, and placable, and that genial courtesy which has its seat in the heart, and of which artificial po- | out scruple, the most immoral and the liteness is only a faint and cold imita- most unconstitutional manners; as a tion. Such a disposition is the richest man perfectly fitted, by all his opinions inheritance that ever was entailed on and feelings, for the work of managing any family. the Parliament by means of secretBut training and situation greatly service-money, and of keeping down modified the fine qualities which na- the people with the bayonet. Many of ture lavished with such profusion on his contemporaries had a morality three generations of the house of Fox. quite as lax as his: but very few among The first Lord Holland was a needy them had his talents, and none had political adventurer. He entered pub- his hardihood and energy. He could lic life at a time when the standard of not, like Sandys and Doddington, find integrity among statesmen was low. safety in contempt. He therefore beHe started as the adherent of a mi- came an object of such general avernister who had indeed many titles to sion as no statesman since the fall of respect, who possessed eminent talents Strafford has incurred, of such general both for administration and for debate. aversion as was probably never in any who understood the public interest country incurred by a man of so kind well, and who meant fairly by the and cordial a disposition. A weak country, but who had seen so much mind would have sunk under such a perfidy and meanness that he had be- load of unpopularity. But that resocome sceptical as to the existence of lute spirit seemed to derive new firm. probity. Weary of the cant of pa- ness from the public hatred. The only triotism, Walpole had learned to talk effect which reproaches appeared to a cant of a different kind. Disgusted produce on him, was to sour, in some by that sort of hypocrisy which is at degree, his naturally sweet temper. least a homage to virtue, he was too The last acts of his public life were much in the habit of practising the marked, not only by that audacity less respectable hypocrisy which os- which he had derived from nature, not tentatiously displays, and sometimes only by that immorality which he had even simulates vice. To Walpole Fox learned in the school of Walpole, but attached himself, politically and per- by a harshness which almost amounted sonally, with the ardour which be- to cruelty, and which had never been longed to his temperament. And it supposed to belong to his character. is not to be denied that in the school His severity increased the unpopularity of Walpole he contracted faults which from which it had sprung. The welldestroyed the value of his many great known lampoon of Gray may serve as endowments. He raised himself, in- a specimen of the feeling of the coundeed, to the first consideration in the try. All the images are taken from House of Commons; he became a con- shipwrecks, quicksands, and cormosummate master of the art of debate; rants. Lord Holland is represented as he attained honours and immense complaining, that the cowardice of his wealth; but the public esteem and accomplices had prevented him from confidence were withheld from him. putting down the free spirit of the His private friends, indeed, justly ex-city of London by sword and fire, and tolled his generosity and good nature. They maintained that in those parts of his conduct which they could least defend there was nothing sordid, and that, if he was misled, he was misled Within a few months after the death by amiable feelings, by a desire to of this remarkable man, his second serve his friends, and by anxious ten-son Charles appeared at the head of derness for his children. But by the the party opposed to the American nation he was regarded as a man of War. Charles had inherited the boinsatiable rapacity and desperate am- dily and mental constitution of his bition; as a man ready to adopt, with-father, and had been much, far too as pining for the time when birds of prey should make their nests in Westminster Abbey, and unclean beasts burrow in St. Paul's. |