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anointed by the doctors, as poor Congreve's feet had been when he suffered from the gout."* This idol of fashion and literature has been removed by the just award of posterity from the high place he once occupied. His plays are generally without poetry or imagination, and his comic genius is inextricably associated with sensuality and profaneness. We admire his brilliant dialogue and repartee, and his exuberance of dramatic incident and character; but the total absence of the higher virtues which ennoble life -the beauty and gracefulness of female virtue, the feelings of generosity, truth, honour, affection, modesty, and tenderness-leaves his pages barren and unproductive of any permanent interest or popularity. His glittering artificial life possesses but few charms to the lovers of nature or of poetry, and is not recommended by any moral purpose or sentiment. The 'Mourning Bride,' Congreve's only tragedy, possesses higher merit than most of the serious plays of that day. It has the stiffness of the French school, with no small affectation of fine writing, without passion, yet it possesses poetical scenes and language. The opening lines have often been quoted :

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. I've read that things inanimate have moved, And, as with living souls, have been informed By magic numbers and persuasive sound. Dr Johnson considered the description of the cathedral in the following extract as forming the most poetical paragraph in the whole range of the drama -finer than any one in Shakspeare!

ALMERIA-LEONORA.

Alm. It was a fancied noise, for all is hushed. Leon. It bore the accent of a human voice. Alm. It was thy fear, or else some transient wind Whistling through hollows of this vaulted aisle. We'll listen.

Leon. Hark!

Alm. No; all is hushed and still as death. 'Tis dreadful!

How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads
To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,

By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity. It strikes an awe
And terror on my aching sight; the tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.
Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice;
Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear
Thy voice-my own affrights me with its echoes.
Leon. Let us return; the horror of this place
And silence will increase your melancholy.

Alm. It may my fears, but cannot add to that.
No, I will on; show me Anselmo's tomb,
Lead me o'er bones and skulls and mouldering earth
Of human bodies; for I'll mix with them;
Or wind me in the shroud of some pale corse
Yet green in earth, rather than be the bride
Of Garcia's more detested bed: that thought
Exerts my spirits, and my present fears
Are lost in dread of greater ill.

It is difficult by quotation to convey an idea of Congreve's comedies. He does not shine in particular passages, but in a constant stream of wit and liveliness, and the quick interchange of dialogue and incident. He was a master of dramatic rules and art. Nothing shows more forcibly the taste or inclination of the present day for the poetry of nature and passion, instead of the conventional world of

* Edinburgh Review, vol. 72. p. 527.

our ancestors in the drama, than the neglect into which the works of Congreve have fallen, even as literary productions.

[Gay Young Men upon Town.]

[From The Old Bachelor."]
BELMOUR-VAINLOVE.

Bel. Vainlove, and abroad so early! Good morrow. I thought a contemplative lover could no more have parted with his bed in a morning, than he could have slept in it.

Vain. Belmour, good morrow. Why, truth on't is, these early sallies are not usual to me; but business, as you see, sir-[Showing letters]-and business must be followed, or be lost.

Bel. Business! And so must time, my friend, be close pursued or lost. Business is the rub of life, perverts our aim, casts off the bias, and leaves us wide and short of the intended mark.

Vain. Pleasure, I guess you mean.
Bel. Ay, what else has meaning?
Vain. Oh, the wise will tell you-

Bel. More than they believe or understand. Vain. How; how, Ned? a wise man say more than he understands?

Bel. Ay, ay, wisdom is nothing but a pretending to know and believe more than we really do. You read of but one wise man, and all that he knew was that he knew nothing. Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools; they have need of them. Wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation; and let father Time shake his glass. Let low and earthly souls grovel till they have worked themselves six foot deep into a grave. Business is not my element; I roll in a higher orb, and dwell

Vain. In castles i' th' air of thy own buildingthat's thy element, Ned.

[A Swaggering Bully and Boaster.]
[From the same.]

SIR JOSEPH WITTOL-SHARPER-CAPTAIN BLUFF. Sir Jos. Oh, here he comes. Ay, my Hector of Troy; welcome, my bully, my back; egad, my heart has gone pit-a-pat for thee.

Bluff. How now, my young knight? Not for fear, I hope! He that knows me must be a stranger to fear.

Sir Jos. Nay, egad, I hate fear ever since I had like to have died of a fright. But

Bluff. But! Look you here, boy; here's your antidote; here's your Jesuit's Powder for a shaking fit. But who hast thou got with ye; is he of mettle![Laying his hand on his sword. a smart fellow; and will fight

Sir Jos. Ay, bully, like a cock.

Bluff. Say you so? he been abroad? for own dunghill.

Then I honour him. But has every cock will fight upon his

Sir Jos. I don't know; but I'll present you. Bluff. I'll recommend myself. Sir, I honour you; I understand you love fighting. I reverence a man that loves fighting. Sir, I kiss your hilts.

Sharper. Sir, your servant, but you are misinformed; for unless it be to serve my particular friend, as Sir Joseph here, my country, or my religion, or in some very justifiable cause, I am not for it.

Bluff. Oh, I beg your pardon, sir; I find you are not of my palate; you can't relish a dish of fighting without some sauce. Now, I think fighting for fighting's sake is sufficient cause. Fighting to me is religion and the laws!

Sir Jos. Ah, well said, my hero! Was not that great, sir? By the Lord Harry, he says true; fight

ing is meat, drink, and clothes to him. But, Back, this gentleman is one of the best friends I have in the world, and saved my life last night. You know I told you.

Bluff. Ay, then I honour him again. crave your name?

Sir, may I

Sharper. Ay, sir; my name's Sharper. Sir Jos. Pray, Mr Sharper, embrace my Back; very well. By the Lord Harry, Mr Sharper, he is as brave a fellow as Cannibal; are you not, Bully-Back?

Sharper. Hannibal, I believe you mean, Sir Joseph? Bluff. Undoubtedly he did, sir. Faith, Hannibal was a very pretty fellow; but, Sir Joseph, comparisons are odious. Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days, it must be granted. But alas, sir, were he alive now, he would be nothing, nothing in the earth.

Sharper. How, sir? I make a doubt if there be at this day a greater general breathing.

Bluff. Oh, excuse me, sir; have you served abroad, sir?

Sharper. Not I, really, sir.

Bluff. Oh, I thought so. Why, then, you can know nothing, sir. I am afraid you scarce know the history of the late war in Flanders with all its particulars.

Sharper. Not I, sir; no more than public letters or Gazette tell us.

Bluff. Gazette! Why, there again now. Why, sir, there are not three words of truth, the year round, put into the Gazette. I'll tell you a strange thing now as to that. You must know, sir, I was resident in Flanders the last campaign, had a small post there; but no matter for that. Perhaps, sir, there was scarce anything of moment done but a humble servant of yours that shall be nameless was an eye-witness of. I wont say had the greatest share in't-though I might say that too, since I name nobody, you know. Well, Mr Sharper, would you think it? In all this time, as I hope for a truncheon, that rascally Gazettewriter never so much as once mentioned me.

Not

once, by the wars! Took no more notice than as if Noll Bluff had not been in the land of the living. Sharper. Strange!

Sir Jos. Yet, by the Lord Harry, 'tis true, Mr Sharper; for I went every day to coffee-houses to read the Gazette myself.

Bluff. Ay, ay; no matter. You see, Mr Sharper, after all, I am content to retire-live a private person. Scipio and others have done so.

Sharper. Impudent rogue.

[Aside.

Sir Jos. Ay, this modesty of yours. Egad, if he put in for't, he might be made general himself yet. Bluff. Oh, fie no, Sir Joseph; you know I hate this. Sir Jos. Let me but tell Mr Sharper a little, how you ate fire once out of the mouth of a cannon; egad he did; those impenetrable whiskers of his have confronted flames.

Bluff Death! What do you mean, Sir Joseph? Sir Jos. Look you now, I tell he is so modest, he'll own nothing.

Bluff. Pish; you have put me out; I have forgot what I was about. Pray, hold your tongue, and give me leave[Angrily.

Sir Jos. I am dumb.

Bluff. This sword I think I was telling you of, Mr Sharper. This sword I'll maintain to be the best divine, anatomist, lawyer, or casuist in Europe; it shall decide a controversy, or split a cause.

Sir Jos. Nay, now, I must speak; it will split a hair; by the Lord Harry, I have seen it !

Bluff. Zounds! sir, it is a lie; you have not seen it, nor sha'nt see it: sir, I say you can't see. What d'ye say to that, now?

Sir Jos. I am blind.

Bluff. Death! had any other man interrupted me.

Sir Jos. Good Mr Sharper, speak to him; I dare not look that way.

Sharper. Captain, Sir Joseph is penitent.

Bluff. Oh, I am calm, sir; calm as a discharged culverin. But 'twas indiscreet, when you know what will provoke me. Nay, come, Sir Joseph; you know my heat's soon over.

Sir Jos. Well, I am a fool sometimes, but I'm sorry. Bluff. Enough.

Sir Jos. Come, we'll go take a glass to drown animosities.

[Scandal and Literature in High Life.]
[From The Double-Dealer."]

CYNTHIA-LORD and LADY FROTH-BRISK.

Lady F. Then you think that episode between Susan the dairy-maid and our coachman is not amiss. You know, I may suppose the dairy in town, as well as in the country.

Brisk. Incomparable, let me perish! But, then, being an heroic poem, had not you better call him a charioteer. Charioteer sounds great. Besides, your ladyship's coachman having a red face, and you comparing him to the sun-and you know the sun is called heaven's charioteer.'

Lady F. Oh! infinitely better; am extremely beholden to you for the hint. Stay; we'll read over those half a score lines again. [Pulls out a paper.] Let me see here; you know what goes before-the comparison, you know. [Reads]

For as the sun shines every day,

So of our coachman I may say.

Brisk. I am afraid that simile won't do in wet weather, because you say the sun shines every day. Lady F. No; for the sun it wont, but it will do for the coachman; for you know there's most occasion for a coach in wet weather.

Brisk. Right, right; that saves all.

Lady F. Then I don't say the sun shines all the day, but that he peeps now and then; yet he does shine all the day, too, you know, though we don't see him.

Brisk. Right; but the vulgar will never comprehend that.

Lady F. Well, you shall hear. Let me see

For as the sun shines every day,

So of our coachman I may say,

He shows his drunken fiery face

Just as the sun does, more or less.

Brisk. That's right; all's well, all's well. More or less.

Lady F. [Reads]

And when at night his labour's done,
Then, too, like heaven's charioteer, the sun-

Ay, charioteer does better

Into the dairy he descends,

And there his whipping and his driving ends;
There he's secure from danger of a bilk;
His fare is paid him, and he sets in milk.
For Susan, you know, is Thetis, and so

Brisk. Incomparable well and proper, egad! But I have one exception to make: don't you think bilk (I know it's a good rhyme)-but don't you think bilk and fare too like a hackney coachman? Lady F. I swear and vow I'm afraid so. And yet our John was a hackney coachman when my lord took him.

Brisk. Was he? I'm answered, if John was a hackney coachman. You may put that in the marginal notes; though, to prevent criticism, only mark it with a small asterisk, and say, 'John was formerly a hackney coachman.'

Lady F. I will; you'd oblige me extremely to write notes to the whole poem.

Brisk. With all my heart and soul, and proud of the vast honour, let me perish!

Lord F. Hee, hee, hee! my dear, have you done? Wont you join with us? We were laughing at my Lady Whister and Mr Sneer.

Lady F. Ay, my dear, were you? Oh! filthy Mr Sneer; he's a nauseous figure, a most fulsamic fop. Foh! He spent two days together in going about Covent Garden to suit the lining of his coach with his complexion.

Lord F. O silly! Yet his aunt is as fond of him as if she had brought the ape into the world herself. Brisk. Who? my Lady Toothless? O, she's a mortifying spectacle; she's always chewing the cud like an old ewe.

Lord F. Foh!

Lady F. Then she's always ready to laugh when Sneer offers to speak; and sits in expectation of his no-jest, with her gums bare, and her mouth open.

Brisk. Like an oyster at low ebb, egad! Ha, ha, ha! Cynthia. [Aside.] Well, I find there are no fools so inconsiderable in themselves, but they can render other people contemptible by exposing their infirmities.

Lady F. Then that t'other great strapping lady; I can't hit of her name; the old fat fool that paints so exorbitantly.

Brisk. I know whom you mean. But, deuce take me, I can't hit of her name either. Paints, d'ye say? Why, she lays it on with a trowel. Then she has a great beard that bristles through it, and makes her look as if she were plastered with lime and hair, let me perish!

Lady F. Oh! you made a song upon her, Mr Brisk? Brisk. Hee, egad! so I did. My lord can sing it. Cynthia. O good, my lord; let us hear it. Brisk. 'Tis not a song neither. It's a sort of epigram, or rather an epigrammatic sonnet. I don't know what to call it, but it's satire. Sing it, my lord. Lord F. [Sings]

Ancient Phyllis has young graces;
'Tis a strange thing, but a true one;
Shall I tell you how?

She herself makes her own faces,

And each morning wears a new one ;

Where's the wonder now?

Tattle. Sir, you are welcome ashore. Ben. Thank you, thank you, friend. Sir S. Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben,, since I saw thee.

Ben. Ay, ay, been! been far enough, an that be all. Well, father, and how do you all at home? How

does brother Dick and brother Val?

Sir S. Dick! body o'me, Dick has been dead these two years; I writ you word when you were at Leghorn.

Ben. Mess, that's true: marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you say. Well, and how? I have a many questions to ask you. Well, you be not married again, father, be you?

Sir S. No, I intend you shall marry, Ben; I would not marry for thy sake.

Ben. Nay, what does that signify ?-an you marry again, why, then, I'll go to sea again; so there's one for t'other, an that be all. Pray don't let me be your hindrance; e'en marry a God's name, an the wind sit that way. As for my part, mayhap I have no mind to marry.

Mrs Frail. That would be a pity; such a handsome young gentleman.

Ben. Handsome! he, he, he; nay, forsooth, an you be for joking, I'll joke with you, for I love my jest, an the ship were sinking, as we say at sea. But I'll tell you why I don't much stand towards matrimony. I love to roam about from port to port, and from land to land: I could never abide to be port-bound, as we call it. Now, a man that is married has, as it were, d'ye see, his feet in the bilboes, and mayhap mayn't get them out again when he would.

Sir S. Ben's a wag.

Ben. A man that is married, d'ye see, is no more like another man than a galley-slave is like one of us free sailors. He is chained to an oar all his life; and mayhap forced to tug a leaky vessel into the bargain. Sir S. A very wag! Ben's a very wag! only a little rough; he wants a little polishing.

Mrs F. Not at all; I like his humour mightily; it's plain and honest ; I should like such a humour in a husband extremely.

Ben. Say'n you so, forsooth? Marry, and I should like such a handsome gentlewoman hugely. How say you, mistress? would you like going to sea? Mess, you're a tight vessel, and well rigged. But I'll tell you one thing, an you come to sea in a high wind,

Brisk. Short, but there's salt in't. My way of lady, you mayn't carry so much sail o' your head. Top writing, egad!

[From Love for Love.]

ANGELICA SIR SAMPSON LEGEND-TATTLE-MES FRAILMISS PRUE-BEN LEGEND and SERVANT.

[In the character of Ben, Congreve gave the first humorous and natural representation of the English sailor, afterwards so

and top-gallant, by the mess.

Mrs F. No why so?

Ben. Why, an you do, you may run the risk to be overset, and then you'll carry your keels above water; he, he, he.

Angelica. I swear Mr Benjamin is the veriest wag in nature-an absolute sea wit.

Sir S. Nay, Ben has parts; but, as I told you before,

fertile and amusing a subject of delineation with Smollett they want a little polishing. You must not take ary

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thing ill, madam.

Ben. No; I hope the gentlewoman is not angry; I mean all in good part; for if I give a jest, I take a jest; and so, forsooth, you may be as free with me.

Ang. I thank you, sir; I am not at all offended. But methinks, Sir Sampson, you should leave him alone with his mistress. Mr Tattle, we must not hinder lovers.

Tattle. Well, Miss, I have your promise.

[Aside to Miss. Sir S. Body o' me, madam, you say true. Look you, Ben, this is your mistress. Come, Miss, you must not be shame-faced; we'll leave you together. Miss Prue. I can't abide to be left alone; may not my cousin stay with me?

Sir S. No, no; come, let us away.

Ben. Look you, father; mayhap the young woman mayn't take a liking to me.

Sir S. I warrant thee, boy; come, come, we'll be gone; I'll venture that.'

BEN and MISS PRUE.

Ben. Come, mistress, will you please to sit down? for an you stand astern a that'n, we shall never grapple together. Come, I'll haul a chair; there, an you please to sit, I'll sit beside you.

Miss Prue. You need not sit so near one; if you have anything to say, I can hear you farther off; I an't deaf. Ben. Why, that's true as you say, nor I an't dumb; I can be heard as far as another. I'll heave off to please you. [Sits farther off] An we were a league asunder, I'd undertake to hold discourse with you, an 'twere not a main high wind indeed, and full in my teeth. Look you, forsooth, I am as it were bound for the land of matrimony; 'tis a voyage, d'ye see, that was none of my seeking; I was commanded by father; and if you like of it, mayhap I may steer into your harbour. How say you, mistress? The short of the thing is, that if you like me, and I like you, we may chance to swing in a hammock together.

Miss P. I don't know what to say to you, nor I don't care to speak with you at all.

Ben. No? I'm sorry for that. But pray, why are

you so scornful?

Miss P. As long as one must not speak one's mind, one had better not speak at all, I think; and truly

I wont tell a lie for the matter.

Ben. Nay, you say true in that; it's but a folly to lie; for to speak one thing, and to think just the contrary way, is, as it were, to look one way and to row another. Now, for my part, d'ye see, I'm for carrying things above-board; I'm not for keeping anything under hatches; so that if you ben't as willing as I, say so a God's name; there's no harm done. May hap you may be shame-faced; some maidens, thof they love a man well enough, yet they don't care to tell'n so to's face. If that's the case, why, silence gives consent.

Miss P. But I'm sure it is not so, for I'll speak sooner than you should believe that; and I'll speak truth, though one should always tell a lie to a man; and I don't care, let my father do what he will. I'm too big to be whipt; so I'll tell you plainly, I don't you, nor love you at all, nor never will, that's So there's your answer for you, and don't trouble me no more, you ugly thing.

like

more.

Ben. Look you, young woman, you may learn to give good words, however. I spoke you fair, d'ye see, and civil. As for your love or your liking, I don't value it of a rope's end; and mayhap I like you as little as you do me. What I said was in obedience to father: I fear a whipping no more than you do. But I tell you one thing, if you should give such language at sea, you'd have a cat o' nine tails laid across your shoulders. Flesh! who are you? You heard t'other handsome young woman speak civilly to me of her own accord. Whatever you think of yourself, I don't think you are any more to compare to her than a can of small beer to a bowl of punch.

Miss P. Well, and there's a handsome gentleman, and a fine gentleman, and a sweet gentleman, that was here, that loves me, and I love him; and if he sees you speak to me any more, he'll thrash your jacket for you, he will; you great sea-calf.

Ben. What do you mean that fair-weather spark that was here just now? Will he thrash my jacket? Let'n, let'n, let'n-but an he comes near me, mayhap may give him a salt-eel for's supper, for all that. What does father mean, to leave me alone, as soon as I come home, with such a dirty dowdy? Sea-calf! I an't calf enough to lick your chalked face, you cheese-curd you. Marry thee! oons, I'll marry a Lapland witch as soon, and live upon selling contrary winds and wrecked vessels.

SIR JOHN VANBRUGH.

SIR JOHN VANBRUGH united what Mr Leigh Hunt calls the apparently incompatible geniuses' of comic His Blenheim and Castle writer and architect. Howard have outlived the Provoked Wife or the Relapse; yet the latter were highly popular once; and even Pope, though he admits his want of grace, says that he never wanted wit. Vanbrugh was the son

Manbrugh

Autograph and Seal of Vanbrugh.

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of a successful sugar-baker, who rose to be an esquire, and comptroller of the treasury chamber, besides doubtful whether the dramatist was born in the marrying the daughter of Sir Dudley Carlton. It is French Bastile, or the parish of St Stephen's, Walbrook. The time of his birth was about the year 1666, when Louis XIV. declared war against England. It is certain he was in France at the age of nineteen, and remained there some years. In 1695, he ing Greenwich hospital; and two years afterwards was appointed secretary to the commission for endowappeared his play of the Relapse' and the Provoked Wife; Esop, the False Friend, the Confederacy, and other dramatic pieces followed. Vanbrugh was now highly popular. He made his design of Castle Howard' in 1702, and Lord Carlisle appointed him gratified Vanbrugh's vanity. In 1706, he was comclarencieux king-at-arms, a heraldic office, which missioned by Queen Anne to carry the habit and ensigns of the order of the garter to the elector of Hanover; and in the same year he commenced his design for the great national structure at Blenheim. He built various other mansions, was knighted by George I., and appointed comptroller of the royal works. He died, aged sixty, in 1726. At the time of his death, Vanbrugh was engaged on a comedy, the Provoked Husband, which Colley Cibber finished with equal talent. The architectural designs of Vanbrugh have been praised by Sir Joshua Reynolds for their display of imagination, and their originality of invention. Though ridiculed by Swift and other wits of the day for heaviness and incongruity of design, Castle Howard and Blenheim are noble structures, and do honour to the boldness of conception and picturesque taste of Vanbrugh.

As a dramatist, the first thing in his plays which strikes the reader is the lively ease of his dialogue. Congreve had more wit, but less nature, and less genuine unaffected humour and gaiety. Vanbrugh drew more from living originals, and depicted the manners of his times-the coarse debauchery of the country knight, the gallantry of town-wits and fortune hunters, and the love of French intrigue and French manners in his female characters. Lord Foppington, in the ‘Relapse,' is the original of most of those empty coxcombs who abound in modern comedy, intent only on dress and fashion. When he loses his mistress, he consoles himself with this reflection:-'Now, for my part, I think the wisest thing a man can do with an aching heart is to put on a serene countenance; for a philosophical air is the most becoming thing in the world to the face of

a person of quality. I will therefore bear my disgrace like a great man, and let the people see I am above an affront. [Aloud.] Dear Tom, since things are thus fallen out, prithee give me leave to wish thee joy. I do it de bon caur-strike me dumb! You have married a woman beautiful in her person, charming in her airs, prudent in her conduct, constant in her inclinations, and of a nice morality-split my windpipe !'

The young lady thus eulogised, Miss Hoyden, is the lively, ignorant, romping country girl to be met with in most of the comedies of this period. In the 'Provoked Wife,' the coarse pot-house valour and absurdity of Sir John Brute (Garrick's famous part) is well contrasted with the fine-lady airs and affectation of his wife, transported from the country to the hot-bed delicacies of London fashion and extravagance. Such were the scenes that delighted our play-going ancestors, and which still please us, like old stiff family portraits in their grotesque habiliments, as pictures of a departed generation.

These portraits of Vanbrugh's were exaggerated and heightened for dramatic effect; yet, on the whole, they are faithful and characteristic likenesses. The picture is not altogether a pleasing one, for it is dashed with the most unblushing licentiousness. A tone of healthful vivacity, and the absence of all hypocrisy, form its most genial feature. The license of the times,' as Mr Leigh Hunt remarks, 'allowed Vanbrugh to be plain spoken to an extent which was perilous to his animal spirits; but, like Dryden, he repented of these indiscretions; and if he had lived, would have united his easy wit and nature to scenes inculcating sentiments of honour and virtue.

[Picture of the Life of a Woman of Fashion.]

[Sir JOHN BRUTE, in the Provoked Wife,' disguised in his lady's dress, joins in a drunken midnight frolic, and is taken by the Constable and Watchmen before a Justice of the Peace.] Justice. Pray, madam, what may be your ladyship's common method of life? if I may presume so

far.

Sir John. Why, sir, that of a woman of quality. Justice. Pray, how may you generally pass your time, madam? Your morning, for example?

Sir John. Sir, like a woman of quality. I wake about two o'clock in the afternoon-I stretch, and make a sign for my chocolate. When I have drank three cups, I slide down again upon my back, with my arms over my head, while my two maids put on my stockings. Then, hanging upon their shoulders, I'm trailed to my great chair, where I sit and yawn for my breakfast. If it don't come presently, I lie down upon my couch, to say my prayers, while my maid reads me the playbills.

Justice. Very well, madam.

Sir John. When the tea is brought in, I drink twelve regular dishes, with eight slices of bread and butter; and half an hour after, I send to the cook to know if the dinner is almost ready.

Justice. So, madam.

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pretty well disposed of. Pray, how, madam, do you pass your evenings?

Sir John. Like a woman of spirit, sir; a great spirit. Give me a box and dice. Seven's the main ! Oons, sir, I set you a hundred pound! Why, do you think women are married now-a-days to sit at home and mend napkins? Oh, the Lord help your head! Justice. Mercy on us, Mr Constable! What will this age come to?

Const. What will it come to indeed, if such women as these are not set in the stocks!

Fable.

A Band, a Bob-wig, and a Feather,
Attacked a lady's heart together.
The Band in a most learned plea,
Made up of deep philosophy,
Told her if she would please to wed
A reverend beard, and take, instead
Of vigorous youth,

Old solemn truth,
With books and morals, into bed,
How happy she would be!
The Bob he talked of management,
What wondrous blessings heaven sent
On care, and pains, and industry:
And truly he must be so free

To own he thought your airy beaux,
With powdered wig and dancing shoes,
Were good for nothing-mend his soul.
But prate, and talk, and play the fool.
He said 'twas wealth gave joy and mirth,
And that to be the dearest wife
Of one who laboured all his life
To make a mine of gold his own,
And not spend sixpence when he'd done,
Was heaven upon earth.

When these two blades had done, d'ye see,
The Feather (as it might be me)
Steps out, sir, from behind the screen,
With such an air and such a mien-
Like you, old gentleman-in short,
He quickly spoiled the statesman's sport.
It proved such sunshine weather,
That you must know, at the first beck
The lady leaped about his neck,
And off they went together!

GEORGE FARQUHAR.

GEORGE FARQUHAR was a better artist, in stage effect and happy combinations of incident and character, than any of this race of comic writers. He has an uncontrollable vivacity and love of adventure, which still render his comedies attractive both on the stage and in the closet. Farquhar was an Irishman, born in Londonderry in 1678, and, after some college irregularity, he took to the stage. Happening accidentally to wound a brother actor in a fencing scene, he left the boards at the age of eighteen, and procured a commission in the army from the Earl of Orrery. His first play, Love and a Bottle, came out at Drury Lane in 1698; the Constant Couple in 1700; the Inconstant in 1703; the Stage-Coach in 1704; the Twin Rivals in 1705; the Recruiting Officer in 1706; and the Beaux' Stratagem in 1707. Farquhar was early married to a lady who had deceived him by pretending to be possessed of a fortune, and he sunk a victim to ill health and over exertion in his thirtieth year. A letter written shortly before his death to Wilks the actor, possesses a touching brevity of ex pression:- Dear Bob, I have not anything to leave thee to perpetuate my memory but two helpless girls.

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