THE LATER COMEDY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Etheredge's comedies serve to introduce one of the most brilliant
schools of English comic writing--faulty, in that so far from correcting
the manners of its age, it did not even portray them, but eminent above
the English comedy of every other period for wit. So great is the family
likeness between its chief representatives, that it will be advisable to
consider their lives and their writings together. The connecting link
among them all is that all were fine gentlemen whose code was the
fashionable morality of the day. Any conclusions as to the state of
contemporary manners which may be deduced from their writings must be
confined to this small, though conspicuous section of English society.
[Sidenote: William Wycherley (1640-1715).]
William Wycherley was the son of a Shropshire gentleman of good estate.
His father, disliking the management of public schools under the
Commonwealth, sent the youth to France, where he became a Roman
Catholic, but recanted upon his return. He entered at the Temple, and
for some years led the life of a gay young man about town. According to
his own statement, all his four comedies were written about this period,
but Macaulay has shown clearly that they must have, at all events,
undergone very considerable revision, and that it is not probable that
any but _Love in a Wood_ were in existence when this was acted in 1672.
_The Gentleman Dancing Master_, _The Country Wife_, and _The Plain
Dealer_, appeared in 1673, 1675, and 1677 respectively; and the last of
these was the termination of the author's brief and brilliant career as
a dramatist. It was also the term of his prosperity. A secret marriage
with a lady of rank offended the king, by whom Wycherley had been
entrusted with the tuition of one of his natural children, and
eventually involved him in debt. He was thrown into the Fleet, where he
remained several years. At last James II., chancing to witness a
representation of _The Plain Dealer_, was led to inquire for the author,
and, a piece of munificence towards letters most unusual with him, to
pay his debts and grant him a pension of two hundred a year, which, as
Wycherley straightway reverted to the Roman Catholic faith, was probably
withdrawn by William. He had, however, come into possession of the
family estate, and existed for the rest of his life respectably as
regarded his means of subsistence, though much the reverse as regards
the licentious verses which he went on writing, and published at the age
of sixty-four. Macaulay and Mr. Gosse, however, attribute to him a tract
in defence of the stage against Jeremy Collier, not devoid of merit; and
his later poems enjoyed the advantage of revision by Pope, whose hand,
Macaulay thinks, is everywhere discernible. Comedy he never essayed
again. He died in 1715, having ten days before his death married a young
girl to injure his nephew. This Macaulay considers the worst of his
actions; but we do not know that the nephew did not deserve to be
injured. A contemporary poet dubs the uncle, "generous Wycherley."
[Sidenote: William Congreve (1670-1729).]
William Congreve, a scion of a good Staffordshire family, was born at
Bardsey, near Leeds, in 1670. His father, an officer in the army,
obtained a command in Ireland, where a branch of the family is still
settled, and Congreve received his education at Kilkenny and at Trinity
College, Dublin. In 1691 he came to London, and at once found admission
to the best literary circles. A novel by him, _Incognita_, was published
anonymously at the beginning of 1692. Later in the year he co-operated
in a translation of Juvenal by various hands, and submitted his _Old
Bachelor_ to Dryden, who declared that he had never seen such a first
play, and lent his aid in adapting it for the stage. It was produced
with great success in January, 1693. In November of the same year _The
Double-Dealer_ appeared, but, though preferred by the judicious, was
less popular with the town. It was published with an elegant preface by
the author, and a noble panegyric from Dryden. 'Perhaps,' says Mr.
Gosse, 'there is no other example of such full and generous praise of a
young colleague by a great old poet.' Dryden's notions of architecture,
indeed, seem borrowed from the churches of his time, where we not
uncommonly see a spire in one style clapped upon a body in another:
'Fine Doric pillars found your solid base,
The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space,
Thus all below is strength and all above is grace.'
But the lines in which he adjures Congreve to protect his own memory are
an unparalleled blending of pathos and compliment:
'Be kind to my remains, and O, defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend,
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,
But shade those laurels which descend to you.'
Shortly after the performance of _The Double Dealer_, dissensions broke
out between the patentees of the Theatre Royal and their _corps
dramatique_, and the majority of the latter seceded to Lincoln's Inn
Fields. Congreve followed them, and, in consideration of receiving a
stipulated share of the profits, agreed to write for them a play
annually, should his health permit. In pursuance of this agreement,
_Love for Love_, generally considered the best of his comedies, was
brought out in April, 1695. It was a signal success; as was Congreve's
solitary tragedy, _The Mourning Bride_, produced in 1697, which, indeed,
is believed to have produced him more than any of his comedies. The
last, and, in the opinion of some, the best of these, _The Way of the
World_, appeared in 1700, and its failure disgusted Congreve with the
stage. He had always rather affected to condescend to be a dramatist, as
Monsieur Jourdain condescended to be a haberdasher; and he was probably
hurt at the rough handling he had received from Jeremy Collier, to whose
_Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the Stage_ he had
unsuccessfully endeavoured to reply. Collier's victory, indeed, proved
that the licentiousness of the stage was a mere fashion, rather
tolerated than approved by the majority of the playgoing public, and
Congreve may have felt that his wings would be clipped by the
reformation which public opinion was evidently about to demand. Whatever
the cause, he was lost to the stage at thirty, and his occasional
poetical productions, the most important of which have been already
noticed, were far from qualifying him to sit in the seat of Dryden. He
enjoyed, nevertheless, supremacy of another kind. Regarded as an extinct
volcano, he gave umbrage to no rivals; his urbane and undemonstrative
temper kept him out of literary feuds; all agreed to adore so benign and
inoffensive a deity, and the general respect of the lettered world fitly
culminated in Pope's dedication of his _Homer_ to him, the most splendid
literary tribute the age could bestow. Sinecure Government places made
his circumstances more than easy, but he suffered continually from
gout, the effect of free living, and he became blind, or nearly so, in
his latter years. His death (1729) was hastened by a carriage accident.
He had a splendid funeral in Westminster Abbey, and a monument erected
by the Duchess of Marlborough (Marlborough's daughter, not his widow),
whom he had capriciously made his principal legatee.
It is, as Mr. Gosse remarks, difficult to form any very distinct notion
of Congreve as a man. We must be content with knowing that he was a fine
gentleman before all things, convivial in his habits, witty in
conversation, extremely sensitive to criticism, otherwise placid; able
to keep on good terms with both Pope and Dennis throughout his life; and
that Pope thought him, Garth, and Vanbrugh, 'the three most
honest-hearted real good men of the poetical members of the Kit-cat
Club.'
[Sidenote: Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726).]
Sir John Vanbrugh, the next of the quartette of illustrious comic
writers, occupies a remarkable position in literature. Few other
distinguished architects have gained renown in elegant letters, and
these have not attempted the drama. As, however, Angelo is more
celebrated for St. Peter's than for his sonnets, so Vanbrugh is better
remembered by Blenheim, which most have beheld, than by his plays, which
are never seen on the stage, and yet connoisseurs have found infinitely
more to censure in the former. The faults of the plays are those of the
author's age and his school; the faults imputed to his buildings, if
they exist, which is a question for architects, are personal to the
Fleming, who shared his countryman Rubens's taste for the massive and
substantial, and whose epitaph was couched in the adjuration:
'Lie heavy on him, earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee.'
Though born an English subject, Vanbrugh was of Flemish descent. His
first profession was the army. His _debut_ as a dramatist was made in
1697 by two sparkling comedies, _The Relapse_ and _The Provoked Wife_,
followed by _The False Friend_ (1702), _The Confederacy_, and _The
Mistake_ (1705), some imitations of the French, and an unfinished play,
_A Journey to London_, completed by Cibber, and produced in 1728 as _The
Provoked Husband_. All these plays seem to have been successful;
certainly none were in any peril of damnation on the ground apprehended
by Orrery:
'This play, I'm horribly afraid, can't last;
Allow it pretty, 'tis confounded chaste,
And contradicts too much the present taste.'
Latterly he became somewhat careless in the composition of his plays,
which may be reasonably attributed to the demands made upon him by the
laborious profession of architecture, which he took up, apparently
without a regular education, about the end of the seventeenth century,
and which he may have been the more inclined to pursue on account of the
serious loss entailed upon him by his dramatic speculations. Interest or
ability made him successful; he was entrusted with no less a task than
the erection of Blenheim; and Castle Howard and other celebrated country
mansions were built after his designs. He died in 1726. The little known
of his personal character is to his credit.
[Sidenote: George Farquhar (1678-1707).]
George Farquhar was born at Londonderry in 1678, and is believed to have
been the son of an Irish clergyman. He forsook Trinity College for the
stage, where he made some figure, but renounced his calling out of
compunction for having accidentally wounded a fellow-actor. Coming to
London with ten guineas lent to him by the manager, he achieved renown
by his comedy of _Love and a Bottle_ (1699). _The Constant Couple_
(1701) was even more successful. Other plays followed, and from
allusions in one of the principal, _The Recruiting Officer_ (1706), as
well as reminiscences and traditions, he is believed to have held a
commission in the army. According to tradition, he was induced to sell
his commission to pay his debts by the Duke of Ormond's promise to
procure him another, and the disappointment of this expectation so
deeply mortified him as to occasion his death. His last and best comedy,
_The Beaux' Stratagem_, was written on his deathbed. He is a sympathetic
figure among the literary men of the day, gallant and witty, nor
incapable of serious feeling. According to his own account he was, like
Liston and others who have contributed to the mirth of mankind, by
nature a melancholy man. 'As to the mind, which in most men wears as
many changes as their body, so in me 'tis generally drest like my
person, in black. Melancholy is its everyday apparel, and it has
hitherto found few holidays to make it change its clothes.' He adds: 'I
am seldom troubled by what the world calls airs and caprices; and I
think 'tis an idiot's excuse for a foolish action to say, 'twas my
humour. I hate all little malicious tricks of vexing people; and I can't
relish the jest that vexes another in earnest. If ever I do a wilful
injury, it must be a very great one. I have so natural a propensity to
ease, that I cannot cheerfully fix to any study which bears not a
pleasure in the application; which makes me inclinable to poetry above
anything else. I have very little estate but what lies under the
circumference of my hat; and should I by mischance come to lose my head,
I should not be worth a groat; but I ought to thank Providence that I
can by three hours' study live one-and-twenty with satisfaction to
myself, and contribute to the maintenance of more families than some who
have thousands a year. I have something in my outward behaviour which
gives strangers a worse opinion of me than I deserve; but I am more than
recompensed by the opinion of my acquaintance, which is as much above my
desert.'
This, which is only part of a much longer character, addressed to a
lady, is remarkable as the most detailed self-estimate of any man of
letters of the period we possess, until we come to Steele.
Although there are undoubtedly considerable distinctions between the
works of these four dramatists, such a fundamental unity nevertheless
prevails among them that they may be advantageously considered together.
They may be compared to a jewel with four facets, each casting a
separate ray, but with little diversity in their cold brilliant glitter.
Wit, gaiety, heartlessness, and profligacy are the common notes of them
all, save that Congreve has tragic power, and, as well as Farquhar, real
feeling. How far they painted, or intended to paint, the manners of
their age, is a difficult question. Lamb thought that the world they
depict was merely conventional, a Lampsacene Arcadia. Not even the
indulgent Leigh Hunt, much less the austere Macaulay, can concur in this
judgment, which is assuredly much too absolute. Yet it is indisputable
that the manners they portray were not those of a nation that devoured
_Pilgrim's Progress_, brought up children and domestics by the _Whole
Duty of Man_, and deposed a king who meddled with the Church. Were they
even the manners of the gay world? To some extent this is true; but
there is evidence enough that even fashionable men thought of something
else than seducing their neighbours' wives and daughters; that the slips
even of fashionable women were by no means inordinately frequent or
mere matters of course; and that the standard of personal honour was
much higher than would appear from the comedies. We may be assisted to
comprehend the real state of the matter by observing the condition of
the French literature of fiction at this very moment. Anyone who should
form his opinion of French people entirely from their novels could come
to no other conclusion than that they were entirely given up to the
pursuit of illicit love, and deemed nothing else worthy of the attention
of a rational creature. Yet we know that as a matter of fact the French
nation does think of very different things; that a ridiculously small
corner of actual life is conventionally made to stand for the whole of
it; that the novels which profess to depict manners, while accurate in
their delineation of certain characters and certain phases, would
entirely mislead those whose notions should be solely derived from them.
It would be nearer the truth, though still erroneous, to take the
reverse view, and maintain that works composed for the sake of amusement
are more likely to usher the reader into an ideal world than to weary
him with familiar scenes and incidents. So far as this is the case, the
English society of the seventeenth century must be acquitted at the
expense of the dramatists, who incur the obloquy of missing both the two
great ends of comedy, for they neither delineate nor correct it.
Possibly the unsatisfactory position which writers of so much wit and
sense thus came to occupy may be partly accounted for by the influence
of Ben Jonson. We have seen Dryden almost hesitating to avow his
preference for Shakespeare to Jonson, we shall see that Butler has no
hesitation in asserting the superiority of Jonson to Shakespeare as an
obvious thing; nor could it well be otherwise in so essentially prosaic
an age. This implies the triumph of the comedy of types over the comedy
of nature. Jonson, like Menander, impersonates particular
characteristics, or situations in life; Shakespeare paints human nature
as large as it really is. We have seen how the exhibition of these
so-called 'humours' forms the staple of the comedy of Shadwell. The
handling of Congreve and his associates, who had the example of Moliere
before them, is far superior, but the principle is at bottom the same. A
characteristic is incarnated in a personage, and often indicated by his
very name. Instead of the names bestowed by fancy, or borrowed from
romance, the Benedicts, Rosalinds, Imogens, Mirandas, we have Witwoulds,
Maskwells, Millamants, and Gibbets. Each character being thus more or
less conventional, the _tout ensemble_ is necessarily conventional too;
and to this extent the world of these dramatists may be fairly regarded
as ideal; while it is not true that they had any definite purpose of
creating such a world, or that it was so dissimilar to actual society as
to interfere with the appreciation of the audience. Their works may be
compared to the novels of Mr. George Meredith, who would have been a
great comic writer if he had lived in the days of Congreve. No one would
call Mr. Meredith's novels unnatural; yet his works will convey but
little notion of the English society of the nineteenth century to
posterity, who will only need to turn to George Eliot and Anthony
Trollope to realize it as no bygone age was ever realized before.
Wycherley has been characterized by Professor Ward as the Timon of his
stage, and the description is excellent, if not understood of one
animated by moral indignation at its immorality, but of one impelled by
temperament to insist upon and exaggerate its most disagreeable
features. The two most important of his plays, _The Country Wife_ and
_The Plain Dealer_, are rather tragi-comedies than comedies, especially
the latter, of which Professor Ward justly observes, 'Working within the
limits of his own horizon, with nothing perceptible to him but a vicious
world hateful on account of the palpable grossness of its outward
pretences, Wycherley must be allowed to have worked with vigour and
effect, and to have produced what is indisputably one of the most
powerful dramas of its age.' Its unpardonable sin is to be to a great
extent an adaptation of Moliere's _Misanthrope_, and to pervert and
brutalize whatever is most admirable in that masterpiece. _Love in a
Wood_ and _The Gentleman Dancing Master_ are comparatively slight
performances, but there is great humour in the representation in the
latter of the disguised lover helped out of all his scrapes by the
self-complacent credulity of the young lady's father and his own rival,
whose business it is to detect him. The delineation of the father as a
merchant returned from long residence in Spain, enamoured of Spanish
manners, and quoting the language at every second sentence, is one of
those which justify Aubrey's remark that the dramatists of his age would
be soon forgotten, because their ephemeral 'humours' would have ceased
to be intelligible. The character, if still possible in Wycherley's
time, ceased to be so very soon afterwards. It must, however, have been
popular if it gave or helped to give the nickname of Don Diego to the
Spaniards, which survives to this day in 'dago,' the familiar
appellation of South Americans in the United States. One characteristic
of all Wycherley's comedies should be mentioned, their length, which
confirms the impression that he composed with slowness. 'When,' says
Hazlitt, 'he got hold of a good thing, or sometimes even of a bad one,
he was determined to make the most of it, and might have said with
Dogberry, "Had I the tediousness of a king, I could find it in my heart
to bestow it all upon your worships."'
If Wycherley is the satirist of Restoration comedy, Congreve is its wit;
but at the same time he betrays a vein of much deeper feeling than
Wycherley, and, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of Hazlitt, his
characters appear to us more easily appreciated and more readily
remembered. His insight into women in particular is so considerable that
it is a real loss that he never attempted to paint a noble one, who
would indeed have looked strangely amid the crowd of his heartless, or
frivolous, or absurd people, but whom he might have rendered a true
dramatic success. Both _The Double Dealer_ and _The Way of the World_
border upon tragedy, and suggest how much finer things Congreve might
have written had the taste of his time allowed of tragedy in prose; or
if, by treating ordinary domestic life in a serious spirit, even though
in verse, he could have taken the step that was afterwards taken by
Lillo. He evidently felt conscious of innate tragic power, and essayed
heroic tragedy in _The Mourning Bride_, where, hampered by the
conventionalities he dared not transgress, he broke down with a romantic
plot, romantic characters, and stilted blank verse, all things most
repugnant to his genius. Johnson's praise of a passage in this play as
'the most poetical paragraph in the whole mass of English poetry,' and
which is actually fine enough to survive such extravagant laudation, is
well known. It will be instructive to set it side by side with a still
finer passage in a modern tragedy, as examples of the classic and
romantic schools of composition. It is the strength and weakness of
Congreve that his thoughts are such as would naturally have occurred to
any one in the situation of his personages, and that his sole part is to
afford them dignified expression; while Beddoes' thoughts are the
thoughts of a poet, and as such might well appear fantastic and
overstrained to an average audience:
'_Almeria._ It is a fancied noise, for all is hushed.
_Leonora._ It bore the accent of a human voice.
_Almeria._ It was thy fear, or else some transient wind
Whistling through hollows of this vaulted aisle.
We'll listen.
_Leonora._ Hark!
_Almeria._ 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!
Oh, speak to me! nay, speak! and let me hear
Thy voice; my own affrights me with its echoes.'
_Mourning Bride_, act ii., sc. 3.
'_Duke._ Deceived and disappointed vain desires!
Why laugh I not, and ridicule myself?
'Tis still, and cold, and nothing in the air
But an old grey twilight, or of eve or morn
I know not which, dim as futurity,
And sad and hoary as the ghostly past
Fills up the space. Hush! not a wind is there,
Not a cloud sails over the battlements,
Not a bell tolls the hour. Is there an hour?
Or is not all gone by which here did hive
Of men and their life's ways? Could I but hear
The ticking of a clock, or someone breathing,
Or e'en a cricket's chirping, or the grating
Of the old gates amid the marble tombs,
I should be sure that this was still the world.
Hark! Hark! Doth nothing stir?
No light, and still no light, besides this ghost
That mocks the dawn, unaltered? Still no sound?
No voice of man? No cry of beast? No rustle
Of any moving creature? And sure I feel
That I remain the same: no more round blood drops
Roll joyously along my pulseless veins:
The air I seem to breathe is still the same:
And the great dreadful thought that now comes o'er me
Must remain ever as it is, unchanged.
This moment doth endure for evermore;
Eternity hath overshadowed time;
And I alone am left of all that lived.'
_Death's Jest Book_, act iii., sc. 3.
The writer of these lines might have been a great tragic poet, if he
could have achieved the construction of a coherent plot. Congreve might
have been a greater, but for the conventions of an age that required his
_dramatis personae_ to be remote by a thousand years or a thousand
miles.
The dazzle of Congreve's wit has perhaps blinded critics to his more
serious powers, and it may be that its brilliancy has been even
exaggerated. What is chiefly admirable is perhaps not so much the
occasional flashes and strokes, felicitous as they are, as the
unflagging verve, energy, and gaiety. His plays are not of the kind that
keep the audience in a roar from first to last, but they never cease to
stimulate the spirits; the fire does not always blaze, but it never
burns low: there is not a dull scene, or a tiresome or useless
character. The general tone of good breeding, if it does not purify the
pervading atmosphere of profligacy, at any rate prevents it from
becoming offensive. In verbal impropriety and _double entendre_ Congreve
is even worse than Wycherley, but his plays are far from giving the same
impression of a thoroughly obnoxious state of society. It is true that
the pursuit of women seems the sole business of the men, and the pursuit
of men the business of half the women; but the universal passion is so
pleasantly variegated with extraneous humours and oddities that it is
far from producing the monotony of a modern French novel. Thus, there
is an amourette between Brisk and Lady Froth in _The Double Dealer_, but
the pair are aesthetic as well as amorous, and the blue-stocking is more
conspicuous than the unfaithful wife. The scene where Brisk corrects
Lady Froth's poetry, imitated but not servilely copied from one in _Les
Femmes Savantes_, is a good specimen of the humour and sparkle of
Congreve's dialogue:
'_Lady Froth._ 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 Froth._ Oh, infinitely better! I 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'm afraid that simile won't do in wet
weather;--because you say the sun shines every day.
_Lady Froth._ No, for the sun it won't, but it will do for the
coachman; for you know there's more occasion for a coach in wet
weather.
_Brisk._ Right, right, that saves all.
_Lady Froth._ 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 Froth._ Well, you shall hear.--Let me see.
[_Reads._
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 Froth._ [_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's 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._ Incomparably well and proper, egad!--But I have one
exception to make:--don't you think _bilk_ (I know it's good
rhyme), but don't you think _bilk_ and _fare_ too like a
hackney-coachman?
_Lady Froth._ I swear and vow, I am afraid so.--And yet our
Jehu was a hackney-coachman when my lord took him.
_Brisk._ Was he? I'm answered, if Jehu was a
hackney-coachman.--You may put that in the marginal notes
though, to prevent criticism.--Only mark it with a small
asterism, and say, Jehu was formerly a hackney-coachman.
_Lady Froth._ 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!'
Congreve excels not only in dialogue, but in painting a character by a
single speech. How thoroughly we realize the inward and outward man of
old Foresight the omen-monger, from a single passage in _Love for Love_:
'_Nurse._ Pray heaven send your worship good luck! marry and
amen with all my heart; for you have put on one stocking with
the wrong side outward.
_Fore._ Ha! hm? faith and troth I'm glad of it. And so I have;
that may be good luck in troth, in troth it may, very good
luck: nay I have had some omens: I got out of bed backwards
too this morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too;
but then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad
omens these, some bad, some good, our lives are chequered;
mirth and sorrow, want and plenty, night and day, make up our
time. But in troth I am pleased at my stocking; very well
pleased at my stocking.'
Or Mr. Bluffe, the _miles gloriosus_ of _The Old Bachelor_:
'You must know, sir, I was resident in Flanders the last
campaign, had a small part there, but no matter for that.
Perhaps, sir, there was scarce anything of moment done but an
humble servant of yours that shall be nameless, was an
eye-witness of--I won't say had the greatest share in it;
though I might say that too, since I name nobody, you know.
Well, Mr. Sharper, would you think it? in all this time this
rascally gazette writer never so much as once mentioned me--not
once, by the wars!--took no more notice than as if Nol. Bluffe
had not been in the land of the living!
_Sharper._ Strange!
_Bluffe._ Ay, ay, no matter.--You see, Mr. Sharper, that after
all I am content to retire--live a private person--Scipio and
others have done it.'
Vanbrugh has less individuality than his eminent contemporaries, and has
consequently produced less impression than they upon the public mind,
has added fewer typical characters to comedy, and stands some steps
nigher to oblivion. Yet he is their equal in _vis comica_, and their
superior in stage workmanship. 'He is no writer at all,' says Hazlitt,
'as to mere authorship; but he makes up for it by a prodigious fund of
comic invention and ludicrous description, bordering upon caricature. He
has none of Congreve's graceful refinement, and as little of Wycherley's
serious manner and studious insight into the springs of character; but
his exhibition of it in dramatic contrast and unlooked-for situations,
where the different parties play upon one another's failings, and into
one another's hands, keeping up the jest like a game of battledore and
shuttlecock, and urging it to the utmost verge of breathless
extravagance, in the mere eagerness of the fray, is beyond that of any
other of our writers.' In Hazlitt's opinion, Vanbrugh did not bestow
much pains upon the construction of his pieces, and their excellent
dramatic effect is mainly to be attributed to his promptness in seizing
upon the hints for powerful situations which continually arose as he
went along. He has nothing of the passion which sometimes raises
Congreve so near to the confines of tragedy, nor has he the airy gaiety
of Farquhar; but his animal spirits are abundant and unforced, and his
humour has a true Flemish exuberance. His characters are always lively
and well discriminated, but the only type he can be said to have created
is the model fop, Lord Foppington in _The Relapse_, and even he is
partly borrowed from Etheredge's Sir Fopling Flutter. He is nevertheless
a most perfect portrait, and gives real literary distinction to what
would otherwise have been a mere comedy of intrigue. The powerful though
disagreeable character of Sir John Brute lends force to _The Provoked
Wife_; and the unfinished _Journey to London_ is grounded on an idea
which might have been very fruitful, the country senator who has gone
into Parliament as a speculation, but who, upon taking up his residence
in London, finds that he loses more by the extravagance of his wife than
he can gain by the prostitution of his vote. Vanbrugh's other plays are
mere comedies of intrigue, written without moral or immoral purpose for
the sake of amusement, of which they are abundantly prolific for readers
not repelled by a disregard of virtue so open and unblushing that, being
too gay for cynicism, it almost seems innocence. The scene between
Flippanta and her pupil in _The Confederacy_ is an excellent specimen
of Vanbrugh's spirited comedy. It might be headed, _Malitia supplet
aetatem_.
'_Flip._ Nay, if you can bear it so, you are not to be pitied
so much as I thought.
_Cor._ Not pitied! Why, is it not a miserable thing for such a
young creature as I am should be kept in perpetual solitude,
with no other company but a parcel of old fumbling masters, to
teach me geography, arithmetic, philosophy, and a thousand
useless things? Fine entertainment, indeed, for a young maid at
sixteen! Methinks one's time might be better employed.
_Flip._ Those things will improve your wit.
_Cor._ Fiddle, faddle! han't I wit enough already? My
mother-in-law has learned none of this trumpery, and is not she
as happy as the day is long?
_Flip._ Then you envy her I find?
_Cor._ And well I may. Does she not do what she has a mind to,
in spite of her husband's teeth?
_Flip._ [_Aside._] Look you there now! If she has not already
conceived that as the supreme blessing of life!
_Cor._ I'll tell you what, Flippanta; if my mother-in-law would
but stand by me a little, and encourage me, and let me keep her
company, I'd rebel against my father to-morrow, and throw all
my books in the fire. Why, he can't touch a groat of my
portion; do you know that, Flippanta!
_Flip._ [_Aside._] So--I shall spoil her! Pray Heaven the girl
don't debauch me!
_Cor._ Look you: in short, he may think what he pleases, he may
think himself wise; but thoughts are free, and I may think in
my turn. I'm but a girl, 'tis true, and a fool too, if you'll
believe him; but let him know, a foolish girl may make a wise
man's heart ache; so he had as good be quiet.--Now it's out.
_Flip._ Very well, I love to see a young woman have spirit,
it's a sign she'll come to something.
_Cor._ Ah, Flippanta! if you would but encourage me, you'd find
me quite another thing. I'm a devilish girl in the bottom; I
wish you'd but let me make one amongst you.
_Flip._ That never can be till you are married. Come, examine
your strength a little. Do you think you durst venture upon a
husband?
_Cor._ A husband! Why, a--if you would but encourage me. Come,
Flippanta, be a true friend now. I'll give you advice when I
have got a little more experience. Do you in your conscience
and soul think I am old enough to be married?
_Flip._ Old enough! why, you are sixteen, are you not?
_Cor._ Sixteen! I am sixteen, two months, and odd days, woman.
I keep an exact account.
_Flip._ The deuce you are!
_Cor._ Why, do you then truly and sincerely think I am old
enough?
_Flip._ I do, upon my faith, child.
_Cor._ Why, then, to deal as fairly with you, Flippanta, as you
do with me, I have thought so any time these three years.
_Flip._ Now I find you have more wit than ever I thought you
had; and to show you what an opinion I have of your discretion,
I'll show you a thing I thought to have thrown in the fire.
_Cor._ What is it, for Jupiter's sake?
_Flip._ Something will make your heart chuck within you.
_Cor._ My dear Flippanta!
_Flip._ What do you think it is?
_Cor._ I don't know, nor I don't care, but I'm mad to have it.
_Flip._ It's a four-cornered thing.
_Cor._ What, like a cardinal's cap?
_Flip._ No, 'tis worth a whole conclave of 'em. How do you like
it?
[_Showing the letter._
_Cor._ O Lard, a letter! Is there ever a token in it?
_Flip._ Yes, and a precious one too. There's a handsome young
gentleman's heart.
_Cor._ A handsome young gentleman's heart! [_Aside._] Nay,
then, it's time to look grave.
_Flip._ There.
_Cor._ I shan't touch it.
_Flip._ What's the matter now?
_Cor._ I shan't receive it.
_Flip._ Sure you jest.
_Cor._ You'll find I don't. I understand myself better than to
take letters when I don't know who they are from.
_Flip._ I'm afraid I commended your wit too soon.
_Cor._ 'Tis all one, I shan't touch it, unless I know who it
comes from.
_Flip._ Heyday, open it and you'll see.
_Cor._ Indeed I shall not.
_Flip._ Well--then I must return it where I had it.
_Cor._ That won't serve your turn, madam. My father must have
an account of this.
_Flip._ Sure you are not in earnest?
_Cor._ You'll find I am.
_Flip._ So, here's fine work! This 'tis to deal with girls
before they come to know the distinction of sexes!
_Cor._ Confess who you had it from, and perhaps, for this once,
I mayn't tell my father.
_Flip._ Why then, since it must out, 'twas the Colonel. But why
are you so scrupulous, madam?
_Cor._ Because if it had come from anybody else--I would not
have given a farthing for it.
[_Snatching it eagerly out of her hand._'
Farquhar has what Vanbrugh wants--individuality. He seems to identify
himself with his favourite characters, the heedless, dissolute, but
gentlemanly and good-hearted sparks about town whom he so delights to
portray, and hence wins a firmer place in our affections than his
wittier and in every way stronger rival, who might have been a comic
automaton for any idea of his personality that we are able to form.
Whether the inevitable conception of Farquhar is really correct may be
doubted; it is not in harmony with the few particulars which we possess
of his manners and personal appearance. While reading him, nevertheless,
one feels no doubt of the applicability to the author of the character
of his Sir Harry Wildair, 'entertaining to others, and easy to himself,
turning all passion into gaiety of humour.' The plays answer the
description of the personage; they are lively, rattling, entertaining,
and the humour is certainly much in excess of the passion. Serjeant
Kite, in _The Recruiting Officer_, has become proverbial, otherwise no
character has been recognized as an absolute creation, though almost all
are natural and unaffected. _The Beaux' Stratagem_, his last play, is by
common consent his best; it is assuredly admirable, from the truth and
variety of the characters, and the pervading atmosphere of adventurous
gaiety. The separation between Mr. and Mrs. Sullen is a good specimen of
Farquhar's _vis comica_:
'_Mrs. Sul._ Hold, gentlemen, all things here must move by
consent, compulsion would spoil us; let my dear and I talk the
matter over, and you shall judge it between us.
_Squire Sul._ Let me know first who are to be our judges. Pray,
sir, who are you?
_Sir Chas._ I am Sir Charles Freeman, come to take away your
wife.
_Squire Sul._ And you, good sir?
_Aim._ Charles Viscount Aimwell, come to take away your sister.
_Squire Sul._ And you, pray, sir?
_Arch._ Francis Archer, esquire, come----
_Squire Sul._ To take away my mother, I hope. Gentlemen, you're
heartily welcome. I never met with three more obliging people
since I was born!--And now, my dear, if you please, you shall
have the first word.
_Arch._ And the last, for five pound!
_Mrs. Sul._ Spouse!
_Squire Sul._ Rib!
_Mrs. Sul._ How long have we been married?
_Squire Sul._ By the almanac, fourteen months; but by my
account, fourteen years.
_Mrs. Sul._ 'Tis thereabout by my reckoning.
_Count Bel._ Garzoon, their account will agree.
_Mrs. Sul._ Pray, spouse, what did you marry for?
_Squire Sul._ To get an heir to my estate.
_Sir Chas._ And have you succeeded?
_Squire Sul._ No.
_Arch._ The condition fails of his side.--Pray, madam, what did
you marry for?
_Mrs. Sul._ To support the weakness of my sex by the strength
of his, and to enjoy the pleasures of an agreeable society.
_Sir Chas._ Are your expectations answered?
_Mrs. Sul._ No.
_Count Bel._ A clear case! a clear case!
_Sir Chas._ What are the bars to your mutual contentment?
_Mrs. Sul._ In the first place, I can't drink ale with him.
_Squire Sul._ Nor can I drink tea with her.
_Mrs. Sul._ I can't hunt with you.
_Squire Sul._ Nor can I dance with you.
_Mrs. Sul._ I hate cocking and racing.
_Squire Sul._ And I abhor ombre and piquet.
_Mrs. Sul._ Your silence is intolerable.
_Squire Sul._ Your prating is worse.
_Mrs. Sul._ Have we not been a perpetual offence to each other?
a gnawing vulture at the heart?
_Squire Sul._ A frightful goblin to the sight?
_Mrs. Sul._ A porcupine to the feeling?
_Squire Sul._ Perpetual wormwood to the taste?
_Mrs. Sul._ Is there on earth a thing we could agree in?
_Squire Sul._ Yes--to part.
_Mrs. Sul._ With all my heart.
_Squire Sul._ Your hand.
_Mrs. Sul._ Here.
_Squire Sul._ These hands joined us, these shall part
us.--Away!
_Mrs. Sul._ North.
_Squire Sul._ South.
_Mrs. Sul._ East.
_Squire Sul._ West--far as the poles asunder.
_Count Bel._ Begar, the ceremony be vera pretty!'
Farquhar is fuller of allusions to contemporary events and humours than
any of the other dramatists, and these are sometimes very happy; as when
a promising scheme is said to be in danger of 'going souse into the
water, like the Eddystone lighthouse,' or when an alarm is given by
shouting, 'Thieves! thieves! murder! _popery!_' Another peculiarity of
all these dramatists, but especially Farquhar, is the constant use in
serious passages of a broken blank verse, which continually seems upon
the point of becoming regular ten-syllabled iambic, but never maintains
this elevation for any considerable space. The extremely powerful scene
between the two Fainalls, in Congreve's _Love for Love_, for example,
which borders closely upon tragedy, is all but regular blank verse,
which, if perfectly finished, would be much better than the verse of
_The Mourning Bride_. It is difficult to determine whether this was
intentional or accidental. Possibly the exigencies of the performers had
something to do with it. It is by no means unlikely that prose, as well
as verse, was then declaimed with more attention to rhythm than is now
the custom. In estimating the merits of these dramas it must never be
forgotten, as a point in their favour, that they were written for the
stage, and that success in the closet was quite a secondary
consideration with the authors; on the other hand, that they had the
advantage of being produced when the histrionic art of England was
probably at its zenith.
This notice of the later Restoration comedy may be completed by the
mention of three ladies who cultivated it with success during the latter
part of the seventeenth century. How much of this success, in the case
of one of them, was due to merit, and how much to indecency, is a
difficult, though not in every sense of the term a nice or delicate
question. Despite the offensiveness of her writings, Aphra Behn
(1640-1689), whose maiden name was Johnson, is personally a sympathetic
figure. She was born in 1640, and as a girl went out with her family to
Surinam, then an English possession. She there made the acquaintance of
the Indian chief Oroonoko and his bride Imoinda, afterwards celebrated
in the novel by her upon which Southern founded his popular play.
Returning to England, she married a Dutch merchant of the name of Behn,
and after his death was sent as a spy to Antwerp. A young Dutchman to
whom she was engaged died; she was wrecked and nearly drowned upon her
return to England; and, probably from necessity, as the English
government appears to have refused to recompense or even to reimburse
her, turned novelist and playwright. Her novels will be noticed in
another place; her eighteen plays have, with few exceptions, sufficient
merit to entitle her to a respectable place among the dramatists of her
age, and sufficient indelicacy to be unreadable in this. It may well be
believed, on the authority of a female friend, that the authoress 'had
wit, humour, good-nature, and judgment; was mistress of all the pleasing
arts of conversation; was a woman of sense, and _consequently_ a woman
of pleasure.' She was buried in Westminster Abbey, but not in Poets'
Corner. The plays of Mrs. Manley (1672-1724), though moderately
successful, need not detain us here, but we shall have to speak of her
as a writer of fiction. She was the daughter of a Cavalier knight, but
became the mistress of Alderman Barber, and was concerned in several
doubtful transactions. Swift, nevertheless, speaks of her as a good
person 'for one of her sort'--fat and forty, it seems, but _not_ fair.
Mrs. Susannah Centlivre (1667-1723) appears to have had her share of
adventures in her youth, but survived to contract one of the most
respectable unions imaginable, namely, with the queen's cook. She was a
wholesale adapter from the French, and her lively comedies possess
little literary merit, but so much dramatic instinct that three of them,
_The Busy Body_, _The Wonder_, and _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_, remained
long upon the list of acting plays, and might be represented even now.