Wycherley wrote his first play in 1667. In comparing him with

Shakespeare we find the same difference as existed between the old and

new comedy in Greece. Political characters have disappeared together

with hostility and combats on the stage, while amorous intrigue is

largely developed. There is at the same time considerable sprightliness

in the dialogue, and the tricks, deceptions and misadventures of lovers

fill the pages with much that is ingenious and amusing. In the

"Gentleman Dancing Master," a young spark pretends to a rich father that

he is only visiting his daughter to teach her to dance. A rival lover--a

Frenchified puppy--is made unconsciously to co-operate in his own

discomfiture, while the duped father jokes with the supposed "dancing

master," and asks him whether he is not engaged to one of his rich

pupils, laughing heartily at the picture he draws to himself of her

father's indignation. Again, in "A Country Wife," a jealous husband

obliges his spouse to write a disdainful letter to a gallant, but the

lady slyly substitutes one of quite a different character, which the

husband duly and pompously delivers to him. The humour of Wycherley is

almost entirely of this kind. Here are no verbal quips, no sallies of

professed fools, no stupidities of country boobies. These have passed

away from good comedy. Speaking of the change, he says that formerly

they were contented to make serving-men fools on the stage, "but now you

shall scarcely see a fool on the stage who is not a knight." The fact

was that a higher kind of humour was required, and accordingly we now,

for the first time, hear of "wits"--men of good birth and position, who

prided themselves on their talent. They were generally remarkable for

their manners and address, and affected a superiority in acuteness, but

not always in humour. Wycherley speaks of wits not exactly in the sense

of humorists, but rather as coxcombs, endued with a certain cunning:

"Your court wit is a fashionable, insinuating, flattering, cringing,

grimacing fellow, and has wit enough to solicit a suit of love; and if

he fail he has malice enough to ruin the woman with a dull lampoon; but

he rails still at the man that is absent, for all wits rail; and his wit

properly lies in combing perukes, matching ribbons, and being severe, as

they call it, upon other peoples' clothes."

_Lydia._ Now, what is your coffee wit?

_Dapperwit._ He is a lying, censorious, gossiping, quibbling

wretch, and sets people together by the ears over that sober

drink--coffee; he is a wit as he is a commentator upon the Gazette;

and he rails at the pirates of Algiers, the Grand Signior of

Constantinople, and the Christian Grand Signior.

_Lydia._ What kind of wit is your pollwit?

_Dap._ He is a fidgetting, busy, dogmatical, hot-headed fop, that

speaks always in sentences and proverbs, and he rails perpetually

against the present Government. His wit lies in projects and

monopolies, and penning speeches for Parliament men--

He goes on to speak of the scribble wit, and judge wit or critic, but in

general wits were regarded as rakes and not long afterwards we find it

debated whether a woman can be witty and virtuous.

Wycherley did not aim much at facetiousness, nor introduce many humorous

episodes, but passages incidentally occur which show he had considerable

talent in that direction. The first from "Love in a Wood," is an

ironical conflict between one Gripe, a rich but parsimous Alderman, and

a Mrs. Joyner, a sly, designing old woman.

_Gripe._ I am full of your praise, and it will run over.

_Joyner._ Nay, sweet Sir, you are----

_Gripe._ Nay, sweet Mrs. Joyner, you are----

_Joy._ Nay, good your worship, you are----

(_Stops her mouth with his handkerchief_)

_Gripe._ I say you are----

_Joy._ I must not be rude with your worship.

_Gripe._ You are a nursing mother to the saints; through you they

gather together, through you they fructify and increase, and

through you the child cries out of the hand-basket.

_Joy._ Through you virgins are married, or provided for as well;

through you the reprobate's wife is made a saint; and through you

the widow is not disconsolate, nor misses her husband.

_Gripe._ Through you----

_Joy._ Indeed you will put me to the blush.

_Gripe._ Blushes are badges of imperfection--Saints have no shame.

You are the flower of matrons, Mrs. Joyner.

_Joy._ You are the pink of courteous Aldermen.

_Gripe._ You are the muffler of secrecy.

_Joy._ You are the head-band of Justice.

_Gripe._ Thank you, sweet Mrs. Joyner; do you think so indeed? You

are--you are the bonfire of devotion.

_Joy._ You are the bellows of zeal.

_Gripe._ You are the cupboard of charity.

_Joy._ You are the fob of liberality.

_Gripe._ You are the rivet of sanctified love or wedlock.

_Joy._ You are the pick-lock and dark-lantern of policy; and in a

word a conventicle of virtues.

_Gripe._ Your servant, your servant, sweet Mrs. Joyner! You have

stopped my mouth.

_Joy._ Your servant, your servant, sweet Alderman! I have nothing

to say.

Indelicacy in words has by this time become very much reduced, although

here and there we find some cant expressions of the day which shock our

sensibilities. Much refinement in this respect could not be expected at

a period where a young lady of fortune could be represented as calling

her maid, and afterwards herself, a "damned jade," and a lady from the

country as saying she had not yet had "her bellyful of sights" in

London.

"The Plain Dealer" is a naval captain in the time of the Dutch war.

Olivia says,

"If he be returned, then shall I be pestered again with his

boisterous sea-love; have my alcove smell like a cabin, my chamber

perfumed with his tarpaulin Brandenburgh, and hear volleys of

brandy-sighs, enough to make a fog in one's room. Foh! I hate a

lover that smells like Thames Street."

The Plain Dealer, _i.e._, the sea-captain Manly, meets with a lawyer,

and they converse in this way,

_Manly._ Here's a lawyer I know threatening us with another

greeting.

_Lawyer._ Sir! Sir! your very servant; I was afraid you had

forgotten me.

_Man._ I was not afraid you had forgotten me.

_Law._ No, Sir; we lawyers have pretty good memories.

_Man._ You ought to have by your wits.

_Law._ O, you are a merry gentleman, Sir; I remember you were merry

when I was last in your company.

_Man._ I was never merry in your company, Mr. Lawyer, sure.

_Law._ Why I am sure you joked upon me, and shammed me all night

long.

_Man._ Shammed! prithee what barbarous law-term is that?

_Law._ Shamming! why, don't you know that? 'tis all our way of wit,

Sir.

_Man._ I am glad I don't know it, then. Shamming! what does he mean

by it, Freeman?

_Free._ Shamming is telling an insipid dull lie with a dull face,

which the sly wag, the author, only laughs at himself; and making

himself believe 'tis a good jest, puts the sham only upon himself.

Manly meets an Alderman.

_Man._ Here's a city-rogue will stick as hard upon us as if I owed

him money.

_Ald._ Captain, noble Sir, I am yours heartily, d'ye see; why

should you avoid your old friends?

_Man._ And why should you follow me? I owe you nothing.

_Ald._ Out of my hearty respects to you; for there is not a man in

England----

_Man._ Thou wouldst save from hanging at the expense of a shilling

only.

_Ald._ Nay, nay, but Captain, you are like enough to tell me----

_Man._ Truth, which you wont care to hear; therefore you had better

go talk with somebody else.

_Ald._ No, I know nobody can inform me better of some young wit or

spendthrift, who has a good dipped seat and estate in Middlesex,

Hertfordshire, Essex, or Kent; any of these would serve my turn;

now if you know of such an one, and would but help----

_Man._ You to finish his ruin.

_Ald._ I' faith you should have a snip----

_Man._ Of your nose, you thirty in the hundred rascal; would you

make me your squire-setter?

(_Takes him by the nose._)

Two lovers, Lord Plausible and Novel, have the following dialogue about

their chances of success with a certain lady who is wooed by both.

_Novel._ Prithee, prithee, be not impertinent, my lord; some of you

lords are such conceited, well assured impertinent rogues.

_Plausible._ And you noble wits are so full of shamming and

drollery, one knows not where to have you seriously.

_Nov._ Prithee, my lord, be not an ass. Dost thou think to get her

from me? I have had such encouragements--

_Plau._ I have not been thought unworthy of 'em.

_Nov._ What? not like mine! Come to an éclaircissement, as I said.

_Plau._ Why, seriously then; she told me Viscountess sounded

prettily.

_Nov._ And me, that Novel was a name she would sooner change hers

for, than any title in England.

_Plau._ She has commended the softness and respectfulness of my

behaviour.

_Nov._ She has praised the briskness of my raillery in all things,

man.

_Plau._ The sleepiness of my eyes she liked.

_Nov._ Sleepiness! dulness, dulness. But the fierceness of mine she

adored.

_Plau._ The brightness of my hair she liked.

_Nov._ Brightness! no the greasiness, I warrant! But the blackness

and lustre of mine she admires.

_Plau._ The gentleness of my smile.

_Nov._ The subtilty of my leer.

_Plau._ The clearness of my complexion.

_Nov._ The redness of my lips.

_Plau._ The whiteness of my teeth.

_Nov._ My jaunty way of picking them.

_Plau._ The sweetness of my breath.

_Nov._ Ha! ha! nay there she abused you, 'tis plain; for you know

what Manly said: the sweetness of your pulvillio she might mean;

but for your breath! ha! ha! ha! Your breath is such, man, that

nothing but tobacco can perfume; and your complexion nothing could

mend but the small-pox.

CHAPTER IX.

Tom Brown--His Prose Works--Poetry--Sir Richard

Blackmore--D'Urfey--Female Humorists--Carey.

Whether it was owing to the commotions of the Civil War in which "fears

and jealousies had soured the people's blood, and politics and polemics

had almost driven mirth and good humour out of the nation," or whether

it was from a dearth of eminent talent, humour seems to have made little

progress under the Restoration. The gaiety of the Merry Monarch and his

companions had nothing intellectual in it, and although "Tom" Brown[61]

tells us that "it was during the reign of Charles II. that learning in

general flourished, and the Muses, like other ladies, met with the

civilest sort of entertainment," his own works show that the best wits

of the day could not soar much above the attempts of Sedley and

Rochester. Had Brown not acquired in his day the character of a

humorist, we should think that he equally well deserved that of a man of

learning, for whereas he shows an acquaintance with the classics and

modern languages, his writings, which are of considerable length,

contain little Attic salt. He was born in 1663, the son of a substantial

Shropshire farmer, and was sent to Christ Church, Oxford, where he

became as remarkable for his quickness and proficiency, as for the

irregularity of his conduct. On one occasion, owing to his having been

guilty of some objectionable frolic, he was about to be expelled, when,

upon his writing a penitential letter, the Dean, who seems to have known

his talent, promised to forgive him on his translating extempore the

epigram of Martial.

"Non amo te, Zabidi, nec possum dicere quare;

Hoc tantum possum dicere non amo te."

The young delinquent replied in words now better known than the

original,

"I do not love you, Dr. Fell,

But why I cannot tell,

But this I know full well,

I do not love you, Dr. Fell."

At this period he occasionally indulged in such silly effusions as the

"Adverbial Declaration," which he first wrote in Latin, on "Mother

Warner's bellows at Oxford."

Brown was finally obliged to leave the University, and went up to London

to seek his fortune. The unpromising and reckless spirit in which he

set out, is probably reflected in one of his pieces entitled "A Dialogue

between two Oxford scholars."

_A._ Well, I see thou art resolved to leave us. I will not say,

"Go, and be hanged," but go and turn country parson.

_B._ That's almost as bad, as the world goes now. But thanks to my

stars, I know a better trick than that.

_A._ It may be thou art fallen out with mankind, and intendest to

turn quack; or as they call it in the country, doctor.

_B._ No such matter; the _French_ can kill men fast enough, and for

women thou knowest my kindness.

_A._ But some of them have lived too long; and there are others so

miserable, that even compassion will incline thee to help them out

of the world. I can assure thee 'tis a profitable calling; for

whether thou dost kill or cure, thy fees will be put in thy hand.

_B._ Yes, when they are found. But, prithee, speak no more of it,

for I am resolved against it.

_A._ What, then, art thou resolv'd for the law? Methinks thou

should'st have too much University learning and wit for that

profession--

_B._ And too much honesty. But I'll spare thee the pains of

guessing, and tell thee in short what my condition is, and what I

design. My portion is all spent--save fifty pounds; and with that I

am resolved for London or some other wealthy place, where

conventicles abound: and as a man of tender conscience and

infinitely dissatisfied with several things in the Church of

England, I will endeavour by some means or other to force myself

into an acquaintance with some of their leading men, and more

especially with some of the most zealous and wonderful women among

them; and this point once gained, I doubt not, but before my stock

is half spent, I shall receive a call to be pastor or holder-forth

in some congregation or other--why dost smile?

_A._ At my friend's design. And I cannot but admire how it came

into thy head. Thy ability to manage such a design I know very

well; but how thou wilt dispense with the knavery of it, I am yet

to learn.

_B._ That's a small matter. As the world goes one must practise a

little knavery, or resolve to leave the world. Dost thou know that

religious cheats are licensed by a law? and shall I live and die

without taking advantage of it? Believe me, friend, Nature has

fitted me pretty well to be one of these godly mountebanks, and a

little art, together with a few months' conversation with that sort

of people will supply all natural defects. Cannot I put on, when I

please, a grave and serious countenance, and with head depending on

one shoulder a little more than on the other, sigh for the

iniquities of the time and corruptions of the Church? Cannot I wipe

mine eyes with the fair pocket-cloth, as if I wept for all your

abominations? Cannot I grieve in spirit as if ready to burst with

grief and compassion. And cannot I likewise, when time serves, and

company is disposed to be kindly affected with it, smile and fleer

as takingly? And what hurt is there in this? Sure I may use my own

face as I please.

We need scarcely say that Brown failed in his shrewd scheming; and he

was soon fain to take the humble position of a schoolmaster at Kingston

upon Thames, for which his acquirements qualified him. But his literary

ambition would not allow him to remain long at this drudgery, and we

soon find him wandering up again to town, where he was again

unfortunate. At this time, men of letters expected little from the sale

of books; but often obtained patrons who conferred valuable appointments

upon them. Brown's temper and position rendered him ineligible for this

sort of promotion. Not being a gentleman by birth, he had no good

introductions, nor would he have been very acceptable in the houses of

the great. His coarseness in writing--excessive even in that day--was

probably reflected in his manners and language, and he had so little

prudence that he ridiculed not only the clergy, but was always ready to

lose a friend rather than a joke. Mere literary talent will not procure

success in society.

Brown wrote a variety of essays, generally rather admonitory than

humorous. His "Pocket-book of Common Places" resembles a collection of

Proverbs or good sayings. It commences,

"To see the number of churches and conventicles open every Sunday, a

stranger would fancy London all religion. But to see the number of

taverns, ale-houses, &c., he would imagine Bacchus was the only God that

is worshipped there. If no _trades_ were permitted but those which were

useful and necessary, Lombard Street, Cheapside, and the Exchange might

go a-begging. For more are fed by our _vanities_ and _vices_ than by our

virtues, and the necessities of Nature."

But his favourite and characteristic mode of writing was under the form

of letters. We have "Letters Serious and Comical," "Diverting Letters to

Gentlemen." One letter is to four ladies with whom the author was in

love at the same time.

He probably took his idea of "Letters from the Dead to the Living," from

Lucian. He never spares Dissenters, and comically makes a Quaker relate

his warm reception in the lower world:--

"A parcel of black spiritual Janissaries saluted me as intimately as if

I had been resident in these parts during the term of an apprenticeship;

at last, up comes a swinging, lusty, overgrown, austere devil, armed

with an ugly weapon like a country dung-fork, looking as sharp about the

eyes as a Wood Street officer, and seemed to deport himself after such a

manner that discovered he had ascendancy over the rest of the immortal

negroes, and as I imagined, so 'twas quickly evident; for as soon as he

espied me leering between the diminutive slabbering-bib and the

extensive rims of my coney-wood umbrella, he chucks me under the chin

with his ugly toad-coloured paw, that stunk as bad of brimstone as a

card-match new-lighted, saying, 'How now, Honest Jones, I am glad to see

thee on this side the river Styx, prithee, hold up thy head, and don't

be ashamed, thou art not the first Quaker by many thousands that has

sworn allegiance to my government; besides, thou hast been one of my

best benefactors on earth, and now thou shalt see, like a grateful

devil, I'll reward thee accordingly.' 'I thank your excellence kindly,'

said I, 'pray, what is it your infernal protectorship will be pleased

to confer upon me?' To which his mighty ugliness replied, 'Friend

Naylor, I know thou hast been very industrious to make many people fools

in the upper world, which has highly conduced to my interest.' Then

turning to a pigmy aërial, who attended his commands as a running

footman, 'Haste, _Numps_,' says he, 'and fetch me the painted coat,'

which was no sooner brought, but by Lucifer's command I was shoved into

it, neck and shoulders, by half a dozen swarthy _valets de chambre_, and

in a minute's time found myself tricked up in a rainbow-coloured coat,

like a merry-Andrew. 'Now, friend,' says the ill-favoured prince of all

the hell-born scoundrels, 'for the many fools you have made above, I now

ordain you mine below;' so all the reward truly of my great services was

to be made Lucifer's jester, or fool in ordinary to the devil; a pretty

post, thought I, for a man of my principles, that from a Quaker in the

outer world I should be metamorphosed into a jack-adam in the lower

one."

The occupation of people in the Nether world is described after

Rabelais, thus:--"Cardinal Mazarin keeps a nine-holes; Mary of Medicis

foots stockings; and Katharine of Sweden cries 'Two bunches a penny

card-matches--two bunches a penny!' Henry the Fourth of France carries

a raree-show, and Mahomet sells mussels. Seneca keeps a fencing-school,

and Julius Cæsar a two-penny ordinary."

At the present day it is rather amusing to read, "A Comical View of

London and Westminster"--a weekly prophecy intended to ridicule the

increasing use of barometers and other scientific instruments for

predicting changes of weather.

"Wednesday October 16th. Cloudy, foggy weather at Garraway's and

Jonathan's, and at most coffee-houses at about twelve. Crowds of people

gather at the Exchange by one; disperse by three. Afternoon, noisy and

bloody at her Majesty's bear-garden at _Hockly-in-the-Hole_.

Night--sober with broken chaplains and others that have neither credit

nor money. This week's transactions censured by the virtuosos at

_Child's_ from morning till night.

"Thursday 17th. Coffee and water-gruel to be had at the Rainbow and

Nando's at four. Hot furmity at Bride-bridge at seven. Justice to be had

at _Doctor's Commons_, when people can get it. A lecture at Pinner's

hall at ten. Excellent pease-pottage and tripe in Baldwin's Gardens at

twelve. A constable and two watchmen killed, or near being so in

_Westminster_; whether by a lord or lord's footman, planets don't

determine.

"Friday. Damsels whipped for their good nature at _Bridewell_ about ten.

Several people put in fear of their lives by their god-fathers at the

_Old Bailey_ at eleven. Great destruction of Herrings at one. Much

swearing at three among the horse-coursers at Smithfield; if the oaths

were registered as well as the horses, good Lord, what a volume 'twould

make! Several tails turned up at St. Paul's School, Merchant Taylors,

&c. for their repetitioning. Night very drunk, as the two former.

"Saturday 19th. Twenty butchers' wives in Leadenhall and Newgate markets

overtaken with sherry and sugar by eight in the morning. Shop-keepers

walk out at nine to count the trees in Moorfields, and avoid duns.

People's houses cleansed in the afternoon, but their consciences we

don't know when. Evening pretty sober.

"Sunday. Beggars take up their posts in Lincoln's Inn Fields and other

places by seven, that they may be able to praise God in capon and March

beer at night. Great jingling of bells all over the city from eight to

nine. Parish clerks liquor their throats plentifully at eight, and

chaunt out Hopkins most melodiously about ten. Sextons, men of great

authority most part of the day, whip dogs out of the church for being

obstreperous. Great thumping and dusting of the cushion at Salter's

Hall about eleven; one would almost think the man was in earnest he lays

so furiously about him. A most refreshing smell of garlic in

Spittlefield's and Soho at twelve. Country fellows staring at the two

wooden men at St. Dunstan's from one to two, to see how notably they

strike the quarters. The great point of Predestination settled in

Russell-court about three; and the people go home as wise as they came.

Afternoon sleepy in most churches. Store of handkerchiefs stolen at St.

Paul's. Night, not so sober as might be wished...."

The following are some of the best specimens of Brown's poems--squibs on

the fashions and occurrences of the day--

"The _emblem of the nation_, so grave and precise,

On the _emblem of wisdom_ has laid an excise;

Pray tell me, grave sparks, and your answer don't smother,

Why one representative taxes another?

The _Commons_ on _salt_ a new impost have laid

To tax _wisdom_ too, they most humbly are pray'd;

For tell me ye patrons of woollen and crape,

Why the _type_ should be fined and the substance escape?"

A song in ridicule of a famous musician, who was caught serenading his

mistress with his bass-viol on a very frosty night:--

Look down, fair garreteer bestow

One glance upon your swain,

Who stands below in frost and snow.

And shaking sings in pain.

Thaw with your eyes the frozen street,

Or cool my hot desire,

I burn within, altho' my feet

Are numbed for want of fire.

_Chorus_.

Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrum,

Come, come, come, come,

My dearest be not coy,

For if you are (zit, zan, zounds) I

Must without your favour die.

The sentiment in the following is easily appreciated, but is there not

also some slight essence of humour?

ON FLOWERS IN A LADY'S BOSOM.

Behold the promised land, where pleasures flow!

See how the milk-white hills do gently rise,

And beat the silken skies!

Behold the valley spread with flowers below!

The happy flowers, how they allure my sense!

The fairer soil gives them the nobler hue

Her breath perfumes them too:

Rooted i' th' heart they seem to spring from thence,

Tell, tell me why, thou fruitful virgin breast,

Why should so good a soil lie unpossest?

Brown's humour partook of the coarseness of most of the writers of his

times, and scandalized the more religious and decent muse of Sir Richard

Blackmore, who endeavoured to correct this general failing in his

"Satire upon Wit." This called forth many sarcastic replies, and

critiques on Blackmore's works; such as Brown's "Epigram occasioned by

the news that Sir R----d B----e's paraphrase upon Job was in the

Press--"

"When Job contending with the devil I saw

It did my wonder, not my pity draw;

For I concluded that without some trick,

A saint at any time could match old Nick.

Next came a fiercer fiend upon his back,

I mean his spouse, stunning him with her clack,

But still I could not pity him, as knowing

A crab tree cudgel soon would send her going.

But when the quack engaged with Job I spy'd,

The Lord have mercy on poor Job I cry'd.

What spouse and Satan did attempt in vain

The quack will compass with his murdering pen,

And on a dunghill leave poor Job again,

With impious doggrel he'll pollute his theme,

And make the saint against his will blaspheme."

Upon the knighting of Sir R----d B----e.

"Be not puffed up with knighthood, friend of mine,

A merry prince once knighted a Sir-loin,

And if to make comparisons were safe

An ox deserves it better then a calf.

Thy pride and state I value not a rush

Thou that art now Knight Phyz, wast once King Ush."

Blackmore, who was successively physician to William III. and Queen

Anne, had been once a schoolmaster.

Tom Brown died at the early age of forty. His life was full of

misfortunes, but we can scarcely say that he was unhappy, for nothing

could conquer his buoyant spirit. At one time he was actually in prison,

for what was deemed a libellous attack, but we are told that he obtained

his "enlargement" from it, upon his writing the following Pindaric

Petition to the Lords in Council.

"Should you order Tho' Brown

To be whipped thro' the town

For scurvy lampoon,

Grave _Southern_ and _Crown_

Their pens wou'd lay down;

Even D'Urfey himself, and such merry fellows

That put their whole trust in tunes and trangdillioes

May hang up their harps and themselves on the willows;

For if poets are punished for libelling trash

John Dryden, tho' sixty, may yet fear the lash.

No pension, no praise,

Much birch without bays,

These are not right ways

Our fancy to raise,

To the writing of plays

And prologues so witty

That jirk at the city,

And now and then hit

Some spark in the pit,

So hard and so pat

Till he hides with his hat

His monstrous cravat.

The pulpit alone

Can never preach down

The fops of the town

Then pardon Tho' Brown

And let him write on;

But if you had rather convert the poor sinner

His foul writing mouth may be stopped with a dinner.

Give him clothes to his back, some meat and some drink

Then clap him close prisoner without pen and ink

And your petitioner shall neither pray, write, or think."

Unfortunately his pecuniary difficulties were not removed, but

accompanied him through life. What a strange mixture of gaiety, learning

and destitution is brought before us, when on a clamorons dun vowing she

would not leave him until she had her money, he exclaimed in an

extempore version of two lines of Martial--

"Sextus, thou nothing ow'st, nothing I say!

He something owes, that something has to pay."

In an imitation of another epigram of Martial he gives an account of the

unpromising position of his affairs:--

"Without formal petition

Thus stands my condition,

I am closely blocked up in a garret,

Where I scribble and smoke,

And sadly invoke

The powerful assistance of claret.

Four children and a wife

'Tis hard on my life,

Besides myself and a Muse

To be all clothed and fed,

Now the times are so dead,

By my scribbling of doggrel and news;

And what I shall do,

I'm a wretch if I know

So hard is the fate of a poet,

I must either turn rogue,

Or what's as bad--pedagogue,

And so drudge like a thing that has no wit."

How much are we indebted to the pecuniary embarrassments of poets for

the interest we take in them. Who could read sentiment written by a man

faring sumptuously every day? Towards the end of his life, Brown became

acquainted with Lord Dorset, and we read of his once dining with that

nobleman and finding a note for fifty pounds under his plate. Tom Brown

seems to have regarded with great contempt his contemporary Tom

D'Urfey--best known as a composer of sonnets--words and music. He

addresses to him "upon his incomparable ballads, called by him Pindaric

Odes," the following acrimonious lines--

"Thou cur, half French half English breed,

Thou mongrel of Parnassus,

To think tall lines, run up to seed,

Should ever tamely pass us.

"Thou write Pindaricks and be damned

Write epigrams for cutlers,

None with thy lyricks can be shammed

But chambermaids and butlers.

"In t'other world expect dry blows;

No tears can wash thy stains out,

Horace will pluck thee by the nose

And Pindar beat thy brains out."

Such unworthy attacks are not unfrequently made by ill-natured literary

men. Brown was no doubt jealous of his rival, but Addison's generous

heart formed a very different estimate of D'Urfey's talent. He says that

after having "made the world merry he hopes they will make him easy" in

his pecuniary affairs, for that although "Tom" had written more Odes

than Horace, and four times as many Comedies as Terence, he was reduced

to great difficulties by a set of men who had furnished him with the

accommodations of life, and would not, as we say, "be paid with a song."

"As my friend," he continues, "after the manner of all the old lyrics,

accompanies his works with his own voice, he has been the delight of the

most polite companies and conversations from the beginning of King

Charles II.'s reign to our present times. Many an honest gentleman has

got a reputation in his country by pretending to have been in company

with Tom D'Urfey." "I myself remember King Charles II. leaning on Tom

D'Urfey's shoulder more than once, and humming over a song with him. It

is certain that monarch was not a little supported by 'Joy to great

Cæsar,' which gave the Whigs such a blow as they were not able to

recover that whole reign. My friend afterwards attacked Popery with the

same success--he has made use of Italian tunes and Sonatas for promoting

the Protestant interest, and turned a considerable part of the Pope's

music against himself."

Little need be added to this eloquent commendation, except that it was

written to obtain patronage for a benefit in behalf of an aged poet and

friend. D'Urfey wrote through the reigns of Charles II., James II.,

William and Anne, into that of George I. His plays, which were thought

attractive at the time, contained much that was gross, and were

deficient in humour and power. Thus, they were soon forgotten, and

neither he nor his rival Brown were able to reach a point, which would

give them a permanent position in literature.

The following description would have led us to expect something better

of him, at least in farcical talent[62]--

"Mr. D'Urfey generally writes state-plays, and is wonderfully

useful to the world in such representations. This method is the

same that was used by the old Athenians, to laugh out of

countenance or promote opinions among the people. My friend has

therefore against this play is acted for his own benefit, made two

dances which may be also of an universal benefit. In the first he

has represented absolute power in the person of a tall man with a

hat and feathers, who gives his first minister who stands just

before him a huge kick; the minister gives the kick to the next

before; and so to the end of the stage. In this moral and practical

jest you are made to understand that there is in an absolute

government no gratification, but giving the kick you receive from

one above you to one below you. This is performed to a grave and

melancholy air; but on a sudden the tune moves quicker, and the

whole company fall into a circle and take hands; and then, at a

certain sharp note, they move round and kick as kick can. This

latter performance he makes to be the representation of a free

state; where, if you all mind your steps, you may go round and

round very jollily, with a motion pleasant to yourselves and them

you dance with: nay, if you put yourselves out, at the worst you

only kick and are kicked by friends and equals."

But D'Urfey's short songs and poems were his most successful

productions--sometimes he breathed martial strains in honour of

Marlborough's victories, sometimes formed adulatory addresses to members

of the Royal Family. His "Pills to purge Melancholy," at times

approached humour. The following is taken from the "Banquet of the

Gods," and refers to Hermes visiting the Infernal regions--

"Fierce Cerberus, who the gate did keep,

First with a sop he lays asleep,

Then forward goes to th' room of State,

Where on a lofty throne of jet,

The grizly King of Terrors sate,

Discoursing with his Proserpine

On things infernally divine.

To him the winged Ambassador

His message tells, then adds to her

How much her mother Ceres mourns

In Sicily, till she returns;

That now she hoped (the long half-year

Being ended) she would see her there,

And that instead of shrieks and howls,

The harmony of par-boiled souls,

She'd now divert with tunes more gay,

And go with her to see a play."

D'Urfey often introduces fresh and pleasing glimpses of country life. He

is more happy in this direction than in his humour, which generally

drifted away into maudlin and indelicate love-making between

pseudo-Roman Corydons and Phyllises. The following effusion is very

characteristic of the times,--

"One _April_ morn, when from the sea

_Phoebus_ was just appearing!

Damon and Celia young and gay,

Long settled Love indearing;

Met in a grove to vent their spleen,

On parents unrelenting;

He bred of _Tory_ race had been,

She of the tribe _Dissenting_.

"Celia, whose eyes outshone the God,

Newly the hills adorning,

Told him mamma wou'd be stark mad,

She missing prayers that morning;

Damon, his arm around her waist,

Swore tho' nought should 'em sunder,

Shou'd my rough dad know how I'm blest,

T'would make him roar like thunder.

"Great ones whom proud ambition blinds,

By faction still support it,

Or where vile money taints the mind,

They for convenience court it;

But mighty Love, that scorns to show,

Party should raise his glory;

Swears he'll exalt a vassal true,

Let it be _Whig_ or _Tory_."

The following is a song from "The Country Miss and her Furbelow."

"Celladon, when spring came on,

Woo'd Sylvia in a grove,

Both gay and young, and still he sung

The sweet Delights of Love.

Wedded joys in girls and boys,

And pretty chat of this and that,

The honey kiss, and charming bliss

That crowns the marriage bed;

He snatched her hand, she blushed and fanned

And seemed as if afraid,

'Forbear!' she crys, 'youre fawning lyes,

I've vowed to die a maid.'

"Celladon at that began

To talk of apes in hell,

And what was worse, the odious curse

Of growing old and stale.

Loss of bloom, when wrinkles come,

And offers kind when none will mind,

The rosie joy, and sparkling eye

Grown faded and decayed,

At which, when known, she changed her tone,

And to the shepherd said,

'Dear swain, give o'er, I'll think once more,

Before I'll die a maid.'"

D'Urfey was a disciple of the "gentle art." Addison says "I must not

omit that my friend angles for a trout, the best of any man in England.

Mayflies come in late this season, or I myself should have had one of

his hooking." We can thus understand his enthusiastic commendation of

fishing--

"Of all the world's enjoyments,

That ever valu'd were,

There's none of our employments,

With fishing can compare;

Some preach, some write,

Some swear, some fight,

All golden lucre courting,

But fishing still bears off the bell

For profit or for sporting.

"_Chorus._--Then who a jolly fisherman, a fisherman will be?

His throat must wet,

Just like his net,

To keep out cold at sea.

"The country squire loves running

A pack of well-mouthed hounds,

Another fancies gunning

For wild ducks in his grounds;

This hunts, that fowls,

This hawks, Dick bowls,

No greater pleasure wishing,

But Tom that tells what sport excels,

Gives all the praise to fishing.

Then who, &c.

"A good _Westphalia gammon_

Is counted dainty fare;

But what is't to a salmon

Just taken from the Ware;

Wheat-ears and quailes,

Cocks, snipes and rayles,

Are prized while season's lasting,

But all must stoop to crawfish soup,

Or I've no skill in casting.

Then who, &c.

"And tho' some envious wranglers,

To jeer us will make bold,

And laugh at patient anglers,

Who stand so long i' th' cold;

They wait on Miss,

We wait on this,

And think it easie labour;

And if you know, fish profits too,

Consult our _Holland_ neighbour.

Then who, &c."

D'Urfey was a favourite with Queen Anne, and many of his poems were

written at Knole, Penshurst, and other seats of the nobility.

Up to the time we have now reached, we have not had the opportunity of

enrolling the name of a lady among our humorists. Although in society

so many of the fair sparkle and overflow with quick and graceful

raillery, we find that when they come to impress their thoughts upon

paper they are invariably sentimental. Authors are often a contrast to

their writings, but no doubt the female mind is generally of a poetical

complexion. Thus, in the early part of the last century we meet with

only three lady humorists, Mrs. Manley, mostly noted for her scandalous

stories: Mrs. Behn, whose humour was crude, chiefly that of rough

harlequinade and gross immorality, and Mrs. Centlivre. Early

opportunities of study were afforded to the last in a remarkable way.

When flying from the anger of her stepmother, she met Anthony Hammond,

then at Cambridge, and went to live with him at the University,

disguised in boy's clothes. Remarkable for her beauty, she married, when

only fifteen, a nephew of Sir Stephen Fox, and upon his death at

sixteen, a Captain Carrol, who was killed in a duel. It was then partly

owing to pecuniary embarrassments that she went on the stage and wrote

plays--the first of her dramas appearing in her twentieth year. So great

was the prejudice then against lady writers, that at her publisher's

suggestion her first production was anonymous. But those, who began by

deriding her pretensions, ended by acknowledging her merit; she became

a great favourite and constant writer for the stage, and an intimate

friend of Farquhar and Steele. There is an absence of indelicacy in her

plays, but not a little farcical humour, especially in the character of

"Marplot" in "The Busybody," and of rich "Mrs. Dowdy" with her vulgarity

and admirers in "The Platonic Lady." She often adopts the tone of the

day in ridiculing learned ladies. In one place she speaks as if even at

that time the founding of a college for ladies was in contemplation--

_Lady Reveller._ Why in such haste, Cousin Valeria?

_Valeria._ Oh! dear Cousin, don't stop me; I shall lose the finest

insect for dissection, a huge flesh fly, which Mr. Lovely sent me

just now, and opening the box to try the experiment, away it flew.

_Lady._ I am glad the poor fly escaped; will you never be weary of

these whimsies?

_Val._ Whimsies! Natural Philosophy a whimsy! Oh! the unlearned

world!

_Lady._ Ridiculous learning!

_Mrs. Alpiew._ Ridiculous indeed for women. Philosophy suits our sex

as jack-boots would do.

_Val._ Custom would bring them as much in fashion as furbelows, and

practice would make us as valiant as e'er a hero of them all; the

resolution is in the mind. Nothing can enslave that.

_Lady._ My stars! This girl will be mad--that's certain.

_Val._ Mad! So Nero banished philosophers from _Rome_, and the

first discoverer of the _Antipodes_ was condemned for a heretic.

_Lady._ In my conscience, Alpiew, this pretty creature's spoiled.

Well, cousin, might I advise you should bestow your fortune in

founding a college for the study of philosophy, where none but

women should be admitted; and to immortalize your name, they

should be called _Valerians_;--ha! ha! ha!

_Val._ What you make a jest of, I'd execute, were fortune in my

power.

Her notices of married life are interesting, as she had great

experience, having taken for her third husband Mr. Centlivre, cook to

Queen Anne. In "The Wonder, a Woman keeps a Secret," we have the

following dialogue upon this important subject:

_Col. Britton._ 'Egad, I think I must e'en marry, and sacrifice my

body for the good of my soul; wilt thou recommend me to a wife,

then--one that is willing to exchange her moydores for English

Liberty--ha friend?

_Fred._ She must be very handsome, I suppose?

_Col._ The handsomer the better, but be sure she has a nose.

_Fred._ Ay! ay! and some gold.

_Col._ Oh, very much gold. I shall never be able to swallow the

matrimonial pill, if it be not well gilded.

_Fred._ Puh, beauty will make it slide down nimbly.

_Col._ At first, perhaps it may, but the second or third dose will

choke me. I confess, Frederick, women are the prettiest playthings

in nature; but gold, substantial gold gives 'em the air, the mien,

the shape, the grace and beauty of a goddess.

_Fred._ And has not gold the same divinity in their eyes, Colonel?

_Col._ Too often--money is the very god of marriage, the poets

dress him in a saffron robe by which they figure out the golden

Deity, and his lighted torch blazons those mighty charms, which

encourage us to list under his banner.

In "The Artifice" we have a matrimonial contention:

_Lucy._ If you two are one flesh, how come you to have different

minds, pray, Sir?

_Watchit._ Because the mind has nothing to do with the flesh.

_Mrs. W._ That's your mistake, Sir; the body is governed by the

mind. So much philosophy I know.

_Wat._ Yes, yes; I believe you understand natural philosophy very

well, wife; I doubt not the flesh has got the better of the spirit

in you. Look ye, madam! every man's wife is his vineyard; you are

mine, therefore I wall you in. Ods budikins, ne'er a coxcomb in the

kingdom shall plant as much as a primrose in my ground.

_Mrs. W._ I am sure your management will produce nothing but

thorns.

_Wat._ Nay, every wife is a thorn in her husband's side. Your whole

sex is a kind of sweet-briar, and he who meddles with it is sure to

prick his fingers.

_Lucy._ That is when you handle us too roughly.

_Mrs. W._ You are a kind of rue: neither good for smell nor taste.

_Wat._ But very wholesome, wife.

_Mrs. W._ Ay, so they say of all bitters, yet I would not be

obliged to feed on gentian and wormwood.

Some subjects are peculiarly suitable for light female humour. In "The

Beau's Duel, or a Soldier for the Ladies," we have the following

soliloquy by Sir William Mode, a fop, as he stands in his night-gown

looking into his glass:

This rising early is the most confounded thing on earth, nothing so

destructive to the complexion. Blister me, how I shall look in the

side box to-night, wretchedly upon my soul. [_looking in the glass

all the while._] Yet it adds something of a languishing air, not

altogether unbecoming, and by candle light may do mischief; but I

must stay at home to recover some colour, and that may be as well

laid on too; so 'tis resolved I will go. Oh 'tis unspeakable

pleasure to be in the side box, or bow'd to from the stage, and be

distinguished by the beaux of quality, to have a lord fly into

one's arms, and kiss one as amorously as a mistress. Then tell me

aloud, that he dined with his Grace and that he and the ladies were

so fond of me, they talked of nothing else. Then says I, "My lord,

his Grace does me too much honour." Then, my lord, "This play 'tis

not worth seeing; we havn't been seen at t'other house to-night;

and the ladies will be disappointed not to receive a bow from Sir

William." "He, he, he," says I, "my lord, I wait upon your

lordship." "Then," says my lord, "lead the way Sir William." "O,

pray my lord, I beg your lordship's pardon." "Nay, Sir William."

"Pray my lord," (_Enter La Riviere, Sir W's valet_). "Pray Sir

William." "Pray my lord."

(_As he says this several times La Riviere enters behind him, but

as he designs to pass by him, is still prevented by his turning

from one side to t'other, as he acts himself for the lord._)

_La Riv._ Hey! What the devil is he conjuring and talking with

invisible lords? He's in his airs, some pleasing imagination

hurries him out of his senses. But I must to my cue. Hem! hem! Sir,

dere be one two gentlemen below come to wait upon you dis morning,

sal I show dem up?

_Sir. W._ No, my lord, by no means, I know better things--

_La Riv._ What then am I a lord? Egad I never knew my quality

before. (_Aside._)

_Sir W._ Pshaw! this blockhead has rous'd me from the prettiest

entertainment in the world (_Aside_). Well, what would you, Sir?

_La Riv._ I voo'd tell you, Sir, dere be one two gentlemen wait

upon you.

_Sir W._ And let 'em wait till I have done. I had a thousand fine

things to say on that occasion, but this rude fellow has frightened

'em all out of my head. (_Aside._) Well, since my better diversion

is over, show 'em up.

In "The Wonder" we have an amusing scene between Lissardo, servant to

Felix, and Flora, maid to Violante. The former had been very sweet upon

the latter--telling her that his "chaps watered for a kiss," and that

"he would revenge himself on her lips;" but a change comes over him on

his being presented by Violante with a ring to be worn for his master's

sake.

_Lissardo._ I shall, Madam, (_puts on the ring._) Methinks a

diamond ring is a vast addition to the little finger of a

gentleman. (_Admiring his hand._)

_Flora._ That ring must be mine. Well, Lissardo, what haste you

make to pay off arrears now? Look how the fellow stands!

_Liss._ Egad! methinks I have a very pretty hand--and very

white--and the shape! Faith! I never minded it so much before! In

my opinion it is a very fine shaped hand, and becomes a diamond

ring as well as the first grandee's in Portugal.

_Flo._ The man's transported! Is this your love? This your

impatience?

_Liss._ (_Takes snuff._) Now in my mind, I take snuff with a very

jaunty air. Well, I am persuaded I want nothing but a coach and a

title to make me a very fine gentleman.

(_Struts about._)

_Flo._ Sweet Mr. Lissardo, (_curtseying_,) if I may presume to

speak to you, without affronting your little finger--

_Liss._ Do so, Madam, I ask your pardon. Is it to me or to the ring

you direct your discourse, Madam?

_Flo._ Madam! Good lack! how much a diamond ring improves one!

_Liss._ Why, tho' I say it, I can carry myself as well as anybody.

But what wert thou going to say, child?

_Flo._ Why, I was going to say, that I fancy you had best let me

keep that ring; it will be a very pretty wedding-ring.

_Liss._ Would it not? Humph! Ah! But--but--but--I believe I shan't

marry yet a while.

_Flo._ You shan't, you say; very well! I suppose you design that

ring for Inis?

_Liss._ No, no, I never bribe an old acquaintance. Perhaps I might

let it sparkle in the eyes of a stranger a little, till we come to

a right understanding. But then, like all other mortal things, it

would return from whence it came.

_Flo._ Insolent! Is that your manner of dealing?

_Liss._ With all but thee--kiss me, you little rogue, you.

(_Hugging her._)

_Flo._ Little rogue! Prithee, fellow, don't be so familiar,

(_pushing him away_,) if I mayn't keep your ring, I can keep my

kisses.

_Liss._ You can, you say! Spoke with the air of a chambermaid.

_Flo._ Reply'd with the spirit of a serving-man.

D'Urfey is said to have been the first, and Carey the last of those who

at this period united the professions of musician, dramatist and song

writer. The latter was the natural son of the Marquis of Halifax, who

presented the crown to William III. He wrote the popular song "Sally in

our Alley," and ridiculed Ambrose Philips in a poem called "Namby

Pamby." Overcome either by embarrassed circumstances, or the envy of

rivals, he died by his own hand in 1743. He has much that is clever

mingled with extravagant fancies. Most of his songs are amorous, though

never indelicate. Some are for drinking bouts.

"Come all ye jolly Bucchanals

That love to tope good wine,

Let's offer up a hogshead

Unto our master's shrine,

Come, let us drink and never shrink,

For I'll tell you the reason why,

It's a great sin to leave a house till we've drunk the cellar dry.

In times of old I was a fool,

I drank the water clear,

But Bacchus took me from that rule,

He thought 'twas too severe;

He filled a bumper to the brim

And bade me take a sup,

But had it been a gallon pot,

By Jove I'd tossed it up.

And ever since that happy time,

Good wine has been my cheer,

Now nothing puts me in a swoon

But water or small beer.

Then let us tope about, my lads,

And never flinch nor fly,

But fill our skins brimfull of wine,

And drain the bottles dry."

Many of his plays were burlesque operas, introducing songs. In one of

them the "Dragon of Wantley," we have--

"Zeno, Plato, Aristotle,

All were lovers of the bottle;

Poets, Painters, and Musicians,

Churchmen, Lawyers, and Physicians;

All admire a pretty lass,

All require a cheerful glass,

Every pleasure has its season,

Love and drinking are no treason."

He was fond of jocose love-ditties, such as:

"Pigs shall not be

So fond as we;

We will out-coo the turtle-dove,

Fondly toying,

Still enjoying,

Sporting sparrows we'll outlove."

Among his successful farces is the well-known Chrononhotonthologos

written to ridicule some bombastic tragedies of the day.

Chrononhotonthologos is king of Queerummania, Bombardinian is his

general, while his courtiers are Aldiborontiphoscophornio and Rigdum

Funnidos. The following gives a good specimen of his ballad style.

"O! London is a dainty place,

A great and gallant city,

For all the streets are paved with gold,

And all the folks are witty.

"And there's your lords and ladies fine,

That ride in coach-and-six,

Who nothing drink but claret wine,

And talk of politicks.

"And there's your beauxs with powdered clothes,

Bedaubed from head to shin;

Their pocket-holes adorned with gold,

But not one sous within."

CHAPTER X.

Vanbrugh--Colley Cibber--Farquhar.

Vanbrugh--a man of Dutch extraction as his name suggests--was one of the

few whom literature led, though indirectly, to fortune. He became first

known as a playwriter, but also having studied architecture conceived

the idea of combining his two arts by the construction of a grand

theatre on the site of the present Haymarket Opera House. The enterprise

was doomed to be one of the many failures from which that ill-starred

spot has become remarkable, and Vanbrugh after vainly attempting to

support his undertaking by the exertion of all his dramatic power,

determined to quit literature altogether, and devoted himself to the

more remunerative profession. In this he was successful--he built

Blenheim, Castle Howard, and half-a-dozen of the stately halls of

England. We may suppose that he acquired wealth, for he built several

houses for himself, and in them seems to have exhibited his whimsical

fancy. One which he built near Whitehall was called by Swift "a thing

like a goose pie," and he called that which he built for himself, near

Greenwich, "the mince pie."

There is a considerable amount of rough humour in Vanbrugh, and some

indelicacy, more like that of Aristophanes than of English writers. We

find one gentleman calling another "Old Satan," and fashionable ladies

indulging freely in oaths. A nobleman tells a lady, before her husband,

that he is desperately in love with her, "strike me speechless;" to

which she replies by giving him a box on the ear, and her husband by

drawing his sword. Everything bespeaks a low and primitive state of

society; but we must also remember that while something strong was

required, it was not then thought objectionable that the scenes of the

drama should be very different from those of real life.

The following are from the "Relapse," the first play that made Vanbrugh

known, and which we might therefore expect to be one of his most

humorous comedies. Here we have a good caricature of the fops of the

day. In the first, Lord Foppington in his fashionable twang, gives us

his views, and sketches his mode of life.

_Amanda._ Well I must own I think books the best entertainment in

the world.

_Lord F._ I am so much of your ladyship's mind, madam, that I have

a private gallery where I walk sometimes, which is furnished with

nothing but books and looking glasses. Madam, I have gilded 'em so

prettily, before G--, it is the most entertaining thing in the

world to walk and look upon 'em.

_Amanda._ Nay, I love a neat library too, but 'tis I think the

inside of a book should recommend it most to us.

_Lord F._ That, I must confess, I am not altogether so fond of. For

to my mind the inside of a book is to entertain oneself with the

forced product of another man's brain. Now, I think a man of

quality and breeding may be much better diverted with the natural

sprouts of his own. But to say the truth, madam, let a man love

reading never so well, when once he comes to know this town, he

finds so many better ways of passing away the four-and-twenty hours

that 'twere ten thousand pities he should consume his time in that.

For example, madam, my life, my life, madam, is a perpetual stream

of pleasure that glides through such a variety of entertainments, I

believe the wisest of our ancestors never had the least conception

of any of 'em. I rise, madam, about ten o'clock. I don't rise

sooner because it is the worst thing in the world for the

complexion, not that I pretend to be a beau, but a man must

endeavour to look wholesome, lest he make so nauseous a figure in

the side box, the ladies should be compelled to turn their eyes

upon the play. So at ten o'clock I say I rise. Now, if I find it a

good day I resolve to take a turn in the park, and see the fine

women; so huddle on my clothes and get dressed by one. If it be

nasty weather I take a turn in the chocolate house, where as you

walk, madam, you have the prettiest prospect in the world; you have

looking glasses all round you. But I'm afraid I tire the company.

_Berinthia._ Not at all; pray go on.

_Lord F._ Why then, ladies, from thence I go to dinner at Lacket's,

where you are so nicely and delicately served that, stab my vitals!

they shall compose you a dish no bigger than a saucer, shall come

to fifty shillings. Between eating my dinner (and washing my mouth,

ladies) I spend my time till I go to the play, when till nine

o'clock I entertain myself with looking upon the company; and

usually dispose of one hour more in leading them out. So there's

twelve of the four-and-twenty pretty well over. The other twelve,

madam, are disposed of in two articles, in the first four I toast

myself drunk, and t'other eight I sleep myself sober again. Thus,

ladies, you see my life is an eternal round O of delight.

Lord Foppington's interview with his Court artists is well described--

_Tom Fashion._ There's that fop now, has not by nature wherewithal

to move a cook-maid, and by that time these fellows have done with

him, egad he shall melt down a countess! But now for my reception;

I'll engage it shall be as cold a one as a courtier's to his

friend, who comes to put him in mind of his promise.

_Lord F._ (_to his tailor._) Death and eternal tortures! Sir, I say

the packet's too high by a foot.

_Tailor._ My lord, if it had been an inch lower it would not have

held your lordship's packet-handkerchief.

_Lord F._ Rat my packet-handkerchief! have not I a page to carry

it? You may make him a packet up to his chin a purpose for it; but

I will not have mine come so near my face.

_Tailor._ 'Tis not for me to dispute your lordship's fancy.

_Lord F._ Look you, Sir, I shall never be reconciled to this

nauseous packet, therefore pray get me another suit with all manner

of expedition, for this is my eternal salvation. Mrs. Calico, are

not you of my mind?

_Mrs. Cal._ O, directly, my lord! It can never be too low.

_Lord F._ You are positively in the right on't, for the packet

becomes no part of the body but the knee.

(_Exit tailor._)

_Mrs. Cal._ I hope your lordship is pleased with your steenkirk.

_Lord F._ In love with it, stap my vitals! bring your bill, you

shall be paid to-morrow.

_Mrs. C._ I humbly thank your honour. (_Exit._)

_Lord F._ Hark thee, shoemaker! these shoes an't ugly but they

don't fit me.

_Shoemaker._ My lord, methinks they fit you very well.

_Lord F._ They hurt me just below the instep.

_Shoe._ (_feeling his foot_) My lord, they don't hurt you there.

_Lord F._ I tell thee they pinch me execrably.

_Shoe._ My lord, if they pinch you I'll be bound to be hanged,

that's all.

_Lord F._ Why wilt thou undertake to persuade me that I cannot

feel?

_Shoe._ Your lordship may please to feel what you think fit; but

the shoe does not hurt you. I think I understand my trade.

_Lord F._ Now by all that's great and powerful thou art an

incomprehensible coxcomb! but thou makest good shoes and so I'll

bear with thee.

Tom Fashion personates his brother, Lord Foppington, and goes down to

the country seat of Sir Tunbelly Clumpsey, in hope of marrying his rich

daughter. The old Squire at first turns out to meet him with guns and

pitchforks, but changes to the utmost servility on hearing that he is a

lord. It is now Tom's object to have the marriage ceremony performed

before he is discovered.

_Fashion._ Your father, I suppose you know, has resolved to make me

happy in being your husband, and I hope I may depend upon your

consent to perform what he desires.

_Miss Hoyden._ Sir, I never disobey my father in anything but

eating of green gooseberries.

_Fash._ So good a daughter must needs be an admirable wife; I am

therefore impatient till you are mine, and hope you will so far

consider the violence of my love as not to defer my happiness so

long as your father designs it.

_Miss H._ Pray, my lord, how long is that?

_Fash._ Madam, a thousand years--a whole week.

_Miss H._ A week! why I shall be an old woman by that time.

_Fash._ And I an old man.

_Miss H._ Why I thought it was to-morrow morning as soon as I was

up, I am sure nurse told me so.

_Fash._ And it shall be to-morrow morning still, if you'll consent.

_Miss H._ If I'll consent! Why I thought I was to obey you as my

husband.

_Fash._ That's when we're married, till then I am to obey you.

_Miss H._ Why then if we are to take it by turns it's the same

thing. I'll obey you now, and when we are married you shall obey

me.

_Fash._ With all my heart; but I doubt we must get nurse on our

side, or we shall hardly prevail with the chaplain.

_Miss H._ O Lord, I can tell you a way how to persuade her to

anything.

_Fash._ How's that?

_Miss H._ Why tell her she's a wholesome comely woman, and give her

half-a-crown.

_Fash._ Nay, if that will do, she shall have half a score of them.

_Miss H._ O gemini! for half that she'd marry you herself. I'll run

and call her.

_Fash._ So matters go swimmingly. This is a rare girl i' faith. I

shall have a fine time on't with her in London, I'm much mistaken

if she don't prove a March hare all the year round. What a

scampering chase will she on't, when she finds the whole kennel of

beaux at her tail! hey to the park, and the play, and the church

and the devil; she'll show them sport, I'll warrant 'em. But no

matter, she brings me an estate that will afford me a separate

maintenance.

The following from "The Provoked Husband," gives a good specimen of

social hypocrisy.

_Servant._ Madam, here's my Lady Fanciful to wait upon your

ladyship.

_Lady Brute._ Shield me, kind heaven! what an inundation of

impertinence is here coming upon us!

At the end of this unwelcome visit, we have the following hit at the

ceremonious politeness then fashionable.

_Lady B._ What going already, madam.

_Lady Fan._ I must beg you excuse me this once, for really I have

eighteen visits to return this afternoon. So you see I am

importuned by the women as well as by the men.

_Bel._ (_aside_). And she's quits with 'em both.

_Lady F._ Nay, you shan't go one step out of the room.

_Lady B._ Indeed, I'll wait upon you down.

_Lady F._ No sweet, Lady Brute, you know I swoon at ceremony.

_Lady B._ Pray give me leave.

_Lady F._ You know I wont.

_Lady B._ Indeed I must.

_Lady F._ Indeed you shan't.

_Lady B._ Indeed I will.

_Lady F._ Indeed you shan't.

_Lady B._ Indeed I will.

_Lady F._ Indeed you shan't, indeed, indeed, indeed you shan't.

(_Exit running._)

The aversions and disputes of husbands and wives furnish the subject of

some of his humour. Sir John Brute says:--

"Sure if women had been ready created, the devil instead of being

kicked down in hell had been married."

_Lady Brute._ Are you afraid of being in love, Sir?

_Heartfree._ I should if there were any danger of it.

_Lady B._ Pray, why so?

_Heart._ Because I always had an aversion to being used like a dog.

_Belinda._ Why truly, men in love are seldom used much better.

_Lady B._ But were you never in love, Sir?

_Heart._ No, I thank heaven, madam.

_Bel._ Pray, where got you your learning then?

_Heart._ From other people's expense.

_Bel._ That's being a spunger, Sir, which is scarce honest. If

you'd buy some experience with your own money, as 'twould be

fairlier got, so 'twould stick longer by you.

* * * * *

_Berinthia._ Ah, Amanda, it's a delicious thing to be a young

widow!

_Aman._ You'll hardly make me think so.

_Ber._ Phu! because you are in love with your husband; but that is

not every woman's case.

_Aman._ I hope 'twas yours at least.

_Ber._ Mine, say ye? Now I have a great mind to tell you a lie, but

I should do it so awkwardly you'd find me out.

_Aman._ Then e'en speak the truth.

_Ber._ Shall I? Then after all, I did love him, Amanda, as a man

does penance.

_Aman._ Why did you not refuse to marry him, then?

_Ber._ Because my mother would have whipped me.

_Aman._ How did you live together?

_Ber._ Like man and wife--asunder. He loved the country, I the

town. He hawks and hounds, I coaches and equipage. He eating and

drinking, I carding and playing. He the sound of a horn, I the

squeak of a fiddle. Whenever we met we gave one another the spleen.

_Aman._ But tell me one thing truly and sincerely.

_Ber._ What's that?

_Aman._ Notwithstanding all these jars, did not his death at last

extremely trouble you?

_Ber._ O, yes. Not that my present pangs were so very violent, but

the after pangs were intolerable. I was forced to wear a beastly

widow's band a twelvemonth for 't.

In the "Journey to London," written at the end of Vanbrugh's life, and

not finished, there is a very amusing account of the manner in which a

country squire and family travelled up to London in the seventeenth

century.

_James._ They have added two cart-horses to the four old mares,

because my lady will have it said she came to town in her

coach-and-six; and ha! ha! heavy George, the ploughman, rides

postilion!

_Uncle Richard._ Very well; the journey begins as it should

do--James!

_James._ Sir!

_Uncle R._ Dost know whether they bring all the children with them?

_James._ Only Squire Humphry and Miss Betty, Sir; the other six are

put to board at half-a-crown a week a head with Joan Growse, at

Smoke-dunghill Farm.

_Uncle R._ The Lord have mercy upon all good folks! What work will

these people make! Dost know when they'll be here?

_James._ John says, Sir, they'd have been here last night, but that

the old wheezy-belly horse tired, and the two fore-wheels came

crash down at once in Waggon-rut Lane. Sir, they were cruelly

loaden, as I understand. My lady herself, he says, laid on four

mail trunks, besides the great deal-box, which fat Tom sat upon

behind.

_Uncle R._ So.

_James._ Then within the coach there was Sir Francis, my lady, the

great fat lap-dog, Squire Humphry, Miss Betty, my lady's maid, Mrs.

Handy, and Doll Tripe, the cook--but she puked with sitting

backward, so they mounted her into the coach-box.

_Uncle R._ Very well.

_James._ Then, Sir, for fear of a famine before they should get to

the baiting-place, there was such baskets of plum-cake, Dutch

gingerbread, Cheshire cheese, Naples biscuits, maccaroons, neats'

tongues, and cold boiled beef; and in case of sickness, such

bottles of usquebaugh, black-cherry brandy, cinnamon water, sack,

tent, and strong beer, as made the old coach crack again.

_Uncle R._ Well said!

_James._ And for defence of this good cheer, and my lady's little

pearl necklace, there was the family basket-hilt sword, the great

Turkish cimiter, the old blunder-buss, a good bag of bullets, and a

great horn of gunpowder.

_Uncle R._ Admirable!

Vanbrugh's friend, Colley Cibber, was also of foreign origin. His father

was a native of Holstein, and coming over to England before the

Restoration, is known as having executed the two figures of lunatics,

for the gates of Bethlehem Hospital. Colley commenced life as an actor

and playwriter, and Vanbrugh was so pleased with his "Love's Last Shift,

or the Fool of Fashion," that he wrote an improved version of it in "The

Relapse." Thus Sir Novelty Fashion was developed into Lord Foppington,

and Vanbrugh, who patronized Cibber, employed him to act the character.

He was an exception to the rule that a good playwriter is not a good

performer. In Cibber, we especially mark the Spanish element, which then

tinged the drama, and although somewhat prosy and sententious, he is

fertile and entertaining in his love intrigues. Of real humour, he seems

to have no gift--some of his best attempts referring to such common

failures as sometimes occur at hotels. We have in "She wou'd, and she

wou'd not,"

_Host._ Did you call, gentlemen?

_Trapparti._ Yes, and bawl too, Sir. Here the gentlemen are almost

famished, and nobody comes near 'em. What have you in the house now

that will be ready presently?

_Host._ You may have what you please, Sir.

_Hypolita._ Can you get us a partridge?

_Host._ We have no partridges; but we'll get you what you please in

a moment. We have a very good neck of mutton, Sir, if you please,

it shall be clapt down in a moment.

_Hyp._ Have you any pigeons or chickens?

_Host._ Truly, Sir, we have no fowl in the house at present; if you

please, you may have anything else in a moment.

_Hyp._ Then, prithee, get us some young rabbits.

_Host._ Upon my word, Sir, rabbits are so scarce, they are not to

be had for money.

_Trap._ Have you any fish?

_Host._ Fish! Sir; I dressed yesterday the finest dish that ever

came upon a table; I am sorry we have none, Sir; but, if you

please, you may have anything else in a moment.

_Trap._ Hast thou nothing but Anything else in the house?

_Host._ Very good mutton, Sir.

_Hyp._ Prithee, get us a breast, then.

_Host._ Breast! Don't you love the neck, Sir?

_Hyp._ Ha' ye nothing in the house but the neck?

_Host._ Really, Sir, we don't use to be so unprovided, but at

present we have nothing else left.

_Trap._ Faith, Sir, I don't know but a Nothing else may be very

good meat, when Anything else is not to be had.

Sometimes there is a little smartness in the dialogue, and in the

"Careless Husband," Lord Foppington uses such strange expletives as "Sun

burn me," "Stop my breath," "Set my blood." But the greater part of any

amusement that there is, depends, as in the Roman Comedy, upon the

tricks of low-minded mercenary servants.

Although neither of the two last-named writers was English by descent,

they were both so by adoption, and the same may be said of the next

author, Farquhar, who was born at Londonderry in 1678, but whose Irish

characters want the charm of the pure national comicality. He was the

son of a clergyman who sent him to the University, but his taste being

averse to the prescribed course of study, he left it, and became an

actor. Want of voice soon excluded him from the stage, and he entered

the army--a profession which we might conclude, from the experiences of

Wycherley and Vanbrugh, was somewhat favourable for the cultivation of

dramatic talent. The constant companionship of men of wild and fanciful

dispositions, the leisure for observing their talents and peculiarities,

and the perpetual demand for the exercise of light repartee, would all

tend to furnish effective materials for the stage. Farquhar soon

married, and his poverty, with an increasing family, led to his

producing a play nearly every year from 1703 to 1707. Finally he sold

out, and was in deep distress. Speaking of his condition with his

accustomed gaiety, he says:--

"I have very little estate, but what is under the circumference of

my hat, and should I by perchance come to lose my head, I should

not be worth a groat."

He thus sketches his mental peculiarities:--

"As to my 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 every-day apparel; and it has hitherto found few

holidays to make it change its clothes. In short, my constitution

is very splenetic and yet very amorous, both which I endeavour to

hide lest the former should offend others, and that the latter

might incommode myself; and my reason is so vigilant in restraining

these two failings, that I am taken for an easy-natured man with my

own sex, and an ill-natured clown by yours."

Farquhar was very fond of jesting about his own misfortunes, and perhaps

the following from "Love in a Bottle," exhibits a scene in which he had

been himself an actor in real life.

_Widow Bullfinch._ Mr. Lyric, what do you mean by all this? Here

you have lodged two years in my house, promised me eighteen-pence a

week for your lodging, and I have never received eighteen

farthings, not the value of _that_, Mr. Lyric, (_snaps her

fingers._) You always put me off with telling me of your play, your

play! Sir, you shall play no more with me: I'm in earnest.

_Lyric._ There's more trouble in a play than you imagine, Madam.

_Bull._ There's more trouble with a lodger than you think, Mr.

Lyric.

_Lyric._ First there's the decorum of time.

_Bull._ Which you never observe, for you keep the worst hours of

any lodger in town.

_Lyric._ Then there's the exactness of characters.

_Bull._ And you have the most scandalous one I ever heard....

_Lyric._ (_Aside_) Was ever poor rogue so ridden. If ever the Muses

had a horse, I am he. (_Aloud_) Faith! Madam, poor Pegasus is

jaded.

_Bull._ Come, come, Sir; he shan't slip his neck out of collar for

all that. Money I will have, and money I must have.

The above is taken from Farquhar's first play, and we generally find

richer humour in the first attempts of genius than in their later and

more elaborate productions. Widow Bullfinch says that "Champagne is a

fine liquor, which all your beaux drink to make em' witty."

_Mockmode._ Witty! oh by the universe I must be witty! I'll drink

nothing else. I never was witty in all my life. I love jokes

dearly. Here, Club, bring us a bottle of what d'ye call it--the

witty liquor.

_Bull._ But I thought that all you that were bred at the University

would be wits naturally?

_Mock._ The quite contrary, Madam, there's no such thing there. We

dare not have wit there for fear of being counted rakes. Your solid

philosophy is all read there, which is clear another thing. But now

I will be a wit, by the universe.... Is that the witty liquor? Come

fill the glasses. Now that I have found my mistress, I must next

find my wits.

_Club._ So you had need, master, for those that find a mistress are

generally out of their wits. (_Gives him a glass._)

_Mock._ Come, fill for yourself. (_They jingle and drink._) But

where's the wit now, Club? Have you found it?

_Club._ Egad! master, I think 'tis a very good jest.

_Mock._ What?

_Club._ What? why drinking--you'll find, master, that this same

gentleman in the straw doublet, this same will-i'-th'-wisp is a wit

at the bottom. (_Fills._) Here, here, master; how it puns and

quibbles in the glass!

_Mock._ By the universe, now I have it!--the wit lies in the

jingling. All wit consists most in jingling; hear how the glasses

rhyme to one another.

Again:--

_Mock._ Could I but dance well, push well,[63] play upon the flute,

and swear the most modish oaths, I would set up for quality with

e'er a young nobleman of 'em all. Pray what are the most

fashionable oaths in town? Zoons, I take it, is a very becoming

one.

_Rigadoon._ (_a dancing-master._) Zoons is only used by the

disbanded officers and bullies, but zauns is the beaux

pronunciation.

_Mock._ Zauns!

_Rig._ Yes, Sir; we swear as we dance; smooth and with a

cadence--Zauns! 'Tis harmonious, and pleases the ladies, because it

is soft. Zauns, Madam, is the only compliment our great beaux pass

on a lady.

_Mock._ But suppose a lady speaks to me; what must I say?

_Rig._ Nothing, Sir; you must take snuff grin, and make her a

humble cringe--thus: (_Bows foppishly and takes snuff; Mockmode

imitates him awkwardly, and taking snuff, sneezes._) O Lord, Sir!

you must never sneeze; 'tis as unbecoming after orangery as grace

after meat.

_Mock._ I thought people took it to clear the brain.

_Rig._ The beaux have no brains at all, Sir; their skull is a

perfect snuff-box; and I heard a physician swear, who opened one of

'em, that the three divisions of his head were filled with

orangery, bergamot, and plain Spanish.

_Mock._ Zauns! I must sneeze, (_sneezes._) Bless me!

_Rig._ Oh, fy! Mr. Mockmode! what a rustical expression that is!

'Bless me!' You should upon all such occasions cry, Dem me! You

would be as nauseous to the ladies as one of the old patriarchs, if

you used that obsolete expression.

Sir Harry Wildair gives a good sketch of a lady's waiting-woman of the

time.

_Colonel Standard._ Here, here, Mrs. Parly; whither so fast?

_Parly._ Oh Lord! my master! Sir, I was running to Mademoiselle

Furbelow, the French milliner, for a new burgundy for my lady's

head.

_Col. S._ No, child; you're employed about an old-fashioned

garniture for your master's head, if I mistake not your errand.

_Parly._ Oh, Sir! there's the prettiest fashion lately come over!

so airy, so French, and all that. The pinners are double ruffled

with twelve plaits of a side, and open all from the face; the hair

is frizzled all up round the head, and stands as stiff as a bodkin.

Then the favourites hang loose on the temples, with a languishing

lock in the middle. Then the caul is extremely wide, and over all

is a coronet raised very high, and all the lappets behind.

This lady on being questioned, says that her wages are ten pounds a

year, but she makes two hundred a year of her mistress's old clothes.

But Farquhar is best known as the author of the "Beaux Stratagem."

Though not so full of humour, as "Love in a Bottle," it had more action

and bolder sensational incidents. The play proved a great success, but

one which will always have sad associations. It came too late. Farquhar

died in destitution, while the plaudits resounded in his ears.

The following are specimens from his last play:--

(Aimwell (a gentleman of broken fortune looking for a rich wife) goes to

church in the country to further his designs.)

_Aimwell._ The appearance of a stranger in a country church draws

as many gazers as a blazing star; no sooner he comes into the

cathedral, but a train of whispers runs buzzing round the

congregation in a moment: _Who is he?_ _Whence comes he?_ _Do you

know him?_ Then I, Sir, tips me the verger with half-a-crown; he

pockets the simony, and inducts me into the best pew in the church;

I pull out my snuff-box, turn myself round, bow to the bishop, or

the dean, if he be the commanding officer, single out a beauty,

rivet both my eyes to hers, set my nose a bleeding by the strength

of imagination, and show the whole church my concern--by my

endeavouring to hide it; after the sermon the whole town gives me

to her for a lover, and by persuading the lady that I am a-dying

for her, the tables are turned, and she in good earnest falls in

love with me.

_Archer._ There's nothing in this, Tom, without a precedent; but

instead of rivetting your eyes to a beauty, try to fix 'em upon a

fortune; that's our business at present.

_Aim._ Psha! no woman can be a beauty without a fortune. Let me

alone, for I am a marksman.

Talking afterwards of Dorinda, whom he observes in church, he says,

_Aimwell._ Call me Oroondates, Cesario, Amadis, all that romance

can in a lover paint, and then I'll answer:--O, Archer! I read her

thousands in her looks, she looked like Ceres in her harvest; corn,

wine and oil, milk and honey, gardens, groves, and purling streams

played in her plenteous face.

CHAPTER XI.

Congreve--Lord Dorset.

The birthplace of Congreve is uncertain, but he was born about 1671, and

was educated in Kilkenny and Dublin. He is an instance of that union of

Irish versatility with English reflection, which has produced the most

celebrated wits. We also mark in him a considerable improvement in

delicacy. "The Old Batchelor" was his first play, the success of which

was so great that Lord Halifax made him one of the commissioners for

licensing hackney-coaches; he afterwards gave him a place in the Pipe

Office and Custom House.

Belmour begins very suitably by saying--

"Come come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools; they

have need of 'em. Wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation;

and let Father Time shake his glass."

Speaking of Belinda, he says--

"In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never

speaks well of me herself, nor suffers anybody else to rail at me."

Heartwell, an old bachelor, says--

"Women's asses bear great burdens; are forced to undergo dressing,

dancing, singing, sighing, whining, rhyming, flattery, lying,

grinning, cringing, and the drudgery of loving to boot.... Every

man plays the fool once in his life, but to marry is to play the

fool all one's life long."

In Belinda we have a specimen of one of the fast young ladies of the

period, who certainly seems to have used strong language. She cries,

Oh, that most inhuman, barbarous, hackney-coach! I am jolted to a

jelly, am I not horridly touz'd?

She chides Belmour,

Prithee hold thy tongue! Lord! he has so pestered me with flowers

and stuff, I think I shan't endure the sight of a fire for a

twelvemonth.

_Belmour._ Yet all can't melt that cruel frozen heart.

_Bel._ O, gad! I hate your hideous fancy--you said that once

before--if you must talk impertinently, for Heaven's sake let it be

with variety; don't come always like the devil wrapped in flames.

I'll not hear a sentence more that begins with, "I burn," or an "I

beseech you, Madam."

At last she exclaims,

"O! my conscience! I could find in my heart to marry thee, purely

to be rid of thee."

There is frequently a conflict of wit. Sharper tells Sir Joseph Willot

that he lost many pounds, when he was defending him in a scuffle the

night before. He hopes he will repay him.

Money is but dirt, Sir Joseph; mere dirt, Sir Joseph.

_Sir Joseph._ But I profess 'tis a dirt I have washed my hands of

at present.

Lord Froth in "The Double Dealer" says,

There is nothing more unbecoming in a man of gravity than to laugh,

to be pleased with what pleases the crowd. When I laugh, I always

laugh alone.

_Brisk._ I suppose that's because you laugh at your own jests.

Sir Paul Plyant in great wroth expresses himself as follows:

The subjects of Congreve's Comedies would often be thought objectionable

at the present day. The humour is not in the plot, but in the general

dialogue. In "Love for Love," Ben Legend, a sailor, speaking of lawyers,

says--

Lawyer, I believe there's many a cranny and leak unstopt in your

conscience. If so be that one had a pump to your bosom, I believe

we should discern a foul hold. They say a witch will sail in a

sieve, but I believe the devil would not venture aboard your

conscience.

The last play he wrote, which failed, was deficient in wit, but had

plenty of inebriety in it. After singing a drinking song, Sir Wilful

says in "The Way of the World."

The sun's a good pimple, an honest soaker, he has a cellar at your

Antipodes. If I travel, Aunt, I touch at your Antipodes--your

Antipodes are a good rascally sort of topsy-turvy fellows. If I had

a bumper I'd stand on my head, and drink a health to them.

* * * * *

_Scandal._ Yes, mine (_pictures_) are not in black and white, and

yet there are some set out in their true colours, both men and

women. I can show you pride, folly, affectation, wantonness,

inconstancy, covetousness, dissimulation, malice and ignorance all

in one piece. Then I can show your lying, foppery, vanity,

cowardice, bragging, incontinence, and ugliness in another piece,

and yet one of them is a celebrated beauty, and t'other a professed

beau. I have paintings, too, some pleasant enough.

_Mrs. Frail._ Come, let's hear 'em.

_Scan._ Why, I have a beau in a bagnio cupping for a complexion,

and sweating for a shape.

_Mrs. F._ So----

_Scan._ Then I have a lady burning brandy in a cellar with a

hackney coachman.

_Mrs. F._ Oh! well, but that story is not true.

_Scan._ I have some hieroglyphics, too; I have a lawyer with a

hundred hands, two heads, and but one face; a divine with two faces

and one head; and I have a soldier with his brains in his belly,

and his heart where his head should be.

It has been said that Congreve retired on the appearance of Mrs.

Centlivre, but so high was the opinion entertained of his genius that he

was buried in Westminster Abbey, and his pall was supported by noblemen.

Pope was one of his greatest admirers, and dedicated his translation of

Homer to him.

Dryden writes on Congreve.

"In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise,

He moved the mind, but had not power to raise,

Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please,

Yet doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease.

In differing talents both adorned their age,

One for the study, t'other for the stage,

But both to Congreve justly shall submit,

One matched in judgment, both over-matched in wit."

Macaulay says "the wit of Congreve far outshines that of every comic

writer, except Sheridan, who has arisen within the last two centuries."

Lord Dorset of whom we have above spoken deserves some passing notice.

He was high in the favour of Charles II., James, and William; and was

one of the most accomplished of the courtiers of that day, who,

notwithwstanding their dissipation, were more or less scholars, and

wrote poetry. What was better, he was a munificent supporter of real

literary genius, and patronized Dryden, and to judge by their

commendations was not neglectful of Congreve and Pope.

Most of his poems are in the pastoral strain, but do not show any great

talent. Two or three of them have some humour--

"Dorinda's sparkling wit and eyes

United, cast too fierce a light,

Which blazes high, but quickly dies,

Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight;

* * * * *

"Love is a calmer, gentler joy,

Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace;

Her cupid is a blackguard boy

That runs his link right in your face."

Lord Dorset was at the battle of Opdam when the Dutch Admiral's fleet

was destroyed in 1665. The night before the engagement he wrote the well

known epistle

"To all you ladies now on land,

We men at sea indite,

And first would have you understand

How hard it is to write;

The Muses now and Neptune too,

We must implore to write to you.

With a fa la la la la.

"For though the Muses should prove kind,

And fill our empty brain,

Yet if rough Neptune raise the wind,

To wave the azure main,

Our paper, pen and ink, and we,

Roll up and down our ships at sea.

With a fa, la, &c.

"Should foggy Opdam chance to throw

Our sad and dismal story,

The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe,

And quit their fort at Goree;

For what resistance can they find

From men who've left their hearts behind?

With a fa, la, &c.

"In justice you cannot refuse

To think of our distress,

When we for hope of honour lose

Our certain happiness;

All those designs are but to prove

Ourselves more worthy of your love.

With a fa, la, &c.

"And now we've told you all our loves,

And likewise all our fears,

In hopes this declaration moves,

Some pity from your tears;

Let's hear of no inconstancy,

We have too much of that at sea.

With a fa la la la la."

We can easily understand how the above lines were suggested, for in

those times the same officers served both in army and navy, and many of

the young sparks taken from the gaieties of London had not yet acquired

their sea legs. Wycherley is said to have been present at some of the

engagements with the Dutch.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Of course this will scarcely apply in those cases in which, by

abstraction, we overlook the creative action of the mind, and regard its

humorous productions as ludicrous. Nor does it hold good where from long

exercise of ingenuity a habit has been formed and amusing fancies spring

up, as it were naturally, and so involuntarily that, for the moment, we

see them only as ludicrous. This view changes almost instantaneously,

and beneath it we often find the best humour. It may be said that such

cases should be placed entirely under the head of humour, but can we

maintain that a man is unaware when he is humorous? The most telling

effects are produced by the ludicrous, and where the creative action of

the mind is scarcely discernible. Efforts to be humorous are seldom

crowned with success; we require something that appears to be real or

original, either as a close rendering of actual occurrences, or a

spontaneous efflorescence of genius. Among the latter class we may

reckon some of our most exquisite and permanent sayings.

[2] A story is told of a Mr. Crispe, a merchant of London, who although

deaf, when Sir Alexander Cary made a speech before his execution,

followed the motion of his lips so as to be able to relate it to his

friends.

[3] Mrs. Barbauld had such a perpetual smile that one of her friends

said it made her jaws ache to look at her.

[4] St. Paul, who was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, gives a

different account in Rom. iv. 19. See also Heb. xi. 11.

[5] Soame Jenyns strangely imagined that a portion of the happiness of

Seraphim and of just men made perfect would be derived from an exquisite

perception of the ludicrous; while Addison mentions that a learned monk

laid it down as a doctrine that laughter was the effect of original sin,

and that Adam could not laugh before the fall. Some of the early

Christians felt so strongly the incompatibility of strong human emotions

with the divine nature that they expunged the words "Jesus wept."

[6] Perhaps Solomon was amused by them, for in the catalogue of the

valuable things brought in his ships are apes and peacocks.

[7] I cannot see in Homer any of that philosophic satire on the

condition of mortals, which some have found in those passages where men

are represented as being deceived and tricked by the gods. Anything so

deep would be beyond humour. He very probably conceived that the gods,

whom he represented as similar to men, were sometimes not above playing

severe practical jokes on them. The so-called irony of Sophocles in like

manner, is too philosophical and bitter for humour.

[8] Tom Brown, the humorist, says, Lycambes complimented the Iambics of

Archilochus with the most convincing proof of their wit and goodness.

[9] Archilochus could not have been called a satirist in the correct

sense of the word. His observations were mostly personal or

philosophical. He had evidently considerable power in illustrating the

moral by the physical world, and one of his sayings "Speak not evil of

the dead," has become proverbial.

[10] Irony had previously been used in Asia. The only specimens of

humour in the Old Testament are of this character, as in Job, "No doubt

but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you;" where Elijah says

to the prophets of Baal, "Cry aloud, for he is a god," and the children

call after Elisha, "Go up, thou bald-head."

[11] Magnes and others of the day used similar titles. We read that

there were once three Homeric hymns extant, named "The Monkeys," "The

seven-times-shorn Goat," and "The Song on the Thrushes."

[12] After disposing of his daughters for a bunch of garlic and a little

salt, he exclaims, "Oh, Mercury, God of Traffic, grant that I may sell

my wife as profitably, and my mother too!"

[13] So the pun may be represented.

[14] Certainly not before 460 B.C.

[15] Compare our "Billingsgate."

[16] We sometimes speak of a seedy coat.

[17] The answers to the above riddles are, thistledown, sleep, night and

day, shade.

[18] "Gugga" seems to have corresponded with our "Nigger."

[19] About three and nine pence.

[20] Roman mirrors made of silver.

[21] _Scurra_ originally meant a neighbour, then a gossip, then a

pleasant fellow, and finally a jocose, and in those rude times a

scurrilous man.

[22] There is a story of Caligula having had an actor burnt alive for

making an offensive pun in an Atellane play. Sometimes nicknames were

thus made. Placidus was Acidus, Labienus, Rabienus; Claudius Tiberius

Nero was Caldius Biberius Mero.

[23] I have been obliged to omit some of the pungent indelicacy of the

original. The Pope was the sacrificing priest.

[24] We meet with such words as _verrucosus_, _sanna_, a grimace, and

_stloppus_, the sound made by striking the inflated cheeks.

[25] "A satirist is always to be suspected, who to make vice odious

dwells upon all its acts and minutest circumstances with a sort of

relish and retrospective fondness."--_Lamb._

[26] Palindromes, such as "Tibi subito motibus ibit." We have some in

English, as where our forefather addresses his wife "Madam, I'm Adam."

[27] Pyrogenes has a double meaning, "born of corn," and "born of fire,"

alluding to Bacchus' mother having been burnt. Bromos is a kind of

cereal, Bromion a name for Bacchus.

[28] A man of Capreæ, having caught an unusually large barbel, presented

it to Tiberius, who was so enraged at his being able to find him in his

retreat, that he ordered his face to be scrubbed with the fish.

[29] Some of the pagans put off Christian baptism till the last moment

under this idea.

[30] There seems to me to be several reasons for drawing this

conclusion.

[31] "Semel minusne, an bis minus; non sat scio, An utrumque eorum,

ut quondam audivi dicier Jovi ipsi regi noluit concedere."

[32] The answers to these enigmas are rose, fleas, sea-mew, visions,

wheels.

[33] As late as the fourteenth century there were only four classical

works in the Royal Library at Paris.

[34] Ritson characteristically observes, "There is this distinction

between the heathen deities and Christian saints, that the fables of the

former were indebted for their existence to the flowing inspiration of

the sublime poet, and the legends of the latter to the gloomy fanaticism

of a lazy monk or a stinking priest."

[35] Sometimes anciently called "West Wales."

[36] King Alfred advanced so far as to make a translation of a classical

history written by Orosius in 416; but the object of the work was to

show that Christianity was not the cause of the evils which had befallen

the Roman Empire.

[37] Two of them are mentioned as superior to Homer. One pretended to be

derived from Dares, a Phrygian, who fought on the Trojan side, and

another from Dictys, a Cretan, who was with the Greeks.

[38] The kind of stories prevalent in these countries may be conjectured

from the two related by John of Bromton, as believed by the natives. One

relates that the head of a child lies at the bottom of the Gulf of

Sataliah in Asia Minor, and that when the head is partly upright, such

storms prevail in the gulf that no vessel can live, but when it is lying

down there is a calm. The other asserts that once in every month a great

black dragon comes in the clouds, plunges his head into the stream, but

leaves his tail in the sky, and draws up the water, so that even ships

are carried into the air. The only way for sailors to escape this

monster, is to make a great noise by beating and shouting, so as to

frighten him.

[39] Originally an Arcadian superstition.

[40] Pinnacles.

[41] Tiles.

[42] The following is the original.

"Meum est propositum in taberna mori,

Vinum sit appositum morientis ori,

Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori,

Deus sit propitius huic potatori."

[43] An idea probably borrowed from the classical writers.

[44] Or the "Amiable," a translation of his father's name.

[45] Mr. Drummond in his Life of Erasmus.

[46] Reprinted by Halliwell.

[47] See "Art-Journal."

[48] I remember to have seen such a procession at Como in the Holy Week.

The various accessories of the Passion were borne along on the top of

poles with appropriate mottoes, for example: Two ladders crossed, "He

bowed the heavens and came down." A stuffed cock, "The cock crew." A

barber's basin, "Pilate washed his hands," &c. The effect was almost

ludicrous.

[49] Lucian makes the father of Cleanthis congratulate himself on having

obtained a buffoon for his son's wedding feast. This individual was an

ugly little fellow with close shaven head, except a few straggling hairs

made up to resemble a cock. He began by dancing and contorting his body

and spouting some Ægytian verses, then he launched all kinds of

fooleries at the company. Most laughed, but on his calling Alcidamas a

Maltese puppy, he was challenged to fight or have his brains dashed out.

[50] But this may have been traditional, for the fools in classic times

were sometimes shaven.

[51] Wright's "History of the Grotesque."

[52] Such as the Wife of Bath's tale, and in "January and May," or the

"Marchante's Tale."

[53] She was roasting a pig.

[54] Most of the ridiculous answers said to have been made at

examinations are mere humorous inventions. We almost think there must be

a slight improvement made in the following, though they are upon the

authority of an examiner,

What are the great Jewish Feasts?

Purim, Urim, and Thummin.

What bounded Samaria on the East?

The Jordan.

What on the West?

The other side of Jordan.

Derive an English word from the Latin _necto_?

Necktie.

Nor can we doubt that a slight humorous colouring has been introduced

into the following from the "Memorials of Archibald Constable," recently

published by his son.--An old deaf relation said on her death-bed to her

attendant, "Ann, if I should be spared, I hope my nephew will get the

doctor to open my head, and see whether anything can be done for my

hearing."

[55] One of Anne Boleyn's principal favourites was Sir Thomas Wyatt, who

was celebrated at that day as a man of humour, though at present we see

nothing in his poems but a few poetical conceits. The titles of them are

suggestive: "The Lover sending sighs to move his suit." "Of his Love who

pricked her finger with a needle." "The Lover praiseth the beauty of his

Lady's hand." He wrote the following upon the Queen's name:--

"What word is that, that changeth not,

Though it be turned and made in twain?

It is mine Anna, God it wot,

The only causer of my pain;

My love that meedeth with disdain;

Yet is it loved, what will you more?

It is my salve and eke my sore."

[56] Christina of Sweden made a similar remark when the Order of the

Garter was sent to Charles Gustavus.

[57] Pace had said the same to Queen Elizabeth, and from such strokes

jesters were called 'honest,' as 'Honest Jo,' &c.

[58] There is little humour in Shadwell's works; he succeeded Dryden as

Poet Laureate, which was perhaps the cause of the above lines.

Rochester said, "If Shadwell had burnt all he wrote, and printed all he

spoke, he would have had more wit and humour than any poet." Probably

his wit would have been like Rochester's. Whether Shadwell were himself

a good poet or not, he made a hit at the poetasters of his day, in which

he showed some genius.

_Poet._ O, very loftily!

The winged vallance of your eyes advance

Shake off your canopied and downie trance:

Phoebus already quaffs the morning dew,

Each does his daily lease of life renew.

Now you shall hear description, 'tis the very life of poetry.

He darts his beams on the lark's mossy house,

And from his quiet tenement doth rouse

The little charming and harmonious fowl

Which sings its lump of body to a soul.

Swiftly it clambers up in the steep air

With warbling notes, and makes each note a stair.

[59] Sir Roger L'Estrange gives the names of the people attacked.

[60] One of Cromwell's principal officers.

[61] Thus familiarly called, no doubt owing to the custom of giving pet

names to jesters.

[62] Guardian, Vol. I. No. 2.

[63] Fence.

London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street.