austere a censor as John Newton, calls a fox- | A new race of wits and poets arose, who gene aunting squire Nimrod, and gives to a chaplain rally treated with reverence the great ties which he disrespectful name of Smug. Congreve bind society together; and whose very inde might with good effect have appealed to the cencies were decent when compared with those public whether it might not be fairly presumed of the school which flourished during the las' that, when such frivolous charges were made, forty years of the seventeenth century. there were no very serious charges to make. Instead of doing this, he pretended that he meant no allusion to the Bible by the name of Jehu, and no reflection by the name of Prig. Strange that a man of such parts should, in rder to defend himself against imputations which nobody could regard as important, tell untruths which it was certain that nobody would believe.

One of the pleas which Congreve set up for himself and his brethren was, that, though they might be guilty of a little levity here and there, they were careful to inculcate a moral, packed close into two or three lines, at the end of every play. Had the fact been as he stated it, the defence would be worth very little. For no man acquainted with human nature could think that a sententious couplet would undo all the mischief that five profligate acts had done. But it would have been wise in Congreve to have looked again at his own comedies before he used this argument. Collier did so; and found that the moral of the "Old Bachelor" the grave apophthegm which is to be a set-off against all the libertinism of the piece-is contained in the following triplet:

"What rugged ways attend the noon of life! Our sun declines, and with what anxious strife, What pain, we tug that galling load-a wife." "Love for Love," says Collier, may have & somewhat better farewell, but it would do a man little service should he remember it to his dying day:"

"The miracle to-day is, that we find

This controversy probably prevented Con greve from fulfilling the engagements into which he had entered with the actors. It was not till 1700 that he produced the "Way of the World," the most deeply meditated, and the most brilliantly written, of all his works. It wants, perhaps, the constant movement, the effervescence of animal spirits, which we find in "Love for Love." But the hysterical rants of Lady Wishfort, the meeting of Witwould and his brother, the country knight's courtship and his subsequent revel, and above all, the chase and surrender of Milamant, are superior to any thing that is to be found in the whole range of English comedy from the Civil War downwards. It is quite inexplicable to us that this play should have failed on the stage. Yet so it was; and the author, already sore with the wounds which Collier had inflicted, was galled past endurance by this new stroke. He resolved never more to expose himself to the rudeness of a tasteless audience, and took leave of the theatre forever.

He lived twenty-eight years longer, without adding to the high literary reputation which he had attained. He read much while he retained his eyesight, and now and then wrote a short essay, or an idle tale in verse; but appears never to have planned any considerable work. The miscellaneous pieces which he published in 1710 are of little value, and have long been forgotten.

The stock of fame which he had acquired by his comedies was sufficient, assisted by the graces of his manner and conversation, to secure for him a high place in the estimation of the world. During the winter, he lived among the most distinguished and agreeable people in London. His summers were passed at the splendid country-seats of ministers and peers Literary envy, and political faction, which in that age respected nothing else, respected his repose. He professed to be one of the party of which his patron Montagu, now Lord Halifax, was the head. But he had civil words and small good offices for men of every shade of opinion. And men of every shade of opinion spoke well of him in return.

A lover true, not that a woman's kind." Collier's reply was severe and triumphant. One of his repartees we will quote, not as a favourable specimen of his manner, but because it was called forth by Congreve's characteristic affectation. The poet spoke of the Old Bachelor" as a trifle to which he at tached no value, and which had become public by a sort of accident. "I wrote it," he said, "to amuse myself in a slow recovery from a fit of sickness."- -“What his disease was," replied Collier, "I am not to inquire: but it must be a very ill one to be worse than the remedy." All that Congreve gained by coming forward His means were for a long time scanty. The on this occasion was, that he completely de-place which he had in possession, barely enprived himself of the excuse which he might abled him to live with comfort. And when with justice have pleaded for his early offences. the Tories came into power, some thought that Why," asked Collier, "should the man laugh he would lose even this moderate provision. at the mischief of the boy, and make the dis- But Harley, who was by no means disposed to orders of his nonage his own, by an after ap- adopt the exterminating policy of the October probation?" club, and who, with all his faults of under standing and temper, had a sincere kindness for men of genius, reassured the anxious poet by quoting very gracefully and happily the lines of Virgil

Congreve was not Collier's only opponent. Vanbrugh, Denis, and Settle took the field. And, from the passage in a contemporary saure, we are inclined to think that among the answers to the "Short View," was one written, or supposed to be written, by Wycherley. The victory remained with Collier. A great and rapid reform in all the departments of our lighter rare was the effect of his labours.

"Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Pani,

Nec tam aversus equos Tyria sol jungit ab urbe."

The indulgence with which Congreve wa treated by the Tories was not purchased by

any concession on his part which could justly | neither the ministers nor the leaders of th: op offend the Whigs. It was his rare good-fortune position could be offended. to share the triumph of his friends without having shared their proscription. When the house of Hanover came to the throne, his fortunes began to flourish. The reversion to which he had been nominated twenty years before, fell in. He was made a secretary to the island of Jamaica; and his whole income amounted to 1200l. a year-a fortune which, for a single man, was, in that age, not only easy, but splendid. He continued, however, to practise the frugality which he had learned when he could scarcely spare, as Swift tells us, a shilling to pay the chairman who carried him to Lord Halifax's. Though he had nobody to save for, he laid up at least as much as he spent.

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

The singular affectation which had from the first been characteristic of Congreve, grew stronger and stronger as he advanced in life At last it became disagreeable to him to hea his own comedies praised. Voltaire, whose soul was burned up by the raging desire for literary renown, was half puzzled, half dis gusted by what he saw, during his visit to England, of this extraordinary whim. Congreve disclaimed the character of a poet-declared that his plays were trifles produced in an idle hour, and begged that Voltaire would consider him merely as a gentleman. “If you had been merely a gentleman," said Voltaire, "I should not have come to see you."

Congreve was not a man of warm affections. Domestic ties he had none; and in the temporary connections which he formed with a succession of beauties from the green-room, his heart does not appear to have been at all interested. Of all his attachments, that to Mrs. Bracegirdle lasted the longest, and was the most celebrated. This charming actress, who was, during many years, the idol of all Lon don; whose face caused the fatal broil in By the rising men of letters he was consi- which Mountfort fell, and for which Lord Molered not as a rival, but as a classic. He had hun was tried by the Peers; and to whom the left their arena; he never measured his Earl of Scarsdale was said to have made strength with them; and he was always loud honourable addresses, had conducted herself, in applause of their exertions. They could, in very trying circumstances, with extraordi. therefore, entertain no jealousy of him; and nary discretion. Congreve at length became thought no more of detracting from his fame her confidential friend. They constantly rode 'han of carping at the great men who had been out together, and dined together. Some people lying a hundred years in Poet's Corner. Even said that she was his mistress, and others that the inmates of Grub Street, even the heroes of she would soon be his wife. He was at las: the Dunciad, were for once just to living drawn away from her by the influence of a merit. There can be no stronger illustration wealthier and haughtier beauty. Henrietta, of the estimation in which Congreve was held, daughter of the great Marlborough, and wife than the fact that Pope's Iliad, a work which of the Earl of Godolphin, had, on her father's appeared with more splendid auspices than death, succeeded to his dukedom, and to the any other in our language, was dedicated to greater part of his immense property. Her him. There was not a duke in the kingdom husband was an insignificant man, of whom who would not have been proud of such a Lord Chesterfield said, that he came to the compliment. Dr. Johnson expresses great House of Peers only to sleep, and that he admiration for the independence of spirit might as well sleep on the right as on the left which Pope showed on this occasion, and of the woolsack. Between the duchess and some surprise at his choice. "He passed over Congreve sprung up a most eccentric friendpeers and statesmen to inscribe his 'Iliad' to ship. He had a seat every day at her table, Congreve, with a magnanimity of which the and assisted in the direction of her concerts. praise had been complete, had his friend's That malignant old hag, the Dowager Duchess virtue been equal to his wit. Why he was Sarah, who had quarrelled with her daughter chosen for so great an honour, it is not now as she had quarrelled with everybody else, possible to know." It is certainly impossible affected to suspect that there was something to know; yet, we think, it is possible to guess. wrong. But the world in general appears to The translation of the "Iliad" had been zeal- have thought that a great lady might, withou: ously befriended by men of al! political opi- any imputation on her character, pay attention nions. The poet who at an early age had to a man of eminent genius, who was nearly been raised to affluence by the emulous libe- sixty years old, who was still older in appear. rality of Whigs and Tories, could not with pro-ance and in constitution, who was confined to priety inscribe to a chief of either party, a his chair by gout, and was unable to read from work which had been munificently patronised oy both. It was necessary to find some person who was a once eminent and neutral. It was herefore necessary to pass over peers and statesmen. Congreve had a high name in letters. He had a high nane in aristocratic circles. He lived on terms of civility with cieu of all parties By a courtesy paid him

blindness.

In the summer of 1728, Congreve was or dered to try the Bath waters. During his ex cursion he was overturned in his chariot, and received some severe internal injury, from which he never recovered. He came back to London in a dangerous state, complained constantly of a pain in his side, and con

aned to sink, till, in the following January, | that is a bold word) the ugliest and most absurd ae expired. of the buildings at Stowe.

He left 10,000l. saved out of the emolu- We have said that Wycher.ey was a worse nients of his lucrative places. Johnson says Congreve. There was, indeed, a remarkable that this money ought to have gone to the Con- analogy between the writings and lives of these greve family, which was then in great distress. two men. Both were gentlemen liberally edu Doctor Young and Mr. Leigh Hunt, two gen-cated. Both led town lives, and knew human demen who seldom agree with each other, but nature only as it appears between Hyde Park with whom, on this occasion, we are happy to and the Tower. Both were men of wit. Nei agree, think that it ought to have gone to Mrs. ther had much imagination. Both at an early Bracegirdle. Congreve bequeathed 200l. to age produced lively and profligate comedies. Mrs. Bracegirdle, and an equal sum to a cer- Both retired from the field while still in early tain Mrs. Jellat; but the bulk of his accumu- manhood, and owed to their youthful achieve lations went to the Duchess of Marlborough, ments in literature the consideration which in whose immense wealth such a legacy was they enjoyed in later life. Both, after they had as a drop in the bucket. It might have raised ceased to write for the stage, published volumes the fallen fortunes of a Staffordshire squire of miscellanies, which did little credit either to it might have enabled a retired actress to en- their talents or their morals. Both, during joy every comfort, and, in her sense, every their declining years, hung loose upon society; luxury-but it was not sufficient to defray the and both, in their last moments, made eccentric duchess's establishment for two months. and unjustifiable dispositions respecting their estates.

The great lady buried her friend with a pomp seldom seen at the funerals of poets. The corpse lay in state under the ancient roof of the Jerusalem Chamber, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. The pall was borne by the Duke of Bridgewater, Lord Cobham, the Earl of Wilmington, who had been Speaker, and who was afterwards First Lord of the Treasury, and other men of high consideration. Her grace laid out her friend's bequest in a superb diamond necklace, which she wore in honour of him; and, if report is to be believed, showed her regard in ways much more extraordinary. It is said that she had a statue of him in ivory, which moved by clockwork, and was placed daily at her table; that she had a wax doll made in imitation of him, and that the feet of this doll were regularly blistered and anointed by the doctors, as poor Congreve's feet had been when he suffered from the gout. A monument was erected to the poet in Westminster Abbey, with an inscription written by the duchess; and Lord Cobham honoured him with a cenotaphy, which seems to us (though

But in every point Congreve maintained his superiority to Wycherley. Wycherley had wit; but the wit of Congreve far outshines that of every comic writer, except Sheridan, who has arisen within the last two centuries. Congreve had not, in a large measure, the poetical facul ty, but, compared with Wycherley, he might be called a great poet. Wycherley had some knowledge of books, but Congreve was a man of real learning. Congreve's offences against decorum, though highly culpable, were not so gross as those of Wycherley; nor did Congreve, like Wycherley, exhibit to the world the deplo rable spectacle of a licentious dotage. Congreve died in the enjoyment of high consideration; Wycherley forgotten or despised. Con greve's will was absurd and capricious; but Wycherley's last actions appeared to have been prompted by obdurate malignity

Here, at least for the present, we must stop. Vanbrugh and Farquhar are not men to be hastily dismissed, and we have not left our selves space to do them justice.

THE LATE LORD HOLLAND."

[EDINBURGE REVIEW FOR JULY, 1841.]

MANY reasons make it impossible for us to ed to render-the continuance of an extensive lay before our readers, at the present moment, grievance, and of the dissatisfaction consequent a complete view of the character and public thereupon, dangerous to the tranquillity of the career of the late Lord Holland. But we feel country, and ultimately subversive of the au that we have already deferred too long the duty thority of the state. Experience and theory of paying some tribute to his memory. We alike forbid us to deny that effect of a free con feel that it is more becoming to bring, without stitution; a sense of justice and a love of liberty further delay, an offering, though intrinsically equally deter us from lamenting it. But we of little value, than to leave his tomb longer have always been taught to look for the remewithout some token of our reverence and love. dy of such disorders in the redress of the griev We shall say very little of the book which ances which justify them, and in the removal lies on our table. And yet it is a book which, of the dissatisfaction from which they flow even if it had been the work of a less distin- not in restraints on ancient privileges, not in guished man, or had appeared under circum-inroads on the right of public discussion, nor stances less interesting, would have well repaid in violations of the principles of a free govern. an attentive perusal. It is valuable, both as a ment. If, therefore, the legal method of seek. record of principles and as a model of composition. We find in it all the great maxims which, during more than forty years, guided Lord Holland's public conduct, and the chief reasons on which those maxims rest, condensed into the smallest possible space, and set forth with admirable perspicuity, dignity, and precision. To his opinions on Foreign Policy we, for the most part, cordially assent; but, now and then, we are inclined to think them imprudently generous. We could not have signed the protest against the detention of Napoleon. The protest respecting the course which England pursued at the Congress of Verona, though it contains much that is excellent, contains In order fully to appreciate the character of also positions which, we are inclined to think, Lord Holland, it is necessary to go far back Lord Holland would, at a later period, have into the history of his family; for he had inadmitted to be unsound. But to all his doc-herited something more than a coronet and an trines on Constitutional Questions we give our hearty approbation; and we firmly believe that 10 British government has ever deviated from that line of internal policy which he has traced, without detriment to the public.

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

"We are," says he, "well aware that the privileges of the people, the rights of free discassion, and the spirit and letter of our popular institutions, must render-and they are intend

The Opinions of Lord Holland, as recorded in the Journals of the use of Lords, from 1797 to 1841. Colceted and edited by D. C. MOYLAN, of Lincoln's lun, Barrister-at-Law. Sve London. 1841.

ing redress, which has been resorted to by persons labouring under grievous disabilities, be fraught with immediate or remote danger to the state, we draw from that circumstance a conclusion long since foretold by great authority-namely, that the British constitution and large exclusions cannot subsist together; that the constitution must destroy them, or they will destroy the constitution.”

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

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

It is impossible not to be struck by the strong family likeness which, in spite of diversities arising from education and position, appears in these three distinguished persons. In their faces and figures there was a resemblance, such as is common enough in novels, where one picture is good for ten generations, but such as in real life is seldom found. The ample person, the massy and thoughtful forehead, the large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip; the expression, so singularly compounded of sense, humour, courage, openness, a strong will and a sweet temper, were common to all. But the features of the founder of the house, as the

pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens have handed them down to us, were disagreeably harsh and exaggerated. In his descendants, the aspect was preserved; but it was softened, till it became, in the late lord, the most gracious and interesting countenance that was ever lighted up by the mingled lustre of intelligence and benevolence.

As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family, so was it with their minds. Nature had done much for them all. She had moulded them all of that clay of which she is most sparing. To all she had given strong reason and sharp wit; a quick relish for every physical and intellectual enjoyment; constitutional intrepidity, and that frankness by which constitutional intrepidity is generally accompanied; spirits which nothing could depress; tempers easy, generous, and placable; and that genial courtesy which has its seat in the heart, and of which artificial politeness is only a faint and cold imitation. Such a disposition is the richest inheritance that ever was entailed on any family.

people with the bayonet. Many of his contem. poraries had a morality quite as lax as his; bu very few among them had his talents, and none had his hardihood and energy. He could not, like Sandys and Doddington, find safety in contempt. He therefore became an object of such general aversion as no statesman since the fall of Strafford has incurred-of such genera. aversion as was probably never in any country incurred by a man of so kind and cordial a dis position. A weak mind would have sunk under such a load of unpopularity. But that resolute spirit seemed to derive new firmness from the public hatred. The only effect which rcproaches appeared to produce on him, was to sour, in some degree, his naturally sweet tem per. The last steps of his public life were marked, not only by that audacity which he had derived from nature-not only by that immorality which he had learned in the school of Walpole-but by a harshness which almost amounted to cruelty, and which had never been supposed to belong to his character. His se verity increased the unpopularity from which it had sprung. The well-known lampoon of Gray may serve as a specimen of the feeling of the country. All the images are taken from shipwrecks, quicksands, and cormorants. Lord Holland is represented as complaining, that the cowardice of his accomplices had prevented him from putting down the free spirit of the city of London by sword and fire, and as pining for the time when birds of prey should make their nests in Westminster Abbey, and unclean beasts burrow in St. Paul's.

But training and situation greatly modified the fine qualities which nature lavished with such profusion on three generations of the house of Fox. The first Lord Holland was a needy political adventurer. He entered public life at a time when the standard of integrity among statesmen was low. He started as the adherent of a minister who had indeed many titles to respect; who possessed eminent talents both for administration and for debate; who understood the public interest well, and who meant fairly by the country; Within a few months after the death of this but who had seen so much perfidy and mean- remarkable man, his second son Charles ap ness, that he had become skeptical as to the peared at the head of the party apposed to the existence of probity. Weary of the cant of American War. Charles had inherited the patriotism, Walpole had learned to talk a cant bodily and mental constitution of his father, of a different kind. Disgusted by that sort of and had been much-far too much-under his hypocrisy which is at least a homage to virtue, father's influence. It was indeed impossible he was too much in the habit of practising the that a son of so affectionate and noble a spirit less respectable hypocrisy which ostentatiously should not have been warmly attached to a displays and sometimes even stimulates vice. parent who possessed many fine qualities, and To Walpole, Fox attached himself politically who carried his indulgence and liberality to and personally, with the ardour which belonged wards his children even to a culpable extent. to his temperament. And it is not to be denied, The young man saw that the person to whom that in the school of Walpole he contracted he was bound by the strongest ties, was, in the faults which destroyed the value of his many highest degree, odious to the nation; and the great endowments. He raised himself, indeed, effect was what might have been expected to the first consideration in the House of Com- from his strong passions and constitutional mons; he became a consummate master of the boldness. He cast in his lot with his father, and art of debate; he attained honours and im- took, while still a boy, a deep part in the most mense wealth-but the public esteem and con- unjustifiable and unpopular measures that had fidence were withheld from him. His private been adopted since the reign of James the friends, indeed, justly extolled his generosity Second. In the debates on the Middlesex and good-nature. They maintained, that in election, he distinguished himself, not only by those parts of his conduct which they could his precocious powers of eloquence, but by the least defend, there was nothing sordid; and vehement and scornful manner in which he that, if he was misled, he was misled by bade defiance to public opinion. He was at amiable feelings-by a desire to serve his that time regarded as a man likely to be the friends, and by anxious tenderness for his most formidable champion of arbitrary govern children. But by the nation he was regarded ment that had appeared since the Revolution as a man of insatiable rapacity and desperate—to be a Bute with far greater powers-a ambition; as a man ready to adopt, without Mansfield with far greater courage. Happily scruple, the most immoral and the most unconstitutional measures; as a man perfectly fitted, by all his opinions and feelings, for the work of managing the Parliament by means of secret service-money, and of keeping down the

his father's death liberated him early from the pernicious influence by which he had becu misled. His mind expanded. His range of observation became wider. His genius broke through early prejudices. His natural tenɔ