CONGREVE. 



131 



ve. Johnson adds, though pleasant, is not natural ; " we 

 well remember," say the authors of the Biographia 

 Britanniea, in reply to this remark, " that forty years 

 ago the character of Ben was not deemed unnatural. 

 It was then a common tradition," they add, " that 

 Congreve had resided six weeks at Portsmouth, in or- 

 der to draw the character from living manners." Two 

 years after, he exhibited, in his tragedy of The Mourn' 

 tug Bride, that he was qualified for either kind of dra- 

 matic poetry. It was well received. The author had 

 not yet completed his twenty-eighth year. About this 

 time he began his dispute with Collier, the puritan 

 successor of Prynne, in hostility to the drama. Col- 

 lier's attack upon the stage most probably checked its 

 licentiousness : its contingent abuses the dramatic ad- 

 vocates could but lamely defend ; but Congreve was 

 sufficiently eloquent in maintaining the general moral 

 utility of the drama. Congreve's last comedy was his 

 Way of the World; which, though written with labour 

 and thought, was received with so little favour, that, in 

 disgust, he resolved no longer to commit his quiet or 

 his fame to the caprices of an audience. A masque, 

 entitled Tfie Judgment of Paris, and Semele, an opera, 

 the first of winch only was represented, finishes the 

 list of his works for the stage. From this time his 

 life ceased to be public ; he lived for himself and for 

 his friends ; engaged in no controversy, contending 

 with no rival, and mixing neither in public animadver- 

 sions nor personal criticisms. Though adhering to Ha- 

 lifax and the Whigs, he was so far respected by the 

 Tories, that Lord Oxford refused to turn him out of 

 his place ; and when his friends returned to power, he 

 was made secretary to the island of Jamaica ; a place 

 which, with that in the customs, raised his income to 

 ^£1200 a-year. Every writer mentioned him with re- 

 aped: : Steele made him the patron of his Miscellany, 

 and Pope inscribed to him his translation of the Iliad. 

 Having risen, by a happy fortuity, above the griefs of 

 an author's profession, he is said to have affected supe- 

 riority to the profession itself. The anecdote, of his 

 telling Voltaire, when lie came to visit him, that he 

 desired to be considered only as a gentleman, and not 

 as an author, is one of the mortifying proofs, that the 

 wisest may sometimes be foolish. The latter years of 

 Congreve's life were clouded with sickness and infir- 

 mity. Cataracts in his eyes at length brought on total 

 blindness ; and repeated attacks of the gout premature* 

 ly undermined the vigour of his constitution. He 

 sought relief from Bath; but the accident of being 

 overturned in his carriage, left a durable pain in his 

 side, and probably hastened his death, which took 

 place in January 1729, in the sixtieth year of his age. 

 He was interred with great funeral solemnity in West- 

 minster Abbey, where a monument was erected to liis 

 memory by Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough. To 

 this lady, who is said to have had a most romantic re- 

 gard for him, he left the bulk of his fortune, to the 

 prejudice of relations, whose natural claims, and em- 

 barrassed circumstances, it was not to his credit that 

 he neglected. 



Congreve's occasional poems are so far beneath me* 

 diocrity, that we have reckoned it superfluous to enu- 

 merate either their names or their dates. As a writer 

 of comedy, he stands, perhaps, at the head of that de- 

 partment of our drama. Not so much for humorous 

 and natural, as for eccentric delineation of character, 

 and, above all, for the perpetual corruscation of wit 

 and repartee in his dialogue. His wit, indeed, flashes 

 on us even to annoyance ; and it is often difficult to 



distinguish the false wit of his fools, from that which 

 is genuine in his sprightly personages. Mr Murphy, 

 in his Life of Garrick, observes on this subject : The 

 frequent surprises of allusion, and the quickness and 

 vivacity of his turns of thought, which abound in Con- 

 greve, and which break out when you least expected 

 them, as if a train of wit had been laid all around, 

 put one in mind of those fireworks in a water-piece, 

 which used formerly to be played oft' in Cupar's Gar- 

 dens. No sooner one tube, charged with powder, rai- 

 sed itself in various forms and evolutions of fire, but 

 instantly another and another was lighted up ; and the 

 pleasure of the spectators arose from seeing secret ar- 

 tificial mines blazing out of an element, in which such 

 machinery- could not be expected. To these excep- 

 tions we may, however, oppose the eulogistic part of 

 Dr Johnson's character of him : " Congreve has merit 

 of the highest kind : he is an original writer, who bor- 

 rowed neither the models of his plot, nor the manner 

 of his dialogue. He formed a pecidiar idea of comic 

 excellence, which he supposed to consist of gay re- 

 marks and unexpected answers ; but that which he en- 

 deavoured, he seldom failed of performing. His scenes 

 exhibit not much of humour, imagery, or passion; 

 his personages are a kind of intellectual gladiators, eve- 

 ry sentence is to ward or strike. But they are the 

 works of a mind replete with images, and quick in 

 combination. Unfortunate as he is in his miscella- 

 neous poetry, he has some traits of genuine inspiration 

 in The Mourning Bride, particularly in that proverbial- 

 ly celebrated passage, so frequently quoted : 



Almeira. It was a fancied noise — for all is hushed. 



Leonora. It bore the accent of a human voice. 



Aim. It was thy fear.— or else some transient wind 

 Whistling through hollows of this vaulted isle. 

 We'll listen.—— 



Leon. Hark ! ■ 



Aim. No, all is hushed, and still as death.— Tis dreadful. 

 How reverend is the face of this tall pile, 

 Whose ancient piHars rear their marble heads, 

 To bear aloft its arched and pond'rous roof ; 

 By its own weight made stedfast and immoveable, 

 Looking tranquillity ! It strikes an awe 

 And terror on my aching sight ; the tombs 

 And monumental caves of death look cold, 

 And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart. 

 Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice; 

 Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear 

 Thy voice— my own affrights me with its- echoes. 



<») 

 CONI, or Cuneo, from the Latin cuneus, a wedge, 

 is a large fortified town of France, and capital of the 

 department of St lira. It is situated at the confluence 

 of the Stura and the Gezzo, upon a tongue of land in 

 the form of a wedge. It stands upon a flat eminence, 

 which commands the whole plain; and though it might 

 still be assailed from the surrounding heights, yet these 

 are generally taken possession of by the garrison when 

 an attack is apprehended. The only buildings worthy 

 of notice are several churches and convents situated 

 without the town. The surrounding country, which is 

 watered with four superb canals, produces grain of all 

 kinds in abundance ; and in a season of peace, Com 

 would be the centre of the commerce of all this part of 

 Piedmont. 



Coni derived its origin from a chapel dedicated to 

 the Virgin, built upon the extremity of the tongne of 

 land already mentioned. In 1120, the reputation of 

 this chapel attracted crowds of pilgrims and devotees, 

 and several houses were built for their accommodation. 

 In 1127, an insurrection in the surrounding country 



Coito^evs 

 Com, " 



