Dick. Come, make thy Turkish demand then.

Brass. You know you gave me a bank-bill this morning to receive for you. Dick. I did so, of fifty pounds, 'tis thine. So, now thou art satisfied; all's

fixed.

Brass. It is not indeed. There's a diamond necklace you robbed your mother of e'en now.

Dick. Ah, you Jew.

Brass. No words.

Dick. My dear Brass !

Brass. I insist.

Dick. My old friend.

Brass. Dick Amlet [raising his voice] I insist.

Dick. Ah the cormorant-Well, 'tis thine.

But thou'lt never thrive with't.

Brass. When I find it begins to do me mischief, I'll give it you again. But

I must have a wedding-suit.

Dick. Well.

Brass. Some good lace.

Dick. Thou shalt.

Brass. A stock of linen.

Dick. Enough.

Brass. Not yet—a silver sword.

Dick. Well thou shalt have that too. Now thou hast everything.

Brass. Gad forgive me, I forgot a ring of remembrance. I would not forget all these favours for the world; a sparkling diamond will be always playing in my eye, and put me in mind of 'em.

Dick. This unconscionable rogue [aside]! Well, I'll bespeak one for thee. Brass. Brilliant.

Dick. It shall. But if the thing don't succeed after all?

Brass. I'm a man of honour, and restore. And so the treaty being finished I strike my flag of defiance, and fall into my respects again.

[Taking off his hat."

Vanbrugh left the stage to become the royal architect, and

He showed great bitterhe could not refute the

was knighted towards the end of his life. ness in his controversy with Collier, but Puritan's plain statement that all the men of figure in Vanbrugh's plays were professed libertines, and that, nevertheless, he allowed them all to pass off without censure or disappointment. That this charge is true is the fatal objection to all Restoration comedy.

Colley Cibber (1671-1757) is commonly identified with the

dramatic life of the eighteenth century, but his best comedies belong to the seventeenth, and he preceded Vanbrugh in his appeal to the public. He was the son of a Danish sculptor, employed during the youth of the dramatist in beautifying the rooms of Chatsworth. In 1689 Colley Cibber became an actor, and, under the patronage of Congreve, rose early to distinction. His first comedy, Love's Last Shift (1696), was imitated or continued by Vanbrugh, in his own first play, The Relapse, and this increased Cibber's reputation. In 1697 he published Woman's Wit, a piece of inferior merit; but achieved again a popular success with Love makes a Man, a very sprightly comedy or long farce, in 1698. The Careless Husband (1705) aimed at a higher sort of writing, and ranks as the best of Cibber's works. At least thirty dramatic pieces are attributed to him. Cibber's plays are lighter than thistledown, and mark the rupture between dramatic writing and literature. But they are praiseworthy for their comparative innocence, and for the absence of such cynicism as Collier denounced.

The last great dramatist of the Restoration, the man in whom the flame that Marlowe had kindled was extinguished, George Farquhar (1678-1707), is very far from being the least sympathetic of the series. He was gallant, handsome, and unfortunate, he died in his prime of youth, and all that is recorded of him does credit to his manly gaiety and his courage under disappointment. He was the son of an Irish clergyman of good family, was educated at Trinity College, and went very early on to the Dublin stage. By forgetting to change his sword for a foil, he nearly killed a brother-actor while playing in Dryden's Indian Emperor, and the shock gave him a distaste to acting. He entered the army, distinguished himself, and rose to the rank of captain. About 1697 he came to London, and in 1698 brought out his first comedy, Love and a Bottle, sprightly with the humours of military life, in which Farquhar excels. Much better in every way, however, was The Constant Couple (1700), where the character of a certain Sir Harry Wildair, "an airy gentleman affecting

humourous gaity and freedom in his behaviour," gave so much pleasure to the audience at the Theatre-Royal, that in 1701 the poet brought out a second part, to which he gave this hero's name. Farquhar was a smart and handsome fellow, whose empire over the hearts of the ladies was unbounded. One girl, wholly without

a dowry, fell in love with him, and secured his hand under the representation that she was wealthy. Farquhar had quitted the army in order to marry her, and was reduced to poverty by her subterfuge, but he had the sweetness of temper never to reproach her. His last and best comedies were The Recruiting Officer (1706), and The Beaux' Stratagem (1707), the latter composed upon his deathbed. It was understood that the hero of the Recruiting Officer, Captain Plume, was Farquhar's portrait of himself:

"Plume. A dog, to abuse two such pretty fellows as you! Look'ee, gentlemen, I love a pretty fellow : I come among you as an officer to list soldiers, not as a kidnapper, to steal slaves.

Pearmain. Mind that, Tummas.

Plume. I desire no man to go with me but as I went myself: I went a volunteer, as you, or you, may do; for a little time carried a musket, and now I command a company.

Appletree. Mind that, Costar. A sweet gentleman !

Plume. 'Tis true, gentlemen, I might take an advantage of you; the queen's money was in your pockets, my serjeant was ready to take his oath you were listed; but I scorn to do a base thing; you are both of you at your liberty.

Pearmain. Thank you, noble captain. Ecod, I can't find in my heart to leave him, he talks so finely.

Appletree. Ay, Costar, would he always hold in this mind.

Plume. Come, my lads, one thing more I'll tell you you're both young tight fellows, and the army is the place to make you men for ever: every man has his lot, and you have yours. What think you now of a purse full of French gold out of a monsieur's pocket, after you have dashed out his brains with the butt of your firelock, eh?

Pearmain. Wauns! I'll have it, captain-give me a shilling, I'll follow you to the end of the world."

Farquhar possessed a lovable, easy character, full of hasty faults and generous virtues, and he curiously resembled what Fielding was in the ensuing generation.

In a discourse upon comedy which he printed in his miscellany called Love and Business (1702), Farquhar hit off a happy definition. "Comedy,” he said, “is no more at present than a wellframed tale handsomely told as an agreeable vehicle for counsel or reproof." He meant, no doubt, that of his own drama the motto should be castigat ridendo mores, but his natural cheerfulness would break out. His flighty beaux and swaggering cavalry officers too frequently forget to counsel or reprove, but Farquhar succeeds in being always wholesome, even when he cannot persuade himself to be decent. His scenes breathe of the open air, while Congreve's have a heated atmosphere of musk. There is something hopeful and encouraging in finding the crowded and unsatisfactory drama of the Restoration closing, not in inanity and corruption, but in this gay world of Farquhar's, this market-place of life, bright with scarlet tunics and white aprons, loud with drum and bugle, and ringing with peals of laughter and impudent snatches of ballad-music. It is Sergeant Kite, one of Farquhar's heroes, to whom we owe the song of "Over the hills and far away." Farquhar was the last writer who dared to bring the animal riot of the senses face to face with a decent audience, and the best we can say of his morals is that it is more wholesome to laugh with Ariosto in the sunshine than to snigger with Aretine in the shadow. Better than either is to walk in the light of Molière or of Goldsmith.

CHAPTER III

PROSE AFTER THE RESTORATION

THE prose of the last forty years of the seventeenth century is not one of the most attractive sections of literature to the common reader. It is eminently pedestrian in character, unimaginative, level, neutral. It has neither the disordered beauties of the age that preceded it, nor the limpid graces of that which followed it. It is tentative and transitional; and its experiments, like its changes, are in the direction of common sense and conventionality. There is, moreover, a peculiarity about its history which has, doubtless, served to consign it to comparative neglect. Neither of its two greatest names, neither Dryden nor Temple, though both of them men of genius and influence, and one of them a master of English, has left a single volume in prose which is in household use; while its best-known book, if we set aside The Pilgrim's Progress, is Locke's Human Understanding—a work particularly unengaging in its mere style and delivery. English prose between 1660 and 1700 is exhibited in a great variety of examples, many of them-nay, the majority of them-unimportant to any but an antiquarian reader, and displaying a talent so uniform, that it is not very easy to define the orders of merit. We meet nothing here like the genius with which Hooker or Swift, Bacon or Fielding, towers above all minor contemporaries.

The period, however, is misjudged if we regard its merits as negative merely. It had extraordinary positive qualities. It is