but it will be found, that they owe their celebrity more to the vivacity of the dialogue, the activity of the scenes, and the general interest of the story, than to the delineation of character, or the developement of passion. It was about this time that Collier came forth against the Poets, with a Short View of the Immorality of the English Stage; in which, with a zeal amounting almost to ferocity, he assailed all the living authors of the time, from the highest to the lowest. Paradoxical as it may appear, the licentiousness and profanity, which had crept into English poetry, and which it was Collier's design to expose, may, in a great measure, be attributed to the Puritans. The indiscriminate bigotry of that sect in denouncing every art, and institution, which, in the slightest degree, contributed to the amusement of men, had so disgusted the more liberal thinkers in England, that, lest they should be suspected of any bias towards the same disposition, they strove to exaggerate what already seemed so enormous; and rather than be thought Puritans, were willing to become libertines and infidels. With the Court in particular, the name of Puritan was a bye-word of infamy; and woe to the unfortunate delinquent, who should dare, either in life or in literature, to show the least regard for decency, order, or law. Blasphemy was the price of preferment; and obscenity became the passport to favour. If any were grieved at the dishonour of the kingdome, (says Col. Hutchinson,) or the griping of the poor, or the unjust oppression of the subject by a thousand ways, he was a Puritane: if any, out of mere mallity and civil honesty, discountenanced the abominations of the days, he was a Puritane: if any gentleman in his country maintained the good laws of the land, or stood up for any public interest for good order or government, he was a Puritane : in short all that crossed the views of the needie courtiers, the proud enervating Priests, the thievish projectors, the lewd nobility and gentrie; whoever could endure a sermon, modest habitt or conversation, or anie thing good, all these were Puritanes; and, if Puritanes, then enemies to the king and government, siditious, factitious, hypocrites, ambitious disturbers of the public peace, and, finally, the pest of the kingdom.' It is easy to see the effect, which such a feeling must produce upon the manners and literature of a peopic. Authors perceived, that the least suspicion of Puritanism would ruin them with the court, and that the only proof of liberality must be a manly contempt of decency and sobriety. There was no middle course. With Charles the First, in particular, indifference was opposition, and neutrality war. He that was not for the court, must be against it;-whoever was not a cavalier, must be a Puritan. The same spirit was more or less predominant in the reigns of Charles II. and James II; and, perhaps, there are not, in the writings of all the other periods of English history together, so many specimens of naked obscenity and blasphemous levity. Collier, at last, brought the authors to a long account. Congreve and Vanburgh alone attempted any resistance; and, as a professed defence of indecency and irreligion was not likely to be written with much strength, or received with a great favour, both these champions were, at length, satisfied to quit the field. Congreve afterwards wrote the Way of the World; but as that work, too, in spite of all the labour he professed to have bestowed upon it, was but indifferently welcomed, he gave up the world to a reprobate mind, and spent the remainder of his days in the society and conversation of his friends. His eyes were long affected with cataracts; which, at last, terminated in total blindness. The gout was added; and while on a journey to Bath, for relief, his chariot was overturned, and his side so much injured, that he died Jan. 29, 1728-9. He was buried in Westminster Abbey; where he has his monu ment. It was chiefly as a dramatic writer, that Congreve established his title to the name of poet. His miscellaneous pieces were generally called forth upon such occasions as a lady,' for instance, having writ verses in commendation of a poem which was written in praise of another lady.' They were written without motive, and without effort; and are little distinguished for wit, and less for morality. There is occasionally a flash of poetic fire; but it is only a flash; and the mischief is, that the author is tempted to write on, after his inspiration evaporated. Thus in the lines to Arabella Hunt, which are considered as his most happy effort, the first stanza is spirited and vigorous; but those, which immediately follow become languid and dull; nor is it till the last that he seems to receive the slightest return of his poetic frenzy. In the third, he introduces the God Silence, enthroned upon an ancient sigh,' which 'Sound' was abdicated in his favour. His footstool is composed of two 'transparent clouds' his crown is a wreath of darkness;' his hair the curling mist;' and his vesture, 'a melancholy thought, stolen from a lover and condensed to air. Modern attempts at mythology are commonly abortive; and Homer would undoubtedly have smiled to see Congreve mixing things real with the mere creations of the brain; manufacturing a god from such heterogenous materials as 'ancient sighs' and 'melancholy thoughts,' 'transparent clouds,' and 'curling mists." So, again, in the Elegy to Sleep, the author opens with lines, which are at least not dull : O Sleep! thou flatterer of happy minds, Thou common friend, officious in thy aid, But he now proceeds to rail at Sleep, through nearly a score of verses; then, to draw out his song, begins to implore forgiveness for his impertinence; and, lastly, happening to stumble upon a good thought to introduce his mistress, he prolongs the note to almost another score of lines. In the mean time, his vigour had deserted him; and persons may have the malice to suggest, that a line in his ode to Harmony would have been more appropriate in his invocation to Sleep: Thy aid invoking while thy power we praise, &c. The readers of poetry, however, are indebted to him for curing the English Literati of a mania for Pindaric Odes, with which they seemed to be irremediably afflicted. They were possessed with an idea, that Pindaric verse had no more to do with the rules of prosody, than the irregular lines of an epitaph; and, as it was exceedingly convenient to be freed from such shackles as iambics, anapists, dactyles, and spondees, there was a general epidemic of Boetion poetry. Those who were not poets were unable to write verse; and those who were, could write verse the more easily. As soon, however, as Congreve showed his countrymen, that there was method even in the madness of Pindar, and that, in fact, the composition of such odes requires a skill in more kinds of metre, than that of any other species whatever,-the things which bore the name began to disappear from books and papers, and the body poetical was at last restored to its healthy state. WILLIAM CONGREVE. ON MRS. ARABELLA HUNT, SINGING. IRREGULAR ODE. LET all be hush'd, each softest motion cease, Be every loud tumultuous thought at peace, And every ruder gasp of breath Be calm, as in the arms of death. And thou, most fickle, most uneasy part, Be still; gently, ah, gently, leave, Be softly stay'd: Let me be all, but my attention, dead. |
