nant in the study of literature as they are in politics. The more violent is the swing of the pendulum to one side from any unnatural cause which disturbs the centre of gravity, the greater will be its sweep to the other, until equilibrium is restored. The intrigues of the gallant, the unblushing frailties of the women, the looseness permitted to polite conversation, the systematic vice upon which the plot of the story turns, all of which is so scandalously apparent in the works of the dramatists of the Restoration, are but the logical result of cause and effect. Unjustifiable rigour is always succeeded by unbridled laxity. The plays which immediately followed upon the restitution of the rights of the Stuarts are, as might be expected, among the most licentious and unveiled in our dramatic literature. Yet as soon as the baneful effects of Puritan prohibitions ceased to excite the national memory a healthier state of things began to prevail. With the removal of restrictions upon honest enjoyment, with the restoration of innocent pleasures, and with the banishment of that gloom and cant which throughout the days of the Commonwealth had so depressed and embittered the spirit of the people, genius once more drew its rays from a purer light and ceased to be illumined by the iridescence of putrefaction.

The muse of Congreve appeared during this period of transition. His comedies are happily

lacking in the gross indecency of Etherege and Wycherley, yet compared with those of his successors in the earlier half of the eighteenth century their lax and dissolute character is plainly visible. Still they occupy, and deservedly occupy, a prominent place on the shelves of English literature, and their author rightly fills his niche in the temple of fame. His wit, apparent in every line of his dialogue, is brilliant and trenchant in the extreme; indeed he is the most polished and mordant master of dialogue in our language. Dialogue is so woven into the texture of his plays that if we try to separate it for the sake of better understanding the story, the whole falls to pieces. Plot, probability, the progress of events, the interest attached to the motives and movements of individuals are all secondary, sometimes even sacrificed, to the setting of the conversation. In the construction of plot Congreve is either careless or so elaborate as to weary us with unnecessary details; but it is evident that, provided his characters talk their very best, he is indifferent to the causes which bring them into action. Hence it is that, with the exception of Love for Love, his comedies are better to read than to act. He is more the dramatist of the library than of the stage. As a painter of contemporary life and manners, studied from the vantage point of fashion, he has no equal.

The whole of Congreve's plays are included

in the present volume, and for the first time they have been annotated.

Macaulay's brilliant account of Congreve's career is well known; it would, however, be difficult to improve upon it, and, with some additional notes, it has been used as an introduction to this edition.

The portrait of Congreve which forms the frontispiece to the volume is from the wellknown picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

A. C. E.

WILLIAM CONGREVE.1

W

ILLIAM CONGREVE was born in 1670, at Bardsey, in the neighbourhood of Leeds. His father, a younger son of a very ancient Staffordshire family, had distinguished himself among the cavaliers in the Civil War, was set down after the Restoration for the Order of the Royal Oak, and subsequently settled in Ireland, under the patronage of the Earl of Burlington.

Congreve passed his childhood and youth in Ireland. He was sent to school at Kilkenny, and thence went to the University of Dublin. His learning does, great honour to his instructors. From his writings it appears not only that he was well acquainted with Latin literature, but that his knowledge of the Greek poets was such as was not, in his time, common even in a college.

When he had completed his academical studies, he was sent to London to study the law, and was

1 From Macaulay's Essay on The Comic Dramatists of the Re

storation.

entered of the Middle Temple. He troubled himself, however, very little about pleading or conveyancing, and gave himself up to literature and society. Two kinds of ambition early took possession of his mind, and often pulled it in opposite directions. He was conscious of great fertility of thought and power of ingenious combination. His lively conversation, his polished manners, and his highly respectable connections had obtained for him ready access to the best company. He longed to be a great writer; he longed to be a man of fashion. Either object was within his reach. But could he secure both? Was there not something vulgar in letters-something inconsistent with the easy, apathetic graces of a man of the mode? Was it aristocratical to be confounded with creatures who lived in the cocklofts of Grub Street, to bargain with publishers, to hurry printers' devils, to squabble with managers, to be applauded or hissed by pit, boxes, and galleries? Could he forego the renown of being the first wit of his age? Could he attain that renown without sullying, what he valued quite as much, his character for gentility? The history of his life is the history of a conflict between these two impulses. In his youth, the desire of literary fame had the mastery; but soon the meaner ambition overpowered the higher, and obtained supreme dominion over his mind.

His first work, a novel of no great value, he