Tom Brown (1663-1704) - 'of facetious memory,' in Addison's phrase-was a native of Shifnal in Salop. He left Christ Church without a degree, but had in his Oxford days become already famous for wit and for irregularities. It was when threatened with expulsion by Dr Fell, the Dean of Christ Church, that the famous epigram is said to have been extemporised : I do not love thee, Dr Fell, But this I know, and know full well, less likely as an extempore translation of Martial's 'Non amo te, Sabidi,' than as a paraphrase of Thomas Forde's extant version (1661): 'I love thee not, Nel! but why, I can't tell.' And it should be added that the very same thing is found in good French. Tom was a 'merry fellow' and libertine, who, having after three years' work lost his post as schoolmaster at Kingston-upon-Thames, became a professional author and libeller in the metropolis. His writings, which consist of translations in prose and verse, dialogues, letters, poems, and other miscellanies, display considerable learning as well as shrewdness and humour, but are deformed by obscene and scurrilous buffoonery. He satirised or wrote epigrams on Dryden, Tom Durfey, Blackmore, Sherlock, Sternhold and Hopkins, Scots and Highlanders. And there is a long series of letters from the dead to the living, from the living to the dead, and an imitation of Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead. His most indecent things are by no means always his best, but his very best are generally unquotable. And he was not always facetious-as, for instance, in his verses 'To Mr Dryden on his Conversion': Traytor to God and rebel to thy pen, His elegy on Viscount Dundee shows real feeling as well as conviction. His ingenuity in phrases may be seen in the remarks made in a (hypothetical) letter from Dr Blew to the dead Purcell. Blew (who survived Brown some years) is made to comment unfavourably on the flattering inscription to Purcell put on a pillar behind Purcell's organ, and said, 'The fanaticks especially are very highly offended at it, and say it looks as if a man could toot himself to heaven on the whore of Babylon's bag-pipes'-a more disrespectful description of an organ than even the traditional Scottish Presbyterian 'kist of whistles.' Letter from Scarron in the Next World to All the conversation of this lower world at present runs upon you; and the devil a word we can hear in any of our coffee-houses but what his Gallic majesty is more or less concerned in. 'Tis agreed on by all our virtuosos that since the days of Dioclesian no prince has been so great a benefactor to hell as yourself; and as much a master of eloquence as I was once thought to be at Paris, I want words to tell you how much you are commended here for so heroically trampling under foot the treaty of Reswick [Ryswick, 1697], and opening a new scene of war in your great climacteric, at which age most of the princes before you were such recreants as to think of making up their scores with Heaven, and leaving their neighbours in peace. But you, they say, are above such sordid precedents; and rather than Pluto should want men to people his dominions, are willing to spare him half a million of your own subjects, and that at a juncture, too, when you are not overstocked with them. This has gained you a universal applause in these regions; the three Furies sing your praises in every street; Bellona swears there's never a prince in Christendom worth hanging besides yourself; and Charon bustles for you in all companies. He desired me about a week ago to present his most humble respects to you; adding that if it had not been for your majesty, he with his wife and children must long ago have been quartered upon the parish; for which reason he duly drinks your health every morning in a cup of cold Styx next his conscience... Last week, as I was sitting with some of my acquaintance in a public-house, after a great deal of impertinent chat about the affairs of the Milanese and the intende siege of Mantua, the whole company fell a-talking of your majesty, and what glorious exploits you had performed in your time. Why, gentlemen, says an ill-looked rascal who proved to be Herostratus, for Pluto's sake, let not the Grand Monarch run away with all your praises I have done something memorable in my time too: 'twas I who, out of the gaieté de cœur and to perpetuate my name, fired the famous temple of the Ephesian Diana, and in two hours consumed that magnificent structure, which was two hundred years a-building; therefore, gentlemen, lavish not away all your praises, I beseech you, upon one man, but allow others their share. Why, thou diminutive, inconsiderable wretch, said I in a great passion to him, thou worthless idle loggerhead, thou pigmy in sin, thou Tom Thumb in iniquity, how dares such a puny insect as thou art have the impudence to enter the lists with Lewis le Grand? Thou valuest thyself upon firing a church, but how? when the mistress of the house, who was a midwife by profession, was gone out to assist Olympias, and delivered her of Alexander the Great. 'Tis plain thou hadst not the courage to do it when the goddess was present, and upon the spot. But what is this to what my royal master can boast of, that had destroyed a hundred and a hundred such foolish fabrics in his time, and bravely ordered them to be bombarded. . . . Therefore turn out of the room, like a paltry insignificant villain as thou art, or I'll pick thy carcass for thee. He had no sooner made his exit, but cries an odd sort of spark, with his hat buttoned up before like a country scraper: Under favour, sir, what do you think of me? Why, who are you? replied I to him. Who am I? answered he; why, Nero, the sixth emperor of Rome, that murdered myCome, said I to him, to stop your prating, I know your history as well as yourself—that murdered your mother, kicked your wife down-stairs, dispatched two apostles out of the world, begun the first persecution against the Christians, and, lastly, put your master Seneca to death. . . . Whereas his most Christian majesty, whose advocate I am resolved to be against all opposers whatever, has bravely and generously starved a million of poor Hugonots at home, and sent t' other million of them a-grazing into foreign countries, contrary to solemn edicts and repeated promises, for no other provocation that I know of but because they were such coxcombs as to place him upon the throne. In short, friend Nero, thou mayest pass for a rogue of the third or fourth class; but be advised by a stranger, and never shew thyself such a fool as to dispute the pre-eminence with Lewis le Grand, who has murdered more men in his reign, let me tell thee, than thou hast murdered tunes, for all thou art the vilest thrummer upon cat-gut the sun ever beheld. However, to give the devil his due, I will say it before thy face and behind thy back, that if thou hadst reigned as many years as my gracious master has done, and hadst had, instead of Tigellinus, a Jesuit or two to have governed thy conscience, thou mightest, in all probability, have made a much more magnificent figure, and been inferior to none but the mighty monarch I have been talking of. . . . ... An Indian's Account of a London Gaming-house. The English pretend that they worship but one God, but for my part, I don't believe what they say; for besides several living divinities, to which we may see them daily offer their vows, they have several other inanimate ones to whom they pay sacrifices, as I have observed at one of their public meetings, where I happened once to be. In this place there is a great altar to be seen, built round and covered with a green wachum, lighted in the midst, and encompassed by several persons in a sitting posture, as we do at our domestick sacrifices. At the very moment I came into the room, one of those, who I supposed was the priest, spread upon the altar certain leaves which he took out of a little book that he held in his hand. Upon these leaves were represented certain figures very awkwardly painted; however, they must needs be the images of some divinities; for in proportion as they were distributed round, each one of the assistants made an offering to it, greater or less according to his devotion. I observed that these offerings were more considerable than those they make in their other temples. After the aforesaid ceremony is over, the priest lays his hand in a trembling manner, as it were, upon the rest of the book, and continues some time in this posture, seized with fear, and without any action at all. All the rest of the company, attentive to what he does, are in suspense all the while, and the unmovable assistants are all of them in their turn possest by different agitations, according to the spirit which happens to seize them. One joins his hands together, and blesses Heaven; another, very earnestly looking upon his image, grinds his teeth; a third bites his fingers, and stamps upon the ground with his feet. Every one of them, in short, makes such extraordinary postures and contortions, that they seem to be no longer rational creatures. But scarce has the priest returned a certain leaf, but he is likewise seized by the same fury with the rest. He tears the book, and devours it in his rage, throws down the altar, and curses the sacrifice. Nothing now is to be heard but complaints and groans, cries and imprecations. Seeing them so transported and so furious, I judge that the God that they worship is a jealous deity, who, to punish them for what they sacrifice to others, sends to each of them an evil demon to possess him. (From Amusements Serious and Comical.) Laconics, or New Maxims of State and Conversation. If your friend is in want, don't carry him to the tavern, where you treat yourself as well as him, and entail a thirst and headache upon him next morning. To treat a poor wretch with a bottle of Burgundy, or fill his snuffbox, is like giving a pair of lace ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back. Put something into his pocket. What is sauce for a goose is sauce for a gander. When any calamities befell the Roman empire, the pagans used to lay it to the charge of the Christians: when Christianity became the imperial religion, the Christians returned the same compliment to the pagans. That which passes for current doctrine at one juncture and in one climate won't do so in another. The cavaliers, in the beginning of the troubles, used to trump up the 12th of the Romans upon the parliament; the parliament trumped it upon the army, when they would not disband; the army back again upon the parliament, when they disputed their orders. Never was poor chapter so unmercifully tossed to and fro again. Not to flatter ourselves, we English are none of the most constant and easy people in the world. When the late war pinched us-Oh! when shall we have a peace and trade again? We had no sooner a peace, but-Huzza, boys, for a new war! and that we shall soon be sick of. A widow and a government are ready, upon all occasions, to tax the new husband and the new prince with the merits of their predecessors, unless the former husband was hanged, and the former king sent to grass; and then they bid them take fair warning by their destiny. For a king to engage his people in war, to carry off every little ill humour of state, is like a physician's ordering his patient a flux for every pimple. The surest way of governing, both in a private family and a kingdom, is for a husband and a prince sometimes to drop their prerogative. What a fine thing it is to be well-mannered upon occasion! In the reign of King Charles II. a certain worthy divine at Whitehall thus addressed himself to the auditory at the conclusion of his sermon: In short, if you don't live up to the precepts of the gospel, but abandon yourselves to your irregular appetites, you must expect to receive your reward in a certain place which 'tis not good manners to mention here. A man in throwing dirt at an adversary does often bespatter himself. Some books, like the city of London, fare the better for being burnt. 'Twas a merry saying of Rabelais, that a man ought to buy all the bad books that come out, because they will never be printed again. The style of his satires and epigrams may be gathered from a verse of his address 'To Mr D'Urfey on his uncomparable Ballads,' beginning— Thou cur, half French half English blood, Thou mongrel of Parnassus ; and containing the verse Thou write Pindarics, and be damned! Sir John Vanbrugh united what Leigh Hunt called-for no very obvious reason the 'apparently incompatible geniuses' of comic writer and architect. His Blenheim and Castle Howard have outlived The Provoked Wife or The Relapse; yet the latter were for many years highly popular ; and even Pope, though he admits his want of grace, says that he never wanted wit. The grandson of a Ghent Protestant refugee (Vanbrug), Vanbrugh was the son of a Cheshire sugar-baker who rose to be an esquire and comptroller of the Treasury Chamber, besides marrying the daughter of Sir Dudley Carlton. Baptised in London 24th January 1664, young Vanbrugh was educated as architect in France, and by his wit, handsome figure, and geniality won a footing in society. In SIR JOHN VANBRUGH. From an Engraving by J. Faber after a Picture by J. Richardson painted in 1725. 1685 he obtained a commission in the army. In 1690 he was seized at Calais and imprisoned at Vincennes and in the Bastille; before his release in 1692 he had been planning a comedy. The Relapse (suggested by Colley Cibber's work) was produced with success in 1697, and was recast by Sheridan (as A Trip to Scarborough) in 1777, and by Hollingshead in 1870. Esop (based on a French original) followed directly; The Provoked Wife (1697) produced a powerful impression. The indecencies of the Relapse and the Provoked Wife were largely utilised by Jeremy Collier in his philippic against the contemporary stage. Later pieces were The False Friend (1702; from Lesage), and The Country House, The Confederacy, The Mistake (from Molière in 1705). Meanwhile as architect he had made his famous design for Castle Howard (built 1702-14), and Lord Carlisle appointed him Clarencieux King-at-Arms. In 1703-5 he built the Queen's Theatre in Haymarket, of which he was lessee, manager, and principal dramatic author. In 1705 also he commenced his novel and imposing design for the great national structure at Blenheim, an enterprise that led to quarrels with the imperious Duchess of Marlborough, and was stopped by the queen's command in 1712 He was heavily out of pocket by the transaction, though some of the arrears were paid in the next reign. The Duchess did her best to irritate and annoy him, and to make him liable for outlays made on her behalf. Spite of these embarrassments, he built many noteworthy mansions, including Dalkeith Palace, was knighted by George I., and appointed comptroller of the royal works and architect to Greenwich Hospital (in succession to Wren). He died at Whitehall, 20th March 1726. At the time of his death Vanbrugh was engaged on a comedy, finished by Colley Cibber as The Provoked Husband, and long a favourite piece. The architectural designs of Vanbrugh were praised by Sir Joshua Reynolds for their display of imagination and their originality of invention, but ridiculed by Swift and other wits of the day for heaviness and incongruity of design. His aim was always to produce the impression of vastness and grandiosity. The first thing in Vanbrugh's plays which strikes the reader is the lively ease of his dialogue. Congreve had more wit, but less nature and less genuine unaffected humour and gaiety. Vanbrugh drew more from living originals, and depicted the manners of his times-the coarse debauchery of the country knight, the gallantry of town-wits and fortune-hunters, and the love of French intrigue and French manners in his female characters. Lord Foppington in the Relapse is the original of most of those luxurious coxcombs who abound in modern comedy, intent on dress, fashion, and self-indulgence, full of silly affectations (as in utterance), but not without wit and spirit. When he loses his mistress he consoles himself with this reflection : Now, for my part, I think the wisest thing a man can do with an aching heart is to put on a serene countenance; for a philosophical air is the most becoming thing in the world to the face of a person of quality. I will therefore bear my disgrace like a great man, and let the people see I am above an affront. [Aloud.] Dear Tam, since things are thus fallen out, prithee give me leave to wish thee joy. I do it de bon cœur-strike me dumb! You have married a woman beautiful in her person, charming in her airs, prudent in her conduct, canstant in her inclinations, and of a nice marality-split my windpipe! The young lady thus eulogised, Miss Hoyden, is the lively, ignorant, romping country-girl to be met with in most of the comedies of this period. In the Provoked Wife the coarse pot-house valour and absurdity of Sir John Brute (Garrick's famous part) is well contrasted with the fine-lady airs and affectation of his wife, transported from the country to the hotbed luxuries of London fashion and extravagance. Such scenes delighted our playgoing ancestors, and may still please us, in spite of faults of taste, for their own wit and, like antique family portraits, as pictures of a departed generation. Vanbrugh's portraits were exaggerated and heightened for dramatic effect; yet on the whole they are characteristic likenesses. There is an endless flow of vivacity and plenty of lively satire and broadly humorous raillery, but the whole is dashed with the most unblushing licentiousness. 'The licence of the times,' as Leigh Hunt says, *allowed Vanbrugh to be plain-spoken to an extent which was perilous to his animal spirits; but, like Dryden, he to some extent repented of these indiscretions-though he was one of the most confident answerers' of Collier's impeachment. The following is part of the scene in the Provoked Wife in which Sir John Brute, having disguised himself in his lady's dress and joined in a drunken midnight frolic, is taken by the constable and watchmen before a Justice of the Peace: Justice. Well, Mr Constable, what is the matter there? Constable. An't please your worship, this here comical sort of a gentlewoman has committed great outrages to-night. She has been frolicking with my Lord Rake and his gang; they attacked the watch, and I hear there has been a man killed: I believe 'tis they have done it. . . Just. Why, truly, she does seem a little masculine about the mouth. 2nd Watchman. Yes, and about the hands too, an't please your worship. I did but offer in mere civility to help her up the steps into our apartment, and with her gripen fist-ay, just so, sir. [Sir JOHN knocks him down. Sir John. I felled him to the ground like an ox. Just. Out upon this boisterous woman! Out upon her! Sir John. Mr Justice, he would have been uncivil! It was in defence of my honour, and I demand satisfaction. 2nd Watch. I hope your worship will satisfy her honour in Bridewell; that fist of hers will make an admirable hemp-beater. Sir John. Sir, I hope you will protect me against that libidinous rascal; I am a woman of quality and virtue too, for all I am in an undress this morning. Just. Why, she has really the air of a sort of a woman a little something out of the common.-Madam, if you expect I should be favourable to you, I desire I may know who you are. Sir John. Sir, I am anybody, at your service. Just. Lady, I desire to know your name. Sir John. Sir, my name's Mary. Just. Ay, but your surname, madam ? Sir John. Sir, my surname's the very same with my husband's. Just. A strange woman this!-Who is your husband, pray? Sir John. Sir John. Just. Sir John who? Sir John. Sir John Brute. Just. Is it possible, madam, you can be my Lady Brute? Sir John. That happy woman, sir, am I; only a little in my merriment to-night. Sir John. I am sorry he has any wife at all. Just. And so, perhaps, may he.—I doubt you have not given him a very good taste of matrimony. Sir John. Taste, sir! Sir, I have scorned to stint him to a taste, I have given him a full meal of it. Just. Indeed I believe so! But pray, fair lady, may he have given you any occasion for this extraordinary conduct?-does he not use you well? Sir John. A little upon the rough sometimes. Just. Ay, any man may be out of humour now and then. Sir John. Sir, I love peace and quiet, and when a woman don't find that at home, she's apt sometimes to comfort herself with a few innocent diversions abroad. Just. I doubt he uses you but too well. Pray how does he as to that weighty thing, money? Does he allow you what is proper of that? Sir John. Sir, I have generally enough to pay the reckoning, if this son of a whore of a drawer would but bring his bill. Just. A strange woman this! - Does he spend a reasonable portion of his time at home, to the comfort of his wife and children? Sir John. He never gave his wife cause to repine at his being abroad in his life. . . . Just. Tis a great pity he should have been thus disposed of.-Pray, madam (and then I've done), what may be your ladyship's common method of life? If I may presume so far. Sir John. Why, sir, much that of a woman of quality. Just. Pray how may you generally pass your time, madam? your morning for example. Sir John. Sir, like a woman of quality. I wake about two o'clock in the afternoon-I stretch-and make a sign for my chocolate. When I have drank three cups I slide down again upon my back, with my arms over my head, while my two maids put on my stockings. Then, hanging upon their shoulders, I am trailed to my great chair, where I sit-and yawn-for my breakfast. If it don't come presently, I lie down upon my couch to say my prayers, while my maid reads me the play-bills. Just. Very well, madam. Sir John. When the tea is brought in, I drink twelve regular dishes, with eight slices of bread and butter. And half an hour after, I send to the cook to know if the dinner is almost ready. Just. So, madam ! Sir John. By that time my head is half dressed, I hear my husband swearing himself into a state of perdition that the meat's all cold upon the table, to amend which I come down in an hour more, and have it sent back to the kitchen to be all dressed over again. Just. Poor man! Sir John. When I have dined, and my idle servants are presumptuously set down at their ease, to do so too, I call for my coach, to go visit fifty dear friends, of whom I hope I shall never find one at home while I shall live. Just. So, there's the morning and afternoon pretty well disposed of! Pray, madam, how do you pass your evenings? Sir John. Like a woman of spirit, sir, a great spirit. Give me a box and dice. Seven's the main! Oons! Sir, I set you a hundred pound! Why, do you think women are married now a days to sit at home and mend napkins? Sir, we have nobler ways of passing time. Just. Mercy upon us, Mr Constable, what will this age come to? Con. What will it come to, indeed, if such women as these are not set in the stocks? Sir John. Sir, I have a little urgent business calls upon me; and therefore I desire the favour of you to bring matters to a conclusion. Just. Madam, if I were sure that business were not to commit more disorders, I would release you. Sir John. None. Just. Then, Mr Constable, you may discharge her. Sir John. Sir, your very humble servant. If you please to accept of a bottleJust. I thank you kindly, madam; but I never drink in a morning. Good-by-t'ye, madam, good-by-t'ye. There are editions of Vanbrugh by W. A. Ward (1893) and A. E. H. Swaen (1896). William Congreve wrote a series of comedies which, more than any others in the English language, abound in witty dialogue and lively incident, though their licentiousness has banished them from the stage. Born at Bardsey near Leeds, and baptised 10th February 1670, he was of a good family, and his father held a military employment in Ireland, where the poet was educated-first at Kilkenny School, and then at Trinity College, Dublin. He studied law in the Middle Temple, but finding, as Leigh Hunt says, that, having family as well as wit and scholarship, he could make way in life without a profession, he early began to write. His first publication was a novel of cross-purposes and disguises, Incognita, full of ornate Gongorism and silly mock-sentiment, not without resemblances to Shakespeare's fancy plays, and closely akin to the prose comedy invented by Etherege and strengthened by Wycherley. He translated the seventh satire of Juvenal (1692), and next appeared as a writer for the stage. His Old Bachelor was produced, under Dryden's auspices, in January 1693, and acted with great applause. Other plays soon appeared: The Double Dealer in 1693; Love for Love in 1695; The Mourning Bride, a tragedy, in 1697; and The Way of the World in 1700. In 1710 he published a collection of miscellaneous poems, of which one little piece, Doris, is worthy of his fame. His position was assured as one of the foremost wits. He was eminently popular in society, and good fortune faithfully followed him. He received a succession of lucrative offices-a commissionership of wine licenses (1705-14), the secretaryship for Jamaica (from the first year of George I.'s reign, and worth £700 a year), and an appointment in the Customs. He was flattered and praised, was treated as a literary genius of the first rank, but was singularly free of literary jealousy. Basking in the sunshine of opulence and courtly society, Congreve wished to forget that he was an author; he maintained the affectation of insisting that his plays were dashed off quite carelessly for his own amusement; and when Voltaire waited upon him, he said he would rather be considered a gentleman than a poet. 'If you had been merely a gentleman,' said the witty Frenchman, 'I should not have come to visit you.' He lived a luxurious and apparently happy life, though latterly afflicted with gout and an affection of the eyes which terminated in total blindness. He died at his house in London on 19th January 1730. Congreve had contracted a close intimacy with the Duchess of Marlborough (daughter of the great Duke), sat at her table daily, and assisted in her household management. On his death he left the bulk of his fortune, amounting to about £10,000, to this eccentric lady. The Duchess spent seven of the ten thousand pounds in the purchase of a diamond necklace. 'How much better would it have been to have given it to Mrs Bracegirdle!' said Young the poet and clergyman; indeed it was commonly believed-wrongly-that the famous actress had been married to Congreve. Johnson thought it should have gone to the Congreve family, then in distress and poverty. The Duchess honoured the poet's remains with a splendid funeral. 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 was afterwards first Lord of the Treasury), and other men of high consideration. The Duchess of Marlborough, if report is to be believed, further manifested her regard for the deceased poet in a manner that spoke more for her devotion than her taste. It is said that she had a figure of him in ivory or wax, which moved by clockwork, and was placed daily at her table; and that the feet of this doll were regularly blistered and anointed by the doctors, as poor Congreve's feet had been for the gout. Congreve remains the greatest master of the English comedy of repartee. Dryden complimented him as adorned by every muse and grace, and, extravagant in panegyric, declared of him : Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, To Shakespeare gave as much, he could not give him more. Pope dedicated to him his translation of the Iliad. What higher honours could have been paid to a writer whose laurels were won by the age of thirty? Yet his plays are generally without the higher gifts of poetry or imagination, and his comic genius was devoted to illustrating a scheme of life almost wholly given up to sensuality and intrigue, without a trace of higher or nobler aims, or the barest sense of responsibility. He is the most perfect master of polished dramatic dialogue in English, and had no equal as a painter of contemporary life and manners, such as they were. He is not so grossly indecent as Etherege or Wycherley. We admire his brilliant dialogue and |