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But lived, I know not how, in beasts; and then,
When many years were passed, in men again.
Methinks, we players resemble such a soul;
That does from bodies, we from houses stroll.
Thus Aristotle's soul, of old that was,
May now be damned to animate an ass;
Or in this very house, for aught we know,
Is doing painful penance in some beau :
And thus, our audience, which did once resort
To shining theatres to see our sport,

Now find us tossed into a tennis-court.

These walls but t'other day were filled with noise
Of roaring gamesters, and your damn-me boys;
Then bounding balls and rackets they encompast,
And now they're filled with jests, and flights, and bom-
bast!

I vow, I don't much like this transmigration,

Strolling from place to place by circulation;

Grant, Heaven, we don't return to our first station
I know not what these think, but, for my part,

I can't reflect without an aching heart,

How we should end in our original, a cart.

But we can't fear, since you're so good to save us
That you have only set us up,-to leave us.
Thus from the past, we hope for future grace
I beg it-

And some here know I have a begging face.
Then pray continue this your kind behaviour.
For a clear stage won't do, without your favour.

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THE WAY OF THE WORLD.

Audire est operæ pretium, procedere recte
Qui mochis non vultis. -HORAT. Lib. i. Sat. 2.
Metuat, doti deprensa.-Ibid.1

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1 "Ye that do not wish well to the proceedings of adulterers, it is worth your while to hear how they are hampered on all sides."

N the opinion of the critics The Way of the World is the most finished of all Congreve's comedies. It is full of movement and of those little touches which give an insight into the manners of the day. "Though not the most amusing," writes Leigh Hunt, "it is assuredly the most complete, piquant, and observant of all the works of Congreve; full as an egg of some kind of wit or sense in almost every sentence, and a rich treat for the lover of this sort of writing sitting in his easy chair. Millamant pushes the confident playfulness of a coquette to the verge of what is pleasing; but her animal spirits and good nature secure her. You feel that her airs will give way by-and-by to a genuine tenderness; and meanwhile some of them are exquisite in their affected superiority to circumstances."

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Mr. George Meredith commends the play for the remarkable brilliancy of the writing and the figure of Millamant. "Where Congreve excels all his English rivals,' he remarks, "is in his literary force and a succinctness of style peculiar to him. He hits the mean of a fine style and a natural in dialogue. He is at once precise and voluble. If you have ever thought upon style you will acknowledge it to be a signal accomplishment. In this he is a classic, and worthy of treading a measure with Molière. Sheridan imitated but was far from surpassing him. The flow of boudoir Billingsgate in Lady Wishfort is unmatched for the vigour and pointedness of the tongue. It spins along with a final ring, like the voice of nature in a fury, and is, indeed, racy eloquence of the elevated fishwife. Millamant is an admirable, almost a lovable heroine. It is a piece of genius in a writer to make a woman's manner of speech portray her. You feel sensible of her presence in every line of her speaking. An air of bewitching whimsicality hovers over the graces of this comic heroine, like the lively conversational play of a beautiful mouth."

The Way of the World was produced in 1700, but its reception was so indifferent that the author, in disgust, vowed that he would never again write for the stage-a promise which he rigidly kept.

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To Mr. CONGREVE, occasioned by his Comedy called "The
Way of the World."

WHEN pleasure's falling to the low delight,
In the vain joys of the uncertain sight;
No sense of wit when rude spectators know,
But in distorted gesture, farce and show;
How could, great author, your aspiring mind
Dare to write only to the few refined?
Yet though that nice ambition you pursue,
'Tis not in Congreve's power to please but few.
Implicitly devoted to his fame,

Well-dressed barbarians know his awful name.
Though senseless they're of mirth, but when they
laugh,

As they feel wine, but when, till drunk, they quaff.
On you from fate a lavish portion fell

In every way of writing to excel.
Your muse applause to Arabella brings,
In notes as sweet as Arabella sings.
Whene'er you draw an undissembled woe,
With sweet distress your rural numbers flow
Pastora's the complaint of every swain,
Pastora still the echo of the plain !

Or if your muse describe, with warming force,
The wounded Frenchman falling from his horse;
And her own William glorious in the strife,
Bestowing on the prostrate foe his life:
You the great act as generously rehearse,
And all the English fury's in your verse.

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