and when he is baffled by the production of a deed conveying the whole of Mrs. Fainall's fortune to Mirabell in trust, we feel that, even if the device be defensible from the legal point of view, it is dramatically of the feeblest. The tangle of intrigues is not by any means so inextricable as that of the last Act of The Double-Dealer; but it is mechanical, sordid, and open to criticism at a dozen points. Though the audiences of that day did not rebel against cynicism, they preferred it with a smack of sensuality; whereas in this case it was merely intellectual and arid. Once more, in fact, Congreve had tried, and failed, to construct a well-made play.

But once more, and much more decisively than in the case of The Double-Dealer, the abounding merits of the play gradually outweighed its defects, and established it as a classic of the stage. Millamant was by far the most delightful and vital creation of the whole school of comedy; and Lady Wishfort was the consummate and incomparable incarnation of the amorous old woman a hideous type, but always popular with audiences of somewhat crass sensibilities. It has been suggested, as a reason for the initial failure of the play, that Lady Wishfort was thought a too "tragic" character. This I cannot for a moment believe. It is a reading of modern fastidiousness into the eighteenth-century public, and a fastidiousness, too, which many modern audiences do not exhibit. Witwoud was the pleasantest of Congreve's fribbles, and Sir Wilfull by no means the least pleasant of the country squires who abounded in the comedy of the day. Petulant I cannot but think somewhat of an anachronism — an Elizabethan or Jacobean sur

CONGREVE 3

vival and one wonders whether the audience may not have felt that one drunken man was enough for a single evening's entertainment. The servants, on the other hand, are all brilliant acting parts. Mrs. Fainall is the only colourless character in the play. Fainall, though preternaturally odious, is at least more human than Maskwell; and in Mrs. Marwood we have a rather effective suggestion of a dark, passionate, sinister nature. The comedy held its own on the stage until 1800, and has been revived in recent years (1904) by Mr. Philip Carr's Mermaid Company of players. Love for Love, on the other hand, was currently acted as late as 1825, and was revived by Macready at Drury Lane in 1842.

What are we to say, now, on the endless question of Congreve's morality? Mr. G. S. Street, in an ingenious essay, has advanced a dual plea for his hero. Delicacy of speech, he says, is a convention varying with time and locality, and we must not blame Congreve for speaking the language of his age; while as for the alleged cynicism of his work, it is inherent in the nature of satiric comedy, the business of which is to paint vice and folly, not to sentimentalize over innocence and virtue. The first part of this defence may be accepted, with an important reservation: to wit, that Congreve's grossness, while less than that of some of his contemporaries, yet went beyond what was conventionally admitted among decent people, and outraged even the lax proprieties of the period. For instance, no conventions that ever obtained, in human society can excuse the rank brutality of the conversation between Valentine and Scandal in Act I of

Love for Love. As for the plea drawn from the nature of satiric comedy (Congreve's own plea, by the way), it cannot, I think, be maintained. Satire involves two things which are equally lacking in Congreve's comedies: a standard, expressed or implied, of what is good, and a certain amount of indignation against what is bad. It will be admitted, I think, that no suggestion. of any standard of conduct is to be found in these plays. In each of them, it is true, we see a young woman Araminta, Cynthia, whose "virtue" is as yet Angelica, Millamant 1

1

unassailed, and for whom the honour of marrying the hero is therefore reserved. But in each case she. moves with smiling indifference through the rout of intrigue and debauchery around her, never dreaming of even the gentlest protest against the vices of her lover or of any one else. Nothing could be less like the Lady in Comus than such a heroine as Angelica or Millamant; for these ladies demand nothing better than to marry into the herd. Their presence removes, indeed, the last semblance of justification for the plea that impartial satire was the author's aim. They are there, with their virtue (such as it is) intact, in order that the audience may be spared the pain of seeing the hero marry an already profligate woman; and the fact that a pure woman is carefully reserved for him proves beyond a doubt that the hero, Vainlove, Mellefont, Valentine, or Mirabell, is intended to command the sympathy of the audience.

Thus it is false to allege that sympathy is altogether excluded from this world. We are as plainly as possible invited to admire this group of men, of whom

1 In short, the Bracegirdle part.

Mellefont alone is not a manifest libertine, while even he does his best to further Careless's designs on Lady Plyant. Jeremy Collier's remarks on Valentine are scarcely exaggerated and may apply to the whole group. "Valentine in Love for Love," he says, "is (if I may so call him) the hero of the play; this spark the poet would pass for a person of virtue, but he speaks too late. 'Tis true he was hearty in his affection for Angelica. Now without question to be in love with a fine lady of thirty thousand pounds is a great virtue! But then, abating this single commendation, Valentine is altogether composed of vice. He is a prodigal debauchee, unnatural and profane, obscene, saucy, and undutiful; and yet this libertine is crowned for the man of merit, has his wishes thrown into his lap, and makes the happy exit."

It is noteworthy that these heroes, while a thousand miles from the smallest pretension to virtue, have not even any conventional standard of honour. I do not remember that the expression "a man of honour," or any equivalent, occurs once in Congreve's plays. No line is drawn at which debauchery and fraud ought to cease. The character of Tattle shows that there is a certain prejudice against the man who brags of his amours; but even this enormity is regarded as a matter for ridicule, not for indignation. The social code of these fine gentlemen contains no provision for "cutting" a man or sending him to Coventry. There is, indeed, no social code, but a state of utter lawlessness. Swords are worn, and are once or twice drawn in the rage of baffled villainy, but never in vindication either of a man's honour or of a woman's. The duel, that overworked device of earlier and later

drama, is practically unknown to Restoration comedy. There is perhaps no completer proof of its moral anarchy than the fact that even those prejudices were in abeyance which involve an appeal to the sword.

Congreve regards life, as I have more than once said above, from a standpoint of complete ethical indifference; and it is in moods of indifference that we relish his comedies. . In most of us such moods occur; nor need we be too much ashamed of them. This is, in fact, the sum and substance of Lamb's, famous plea. There is a certain refreshment in an imaginary escape, once in a while, from the trammels of duty and decency, and an excursion into a realm in which, as there is no virtue save wit, there is no wickedness save stupidity. That is a good defence of Congreve, regarded retrospectively as a literary phenomenon; it was, or would have been, a very bad defence in days when each of his comedies was an interpretation of life and a social action. It was not, as we have seen, his own defence. He took his stand on the privileges, or rather the essential nature, of satire; to which it might have been replied, and Collier did in effect reply, that the essential nature of satire precludes indifference. Satire seeks, even if it be despairingly, to make the world better; whereas no such dream, assuredly, ever flitted through Congreve's brain. He simply obeyed the convention of his age which declared that the business of comedy was to depict, in more or less extravagant situations, the manners and customs of rogues and fools. How purely habitual, how independent of observation, was this view of life, may be judged from the fact

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