but a ricketty consistency, who shall denounce dramatic reading, on the score of its immorality, and yet shall tolerate some modern novels, which are legitimate and pure in dialect only—but what shall we say of that mortal who to the world shall anathematise dramatic lectures, dramatic readings, and theatrical representations; and yet will have a play read to an assembled party in his own house? Well may Molière make Mons. Tartuffe say :-" Ce n'est pas pécher, que pécher en silence." Sir John Vanburgh, or Vanbrugh (for his name has been spelt both ways), is said to have descended from Dutch, or Netherland ancestors; but whether he was born in England or in France has been a question of biographical controversy. On the one hand, his birth-place is said to have been Chester, because his father resided there some time; and on the other, the author of the "Curiosities of Literature" has endeavoured to prove, from a passage in one of his letters (which may be taken in an equivocal sense), that he was born in the Bastille ! As however there is no necessity at this juncture to sift the question of his "birth, parentage, and education; life, death, and behaviour;" but the products of his literary talent and genius, I refer all curious tendencies in the former direction to the biographies of him that have been alluded to. Vanburgh, like Wycherley, finished his education in France; and upon his return home entered the army as an ensign. During the period of his military service, it appears that he sketched the plots of his two comedies, "The Provoked Wife," and "The Relapse." The latter was first finished, and was produced at Drury Lane Theatre, where it was completely successful: and "The Provoked Wife" made its first appearance during the following year at the Duke's Theatre (as it was called) in Lincoln's Inn Fields; and with equal, if not increased approbation. "The Relapse" is a delightful play to read ; its spirit is sustained without effort to the end; and although the characters are somewhat farcical, yet are they more so than many an anomaly we all and each of us meet in every day life? Lord Foppington, for instance, is a delicious coxcomb; but that man must be deaf, blind and insensible, who cannot in his own experience verify a Lord Foppington in absurdity, conceit, and stolid selfishness. This character is perhaps a reflex of the Sir Fopling Flutter of Etheredge; more so however in the externals than in the inner structure of the specimen. All fops, at first sight, appear alike,—like sheep, soldiers, and Turks. Hazlitt, with his fine tact, has truly discriminated the two characters-Foppington and Fopling Flutter. "Upon the whole (he says), Sir Fopling is the more natural grotesque of the two. His soul is more in his dress; he is a more disinterested coxcomb. With Sir Fopling, I should say, dress was his religion; -with Lord Foppington it was his profession." Hazlitt continues: The lord is an ostentatious, strutting, vain-glorious blockhead; the knight (Sir Fopling) is an unaffected, self-complacent serious admirer of his equipage and person. For instance, what they severally say on the subject of contemplating themselves in the glass is a proof of this. Sir Fopling thinks a looking-glass in the room "the best company in the world," it is another self to him. [And what an admirable piece of unconscious wit is that!] Lord Foppington merely considers the glass as necessary to adjust his appearance, that he may make a figure in company. The finery of the one (Foppington) has an imposing air of grandeur about it, and is studied for effect; the other (Fopling) is really in love with a laced suit, and is hand-and-glove with the newest-cut fashion. He really thinks his tailor or peruke-maker the greatest man in the world, while the lord treats them familiarly as necessary appendages of his person. Still, this coxcomb nobleman's effeminacy and mock-heroic vanity are admirably depicted, and held up to unrivalled ridicule; and his courtship of Miss Hoyden is excellent in all its stages, and ends oracularly. His last speech, in which he resigns the lady to his brother Tom, who has out-diplomatised him, in revenge for his unbrotherly desertion of him in his necessity, is a choice specimen of selfsufficiency and coxcombry, and is a vivid and accurate reflection of the class of character to which he belongs. He says: 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. Then, turning to his brother Dear Tom, since things are thus fallen out, pr'ythee 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, constant in her inclinations, and of a nice morality-stap my vitals! The inanity of the character, certainly, is sustained throughout with an unflagging wing. His conversation with Amanda upon her country life, and literary relaxation, is rich, verging upon the caricature, and yet I could quote a living counterpart. Lord Fop. For Gad's sake, Madam, how has your ladyship been able to subsist thus long under the fatigue of a country life? Amanda. My life has been very far from that, my lord; it has been a very quiet one. Fop. Why, that's the fatigue I speak of, Madam. For 'tis impossible to be quiet without thinking; now thinking is to me the greatest fatigue in the world. Aman. Does not your lordship love reading, then? Fop. Oh! passionately, Madam; but I nevar think when I read. Aman. Why, can your lordship read without thinking? Fop. O Lard!-Can your ladyship pray without devotion? Aman. Well, I must own, I think books the best entertainment in the world. Fop. I am so much of your ladyship's mind, Madam, that I have a private gallery, where I walk sometimes, furnished with nothing but books and lookingglasses. Madam, I have gilded 'em and ranged 'em so prettily, before Gad, it is the most entertaining thing in the world to walk and look upon 'em. An observation that passes upon this poor fool, between Amanda and her husband, assumes an air of philosophical benevolence, by its sympathy and dramatic contrast. She says, "It moves my pity more than my mirth, to see a man whom nature has made no fool, be so very industrious to pass for an ass." Loveless, her husband, replies, "No; there you are wrong, Amanda, you should never bestow your pity on those who take pains for your contempt. Pity those whom nature abuses, but never those who abuse nature." "Besides," rejoins her cousin, Berinthia, "the town would be robbed of one of its chiefest diversions, if it should become a crime to laugh at a fool." Miss Hoyden, the rich country heiress, is a strapping sample of boisterous nature; too much of a family resemblance, perhaps, to Miss Prue, in Congreve's "Love for Love," and not very distant in consanguinity from Wycherley's "Country Wife." Hoyden, however, is a fine, primitive piece of mother earth-buxom, bouncing, joyous, and good-tempered. Her father, Sir Tunbelly (who is one of Squire Western's genus), keeps her in seclusion; she therefore thinks of nothing else but scaling the walls, and "skyming" off with a husband. Her first introduction to our notice is an excellent dash of stage effect. When her lover, Tom Fashion, comes down to the family mansion to court her, her father, not having been apprised of his visit, roars out, "Let loose the greyhound, and lock up Hoyden!" It is also quite true to nature that a wild and ignorant country girl should prefer wealth and finery to mere personal accomplishments; she therefore transfers herself with ludicrous facility from Tom to his brother, the lord, with his fine house and furniture, coaches and horses. Both Congreve and Vanburgh have most humourously preserved the rebellious instinct in the two characters. Prue is becoming restive, and, to borrow the coachman's metaphor, has "kicked over the trace," her nurse, who is her keeper, threatens her with the rod. Her answer is, "Fiddle of a rod! I'll have a husband!" Hoyden, too, with the same headstrong purpose, declares, "It's well they've got me a husband; or, ecod, I'd marry the baker." When Miss In the characters of Loveless, and his wife Amanda, who visit London after a residence in the country, Vanburgh has, to an extent, redeemed the married female from a charge of opprobrium that had long been heaped upon the class by his predecessors. Amanda is good, and good from principle. She is not a dragon of virtue, but unostentatiously correct, and unconquerable when most severely assailed. Loveless unequivocally loves, and even worships his wife; but having formerly been a libertine, a revisit to the scenes of his licentiousness brings back upon him the full tide of his early habits and recollections: hence the title of the play-" The Relapse;" and this was the simple inference that Vanburgh intended to draw. It is wise, even in the strongest minded, not to dabble with temptation. Berinthia, the cousin of Amanda, and who intrigues with her husband, is a clever, but heartless character. Her intrigue is of the worst complexion, because it arises from mere personal vanity, and trumpery love of conquest-no matter at whose expense, or at the destruction of whose peace of mind. "The Provoked Wife," to my own feelings and taste, is a nauseous production. Sir John Brute, the chief person, is a monster-curiosity, and fit only for a museum. There are anomalies in the world, it is true, and Sir John Brute is one: he is an awful hog. His wife is a natural character, and tells her own tale clearly and well. The other characters, Belinda (her niece), Constant, Heartfree, and Lady Fanciful, are little better than common stock from the dramatic warehouse. The play is considerably licentious, and yet the spirit of its moral is less revolting, from the tone of unselfishness and an unconsciously developed tone of justice towards the party against whom the question is always begged, a frankness and liberality of sentiment that one may look for in vain in the heartless and passionless intrigueries of Congreve. The whole story of "The Provoked Wife" is demonstrated in the first page of the first scene, and a hopeful development it is! The Brute, Sir John, is discovered alone. "What cloying meat is love, when matrimony is the sauce to it! Two years' marriage has debauched my five senses. Everything I see, everything I hear, everything I feel, everything I smell, and everything I taste, methinks has 'wife' in it. No boy was ever so weary of his tutor, no girl of her bib, no nun of doing penance, as I am of being married. Sure, there is a secret curse entailed upon the very name of wife. My lady is a young lady, a fine lady, a witty lady, a virtuous lady-and yet I hate her. There is but one thing I loathe on earth beyond her-that is fighting. Would my courage came up to but a fourth part of my ill-nature, I'd stand buff to her relations, and thrust her out of doors. But marriage has sunk me down to such an ebb of resolution, I though even to get rid of my wife. Ugh!" dare not draw my sword, [ENTER Lady Brute.] But here she comes Lady Brute. Do you dine at home, to-day, Sir John? Sir John. Why do you expect I should tell you what I don't know myself? Lady B. I thought there was no harm in asking you. Sir F. If thinking wrong were an excuse for impertinence, women might be justified in most things they say or do. Lady B. I'm sorry I've said anything to displease you. Sir 7. Sorrow for things past is of as little importance to me, as my dining at home or abroad ought to be to you. Lady B. My inquiry was only that I might have provided what you liked. Sir J. Six to four you had been in the wrong there again; for what I liked yesterday I don't like to-day; and what I like to-day 'tis odds I mayn't like to morrow. Lady B. But if I had asked you what you liked ? Sir J. Why, then, there would be more asking about it than the thing is worth. Lady B. I wish I did but know how I might please you. Sir J. Ay, but that sort of knowledge is not a wife's talent. Lady B. Whate'er my talent is, I am sure my will has ever been to make you easy. Sir 7. If women were to have their wills, the world would be finely governed. Lady B. What reason have I given you to use me as you do of late? It once was otherwise. You married me for love. Sir 7. And you me for money. mine. So, you have your reward, and I have Lady B. What is it that disturbs you? Lady B. Why, what has he done to you? [Exit.] And now for the moral in the play. When he is gone Lady Brute says: "The devil's in the fellow, I think! I was told before I married him that thus 'twould be; but I thought I had charms enough to govern him, and that where there was an estate a woman must needs be happy; so my vanity has deceived me, and my ambition has made me uneasy. But there's some comfort still; if one would be revenged of him, there are good times; a woman may have a gallant, and a separate maintenance, too. The surly puppy! Yet he's a fool for't: for hitherto he has been no monster; but who knows how far he may provoke me? I never loved him, yet I have been ever true to him; and that in spite of all the attacks of |