while we look at her. It is a regular whirlpool; all turns round in her brain as in a clock when the mainspring is broken. Notl ing can be prettier than her fashion of entering on matrimony:

“Millamant. Ah! I'll never marry unless I am first made sure of my will and pleasure! . . . My dear liberty, shall I leave thee? my faithful solitude, my darling contemplation, must I bid you then adieu? Ay-h—adieu--my morning thoughts, agreeable wakings, indolent slumbers, all ye douceurs ye sommeils du matin adieu?—I can't do it; 'tis more than impossible-positively, Mirabell, I'll lie a-bed in a morning as long as I please.

Mirabell. Then I'll get up in a morning as early as I please.

Mill. Ah! idle creature, get up when you will-and d'ye hear, I won't be called names after I'm married; positively I won't be called names. Mir. Names!

Mill. Ay, as wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweet heart, and the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their wives are so fulsomely familiar-I shall never bear that good Mirabell, don't let us be familiar or fond, nor kiss before folks, like my Lady Fadler, and Sir Francis. . . . Let us never visit together, nor go to a play together; but let us be very strange and well-bred: let us be as strange as if we had been married a great while; and as well bred as if we were not married at all.

...

Mir. Shall I kiss your hand upon the contract? 1 Mill. Fainall, what shall I do? shall I have him? I think I must have him.

Fainall. Ay, ay, take him. What should you do?

Mill. Well then-I'll take my death I'm in a horrid fright-Fainall, I shall never say it-well-I think-I'll endure you.

Fain. Fy! fy! have him, have him, and tell him so in plain terms: for I am sure you have a mind to him.

Mill. Are you? I think I have—and the horrid man looks as if he thought so too—well, you ridiculous thing you, I'll have you—I won't be kissed, nor I won't be thanked-here kiss my hand though.—So, hold your tongue now, don't say a word." 2

The agreement is complete. I should like to see one more article to it-a divorce "a mensâ et thoro:" this would be the genuine marriage of the worldlings, that is a decent divorce. And I am sure that in two years Mirabell and Millamant will come to this. Hither tends the whole of this theatre; for, with. regard to the women, but particularly with regard to the married women, I have only presented their most amiable aspects. Deeper down it is all gloomy, bitter, above all, pernicious. I represents a household as a prison, marriage as a warfare, woman as a rebel, adultery as the result looked for, irregularity as a

1 Congreve, The Way of the World, iv. 5.

2 Ibid. iv. 6.

right, extravagance as pleasure. A woman of fashion goes to bed in the morning, rises at mid-day, curses her husband, listens to obscenities, frequents balls, haunts the plays, ruins reputations, turns her home into a gambling-house, borrows money, allures men, associates her honor and fortune with debts and assignations. "We are as wicked (as men)," says Lady Brute, "but our vices lie another way. Men have more courage than we, so they commit more bold impudent sins. They quarrel, fight, swear, drink, blaspheme, and the like; whereas we being cowards, only backbite, tell lies, cheat at cards, and so forth."2 An admirable resumé, in which the gentlemen are included and the ladies too! The world has done nothing but provide them with correct phrases and elegant dresses. In Congreve especially they talk in the best style; above all they know how to hand ladies about and entertain them with news; they are expert in the fence of retorts and replies; they are never out of countenance, find means to make the most ticklish notions understood; they discuss very well, speak excellently, make their bow still better; but to sum up, they are blackguards, systematical epicureans, professed seducers. They set forth immorality in maxims, and reason out their vice. "Give me," says one, "a man that keeps his five senses keen and bright as his sword, that has 'em always drawn out in their just order and strength, with his reason, as commander at the head of 'em, that detaches 'em by turns upon whatever party of pleasure agreeably offers, and commands 'em to retreat upon the least appearance of disadvantage or danger. . . . I love a fine house, but let another

1“ Amanda. How did yon live together? Berinthia. Like man and wife, asunder.He loved the country, I the town. He hawks and hounds, I coaches and equipage. He cating and drinking, I carding and playing. He the sound of a horn, I the squeak of a fiddle. We were dull company at table, worse a-bed. Whenever we met, we gave one another the spleen; and never agreed but once, which was about lying alone."-Vanbrugh, Relapse, Act ii. ad fin.

Compare Vanbrugh, A Journey to London. Rarely has the repulsiveness and corruption of the brutish or worldly nature been more vividly displayed. Little Betty and her brother, Squire Humphrey, deserve hanging.

"Mrs. Foresight. Do you think any woman honest?

Scandal. Yes, several

Again. very honest; they'll cheat a little at cards, sometimes; but that's nothing. Mrs. F. Pshaw! but virtuous, I mean. S. Yes, faith; I believe some women are virtuous too; but 'tis as I believe some men are valiant, through fear. For why should a man court danger (r a woman shun pleasure?"-Congreve, Love for Love, iii. 14.

Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife, v. 2. Compare also in this piece the character of Mademoiselle, the French chambermaid. They represent French vice as even more shameless than English vice.

keep it; and just so I love a fine woman." One deliberately seduces his friend's wife; another under a false name gets possession of his brother's intended. A third hires false witnesses to secure a dowry. I must ask the reader to consult for himself the fine stratagems of Worthy, Mirabell, and others. They are coldblooded rascals who forge, commit adultery, swindle, as if they had done nothing else all their lives. They are represented here as men of fashion; they are theatrical lovers, heroes, and as such they manage to get hold of an heiress. We must go to Mirabell for an example of this medley of corruption and elegance. Mrs. Fainall, his former mistress, married by him to a common friend, a miserable wretch, complains to him of this hateful marriage. He appeases her, gives her advice, shows her the precise mode, the true expedient for setting things on a comfortable footing. "You should have just so much disgust for your husband, as may be sufficient to make you relish your lover." She cries in despair, "Why did you make me marry this man?" He smiles calmly, "Why do we daily commit disagreeable and dangerous actions? to save that idol, reputation." How tender is this argument! How can a man better console a woman whom he has plunged into bitter unhappiness! What a touching logic in the insinuation which follows: "If the familiarities of our loves had produced that consequence of which you were apprehensive, where could you have fixed a father's name with credit, but on a husband?" He continues his reasoning in an excellent style; listen to the dilemma of a man of feeling: "A better man ought not to have been sacrificed to the occasion ; a worse had not answered to the purpose. When you are weary of him, you know your remedy."2 Thus are a woman's feelings to be considered, especially a woman whom we have loved. To cap all, this delicate conversation is meant to force the poor deserted Mrs. Fainall into a low intrigue which shall obtain for Mirabell a pretty wife and a good dowry. Certainly this gentleman knows the world; no one could better employ a former mistress. Such are the cultivated characters of this theatre, as dishonest as the uncultivated ones: having transformed their

1 Farquhar's The Beaux Stratagem, i. 1; and in the same piece here is the catechism of love: "What are the ol jects of that passion ?-youth, beauty, and clean linen." And from the Meck Astrologer of Dryden: "As I am a gentleman, a man about town, one that wears good cloths, eats, drinks, and wenches sufficiently."

* Congreve, The Way of the World, ii. 4.

evil instincts into systematic vices, lust into debauchery, brutality into cynicism, perversity into depravity, deliberate egotists, calculating sensualists, with rules for their immorality, reducing feeling to self-interest, honor to decorum, happiness to pleasure.

The English Restoration altogether was one of those great crises which, while warping the development of a society and a literature, show the inward spirit which they modify, but which contradicts them. Society did not lack vigor, nor literature talent; men of the world were polished, writers inventive. There was a court, drawing-rooms, conversation, worldly life, a taste for letters, the example of France, peace, leisure, the influence of the sciences, of politics, of theology,-in short, all the happy circumstances which can elevate the mind and civilize manners. There was the vigorous satire of Wycherley, the sparkling dialogue and delicate raillery of Congreve, the frank nature and animation of Vanbrugh, the manifold invention of Farquhar, in short, all the resources which might nourish the comic element, and offer a genuine theatre to the best constructions of human intelligence. Nothing came to a head; all was abortive. Their age left nothing behind but the memory of corruption; their comedy remains a repertory of viciousness; society had only a soiled elegance, literature a frigid wit. Their manners are gross and trivial; their ideas are futile or incomplete. Through disgust and reaction, a revolution was at hand in literary feeling and moral habits, as well as in general beliefs and political institutions. Man was to change altogether, and to turn completely round at once. The same repugnance and the same experience were to detach him from every aspect of his old condition. The Englishman discovered that he was not monarchical, Papistical, nor sceptical, but liberal, Protestant, and a believer. He came to understand that he was not a roisterer nor a worldling, but reflective and introspective. He possesses a current of animal life too violent to suffer him without danger to abandon himself to enjoyment; he needs a barrier of moral reasoning to repress his outbreaks. There is in him a current of attention and will too strong to suffer himself to rest content with trifles; he needs some weighty and serviceable labor on which to expend his power. He needs a barrier and an employment. He needs a constitution and a religion which shall restrain him by duties which must be performed, and which shall occupy him by rights which must be de

fended. He is content only in a serious and orderly life; there he finds the natural groove and the necessary outlet for his faculties and his passions. From this time he enters upon it, and this theatre itself exhibits the impress of it. It undoes and transforms itself. Collier threw discredit upon it; Addison condemned it. National sentiment awoke on the stage; French manners are jeered at; the prologues celebrate the defeats of Louis XIV.; the license, elegance, religion of his court, are presented under a ridiculous or odious light. Immorality gradually diminishes, marriage is more respected, the heroines go no further than to the verge of adultery; the roisterers are pulled up at the critical moment; one of them suddenly declares himself purified, and speaks in verse, the better to mark his enthusiasm; another praises marriage; 3 some aspire in the fifth act to an orderly life. We shall soon see Steele writing a moral treatise called The Christian Hero. Henceforth comedy declines and literary talent flows into another channel. Essay, novel, pamphlet, dissertation, take the place of the drama; and the English classical spirit, abandoning the kinds of writing which are foreign to its nature, enters upon the great works which are destined to immortalize it and give it expression.

X.

Nevertheless, in this continuous decline of dramatic invention, and in the great change of literary vitality, some shoots strike out at distant intervals towards comedy; for mankind always seeks for entertainment, and the theatre is always a place of entertainment. The tree once planted grows, feebly no doubt, with long intervals of almost total dryness and almost constant barrenness, yet subject to imperfect renewals of life, to transitory partial blossomings, sometimes to an inferior fruitage bursting forth from the lowest branches. Even when the great subjects are worn out, there is still room here and there for a happy idea. Let a wit, clever and experienced, take it in hand, he will catch

1 The part of Chaplain Foigard in Farquhar's Beaux Stratagem; of Mademoiselle, and generally of all the French people.

2 The part of Amanda in Vanbrugh's Relapse; of Mrs. Sullen; the conversion of two roisterers, in the Beaux Stratagem.

3 "Though marriage be a lottery in which there are a wondrous many blanks, yet there is one inestimable lot, in which the only heaven upon earth is written."

"To be capable of loving one, doubtless, is better than to possess a thousand.”—VAN

BRUGH.