How can I introduce to you that merry and shameless Comic Muse who won him such a reputation? Nell Gwynn's servant fought the other footman for having called his mistress a bad name; and in like manner, and with pretty like epithets, Jeremy Collier attacked that godless, reckless Jezebel, the English comedy of his time, and called her what Nell Gwynn's man's fellowservants called Nell Gwynn's man's mistress. The servants of the theatre, Dryden, Congreve,1 and others, defended themselves with the same success, and for the

and "such a glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, as inspired everybody with desire." "Scarce an audience saw her that were not half of them her lovers."

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Congreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. In Tamerlane, Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of Axalla. Congreve insinuated his addresses in his Valentine to her Angelica, in 'Love for Love;' in his Osmyn to her Almena, in the 'Mourning Bride; ' and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, in the 'Way of the World.' Mirabel, the fine gentleman of the play, is, I believe, not very distant from the real character of Congreve.” — Dramatic Miscellanies, vol. iii. 1784.

She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be the public favourite. She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her age.

1 He replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called "Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations," &c. A specimen or two are subjoined:

"The greater part of these examples which he has produced are only demonstrations of his own impurity: they only savour of his utterance, and were sweet enough till tainted by his breath.

"Where the expression is unblameable in its own pure and genuine signification, he enters into it, himself, like the evil spirit; he possesses the innocent phrase, and makes it bellow forth his own blasphemies.

"If I do not return him civilities in calling him names, it is because I am not very well versed in his nomenclatures. . . . I will only call him Mr. Collier, and that I will call him as often as I think he shall deserve it. "The corruption of a rotten divine is the generation of a sour critic."

"Congreve," says Dr. Johnson, a very young man, elated with success, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and security. The dispute was protracted through ten years; but at last Comedy grew more modest, and Collier lived to see the reward of his labours in the reformation of the theatre.". Life of Congreve.

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same cause which set Nell's lackey fighting. She was a disreputable, daring, laughing, painted French baggage, that Comic Muse. She came over from the Continent with Charles (who chose many more of his female friends there) at the Restoration - a wild, dishevelled Lais, with eyes bright with wit and wine-a saucy court-favourite that sat at the King's knees, and laughed in his face, and when she showed her bold cheeks at her chariot-window, had some of the noblest and most famous people of the land bowing round her wheel. She was kind and popular enough, that daring Comedy, that audacious poor Nell: she was gay and generous, kind, frank, as such people can afford to be: and the men who lived with her and laughed with her, took her pay and drank her wine, turned out when the Puritans hooted her, to fight and defend her. But the jade was indefensible, and it is pretty certain her servants knew it.

There is life and death going on in every thing: truth and lies always at battle. Pleasure is always warring against self-restraint. Doubt is always crying Psha! and sneering. A man in life, a humourist, in writing about life, sways over to one principle or the other, and laughs with the reverence for right and the love of truth in his heart, or laughs at these from the other side. Didn't I tell you that dancing was a serious business to Harlequin? I have read two or three of Congreve's plays over before speaking of him; and my feelings were rather like those, which I dare say most of us here have had, at Pompeii, looking at Sallust's house and the relics of an orgy: a dried wine-jar or two, a charred suppertable, the breast of a dancing-girl pressed against the ashes, the laughing skull of a jester: a perfect stillness round about, as the cicerone twangs his moral, and the blue sky shines calmly over the ruin. The Congreve Muse is dead, and her song choked in Time's ashes.

We gaze at the skeleton, and wonder at the life which once revelled in its mad veins. We take the skull up, and muse over the frolic and daring, the wit, scorn, passion, hope, desire, with which that empty bowl once fermented. We think of the glances that allured, the tears that melted, of the bright eyes that shone in those vacant sockets; and of lips whispering love, and cheeks dimpling with smiles, that once covered yon ghastly yellow framework. They used to call those teeth pearls once. See! there's the cup she drank from, the goldchain she wore on her neck, the vase which held the rouge for her cheeks, her looking-glass, and the harp she used to dance to. Instead of a feast we find a gravestone, and in place of a mistress, a few bones!

Reading in these plays now, is like shutting your ears and looking at people dancing. What does it mean? the measures, the grimaces, the bowing, shuffling and retreating, the cavalier seul advancing upon those ladies

those ladies and men twirling round at the end in a mad galop, after which everybody bows and the quaint rite is celebrated. Without the music we can't understand that comic dance of the last century its strange gravity and gaiety, its decorum or its indecorum. It has a jargon of its own quite unlike life; a sort of moral of its own quite unlike life too. I'm afraid it's a Heathen mystery, symbolizing a Pagan doctrine; protesting

as the Pompeians very likely were, assembled at their theatre and laughing at their games; as Sallust and his friends, and their mistresses, protested, crowned with flowers, with cups in their hands against the new, hard, ascetic, pleasure-hating doctrine whose gaunt disciples, lately passed over from the Asian shores of the Mediterranean, were for breaking the fair images of Venus and flinging the altars of Bacchus down.

I fancy poor Congreve's theatre is a temple of Pagan

delights, and mysteries not permitted except among heathens. I fear the theatre carries down that ancient tradition and worship, as masons have carried their secret signs and rites from temple to temple. When the libertine hero carries off the beauty in the play, and the dotard is laughed to scorn for having the young wife: in the ballad, when the poet bids his mistress to gather roses while she may, and warns her that old Time is still a-flying: in the ballet, when honest Corydon courts Phillis under the treillage of the pasteboard cottage, and leers at her over the head of grandpapa in red stockings, who is opportunely asleep; and when seduced by the invitations of the rosy youth she comes forward to the footlights, and they perform on each other's tiptoes that pas which you all know, and which is only interrupted by old grandpapa awaking from his doze at the pasteboard châlet (whither he returns to take another nap in case the young people get an encore): when Harlequin, splendid in youth, strength, and agility, arrayed in gold and a thousand colours, springs over the heads of countless perils, leaps down the throat of bewildered giants, and, dauntless and splendid, dances danger down: when Mr. Punch, that godless old rebel, breaks every law and laughs at it with odious triumph, outwits his lawyer, bullies the beadle, knocks his wife about the head, and hangs the hangman — don't you see in the comedy, in the song, in the dance, in the ragged little Punch's puppet-show-the Pagan protest? Does n't it seem as if Life puts in its plea and sings its comment? Look how the lovers walk and hold each other's hands and whisper! Sings the chorus-"There is nothing like love, there is nothing like youth, there is nothing like beauty of your springtime. Look! how old age tries to meddle with merry sport! Beat him with his own crutch, the wrinkled old dotard! There is nothing like youth,

there is nothing like beauty, there is nothing like strength. Strength and valour win beauty and youth. Be brave and conquer. Be young and happy. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! Would you know the Segreto per esser felice? Here it is, in a smiling mistress and a cup of Falernian." As the boy tosses the cup and sings his song - hark! what is that chaunt coming nearer and nearer? What is that dirge which will disturb us? The lights of the festival burn dim the cheeks turn pale- the voice quavers and the cup drops on the floor. Who's there? Death and Fate are at the gate, and they will come in.

Congreve's comic feast flares with lights, and round the table, emptying their flaming bowls of drink, and exchanging the wildest jests and ribaldry, sit men and women, waited on by rascally valets and attendants as dissolute as their mistresses-perhaps the very worst company in the world. There does n't seem to be a pretence of morals. At the head of the table sits Mirabel or Belmour (dressed in the French fashion and waited on by English imitators of Scapin and Frontin). Their calling is to be irresistible, and to conquer everywhere. Like the heroes of the chivalry story, whose long-winded loves and combats they were sending out of fashion, they are always splendid and triumphant - overcome all dangers, vanquish all enemies, and win the beauty at the end. Fathers, husbands, usurers are the foes these champions contend with. They are merciless in old age, invariably, and an old man plays the part in the dramas which the wicked enchanter or the great blundering giant performs in the chivalry tales, who threatens and grumbles and resists-a huge stupid obstacle always overcome by the knight. It is an old man with a money-box: Sir Belmour his son or nephew spends his money and laughs at him. It is an old man with a