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equally proper. During his embassy, he sat at | grave nor merry. "Paulo Purganti ;" which the opera by a man, who, in his rapture, accom- has likewise a preface, but of more value than panied with his own voice, the principal singer. the Tale. "Hans Cravel," not over decent ; Prior fell to railing at the performer with all the and "Protogenes and Apelles," an old story, terms of reproach that he could collect, till the mingled, by an affectation not disagreeable, with Frenchman, ceasing from his song, began to ex-modern images. "The young Gentleman in postulate with him for his harsh censure of a man who was confessedly the ornament of the stage. "I know all that," says the ambassador, "mais il chante si haut, que je ne sçaurois vous en-adventure of "Hans Cravel" has passed through tendre."

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Love" has hardly a just claim to the title of a Tale. I know not whether he be the original author of any tale which he has given us. The

many successions of merry wits; for it is to be found in Ariosto's "Satires," and is perhaps yet older. But the merit of such stories is the art of telling them.

In his amorous effusions he is less happy; for they are not dictated by nature or by passion, and have neither gallantry nor tenderness. They have the coldness of Cowley, without his wit, the dull exercises of a skilful versifier, resolved at all adventures to write something about Chloe, and trying to be amorous by dint of study. His fictions therefore are mytholo gical. Venus, after the example of the Greek Epigram, asks when she was seen naked and bathing. Then Cupid is mistaken; then Cupid is disarmed; then he loses his darts to Gany

Tradition represents him as willing to descend from the dignity of the poet and statesman to the low delights of mean company. His Chloe probably was sometimes ideal; but the woman with whom he cohabited was a despicable drab* of the lowest species. One of his wenches, per-mede; then Jupiter sends him a summons by haps Chloe, while he was absent from his house, stole his plate, and ran away; as was related by a woman who had been his servant. Of this propensity to sordid converse I have seen an account so seriously ridiculous, that it seems to deserve insertion.t

"I have been assured that Prior, after having spent the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope, and Swift, would go and smoke a pipe, and drink a bottle of ale, with a common soldier and his wife, in Long Acre, before he went to bed; not from any remains of the lowness of his original, as one said, but, I suppose, that his faculties,

Strain'd to the height,

Mercury. Then Chloe goes a hunting, with an ivory quiver graceful at her side; Diana mistakes her for one of her nymphs, and Cupid laughs at the blunder. All this is surely despicable; and even when he tries to act the lover, without the help of gods or goddesses, his thoughts are unaffecting or remote. He talks not "like a man of this world."

The greatest of all his amorous essays is "Henry and Emma;" a dull and tedious dialogue, which excites neither esteem for the man, nor tenderness for the woman. The example of Emma, who resolves to follow an outlawed murderer wherever fear and guilt shall drive him, deserves no imitation; and the experiment by which Henry tries the lady's constancy, is such as must end either in infamy to her, or in disappointment to himself.

In that celestial colloquy sublime, Dazzled and spent, sunk down, and sought repair." Poor Prior, why was he so strained, and in such want of repair, after a conversation with His Occasional Poems necessarily lost part of men, not, in the opinion of the world, much their value, as their occasions, being less rememwiser than himself? But such are the conceitsbered, raised less emotion. Some of them, of speculatists, who strain their faculties to find in a mine what lies upon the surface.

His opinions, so far as the means of judging are left us, seem to have been right; but his life was, it seems, irregular, negligent, and sensual.

PRIOR has written with great variety; and his variety has made him popular. He has tried all styles, from the grotesque to the solemn, and has not so failed in any as to incur derision or disgrace.

however, are preserved by their inherent excellence. The burlesque of Boileau's Ode on Namur has, in some parts, such airiness and levity as will always procure it readers, even among those who cannot compare it with the The poems to the King are now perused only original. The epistle to Boileau is not so happy. by young students, who read merely that they may learn to write; and of the "Carmen Seculare," I cannot but suspect that I might praise detection; for who can be supposed to have or censure it by caprice, without danger of laboured through it? Yet the time has been when this neglected work was so popular, that it His Tales have obtained general approbation, was translated into Latin by no common master. being written with great familiarity and great His poem on the battle of Ramilies is necessprightliness; the language is easy, but seldom sarily tedious by the form of the stanza: gross, and the numbers smooth, without appear-uniform mass of ten lines thirty-five times reance of care. Of these Tales there are only peated, inconsequential and slightly connected, four. "The Ladle;" which is introduced by a must weary both the ear and the understanding preface, neither necessary nor pleasing, neither His imitation of Spenser, which consists principally in I ween and I weet, without exclusion of later modes of speech, makes his poem neither ancient nor modern. His mention of

His works may be distinctly considered, as comprising Tales, Love-verses, Occasional Poems, "Alma" and "Solomon.”

Spence; and see Gent Mag. vol. Ivii. p. 1039.
Richardsoniana.

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Mars and Bellona, and his comparison of Marlborough to the eagle that bears the thunder of Jupiter, are all puerile and unaffecting; and yet more despicable is the long tale told by Lewis in his despair of Brute and Troynovante, and the teeth of Cadmus, with his similies of the raven and eagle, and wolf and lion. By the help of such easy fictions, and vulgar topics, without acquaintance with life, and without knowledge of art or nature, a poem of any length, cold and lifeless like this, may be easily written on any subject.

In his Epilogues to Phædra and to Lucius he is very happily facetious; but in the prologue before the Queen, the pedant has found his way, with Minerva, Perseus, and Andromeda.

His epigrams and lighter pieces are, like those of others, sometimes elegant, sometimes trifling, and sometimes dull; among the best are the "Camelion," and the epitaph on John and Joan.

Scarcely any one of our poets has written so much and translated so little; the version of Callimachus is sufficiently licentious; the paraphrase on St. Paul's Exhortation to Charity is eminently beautiful.

"Alma" is written in professed imitation of "Hudibras," and has at least one accidental resemblance: "Hudibras" wants a plan, because it is left imperfect; "Alma" is imperfect, because it seems never to have had a plan. Prior appears not to have proposed to himself any drift or design, but to have written the casual dictates of the present moment.

What Horace said, when he imitated Lucilius, might be said of Butler by Prior; his numbers were not smooth or neat. Prior excelled him in versification: but he was, like Horace, inventore minor: he had not Butler's exuberance of matter and variety of illustration. The spangles of wit which he could afford he knew how to polish; but he wanted the bullion of his master. Butler pours out a negligent profusion, certain of the weight, but careless of the stamp. Prior has comparatively little, but with that little he makes a fine show. "Alma" has many admirers, and was the only piece among Prior's works, of which Pope said that he should wish to be the author.

Unhappily this pernicious failure is that which an author is least able to discover. We are seldom tiresome to ourselves; and the act of composition fills and delights the mind with change of language and succession of images; every couplet when produced is new, and novelty is the great source of pleasure. Perhaps no man ever thought a line superfluous when he first wrote it, or contracted his work till his ebullitions of invention had subsided. And even if he should control his desire of immediate renown, and keep his work nine years unpublished, he will be still the author, and still in danger of deceiving himself: and if he consults his friends, he will probably find men who have more kindness than judgment, or more fear to offend than desire to instruct.

The tediousness of this poem proceeds not from the uniformity of the subject, for it is sufficiently diversified, but from the continued tenor of the narration; in which Solomon relates the successive vicissitudes of his own mind, without the intervention of any other speaker, or the mention of any other agent, unless it be Abra; the reader is only to learn what he thought, and to be told that he thought wrong. The event of every experiment is foreseen, and therefore the process is not much regarded.

Yet the work is far from deserving to be neglected. He that shall peruse it will be able to mark many passages to which he may recur for instruction or delight; many from which the poet may learn to write, and the philosopher to

reason.

If Prior's poetry be generally considered, his praise will be that of correctness and industry, rather than of compass, of comprehension, or activity of fancy. He never made any effort of invention: his greater pieces are only tissues of common thoughts; and his smaller, which consist of light images or single conceits, are not always his own. I have traced him among the French epigrammatists, and have been informed that he poached for prey among obscure authors. The "Thief and Cordelier" is, I suppose, generally considered as an original production; with how much justice this epigram may tell, which was written by Georgius Sabinus, a poet now little known or read, though once the friend of Luther and Melancthon :

"Solomon" is the work to which he intrusted the protection of his name, and which he expectDe Sacerdote Furem consolante. ed succeeding ages to regard with veneration. His affection was natural; it had undoubtedly Quidam sacrificus furem comitatus euntem Huc ubi dat sontes carnificina neci, been written with great labour; and who is Ne sis mœstus, ait; summi conviva Tonantis willing to think that he has been labouring in Jam cum cœlitibus (si modo credis) eris. vain? He had infused into it much knowledge Ille gemens, si vera mihi solatia præbes, and much thought; had often polished it to ele- Hospes apud superos sis meus oro, refert. gance, often dignified it with splendour, and Sacrificus contra; mihi non convivia fas est sometimes heightened it to sublimity: he perDucere, jejunans hac edo luce nihil. ceived in it many excellencies, and did not dis- What he has valuable he owes to his diligence cover that it wanted that without which all and his judgment. His diligence has justly others are of small avail, the power of engaging placed him among the most correct of the Engattention and alluring curiosity. lish poets; and he was one of the first that resoTediousness is the most fatal of all faults:lutely endeavoured at correctness. He never negligences or errors are single and local, but sacrifices accuracy to haste, nor indulges himself tediousness pervades the whole; other faults are in contemptuous negligence, or impatient idlecensured and forgotten, but the power of tedi-ness: he has no careless lines, or entangled senousness propagates itself. He that is weary the first hour, is more weary the second; as bodies forced into motion contrary to their tendency pass more and more slowly through every successive interval of space.

timents: his words are nicely selected, and his thoughts fully expanded. If this part of his character suffers an abatement, it must be from the disproportion of his rhymes, which have not always sufficient consonance, and from the ad

mission of broken lines into his "Solomon ;" | blance he has formed his new stanza to that of but perhaps he thought, like Cowley, that his master, these specimens will show ; hemistichs ought to be admitted into heroic poetry.

He had apparently such rectitude of judgment as secured him from every thing that approached to the ridiculous or absurd; but as laws operate in civil agency not to the excitement of virtue, but the repression of wickedness, so judgment in the operations of intellect can hinder faults, but not produce excellence. Prior is never low, nor very often sublime. It is said by Longinus of Euripides, that he forces himself sometimes into grandeur by violence of effort, as the lion kindles his fury by the lashes of his own tail. Whatever Prior obtains above mediocrity seems the effort of struggle and of toil. He has many vigorous, but few happy lines; he has every thing by purchase, and nothing by gift; he had no nightly visitations of the muse, no infusions of sentiment or felicities of fancy.

SPENSER.

She flying fast from Heaven's hated face,
And from the world that her discover d wide,
Fled to the wasteful wilderness apace,
From living eyes her open shame to hide,
And lurked in rocks and caves long unespy'd,
But that fair crew of knights, and Una fair,
Did in that castle afterwards abide,
To rest themselves, and weary pow'rs repair,
Where store they found of all, that dainty was and rare.

PRIOR.

To the close rock the frighted raven flies,
Soon as the rising eagle cuts the air:
When the hoarse roar proclaims the lion near.
The shaggy wolf unseen and trembling lies,
Ill-starr'd did we our forts and lines forsake,
To dare our British foes to open fight:
Our conquest we by stratagem should make:
Our triumph had been founded in our flight.
'Tis ours, by craft and by surprise to gain:
Tis theirs to meet in arms, and battle in the plain.

By this new structure of his lines he has avoided difficulties; nor am I sure that he has lost any of the power of pleasing: but he no

His diction, however, is more his own than of any among the successors of Dryden; he borrows no lucky turns, or commodious modes of language from his predecessors. His phrases are original, but they are sometimes harsh: as he inherited no elegances, none has he bequeath-longer imitates Spenser. ed. His expression has every mark of laborious study; the line seldom seems to have been formed at once; the words did not come till they were called, and were then put by constraint into their places, where they do their duty, but do it sullenly. In his greater compositions there may be found more rigid stateliness than graceful dignity.

Some of his poems are written without regularity of measure; for, when he commenced poet, he had not recovered from our Pindaric infatuation; but he probably lived to be convinced, that the essence of verse is order and consonance.

His numbers are such as mere diligence may attain; they seldom offend the ear, and seldom Of versification he was not negligent; what soothe it; they commonly want airiness, lighthe received from Dryden he did not lose; nei-ness, and facility: what is smooth is not soft. ther did he increase the difficulty of writing by His verses always roll, but they seldom flow. unnecessary severity, but uses triplets and Alex- A survey of the life and writings of Prior andrines without scruple. In his preface to "So- may exemplify a sentence which he doubtless lomon" he proposes some improvements, by ex-understood well, when he read Horace at his tending the sense from one couplet to another, with variety of pauses. This he has attempted, but without success; his interrupted lines are unpleasing, and his sense as less distinct is less striking. 氨

uncle's; "the vessel long retains the scent which it first receives." In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college. But on higher occasions, and nobler subjects, when habit was overpowered by the necessity of reflection, he wanted not wisdom as a statesman, or elegance as a

He has altered the stanza of Spenser, as a house is altered by building another in its place of a different form. With how little resem-poet.

CONGREVE.

WILLIAM CONGREVE descended from a family |tainly known: if the inscription upon his monuin Staffordshire, of so great antiquity that it ment be true, he was born in 1672. For the claims a place among the few that extend their place, it was said by himself, that he owed his line beyond the Norman Conquest; and was the nativity to England, and by every body else, that son of William Congreve, second son of Richard he was born in Ireland. Southern mentioned Congreve, of Congreve and Stratton. He visit-him, with sharp censure, as a man that meanly ed, once at least, the residence of his ancestors; and, I believe, more places than one are still shown, in groves and gardens, where he is related to have written his "Old Bachelor."

Neither the time nor place of his birth is cer

disowned his native country. The biographers assign his nativity to Bardsa, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, from the account given by himself, as they suppose, to Jacob.

To doubt whether a man of eminence has told

CONGREVE.

Few plays have ever been so beneficial to the writer; for it procured him the patronage of Halifax, who immediately made him one of the commissioners for licensing coaches, and soon after gave him a place in the Pipe-office, and another in the Customs of six hundred pounds a-year. Congreve's conversation must surely have been at least equally pleasing with his writings.

the truth about his own birth, is, in appearance, to be very deficient in candour; yet, nobody can live long without knowing that falsehoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which no evil immediately visible ensues, except the general degradation of human testimony, are very lightly uttered; and, once uttered, are sullenly supported. Boileau, who desired to be thought a rigorous and steady moralist, having told a Such a comedy, written at such an age, repetty lie to Louis the Fourteenth, continued it afterwards by false dates; thinking himself ob- quires some consideration. As the lighter speliged in honour, says his admirer, to maintain cies of dramatic poetry professes the imitation of common life, of real manners, and daily inwhat, when he said it, was so well received. Wherever Congreve was born, he was edu- cidents, it apparently pre-supposes a familiar cated first at Kilkenny, and afterwards at Dub-knowledge of many characters, and exact oblin, his father having some military employment that stationed him in Ireland; but, after having passed through the usual preparatory studies, as But if "The Old Bachelor" be more nearly may be reasonably supposed, with great celerity and success, his father thought it proper to as- examined, it will be found to be one of those sign him a profession by which something might comedies which may be made by a mind vigorbe gotten; and, about the time of the Revolu-ous and acute, and furnished with comic chation, sent him, at the age of sixteen, to study law in the Middle Temple, where he lived for several years, but with very little attention to statutes or reports.

His disposition to become an author appeared very early, as he very early felt that force of imagination, and possessed that copiousness of sentiment, by which intellectual pleasure can be given. His first performance was a novel, called "Incognita, or Love and Duty reconciled:" it is praised by the biographers, who quote some part of the preface, that is, indeed, for such a time of life, uncommonly judicious. I would rather praise it than read it.

His first dramatic labour was "The Old Bachelor;" of which he says, in his defence against Collier, "that comedy was written, as several know, some years before it was acted. When I wrote it, I had little thoughts of the stage; but did it to amuse myself in a slow recovery from a fit of sickness. Afterwards, through my indiscretion, it was seen, and, in some little time more, it was acted; and I, through the remainder of my indiscretion, suffered myself to be drawn into the prosecution of a difficult and thankless study, and to be involved in a perpetual war with knaves and fools."

There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done every thing by chance. "The Old Bachelor" was written for amusement in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dialogue, and incessant ambition of wit. The age of the writer considered, it is, indeed, a very wonderful performance: for, whenever written, it was acted (1693) when he was not more than twenty-one years old; and was then recommended by Mr. Dryden, Mr. Southern, and Mr. Mainwaring. Dryden said, that he never had seen such a first play; but they found it deficient in some things requisite to the success of its exhibition, and, by their greater experience, fitted it for the stage. Southern used to relate of one comedy, probably of this, that, when Congreve read it to the players, he pronounced it so wretchedly, that they had almost rejected it; but they were afterwards so well persuaded of its excellence, that, for half a year before it was acted, the manager allowed its Author the privilege of the house.

servation of the passing world; the difficulty
therefore is, to conceive how this knowledge can
be obtained by a boy.

racters by the perusal of other poets, without much actual commerce with mankind. The dialogue is one constant reciprocation of conceits, or clash of wit, in which nothing flows necessarily from the occasion, or is dictated by nature. The characters, both of men and women, are either fictitious and artificial, as those of Heartwell and the ladies; or easy and common, as Wittol, a tame idiot, Bluff, a swaggering coward, and Fondlewife, a jealous puritan; and the catastrophe arises from a mistake not very probably produced, by marrying a woman in a mask.

Yet this gay comedy, when all these deductions are made, will still remain the work of very powerful and fertile faculties; the dialogue is quick and sparkling, the incidents such as seize the attention, and the wit so exuberant, that it "o'er-informs its tenement."

Next year he gave another specimen of his abilities in "The Double Dealer," which was not received with equal kindness. He writes to his patron, the Lord Halifax, a dedication, in which he endeavours to reconcile the reader to that which found few friends among the audience. These apologies are always useless: "de gustibus non est disputandum;" men may be convinced, but they cannot be pleased against their will. But, though taste is obstinate, it is nd time often prevails when very variable; arguments have failed.

Queen Mary conferred upon both those plays the honour of her presence; and when she died, soon after, Congreve testified his gratitude by a despicable effusion of elegiac pastoral; a composition in which all is unnatural, and yet nothing is new.

1

In another year (1695) his prolific pen produced "Love for Love," a comedy of nearer alliance to life, and exhibiting more real manners than either of the former. The character of Foresight was then common. Dryden calculated nativities; both Cromwell and King William had their lucky days; and Shaftesbury himself, though he had no religion, was said to regard predictions. The Sailor is not accounted very natural, but he is very pleasant.

With this play was opened the New Theatre, under the direction of Betterton, the tragedian; where he exhibited, two years afterwards, (1687,)

"The Mourning Bride," a tragedy, so written | answers. Congreve, a very young man, elated as to show him sufficiently qualified for either with success, and impatient of censure, assumkind of dramatic poetry. ed an air of confidence and security. His chief artifice of controversy is to retort upon his adversary his own words; he is very angry, and, hoping to conquer Collier with his own weapons, allows himself in the use of every term of contumely and contempt: but he has the sword without the arm of Scanderbeg; he has his antagonist's coarseness, but not his strength. Colnot to be frighted from his purpose or his prey. The cause of Congreve was not tenable whatever glosses he might use for the defence or palliation of single passages, the general tenor and tendency of his plays must always be condemned. It is acknowledged, with universal conviction, that the perusal of his works will make no man better; and that their ultimate effect is to represent pleasure in alliance with vice, and to relax those obligations by which life ought to be regulated.

In this play, of which, when he afterwards revised it, he reduced the versification to greater regularity, there is more bustle than sentiment, the plot is busy and intricate, and the events take hold on the attention; but except a very few passages, we are rather amused with noise, and perplexed with stratagem, than entertained with any true delineation of natural characters.lier replied; for contest was his delight; he was This, however, was received with more benevolence than any other of his works, and still continues to be acted and applauded.

But whatever objections may be made either to his comic or tragic excellence, they are lost at once in the blaze of admiration, when it is remembered that he had produced these four plays before he had passed his twenty-fifth year; before other men, even such as are some time to shine in eminence, have passed their probation of literature, or presume to hope for any other notice than such as is bestowed on diligence and inquiry. Among all the efforts of early genius, which literary history records, I doubt whether any one can be produced that more surpasses the common limits of nature than the plays of Congreve.

About this time began the long continued controversy between Collier and the poets. In the reign of Charles the First, the puritans had raised a violent clamour against the drama, which they considered as an entertainment not lawful to Christians, an opinion held by them in common with the church of Rome; and Prynne published "Histrio-Mastix," a huge volume, in which stage-plays were censured. The outrages and crimes of the puritans brought afterwards their whole system of doctrine into disrepute, and from the Restoration the poets and players were left at quiet; for to have molested them would have had the appearance of tendency to puritanical malignity.

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The stage found other advocates, and the dis pute was protracted through ten years; but at last comedy grew more modest, and Collier lived to see the reward of his labour in the reformation of the theatre.

Of the powers by which this important victory was achieved, a quotation from "Love for Love," and the remark upon it, may afford a specimen :

Sir Samps. Sampson's a very good name; for your Sampsons were very strong dogs from the beginning.

Angel. Have a care-If you remember, the strongest Sampson of your name pulled an old house over his head at last.

"Here you have the Sacred History burlesqued, and Sampson once more brought into the house of Dagon, to make sport for the Philistines!"

Congreve's last play was "The Way of the World;" which, though as he hints in his dedication, it was written with great labour and much thought, was received with so little favour, that, being in a high degree offended and disgusted, he resolved to commit his quiet and his fame no more to the caprices of an audience.

From this time his life ceased to the public; he

This danger, however, was worn away by time; and Collier, a fierce and implacable nonjuror, knew that an attack upon the theatre would never make him suspected for a puritan; he therefore (1698) published " A short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage," I believe with no other motive than re-lived for himself and for his friends, and among ligious zeal and honest indignation. He was formed for a controvertist; with sufficient learning; with diction vehement and pointed, though often vulgar and incorrect; with unconquerable pertinacity; with wit in the highest degree keen and sarcastic; and with all those powers exalted and invigorated by just confidence in his

cause.

Thus qualified, and thus incited, he walked out to battle, and assailed at once most of the living writers, from Dryden to D'Urfey. His onset was violent; those passages, which, while they stood single, had passed with little notice, when they were accumulated and exposed together, excited horror; the wise and the pious caught the alarm; and the nation wondered why it had so long suffered irreligion and licentiousness to be openly taught at the public charge.

Nothing now remained for the poets but to resist or fly. Dryden's conscience, or his prudence, angry as he was, withheld him from the conflict: Congreve and Vanbrugh attempted |

his friends was able to name every man of his time whom wit and elegance had raised to reputation: it may be, therefore, reasonably supposed, that his manners were polite and his conversation pleasing.

He seems not to have taken much pleasure in writing, as he contributed nothing to the "Spectator," and only one paper to the "Tatler," though published by men with whom he might be supposed willing to associate; and though he lived many years after the publication of his Miscellaneous Poems, yet he added nothing to them, but lived on in literary indolence; engag ed in no controversy, contending with no rival, neither soliciting flattery by public commendations, nor provoking enmity by malignant criticism, but passing his time among the great and splendid, in the placid enjoyment of his fame and fortune.

Having owed his fortune to Halifax, he continued always of his patron's party, but, as it seems, without violence or acrimony; and his

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