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Government. He was surveyor of the customs, clerk of the council in the service of the Prince of Wales, clerk of the presentations, and, during the last three years of his life, Poet Laureate (1715-1718). Of his plays, the best known are Jane Shore (1714) and Lady Jane Grey (1715), in which he aped something of the quaintness of the older authors, "The Fair and The Fair Penitent (1703), an adaptation from Massinger's Fatal Dowry, in which artificial pathos and tenderness are at their last and most convulsive gasp. The "gallant, gay Lothario" of this play has, oddly enough, become as classical as Congreve's " Music has charms," and, even in our own day, is used interchangeably with Don Juan as a proverbial synonym for the faithless lover; and from this portrait Richardson obtained the outline which he filled up so successfully in Lovelace.

Penitent

(1703).

"

SHADWELL

§ 14. Two or three minor dramatists should not be forgotten. The name of THOMAS SHADWELL is usually remembered with all the obloquy which Dryden so spitefully cast upon THOMAS it. The son of a royalist country squire, John Shadwell of Broomhill in Norfolk, he went for a (1642?-1692). short time to Caius College, Cambridge, travelled abroad, and returned to write plays, assuming, as he tells us in the preface to his first comedy, The Sullen Lovers (1668), the manner of Ben Jonson. His best known comedy is Epsom Wells (1672), which is far above the average of minor pieces of the time. Two years later he joined in Dryden's attack upon Elkanah Settle. But between 1676 and 1682 he became a Whig, and parted company with his illustrious contemporary. For the time being this was to his private advantage, for his politics enabled him to snatch the Poet-Laureateship from Dryden at the Revolution. But, where posterity was concerned, he made a great mistake, and forfeited whatever reputation he might have had, to stand for ever in a fatal bracket with the inferior Settle. His want of wit did not prevent him from being amusing, but there was very little truth in his suspicion that Jonson's humorous mantle had fallen upon him.

Another comic writer whose life covered almost exactly the same period was the somewhat notorious MRS. APHRA BEHN. Her maiden name was Johnson, and her early years APHRA BEHN were spent in Surinam. Her adventurous youth and (1640-1689). her subsequent career as a political spy in Holland might furnish an interesting, if scandalous, memoir. She brought out her first play, The Forced Marriage, in 1671, and, from that time onwards, wrote hard for her living. Comedies, tragedies, and novels-all of a second-rate type-succeeded each other with immense rapidity. The two parts of The Rover (1677 and 1681) are usually reckoned her best comedies, and among Dryden's prologues we find one prefixed to The Widow Ranter (1690). She wrote under the pseudonym of Astræa,

and Pope's line, "The stage how loosely doth Astræa tread!" hints that, in days when licentious writing was tolerated, the works of this singular lady were remarkable for their freedom from the last rags of convention.

JOHN CROWNE or CROWN was similarly of colonial origin, being the son of a gentleman who had emigrated to Nova Scotia, and may or may not have been an Independent preacher, as report styles him. He was JOHN extremely prolific, and sometimes produced good (d. 1703?). work, but was abnormally dull and sententious.

CROWNE

His first play was Juliana (1671); his most famous tragedy was Thyestes (1681), which has survived oblivion, thanks to the grim horror of its subject; his best known comedy is the excellent Sir Courtly Nice (1685), which was the first play acted before James II as King; and he ended his career with Caligula (1698).

George

LILLO

GEORGE LILLO was born just as the career of these writers was closing. This remarkable and singular person was a jeweller in Moorgate, and, being a prudent and industrious tradesman, made money by his wares, and wrote plays for his amusement. These dramatic (1693-1739). works may be said to form the link between that kind of tragedy inaugurated by writers like the unknown author of The Yorkshire Tragedy and by Thomas Heywood, in his Woman Killed by Kindness, and the modern melodrama of crime and suffering innocence. George Barnwell (1731), The Fatal Curiosity (1736), and the unfinished Arden of Feversham (acted 1759), which must not be confounded with the Elizabethan play it professes to revise, were founded upon remarkable examples of middle-class tragedy and crime, and are typical instances of the tragédie bourgeoise. They need, however, so far as the reader is concerned, the lurid background of a suburban theatre, and are not, strictly speaking, as interesting as they are bloody. Lillo must, nevertheless, receive credit for a certain prosaic realism; and, had Defoe turned his attention to the ungodly stage and dramatised so edifying a tale as Moll Flanders, he might have come out of the experiment with a similar result.

Restoration

§ 15. The example of Dryden shows the close connection between the drama and the poetry of the late Stewart and the Orange periods. Dryden's name stands by itself; his vigour and wealth of expression find no reflection Postin the correct suavity of his contemporaries. Waller poetry. and Cowley mark the stage of transition from Elizabethan passion to the frigid heroic couplet of the late seventeenth century, which, apart from the splendid exception of Dryden and the distinguished genius of Pope, is the characteristic of the mediocrity of the period. fact is that, at this time, if people wrote for living, they wrote drama, comedy or tragedy, and

The

their The noble poets,

LORD

left the less lucrative business of verse, otherwise than merely complimentary, to elegant dabblers, men of rank and fashion, who could afford to devote an occasional hour to a neat satire or a graceful lyric. Consequently, the aim of the poets of the day was to write correctly and follow the mode. And as, with the Restoration public, a title and a reputation with the ladies covered a multitude of sins, the efforts of these dilettanti were received with extravagant praise. WENTWORTH DILLON, EARL OF ROSCOMMON, was a nephew of the ROSCOMMON famous Strafford, and had spent much of his life in (1633-1685). France. He was a serious and learned person, and his poetry, which was much praised, principally consists of two didactic works, an original Essay on Translated Verse (1684), written in the rhymed couplet, and a translation of Horace's Ars Poetica (1680), in which he adopted blank verse, thereby creating a distinction between himself and contemporary poets. The first collected edition of LORD his poems appeared in 1701. JOHN WILMOT, Earl (1647-1630). OF ROCHESTER, the most execrable debauchee of Charles II's Court, produced a number of songs and fugitive lyrics, which, although their spirit is strained and artificial, bear considerable witness to the natural talents he had wasted. SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, again, was SIR CHARLES another of these literary beaux, who was the last survivor of these aristocratic amateurs. His first (1639-1701). comedy, The Mulberry Garden (1668), is not devoid of gaiety and wit, and contains several songs of merit. Many other lyrics prove that Sedley possessed the grace, ease, and ingenuity which are the principal requisites of this kind of writing. His second comedy, Bellamira, was produced in 1687, and he wrote three other plays.

ROCHESTER

SEDLEY

THE DUKE

HAMSHIRE

JOHN SHEFFIELD, EARL OF MULGRAVE, and afterwards DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, whose Essay on Satire (1679) and Essay on Poetry (1682) were popularly ascribed OF BUCKING- to Dryden, so that the report procured him, after the publication of the first of them, a beating from (1649-1721). Rochester's hired bullies, must be distinguished from GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, the son of James I's "Steenie," and the author of the greater part of that very witty burlesque, The Rehearsal ̄(1671). Another of the same class was CHARLES SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET, who wrote the charming, playful song, "To all you ladies now at land." He is said to have composed it at sea, on the eve of the engagement (1665) with Opdam's Dutch fleet, addressing it, like a courtly gentleman, to the ladies at Whitehall. § 16. Outside the higher classes of society, the only important poets of the end of the seventeenth century were Philips and Pomfret. They, however, belong rather to the age Other poets. of Pope than the age of Dryden. JOHN PHILIPS

THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM

(1627-1688).

LORD
DORSET
(1638-1706).

was, in his later years, a serious poet, and wrote a heroic poem called Blenheim (1705), and a Georgic which he named Cyder (1708); but he is now known to the general reader

PHILIPS

POMFRET

by his Splendid Shilling, in which he parodied the JOHN solemn cadences of Paradise Lost. Like all good (1676-1709). and humorous parodies, its virtue lay in the author's appreciation of the poem of which he made fun, and its place is among the best productions of the kind. It was pirated in 1701; Philips' own first edition appeared in 1705. JOHN POMFRET was a Bedfordshire clergyman, and JOHN in 1700 brought out The Choice, describing his (1667-1702. ideal life of rural and literary retirement, without any great originality, but with a captivating natural simplicity and a fluent, unadorned style. Hoc erat in votis, but his prayer was not to be fulfilled. The Bishop of London, taking exception to some expression in his poem, refused to sanction his preferment to the pleasant living of his desire, and Pomfret, thrown into depression, caught smallpox and died of it. The Choice has survived, however, and may still be read with pleasure.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

A. OTHER DRAMATISTS. COLLEY CIBBER (1671-1757), the famous actor-manager, whose name occupies so important a place in the stage history of the Orange and Hanoverian periods, was a prolific writer of comedies. His work is amusing, but we see the comedy of manners in its decline through all his witty farces, and he is not to be compared for a moment with the great masters of stage dialogue. In his early life he enjoyed Congreve's friendship and patronage, and we have already seen that he had an interesting literary connection with Vanbrugh. From 1730 to 1757 he was Poet Laureate; and, in 1743. Pope chose, with an unreasonable and silly access of spite, to substitute him as hero of The Dunciad instead of Theobald. A careful study of the Hanoverian drama brings us into close contact with Cibber's amiable personality. He was the author of about thirty plays, good, bad, and indifferent, between 1695 and 1745.

ELKANAH SETTLE (1648-1724) has already been mentioned in con

|nection with Dryden, who chose to make him his unworthy butt. He had the misfortune to be chosen as a foil to Dryden by the poet's enemies, and suffered in consequence. He published several plays, but the piece by which he will be best remembered is The Empress of Morocco (published 1671), a tragedy as remarkable for its rant and bombast as for the fact that it was the first illustrated play in English. The engravings did not appear till the second edition (1673).

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and nonjuror, had suffered during the Revolution, unsparingly attacked this abuse in his Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage. Collier was a scholar and a critic, not a mere fanatic or ignorant vituperator. He knew what he was talking about, and his book produced a great effect and a general consternation among the dramatists. With an array of remarkable learning, he brought forward all the weapons of satire and merciless criticism; his fire, wit, and energy cut like a knife into the ulcer of theatrical immorality, and left the dramatists without a word to say.

Dryden,

nents in his Defence of the Short View, and remained triumphant. It is a curious fact that, in those days, the opinions of an ascetic, whose ecclesiastical position was supposed to approximate to Romanism, should have touched the conscience of a nation which, amid its frivolous amusements, was never tired of maintaining the principle of a Protestant succession; at any rate, Collier effected a change which none of the latitudinarian clergy of the day could have brought about, even if they had cared. The stage was not, of course, purified according to our modern ideas; but the public refused to accept its cynicism and disregard of morality any longer. Congreve's most brilliant drama, The Way of the World (1700), failed, as we have said, in consequence of Collier's attack. Subsequent comedies Cibber's, Steele's, and, in a later age, Sheridan's - contain, without doubt, much that, to our modern taste, is not very agreeable; but they allow for virtue, religion, and

who, against his better judgment, had been responsible for half the license of Restoration comedy, remained silent out of very shame Congreve, who chose to reply, would have done well to have kept silence; Vanbrugh, who was guilty of more obvious coarseness, chose to defend The Relapse and The Provoked Wife from the charge, and was a little more successful in maintaining his paradox. Special pleading, how-morality, and their theme is no ever, can only injure the worst causes. Collier answered his oppo

longer the triumph of the rake and the glorification of the wanton.

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