Sir John Vanbrugh united what Leigh Hunt called for no very obvious reason - the 'apparently incompatible geniuses' of comic writer and architect. His Blenheim and Castle Howard have outlived The Provoked Wife or The Relapse; yet the latter were for many years highly popular; and even Pope, though he admits his want of grace, says that he never wanted wit. The grandson of a Ghent Protestant refugee (Vanbrug), Vanbrugh was the son of a Cheshire sugar-baker who rose to be an esquire and comptroller of the Treasury Chamber, besides marrying the daughter of Sir Dudley Carlton. Baptised in London 24th January 1664, young Vanbrugh was educated as architect in France, and by his wit, handsome figure, and geniality won a footing in society. In

SIR JOHN VANBRUGH. From an Engraving by J. Faber after a Picture by J. Richardson painted in 1725.

1685 he obtained a commission in the army. In 1690 he was seized at Calais and imprisoned at Vincennes and in the Bastille; before his release in 1692 he had been planning a comedy. The Relapse (suggested by Colley Cibber's work) was produced with success in 1697, and was recast by Sheridan (as A Trip to Scarborough) in 1777, and by Hollingshead in 1870. Esop (based on a French original) followed directly; The Provoked Wife (1697) produced a powerful impression. The indecencies of the Relapse and the Provoked Wife were largely utilised by Jeremy Collier in his philippic against the contemporary stage. Later pieces were The False Friend (1702; from Lesage), and The Country House, The Confederacy, The Mistake (from Molière in 1705). Meanwhile as architect he had made his famous design for Castle Howard (built 1702-14), and Lord Carlisle appointed him Clarencieux King-at-Arms. In 1703-5 he built the

Queen's Theatre in Haymarket, of which he was lessee, manager, and principal dramatic author. In 1705 also he commenced his novel and imposing design for the great national structure at Blenheim, an enterprise that led to quarrels with the imperious Duchess of Marlborough, and was stopped by the queen's command in 1712. He was heavily out of pocket by the transaction, though some of the arrears were paid in the next reign. The Duchess did her best to irritate and annoy him, and to make him liable for outlays made on her behalf. Spite of these embarrassments, he built many noteworthy mansions, including Dalkeith Palace, was knighted by George I., and appointed comptroller of the royal works and architect to Greenwich Hospital (in succession to Wren). He died at Whitehall, 20th March 1726. At the time of his death Vanbrugh was engaged on a comedy, finished by Colley Cibber as The Provoked Husband, and long a favourite piece. The architectural designs of Vanbrugh were praised by Sir Joshua Reynolds for their display of imagination and their originality of invention, but ridiculed by Swift and other wits of the day for heaviness and incongruity of design. His aim was always to produce the impression of vastness and grandiosity.

The first thing in Vanbrugh's plays which strikes the reader is the lively ease of his dialogue. Congreve had more wit, but less nature and less genuine unaffected humour and gaiety. Vanbrugh drew more from living originals, and depicted the manners of his times-the coarse debauchery of the country knight, the gallantry of town-wits and fortune-hunters, and the love of French intrigue and French manners in his female characters. Lord Foppington in the Relapse is the original of most of those luxurious coxcombs who abound in modern comedy, intent on dress, fashion, and self-indulgence, full of silly affectations (as in utterance), but not without wit and spirit. When he loses his mistress he consoles himself with this reflection:

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. [Aloud.] Dear Tam, since things are thus fallen out, prithee 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, canstant in her inclinations, and of a nice marality-split my windpipe!

The young lady thus eulogised, Miss Hoyden, is the lively, ignorant, romping country-girl to be met with in most of the comedies of this period. In the Provoked Wife the coarse pot-house valour and absurdity of Sir John Brute (Garrick's famous part) is well contrasted with the fine-lady airs and affectation of his wife, transported from the country to the hotbed luxuries of London fashion and

extravagance. Such scenes delighted our playgoing ancestors, and may still please us, in spite of faults of taste, for their own wit and, like antique family portraits, as pictures of a departed generation. Vanbrugh's portraits were exaggerated and heightened for dramatic effect; yet on the whole they are characteristic likenesses. There is an endless flow of vivacity and plenty of lively satire and broadly humorous raillery, but the whole is dashed with the most unblushing licentiousness. 'The licence of the times,' as Leigh Hunt says, 'allowed Vanbrugh to be plain-spoken to an extent which was perilous to his animal spirits ;' but, like Dryden, he to some extent repented of these indiscretions-though he was one of the most confident answerers' of Collier's impeachment.

The following is part of the scene in the Provoked Wife in which Sir John Brute, having disguised himself in his lady's dress and joined in a drunken midnight frolic, is taken by the constable and watchmen before a Justice of the Peace:

Justice. Well, Mr Constable, what is the matter there? Constable. An't please your worship, this here comical sort of a gentlewoman has committed great outrages to-night. She has been frolicking with my Lord Rake and his gang; they attacked the watch, and I hear there has been a man killed: I believe 'tis they have done it.

Just. Why, truly, she does seem a little masculine about the mouth.

2nd Watchman. Yes, and about the hands too, an't please your worship. I did but offer in mere civility to help her up the steps into our apartment, and with her gripen fist-ay, just so, sir. [Sir JOHN knocks him down. Sir John. I felled him to the ground like an ox. Just. Out upon this boisterous woman! Out upon her! Sir John. Mr Justice, he would have been uncivil! It was in defence of my honour, and I demand satisfaction. 2nd Watch. I hope your worship will satisfy her honour in Bridewell; that fist of hers will make an admirable hemp-beater.

Sir John. Sir, I hope you will protect me against that libidinous rascal; I am a woman of quality and virtue too, for all I am in an undress this morning.

Just. Why, she has really the air of a sort of a woman a little something out of the common.-Madam, if you expect I should be favourable to you, I desire I may know who you are.

Sir John. Sir, I am anybody, at your service.
Just. Lady, I desire to know your name.

Sir John. Sir, my name's Mary.

Just. Ay, but your surname, madam ?

Sir John. Sir, my surname's the very same with my husband's.

Just. A strange woman this!-Who is your husband, pray?

Sir John. Sir John.

Just. Sir John who?

Sir John. Sir John Brute.

Just. Is it possible, madam, you can be my Lady Brute?

Sir John. That happy woman, sir, am I; only a little in my merriment to-night.

Sir John. I am sorry he has any wife at all. Just. And so, perhaps, may he.-I doubt you have not given him a very good taste of matrimony.

Sir John. Taste, sir! Sir, I have scorned to stint him to a taste, I have given him a full meal of it. Just. Indeed I believe so! But pray, fair lady, may he have given you any occasion for this extraordinary conduct?-does he not use you well?

Sir John. A little upon the rough sometimes.

Just. Ay, any man may be out of humour now and then.

Sir John. Sir, I love peace and quiet, and when a woman don't find that at home, she's apt sometimes to comfort herself with a few innocent diversions abroad.

Just. I doubt he uses you but too well. Pray how does he as to that weighty thing, money? Does he allow you what is proper of that?

Sir John. Sir, I have generally enough to pay the reckoning, if this son of a whore of a drawer would but bring his bill.

Just. A strange woman this! Does he spend a reasonable portion of his time at home, to the comfort of his wife and children?

...

Sir John. He never gave his wife cause to repine at his being abroad in his life. Just. 'Tis a great pity he should have been thus disposed of.-Pray, madam (and then I've done), what may be your ladyship's common method of life? If I may presume so far.

Sir John. Why, sir, much that of a woman of quality. Just. Pray how may you generally pass your time, madam? your morning for example.

Sir John. Sir, like a woman of quality. I wake about two o'clock in the afternoon-I stretch-and make a

sign for my chocolate. When I have drank three cups I slide down again upon my back, with my arms over my head, while my two maids put on my stockings. Then, hanging upon their shoulders, I am trailed to my great chair, where I sit-and yawn-for my breakfast. If it don't come presently, I lie down upon my couch to say my prayers, while my maid reads me the play-bills. Just. Very well, madam.

Sir John. When the tea is brought in, I drink twelve regular dishes, with eight slices of bread and butter. And half an hour after, I send to the cook to know if the dinner is almost ready.

Sir John. Like a woman of spirit, sir, a great spirit. Give me a box and dice. Seven's the main ! Oons! Sir, I set you a hundred pound! Why, do you think women are married now a days to sit at home and mend napkins? Sir, we have nobler ways of passing time. Just. Mercy upon us, Mr Constable, what will this age come to?

Con. What will it come to, indeed, if such women as these are not set in the stocks?

Sir John. Sir, I have a little urgent business calls upon me; and therefore I desire the favour of you to bring matters to a conclusion.

Just. Madam, if I were sure that business were not to commit more disorders, I would release you.

Sir John. None.

Just. Then, Mr Constable, you may discharge her. Sir John. Sir, your very humble servant. If you please to accept of a bottle

Just. I thank you kindly, madam; but I never drink in a morning. Good-by-t'ye, madam, good-by-t'ye.

There are editions of Vanbrugh by W. A. Ward (1893) and A. E. H. Swaen (1896).

William Congreve wrote a series of comedies which, more than any others in the English language, abound in witty dialogue and lively incident, though their licentiousness has banished them from the stage. Born at Bardsey near Leeds, and baptised 10th February 1670, he was of a good family, and his father held a military employment in Ireland, where the poet was educated-first at Kilkenny School, and then at Trinity College, Dublin. He studied law in the Middle Temple, but finding, as Leigh Hunt says, that, having family as well as wit and scholarship, he could make way in life without a profession, he early began to write. His first publication was a novel of cross-purposes and disguises, Incognita, full of ornate Gongorism and silly mock-sentiment, not without resemblances to Shakespeare's fancy plays, and closely akin to the prose comedy invented by Etherege and strengthened by Wycherley. He translated the seventh satire of Juvenal (1692), and next appeared as a writer for the stage. His Old Bachelor was produced, under Dryden's auspices, in January 1693, and acted with great applause. Other plays soon appeared: The Double Dealer in 1693; Love for Love in 1695; The Mourning Bride, a tragedy, in 1697; and The Way of the World in 1700. In 1710 he published a collection of miscellaneous poems, of which one little piece, Doris, is worthy of his fame. His position was assured as one of the foremost wits. He was eminently popular in society, and good fortune faithfully followed him. He received a succession of lucrative offices--a commissionership of wine licenses (1705-14), the secretaryship for Jamaica (from the first year of George I.'s reign, and worth £700 a year), and an appointment in the Customs. He was flattered and praised, was treated as a literary genius of the first rank, but was singularly free of literary jealousy. Basking in the sunshine of opulence and courtly society, Congreve wished to forget that he was an author;

he maintained the affectation of insisting that his plays were dashed off quite carelessly for his own amusement; and when Voltaire waited upon him, he said he would rather be considered a gentleman than a poet. If you had been merely a gentleman,' said the witty Frenchman, 'I should not have come to visit you.' He lived a luxurious and apparently happy life, though latterly afflicted with gout and an affection of the eyes which terminated in total blindness. He died at his house in London on 19th January 1730. Congreve had contracted a close intimacy with the Duchess of Marlborough (daughter of the great Duke), sat at her table daily, and assisted in her household management. On his death he left the bulk of his fortune, amounting to about £10,000, to this eccentric lady. The Duchess spent seven of the ten thousand pounds in the purchase of a diamond necklace. 'How much better would it have been to have given it to Mrs Bracegirdle!' said Young the poet and clergyman; indeed it was commonly believed wrongly-that the famous actress had been married to Congreve. Johnson thought it should have gone to the Congreve family, then in distress and poverty. The Duchess honoured the poet's remains with a splendid funeral. The corpse lay in state under the ancient roof of the Jerusalem Chamber, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. The pall was borne by the Duke of Bridgewater, Lord Cobham, the Earl of Wilmington (who had been Speaker, and was afterwards first Lord of the Treasury), and other men of high consideration. The Duchess of Marlborough, if report is to be believed, further manifested her regard for the deceased poet in a manner that spoke more for her devotion than her taste. It is said that she had a figure of him in ivory or wax, which moved by clockwork, and was placed daily at her table; and that the feet of this doll were regularly blistered and anointed by the doctors, as poor Congreve's feet had been for the gout.

Congreve remains the greatest master of the English comedy of repartee. Dryden complimented him as adorned by every muse and grace, and, extravagant in panegyric, declared of him : Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,

To Shakespeare gave as much, he could not give him more. Pope dedicated to him his translation of the Iliad. What higher honours could have been paid to a writer whose laurels were won by the age of thirty? Yet his plays are generally without the higher gifts of poetry or imagination, and his comic genius was devoted to illustrating a scheme of life almost wholly given up to sensuality and intrigue, without a trace of higher or nobler aims, or the barest sense of responsibility. He is the most perfect master of polished dramatic dialogue in English, and had no equal as a painter of contemporary life and manners, such as they were. He is not so grossly indecent as Etherege or Wycherley. We admire his brilliant dialogue and

repartee, and his wealth of incident and variety of character; but the absence of the higher virtues which ennoble life-the beauty and gracefulness of woman's virtue; the feelings of generosity, truth, honour, affection, modesty, and tenderness-leaves his pages barren and lacking in any permanent interest. His glittering, artificial life palls on the lovers of nature or of poetry. His second comedy, the Double Dealer, was in every way stronger than the Old Bachelor, but either the satire on the heartless sexual morals of the time was too serious to please the people satirised, or even Congreve's complaisant public were shocked by the outrageous immorality of Maskwell and Lady Touchwood. The play was a failure at first, but its merits were socn fully recognised. The Mourning Muse of Alexis, a poetic dialogue on Queen Mary's death, was as full of artificial conceits as Incognita. Love for Love is, no doubt, the finest prose comedy in the English language. So late as 1842 Macready revived it (modified, of course) at Drury Lane, and there have been still later revivals (as in 1871). Mr Watts-Dunton has said of it that, abundant and brilliant as is the wit, the coruscations do not, as in Congreve's other plays, outdazzle the sweeter and softer light of the humour; and the characterisation is true, some of it beautiful. the character of Ben, Congreve gave here the first really humorous and effective presentation of the rollicking English tar, afterwards so frequent and fertile a subject in the hands of Smollett and other novelists and dramatists. The Mourning Bride, Congreve's only tragedy, possesses higher merit than most of the serious plays of that day. As Macaulay said, it is poor compared with Shakespeare and with the best plays of Ford or Massinger, but stands high amongst the tragedies of the age in which it was written. To find anything so good one must go back to Otway's Venice Preserved or forward to Rowe's Fair Penitent. It has the stiffness of the French school, with no small affectation of fine writing, without passion, yet it possesses poetical scenes and admirable passages, nobly worded. The opening lines have often been

quoted :

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
I've read that things inanimate have moved,
And, as with living souls, have been informed
By magic numbers and persuasive sound.
What then am I? Am I more senseless grown
Than trees or flint? O force of constant woe!

In

Congreve was next busily occupied in the famous Jeremy Collier controversy, defending the morality of the new stage (see page 35). It would have been wiser had he, like Dryden, remained silent; his answer to Collier's trenchant polemic was voted dull even by his own party. Collier produced a powerful repartee; and the public were mainly on the side of the Nonjuring High Churchman. Congreve's last play, The Way of the World (1700), though quite as full of intellectual brilliance as

Love for Love, and evidently written with more care, not to say labour, lacks the humorous impulse seen in Congreve's masterpiece. The wit of the dialogue is not sufficiently held in hand to work out the characters and the plot. It comes more completely than does any other of Congreve's plays within the scope of the Duke of Buckingham's strictures (see Vol. I. p. 788) upon the comedy of repartee:

Another fault, which often does befal,

Is when the wit of some great poet shall
So overflow, that is, be none at all,

That ev'n his fools speak sense, as if possest,

And each by inspiration breaks his jest,

If once the justness of each part be lost,

Well may we laugh, but at the poet's cost.

The Way of the World was received with comparative coldness, and Congreve wrote no more for the stage; for the next twenty-eight years he did not add to his literary reputation.

Dr Johnson thought the following extract from the Mourning Bride, describing a cathedral, the most poetical paragraph in the whole range of the drama-finer than any in Shakespeare-and by such extravagant eulogy injured the piece. Had he said it was better than anything in the tragedies of Dryden, Lee, Otway, Rowe, Southerne, or Addison, he would not, in Macaulay's judgment and ours, have been far wrong:

Almeria. It was a fancied noise, for all is hushed. Leonora. It bore the accent of a human voice. Alm. It was thy fear, or else some transient wind Whistling through hollows of this vaulted aisle. We'll listen.

Leon. Hark!

Alm. No; all is hushed and still as death. "Tis dreadful!
How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads
To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity. It strikes an awe
And terror on my aching sight; the tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.
Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice;
Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear
Thy voice-my own affrights me with its echoes.
Leon. Let us return; the horror of this place
And silence will increase your melancholy.

Alm. It may my fears, but cannot add to that.
No, I will on; shew me Anselmo's tomb,
Lead me o'er bones and skulls and mouldering earth
Of human bodies; for I'll mix with them;
Or wind me in the shroud of some pale corpse
Yet green in earth, rather than be the bride
Of Garcia's more detested bed: that thought
Exerts my spirits, and my present fears
Are lost in dread of greater ill. Then shew me,
Lead me, for I am bolder grown : lead on
Where I may kneel and pay my vows again
To him, to Heaven and my Alphonso's soul.

In Congreve's comedies there is a constant stream of wit and liveliness, and quick interchange

of dialogue and incident. He was a master of dramatic rules and art, but was often careless and sometimes too complicated in his plots. From the sparkling, highly wrought love-scenes of Congreve it would be perilous to quote. 'I have read two or three of Congreve's plays over before speaking of him,' said Thackeray in one of his famous lectures; 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 orgya dried wine - jar or two, a charred supper-table, 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

as you see, sir-[Showing letters]-and business must be followed, or be lost.

Bell. Business ! And so must time, my friend, be close pursued or lost. Business is the rub of life, perverts our aim, casts off the bias, and leaves us wide and short of the intended mark.

Vain. Pleasure, I guess you mean.
Bell. Ay, what else has meaning?
Vain. Oh, the wise will tell you-

Bell. More than they believe or understand.

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 framework. They used to call those teeth pearls once. See! there's the cup she drank from, the gold chain 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 grave-stone, and in place of a mistress a few bones!'

From 'The Old Bachelor.'

Bellmour. Vainlove, and abroad so early! Goodmorrow. I thought a contemplative lover could no more have parted with his bed in a morning, than he could have slept in 't.

Vainlove. Bellmour, good-morrow. Why, truth on 't is, these early sallies are not usual to me; but business,