brilliant fishwoman exchanging compliments at Billingsgate; but some of his verses-they were amongst the most famous lyrics of the I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and hieroglyphical.

"Valentine.-Oh! why would Angelica be absent from my eyes so long? Jeremy. She's here, Sir.

"Mrs. Foresight.-Now, Sister!

"Mrs. Frail.-O Lord! what must I say?

"Scandal.-Humour him, Madam, by all means.

Oh

“Valentine.—Where is she? Oh! I see her: she comes, like Riches, Health, and Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and abandoned wretch. welcome, welcome!

"Mrs. Frail.-How d'ye, Sir? Can I serve you?

"Valentine.-Hark'ee-I have a secret to tell you. Endymion and the moon shall meet us on Mount Latmos, and we'll be married in the dead of night. But say not a word. Hymen shall put his torch into a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give her peacock poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail; and Argus's hundred eyes be shut-ha! Nobody shall know, but Jeremy. "Mrs. Frail.-No, no; we'll keep it secret; it shall be done presently. "Valentine.-The sooner the better. Jeremy, come hither-closer that none may overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you news: Angelica is turned nun, and I am turning friar, and yet we'll marry one another in spite of the Pope. Get me a cowl and beads, that I may play my part; for she'll meet me two hours hence in black and white, and a long veil to cover the project, and we won't see one another's faces 'till we have done something to be ashamed of, and then we'll blush once for all. . . . "Enter TATTLE.

"Tattle.-Do you know me, Valentine?

"Valentine.-You !-who are you? No, I hope not. "Tattle.-I am Jack Tattle, your friend.

"Valentine.-My friend! What to do? I am no married man, and thou canst not lye with my wife; I am very poor, and thou canst not borrow money of me. Then, what employment have I for a friend?

"Tattle.-Hah! A good open speaker, and not to be trusted with a secret. 66 Angelica.-Do you know me, Valentine?

"Valentine.-Oh, very well.

"Angelica.-Who am I?

"Valentine.-You're a woman, one to whom Heaven gave beauty when it grafted roses on a brier. You are the reflection of Heaven in a pond; and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white-a sheet of spotless paper-when you first are born; but you are to be scrawled and blotted by every goose's quill. I know you; for I loved a woman, and loved her so long that I found out a strange thing: I found out what a woman was good for.

"Tattle.-Ay! pr'ythee, what's that?

[Valentine

time, and pronounced equal to Horace by his contemporaries-may give an idea of his power, of his grace, of his daring manner, his

"Valentine.-Why, to keep a secret.

"Tattle.-O Lord!

"Valentine.-Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for, though she should tell, yet she is not to be believed.

"Tattle.-Hah! Good again, faith. "Valentine.-I would have musick.

CONGREVE: Love for Love.

Sing me the song that I like."

There is a Mrs. Nickleby, of the year 1700, in Congreve's Comedy of "The Double Dealer," in whose character the author introduces some wonderful traits of roguish satire. She is practised on by the gallants of the play, and no more knows how to resist them than any of the ladies above quoted could resist Congreve.

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Lady Plyant.-Oh! reflect upon the horror of your conduct! Offering to pervert me" [the joke is that the gentleman is pressing the lady for her daughter's hand, not for her own]-"perverting me from the road of virtue, in which I have trod thus long, and never made one trip-not one faux pas. Oh, consider it: what would you have to answer for, if you should provoke me to frailty! Alas! humanity is feeble, heaven knows! Very feeble, and unable to support itself.

"Mellefont.-Where am I? Is it day? and am I awake? Madam

"Lady Plyant.-O Lord, ask me the question! I'll swear I'll deny it-therefore don't ask me; nay, you shan't ask me, I swear I'll deny it. O Gemini, you have brought all the blood into my face; I warrant I am as red as a turkey-cock. O fie, cousin Mellefont !

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66

Mellefont.-Nay, Madam, hear me; I mean

'Lady Plyant.-Hear you? No, no; I'll deny you first, and hear you afterwards. For one does not know how one's mind may change upon hearinghearing is one of the senses, and all the senses are fallible. I won't trust my honour, I assure you; my honour is infallible and uncomatable.

"Lady Plyant.-Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of heaven, and have so much wickedness in your heart? May be, you don't think it a sin. They say some of you gentlemen don't think it a sin; but still, my honour, if it were no sin But, then, to marry my daughter for the convenience of frequent opportunities-I'll never consent to that: as sure as can be, I'll break the match. "Mellefont.-Death and amazement! Madam, upon my knees

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'Lady Plyant.—Nay, nay, rise up! come, you shall see my good-nature. I know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. 'Tis not your fault; nor I swear, it is not mine. How can I help it, if I have charms? And how can you help it, if you are made a captive? I swear it is pity it should be a fault; but, my honour. Well, but your honour, too-but the sin! Well, but the necessity. O Lord, here's somebody coming. I dare not stay. Well, you must consider of

magnificence in compliment, and his polished sarcasm.

He writes

as if he was so accustomed to conquer, that he has a poor opinion of his victims. Nothing's new except their faces, says he: "every woman is the same." He says this in his first comedy, which he wrote languidly* in illness, when he was an "excellent young man." Richelieu at eighty could have hardly said a more excellent thing.

When he advances to make one of his conquests, it is with a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and with the fiddles playing, like Grammont's French dandies attacking the breach of Lerida.

"Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young lady at the Wells at Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnificent compliment

"Cease, cease to ask her name,

The crowned Muse's noblest theme,
Whose glory by immortal fame

Shall only sounded be.

But if you long to know,

Then look round yonder dazzling row:

Who most does like an angel show,

You may be sure 'tis she."

Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was not so well pleased at the poet's manner of celebrating her—

"When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair,
With eyes so bright and with that awful air,
I thought my heart which durst so high aspire
As bold as his who snatched celestial fire.

your crime; and strive as much as can be against it-strive, be sure; but don't be melancholick-don't despair; but never think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no; but be sure you lay aside all thoughts of the marriage, for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only as a blind to your passion for me—yet it will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say? Jealous! No, no, I can't be jealous; for I must not love you. Therefore, don't hope; but don't despair neither. Oh, they're coming; I must fly.”—The Double Dealer: Act 2, sc. v. page 156.

* "There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything 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."-JOHNSON: Lives of the Poets.

But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke,
Forth from her coral lips such folly broke :

Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound,

And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound."

Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, but the poet does not seem to respect one much more than the other; and describes both with exquisite satirical humour—

"Fair Amoret is gone astray:

Pursue and seek her every lover.
I'll tell the signs by which you may
The wandering shepherdess discover.

Coquet and coy at once her air,

Both studied, though both seem neglected;
Careless she is with artful care,

Affecting to seem unaffected.

With skill her eyes dart every glance,

Yet change so soon you 'd ne'er suspect them;
For she'd persuade they wound by chance,

Though certain aim and art direct them.

She likes herself, yet others hates

For that which in herself she prizes;

And, while she laughs at them, forgets
She is the thing that she despises."

What could Amoret have done to bring down such shafts of ridicule upon her? Could she have resisted the irresistible Mr. Congreve ? Could anybody? Could Sabina, when she woke and heard such a bard singing under her window? "See," he writes—

"See! see, she wakes-Sabina wakes!

And now the sun begins to rise?

Less glorious is the morn, that breaks

From his bright beams, than her fair eyes.

With light united, day they give ;

But different fates ere night fulfil :

How many by his warmth will live!

How many will her coldness kill!"

Are you melted? Don't you think him a divine raan? If not touched by the brilliant Sabina, hear the devout Selinda :

"Pious Selinda goes to prayers,

If I but ask the favour;

And yet the tender fool's in tears,
When she believes I'll leave her :
Would I were free from this restraint,
Or else had hopes to win her :
Would she could make of me a saint,

Or I of her a sinner!"

What an irresistible

What a conquering air there is about these! Mr. Congreve it is! Sinner! of course he will be a sinner, the delightful rascal! Win her! of course he will win her, the victorious rogue! He knows he will: he must-with such a grace, with such a fashion, with such a splendid embroidered suit. You see him with red-heeled shoes deliciously turned out, passing a fair jewelled hand through his dishevelled periwig, and delivering a killing ogle along with his scented billet. And Sabina? What a comparison that is between the nymph and the sun! The sun gives Sabina the pas, and does not venture to rise before her ladyship: the morn's bright beams are less glorious than her fair eyes: but before night everybody will be frozen by her glances: everybody but one lucky rogue who shall be nameless. Louis Quatorze in all his glory is hardly more splendid than our Phoebus Apollo of the Mall and Spring Gardens.*

When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, the latter rather affected to despise his literary reputation, and in this perhaps the great Congreve was not far wrong.† A touch of Steele's tenderness is

Among those by whom it (Will's') was frequented, Southerne and Congrewe were principally distinguished by Dryden's friendship. . . . But Congreve seems to have gained yet farther than Southerne upon Dryden's friendship. He was introduced to him by his first play, the celebrated 'Old Bachelor' being put into the poet's hands to be revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations to fit it for the stage, returned it to the author with the high and just commendation, that it was the best first play he had ever seen.”—SCOTT's Dryden, vol. i. p. 370.

It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), that Voltaire visited him, in the decline of his life.

[The anecdote