19

they considered as an entertainment not lawful to Christians, an opinion held by them in common with the church of Rome 1; 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 the players were left at quiet; for to have molested them would have had the appearance of tendency to puritanical malignity 3.

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 religious zeal and honest indignation 5. He was formed for

the stage as inconsistent with Christianity. Collier, in his Defence of a Short View, p. 87, quotes it (p. 89) where Gosson says of the stage :'We call that a slaughter-house where brute beasts are killed, and hold that a pastime, which is the very butchery of Christian souls.'

Collier quotes a Pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Arras, written in 1695, against the stage, the Councils of the Primitive Church and the Fathers. A Short View, pp. 245-76.

The intolerance of the Church of Rome towards actors was shown in the case of Molière, of whom Voltaire writes: Le malheur qu'il avait eu de ne pouvoir mourir avec les secours de la religion, et la prévention contre la comédie, déterminèrent Harlay de Chanvalon, archevêque de Paris, si connu par ses intrigues galantes, à refuser la sépulture à Molière.' Euvres, ed. xlii. 68. See also ib. i. 473, xxxii. 176. The archbishop yielded to the request of the King.

Avant qu'un peu de terre obtenu par prière

Pour jamais sous la tombe eût enfermé Molière,' &c. BOILEAU, Epitre vii. 19, Euvres, i. 359.

2 Histrio-mastix. The Player's Scourge was published in 1633. For the savage punishment it brought on Prynne see Gardiner's Hist. vii. 333.

3 Dr. South (no Puritan), speaking of 'the provoking of a lustful, incontinent person by filthy discourse,... and that which equals and exceeds them all, the incentives of the stage,' continues:-'Now with great variety of such kind of traders for hell as these has the nation of late years abounded.' Sermons, 1823, ii. 36.

'As the stage now is,' said Tillotson, 'plays are intolerable, and not fit to be permitted in a civilized, much less in a Christian country.' Sermons, 1757, xi. 110.

4 'I never knew,' said Johnson, 'a Nonjuror who could reason.' When Collier was objected to him, he replied:He fought without a rival, and therefore could not claim the victory.' Boswell's Johnson, iv. 286.

5 For the attacks of Leigh Hunt and Hazlitt on Collier see Hunt's Wycherley, &c., pp. 81, 100, and for Macaulay's defence see his Essays, iii. 257. Hunt,' Macaulay wrote, 'is scandalously unjust to Jeremy Collier. I think Jeremy one of the greatest public benefactors in our history.' Macvey Napier Corres. p. 331. For Blackmore's earlier attack on the stage see post, BLACKMORE, 15.

Collier, in his condemnation of music, was not surpassed by George Fox. It is almost as dangerous as gunpowder.' A Short View, p. 279.

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 sarcastick3; 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 20 assailed at once most of the living writers, from Dryden to Durfey *. 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 publick charges.

2

"This is an eruption of Hell, with a witness.' A Short View, p. 84. The clergy are no small rub in the poet's way.' Ib. p. 97. The bottom of the page is downright porter's rhetoric.' Ib. p. 101.

3What a spite have these men to the God that made them! How do they rebel upon his bounty, and attack him with his own reason! These giants in wickedness, how would they ravage with a stature proportionable! They that can swagger in impotence, and blaspheme upon a mole-hill, what would they do if they had strength to their good will!' Ib. p. 85.

4

Addison, in one of his pleasantest papers (The Guardian, No. 67), advocated a benefit for him. 'I myself,' he writes, 'remember King Charles II leaning on Tom D'Urfey's shoulder more than once, and humming over a song with him.

It is certain that monarch was not a little supported by Joy to Great Caesar, which gave the Whigs such a blow as they were not able to recover that whole reign. See also Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), iv. 416, for Pope's Prologue designed for Mr. D'Urfey's Last Play.

Collier gives a whole section to him, ending by applying to him an imitation of Boileau (L'Art Poétique,

iii. 426):—

'Let him begone, and on two tressels
raise

Some Smithfield stage, where he
may act his pranks,
And make Jack-puddings speak to
mountebanks.'

A Short View, p. 208.

5 Swift wrote in 1709:-'I do not remember that our English poets ever suffered a criminal amour to succeed on the stage till the reign of Charles II. Ever since that time the alderman is made a cuckold, the deluded virgin is debauched, and adultery and fornication are supposed to be committed behind the scenes as part of the action.' Works, viii. 96. See also ib. i. 361 n., for a tradition that reached Scott through Kemble of obscene talk between a lady of rank in a box at the theatre and Congreve, who was placed at some little distance.

Addison wrote in 1712:-'It is one of the most unaccountable things in our age, that the lewdness of our theatre should be so much complained of, so well exposed, and so little redressed.' The Spectator, No. 446. See also ante, ADDISON, 123 n.

Lady Cowper who, in 1715, with the Princess of Wales, saw The Wanton Wife, recorded:-'It certainly is not more obscene than all comedies are.' Diary, p. 46. See also Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), ix. 350.

21

22

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 answers '. Congreve, a very young man, elated with success, and impatient of censure, assumed 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. Collier replied3, for contest was his delight; he was not 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 tenour 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 3.

• In 1698 Congreve published Amendments upon Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations, &c.; and Vanbrugh A Short Vindication of The Relapse and The Provok'd Wife from Immorality and Profaneness.

'Congreve seemed too much hurt to be able to defend himself, and Vanbrugh felt Collier so little that his wit only laughed at his lashes.' CIBBER, Apology, p. 159. See also Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, i. 331.

Scanderbeg, who had been trained in the Turkish army, used his training against the Turks. The Decline and Fall, vii. 150.

Congreve sneers at Collier in The Way of the World, Act iii. He makes Lady Wishfort say :-'There are books over the chimney-Quarles and Prynne, and The Short View of the Stage, with Bunyan's Works to entertain you.' In the last act she tells how her daughter had heard 'the chaplain's long lectures against going to filthy plays.... Oh! she would have swooned at the sight or name of an obscene playbook.'

3 A Defence of the Short View. 1699.

Swift, though Congreve's friend, never mentions Collier. Pope attacks him once, but not by name: 'Pride, malice, folly, against Dryden

rose

In various shapes of parsons, critics,

beaux.' Essay on Criticism, 1. 458. Steele, who shared with Addison the credit of purifying the stage (ante, ADDISON, 45,123), in verses addressed to Congreve, occasioned by his comedy called The Way of the World, says:

'By your selected scenes and handsome choice

Ennobled comedy exalts her voice; You check unjust esteem and fond desire, [should admire.' And teach to scorn what else we 5 Porson, speaking of the indecency which corrupts the heart without offending the ear,' continues :'I believe there is no man of sound judgment who would not sooner let his son read Aristophanes than Congreve or Vanbrugh.' Tracts, p. 13.

'Wickedness is no subject for Comedy. This was Congreve's great error, and almost peculiar to him. The Dramatis Personae of Dryden,

The stage found other advocates, and the dispute was pro- 23 tracted 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 1.

Of the powers by which this important victory was atchieved, 24 a quotation from Love for Love, and the remark upon it, may afford a specimen.

"SIR SAMPS. Sampson's a very good name [for an able fellow]; for your Sampsons were strong dogs from the beginning. "ANGEL. Have a care [and don't over act your part] If you remember, the strongest Sampson of your [the] name pull'd an old house over his head at last 2."

'Here you have the Sacred History burlesqued, and Sampson once more brought into the house of Dagon, to make sport for the Philistines 3!'

Congreve's last play was The Way of the World', which, 25 though as he hints in his dedication it was written with great labour and much thought, was received with so little favour,

Wycherley, and others are often vicious, indecent, but not, like Congreve's, wicked.' COLERIDGE, Biog. Lit. 1847, ii. 256.

Congreve and Farquhar,' writes Lamb, show their heads once in seven years only, to be exploded and put down instantly. The times cannot bear them.' Essays of Elia, 1889, p. 192. He goes on to maintain that their comedies make no man worse. For Macaulay's criticism of this defence see his Essays, iii. 225.

Dryden on March 4, 1698-9, mentioning the revival of The Double Dealer, adds:-' In the play-bill was printed :-" Written by Mr. Congreve; with several expressions omitted." The omission, he says, was due to the King's order for the reformation of the stage.' Dryden's Works, xviii. 151.

Cibber tells how the ladies were afraid of venturing bare-faced to a new comedy.' He adds that after Collier's censures dramatic writers were now a great deal more upon their guard, indecencies were longer wit, and by degrees the fair sex came again on the first day without fear. Apology, pp. 155, 159. In his Careless Husband, Act v. sc. 3,

no

Lord Morelove says:-'Since the late short-sighted view of plays vice may go on and prosper; the stage dares hardly shew a vicious person speaking like himself for fear of being called prophane for exposing him.'

Gay's Three Hours after Marriage, brought out in 1717, is very gross. It was, however, driven off the stage. Post, GAY, 10.

'Collier frightened the poets, and did all he could to spoil the stage by pretending to reform it; that is, by making it an echo of the pulpit, instead of a reflection of the manners of the world.... His work produced those do-me-good, lack-a-daisical, whining, make-believe comedies in the next age, where the author tries in vain to be merry and wise in the same breath.' HAZLITT, Hunt's Wycherley, p. 100.

2 Act v.

.

3 A Short View, p. 76.

* Printed in 1700-the first of his plays that is dated.

5 He describes himself as one of those who write with care and pains. ... If I have gained a turn of style or expression more correct than in my former comedies, &c.' Works, ii. 6. • Dryden wrote on March 12, 1699

26

27

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 be publick; he lived for himself and for his friends, and among 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 2.

He seems not to have taken much pleasure in writing, as he contributed nothing to The Spectator and only one paper to The Tatler 3, though published by

The Way of the World is an admirable comedy. .; yet it is tiresome in its very ingenuity, for its maze of wit and intrigue; and it has no heart, therefore wants the very soul of pleasure.' LEIGH HUNT, Wycherley, &c., Preface, p. 79.

6

Macaulay (Essays, iii. 267) says that parts of this play are superior to anything that is to be found in the whole range of English comedy from the Civil War downwards.'

1 Memoirs of Congreve, 1730, p. II. He did not wholly abandon the stage. His Judgment of Paris, a Masque, was published in 1701. In his Works is also included Semele, an Opera. In a letter, dated May 20, 1704, he wrote:-'The translation you speak of is not altogether mine, for Vanbrugh and Walsh had a part in it.

Each did an act of a French farce. Mine, and I believe theirs, was done in two mornings.' G. M.

men with whom he might be

Berkeley's Literary Relics, p. 337. In 1706 he and Vanbrugh were managers of the new theatre in the Haymarket. Cibber's Apology, pp. 162, 181, 184.

In 1725 Young wrote:'Congreve, who crowned with laurels fairly won,

Sits smiling at the goal while others run;

He will not write, and (more provok-
ing still)

Ye Gods! he will not write, and
Maevius will.'

Love of Fame, Sat. i. 39.

2 Dryden addresses him in his Epistle (Works, xi. 58) :—

'So much the sweetness of your man

ners move

We cannot envy you, because we love.'

Gay describes him as

Friendly Congreve, unreproachful man.'

Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), v. 174.

'I loved him from my youth,' wrote Swift. 'Surely, besides his other talents, he was a very agreeable companion.' Works, xvii. 212.

3

Leigh Hunt, giving no authority for the statement, wrongly attributes to him No. 49, where it is said:'To love her is a liberal education.' Wycherley, &c., p. 36.

Swift wrote on Feb. 13, 1710-11, of the continuation of The Tatler:'Congreve gave me a Tatler [No. 14] he had written out, blind as he is, for little Harrison. It is about a scoundrel that was grown rich, and went and bought a coat of arms at