THE WORKS OF WILLIAM CONGRE VE.

AT last we have got a complete edition of the works of William Congreve, for, curiously enough, his plays, letters, poems and novel have never been brought together before in full force.

That was an evil fate, but it is now corrected by the editorial ability of Mr. Montague Summers and the enterprise of the Nonesuch Press. Though Fate was unkind in concealing a great deal of the dramatist's work from the reading public, she yet played him a good turn in two ways. Baskerville, a hundred and fifty years ago, used his exquisite typographical artistry to create a noble monument to Congreve's genius.

Now the Nonesuch Press show us that we of this age can be equally appreciative. With these two facts before us, it is not too much to say that Congreve was fortunate in the opportunity of his printers. He is exactly the type of poet, dramatist, novelist and letter-writer to whom exquisite printing and presentation is appropriate. Perfec- tion of accomplishment is the essential note in all Congreve touched. Whether it is his particular type of the comedy of intrigue, the declamatory, sentimental tragedy, elegant social verse and epigram, or familiar letters, he always does the thing in the best possible way. He was not a genius in the great sense, but he had a genius or inspiration for perfection in the secondary plane of letters. He never aimed too high or too low, and so never missed his mark. In a word, what he attempted to do,. he succeeded in doing. Therefore Congreve will never fail of admirers, and ought never to fail of them, for the mass of mankind naturally loves accomplishment.

The true romanticist is apt to be unsympathetic towards the perfectionist. He prefers the explorer of the emotions, of the mind, and of the springs of human action. Still, the romanticist who is not a prig or a pedant must pay his homage to a perfection in small things so memorable as that of Congreve.

Especially will I pay it to a section of his lyrical and elegiac verse. I admit the marvellous ingenuity, verbal felicity

and -epigramma• tic exactness of the dialogue of the prose

plays. I give my full mead of praise and admiration to the ingenuity of the plots and the subtle characterization of the persons of the drama. Again, I greatly admire the stagecraft

in a play like The Mourning Bride. I also am very much taken by the development of narrative prose in the novel—

a youthful work which, nevertheless, has in it an extraordinary zest for the right word in the right place. Finally, Mr. Summers, by collecting Congreve's correspondence, has shown us what a great part he took in the building up of the English letter. Congreve is not nearly so great a letter writer as Pope and does not deal anything like so poignantly with his subjects.

He was not intellectually curious, not passionate, not even emotional. In these respects, therefore, he stands at a great disadvantage to Pope. At the same time, he not only handles his subjects in the letters in a masterly way, but shows what a great part he was playing in freeing our prose, especially in the place where it most wanted freedom—the intimate epistolary style.

Congreve does not try to be humorous, sly or winning in

• The eomplde Works of William Coagrere. In 4 Voltunes. Edited by Montague Bunme,e, London: The Nonesuch Press, [E.3 35. net.]

his letters, but he writes the familiar letter of a high-bred, well-educated gentleman • with a sense of absolute mastery. Take for example the marvellous letter written from Londoh on November 30th, 1703. It describes in miniature the great storm which Defoe immortalized in his Diary and Addison in "The Campaign "—the poem which he addressed to the victorious Marlborough. Congreve tells the story of the terrible night with a nonchalance which never degenerates into triviality. He is also perfectly free from sensationalism or from "writing up." Here is his account of what he calls "the hurricane on Friday night last" :—

" The public papers will be full of particulars. 'Tis certain, in the memory of man, never was anything like it. Most of the tall trees in the Park are blown down, and the four trees that stood distinct before St. James's, between the Mall and the Canal. The garden- wall of the Privy, and the Queen's garden there, arc both laid flat. Some great sash-windows of the banqueting-house have been torn from the frames, and blown so as they have never been found nor heard of. The leads of churches have some of them been rolled up as they were before they were laid on : others have been skimmed clean off, and transported across the street, where they have been laid on other houses, breaking the roofs. The news out of the country is equally terrible ; the roads being obstructed by the trees which lie cross. Anwick, Coventry, and most of the towns that my acquaintance have heard of, are in great measure destroyed, as Bristol, where they say a church was blown down. It is endless to tell you all. Our neighbour in Howard Street 'scaped well, though frighted, only the ridge of the house being stripped ; and a stack of chimneys in the next house fell luckily into the street. I lost nothing but a casement in my man's chamber, though the chimneys of the Blue Ball continued tumbling by piece-meal most part of the night. At Mr. Porter's, the wind came down the little court behind the back parlour, and burst open that door, bolts and all, whirled round the room, and scattered all the prints ; of which, together with the table and the chairs, it mustered into one heap, and made a battery of 'em to break down the other door into the entry, whither it swept 'em ; yet broke not one pane of the window which join'd to the backcourt door. It took off the sky-light of the stairs; and did no more damage there. Many people have been killed. But the loss at sea is inconceivable, though the particulars are not many yet confirmed; and I am afraid poor Beaumont is lost. Shovel, they say, and Fairholm, are heard of. I hope you have been less sufferers. One should be glad to hear so from your hands. Pray give my service to all friends. The King's Bench Walk Buildings are just as before their roofs were covered. Tell

that to Robin." •

I do not know what effect that recital may have on the minds of others. On mine it has a quite unusual impact. It is so easy, and yet so concentrated, so alive and yet so reticent.

But, though I like all these things in Congreve, what I prefer is his lyric verse of the kind with which we are all familiar in the exquisite poem on " Amoret." In those four quatrains of "The Hue and Cry after Fair Amoret " there is not a single word which one could wish altered or transposed. I shall not quote it, for though the best thing of its own special kind—even better than Prior's "The Merchant to Secure his Treasure "—it is a type of verse well handled by others. In one of his poems, however, Congreve strikes what for his age, and perhaps also for ours, is a really original note. The poem called "Doris," as a piece of physical and psychical analysis of a particular kind-of worldly woman, has no rivals. It stands alone.

The poet begins by telling us that "Doris," though not in her first youth, has all the arts and graces at her command :—

" A wise Observer to engage, Or wound a heedless Heart." He proceeds :— " Of Size, she is not short, nor tall,

And does to Fat incline

No more, than what the French wou'd call

Aimable Embonpoint. Farther, her Person to disclose

I leave, . . . let it suffice,

She has few Faults, but what she knows, And can with Skill disguise. She many Lovers has refus'd, With many more comply'd ; Which, like her Clothes, when little us'd, She always lays aside.

She's one, who looks with great Contempt On each affected Creature, Whose Nicety would seem exempt From Appetites of Nature. She thinks they want or Health or Sense, Who want an Inclination ; And therefore never takes Offence At him who pleads his Passion. Whom n she refuses, she treats still With so . much sweet Behaviour, That her Refusal, through her Skill, Looks almost like a Favour."

The poet goes on to say that you would naturally suppose from this that for those whom she does not reject she must keep an altogether special passion. But that is not so. She pays no heed to custom in that "Which Reason bids her shun"

"By Reason, her own Reason's meant,

Or if you please, her Will : For when this last is Discontent, The first is serv'd but ill.

Peculiar therefore is her Way ; Whether by Nature taught, I shall not undertake to say, Or by experience bought. But who o'er-night obtain'd her Grace, She can next Day disown, And stare upon the Strange man's Face, As one she ne'er had known.

So well she can the Truth disguise, Such artful Wonder frame, The Lover or distrusts his Eyes, Or thinks 'twas all a Dream."

For pure diagnosis of the worldly woman not only is it impossible to beat this, but the diagnosis when made is trans- ferred so artfully, so perspicuously and so pointedly to the reader that the woman seems to live before him—an intolerable and inhuman creature apt for that inhuman age, and yet in her own way a piece of literary perfection. What makes the whole theme so wonderful is that there is no touch of caricature in the portrayal. She fascinates even if she is intolerable.

Another example of the exquisiteness of Congreve's work is to be found in the Song from The Fair Penitent :— !‘ All stay ! ah turn ! ah, whither would you fly,

Too charming, too relentless Maid ? I follow not to Conquer, but to Die ; You of the fearful are afraid.

In vain I call ; for she like fleeting Air, When prest by some tempestuous Wind, Flies swifter from the Voice of my Despair, Nor casts one pitying Look behind."

Note here the languor as well as the reticence of the metre. But note most of all the complete originality of the present- ment. It reads like a very artful translation from one of the later and more decadent pieces in " The Greek Anthology." One must suppose that the last line had come under the eyes of Gray. If it did, he stole wisely and well.

Since I have deliberately chosen to say nothing as to where Cong,reve is best known—the comedies—I may steal a little space to say something more as to his metrical powers. Nobody could manage "Eights and Sixes" better than he, but, curiously enough, with the exception of one or two epigrams, he was somewhat at fault with the couplet. He never seems quite happy there. Again, in the Pindaric Ode I cannot find him attractive, as, curiously enough, does Mr. Montague Summers, though it is obvious that the misfortune is mine, not Congreve's.

On the moving question whether the blank verse of The Mourning Bride is good, bad or just tolerable I must break a lance with Mr. Summers. Though he has Dr. Johnson on his side in that amazing passage in which Johnson praises the lines about the ruin in The Mourning Bride as incomparable, I am prepared to say that to my ear the blank verse is weak and flaccid and the phraseology poor—indifferent to bad. However, let my readers decide whether he is

right in thinking this one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry in the English language

"How rev'rend is the Face of this tall Pile, Whose ancient Pillars rear their Marble Heads, To bear aloft its arch'd and ,pond'rous Roof, By its own Weight made steadfast and immovable, Looking Tranquility. It strikes an Awe And Terror on my airing. Sight ; the Tombs And Monumental Caves of 'Death look Cold, And shoot a Chihiess to my trembling Heart."

It is quite safe to say that Beaumont and Fletcher, in single or double harness, could have written better than this any day of the week. At the same time, I am not at all for condemning The Mourning Bride as a play, or, indeed, for condemning the whole of the blank verse. The greater part of it is, I admit, quite adequate. For example, there is a fine cadence in such lines as :—

"0 take me to thy Arms, and bear me hence, Back to the Bottom of the boundless Deep, To Seas beneath, where thou so long hast dwelt."

Better than this, and indeed quite admirable, is the line :— " We both have backward trod the Paths of Fate." Occasionally, however, though this is the fault of a changing age and changing language rather than of the poet, Congreve falls into a dreadful emptiness. Somebody is told to prevent a slave committing suicide :- ". . . The Publick Safety Requires he should be more confin'd. . . ."

But though I cannot wholly stomach Congreve's blank verse, it must not be supposed that I am taking back what I have said about his being a perfectionist. His blank verse is excellent for his purpose when he is not aiming too high, and that aim is only in a very small portion of one play. There- fore, it may fairly be described as only the exception proving

the rule.

J. Sr. Lou STRACHEY.