Lady Wish. Well, Mr. Mirabell, you have kept your promise and I must perform mine. First, I pardon, for your sake, Sir Rowland there, and Foible; the next thing is to break the matter to my nephew-and how to do that

Mir. For that, madam, give yourself no trouble; let me have your consent. Sir Wilfull is my friend; he has had compassion upon lovers, and generously engaged a volunteer in this action, for our service; and now designs to prosecute his travels.

My

Sir Wil. S'heart, aunt, I have no mind to marry. cousin's a fine lady, and the gentleman loves her, and she loves him, and they deserve one another; my resolution is to see foreign parts-I have set on't—and when I'm set on't I must do't. And if these two gentlemen would travel too, I think they may be spared.

Pet. For my part, I say little-I think things are best off or on.

Wit. I'gad, I understand nothing of the matter; I'm in a maze yet, like a dog in a dancing-school.

Lady Wish. Well, sir, take her, and with her all the joy I can give you.

Mrs. Mil. Why does not the man take me? would you have me give myself to you over again?

Well,

Mir. Ay, and over and over again; [Kisses her hand.] I would have you as often as possibly I can. Heaven grant I love you not too well, that's all my fear. Sir Wil. S'heart, you'll have time enough to toy after you're married; or if you will toy now, let us have a dance in the mean time, that we who are not lovers may have some other employment besides looking on.

Mir. With all my heart, dear Sir Wilfull. we do for music?

What shall

Foib. O sir, some that were provided for Sir Rowland's entertainment are yet within call. [A Dance. Lady Wish. As I am a person, I can hold out no longer; I have wasted my spirits so to-day already, that

I am ready to sink under the fatigue; and I cannot but have some fears upon me yet, that my son Fainall will pursue some desperate course.

Mir. Madam, disquiet not yourself on that account; to my knowledge his circumstances are such he must of force comply. For my part, I will contribute all that in me lies to a reunion; in the mean time, madam,—[To Mrs. FAINALL.] let me before these witnesses restore to you this deed of trust; it may be a means, well-managed, to make you live easily together.

From hence let those be warned, who mean to wed;
Lest mutual falsehood stain the bridal bed;
For each deceiver to his cost may find,
That marriage-frauds too oft are paid in kind.

[Exeunt omnes.

EPILOGUE.

SPOKEN BY MRS. BRACEGIRDLE.

AFTER our Epilogue this crowd dismisses,
I'm thinking how this play'll be pulled to pieces.
But pray consider, ere you doom its fall,
How hard a thing 'twould be to please you all.
There are some critics so with spleen diseased,
They scarcely come inclining to be pleased:
And sure he must have more than mortal skill,
Who pleases any one against his will.

Then all bad poets we are sure are foes,

And how their number's swelled, the town well knows:
In shoals I've marked 'em judging in the pit;
Though they're, on no pretence, for judgment fit,
But that they have been damned for want of wit.
Since when, they by their own offences taught,
Set up for spies on plays, and finding fault.

Others there are whose malice we'd prevent;
Such who watch plays with scurrilous intent.
To mark out who by characters are meant.
And though no perfect likeness they can trace,
Yet each pretends to know the copied face.
These with false glosses feed their own ill nature,
And turn to libel what was meant a satire.
May such malicious fops this fortune find,
To think themselves alone the fools designed:
If any are so arrogantly vain,

To think they singly can support a scene,
And furnish fool enough to entertain.

For well the learned and the judicious know
That satire scorns to stoop so meanly low,
As any one abstracted fop to show.

For, as when painters form a matchless face,

They from each fair one catch some different grace;

And shining features in one portrait blend,

To which no single beauty must pretend;

So poets oft do in one piece expose

Whole belles-assemblees of coquettes and beaux.

THE MOURNING BRIDE.

-Neque enim lex æquior ulla,

Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.-OVID, de Arte Amandi.1

1 For there is no law more just than for the plotters of murder to perish by their own designs.

HE Mourning Bride is the only tragedy that issued from the pen of Congreve, and he cannot be congratulated upon his effort. The author is essentially a painter of contemporary life and manners, and when he treads upon the classic ground of historical drama his grace and lightness of step desert him. Instead of the wit and epigram of his comedies we have here dialogue which is turgid and bombastic, a plot not uninteresting, but lacking in probability, and love scenes too artificial to be infused with real passion, and which consequently fail to move us. It is one of those plays which reads better than it acts. In this play several couplets, which have since become proverbial, are to be met with. It was produced in 1697, and at once became a favourite, though it has long since been banished from the stage.