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.

HAT high station which by your birth you hold above the people, exacts from every one, as a duty, whatever honours they are capable of paying to your Royal Highness but that more exalted place to which your virtues have raised you above the rest of princes, makes the tribute of our admiration and praise rather a choice more immediately preventing that duty. The public gratitude is ever founded on a public benefit; and what is universally blessed, is always a universal blessing. Thus from yourself we derive the offerings which we bring; and that incense which arises to your name, only returns to its original, and but naturally requites the parent of its being.

From hence it is that this poem, constituted on a moral whose end is to recommend and to encourage virtue, of consequence has recourse to your Royal Highness's patronage; aspiring to cast itself beneath your feet, and declining approbation, till you shall condescend to own it, and vouchsafe to shine upon it as on a creature of your influence.

It is from the example of princes that virtue becomes a fashion in the people; for even they who are averse to instruction will yet be fond of imitation.

But there are multitudes who never can have means nor opportunities of so near an access, as to partake of the benefit of such examples. And to these Tragedy, which distinguishes itself from the vulgar poetry by the dignity of

1 Afterwards Queen Anne.