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WILLIAM CONGREVE

EDITED BY ALEX. CHARLES EWALD, F.S.A.

AUTHOR OF "STORIES FROM THE STATE PAPERS," &C.

1670-1723.

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"I lie and dream of your full Mermaid wine."-Beaumont.

UNEXPURGATED EDITION

LONDON:

VIZETELLY & CO., 42, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1887.

"What things have we seen

Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been

So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,

As if that every one from whence they came

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And had resolved to live a fool the rest

Of his dull life."

Master Francis Beaumont to Ben Jonson.

"Souls of Poets dead and gone,

What Elysium have ye known,

Happy field or mossy cavern,

Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?"

Keats.

LONDON:

J. S. VIRTUE And co., limited, printers, ciTY ROAD,

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to the throne.

N the history of English literature there is no period when license in thought and action is more open and unrestrained than that which immediately followed upon the Restoration of Charles II. It was inevitable that the intole

rant severity of Puritanism, when the influences. that created it ceased to exist, should be succeeded by a reaction which erred in the other extreme. When it was a sin to read plays, to act plays, or after any fashion to patronise the theatre, it became only a question of time and opportunity for suppressed and irritated human nature to give vent to its feelings with a freedom all the more uncontrolled from the injustice that had so long repressed it. Had it not been for the immoral bondage of Puritanism the immoral emancipation of the Restoration would never have been ushered in.

Action and re-action are influences as domi

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