"Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Pœni,

Nec tam aversus equos Tyriâ sol jungit ab urbe."

He that was thus honoured by the adverse party might naturally expect to be advanced when his friends returned to power, and he was accordingly made secretary for the Island of Jamaica; a place, I suppose, without trust or care, but which, with his post in the customs, is said to have afforded him twelve hundred pounds a year.

His honours were yet far greater than his profits. Every writer mentioned him with respect; and, among other testimonies to his merit, Steele made him the patron of his Miscellany, and Pope inscribed to him his translation of the Iliad.

But he treated the Muses with ingratitude; for, having long conversed familiarly with the great, he wished to be considered rather as a man of fashion than of wit; and when he received a visit from Voltaire, disgusted him by the despicable foppery of desiring to be considered not as an author, but a gentleman; to which the Frenchman replied, "that if he had been only a gentleman, he should not have come to visit him."

In his retirement he may be supposed to have applied himself to books; for he discovers more literature than the poets have commonly attained. But his studies were in his latter days obstructed by cataracts in his eyes, which at last terminated in blindness. This melancholy state was aggravated by the gout, for which he sought relief by a journey to Bath; but being overturned in his chariot, complained from that time of a pain in his side, and died at his house in Surrey Street, in the Strand, Jan. 29, 1728-9. Having lain in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a monument is erected to his memory by Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough, to whom, for reasons either not known or not mentioned, he bequeathed a legacy of about ten thousand pounds, the accumulation of attentive parsimony, which, though to her superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress.

Congreve has merit of the highest kind; he is an original writer, who borrowed neither the models of his plot nor the manner of his dialogue. Of his plays I cannot speak distinctly, for since I inspected them many years have passed; but what remains upon my memory is, that his characters are commonly fictitious and artificial, with very little of nature, and not much of life. He formed a peculiar idea of comic excellence, which he supposed to consist in gay remarks and unexpected answers; but that which he endeavoured, he seldom failed of performing. His scenes exhibit not much of humour, imagery, or passion: his personages are a kind of intellectual gladiators; every sentence is to ward or strike; the contest of smartness is never intermitted; his wit is a meteor, playing to and fro with alternate coruscations. His comedies have, therefore, in some degree the operation of tragedies; they surprise rather than divert, and raise admiration oftener than merriment. But they are the works of a mind replete with images, and quick in combination.

Of his miscellaneous poetry I cannot say any thing very favourable. The powers of Congreve seem to desert him when he leaves the stage; as Antæus was no longer strong than when he could touch the ground. It cannot be observed without wonder, that a mind so vigorous and fertile in dramatic compositions should on any other occasion discover nothing but impotence and poverty. He has in these little pieces neither elevation of fancy, selection of language, nor skill in versification: yet, if I were required to select from the whole mass of English poetry the most poetical paragraph, I know not what I could prefer to an exclamation in The Mourning Bride:

No, all is hush'd and still as death.-'Tis dreadful!
How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
To bear aloft it's arch'd and ponderous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity! it strikes an awe
And terror on my aching sight; the tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.
Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice;
Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear

Thy voice-my own affrights me with its echoes."

He who reads these lines enjoys for a moment the powers of a poet; he feels what he remembers to have felt before; but he feels it with great increase of sensibility; he recognises a familiar image, but meets it again amplified and expanded, embellished with beauty, and enlarged with majesty.

Yet could the author, who appears here to have enjoyed the confidence of nature, lament the death of Queen Mary in lines like these:

"The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rills

Furrow the brows of all th' impending hills.

The water-gods to flood their rivulets turn,

And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his wanting urn
The Fauns forsake the woods, the Nymphs the grove,

And round the plain in sad distractions rove:

In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear,

And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair.

With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound,

And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground.

Lo, Pan himself, beneath a blasted oak,
Dejected lies, his pipe in pieces broke.
See Pales weeping too, in wild despair,
And to the piercing winds her bosom bare.
And see yon fading myrtle, where appears
The Queen of Love, all bath'd in flowing tears;

See how she wrings her hands, and beats her breast,
And tears her useless girdle from her waist!
Hear the sad murmurs of her sighing doves!

For grief they sigh, forgetful of their loves."

And, many years after, he gave no proof that time had improved his wisdom or his wit; for, on the death of the Marquis of Blandford, this was his song:

"And now the winds, which had so long been still,
Began the swelling air with sighs to fill;

The water-nymphs, who motionless remain'd,

Like images of ice, while she complain'd,

Now loos'd their streams; as when descending rains

Roll the steep torrents headlong o'er the plains.

The prone creation, who so long had gaz'd,

Charm'd with her cries, and at her griefs amaz'd,
Began to roar and howl with horrid yell,

Dismal to hear, and terrible to tell!

Nothing but groans and sighs were heard around,
And Echo multiplied each mournful sound."

In both these funeral poems, when he has "yelled" out many "syllables" of senseless "dolour," he dismisses his reader with senseless consolation: from the grave of Pastora rises a light that forms a star; and where Amaryllis wept for Amyntas, from every tear sprung up a violet.

But William is his hero, and of William he will sing :

"The hovering winds on downy wings shall wait around, And catch, and waft to foreign lands, the flying sound." It cannot but be proper to show what they shall have to catch and carry :

""Twas now, when flowery lawns the prospect made,

And flowing brooks beneath a forest shade,

A lowing heifer, loveliest of the herd,

Stood feeding by; while two fierce bulls prepar'd

Their armed heads for fight, by fate of war to prove

The victor worthy of the fair-one's love;

Unthought presage of what met next my view;

For soon the shady scene withdrew.

And now for woods, and fields, and springing flowers,

Behold a town arise, bulwark'd with walls and lofty towers;

Two rival armies all the plain o'erspread,

Each in battalia rang'd, and shining arms array'd;

With eager eyes beholding both from far

Namur, the prize and mistress of the war."

The Birth of the Muse is a miserable fiction. One good line it has, which was borrowed from Dryden. The concluding verses are these:

"This said, no more remain'd. Th' etherial host

Again impatient crowd the crystal coast.

*Elegy on the Death of Queen Mary, 1695.