Thus from the past, we hope for future grace:
I beg it——
And some here know I have a begging face.'
The king himself completed the success of the opening by attending it, and the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields might have ruined the older house, if it had not been for the rapidity with which Vanbrugh and Cibber, who wrote for Old Drury, managed to concoct their pieces; while Congreve was a slower, though perhaps better, writer. 'Love for Love' was hereafter a favourite of Betterton's, and when in 1709, a year before his death, the company gave the old man—then in ill health, poor circumstances, and bad spirits—a benefit, he chose this play, and himself, though more than seventy, acted the part of Valentine, supported by Mrs. Bracegirdle as Angelina, and Mrs. Barry as Frail.
The young dramatist with all his success, was not satisfied with his fame, and resolved to show the world that he had as much poetry as wit in him. This he failed to do; and, like better writers, injured his own fame, by not being contented with what he had. Congreve—the wit, the dandy, the man about town—took it into his head to write a tragedy. In 1697 'The Mourning Bride' was acted at the Tennis Court Theatre. The author was wise enough to return to his former muse, and some time after produced his best piece, so some think, 'The Way of the World,' which was also performed by Betterton's company; but, alas! for overwriting—that cacoëthes of imprudent men—it was almost hissed off the stage. Whether this was owing to a weariness of Congreve's style, or whether at the time of its first appearance Collier's attacks, of which anon, had already disgusted the public with the obscenity and immorality of this writer, I do not know: but, whatever the cause, the consequence was that Mr. William Congreve, in a fit of pique, made up his mind never to write another piece for the stage—a wise resolution, perhaps—and to turn fine gentleman instead. With the exception of composing a masque called the 'Judgment of Paris,' and an opera 'Gemele,' which was never performed, he kept this resolution very honestly; and so Mr. William Congreve's career as a playwright ends at the early age of thirty.
But though he abandoned the drama, he was not allowed to retire in peace. There was a certain worthy, but peppery little man, who, though a Jacobite and a clergyman, was stanch and true, and as superior in character—even, indeed, in vigour of writing—to Congreve, as Somers was to every man of his age. This very Jeremy Collier, to whom we owe it that there is any English drama fit to be acted before our sisters and wives in the present day. Jeremy, the peppery, purged the stage in a succession of Jeremiads.
Born in 1650, educated at Cambridge as a poor scholar, ordained at the age of twenty-six, presented three years later with the living of Ampton, near Bury St. Edmunds, Jeremy had two qualities to recommend him to Englishmen—respectability and pluck. In an age when the clergy were as bad as the blackest sheep in their flocks, Jeremy was distinguished by purity of life; in an age when the only safety lay in adopting the principles of the Vicar of Bray, Jeremy was a Nonjuror, and of this nothing could cure him. The Revolution of 1688 was scarcely effected, when the fiery little partizan published a pamphlet, which was rewarded by a residence of some months in Newgate, not in capacity of chaplain. But he was scarcely let out, when again went his furious pen, and for four years he continued to assail the new government, till his hands were shackled and his mouth closed in the prison of 'The Gate-house.' Now, see the character of the man. He was liberated upon giving bail, but had no sooner reflected on this liberation than he came to the conclusion that it was wrong, by offering security, to recognize the authority of magistrates appointed by a usurper, as he held William to be, and voluntarily surrendered himself to his judges. Of course he was again committed, but this time to the King's Bench, and would doubtless in a few years have made the tour of the London prisons, if his enemies had not been tired of trying him. Once more at liberty, he passed the next three years in retirement.
After 1693, Jeremy Collier's name was not brought before the public till 1696, when he publicly absolved Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins, at their execution, for being concerned in a plot to assassinate King William. His 'Essays on Moral Subjects' were published in 1697; 2nd vol., 1705; 3rd vol., 1709. But the only way to put out a firebrand like this is to let it alone, and Jeremy, being, no longer persecuted, began, at last, to think the game was grown stupid, and gave it up. He was a well-meaning man, however, and as long as he had the luxury of a grievance, would injure no one.
He found one now in the immorality of his age, and if he had left politics to themselves from the first, he might have done much more good than he did. Against the vices of a court and courtly circles it was useless to start a crusade single-handed; but his quaint clever pen might yet dress out a powerful Jeremiad against those who encouraged the licentiousness of the people. Jeremy was no Puritan, for he was a Nonjuror and a Jacobite, and we may, therefore, believe that the cause was a good one, when we find him adopting precisely the same line as the Puritans had done before him. In 1698 he published, to the disgust of all Drury and Lincoln's Inn, his 'Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, together with the Sense of Antiquity upon this Argument.'
While the King of Naples is supplying his ancient Venuses with gowns, and putting his Mars and Hercules into pantaloons, there are—such are the varieties of opinion—respectable men in this country who call Paul de Kock the greatest moral writer of his age, and who would yet like to see 'The Relapse,' 'Love for Love,' and the choice specimens of Wycherley, Farquhar, and even of Beaumont and Fletcher, acted at the Princess's and the Haymarket in the year of grace 1860. I am not writing 'A Short View' of this or any other moral subject; but this I must say—the effect of a sight or sound on a human being's silly little passions must of necessity be relative. Staid people read 'Don Juan,' Lewis's 'Monk,' the plays of Congreve, and any or all of the publications of Holywell Street, without more than disgust at their obscenity and admiration for their beauties. But could we be pardoned for putting these works into the hands of 'sweet seventeen,' or making Christmas presents of them to our boys? Ignorance of evil is, to a certain extent, virtue: let boys be boys in purity of mind as long as they can: let the unrefined 'great unwashed' be treated also much in the same way as young people. I maintain that to a coarse mind all improper ideas, however beautifully clothed, suggest only sensual thoughts—nay, the very modesty of the garments makes them the more insidious—the more dangerous. I would rather give my boy Jonson, Massinger, or Beaumont and Fletcher, whose very improper things 'are called by their proper names,' than let him dive in the prurient innuendo of these later writers.