Congreve's occasional poems are so far beneath me diocrity, that we have reckoned it superfluous to enume rate either their names or their dates. As a writer of comedy, he stands, perhaps, at the head of that depart ment of our drama. Not so much for humorous and natural, as for eccentric delineation of character, and, above all, for the perpetual corruscation of wit and repartee in his dialogue. His wit, indeed, flashes on us even to annoyance ; and it is often difficult to distinguish the false wit of his fools, from that which is genuine in his sprightly personages. Mr Murphy, in his Life of Garrick, observes on this subject : The frequent sur prises of allusion, and the quickness and vivacity of his turns of thought, which abound in Congreve, and which break out when you least expected them, as if a train of wit had been laid all around, put one in mind of those fireworks in a water-piece, which used formerly to be played off in Cupar's Gardens. No sooner one tube, charged with powder, raised itself in various forms and evolutions of fire, but instantly another and another was lighted up ; and the pleasure of the spectators arose from seeing secret artificial mines blazing out of an element, in which such machinery could not be expect ed. To these exceptions we may, however, oppose the
eulogistic part of Dr Johnson's character of hint : " Con greve 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. He formed a peculiar idea of comic excellence, which he supposed to consist of 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. But they are the works of a mind replete with images, and quick in combination. Unfortunate as he is in his miscellaneous poetry, he has some traits of genuine inspiration in The Mourning Bride, particularly in that proverbially celebrated passage, so frequently quoted :