Airs of Fashion.

Mock. I thought people took it to clear the brain.

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Rig. The beaux have no brains at all, Sir; their skull is a perfect snuff-box; and I heard a physician swear, who opened one of 'em, that the three divisions of his head were filled with orangery, bergamot, and plain Spanish.

Mock. Zauns! I must sneeze, (sneezes.) Bless me! Rig. Oh, fy! Mr. Mockmode! what a rustical expression that is! 'Bless me!' You should upon all such occasions cry, Dem me! You would be as nauseous to the ladies as one of the old patriarchs, if yon used that obsolete expression.

Sir Harry Wildair gives a good sketch of a lady's waiting-woman of the time:

Colonel Standard. Here, here, Mrs. Parly; whither so fast?

Parly. Oh Lord! my master! Sir, I was running to Mademoiselle Furbelow, the French milliner, for a new burgundy for my lady's head.

Col. S. No, child; you're employed about an old-fashioned garniture for your master's head, if I mistake not your errand.

Parly. Oh, Sir! there's the prettiest fashion lately come over! so airy, so French, and all that. The pinners are double ruffled with twelve plaits of a side, and open all from the face; the hair is frizzled all up round the head, and stands as stiff as a bodkin. Then the favourites hang loose on the temples, with a languishing lock in the middle. Then the caul is extremely wide, and over all is a coronet raised very high, and all the lappets behind.

This lady on being questioned, says that her wages are ten pounds a year, but she makes two hundred a year of her mistress's old clothes.

But Farquhar is best known as the author of the "Beaux Stratagem." Though not so full of humour, as "Love in a Bottle," it had more action and bolder sensational incidents. The play proved a great success, but one which will always have sad associations. It came too

VOL. I.

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late. Farquhar died in destitution, while the plaudits resounded in his ears.

The following are specimens from his last play:

(Aimwell (a gentleman of broken fortune looking for a rich wife) goes to church in the country to further his designs.)

Aimwell. The appearance of a stranger in a country church draws as many gazers as a blazing star; no sooner he comes into the cathedral, but a train of whispers runs buzzing round the congregation in a moment: Who is he? Whence comes he? Do you know him? Then I, Sir, tips me the verger with half-a-crown; he pockets the simony, and inducts me into the best pew in the church; I pull out my snuff-box, turn myself round, bow to the bishop, or the dean, if he be the commanding officer, single out a beauty, rivet both my eyes to hers, set my nose a bleeding by the strength of imagination, and show the whole church my concern-by my endeavouring to hide it; after the sermon the whole town gives me to her for a lover, and by persuading the lady that I am a-dying for her, the tables are turned, and she in good earnest falls in love with me.

Archer. There's nothing in this, Tom, without a precedent; but instead of rivetting your eyes to a beauty, try to fix 'em upon a fortune; that's our business at present. Aim. Psha! no woman can be a beauty without a fortune. Let me alone, for I am a marksman.

Talking afterwards of Dorinda, whom he observes in church, he says,

Aimwell. Call me Oroondates, Cesario, Amadis, all that romance can in a lover paint, and then I'll answer :O, Archer! I read her thousands in her looks, she looked like Ceres in her harvest; corn, wine and oil, milk and honey, gardens, groves, and purling streams played in her plenteous face.

THE

CHAPTER XI.

Congreve-Lord Dorset.

HE birthplace of Congreve is uncertain, but he was born about 1671, and was educated in Kilkenny and Dublin. He is an instance of that union of Irish versatility with English reflection, which has produced the most celebrated wits. We also mark in him a considerable improvement in delicacy. "The Old Batchelor" was his first play, the success of which was so great that Lord Halifax made him one of the commissioners for licensing hackney-coaches; he afterwards gave him a place in the Pipe Office and Custom House.

Belmour begins very suitably by saying

"Come come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools; they have need of 'em. Wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation; and let Father Time shake his glass."

Speaking of Belinda, he says—

In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers anybody else to rail at me."

Heartwell, an old bachelor, says—

"Women's asses bear great burdens; are forced to undergo dressing, dancing, singing, sighing, whining, rhyming, flattery, lying, grinning, cringing, and the drudgery of loving to boot . . . Every man plays the fool once in his life, but to marry is to play the fool all one's life long."

In Belinda we have a specimen of one of the fast young ladies of the period, who certainly seems to have used strong language. She cries, Oh, that most inhuman, barbarous, hackney-coach! I am jolted to a jelly, am I not horridly touz'd?

She chides Belmour,

Prithee hold thy tongue! Lord! he has so pestered me with flowers and stuff, I think I shan't endure the sight of a fire for a twelvemonth.

Bellmour. Yet all can't melt that cruel frozen heart.

Bel. O, gad! I hate your hideous fancy-you said that once before-if you must talk impertinently, for Heaven's sake let it be with variety; don't come always like the devil wrapped in flames. I'll not hear a sentence more that begins with, "I burn," or an I beseech you, Madam."

At last she exclaims,

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"O! my conscience! I could find in my heart to marry thee, purely to be rid of thee."

There is frequently a conflict of wit. Sharper tells Sir Joseph Willot that he lost many pounds, when he was defending him in a scuffle the He hopes he will He hopes he will repay him.

night before.

Money is but dirt,

Sir Joseph. But I hands of at present.

Sir Joseph; mere dirt, Sir Joseph. profess 'tis a dirt I have washed my

Lord Froth in "The Double Dealer" says,

man of

There is nothing more unbecoming in a gravity than to laugh, to be pleased with what pleases the crowd. When I laugh, I always laugh alone.

Brisk. I suppose that's because you laugh at your own jests.

Sir Paul Plyant in great wroth expresses himself as follows

The subjects of Congreve's Comedies would often be thought objectionable at the present day. The humour is not in the plot, but in the general dialogue. In "Love for Love," Ben Legend, a sailor, speaking of lawyers, says

Lawyer, I believe there's many a cranny and leak unstopt in your conscience. If so be that one had a pump to your bosom, I believe we should discern a foul hold. They say a witch will sail in a sieve, but I believe the devil would not venture aboard your conscience.

The last play he wrote, which failed, was deficient in wit, but had plenty of inebriety in it. After singing a drinking song, Sir Wilful says in "The Way of the World."

The sun's a good pimple, an honest soaker, he has a cellar at your Antipodes. If I travel, Aunt, I touch at your Antipodes-your Antipodes are a good rascally sort of topsy-turvy fellows. If I had a bumper I'd stand on my head, and drink a health to them.

Scandal. Yes, mine (pictures) are not in black and white, and yet there are some set out in their true colours, both men and women. I can show you pride, folly, affectation, wantonness, inconstancy, covetousness, dissimulation, malice and ignorance all in one piece. Then I can show your lying, foppery, vanity, cowai dice, bragging, incontinence, and ugliness in another piece, and yet one of them is a celebrated beauty, and t'other a professed beau. I have paintings, too, some pleasant enough.

Mrs. Frail. Come, let's hear 'em.

Scan. Why, I have a beau in a bagnio cupping for a complexion, and sweating for a shape.

Mrs. F. So-

Scan. Then I have a lady burning brandy in a cellar with a hackney coachman.

Mrs. F. Oh! well, but that story is not true.

Scan. I have some hieroglyphics, too; I have a lawyer