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Rh arrangement the progress of the negotiations was extremely slow. For three months nothing was done. It was said, "Le Congrés danse, mais ne marche pas." Serious differences arose; the pretensions of Russia and Prussia, acting in concert, seemed even to threaten a renewal of war; and a secret treaty was concluded on the 3d December between England, France, and Austria, in view of that contingency. The return of Napoleon from Elba in March 1815 roused the Congress from its lethargy and terminated its disputes, by the necessity for common action; and at length the great treaties of Vienna were signed on the 7th June 1815—eleven days before the battle of Waterloo—by the plenipotentiaries of the eight powers. It is acknowledged by the draftsman of these treaties that, after all, this work was somewhat hastily and imperfectly done. Yet upon the whole, that Congress succeeded in restoring peace to Europe, which was not seriously disturbed for forty years; and it laid the foundation of a system of public law, which was long held sacred, as the common basis of the rights of every member of the European family. At the present time, after the changes which have taken place in Poland, in Italy, in Germany, in Denmark, and in France, it can hardly be said that any fragments of the work of the Congress of Vienna retain their authority, or that any similar general compact has taken its place.

The intimate relations which had sprung up during the war gave rise to a mystical union of the northern sovereigns, projected and prepared by the emperor of Russia, under the name of the Holy Alliance; and the intention of the authors of that agreement was that the powers should meet and act together in the event of fresh disturbances occurring in Europe. The practical result of this policy was seen in 1823 when another Congress met at Verona, not for the purpose of restoring peace, but in order to crush the signs of freedom and independence then beginning to display themselves in Europe. In Spain the nation demanded a constitution—she was invaded by France; in Naples a popular movement took place—Naples was occupied by Austrian troops, and the king fled to Laybach; in Germany, the people were irritated by the breach of all the liberal promises made during the war. The Congress of Verona was the source and centre of the most violent reactionary policy; and although the duke of Wellington attended it on behalf of England, it was chiefly to protest against its system of despotic intervention in the affairs of other states. M. de Chateaubriand has left an account of this, the darkest hour of the politics of Europe, in which he took an active and inglorious part. On this occasion, however, England renewed her protest against the slave trade, and obtained a declaration of the Powers condemning it.

The last Congress held in Europe was that of 1856, which met in Paris to terminate the Crimean war. Austria and Prussia, though not actual belligerents, were admitted to take part in the deliberations and general acts of the Congress, and for the first time in history the ambassadors of the Ottoman Porte appeared at a European Congress, and were formally received into the concert of the great powers. Count Walewski presided over this Congress, as minister of foreign affairs of France; Lord Clarendon, British secretary of state, and Lord Cowley were the representatives of England. In this Congress it was remarkable that France, eager for peace and anxious to court the good-will of Russia, sided with her recent adversary, and that the concessions obtained by the victorious allies were due mainly to the firmness of the British plenipotentiaries. After the conclusion of the negotiations for peace, the question of the maritime rights of belligerents and neutrals was formally brought before the Congress, as a body representing all the great powers of Europe; and a declaration was signed, which has been discussed more fully in another place. (See .) But this is an important example of the authority which may be fitly assumed and exercised by a Congress, to determine controverted questions of public law by a species of declaratory enactment.

In the autumn of 1863, the Emperor Napoleon formally proposed to the other great Powers that a Congress should assemble in Paris for the purpose of settling various questions, which appeared to threaten the future peace of Europe. To this proposal the Continental states assented; but England gave a positive refusal, on the ground, stated by Lord Russell, that such measures of prospective legislation were more likely to embroil the several Powers than to establish peace. The project was therefore abandoned; but the wars which ensued in Denmark, in Austria, and in France, within the next seven years, justified the views taken by Napoleon III. as to the dangers that threatened the peace of the world.

The most convenient summary of the Acts of the various Congresses which have been held from 1645 to 1815 is to be found in Koch Schöle's Histoire Abrégée des Traités de Paix. The Acts of the Congress of Vienna were published at great length by Kluber in his Geschichte des Wiener Congresses. The proceedings of the Congresses and Conferences in which Great Britain has taken part have invariably been laid before Parliament.

 CONGREVE, (1670-1729), the greatest English master of pure comedy, was born, according to the latest and likeliest accounts, in 1670, according to the inscription on his monument, in 1672; and whether in England or in Ireland, at Bardsey near Leeds or at some place unknown beyond St George's Channel, has likewise been matter of doubt and dispute; but we may presumably accept the authority of Lord Macaulay, who decides against Dr Johnson in favour of the later date, and dismisses without notice the tradition of an Irish birth place. To Ireland, at all events, is due the credit of his education,—as a schoolboy at Kilkenny, as an undergraduate at Dublin. From college he came to London, and was entered as a student of law at the Middle Temple. The first-fruits of his studies appeared under the boyish pseudonym of "Cleophil," in the form of a novel whose existence is now remembered only through the unabashed avowal of so austere a moralist as Dr Johnson, that he "would rather praise it than read it." In 1693 Congreve's real career began, and early enough by the latest computation, with the brilliant appearance and instant success of his first comedy, The Old Bachelor, under the generous auspices of Dryden, then as ever a living and immortal witness to the falsehood of the vulgar charge which taxes the greater among poets with jealousy or envy, the natural badge and brand of the smallest that would claim a place among their kind. The discrowned laureate had never, he said, seen such a first play; and indeed the graceless grace of the dialogue was as yet only to be matched by the last and best work of Etherege, standing as till then it had done alone among the barefaced brutalities of Wycherley and Shadwell. The types of Congreve's first work were the common conventional properties of stage tradition; but the fine and clear-cut style in which these types were reproduced was his own. The gift of one place and the reversion of another were the solid fruits of his splendid success. Next year a better play from the same hand met with worse fortune on the stage, and with yet higher honour from the first living poet of his nation. The noble verses, as faultless in the expression as reckless in the extravagance of their applause, prefixed by Dryden to The Double Dealer, must naturally have supported the younger poet, if indeed such support can have been required, against the momentary annoyance of assailants whose passing clamour left uninjured and secure the fame of his second comedy; for the following year witnessed the