Page:The English humourists of the eighteenth century. A series of lectures, delivered in England, Scotland, and the United States of America (IA englishhumourist00thacrich).pdf/72

 que ma lyre enfante, marquez en bien la cadence, ''et vous, vents, faites silence! je vais parler de Louis!''" Schoolboys' themes and foundation-exercises are the only relics left now of this scholastic fashion. The Olympians are left quite undisturbed in their mountain. What man of note, what contributor to the poetry of a country newspaper, would now think of writing a congratulatory ode on the birth of the heir to a dukedom, or the marriage of a nobleman? In the past century the young gentlemen of the Universities all exercised themselves at these queer compositions; and some got fame, and some gained patrons and places for life, and many more took nothing by these efforts of what they were pleased to call their muses.

William Congreve's Pindaric Odes are still to be found in "Johnson's Poets," that now unfrequented poet's corner, in which so many forgotten big-wigs have a niche—but though he was also voted to be one of the greatest tragic poets of any day, it was Congreve's wit and humour which first recommended him to courtly fortune. And it is recorded, that his first play, the "Old Bachelor," brought our author to the notice of that great patron of the English muses, Charles Montague Lord Halifax, who being desirous to place so eminent a wit in a state of ease and tranquillity,