Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/100

90 paſſions of the audience to the greateſt commiſeration, he brings off his principal characters, puniſhes the guilty, and makes the play conclude happily.

The controverſy we have juſt now mentioned, was thought to have occaſioned a diſlike in Mr. Congreve towards the ſtage; yet he afterwards produced another comedy called The Way of the World, which was ſo juſt a picture of the world, that, as an author prettily ſays,

The reception this play met with, compleated our author’s diſguſt to the theatre; upon which Mr. Dennis, who was a warm friend to Congreve, made this fine obſervation, ‘that Mr. Congreve quitted the ſtage early, and that comedy left it with him.’

It is ſaid that when Congreve found his play met with but indifferent ſucceſs, he came in a paſſion on the ſtage, and deſired the audience to ſave themſelves the trouble of ſhewing their diſlike; for he never intended to write again for the Theatre, nor ſubmit his works to the cenſure of impotent critics. In this particular he kept his word with them, and as if he had foreſeen the fate of his play, he took an ample revenge, in his Epilogue, of the race of Little Snarlers, who excited by envy, and ſupported by falſe ideas of their own importance, dared to conſtitute themſelves judges of wit, without any juſt pretenſions to it. This play has long ago triumphed over its enemies, and is now in great eſteem amongſt the beſt judges of Theatrical Entertainments.

Though Mr. Congreve quitted the ſtage, yet did not he give up the cauſe of poetry; for on the death of the marquis of Blandford, the only ſon of the duke of Marlborough, which happened in 1705,