Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/96

86 or other, it may mend; but the other is ſuch a baulk to a man, ’tis carrying him up ſtairs to ſhew him the dining room, and afterwards force him to make a meal in the kitchen. This I have not only endeavoured to avoid, but alſo have uſed a method for the contrary purpoſe. The deſign of this novel is obvious, after the firſt meeting of Aurelian and Hippolito, with Incognita, and Leonora; the difficulty is in bringing it to paſs, maugre all apparent obſtacles within the compaſs of two days. How many probable caſualties intervene, in oppoſition to the main deſign, viz. of marrying two couple ſo oddly engaged in an intricate amour, I leave the reader at his leiſure to conſider; as alſo whether every obſtacle does not, in the progreſs of the ſtory, act as ſubſervient to that purpoſe, which at firſt it ſeems to oppoſe. In a comedy this would be called the unity of action, here it may pretend to no more than an unity of contrivance. The ſcene is continued in Florence from the commencement of the amour, and the time from firſt to laſt, is but three days.’

Soon after Mr. Congreve’s return to England, he amuſed himſelf, during a ſlow recovery from a fit of ſickneſs, with writing a comedy. Captain Southern, in conjunction with Mr. Dryden, and Arthur Manwayring, eſq; reviſed this performance, which was the Old Batchelor; of which Mr. Dryden ſaid, he never ſaw ſuch a firſt play in his life, adding, that the author not being acquainted with the ſtage, or the town, it would be pity to have it miſcarry for want of a little aſſiſtance. Mr. Thomas Davenant, who had then the direction of the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, had ſo high a ſenſe of the merit of the piece, and was ſo charmed with the author’s converſation, that he granted him the freedom of the houſe before his play came on, which, according to the maxims of