Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/99

Rh ſucceſs. This comedy, with ſome more of our author’s, was ſmartly criticiſed by the ingenious Mr. Collier, as containing leſſons of immorality, and a repreſentation of looſe characters, which can never, in his opinion, appear on a ſtage without corrupting the audience.

Meſſrs. Congreve, Dennis, and Dryden, engaged in a vigorous defence of the Engliſh ſtage, and endeavoured to ſhew the neceſſity of ſuch characters being introduced in order to be expoſed, and laughed at. To all their defences Mr. Collier replied, and managed the point with ſo much learning, wit, and keenneſs, that in the opinion of many, he had the better of his antagoniſts, eſpecially Mr. Congreve, whoſe comedies it muſt be owned, though they are admirably written, and the characters ſtrongly marked, are ſo looſe, that they have given great offence: and ſurely we pay too dear for pleaſure, when we have it at the expence of morality.

The ſame year he diſtinguiſhed himſelf in another kind of poetry, viz. an irregular Ode on the taking Namure, which the critics have allowed to contain fine ſentiments, gracefully expreſſed. His reputation as a comic poet being ſufficiently eſtabliſhed, he was deſirous of extending his fame, by producing a tragedy. It has been alledged, that ſome, who were jealous of his growing reputation, put him upon this taſk, in order, as they imagined, to diminiſh it, for he ſeemed to be of too gay and lively a diſpoſition for tragedy, and in all likelihood would miſcarry in the attempt. However,

In 1697, after the expectation of the town had been much raiſed, the Mourning Bride appeared on the New Theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields: few plays ever excited ſo great an ardour of expectation as this, and very few ever ſucceeded to ſuch an extravagant degree. There is ſomething new in the management of the plot; after moving the paſſions