William Congreve, in a fit of pique, made up
his mind never to write another piece for the stage--a wise resolution,
perhaps--and to turn fine gentleman instead. With the exception of
composing a masque called the 'Judgment of Paris,' and an opera
'Gemele,' which was never performed, he kept this resolution very
honestly; and so Mr. William Congreve's career as a playwright ends at
the early age of thirty.
But though he abandoned the drama, he was not allowed to retire in
peace. There was a certain worthy, but peppery little man, who, though a
Jacobite and a clergyman, was stanch and true, and as superior in
character--even, indeed, in vigour of writing--to Congreve, as Somers
was to every man of his age. This very Jeremy Collier, to whom we owe it
that there is any English drama fit to be acted before our sisters and
wives in the present day. Jeremy, the peppery, purged the stage in a
succession of Jeremiads.
Born in 1650, educated at Cambridge as a poor scholar, ordained at the
age of twenty-six, presented three years later with the living of
Ampton, near Bury St. Edmunds, Jeremy had two qualities to recommend him
to Englishmen--respectability and pluck. In an age when the clergy were
as bad as the blackest sheep in their flocks, Jeremy was distinguished
by purity of life; in an age when the only safety lay in adopting the
principles of the Vicar of Bray, Jeremy was a Nonjuror, and of this
nothing could cure him.
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