If truth be a test of genius, it
must be a proof of true poetry, that man is not made uglier than he is.
Nay, his very ugliness loses its intensity and palls upon our diseased
tastes, for want of some goodness, some purity and honesty to relieve
it. I will not say that there is none of this in Congreve. I only know,
that my recollection of his plays is like that of a vile nightmare,
which I would not for anything have return to me. I have read, since,
books as bad, perhaps worse in some respects, but I have found the
redemption here and there. I would no more place Shandy in any boy's
hands than Congreve and Farquhar; and yet I can read Tristram again and
again with delight; for amid all that is bad there stand out Trim and
Toby, pure specimens of the best side of human nature, coming home to us
and telling us that the world is not all bad. There may be such touches
in 'Love for Love,' or 'The Way of the World'--I know not and care not.
To my remembrance Congreve is but a horrible nightmare, and may the
fates forbid I should be forced to go through his plays again.
Perhaps, then, Jeremy was not far wrong, when he attacked these
specimens of the drama with an unrelenting Nemesis; but he was before
his age.
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