THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONGREVE TI-IE DRAMATIST IN RELATION TO RESTORATION AND EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY COMEDY ‘ Thesis. for the Degree of Ph. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY LAURENCE BARTLETT 1970 THE‘E‘S IIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I... 3 nflTIl'IIOOQfl 4210 w This is to certify that the thesis entitled THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONGREVE THE DRAMATIST DI RELATION TO RESTORATION AND EIGH TEEN 'IH-CEN TORY COMEDY Date 0-169 presented by Laurence Bartlett has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for _Ph_‘D'__ degree in M Major professor 7/23-20 ,- I a //I ‘ {5(4’V/x/4/zr 5C &%V LI B RA R Y Michigan State ' University Af'wf'” I“ ‘3 amgmc av ‘5 - - "OAS & WW 1 RAM Rmnrnv mr . : REMOTE STORAGE RSA PLACE l—tTRETUTTN BOX to remove this checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE 20!! Blue 10/13 p:/CIRC/DateDueForms_2013.indd - pg.5 ABSTRACT 'HIE DEVELOPMMT OF CONGREVE ‘IHE DRAMATIST BI RELATION TO RESTORATION AND EIGHTEEN'D-i—CENTURY C(MEDY By Laurence Bartlett ‘Ihe comedies of William Congreve are invariably considered to represent the quintessence of Restoration correct, with the result that the plays are approached in terms of the Restoration social and intellectual milieux and dramatic conventions vhich reflect, if not the morale, the tastes of the predominantly aristocratic audience. Consequently, the plays' relationship to the kind of comecbr thich was to evolve in the first quarter of the eigiteenth century is frequently ignored. Because Congreve was an artist, sensitive to the changes that were taking place inside and outside the world of the theater, it is reasonable to suppose that his comedies contain evidence of and; transformations. This paper supports the thesis that Congreve's comedies gain in interest and meaning if they are related to both Restoration and eigi teenth-century comedy, and that Congreve's develOpment as a dramatist may be explained with reference to the plays' changing relationships to the two comic tralitions. The introductory chapter deals with sons of the major trends discernible in the criticism on Congreve. This is followed by a brief examination of Congreve's early work, the novel Incomita, which reveals a dramatic and critical mind at work, Laurence Bartlett later put to effective use in the comedies. The main body of the dissertation that examines the individual comedies with specific attention to plot, theme and characterization, and their relationship to Restoration and eigiteenth-century comedy. The discursive plot and the Iredominantly cynical attittde towards love and narriage expressed by conventional Restoration characters relate The Old Bachelgr to the earlier dramatic mode. But there is also some indication in the characterization that Congreve is moving towards a more indulgent and benevolent view of human nature. The Double Dealer, on the other hand, is similar in both concept and effect to eighteenth- century comedy. The overtly didactic purpose now controls all aspects of the play. The structure of the play is divided into two: the conflict between moral abs olutes is confined to the main plot, thile the Restoration elements are relegated to the subplots. The result is that the moral focus is clear and the play's seriousness intensified. In reversing many Restoration donne’s, Congreve also reflects a change in sensibility which comes to typify eighteenth-century comedy. These two plays, therefore, exemplify respectively two different approaches towards comedy which are reconciled in the last two comedies. The plot of Love for Love has all the variety of The Old Bachelor, but because all the lines of action arise directly from the young couple rho are now given greater dominance in the Laurence Bartlett play, a greater structural unity is achieved. The division between the main plot and subplots is also retained, but due to the fact that the young couple are themselves a blend of Restoration and sentimental traits, the difference between the two levels of action is less obvious. The theme also brings together the two modes. It deals not only with the courtship between the lovers but also with what was to become the predominantly eighteenth-century theme of the relationship between marriage and materialism. While the main characters possess many characteristics of their counterparts in eighteenth-century comedy, those in the subplots relate more readily to Restoration comedy. In as Way of the World, Congreve avoids the excesses of the first two comedies and refines upon the fusion attained in the third play. As the plot evolves around the young couple, who now serve as the centrifugal and centripetal force of the action, no division is felt between the different levels of action. The theme deals with the reSpective values of courtship and mrriage, but now a fine balance is maintained between a witty and materialistic attitude towards life so that there is no last-minute recourse to sentimentalism as in Love for Love. he characters belong to the same ambivalent universe which illustrates both cynicism and benevolence. Consequently, the plot, theme and characterization are so fully integrated that all the elements in the play belong to a world which demonstrates both the values of Restoration comedy and those which were to prevail in eighteenth-century comedy. THE DEVELOPMENT OF C CI‘IGREVE THE DRAl~iATIS T IN RELATION TO RESTCRA'HON AND EIQTTEENTH-CETTURX COI-‘IEDY By Image Bartlett A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOC TOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English m Tin .. I. III. V. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ... THE EARLY YEARS: INCOGNITA THE OLD BACHELOR ... THE DOUBLE DEALER LOVE FOR LOVE ... THE'NAI OF THEIHORLD CONCLUSION ... BIBLIOGRAPHY ... .0. 0.. 52 9A 136 176 179 lN'IRGDUCTION To see William Congreve as anything other than a Restoration dramatist may be considered at worst irrelevant and at best casuistic. Ever since William Hazlitt's "Lectures on the English Comic Writers" (1819) Congreve has been grouped with William 1-.ycherley, Sir John Vanbrugh, George Farquhar and, since John Palmer's The Comedy of Manner-g (1913), with Sir George Etherege. It has been the general tendency to see the plays of Congreve as the apex in the triangular develOpment vhich Restoration comedy is thought to present, rising with the works of the insouciant Etherege and the mordant Wycherley, and descending from Congreve's plays to the more overtly mcral and sentimental comedies of Vanbrugh and Farquhar. mat Congreve brings to the comedies a more refined sensibility cannot be disputed, but because the critics are inclined to view his plays as the quintessence of Restoration comedy, they frequently ignore elements in them which anticipate many of 1 those foum in eighteenth-calmly comedy. Without simplifying 1. Recent critical works which approach the dramatists on their om terms are Dale Underwood's Etherege and the Seventeenth-Century Comedy of Planners—(New Haven, 1957); Rose A. Zimbardo's t-nLcherley's Drama (New York, 1965), and Eric Rothstein's George Farggar (New York, 1967). l and distorting the main tenor of their arguments, it is possible to distinguish four major trends in the varied and stimlating criticism on Congreve - the moral, aesthetic, formal and historical - all of which treat Congreve's plays within the context of the Restoration. Believing that the plays reflect the immorality of the age and the Jaded taste of the audience, the moralists concern themselves with content rather than form and stress the grossness and the apparent lewdness of the subject matter. Representatives of this school are J ereuy Collier's A Short View of the Innnoralitz, and Profaneness of the Enth Stage (1698): Samsl Johnson's life of Congreve in The Lives of the 2222 (1781), Horace Walpole's “Thoughts on Comedy“ (1798), and T. B. Macaulay's critique in "The Edinburgh Review“ (181.1) of Leigl Hunt' s introduction to The Dramatic Works of Excherlez, Omen. Vanbflgh, and Fgguhar ( 1840). But as Congreve and many of his contemporaries believed that the purpose of comedy was to reflect the follies and vices of their society, it was natural fcr than to reject the more overtly didactic comedy advocated by these critics. Charles Iamb's essay, "(n the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century" (1821), and Elmer Edgar Stoll's "Literature and Life" (1927). on the other hand, dispense with the problem of morality, but only at the expense of relegating the plays to m amoral world of art, remote from.everyday reality, with its om laws. Although Lamb does not necessarily dew the connection between the world of the plays and the social. life of the Restoration he, as well as Stoll, believes that the characters are there neither to instruct us not exalt us but simply to amuse us. Consequently, he supposes that our rural sensibilities are held in abeyance. Both Lab and Stall imply that the plays are created in vacuo, and so they reject the idea that a work of art is a statement made by an artist and, as such, reflects those attitudes and mores thich consciously or otherwise influence him. he formalists accentuate the scintillating wit so pepular with the Restaratim gallant, but they ultimately believe that the plays lack intellectual substance, depth of characterization, and a broad vision. Typical of this approach are William Hazlitt's "lectures on the English Comic Writers" (1819), W. M. Ihacbray's me Mb Humourists of the fighteenth Centm (1953), George Meredith's On Com and the Uses of the Comic Spirit (1877), and H. T. E. Perry's Tne Comic Spirit in Restaation Drama (1925). While appreciating the verbal dexterity of Congreve, these critics unfortunately over- 100]: the shaping hand of the dramatist who frequmtly uses the We to reveal the folly and virtue of the characters. In concentrating so much on the form, they do much injustice to the int egrity of a dramatist who is at all times concerned with the moral nature of man. Ma‘s recently, the works of the critical historians compensate for the more negative conclusions reached by the earlier critics. ’lhey see the plays as either a reflection of a particular section of seventeenth-century society or as illustrations of specific dramatic conventions and popular ideologies. John Palmer's The Comedy of Hammers (1913) and Bonany Dobrée's Restoration Comedy; 1660-1220 (1921.) take the apposite view to Lamb and Stoll. Palmer believes that the plays demonstrate a voracious picture of a particular golden moment in the history of actual English manners and morals, and Dobree thinks that they illustrate the attempt to rationalize human relationships. Both, however, feel that Congreve's attitude is basically uncritical. The drama historians deal with the conventions within which Congreve writes but, in emphasizing Congreve's relationship to earlier dramatists, they also fail to stress those elements that came to be associated with eiglteenth-century comedy. Examples of such an approach are Kathleen Lynch's The Soci_a_l¢_li_lode of Restoration Comeg (1926), Elisabeth Mignon's Crabbed Age and Youth (191.7), and J. H. Smith's The Gay Couple in Restoration Coma: (194,8). '1'. H. Fujimura, in 2; Restoration Comech ofiiét (1952), approaches the plays through the contemporary intellectual and aesth etical implications of the word "Wit" arr! so helps to discount the more superficial view of the formalists. But in the chapter "‘Ihe Aesthetics of Wit Com " he comes dangerously close to the aesthetic critics for he, too,believes that there is a willing suspension of moral judgment in the dramatic experience which Restoration comedy affords. In The F2 st liodern Comedies (1959), Norman Holland states that the plays are the first modern comedies because the dramatists take for granted the separation between social conventions and anti-social. desires ard that the plays illustrate the problem of how to embody the natural life in viable social forms. The discrepancy between appearance and nature is, for him, "distinctly and Specially a Restoration theme" (10.2 w. H. Van Voris' The Cultivated Stance (1965) is the only work which deals exclusively with Congreve, but the dangers of approaching the plays by way of a single theme are evident from the outset. Beginning with a highly questionable interpretation of Kneller's portrait of Congreve, Van Voris asserts that the picture and the plays demonstrate Congreve's lack of conviction about the permanence of ideals. If art manages to control time, so he believes Congreve to argue, why not make an art of oneself? Consequently, Van Voris believes that the characters in the plays attempt to evolve around 2. Parmthesized numbers, with the exception of dates, are those of the pages upon which the statement or quotation may be found in the edition of the text cited in the Bibliography. themselves an artifice which prevents them.from.seeing the ugly reality whiCh surrounds them. This approach certainly brings out the darker side of the comedies, but it is one which views the plays as therapeutic exercises and the world which they illustrate as one of nightmarish agony. In the last anahysis, the critic concludes that the plays for Congreve and the Restoration audience served as a psychological shield which protected them from.the chaos of experience and the threat of time. Despite the fact that these critics view the plays through many interesting perspectives, they all.regard Congreve as a dramatist whose plays illustrate different facets of Restoration life. But in order to see Congreve in this way it must be assumed that all his efforts were directed toward the perfection of a kind of drama which, already held in disfavor by certain members of the audience and public, was gradually disintegrating under the demand for a more sensible and less ambiguously moral type of comedy. The plays of Congreve, therefore, gain in interest and.meaning if looked at not as attempts to perpetuate a dying convention but as stimulating examples of plays which draw upon the same tradition as those of Etherege, wycherley and Dryden on the one hand, and which present ideas that prevail in the comedies of Cibber, Venbrugh, Farquhar and Steele on the other. Congreve retains the gaiety and wit of Restoration comedy and presents a less cynical and.more moral attitude towards life which was to emerge more fully in eighteenth-century comedy; Congreve, therefore, is a creative artist who refines and expands the material of Restoration comedy as he anticipates that of the new comedy. Because the terms "Restoration" and "eighteenth- century" will be used to distinguish many of the trends in Congreve's plays and to classify various dramatists, some attempt should be made to clarify and define these inclusive and elusive words and to justify the choice of dramatists selected to represent respectively the two comic modes. It must first be acknowledged that the comedies of the two periods should not be regarded as monolithic in any respect. A play such as Dryden's Sir Martin Mar-A11, or the Egignld Innocence (1667) is an unadulterated farce. It was extremely pepular not only with Pepys but with the audience for the next two decades, and it was revised frequently in the early eighteenth century.3 This play serves as a warning to those who erroneously believe that Restoration comedy and the audience‘s taste were limited to polished and sophisticated wit. Furthermore, Restoration comedy is not without its elements of sentimentalism. Although Ernest Bernbaum.in‘2hg 25ama of Sensibility (1915) and Joseph'Wood Krutch in Comedy 3. John Egygen, Four Comedies, ed. L. A. Beaurline and Fredson Bowers Chicago, 1967), 101. and Conscience After the Restoration (1924) believe that Cibber's Love's Last ShiftL or the Fool in Fashign (1696) marks the rise of sentimental comedy, Bernbaum, as well as Arthur Sherbo in Engish Sentimental Drama (1957), traces its influences back to beyond the Restoration tradition. Similarly, many themes and conventions of Restoration comedy are retained well into the eighteenth century. As Allardyce Nicoll points out in A History (Early Eighteenth . Centyfl Drama 1200-1250 (1925), the comedy of manners becomes an important feature in the plays of Farquhar, Vanbrugh, William Burnaby and Henry Fielding, while the comedy of intrigues is developed in the works of Mrs. Susannah Centlivre arfi William Taverner (126). The works of these dramatists amply demonstrate the continuing tendency to utilize, if not the spirit, the mat erial of the earlier tradition. Golly Cibber, always alert to the taste of his audience, retains in his sentimental comedies many Restoration characters and attitudes. When he read the draft of Steele's The Conscious Lovers (1722), he was fully aware that as it stood the play was "rather too grave for an English audience;1 and he recommended adding comic characters}. Steele then included the parts of Tom and Phillis, who resemble the witty servants of Restoration comedy, using from 1+. 'IheOphilus Cibber, The Lives of the Poets of Great Baitain and Ireland (London, 1753), IV, 120. "Guardian" No. 87 the episode of the mock-romantic window- washing. And although Goldsmith and Sheridan in the last quarter of the century are at best shadows of Etherege, Wycherley and Congreve, they attempted to revitalize the Restoration Spirit and to discredit the sentimentalism of eighteenth-century comedy. Any attempt to select dramatists who represent exclusively Restoration and eig1teenth-century would be futile. This does not mean, however, that various plays and specific elements in them cannot be broadly categorized as one or the other. The plays of Etherege, Wycherley and Dryden differ in many important aSpects from those by Cibber, Vanbrugh, Farquhar and Steele. These dramatists are, therefore, chosen because their plays manifest most clearly the essence of the two modes. Comedies which run counter to the prevailing current are not considered. For example, the comedies of that most prolific of Rest oration dramatists, Thomas Shadwell, are not meltioned because they invariably revert back to the Jonsonian tradition, with the result that they do not always reflect that eSprit associated with Restoration comedy. The term "Restcration" comedy is retained to designate the comedies of Etherege, Wycherley and Dryden because alternative titles such as the "comedy of manners" and the "comedy of vdt,“ while pointing to some of the major 10 preoccupations of the plays, are too exclusive for a thesis thich aims to deal not only with the canedies' cynical. and libertine attitudes, the gaiety and the wit, but also with the plots and themes. At the tum of the century, the cmdies of Cibber, Vanbrugh and Farquhar reveal a distinct movement towards a kind of drama vhich was to culminate in the plays of Steele. To describe this comedy as “sentimental“ or "exemplary" is to point to its benevolalt emotions of pity md tenderness and to its overtly didactic tone, but such terms temi to eclipse the emphasis which is placed on the relationship between marriage and fortune and on bourgeois standards - both of fish are significant deviations from the less nercenary and more aristocratic atiitudes found in Resta'atial comedy. Comequently, the term 'eighteenth-century” comedy is used because it includes all aspects of the changing sensibility vhich manifested itself in the last decade of the seventeenth century and which deve10ped and extulded well into the succeeding century. In an article published in 1962, "Congreve at the Century's End," Clifford Leech comes closest to recognizing and dealing with the fusion of the two modes in the plays of Congreve. But because he sees the first signs of Corgreve's subdued seriousness in tlrn second play, the importance of his first, as Old Bachelor, in Comreve's developnent as a dramatist is diminished. Emphasizing mainly language and tone, Leech gives no indication of what Congreve does with his plots and themes. The following chapters show that Congreve's career as a dramatist has its origin in his first work, Incomita, An examination of the plays' plots, themes and characterization reveals that the predominantly Restoration spirit of The Old Bachelor and the eighteenth-century timbre of The Double Dealer exemplify reapectively what is now referred to as Restoration and eiguteenth—century comew. As such, the first two comedies anticipate the fusion of the two comic modes which occur in the last two comedies, £033 for Love and The Hg of the World. I believe, therefore, that Congreve's development as a dramatist may be explained in terms of the plays' relationships to Restoration and eight eenth-century comedy. tum EARLY EARS: INCOGNITA That Congreve had an early interest in the drama may be deduced from the scent information we have relating to his background in Ireland and London before the appearance in 1693 of The Old Bachelor. While at Trinity College, Dublin, he would have had.the Opportunity to visit the theater and to»nmke the acquaintance of the comedian Joseph Ashbury and the Smock Alley youp, members of which were later to appar in the London productions of his own plays. When Trinity College closed in 1689, Congreve went to England where it has been argued,by John C. Hodges in K'Iilliam Congreve the E (1941), he began the first draft of The Old Bachelor (1.0). In 1691 Congreve entered the Middle Temple and, during his brief stay there, became friendly with Walter lioyle, a man of the tom who was very much interested in the theater. He would also have been fuILy aware of the long dramatic tradition of the Inns of Court which had recently produced three sudh noteworthy dramatists as Etherege, hycherley and Shadwell. The world of the theater'and flhe beau monde would have been accessible to Cmgreve through his acquaintances at the Middle Temple and throug’x his own family connections. It was not long in fact before he was to attract the attention of Dryden himself. 12 Incognita was published in February of 1692, and it reveals conclusively Congreve's latent interest in drama and dispenses with the idea that he lacks objectivity. From the Preface, it is already clear that a critical mind is at work. Congreve first distinguishes between the novel and the romance and, to capture the immediacy he expects of the former, he decides to "imitate dramatick writing, namely, in the design, contexture and result of the plot" (21.2). Allowing for the unity of time, which is extended to three days, the dramatic unities are followed closely - the incidents in the story take place in Florence and evolve around the marrying of "two couples so oddly engaged in an intricate amour" (2142) . The novel may be seen, without undue distortion, to follow a five-act structure based on the traditional pattern of exposition, complication and denouement. The first "act" deals with the nocturnal festivities and ball celebrating the nuptials of the Duke, which lead to the meeting between the young men, Aurelian and Hippolito, and their respective Partners, Juliana (Incognita) and Leonora. 'Jhe raveling of the plot begins when Aurelian takes on the identity of his friend and when Juliana refuses to reveal her name to Aurelian. The subsequent confusion is develOped in the next 8°Ction when the two heroes defend the honor of their mistresses at the lists the following morning. At the banquet that nigxt, further complications arise when Aurelian's father proposes that his son should carry Juliana, both lovers being unaware of the true identity of the other. The fourth "act" takes place in a convent garden where Aurelian rescues Juliana, now in the guise of a young man, from a would-be assassin. In the meantime, Hippolito has informed Leonora of the change of identities and, deepite the opposition of her father, they are married in a conveniently-situated monastery. The last section now deals with the denouement. After a breathless hue and cry, the parents meet their children and reveal their true identities to each other. With the quartet of lovers receiving the blessings of their parents, love and duty are thus reconciled. Within this dramatic desigx there are the familiar conventions pOpular in Restoration comedy. The action of the novel is furthered by the use of disguises, and the subsequent mistaken identities occur not only between the heroes and heroines but also between the young men themselves; befcre the action of each section is allowed to develOp, the mise-en-scene is visually presented to us; the scenes between the young lovers are replete with witty repartee; the two couples are nicely balanced and differentiated, with Aurelian and Juliana being slightly more witty and decorous than 15 Hippolito and Leonora; there is also the comic figure of the amdous father of Aurelian, Don Fabio, whose vanity does much to motivate the main action. As with the comedies of the period, the suspense arises not from guessing vhether the resolution will. be a happy one but from the masterly handling of the plot, from discovering how Congreve is going to resolve the complications without resorting to the more improbable incidents from the world of the romance. Only on one occasion, that of the chance meeting between Aurelian and Juliana in the convent garden, is the arm of coincidence stretched a little too far. But all. the incidents, as promised by Congreve in the Preface, are subordinated to the main purpose, for all of then eventually lead to the carriages between the quartet of lovers. Equally significant for an appreciation of the dramatic comedies is the critical detachmeit of the writer, seen particularly through his use of the dramatized narrator. Like many a contemporary writer of prose fiction, Congreve wants to give the impression that the narrator is merely the recorder of events midi actually took place. This enables Congreve to preserve throughout an objectivity of which he makes full comic use. As the tale unfolds it becomes evident that Congreve is never so involved in the action as to be devoid of critical insight into the characters and the conventions under which he writes. Furthermore, much of the comedy arises directly l6 frun the narrator's observations and interpolations such as later novelists were to use. First, there is the personality of the narrator himself. With his disarming superiority he reflects the manner of those rho speak the prologues to Restoration comedy as he, anticipating Tristram Shandy by some sixty years, ecmlains to the reader the reason for his digressions: Now the reader I suppose to be upon thorns at this and the like impertinent digressions, but let him alone and he'll. come to himself; at which time I think fit to acquaint him, that men I digress, I am at that time writing to please m self; when I continue the thread of the story, I write to please him; supposing him a reasonable man, I conclude him satisfied to allow me this liberty, and so I proceed. (250) When he thinks he has to fill in what he considers to be the obvious facts, the narrator's arrogance is more explicit: In thich interim, let us take the liberty to digress a little, and tell the reader something which I do not doubt he has apprehended himself long ago, if he be not the dullest reader in the WM eeee (260) His pedantry is revealed whm he explains to the reader how a profound silence could arouse Aurelian like a clap of thunder : Now because it is possible this at some time or other may happen to be read by some l7 malicious or ignorant person, (no reflection upon the present reader) who will not admit, or does not understand that silence should make a man start; and have the same effect, in provoking his attention, with its Opposite noise; I will. illustrate this matter, to such a diminutive critick, by a parallel instance of light; which though it does chiefly entertain the eyes, and is indeed the prime object of the sight, yet should it immediately cease, to have a man left in the dark by a suddain deficiency of it, would make him stars with his eyes, and though he could not see, endeavour to look about him. (285) he narrator's avowed deference is felt when he considers Aurelian's response to Juliana's tale of woe: Well, the learned say it was sympathy; and I am always of the Opinion with the learned, if they speak first. (289) But the narrator can also be as self-effacing as the most modest of mm. In attempting to describe Juliana's gown at the ball, he apologises for his ignorance of such . feminine matters: I should by right now describe her dress, wish was extreamly agreeable and rich, but 'tis possible I might err in some material pin or other, in the sticking of which may be the whole grace of the drapery depended. (251») By distancing himself through the persona, Congreve not only disarms the critic but also defends the way in which the story is related. The resultant irony, felt in the discrepancy between the personalities of the narrator and 18 Congreve, causes the reader to respond to the tale on both the serious and comic levels. his ambivalent reaponse is even more explicit vhen Congreve, again through the narrator, reveals a critical attitude towards his material. In describing the serenading arfl the languishing postures of the affected valet, he ridicules not only the servant but the custom as well (2.8). Even the quartet of lovers are not exempt from the writer's irony. When the sigling of Hippolito prompts Aurelian to do the same, the parenthetical comments of the narrator, " (For, by the way, sighing is as catching among lovers, as yawning among the vulgar)," gives immediately a different and more mundane perspective through which we view the heroes (268). Again, Aurelian's blustering attempts to address Juliana at the ball and his "fit of tranSport" which "lasted till she was gone out of sight" deflate the conventions of the genre (265 ) 0 But Congreve's attitude is not one of continual badinage, for he can admire the more positive aSpects of the action and the characters. Despite the confusion of the young men at the lists, the description of the chivalric ritual is not without its Splendor and charm (277). This dual effect is similar to that of POpe's "The Rape of the Lock," and such a 19 comparison becomes more valid in the description Congreve gives of Juliana. Congreve preserves the same admiration and ironic detachment that POpe maintains towards Belinda: But Aurelian (from.whom.I had every tittle of her description) fancy'd he saw a little nest of cupids break from the tresses of her hair, and every one officiously betake himself to his task. Some fann'd with their downy wings, her glowing cheeks; while others brush'd the balmy dew from off her face, leaving alone a heavenly moisture blubbing on her lips, on which they drank and revell'd for their pains; nay, so particular were their allotments in her service, that Aurelian was very positive a young cupid who was but just pen-feather'd, emplqy'd his naked quills to pick her teeth. And a thousand other things his tranSport represented to him, which none but lovers who have experience of such visions will believe. (264) The immediate effect of this is to make the reader appreciate the beauty of Juliana, vhile the bathos of the last sentence gently'mocks Aurelian.and Juliana and the convention to which they belong. This does not mean, however, that the characters and the scene disintegrate under the force of the ridicule - the pervasive irony admits the validity of two finely-balanced points of View; Incognita.anticipates in many ways the more important sepects of the comedies and diaposes of several critical assumptions about Congreve's achievement as a dramatist. The dramatic structure of the novel reveals a writer who believes that drama, as Opposed to the novel, is a medium.through Which 20 he may communicate his ideas to his public with greater impact. 'lhe use of the dramatized narrator allows the writer to admire and satirize the characters and to recognize the fragility and the charm of the world to vhich they belong. It is such ambivalence which accounts for the nature of many of the characters in the comedies and the Special effects of Love for Love and The Hgy of the World. Congreve's critical attitude towards the genre in which he writes and his creative use of traditional materials and ideas look forward to his treatment of the Restoration comic mode, particularly in 216 Double Dealer, and explain one upset of his deveopment as a dramatist. This objectivity and the subsequent ability to recogxize the validity of two apparently antithetical views also explain thy it was so natural for Congreve, after the tentative experiments in the first two plays, to reconcile so successfully in the last tm comedies, the techniques and values of Restoration comedy with those which were to emerge in eighteenth—centurj,r comedy. It is also implicit in the conclusion of the novel that happiness for Aurelian and Juliana is all the more secure because it originates from the reconciliation between love and duty. Althougu these more serious implications are subordinated to the pleasures of following the intricate plot deve10pment, it is precisely these moral concerns relating to love and marriage 21 which become a significant aspect of the comedies. With these facts in mind, it is difficult to accept the conclusions of such critics as Palmer and Perry that Congreve's canedies betray an inability to penetrate beneath the glittering surfaces of life and that he lacks a point of View from which he could criticize his creations. Already in this early work, Congreve demonstrates a dramatic ability and sensitivity which are to be develOped in the comedies; consequently, Incggnita occupies an important place in Congreve's develOpment as a dramatist. III THE OID BACHEIDR Any misgivings that Congreve might have had about his literary ability when he published Incogita anonymously must have been quickly dispelled by the vddming recognition he received later that year. After contributing to Charles Gildon's Miscellm Poems upon Several Occasions, Congreve had his translation of Juvenal's eleventh satire accepted for Dryden's Juvenal and Persius, to which were prefaced Congreve's lines "To Mr. Dryden." No doubt encouraged and flattered by the attention paid to him by the leading literary figure of the day, Congreve submitted to Dryden the draft of The Old Bachelor. As the play was written when Congreve was only nineteen years old, at a time whai he was ignorant of the town and stage, it was not without its defects. But Dryden, together with Thomas Southerne and Arthur Mainwaring, helped to trim some of its rough edges. Even so, it obviously revealed Congreve's potentialities as a dramatist, for Thomas Southerne quotes Dryden as having said that "he never saw such a first play in his life ... the stuff was rich indeed, it wanted only the fashionable cutt of the town."5 5. William Con eve: letters and Documents ed. John C. Hodges (New York, 19345, 151. 22 23 Keeping in mind that the play was written before Congreve was familiar with the stage and the town, it is not surprising that the young author took advantage of a well-established dramatic tradition, offering as it did a familiar and accepted frame of refa'ence within vhich he could test and develOp his ideas and techniques. In plot, theme and characterization The Old Bachelor follows closely the mode of Restoration comedy. The plots of Restoration comedy are frequently discursive because the dramatists were expected to fulfil the insatiable demand for variety. The tastes of the audience are clearly revealed by Dryden, vhose sensitivity accurately reflects the temper of the period. Neander, in "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy" (1668), is aware that the English, finding the more regular drama of the French unappetizing, "come to be diverted at our plays."6 This is the prevailing attitude towards comedy until the turn of the century. As late as 1690 Dryden, in the Preface to 22:3 Sebastian, gig of Portugal, still maintains that the English are given to variety, "even to a debauchery of Pleasure" (23). Etherege's _‘I_h_£e Comical RevengeLor Love in a Tub (1664) contains four separate plots mainly independent of each other. 6. Essays of John Dryden, ed. W. P. Ker (Oxford, 1900), I, 72. The first evolves around the serio-ccmic action of Beaufort arr! Lord Bevfll, the second deals with Sir Frederick Frollick's pursuit of Widow Rich, the third traces the efforts of Dufoy, Sir Frederick's valet, to become a gallant, ani yet a fourth relates the attempted gulling of the country knight, Sir Nicholas Gully, by the two city rogues, Wheedle and Palmer. Furthermore, such arbitrary titles as The Country Wife (1675) and M of Node, cr 353: FOpliI;g_Flutt:e:§ (1676) demonstrate the problem involved in giving appropriate names to plays with extremely diffuse plots, for these titles do little more than indicate one of many and equally prominent lines of action. In The Old Bache lo_rJ the temptation, fall and redemption of the avowed misogynist share the limelight with the cuckolding of the impotent Non-conformist citizen, the gulling of the fools, and the two parallel courtships of the quartet of lovers. A synOpsis of the play danonstrates how the attention is Spread over these five strands of action and complicated by the customary intrigues, disguises and mock- marriages . The first act centers around the two young men of the beau monde - Bellmour, mo is ready to take his pleasures anywhere and at a moment's notice, and Vainlove, who quickly retreats from precocious females who show the least 819 of taking the initiative in the love-chase. For these reasons, 25 Vainlove hands over his discarded mistress, Silvia, and his more recent admirer, Iaetitia, to Bellmour. The result is that Silvia's attention is diverted first to Bellmour and then to Heartwell as she plans to vent her vengeance on Vainlove. This act also introduces Heartwell and establishes his antipathy towards women and hypocrisy as he inveighs against the immorality of the age. The following act sets up parallels and contrasts between Belinda and Araminta. The coquettish Belinda is an appropriate partner for the witty Bellmour,while the more serious-minded Araminta is as skeptical about Vainlove as he is of women. Act III develops the Heartwell-Silvia line of action and shows his attempts to seduce her. The following act deals primarily with the unsuccessful marriage between Fondlewife and Laetitia and her illicit affair with Bellmour, and concludes with Fondlewife forcing himself to believe in his wife's fidelity. Meanwhile Sharper, the Opportunistic friend to the two young men, plans to marry off Silvia and her maid Lucy to the fools h’ittol and Bluffs, who believe they are going to marry Araminta. In the last act, Heartwell is "married" to Silvia in a mock ceremony officiated over by the disguised Bellmour, and later the two gulls are finally paired off with Silvia and Lucy. His "marriage" and Silvia's infidelity with Bellmour exposed, Heartwell is informed of the cheat and his 26 happy to see Silvia finally and safely married to t-Iittol. While Bellmour and Belinda gratuitously resign themselves to marriage, Vainlove and Araminta delay theirs until they see how their friends' marriage turns out. Many of those who advocated a tighter structure frequently complained about this kind of looseness. In "A Short Discourse of the English Stage" (1661+), Richard Flecknoe observes that the chief faults of the comedies are their "huddling too much matter together, and making them too long and intricate" so that the auditors are lost in a mist.7 Three decades later, a year after the first performance of The Old Bachelor, Lawrence Echard in the Preface to Terence's Comedies might well be complaining about those plot devices in the Bellmour-Laetitia action vhen he states that "Our Plots go chiefly upon variety of Love—Intrigues ... ladies Cuckolding their Husbands most dextrously, Gallants danger upon the same account, with their escape either by witty Fetches, cr hiding themselves in dark Holes, Closets, Beds, etc" (it) . This tendency towards discursiveness, however, does not mean that the plays lack design. The usual pattern is composed of a series of parallel and/or contrasting attituies towards love and marriage, but it is the more cynical view 27 which is emphasised. In The Comical Revegge, a contrast is set up between the disenchanted and libertine views of Sir Frederick and the other characters on the one hand, and the romantic and heroic values of Beaufort on the other. In Dryden's Marriage 3. la Mode (1672), the conflict between love and marriage in the two love triangles in the "minor" plots is juxtaposed aginst the romantic behavior Of the quartet of lovers. To ignore the audience's demand for variety and the attendant plot complications could result in the dramatist exposing himself to the scorn of the critics. This was the case with Thomas Shadwell, who believed that the attacks made on The Sullen Lovers (1668) were due to what he describes in the Preface to that play as the lack of 8 "Intrigue" and "want of design." It is from such designs that the themes of the plays emerge. The witty and cynical treatment of love and marriage dominates the more romantic attitude. Love is either expressed in terns of physical appetite or becomes the subject for a jeu d'esprit, while marriage is considered as a social imposition, a "sin" against Natural law. The locus classicus is the Opening of "Absalom and Achitophel" where Dryden I"defends" the promiscuity of Charles II, but the plays of the period are replete with such premises. RhodOphil in Marriagg 8. Spingm, II, M9. ‘a la Mode dislikes the talented, beautiful and good-humored Doralice for no other reason than that she happens to be his wife (198). To Homer in The Countm Wife, the marriage vow carries as much import as the oath of a panitent gamester who, "entering into bords and penalties to stint himself to such a particular small sum at play for the future, which makes him but the more eager; and not being able to hold out, loses his money again, and his forfeit to boot" (263). Furthermore, as J. H. Smith remarks in fig Cg Couple in Restoration Comedy (1948), men the young couples themselves are confronted with narriage it often comes as a surprise, as it does in Sedley's The Mulberry 935933 (1668) to Wildish and Olivia (78). The young couples enter marriage with as much enthusiasm as people ginning up their freedom. Many of the male characters attempt to win their goals therefore without committing themselves to marriage but, because of the double-standard, the females can only achieve theirs within marriage. Such is the case in the conflict between Sir Frederick Frollick and Widow Rich in The Comical Revenge. _’I_1_1fe Old Bachelgg is representative of Restoration comedy in this reapect also, for it presents many attitudes to love ani narriage and reflects similar views to those mentioned above. These are now expressed through five different groups of characters - Heartwell and Silvia, Fondlewife 29 and Laetitia, Sharper, Wittol and Bluffs, Bellmour and Belinda, and Vainlove and Araminta. With the first four groups exemplifying the more negative values and over- shadowing the more serious ones of Vainlove and Araminta, the tone of the play echoes the medominantly cynical spirit of Restoration comedy. Hear-twell and Silvia point to the salacious a8pects of love and marriage as he attempts to avoid narriage as strongly as she tries to trap him into it. Heartwell is too much a creature of the age to confuse love with marriage, ard he hOpes to seduce Silvia without losing his cherished freedom. He argues with her that "in the old days People married were they lov'd; but that fashion is chang'd, Child" (73).9 Overcome by passion,he succumbs to her demand for narriage only in order to reap the pleasures of her bed. But Silvia's demand for marriage is not based on a highly- develOped sense of virtue, for her acceptance of Heartwell is merely the means by which she may taunt him and avenge herself on Vainlove. When, in fact, she finds that her narriage to HeartMell is not legally binding, she is equally contalt to fini another husband in the person of Wittol. With Heartwell viewing marriage very much in the same way as Homer accuses Pinchwife of doing in The Count_lz life (263), as a more permanmt 9. Quotations from Congreve's comedies are taken from Herbert Davis' edition, The Complete Plays (Chicago, 1967 . 30 form of whoredom, and with Silvia using it for egotistical reasons, they both reflect the conflicting values between love and mrriage. The nerriage of Fondlewife and Laetitia clearly demonstrates how the Heartwell-Silvia relationship might have develOped. The impotent Fondlewife learns quickly that marriage to a treacherous beauty entails perpetual vigilance. The beauty that first attracted him to her now becomes the cause of his distress and, blinded by uxoriousness, he is no match for the slick dissembling of his wife and the clever maneuvers and wit of Bellmour. The only solution to his problem is to live in a fool's paradise, to believe the best even if this does not coincide with the facts, for No Husband, by his Wife, can be deceiv'd: She still is Vertuous, if she's so believ'd. (96) Laetitia is proof of her husband's worst suspicions. She accuses Wittol of rape to prevent her husband discovering Bellmour, and while she makes amends to Fondlewife she flirts behind his back with Bellmour. As with Heartwell and Silvia, Fondlewife and Laetitia also manifest selfish and libertine attitudes towards love and marriage. Similar views are expressed by Sharper and are also implicit in the behavior of the fools. Sharper believes that 31 "if whoring be purging ... then I may say Marriage is entering into a Course of Physick" (M). The offensive Wittol and Bluffs think that they are suitable husbands for the sensible Araminta and, urged on by the power of wine, they make their sordid addresses to her. Love is not considered by them to be a prerequisite for marriage, and their trivial views of it are well rewarded when they find themselves married to the equally gullible Silvia aid Lucy. Both Bellmour and Belinda display a cynical and a frivolous attitude towards love and marriage. 'lhe libertine Bellmour wittily justifies the adultery of a wife by affirming that the lover is merely the effigy of the husband (39). He is a "Comorant in Love" (1.0) and rallies to the call of the flesh as readily and as automatically as one of Pavlov's dogs reaponding to the bell. He uses everyone and everything to fulfil his semal needs - the discarded women of Vainlove, wit to Justify infidelity, the cloak of the clergy to gain access to Laetitia, and the gullibility of Fondlewife to extricate himself from the compromising situation with his wife. His behavior and ideas are, therefore, a direct challenge to the orthodox and moral concepts of love and marriage. But he cannot be dimissed as amoral. for he is very much aware of the innnorality of his acts. Planning the seduction of Laetitia, he states that he must be disguised because it "adds a Gusto to an Amour; gives it the greater resemblance of Theft; and among 32 us lewd Mortals, the deeper the Sin the sweeter" (39). It is only when he is confronted with Belinda's cynical attitude that he expresses a more positive point of view, when he tells her that "Courtship to Marriage, is but as the Musick in the Play-house, till the Curtain's drawn; but that once up, then opens the Scene of Pleasure" (107). But even here one cannot escape the feeling that this idea is put forward mainly to outwit Belinda and that it is the more sensual aspects of marriage which are emphasied. He finally promises to marry her not because he sees it as a happy and natural conclusion to his courtship but because it is the only thing left to do, because "there is a fatality in Marriage" (lll). Entering gratuitously into marriage, he commits himself to what he ambiguously refers to with characteristic double-entendre as a "fall" and as a "lasting Durance" (112). His fickle and gay partner, Belinda, echoes many of his sentiments. Amused by Vainlove's more idealistic protestations of love to Araminta, she ridicules the cliches of the platonic lover with his darts, flames and altars while, unconscious of the iromr, she plays the role of the precieuse mistress with Bellmour. She affects boredom with Bellmour and demands variety in courtship, but when he tries to woo her in silence she petulantly relegates him to the status of an ape (59—60). She feels pestered by Bellmour's continual demands and considers marriage only because she hOpes that it will reduce a troublesome lover to a "more than ordinary quiet 33 Husband" (106). Confronted finally with the prospect of marriage, she then perversely extols courtship which she now sees as a "very witty Prologue to a very dull Play" (107). It is with this disenchanted attitude towards marriage that she accepts Bellmour's prOposal. Again the sentiments of both Bellmour and Belinda are such that they point to the view that love and marriage are diametrically Opposed. A more serious approach is taken by Vainlove and Araminta, whose views contrast with those of their friends. Unlike Bellmour; who seems to force his appetite, Vainlove dislikes love "when 'tis forced upon 9. Han" (39), and he refuses to accept Bellmour's witty justification of adultery. Love for Vainlove does not mean sexual joys but a pleasure less tangills and more refined. Whereas Bellmour is interested purely in the excitement of the love-chase and the subsequent rewards, Vainlove is more concerned with searching for an ideal marriage partner. Consequently, what would mean success to Bellmour walld be failure for Vainlove. Vainlove believes that womel are not objects to be used for purposes of self-gratification but are, he tells Araminta, "Temples of Love, and 'tis through you, our Devotion must be convey'd" (58). When he offends Araminta, by mistakenly believing that she has been too Open with her affections, he does not want a pardon too easily won and does not wish to marry her until he feels he deserves her (63). 3h Iviarriage, particularly to Araminta, is considered by him as a blessing and a "Heaven" (63). Araminta's sentiments are similar to those of Vainlove. To Belinda's assertion that love is a fever, she replies in a manner whichechoes Vainlove's more Spiritual attitude: "If Love be the Fever which you mean; kind Heav'n avert the cure: Let me have Oil to feed that Flame and never let it be extinct, till I my self am Ashes" (54). Unlike Belinda, who affects boredom in order to provoke Bellmour, Araminta believes that love should be a natural reSponse because "Favours that are got by lmpudence and Importunity, are like Discoveries from the Back, when the afflicted Person, for his ease, sometimes confesses secrets his Heart knows nothing of" (58). 1316 song she selects to be sung, "bus to a ripe, consenting Maid," endorses both her and Vainlove's demand for discretion in love and for the necessity to preserve a relationship based on true love and reSpect (59). At the same time, however, she is aware of the dangers inherent in Vainlove's tendency to place women on pedestals, and she warns him that such ideals are "Rather poor silly Idols of your own making, which, upon the least displeasure you forsake, ani set up new - " (58). Her reaponse to Vainlove's prOposal of marriage is in keeping with their tenuous relationship and the only one which could please him. living in a society characterized by cynicism and folly, she refrains from plunging 35 into marriage so that they may first take advantage of their friends' experience (21.12). The reply itself is a form of compromise, a promise of a Heaven to be attained in the indefinite future. Thus, in their own distinct manner, they achieve a sense of fulfillment by bringing their relationship a step further towards marriage. Heartwell' s concluding remarks on marriage bring together the major thematic ideas of the play: With gaudy Plumes and gingling Bells made proud, The youthful Beast sets forth, and neighs aloud. A morning-Sun his Tinsell‘d Harness gilds, And the first Stage a Down-hill Green-sword yields. But, (11, - What rugged Ways attend the Noon of Life! (Our Sun declines,) and with what anxious Strife, What Pain we tug that galling Load, a Wife. All Coursers the first Heat with Vigour run; But 'tis with Whip and Spur the Race is won. (112) This final address to the audience clearly indicates what aspects of love and marriage are emphasised in the play. The first nine lines relate to the foolish ani distorted attitudes towards marriage exemplified by the first four groups for whom the “rugged Ways" appear inevitable; the last line, suggesting the means by which the race may be won, refers to the serious efforts made by Vainlove and Araminta. But even for them, happiness remains more of a potentiality than a reality. The final impression, therefore, is that of a play which follows the usual emphasis on the more disillusioned attitude towards love and marriage. 36 The characters, as well as the plots and themes, cater primarily to what Dryden calls, in the Epilogue to the second part of The Conquest of Granada (1672) , "an Age more Gallant than the last“ (16A). Dryden's comment, of course, refers Specific ally to the society of Whitehall, and the comedies reflect the tastes, if not the morals, of that exclusive world. Within the fashionable world of the comedies, profligacy is fully professed and practiced and conventional morality flouted. The characters reveal, either by their savoir—faire or lack of it, their exact position in this social hierarchy. Occupying the highest position are the truewits, and beneath them are those less successful in adapting themselves to the air of this refined society - the superannuated rake, the rejected mistress, the Non-conformist citizen, the young frustrated wife, the fools - all of whom in one way or another caricature the society to which they aspire. The characters in The Old Bachelor disclose inmediately their affinity with their counterparts in Restoration comedy. In "A Large Account of the Taste in Poetry, and the Causes of the Degeneracy of It," John Dennis states of the period that it was an "age of Pleasure, and not of Business" (291.), and it is a life free from responsibility yhich is the occupation of the gallant. To Bellamy,in Dryden's An Evening's Love, or the Mock Astrologer (l668), business means "drinking and wendning" (252), and the only business that he has with women concerns their 37 beauty rather than their morals (276). Bellmour's opening remarks echo a similar point of view: Business is the rub of Life, perverts our Aim, casts off the Bias, and leaves us wide and short of the intended Mark .... leave Business to Idlers, and Wisdom to Fools; they have need of 'em: Wit, be ny Faculty; and Pleasure, my Occupation .... Business is not my Element. (37—8) And his attitude towards love and marriage manifests most clearly the libertinism and epicureanism which form part of the Restoration ideal of the gentleman. rfile most important aSpect of the gallant's life is the vigorous and unending pursuit of the opposite sex. Mrs. Pert in The Man of Mode believes that a "Modish Man is always very busie when he is in pursuit of a new Mistress" (211), and Lady Fidgett in The Country Wife takes such activity as "a sign of good breeding" (31.9). In An Evening's Love, Wildblood tells Jacinta that he is "none of those unreasonable lovers, that propose to themselves the loving to eternity" (262), and that he has "a Banque of Love, to supply every ones occasions; some for her, some for another, and some for you" (291). Similarly, Bellmour is a "Cormorant in Love" (1.0) and loves "all the Sex" (1.1) , as demonstrated by his vhirlwirxi affairs with Silvia and Laetitia. Such an ideal as constancy is not to be thought of. In The I";.a,_n of Mode, Dorimant is shocked that his mistress, Mrs. Loveit, should emect it of him: "Constancy at my years! 'tis 38 not a Vertue in season, you might as well eXpect the Fruit the Autumn ripens i'the Spring .... Youth has a long Journey to go, Madame; shou'd I have set up my rest at the first Inn I lodg'd at, I shou'd never have arriv'd at the happiness I now enjoy" (215-16). Another characteristic of the gallant is his wit. In Max of Letters and the English Public in the Eighteenth Century (1881): Alexandre Beljame states that the fashionable man of the Restoration "could not be a gallant without being a man of wit: the two epithets became synonymous" (9). And Dryden, contrasting the preceding age with the present, states in the Epilogue to the second part of The Conguest of Granada that: Our Ladies and our max new Speak more wit In conversation, than those Poets writ. (164) Courtall and Freeman, in Etherege's She would If She Gould (1668), captivate Getty and Araminta by their witty speeches, Gerard in 1-.ycherley's The Gentleman Dancing-Master (1672) has a reputation for it, and Lady Woodvil says of Dorimant in The Man of Node that his tcngue would "tempt the Angels to a second fall" (237). Bellmour reveals his affinity with his Restoration predecessors in his verbal tactics with Belinda and his friends, and he displays that kind of fanciful wit vhich, according to Hobbes' definition, perceives similitudes in things unlike. In order to overcome Belinda's affected antipathy towards him, he affirms that 39 "Illportunity in Love, like importunity at Court; first creates its om Interest, and th en pursues it for the Favour" (58), and to guile her into marriage he states that "Courtship to marriage, is but as the Musick in the Play—house" (107). In 339 Restoraticm Comedy of Hit, Fujimura rightly emphasizes that wit meant not only verbal dexterity but also decorum in conduct, am one aspect of the truewit is the discretion he uses when conchlcting his gages d'amour. Ranger in liycherley's Love in M (671) assures Christina that he was "never so ill-bred as to brag of try reception in a lady's chamber" (98), and Laetitia hopes that Bellmour is enough of a gentleman not to prejudice her reputation (82). Another means by vhich the gallant reveals his wit arxi his love for intrigues is through his behavior towards those who attempt in one way or another to ape his manners. In this respect the gallant serves not only as a satirical persona but as an agent for punishing the fools for their folly. As accurately as Horner describes the affectation of such fOps as Sparkish in file County Wife (257) so do Bellmour and Sharper expose the gullibility of Uittol and Bluffe (46-7). Sharper has no difficulty in cheating Wittol of a hundred pounds, and in 3113 Comical Revenge Wheedle similarly cheats Sir Nicholas Gully. Just as Sir Simon Addlepot is forced into marrying lady Flippant in Love in a Wood and as Sir Nicholas Gully is tricked into A0 accepting Mrs. Lucy, so do Bellmour and Sharper punish Wittol and Bluffe for their rude and presumptous behavior to Belinda and Araminta by gulling them into marrying Silvia and Lucy. The heroine of Restoration comedy possesses similar qualities to those of the gallant, but because of the double- standard and the rules of courtship, based partly on the précieuse tradition and partly on the Restoration's skeptical attitude towards it, she affects disdain towards men and wittily ridicules those less sophisticated than herself. Dorimnt's description of Harriet in The Man of Node, that she is "Wild, witty and lovesome, beautiful and young" (21th) , applies equally well to Belinda. Sharper describes Belinda as being "too proud, too Inconstant, too Affected and too Witty, and too handsome for a Wife" (Al). And when she first appears this impression is confirmed. She has an avowed distaste for "that filthy, two-leg'd Creature, Man" (51.), but when Bellmour arrives to woo her she cannot bring herself to leave, pretending that she stays out of regard for Araminta's reputation. Conceited to the point of fastidiousness, she giggles about her appearance and yet immediately rails at those country visitcrs to town who shout an equal amount of affectation in attempting to dress £19: £932 (83-h). True to type, Belinda directs her raillery at what she considers to be the follies of others - Vainlove's idealistic 1+1 protestations of love to Araminta (55), Bellmour's manner of courtship (58-60), and Heartwell's "marriage" to Silvia (108). So fond is she of railing that she also considers it to be the "best Qualification in a ”woman's Man" (88). These aSpects of Belinda's character aptly fit Edward Ravenscroft's definition of the comic heroine in The London Cuckglgg (1681), that she is "a little, laughing, gigling, highty, tighty, pratling, tatling, gossipping" female (3). The love-game between Bellmour and Belinda follows closely the conventional pattern. In The Gay Couple in Restoration M, J. H. Smith remarks that they are a "well-matched pair of the traditional sort, her coquetry offsetting his wildness (149). Keeping to the rules of the game, they both conceal their true feelings behind the masks which they are required to wear, with the result that they clash like "two Buckets" whenever they meet (57). "with the emphasis on courtship and the battle of wits, it is not surprising that marriage comes as an antich and that it is viewed by them with such indif ferenc e. While Bellmour and Belinda represent the gay couple, Vainlove and Araminta are the serious couple whose values serve at best as a tentative norm. In a milieu which extols the type of gallantry and affectation illustrated by Bellmour and Belinda, Vainlove and Araminta are almost outsiders. Their literary lineage may be traced back to Etherege's Young Bellair and Emilia in lh‘e Man of Mode and to \fycherley's Harcourt and Alithea in The Country Wife. In Etherege and the Seventeenth— Century Comedy of I-Eanners, Dale Underwood believes that Etherege's young couple belong to the "honest man" tradition (80—4). But more significantly, they anticipate the more sentimental ard exemplary couples in eighteenth—century comedy, such as Bevil Junior and Indiana in Steele's The Conscious Lovers. In The Old Bachelor, however, Vainlove and Araminta are subordinated to the more lively pair, and it is not until Congreve's later comedies that such moral sensibilities are allowed to gain greater dominance. Vainlove is still very much the gallant, for he has just finished his affair with Silvia as the play Opens, and he follows his own peculiar type of love-game with Araminta. Hypersensitive to women who take the initiative in the love- chase, he makes a hasty "treat because: All Naturally fly who does pursue: "I‘is fit Hen should be coy, when Women woo. (80) Because Araminta herself is "a kind of floating Island," the result is, as Heartwell points out , that Vainlove becomes one of "Loves April-fools," ever embarking upon adventures yet never coming to harbor (42). Bellmour points out to him that what he really wants to do is impossible to achieve, to marry Araminta without her consent (6h). Torn between the desire to harry her 1+3 and the fear that she will accept too readily, he is the source of much of the comedy in the play. Despite the fact that both Vainlove and Aran‘inta manifest less frivolity and more ma]. seriousness than the other characters, it is their quixotic courtship which dominates. Consequently, any potential contribution which they could have given to the establishment of a moral norm is undermined by the treatment accorded to their courtship. Their moral position in the play, in fact, is as tenuous as their own relationship, and it is precisely this effect which makes it difficult to discover the controlling moral idea of the play and which imparts to it that moral ambiguity characteristic of much of Restoration comedy. ‘Ihe libidinous pursuits of the "surly old Batchelour" Heartwell relate him to the familiar figure of the superannuated rake, to Old Bellair in The Man of Mode and to Sir Timothy Tawdrey in Aphra Behn's The Town F01) (1676), while his purely physical reasons for marrying relate him to Pinchwif e in The Country Wife. Because the wit of these elderly libertines is not as strong as their passion, they become easy victim for the cleverer tactics of the young heroes and the wilier maneuvers of the women. Blinled by his sexual desire, Heartwell becomes what he fears most, "a bearded Baby for a Girl to dandle" (72). Such a toy does he become that he wrongly attributes Silvia's reluctance to innocence (72). Another aSpect of Heartwell's character identifies him with Horner in The Country Wife and with Manly in The Plain Dealer (1676). This is the dual function that he serves in the play - that of the satirical malcontent who lashes the vices of his society and that of the parasite who preys on the vices of others md who, in turn, becomes the target of the dramatist's scorn. Congreve first allows Heartwell to expose the follies and the vices of others, and Bellmour's Opening gambit with him points to this first role: How now George, where hast thou been snarling odious Truths, and entertaining company like a Physician, with discourse of their diseases and infirmities? What fine Lady hast thou been putting out of conceit with her self, and perswading that the Face she had been making all the morning was none of her own? for I know thou art as unmannerly am as unwelcome to a Woman, as a Looking glass after the Smallpox. (42) And for the renainder of the scene Heartwell, with much justification, inveighs against the extravagance, affectation and immorality of the beau monde. He first deflates Vainlove's idealism and then, with Bellmour in mind, at tacks those young gallants who "force Appetite" (1.3). He concludes by railing against the affected customs of courtship and the uncertainty of establishing proof of paternity (AA-5). But Heartwell does not set himself up as a paragon of virtue nor does he coniemn passion Er as. He believes in waiting for the promptings of the flesh, stating that there is time enough to be lewd after #5 the temptation. What he expects of peeple is that they be that they pretend to be, a whoremaster to be a whoremaster (1+3). But it is at this point in the play that Heartwell's acticms begin to parallel those of the young men of the town. As soon as his desire to possess Silvia gains the upperhand, he becomes involved in a chain of events over which he has no control and which takes him deeper into a situation that forces him to resort to the dissembling and affectation he had earlier decried. His demand for plain dealing, in fact, only holds good for others and as long as his own reputation as a misognist is not threatened. After his "marriage" to Silvia, he naively supposes that he can keep it a secret and so preserve his reputation, unaware that it was Bellmour who officiated over the mock ceremony. But it is not until he has experienced the anguish of finding that Bellmow has made him a "cuckold" and until he has become the butt of public ridicule that he is eventually told of the cheat. The rejected mistress in Restcration comedy experiences similar remorse and torment because she too succumbs to her passion. Unlike the heroine, who refuses to yield to the gallant before nerriag e, she pays the penalty for attempting to fix her aim on an inconstant an elusive lover, with the result that she fails to establish a secure place in society. Forsaken A6 by the ruthless Dorimant, hrs. Loveit in The Man of Node attempts to revenge herself on her lover, but when she is outwit ted by him she has no recourse but to accept stoically her fate, promising that she will lock herself in her house and "never see the world again" (286). Silvia also fails to revmge herself on Vainlove and tries to find solace in the arms of Bellmour while confessing to him her affection for Vainlove (38). She treats Heartwell as cruelly as she accuses Vainlove of treating her ard, after discovering that she is not harried to Heartwell, she finds the security that she has been looking for with Wittol. The literary heritage of Fondlewife my be traced back to the impotent old husband married to a young and beautiful wife so familiar in classical comedy and to the canting Non-conformist from Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. But these are now given a contenporary fhvor as Fondlewife becomes the London cit cuckolded by the young man from the beau monde. These aSpects are also found in the figure of Gomez in Dryden's W (1681) and in Dashwell in Ravenscroft's The London Cuckolds. The relationship between Fondlewife and Laetitia also recalls the jealous behavior of Pinchwif e towards Margery in The Country Wife,for both husbands are driven by deeperation to keep their wives locked up away from the attention of the ycnng rakes, and both are firmlly deceived by their wives. Fondlewife's awareness of his impotency adds to his uneasiness and, despite all his precautions, he is finally outwitted by Bellmour and his own wife. 1+7 The fools, Bluffe and L'ittol, are those senseless mimics who occupy the lowest rung in the social ladder and who only succeed in becoming grotesque versions of the gallants. Although Wittol and Bluffe are neither fops nor witwouds, their lack of decorum and wit identify them with those whom Manly in The Plain Dealer calls "apes and echoes of men only" (393). The figure of Bluffe originates from the miles gloriosus of Plautus, the Thraso of Terence and Bobadil in Jonson's m Man in his Humour. Sir Joseph h’ittol is the country gull who, in Restoration comedy, is invariably duped by the city sharks or truewits. His Restoraticn counterparts are Sir Nicholas Gully and Sir Simon Addlepot. *Jittol and Bluffe, lacking decorum and manners, force themselves upon Belinda and Araminta. They pay their drunken respects to them and are so ignorant of themselves and so impervious to the feelings of the young Araminta, that they eventually believe that they are going to marry her. Unable to compete with the truewits, they are finally gulled into marrying Silvia and Lucy. So far, the relationship between The Old Bachelor and Restoration comedy is unequivocal, but deepite the predominantly Restoration spirit of the play, there are indications that Congreve is eaqaanding upon the traditional material. Although these changes are implicit. in this first play, they are significant because they anticipate those developments which occur in the later comedies. Evidence of these changes may be 1.8 found in the characterization of Bellmour, Heartwell and Fondlewife. Bellmour does not appear to be as happy with his libertine way of life as are his predecessors. Despite the assertion that pleasure is his occupation (37) and that he is a "Cormorant in Love" (1.0), some signs of gang; may be detected when he half-complains that he is "not only forc'd to lie with other Mens Wives for 'em, but must also undertake the harder Task of obliging their Mistresses" (1.1). And one may argue that his tendency to live in castles in the air is caused by a disaffection towards his professed hedonism. In these illusory castles Bellmour is free to live according to his own rules and to ignore the uglier realities of life. It is not surprising, therefore, that he dislikes Araminta's choice of song because it reveals the mundane fact that all women, once having permitted the lover to be free with them, are the same (60). Such a blatant truism is a direct threat to the pleasure ani excitement which Bellmour experiences in the game of love. Em his attimde to Belinda is one which minimizes reality. Reminded by Sharper that she is "excessively fOppish and affected," he quickly depersonalizes and explains away her faults by attributing them to the rest of her sex and by concentrating upon the fortune she brings with her (Al). But he also possesses a good nature, shown particularly in his concern for Heartwell. In planning the mock ceremony between the old lecher and Silvia, he 49 tells Lucy that "Heartwell is my Friend; and tho' he may be blind, I must not see him fall into the snare, and unl-dttingly marry a there" (98). T. H. Fujimura's statement that Bellmour, unlike Homer and Dorimant, bears no malice in his heart is valid, but the same critic's belief that Bellmour is without a trace of disillusionment is questionable (166). A benevolent view of human nature is discernible in the treatment given to Heartwell, particularly in the scene which takes place outside Silvia's house. that is significant here is that Heartwell is fully aware of his folly and the nature of the intemal conflict. It is this self-Imovrledge, when the ridiculous becomes inexorably part of the pathetic, vhich turns Heartwell into something more than the conventional superannuated rakes like Old Bellair and Sir Timothy Tawdrey. Heartwell struggles unsuccessfully to overcome his passion for Silvia and, torn like "an Old layer, between two Fees," and a "young tench, betwixt pleasure and reputation," he rushes headlong into the house to lose the apprehension of danger (63). At that moment, Heartwell is seen at once as the lecherous old hypocrite and the proverbial lamb being led to the slaughter. Congreve's ability to view Heartwell with this detachment enables him to include and acknowledge the validity of both reSponses. For one brief moment, Congreve captures the quintessential experience of life itself, what Bonamy Dobree refers to as "the deepest disharmonies in man's nature" (126). 50 A humane attitude is also detected behind the characterization of the basically good-natured and naive Fondlewife, who contrasts with the odious and vicious Pinchwife. Vainlove points to the dual aSpect of Fondlewife when he describes him as a "kind of I-iungril Zealot, sometimes very precise and peevish: But I have seen him pleasant enough in his way; much addicted to Jealousie, but more to Fondness: So that as he is often Jealous without a Cause, he's as often satisfied without Reason" (1.0). As with Heartwell, he is aware of the traps which life presents and he, too, attempts to reconcile his reason with his passion. He realizes that he is unable to satisfy Laetitia's sexual needs and that she may be forced to seek pleasure elsewhere, and he wrestles between the necessity to leave her alone in order to further a business project and the desire to stay and protect her against would—be seducers. Although he is willing to forego the five-hundred pounds which the business entails, he is finally overcome by Laetitia's affected protestations of fidelity. I-iuch of the ridicule is directed towards their incompatibility, but the main force of the satire is directed towards the lecherous pursuits of Bellmour and Laetitia. In a world where fondness is exploited and powerless against the cleverer tactics of the young, the only thing left for the helpless Fondlewife to do is to force himself into believing the best of his wife. Congreve's first play, then, reveals the strong influence 51 of the Restoration comic tradition. The structure and the design of the plot, with the emphasis on variety and intrigue, and the predominantly witty and cynical attitude expressed towards love and marriage, follow closely the Spirit of Restoration comedy. Heartwell's concluding Speech succeeds in unifying the five different strands of action as well as the major thematic concerns, while the last line gives to the play a semblance of a moral purpose. But coming as this does at the end of a play which Spreads the attention over different but equally prominent groups and thich concentrates on so many different follies and vices, it all but fails to establish a moral norm. As such, the play fulfils Dryden's dictum, eJCpressed in the Preface to An Evening's Love, that "the first end of comedy is delight, and instruction only the second."10 But it nmst also be acknowledged that several of the characters indicate Congreve's critical and creative use of traditional material and reveal a less cynical and more benevolent attitude towards human nature. that Congreve gives us in The Old Bachelor is, therefore, not merely another Restoration comedy, but a play which suggests an almost imperceptible movement towards that kind of drama which comes into being in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. 10. Ker, I, 1113. THE DOUBIEDEAIER he Double Dealer, first performed in November of 1693, is so different in plot structure, theme and characterizaticn from The Old Bachelor that it soon becomes evident that Congreve is approaching comedy from a viewpoint more readily associated with eighteenth-century comedy. The success of the first play may be attributed to the fact that Congreve gave to the audience what it desired ani expected - a series of different plots which deal with the witty and cynical emose’ of love and marriage expressed by familiar Resta‘ation characters. But the voice now heard in The Double 29314:; is far more somber, for the play deals almost exclusively with ”secret Villarw" (203). The two main characters are thorough-going villains whose malignant treachery sharply differentiates them from the young couple's passive virtue. Ihe result is that the ominous presence of evil and the severe satirical treatment of violent intrigue and ruthless passicn tend to dominate the lighter comic scenes. Deviating as much as it does from the Restoration tradition, it is not surprising that its reception was not as favorable as that given to the first comedy. In his letter to William Walsh, Dryden states that the play "is much censurd by the greater part of the 52 53 Tom .... 'fiie women thinks he has exposd their Bitchery too much; and the Gentlemen, are offended ... for the discovery of their follyes: and the way of their Intrigues under the ll notion of Friendship to their Ladyes Husbands." For more aesthetic reasons, later critics also feel uneasy with the play, believing that the comic framework is threatened by the presence of elements more conducive to tragedy - such as the treacherous behavior and melodramatic speeches of Maskwell and Lady Touchwood. Lord lacaulay complains in the "Comic Dramatists of the Restoration" that there is "something strangely revolting in the way in which a group that seems to belong to the house of Laius or of Pe10ps is introduced into the midst of the Brisks, Froths, Careless», ani Plyants" (587). For similar reasons, Norman Holland in Met Modern CW calls the ply "a sephomcre slump" (11.9). It can also be argued that the moral flavor of the play may be partly explained in terms of the growing influence that the didactic theories concerning tragedy were to exert on comedy ani which Steele was later to bring to bear on his comedies. Yet ‘Ihe Double Dealer was vigorously defended by Congreve's literary contemporaries. Dryden, who obviously ll. Hodges, letters and Documents, 95-96. 54 experienced no sense of incongruity, refused to alter his Opinion of the play after it had been attacked by the audience, affirming that "W verses, which you will find before it, were written before the play was acted. But I neither alterd them nor (b I alter nw Opinion of the play ...."1‘2 In these verses Dryden acclaims Congreve as his successor and worthy heir to such great comic writers as ShakeSPeare, Jonson, Fletcher, Etherege am h’ycherley (123). The author of A Cflson between the two Stages (1702) also deferfis the play in terms of the comic rather than the tragic genre, stating that he believes it "to be among the most correct and regular Comedies: Mr. C. intended it so, ani it cost him unusual Labour to do't."l3 And the play's migraph, "Interdum tamen, vocan Comoedia tollit," taken from that section of Horace's Ars Poetics. which discusses stylistic decorum, iniicates that Congreve himself was fully aware and felt Justified in expanding the convmtion of comedy. A willingness to follow this flexibility and to exercise that moderation characteristic of Dryden's best criticism my solve many of these aesthetic "problems" which invariably arise from too rigid a preconception of the spirit and nature of ccmecv. Com equently, a mcre useful approach would be that which considers the play as a radical movement away from 12. Hodges, letters arrl Documents, 96. 13. [Charles omen], ed. 5. B. Wells (Princeton, 1942). 38. 55 the Restoration mode. Once again, the plot, theme and characterization reveal to what extent Congreve's second comedy reflects and anticipates many trends associated with eight eenth-century comedy. With the growing demand for a more overtly moral drama, the plot structure of eighteenth-century comedy becomes less diffuse. 'flie titles now point to the central action of the plays and so relate directly to the moral problems raised in the major plots. A couple of Cibber'e plays illustrate this tendency towards greater cohesion. fie Careless Husband (1701.) and The I_.a_d1's Last Stake (1707) deal with the moral relationship between husband and wife and with the husband's suddm reformation through the power of his wife's goodness. In the first, the title specifically refers to Sir Charles Easy's imprudent behavior with his wife's woman Edging and his discovery by his wife, asleep without his periwig along- side his mistress in two easy chairs. Taking a steinkirk from Edging's neck, Lady Easy lays it gently over her husband's head, and this leads to his final submission to the conquering virtue of his wife. In the second, the name relates to lady Wronglove's last resort to sweetness and tenderness in her successful effort to win back her errant husband. Similarly, the title of Congeve's play relates to the main action. It refers to the double-dealing of the 56 machiavelJJm Mashell and to his attempts to discredit Mellefont and to narry Cynthia. The structure of the play follows Mashvell's rise ard fall and the opposite movement in the fortunes of the young couple. Congreve's comments in the Dedication to the play iniicate quite clearly the extent to which the didactic purpose governs the structure. He states that: I design'd the Moral first, and to that Moral, I invented the Fable .... I made the plot as strong as I could, because it was single, and I nade it single, because I would avoid confusion and was resolved to preserve the three Unities of the Drama, vhidl I have visibly done to the utmost severity. (119) And he goes on to say that he has take: particular care to avoid "Smuttiness and Bawdy“ (121). It is precisely such direction and emphasis and the eschewal of bawdy which are seen by Arthur Sherbo in En sh Sentimental Drama as important characteristics of eighteenth-century sentimmtal comedy, when the dramatist starts out with a clearly defined and in mini which is not "permitted to be eclipsed for any length of time by other considerations" (100). The usual plot pattern of eight eenth-century comedy is composed of a serious main plot and comic subplot. A sharper differentiation than in Restoration comedy is made between the characters who move on the two levels of action, between the exemplary characters and their moral adversaries on the one hand, am the Restm'ation comic types on the other. The result 57 is that there is a greater clarity of moral focus and an intensification of the play's seriousness. In Cibber's Love's Last Shift, the main plot deals with the serious conflict between the virtuous Amanda and the errant Loveless, while the subplot involves the fop Sir Novelty Fashion and the witty quartet of lovers . Vanbrugh's 3:13 Provoked 1% (1697) deals with the narital troubles between lady Brute and her husband, to which are subordinated the gay couple, Heartfree and Belinda. The distinction between the two levels of action is even more evident in Steele's The Conscious Lovers. 'L‘ne main action involves Bevil, the man of sense, arri the virtuous Indians who both, as Steele states in "Spectator" No.65, demonstrate "good nanners, good sense, arr! comon honesty" (1,342). StructuralJy related to them are the gentleman merchant Mr. Sealand, who is no longer the cit of Restoration comedy, and the honest and loyal servant Humphrey, who lacks the deceitful ways of his Restoration predecessors. The minor action includes a modified version of the gay couple, the spirited Myrtle and Lucinda, the pedantic coxcomb Cimberton, the par-venue Mrs. Sealand, and the humorous rather than witty servants, Tan and Phillis. In The Double Dealer, the main plot deals with the calflict between the lauiable Mellefont and Cynthia and the reprehensible Maskwell and Lady Touchwood . Such familiar 58 Resta‘at‘lon characters as the uxorious husband and belligerent wife, the fOppish coxcomb and learned lady, and the witwoud, are found reapectively in the Plyants, the Froths and Brisk - all of whom are relegated to the subplots. A re’eumé of the plot illustrates the concentration of the play's central issues and the subsequent subordination of the lighter conic elements. ‘Ihe play Opens with the final preparation for the marriage vhidl is to take place the following day between Mellsfont and Cynthia. But Mellefont's aunt, Lady Touchwood, plans to prevent the marriage in order to revenge herself on her nephew fcr spurning her amorous overtures. To counteract this, Mellefont has asked Maskwell to keep a close watch over his aunt, unaware that aunt and friend are lovers and intend to ruin him. Maskwell and lady Touchwood first plan to work through Cynthia's stepmother, Lady Plyant, by making her believe that Mellefont has a secret passion fit her so that 316 will Omose the narriage in order to keep Mellefont for herself. The next act finds the young lovers debating the possibility and nature of marriage, oblivious to Maskwell's treachery. Lady Plyant, now convinced of Mellefont's love, turns her husband against the match. His first plot successful, Maskwell thm proceeds with his next. He now convinc es Mellefont that he has becane lady Touchwood's confidant by plotting with her to disinherit Mellefont and by agreeing to marry Cynthia himself, a half-truth in that Maslmell hOpes to marry Cynthia without 59 lady Touchwood's knowledge. The act ooncluies with Maskwell's soliloqrw which reveals his true intentions, and in which he praises cunning 81d hypocrisy and relegates wisdom and honesty to fools. The next step is to discredit Mellefont with Lord Touchwood, ani this is accomplished in the following set by lady Touchwood rho affirms to her husbard that she has been the innocent victim of Iviellefont's wanton gallantry. Meamhile, Mellefont's friend Careless, throng: his affected admiration for lady Plyant, has been successful in restoring Mellefont's gaod name with Cynthia‘s parents. Act IV then Opens with Cynthia's remarks to Mellefont on their helplessness in the face of such intrigues, but he wrongly believes that he can still overcome the malice and hostility of his aunt with the help Of Maslmell. Doubtful of Mellefont 's success, Cynthia. vows to marry him or nobody else. The scene. sale with success for Mellefont as far as the Plvmts are concerned but failure with Lord Touchwood, for Maskwell successfully gains his favor by trapping Mellefont into a compromising situation with his aunt. Lord Touchwood then promises to disinherit Mellefont and begins to arrange a marriage between Maskwell and Cynthia. With Mellefont's fortunes at their lowest aid Maskwell's at their highest, the last act resolves the complications 81d brings to a close the intrigues of the two villains. Maskwell plans to elOpe with Cynthia as he realizes that Lady Touchwood will never consent to the marriage. It is 60 at this point that he over-reaches himelf. Cynthia's suspicions are aroused by his last-minute alterations in planning her elOpement with Mellefont, and she now confides in Careless who has always entertained doubts about Maskwell's loyalty. From behind a screen, Cynthia and Lord Touchwood overhear Maskwell and Lady Touchwood discussing their plots m, consequently, Maskwell's last plan misfires, and his villairw, together with that of his partner, is exposed. After blessing the impending marriage between Mellefont and Cynthia, Lord Touchwood concludes with the moral: Let secret Villany from hence be warn'd; Howe're in private, Mischiefs are conceiv'd, Torture and shame attend their Open Birth: Like Vipers in the Womb, base Treach'ry lies, Still gnawing that, whence first it did arise; No sooner born, but the Vile Parent dies. (203) ill-re themes of eighteenth-century comedy are also governed by the desire to combat the moral ambiguity of Restoration comedy. The main plot of Cibber's Love's Last M is designed to show to advantage "Neglected virtue" (310). Even Vanbrugh's The Relapse (1696), written to parock Cibber's play, concludes by revealing the power that Amanda's constancy has over her would—be seducer Worthy. Congreve's comments in the Dedication to The Double Deaieg, already quoted, reflect this movement away from the ambiguously moral comedy Of the earlier tradition. At the Opening of the eighteenth century, 61 the dramatists demonstrate an increasing tendency to moralize their plays. In the Preface to The Win Rivals (1702), Farquhar states that the play shows that "an Enéish Comedy, may Answer the strictness of Poetical Justice" (286). In the Preface to The Lying Lover (1703). Steele claims that he has written a comedy “which might be no improper entertainment in a Christian Comnonwealth" (101), and in the Dedication to go Tender Husband (1705), he states that his aim was not to be offensive (193). Such views continue well into the century. Ea Conscious Lovers was written to teach by "example and precept," and in the Dedication to The Man Of Taste (1735), the Rev. James Miller remarks that the play is "to entertain the Tom, without giving Offence either to Virtue, Decency, cr Good—Marmara." With the greater emphasis placed upon virtue, the thmatic conflicts tend to be between moral absolutes. Amanda's strict virtue Opposes the libertinism of her husband loveless in Cibber's play and Worthy's gallantry in Vanbrugh's. In Vanbrugh's The Provoked Wife, the fidelity of Lack Brute contrasts sharply with the debauched behavior of her husband, as does that of Lady Easy with her husband in Cibber's 3&3 Careless Husband. As a result of such conflicts and the subsequent stress placed on the patient suffering of the wives and on the monstrous treatment they receive from their reapective husbands or potential seducers, there is evoked the requisite amount of pity for distressed virtue, admiration for innate moral excellence, and indignation for villainy. It is on such occasions when virtue confronts immorality 62 that the comedies tend towards sentimentality and that the dramatist Offers the maximum Opportunity for the audience to experience the joy at witnessing the sudden reformation Of the rake and the rewards due to goodness - even if this means sacrificing plot and character consistency. Many of these plays exanplify such sentinent alism, but Farquhar's lhe Beaux Stratagem (1707) may serve as a classic example. At the end of the play, Aimwell suddenly stop being a rake and becomes a man of feeling. Converted by the beauties of Dorinda's mind and person, he feels repartant for his earlier life and regrets having deceived her. By virtue of his conscience he develoPs from fortune- hunter and philanderer to sentimental hero, and as a result of female virtue he moves from cynicism to balevolmce. Although Dorinia had earlier hesitated to accept him, she now rushes into his arms then he confesses that he had only been interested in her fortune. The sudden announcement that his elder brother is dead means that he is heir to m estate that he had earlier pretended to possess am, deSpite their sentimartal display to each other, they remain inoongruously impervious to the news of the death. "Virtue" is imnediately rewarded, for Aianell gets the rich and beautiful wife he had been searching for, and Dcrinda has a real lord for a husbani. Truth is, therefore, dispensed with in order to extol mcrality and to produce sentimental effects. 63 The theme of The Double Dealer is also governed by the play's didactic purpose, which is to show the self- destructive nature of "secret Villany" and the rewards awaiting "Virtue and wrong'd Innocence" (203). The main ccnflict is between moral blacks and whites, between the "base Treach'ry" of Maskwell and lady Touchwood and the innate goodness Of Mellefont and Cynthia. Sentimental effects are produced at the conclusion Of the play. Although Maskwell does not repent, he "hangs down his head" as he leaves the stage, an action which suggests shame. And Mellefont and Cynthia achieve happiness not because of their ability to outwit their adversaries but because the thematic deveLLOpment of the play is governed by the questionable dictates of poetic justice. In intensifying the moral focus and the play's seriousness in this way and in his treatment of the two Opposing groups, Congreve reveals his critical and creative treatment of the Rest oraticn mode; and in veering sharply from the earlier tradition, he reflects and anticipates many characteristics and attitudes of eigxteenth-century canedy. An examination of these four characters in the serious plot readily demonstrates further affinities with eight eenth-century comedy. Both Maskwell and lady Touchwood exemplify the monstrous power of malignant evil. Maskwell's behavior is controlled by the intellect while lady Touchwood's is motivated 6i. by blind passion. It would be perverse to ignore their affinity with the villains of Restoraticn tragedy, but many of their traits are also those found in the figures of the rake and rejected mistress of Restoration comedy, and Congreve‘s attitude towards them is less ambiguous than was that of his predecessors. Wit and gaiety, the more attractive qualities of the rake, and the valid motive for revenge which usually justifies the hostility of the rejected mistress to her erstwhile lover, are noticeably absent. Consequently, the innate vidousness of Maskwell and Lady Touchwood are thrown into focus, and the moral indignation which they evoke is not tempered by any other considerations. By using two of the character-types familiar in Restoration com and turning than into personifications of vice, Congreve points directly to those invidious qualities which had been for so long part of the earlier comic tradition. Congreve strips these two characters of their charm, gaiety, and sympatrw and reveals their latent immorality, their ruthless passion, their lechery and their cruel egotism This change in attitude towards the characters of Restcs‘ation comedy also typifies the comedies written at the tum of the century and indicates a change in moral sensibilities. Gellentry, which was the chief preoccupation of the Restoration hero, is new unequivocally condemned as vice. Vizard, in Parquhar's _'1:h_re Constant Couple (1699), complains that "We are all 65 so refcrm'd, that Gallantry is taken for Vice" (96), and in the same play Angelica carefully distinguishes between gallantry and love (120). Another of Farquhar's rakes, Roebuck in Love and a Bottle (1699), suprisingly complains that "I begin to think Whoring Scandalous, 'tis gown so Mechanical" (55). For John Palmer, writing in The Comggy of Manners, Roebuck is the "Restoration gentleman at point of being redeemed to a reluctant and uncertain belief in the virtues of monogany" (258). And now, referring Specifically to the plays of Vanbrugh, Palmer states that: Promiscuous gallantry is no longer a matter of course - the proviso of a well-regulated career. In the plays of Vanbrugh it is a yielding to temptaticn. Adultery is no longer treated in the dry light of comedy. It is passionate; it takes to itself fine names. It is a comedy of heaving bosoms, and seductive phrase. Vanbrugh, in fact, Idlled the comedy of sex for the English theatre .... the comic treatment of adultery was doomed from the moment when in The Relays, Berinthia was home off by loveless, faintly protesting, in a bed-chamber scene which persists to this day as the scene ‘a fairs of English comedy. (221+) Similarly, Maskwell's career is no longer viewed as one of carefree libertinism and epicureanism, but one of great callousness. Through Maskwall's double-dealing, the egotism, libertinism and cynicism of the rake are exposed to reveal their terrible power to destroy and corrupt. fibers is very little in Haskwell of the verbal wit, charm ani vivacity of Etherege's Dorimant or of Congreve's own Bellmour. Only on one occasion with 66 Mellefmt does he partake in anything resembling raillery, and then it is used to deceive Mellefcnt (156). All his intellectual ingenuity is channeled into outwitting friend and fee alike, his high spirits are affected to dupe Mellefont, and his vivacity is a devilish delight in causing anguish and agony among his companions. liaskwell's philosophy is expressed in his soliloquy which concludes the second act (150): “who searches strictly his own mind,/May so much Fraud and Power of Basness find." 30 prevalent is this belief and so familiar is he with his own nature that "he walks unstartled from the Mirrour, and straight forgets the hideous form“ (136). The only way to succeed in the world is to meet mankind on its own terms, with cunning and hypocrisy, for "dissimulation is the only Art, not to be known from Nature" (150). His success comes from the fact that his face, words and accents are the same whether he lies or speaks the truth. Honesty is seen by him as an enery because it betrays the person who has it. 'mose who have it, he argues, are gudgeons to be exploited so that he may thrive. All those virtues upon which an orderly society is based - duty, piety, gratitude, and fidelity - mat be dispensed with, particularly in the game of love, for love is like death, the universal leveller of mankind, it "sets Mm right upon their first Fomdations" (150). And so he is able to destroy in one minute "What, to Rebuild, will a whole Age 67 Employ" (138). The world which he in fact represents, closely resembles that visualized by Hobbes in Book III of the leviathan, a world in which men " are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man" (113). HaSkwell's awareness of his own baseness facilitates his understanding of lady Touchwood's character and his manipulation of honest peeple like Mellefont and Lord Touchwood, both of whom are turned into unwitting victims of his selfish desires. All of this is accomplished by his ability to confuse truth with falsehood so that the victims believe he is lying when he is speaking the truth and vice versa. Only too well aware that his mistress Lady Touchwood is using him to satisfy her own thirst for revenge and love, he gains the upperhand by making her the unwitting accomplice in his plans to marry Cynthia, for Lady Touchwood is only party to the first half of his plot to discredit and disinherit Mellefont. Whenever Lady Touchwood begins to doubt his motives and goals, he has no difficulty in appeasing her by referring her to their amtual interest in Mellefont's ruin. But having lost his appetite for her, men pleasure has become a duty, he does not hesitate to cheat her in order to further his own plans. Maskwell so fully comprehends her that when he is confronted with her accusation and anger over his affected "Ardor and Ecstasy,“ he knows full well that the dagger she threatens him with will not be used. To the end of the play, he is able to convince her of his undying 68 love and devotion. In his relationships with Mellefont and Lord Touchwood, Maskwell pretends to sacrifice himself and his own reputation in the name of friendship and loyalty. He takes advantage of the honest Mellefont by frankly revealing to his unsuspecting victim the plot he is contriving with Lady Touchwood, believing that there is: No mask like open Truth to cover Lies, As to go naked is the best disguise. (190) Consequently, when he reveals to hellefont his plans to discredit him and to marry Cynthia, he is speaking the truth, but Mellefont is made to believe that this is only part of Maskwell's plan to gain Lady Touchwood's confidence. In turn, Maskwell also works upon Lord Touchwood's doubts and anger at Mellefont's alleged gallantry to his wife; and so he, too, becomes an easy tool for Iviaskwell to manipulate. In a series of contrived soliloquies, Naskwell makes sure that Lord Touchwood believes that he dislikes betraying Mellefont's "treachery" and overhears his desire to marry Cynthia. his wish is finally granted by the disappointed but grateful uncle and is received by Maskwell with the requisite amount of false humility and ingratiation. Lady Touchwood has the same cunning as Maskwell, although she distinguishes it from his calculated villainy: 69 0 I have Excuses, Thousands for my Faults; Fire in my Temper, Passions in my Soul, apt to every provocation; Oppressed at once with Love, and with Deepair. But a sedate, a thinking Villain, whose Black Blood runs temperately bad, what excuse can clear? one, who is no more moved with the reflection of his Crimes, than of his Face; but walks unstartled from.the Mirrour, and streight forgets the hideous form. (156-36) But her own moral depravity is well exemplified in the Iago- like method she employs to fill.her husband's mind with doubts and suSpicions of Mellefont. Her quick wit is seen when Mellefont, unaware that the scene is planned to give the "Ocular Proof" to Lord Touchwood, discovers her alone with Maskwell. As soon asshe realizes that her husband is present, she quickly moves from.the role of the penitent, which she has been playing to deceive Mellefont, to that of the wronged and innocent victim of his incestuous passion. By this means she extricates herself from.a highly‘lnexpected and dangerous situation. It is, in fact, Lady Touchwood's "damn'd penetrating head" which momentarily unnerves Maskwell, for she quickly detects his changed attitude towards her, and she realizes that his ready answers to her justified accusations show only too well that he is prepared for them. But blinded by her passion fer revenge, she succumbs to his protestations of love. Just as Maskwell's wickedness has no specific motivation other than inborn baseness, so Lady Touchwood's 7O villaitv springs from a morally unjustifiable desire to ruin Mellefont. She has not even the excuse of the rejected mistress in Restoration comedy, such as Mrs. Loveit in _‘I'h_e Man of Mode or Silvia in .T_he gig Bachelor, that she has been used and then discarded by her lover, because Mellefont has rebuffed her addresses. When Mellefont attempts to reason with her, pleading "Honour and nearness of Blood," she can only resort to violence and curses (130). her feelings for him, in addition to being incestuous, do not arise from anything that may be termed love. Confiding in l-Iaskwell, she reveals the nature of her passion: "Yet 1137 Soul knows I hate him too: Let him but once be mine, and next immediate Ruin seize him" (137). It is to this end that she allows Maskwell to become her lover, and he is quick to point out to her that she only does so to accomplish her own plan: "Your Zeal I grant was Ardent, but miSplac'd; there was Revenge in view; that l’Jomans ldol had defil'd the Temple of the God, and Love was made a I~iock-l'lorship" (137). Driten by their egotism, both Lady Touchwood and Maskwell use each other and others to satisfy their own desires until they over-reach themselves and are exposed. Using the traits of the rake and rejected mistress of Restoration comedy as the bases for the characterization of Isskwell and lady Touchwood, Congreve turns them into the villains of the piece and uses them to portray the vicious 71 impulses which inhabit the mind and heart of man. Diametrically Opposed to them are the passive goodness and virtue of Mellefont and Cynthiannose thematic function is not to illustrate so such the active principle of goodness as to evoke pity for dinstressed virtue and to sharpen the moral focus. As such, they relate to the men and women of sense which were to become so prevalent in eighteenth—century comedy. It has already been shown in connection with Maskwell's character that the change in taste produced a different attitude towards gallantry and to the figure of the Restoration rake. At the turn of the century, there is also discernible a less cynical and more benevolent concept of human nature. “Due reformation of those husbands mentioned in earlier paragraphs indicates the increasing tendency to move away from the character of the libidinous and incorrigible young gallant of Restoration comedy. The Elder Worthy in m Last Shift is honorably in love with Hilaria, as is Lord Morelove with Lady Betty in The Careless Husband. In 2113 mwked Wife, Heartfree declares that "to be capable of loving one" is doubtless better than possessing a thousand (176). Worthy, in Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer, remains loyal to Melinda, and the hero Captain Plume states that "I am not that Rake that the World imagines; I have got an Air of Freedom, which PeOple mistake for Lewdness in me, as they mistake Formality in others for Religion" (82). 72 An important contributing factor to the new attitude towards women was the change in the tastes of the female members of the audience. In "Shadwell, the ladies, and the Change in Comedy" (191.8), J. H. Smith states that the period between 1660 and 1675 offered no evidence that the ladies found fault with the offerings of the comic writers (27), but by the late 80's, the dramatists became aware that their plays should avoid much of the bawdy characteristic of Restoration comedy in order to please the ladies. In the Prologue to 2133 Banditti (1686), Thomas D'Urfey assures them that he has avoided lewdness and smuttiness, and in the Prologue to £13 She-Gallang (1696), George Granville feels that he has to apologise it. them for the play's briskness. The Dedication to ‘Ihe Double Dealer also indicates Congreve's attempts to avoid uSmuttiness and Bandy“ and his awareness that he has offended some of the ladies (121). In the Dedication to gheQCareless‘ Husband, Cibber says that the play was written to provide fit entertainment for the ladies (3-4). As a result of this influence, eighteenth-century comedy manifests a new attitude towards women, for it places less stress on their frailty and greater emphasis upon their virtue. In The Provoked 13y}, Constant affirms that "Women are not naturally lewd" (175), and the "new" females confirm this belief. Belinda in the same play is admired by Heartfree not for her cynicism and wit but for her humility (162). he new heroine does not always possess that esprit of her predecessors, for she is more consciously moral, 73 more aware of her right to admonish others, as is Angelica in Farquhar's The Constant Couple when she reprimands Sir Harry Wildair (120) and Alderman Smuggler (151). Both trends culminate in Steele's The Conscious ‘ngggg‘where the young couple represent "good manners, good sense, and common honesty." Both Bevil Junior and Indiana display a sensibility which lacks both humor and gaiety as they sententiously give vent to their feelings about friendship (301), the difference between love and esteem (306), the pleasure of giving and doing good deeds (310), and conscious honor and innocence (312). Bevil, as Indiana points out, makes virtue fashionable (30A), and he is so self—conscious of his honor that he feels that he is not very good at even "honest dissimulation" (288). Steele's sentimental.morality continues up to the comedies of Goldsmith and Sheridan. Despite the fact that these influences are now relegated to the subplots in The Good.Natur'd Man (1768) and The Rivals (1775), their presence indicates the tenacious hold that these values had on both the dramatists and the audience in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Although Mellefont and Cynthia are not as vapid as Steele's young couple, they nevertheless possess a moral sensibility which relates them to eighteenth-century comedy. In many respects, Mellefont is the antithesis of the Restoration rake. So different is he from earlier heroes that the audience took.him.to be a gull.and a fool. In defending the character 74 against the audience Congreve, in the play's Dedication, states that Mellefont is an "Open-hearted Honest Man" (120). He has, in fact, none of the ingenuity and immorality of the Restoration gallant. He lacks the artfulness and resourcefulness of Bellmour in The Old Bachelor. and his attempts to combat the wiles of lady Touchwood meet with disaster. He is successful in outwitting Lady Plyant only with the help of Careless. His ability to discern the follies of his acquaintances extends to those which are overt, such as Lord Froth's perverse and non- sensical attitude towards laughter and wit (133). Confronted with the more subtle treachery of Maskwell, he is both an innocent and naive individual. In his scene with Lady Plyant, dumbfounded virtue is faced with hypocrisy, and although he sees through her affectation he is powerless to act (1116-48). Neither has he sufficient wit to extricate himself from the compromising situation with Lady Touchwood. He is left speechless and frustrated by her superior ingenuity and has to be content with being dismissed as a madman (186-87). Although Bellmour in :12 Old Bachelor is not dealing with a Maskwell or a Lady Touchwood when he fools Fondlewife, one feels that he would have little trouble in slipping out of the trap set for Hellefont by Lady Touchwood. But Mellefont is basically an honest man who is out of his depth in such intrigues, an individual who is more inclined to see only the good qualities in people. He sees Brisk as a "good natur'd Coxcomb" (129) and Sir Paul Plyant as "an old fond Husband" (130). 75 It is his essentially good nature and his inability to affect partness or fermality which attract“ Cynthia to him. (139). Cynthia's own goodness is seen most evidently in her defence of Mellefont against Lady Froth's accusations that he lacks the "Belle-air or Brilliant of Mr. Brisk" (139), in her sincere devotion to Mellefont, and in her refusal to believe the false charges made against him. In this reapect she is more perceptive than Mellefont. Her moral sensibility enables her to see through those vho, because of their quality and education, deceive the world. If the world does not approve, she argues, they find satisfaction in and amongst themselves. The tone of regret detected in the conclusion of her soliloquy reveals her reluctant acceptance of the world she knows: If Happiness in Self-content is plac'd, The Wise are wretched, and Fools only Bless'd. (167) She regrets too her father's uxoriousness and stupidity (172), and cmdems those, like the Froths and Brisk, who “render other peeple contemptible in exposing their Infirmities" (165). In these frequest asides, there is not found that smugness discerned in the Speeches of Indiana because Cynthia's remarks originate from.a feeling of’disappointment and sorrow rather than from a sense of moral superiority. But they do point to a more benevolent and a less cynical attitude towards human nature. As J. H. Smith remarks in gle— Gay Couple, with reference to her soliloquy at the end of'the third act, Cynthia is brought perilously close to the "woman of sense" type (151). 76 With the exception of the relationship between Rhod0phil and Doralice in Dryden's Marriage ‘8. la Mode, there is in Restoration comedy little effort elqlended on seriously discussing the problems of post-marital life. The hostility of the males towards marriage expresses itself in their ridiculing the social convention and in their viewing it as an obstacle to their freedom. As a result of the double- standard, the antrimatrimonialism of the heroines, as Jean Gagen states in The New Woman: Her Emergence in English Drama4 1660-1120 (195).), is "sinmly an expedient pose - a necessary weapon to be used to capture males who glory too rmlch in their own elusiveness" (11.5). But whether these attitudes are genuine or affected, the result is that the main emphasis is placed upon the battle of the sexes during courtship. Tired of the pre- marital love-chase by the end of the seventeenth century, the dramatists turned to concentrate more on the relationship between husband and wife, particularly the situation which deals with the errant husband returning to the straight and. narrow path through the patience and virtue of his long-suffering wife. The debauched Loveless is reformed by the strict virtue of Amanda in l_._o_v_e_f_s_ Last Shift, Sir Charles Easy is reclaimed through the kindness and understanding of Lady Easy in The Careless Husband. and Lord Wronglove through the tenderness of his wife in 111:6 M's LEE}. Stake. The relationship between Mellefont and Cynthia is one 77 which also differentiates them from the gay couple of Restoration comedy. Because they are already bethrothed, persuasion is not his aim and neither is evasiveness hers. Consequently, the customary battle of wits between the gay couple is noticeably absent. Except for two very brief scenes where they discuss their impending marriage and the apparent hopelessness of their situation, they rarely come together. But as their comments relate exclusively to marriage rather than to courtship and as their attitude towards marriage is based on mutual reapect and love, they relate more readily to eighteenth- century comedy than to Restoration comedy. Implicit in Mellefont's comments on marriage is the belief that its success or failure depends upon the individuals themselves.. Marriage only makes peOple foolish "than Two Fools meet, and their follyes are Oppos'd" (11.2), but he never ridicules or questions the institution itself. Consequently, there is no trace in Mellefont of the cynicism which leads Wildblood, in A_n_ Evgl_i__ng's Love, to warn Jacinta that "if we were once married: those [premarital] gayeties are all nipt, and frost—bitten in the Marriage-bed" (263). And because Mellefont believes that success in marriage, as in the game of bowls, "depends entirely upon Judgment" (143), he elqleriences none of Bellmour's fears that he is committing himself to anything resembling a "lasting Durance" (112). What also distinguishes him from his predecessors is the cmviction that postmarital life is not one of continuing struggle. For him, it is ”a Friendly Tryal of Skill," after which the winnings 78 are shared, ani so he does not share Vainlove's apprehension, and he has no desire to postpone his marriage, for he is quite prepared to elepe with Cynthia (168). The song he has sung for her echoes his sentiments as it tells of another Cynthia who loses everything by not making the most of her chances (M3). The song follows the pOpular “carpe diem" argument, but because of its context in the play, arising from their discussion on marriage, it relates less to the customary semal pleasures of premarital love and more to marriage itself. Cynthia's remarks on marriage are initially tinged with a pessimism vhich, however, Springs not from a basically cynical or frivolous attitude towards life, but from a reflectiveness which is all too sensitive to the folly and villainy which surround her. It is directly after the scene in which the pert coxcomb, Brisk, spuriously flatters the self-centered Froths that Cynthia first reveals her doubts about marriage. She affirms that even a marriage between wits can render them as ridiculous as it does fools (11.2), and it is in this disenchanted frame of mine that she requests Mellefont, as Araminta asks Vainlove, to postpone their marriage. Success depends on accident, as in a game of cards, she states, when one must be the loser. In her second scene with Mellefont, her apprehension is seen to originate from the over- powerful sense that goodness is powerless in a world characterized by villainy; and her distress that Lady Touchwood's power will prevail leads her to dedare that “it will never be a Match" (167). 79 Even the fact that they agree so well appears to be an ominous sign to her. Using a familiar conceit, she describes their situation as one which resembles parallel lines that never neet, ani so she tells Mellefont that "we Hunt in Couple where we both pursue the same Game, but forget one another; and 'tis because we are so near that we don't think of coming together" (168). But it is her sensitivity vhich also leads to the realization that it is the love relationship between them which is the determining factor in their marital fortunes. She suddenly becomes aware that there is no obstacle between them but their own fears, that they have "looked through the wrong end of the Perspective all this mile" (168). And she finally comes over to Mellefont's belief that they should forget such matters as "Portion, Settlements and J oyntures" and that they marry fcr love. DeSpite Cynthia's initial doubt, her comments never approach Iydia's view in Love in a Wood, that marriage is an "insupportable bondage" (123), and her desire to delay their marriage is never an expedient pose used to trap Mellefont. Cynthia's seriousness and hesitation, therefore, are motivated by a moral awareness that allows her to question and then to accept marriage as a satisfactory conclusion to their courtship. The conclusion of The Double Dealer also points to a less cynical attitude towards marriage. In Restoration comedy, 80 marriage is used as an arbitrary means to bring the play to a comic resolution, while the characters themselves view it with alarm, apprehension or indifference. In eighteenth- century comedy, marriage is viewed in more positive terms and is seen as a blessing rather than as an "insupportable bondage" or a "lasting Durance." In The Provoked Wife, Constant believes that marriage can be "the only Heavm on Earth" (176), and Mrs. Sullen in l’he Beaux Stratagem affirms that wedlock is "ordain'd by Heaven's Decree" (159). Lady Easy in MCareless Husband presents the extreme view when she states that while "a deserving husband is certainly our best happiness ," marriage to even the worst husband has its advantages (90). In The Double Dealer, this more emotional and sentimental attitude is also found. As soon as Maskwell and Lady Touchwood have been exposed and suitably threatened with punishment, Lord Touchwood rewards the young couple's "Virtue and wrong'd Innocence" by bestowing upon them his blessings: "Unwearied Nights, and wishing Days attend you both; mutual Love, lasting Health, and Circling Joys, tread round each happy Year of your long lives" (203). With marriage seen in terms of a reward for goodness, the more positive attitude towards marriage which is characteristic of eighteenth-century comedy is immediately recognized. This investigation of the structural and thematic elements and the characterization of the main plot in ‘Ihe Double W leads to the inescapable conclusion that the play bears 81 a marked resemblance to eighteenth-century comedy in both concept and effect. Its calculated plot and overtly didactic purpose, its simplified view of life eXpressed through the conflict between moral absolutes, its greater emphasis upon virtue and subsequent rewards, and its reversal of many Restoration dormes, particularly those involving the rake and marriage, all differentiate the play from the Restoration comic tradition. Similar to the practice of eighteenth-century dramatists, Congreve divides the serious and the comic material. This division is felt by the distinction made between the characters who move on the two different levels of action. It has been seen that the main plot involves the conflict between couples who exemplify the two extremes of the moral scale. The subplot includes the familiar characters of Restoration comedy whose follies and actions afford a humorous counterpoint to those which take place in the main plot. All of these characters are based on stereotypes from.Restoration comedy, but several of them also reveal a more indulgent attitude than is found in those of Congreve's predecessors. Sir Paul and Lady t’lyant illustrate that unnatural relationship between husband and wife in which the normal roles are reversed, that of the uxorious husband and the belligerent wife. In Etherege's Q; Would If She Could, Sir Oliver Cockwood is forced to wear his "Penitential Suit" following his evening's carousal in the town and to submit to being locked at home by ' 82 his wife as an added part of his punishment. Their incompatibility also extends to their sexual life, for Lady Cockwood complains that while her husband may play "the Spark abroad" he is "an abominable hypocrite at home" (100). Although Sir Paul is more tractable than Sir Oliver and Lady Plyant more inclined towards affectation than Lady Cockwood, the Plyant's marriage follows a similar pattern. Sir Paul is made to allow his wife to manage his finances, to Open his correspondence, and he undergoes her reprimands in private and in public. When he attempts to assert his own independence and authority, she is amazed at what she considers his "impertinence" (163). He erroneously believes that his wife's attitude towards sex stems from an austere idealism, and so he surrenders to her merest whim. Careless and Mellefont relate the indignities and humiliation that he has to experience in order to satisfy his wife: Careless. ... he has lain for whole nights together upon the Stairs, before her Chamber-door; and ... the first Favour he receiv'd from her, was a piece of an old Scarlet Petticoat for a Stomacher; which, since the day of his Marriage, he has, out of a piece of Gallantry, converted into a Night-Cap, and wears it still with much Solemnity on his anniversary Wedding-night. Mellefont. That I have seen, with the Ceremony thereunto belonging - for on that night he creeps in at the Bed's Feet like a. gull'd Bassa that has married a Relation of the Grand Sifl’or's, and that night he has his arms at liberty. Did she not tell you at what distance 83 she keeps him. He has confess'd to me that but at some certain times, that is I suppose when she apprehends being with Cild, he never has the privilege of using the familiarity of a Husband with his hife. He was once given to scrambling with his hands and Sprawling in his Sleep; and ever since she has him swaddled up in Blankets, and his hands and feet swath'd down, and so put to bed; ani there he lies with a great Beard, like a Russian Bear upon a drift of Snow. (157-58) Sir Paul is torn between the desire to reapect his wife's wishes and the need to father an heir. Unable to make any headm with his "impenetrable Wife" (11.5), for he is allowed no more familiarity with her person than with his own mother (162), he is forced to ask Careless to plead his case to her. But the reaponse to him is made more complex because any inherent sympathy which his relationship with his wife may evoke is tempered by his grossness and selfishness. Cynthia's sensibility is offended when he directs at her his unseemly remarks about her becoming the mother of the heir which he cannot sire (173-715). And he is so intent on marrying Cynthia off for this purpose that Lord Touchwood foresees no difficulty in persuading him to ages to substitute Maskwell for Nellefont (189). But gmerally, Congreve's attitude is more tolerant to Sir Paul than is Etherege's contemptuous one to Sir Oliver. And similar to the treatment accorded to Fondlewife in The Old Bachelor, the main force of the satire is directed away from the husband to his wife, in this case to the intolerable and intolerant lady Plyant . 84 lady Plyant's indifference and insolence to her husband lead her to refuse Sir Paul his conjugal rights. She vowed whal she married to die a maid (171:), but her "nicety" does not extend beyond her husband, for she is an easy prey fcr any would-be lover. In this reapect she may be identified with the vain and hypocritical superannuated coquettes of Restoration comedy vho believe that they are irresistible to the young men of the beau monie. Lady Cockwood believes that the young Courtall and Freeman take her interest in them seriously, and lady Flippant in Uycherley's Love in a Wood pretends an aversion to marriage which belies her interest in the Opposite sex. All three also become objects of ridicule for the heroes. Unlike her predecessors, however, Lack Plyant is, as Mellefont observes, actually handsome and knows it (130); but while her fastidiousness fools her husband, her affectation is discerned by others. Mellefont knows that she is very silly although she thinks she has sense (130), and Lord Touchwood states that: I know my Lady Plyant has a large Eye, and woi'd centre every thing in her own Circle ; 'tis not the first time she has mistaken Respect for Love, and made Sir Paul jealous of the Civility of an undesigning person, the better to beepeak his security in her unfeigned Pleasures. (151) In the brilliantly comic scenes with Mellefont, Lady Plyant betrays her latent passion and hypocrisy, which she attempts to conceal. behind a. mask of decorum as she plays the 85 role of the honorable wife. In a mmner and method which belies her concern for honor, virtue and religion, she discreetly offers herself to the dumbfomxied liellefont. But her attention is then quickly diverted to Careless who now plays the role of the whining lover to her pre’cieuse mistress. To satisfy her conceit, she is willing to sacrifice her step-dauglter's happiness and future and to cuckold her husband. As deceitful as she is conceited, she accuses her husband of disloyalty and Imwarrarrted suspicion when he mistakenly reads a love-letter sent to her by Careless. She is thus able to turn to her own advantage an affair that might have been ruinous to her authoritarian hold over her husband (179—81). In many reapects, Lady Plyant is a "ligater" version of Lady Touchwood. Both are driven by a desire that will, if necessary, dispense with all moral and marital principles. But while the extravagant manner of lady Touchwood is part of her nature, to Lacb‘ Plyant it is the means by which she may artfully imply her looseness without overstepping the bounis of decorum. The Froths bring together many characteristics of the f0p and the learned lady vho had become by the 1690's well-established character types. Lord Froth exanpliiies most of the grotesqueries associated with fOppery. His affected solannity closely resembles the rigid fcm'mality of Lord Plausible in Wycherley's The Plain Dealer, and he becomes as foolish as that "strached fop" (231) Don Diego in The Gentleman DancingMaster. Similar also to Lord Plausible, who is attacked by Manly for his "decorums, supercilious forms, and slavish ceremonies" (375), Lord Froth is slave to rather than master of his ideas of gerrtility. His perverse attitude towards laughter stems from a false sense of "la belle air." He believes that "there is nothing more unbecoming a Man of Quality, than to Laugh ... 'tis such a Vulgar Expressim of the Passion!" (132). He visits the theater only to distinguish himself from the "Comonalty, and mcrtify the Poets" who grow "so Conceited when any of their foolish Wit prevails upon the side Boxes" (133). Foolish vanity is another significant characteristic of the fOp. In The Country Wife, Dorilarrt says of Sparkish that his opinion of himself is so good that "he can no more think the men laugh at him than that women jilt him" (256). Just as Sir Fopling Flutter, that "Pattern of modern FOppery" (200) , does not like to be seen with "the rabble of the Town" (21.0), so Lord Froth disdains to be "pleased with what pleases the Croud!" "When I laugh, I abmys Lang: alone," he states, for "I laugh at no bodies Jest but my own, or a Lady's" (132). Lord Froth '8 high opinion of himself is encouraged by his wife, who believes him to be the epitome of the truewit. To her, he is a. fine gentleman, a man of qualit;r who has "nothing at all of the Common Air" (139). She proudly declares of him to Cynthia that "I may say he wants nothing, but a Blue Ribbon 8.111 a Star, to make him Shine, the very Phosphorous of our Hemisphere" (139). He kisses, for her sake, his om reflection in the pocket glass which he so assiduously carries about with him, and his wife describes this absurd gesture as "Gallantry to the last degree" (lAO). When she is faced with the sincerity of Mellefont, she only sees the mediocrity of a man who lacks "some distinguishing Quality, as for example, the Belle-air or Brilliant of Mr. Brisk; the Solannity, yet Complaisance of my Lord, or something of his own, that should look a little Je-ne-scay-qugmh; he is too much a Mediocrity in my mind" (139). Lady Froth's own fOppishness and bad taste are accentuated by her pretense to learning and, because of it, she may be identified with the learned lady of Restoration comecw. In Aphra Behn's §_ir Patient Fancy (1678), there is Iady Knowell, a caricature of the type, who knows her Greek, Latin and Italian ani tho cannot erdure the "divine Homer" in translation (14), and in Thomas Wright's The Female Vertg_9_s_9_[_s_ (1693), there are Lady Meanwell, Mrs. Lovewit and Catchat - all of whom are interested in psuedo-science. It is by virtue of her"learning" that she assunes superiority over the modest and sensible Cynthia. She composes "Songs, Elegies, Satyrs, Encomiums, 88 Panegyricks, Lanpoons, Plays, or Heroick Poems" (138), and so fails to understand how Cynthia can be in love and not write (139). Her own compositions fbllow rigidly and blindly the rules of literary decorum gained, no doubt, from her reading of such fashionable critics as Bossu, Rapin and "Dacier upon Aristotle and Horace" (142). The result of such knowledge, however, is an offensive and puerile Heroic Poem (163-64) Which refers to her coachman as a Charioteer ard to her dairymaid as Thetis. lord Froth is as proud of his wife's literary talmts as she is of his foolish little gallantries. Excessively fond of each other, they are capable of judging themselves and others only in terms of their om false standards and bad taste. It is Cynthia who accurately sums up their relationship when she states to them that she thinks that they are "the happiest Couple in the World, for you are not only happy in one another, and when you are together, but happy in yourselves, and by your selves" (1141). But once again Congreve brings to the Restoration stereotypes a warmth which is not found in their predecessors. This is seen particularly in the Froth's domestic rather than in their public roles. Their affection for each other is genuine, and both are proud of their child Sapho, to the extent that Lady Froth is "accused" of Spoiling the child and sending for it as many as men times a day so that she may see the child and exhibit it to others (166). This surprising parental dimension in 89 their relationship helps to mitigate their follies. They offer a contrast to the baser follies and vices demonstrated in the main plot and, in their narrow but happy marriage and their pride for their child, they may be distinguished from their Restoration counterparts. The Froths' pretence to wit closely relates them to the witwoud Brisk, whom they admire very much. Brisk shares with Sparkish in The Countg Wife the belief that he is extremely witty, and with Dapperwit in Love in a Wood and with Majcr Oldfox in 2.th Plain Deal-£1; a pride in possessing literary talalts. After making what he considers to be a pleasant turn, he smugly ccmments: "that's pretty and Metaphorical enough" (128), and his suggestims to lady Froth for improving her poem ally result in turning a bad piece of verse into a worse one (163-61.). His erroneous concept of wit leads him to confuse it with malice (133), and so he commits the same mistake that Manly sees Novel and Oldfox as doing (1.93). Lastly, there are Careless and Lord Touchwood, vhose actions are motivated by a ccncern for fidelity and honor. Careless possesses the true wit that goes with the hero and his close friends, such as Dorimant's Medley in The Man of Mode and Homer's Dorilant in The Countg hire. But unlike his predecessors, Careless' "libertinism" is now one which is affected in order to serve Mellefont's honorable cause with 90 Cynthia and whose role as the whining lover, adapted to fool Lady Plyant, reveals her affectation and shallowness. ‘Ihe innate common sense, honesty and sense of justice of lord Touchwood also distinguish him from the usual figure of the cuckold such as Sir J aSper Fidgett in The Country Wife and Fondlewife in 31: Old Bachelor. Lord Touchwood's fairness to Mellefont is exemplified when he first refuses to believe Iady Plyant's accusations against Mellefont, realizing as he does that Mellefont has "better Principles" ard that she has a "large Eye" which mistakes "Respect for Love" (50-51). Even when his own wife insists that Mellefont has been disloyal, he demands "Ocular Proof" before taking action aginst him. His initial disappointment and anger over what he considers to be I-iellefont's deceit, gives way to a strict sense of right and wrong as he ezqaoses the villainy of his wife as readily as he sues for Mellefont's forgiveness. And the blessing which he bestows upon the young couple at the end of the play confirms his basically mcral nature. The moral distinction between the generations also points to mother aspect of the play which deviates from “esta-ation practice. The conflict betwem the old and the young is, of course, as old as comedy itself. Aristotle states in the Rhetoric that the characteristics of old men are, for the most part, Opposite to those of the young (13].). But as Elisabeth Migion points out in Crabbed Age and Youth, it is 91 the concentration of this conflict and the universal lack of reverence shown to the old which distinguish Restoration comedy from earlier comedy (it-5). rlhe parents and the superannuated rakes and coquettes in Restoration comedy are inevitably as immoral as their younger counterparts whom they attack. But occasionally, older characters are introduced who exemplify a pre-Restoration world of moral values antithetical to the lax code advocated by the young peeple of the beau monde. when, in The Man of Node, Dorimant assumes the role of "Mr. Courtage" to fool the elderly Lady Woodvil, it is his professed admiration for the "Forms and Civility of the last Age" which appeals to her (193). Congreve reverses the situation so that it is the offspring who exemplify a more moral attittde towards life. In The Double Dealer, the distinction between the two age groups is clear in the contrast which is established between the sensible young couple who represent a world which will gradually overshadow and finally eclipse the Restoration world inhabited by their foolish elders. And one may, without taking the analogy too far, perceive that the younger Froths are less immoral than the older Plyants. There is also the feeling that Congreve's attitude towards the older member, Lord Touchwood, anticipates the dignity which is going to be found later in eighteenth—century comedy. Cibber's Sir Friendly Moral, in 333 Q's Last Stake, as his name implies, represents the fundamental goodness and understanding of human nature. By the time Egg a a.» d: It (in: It 92 Conscious Lovers was written, the relationship between the two generations, between Sir John Bevil and Bevil Junior, is once again based on paternal and filial respect, such as Cynthia always shows to her parents. It may be concluded, then, that The Double Dealer offers a marked contrast with Restoration comedy and with Md Bachelor, and bears a close resemblance to eighteenth- century comedy in concept and effect. Any faults which the play may have are those which do not arise from the blending of the comic and tragic genres, but are those which mar much of eighteenth-century comedy and which originate from the dramatists' allowing all aspects of the play to be governed by the didactic purpose and by the principles of poetic justice. It is only in the subplots that the Restoration spirit is maintained, but subordinated as these are to the serious conflict and ideas expressed in the main plot, the play fails to cohere into an aesthetic unity. As a second play, it offers an interesting example of what Congreve does with the Restoration mode, and it points to a further deveIOpment, not necessarily for the better, in Congreve's career as a dramatist. After what may be considered as an eicperiment in The Double Dealer and no doubt influenced by the hostility extended towards it, Congreve reverts back to the Restoration tradition in Love for Love while retaining the mal and sentinental aspects which cane to characterize eighteenth-century comedy. The third comedy, therefcre, represents a definite step forward towards a fine and precarious balance between the old and the new. LOVE m LOVE while Congreve's first two plays exemplify reapectively the spirit of Restoration and eighteenth- century comedy, Love for Love (1695) demonstrates a fusion of the two modes. It has already been stated that the success of The Old Bachelgg_may be partly explained in terms of its adherence to the familiar themes and conventions of Restoration comedy and the hostility extended to The Double @3131; in terms of its deviation from the earlier tradition. Congreve's defence of the second play indicates the audience's aversion to the strong satirical force of the moralist-dramatist who exposes "Women Vicious and Affected" and to the witless but exemplary hero who, vastly unlike the typical.ReStoration buck, was considered by them to be a gull and.a fool. Despite Congreve's attempt to justify a neW'hero, there is no doubt that Love for Love attempts to cater to the audience, reverting back as it does to the more traditional elements of The Old Bachelor, while keeping the moral and sentimental elements of The Double Dealer. The result is a fusion not only of the two comic modes but also of the first two plays. The last section of the play's Prologue evidences such a synthesis, for it acknowledges the necessity for humor, 94 95 variety in plot and the satirical force of h‘ycherley. But now there is to be a tempering of tone so that the play will cmtain no ill-manners and will affront no one : We hope there's something that may please each Taste, And tho' of Homely Fare we make the Feast, Yet you will find variety at least . “mere' 3 Humour, which for Cheerful Friends we got, And for the thinking Party there' 3 8. 'Plot. We've something too, to gratify ill l"ature, (If there be any here) and that is Satire. 'Jho' Satire scarce dares grin, 'tis grow so mild; 0r only shows its Teeth, as if it smil'd. 0.. Since the Plain—Dealers Scenes of Manly Rage, Not me has dar'd to lash this Crying Age. Ibis time, the Poet owns the bold Essay, Yet hOpe there's no ill-manners in his Play: And he declares by me, he has design'd Affront to none, but frankly speaks his mind. (213-110 The last couplet indicates a more relaxed dramatist, indepmdent of formula plays, who is gradually finding a suitable mode through which he may express his ideas. The result is that Congreve both ridicules and reforms, delights and teaches . Therefore, Love for Love, marks a significant deveIOpment in the career of Congreve the dramatist. ills preceding two chapters have shown that the earlier demand for plot variety and diversion and that the increasing tendency to move towards a clearer design and moral purpose characterize respectively the first two comedies and the two comic modes. The structure of Love for Love now avoids the discursiveness of Restoration comedy and the sharp division between the serious main plot and the comic subplots of H- 1': 96 of eigmteenth-century cmdy. In The Old Bachelor, the moral focus is frequently obscurebecause the sensible couple is subordinated to a larger pattern, but it is now intensified because Valentine and Angelica are situated in the main plot and dominate the action of the play. As they are themselves a blend of the gay and the serious couple, the distinction between them and their Opponents is not so contrived as it is in The Double Dealer, where the virtuous pair is part of a rigorous design controlled by the conflict between moral absolutes. Such familiar Restoration figures as the hypocritical womm , the foolish elders, the hoyden, the plain-dealing sailor, and the vitwoud, are relegated to the subplot, but because Valentine and Angelica still retain many Restoration traits the difference between the two levels of action, although evident, is not so sharp as it is in lhe Double Dealer. The result is a more overtly didactic comedy than The Old Bachelor, which avoids the moral absolutes of The Double Dealer. By allowing the attention to be divided equally between the develOpment of the serious courtship of the young lovers in the main plot and the variety of intrigues and follies in the subplots, Congreve is also able to cater to a changing audience which demanded both instructim and delight. Synopses of the various plots will indicate the fusion quite clearly. lhe main plot deals with the attanpts of Valentine to win the apparently reluctant Angelica, which is accomplished 97 ally after he acknowledges the wrongness of his mercenary attitude towards marriage. The action Opens with the impoverished Valentine, having spent his entire fortune in trying to tin the affection of Angelica, seeking solace in the works of the stoic philosophers. His father, Sir Sampson Legend, intends to disinherit him and to transfer the estate over to the younger brother, Ben, who has Just returned from sea. Valentine agrees to this preposition so that the four-thousand-pounds compensation will solve his immediate financial difficulties, ignoring for the moment the warning of his friend, Scandal, that there is very little likelihood that Angelica will accept him without his estate. But he is determined to try to win her and to reconcile hirself with his way father. The father, however, refuses to listen to the penitent son, and Valentine fares no better with Angelica who refuses to be pushed against her inclinations. At the suggestion of Scandal, Valentine feigns madness in an attempt to postpone his father's plans and to force a confession of love out of Angelica. The first plan succeeds, but Angelica suspecting a trick, is further alienated from him because she believes that he is mainly ccn cerned about gaining her with his fortune rather than without it - an attitude which offends her sensibility. Valentine, not knowing enctly that he has done wrong, is now left to his confusim while Angelica, taking the initiative into her own hands, fools Sir Sampson into believing that she will marry him rather than his son. Believing that all his lost, Valentine is now fully 98 prepared to sign away his inheritance. It is precisely this lack of interest in his estate for which she has been waiting. Tearing up the bond, she confesses that she has loved him all along and that her indifference to him and her plans to marry Sir Sampson have been a trial of his virtue and of his generous 7} and faithful passion. Before the play concludes, she reprimands ‘ Sir Sampson for his unnatural behavior, and with Valentine surrendering himself to her moral superiority and with Scandal t radically changing his attitude towards women, Angelica closes J with the moral that: The Miracle to Day is, that we find A Lover true: Not that a Woman's Kind. (311.) he sensibilities of the lovers, with their sincere attempts to reconcile their different attitudes, contrast sharply with the follies and grasping materialism demonstrated in the subplots. Furthermore, the changing relationship between Valmtine and Angelica and his precarious position as potential heir of the Legend estate, motivate the actions in the subplots. Consequently, the play's structural coherence and moral focus differentiate it iron the arbitrary plot relationships and moral ambiguity of B'est oration comecw. ‘Ihe subplots concern the search and confusion involved in finding prosperous marriage partners, and implicated in these are Mrs. Frail, Ben, Prue, and Tattle. Mrs. Frail, sister to the ’1 I...- 99 secmd wife of Angelica's uncle, is first interested in Valentine, but as soon as he loses favor with his father she engages the attention of the new heir, Ben. As long as Valentine remains "mad” however, there is little h0pe of Ben inheriting the legend fortune. With this in mind, she casts aside Ben and re-directs her attention to Valentine. She is fooled by Jermy into believing that she will be able to marry Valentine by taking Angelica's place in a clandestine ceremony which he is supposedly planning. At the same time, two other lines of action involving the Prue-Tattle and Ben-Mrs . Frail action develOp, which will result in Mrs. Frail's discovering that she has married not Valentine but the man she dislikes most - Tattle. The plan to marry Ben off to Prue is initially thwarted by the scheming of the sisters to pair Ben off with Mrs. Frail. As Prue is already interested in Tattle, it is not long before she and Ben quarrel, with the result that she and Tattle pair off temporarily as Mrs. Frail persuades Ben to marry her. But because of Valentine's "madness" the situation is drastically changed so that Ben is rejected. by Mrs. Frail and left alone to return to sea. Tattle then rejects Prue as Jereny now leads him to suppose that he will be able to substitute for Valentine tho, in the guise of a frair, is to marry Angelica, who is to be dressed as a nun. And so with Tattle and We. Frail in their respective disguises, they are married. Yet another liaison is established and broken off betwem Scandal and Mrs. Foresight. Scandal wants to help Valentine's 100 plan to be reconciled with his father. But first it is necessary for him to gain the confidence of Foresight. To accomplish this, he pretends to be a student of astrology and makes his addresses to Mrs. Foresight. In both he is successful, but after meeting Mrs. Foresight that evening, she dismisses him the following morning with great aplomb. With this tighter plot structure, the main theme is emphasized, and it also brings together the two comic modes. It deals with the conventional Restoration courtship between the young lovers and involves the customary battle of wits, during which the hero's tenacity is tested by his persistent attempts to win the reluctant heroine. But Angelica's testing of Valentine has little to do with sexual infidelity, for she is more concerned with his mercenary attitude towards marriage. She will not accept him until he has put aside every vestige of materialistic thinking, until he is ready to sacrifice interest to constancy and prepared to acknowledge her own more sentimental values. Until the end of the play, Valentine' 8 confirsion results from the inability to separate in his mind marriage and money; what he has to learn is that Angelica is not primarily interested in his estate and that she will only emchange love for love. But it is equally significant to note that she does marry him with his estate intact and that she goes to great lengths, and by devious means, to secure his right to inherit the legend estate. This theme of anti-materialism is also carried over in the subplots, particularly through the 101 fortune-hunting sisters, Mrs . Foresight and Mrs. Frail, and through the powerfully-drawn portrait of the grossly mercenary Sir Sampson Legend. But as the synOpses of these plots illustrate, several other characters are in one way or another motivated by their cupidity. Tattle is interested in Angelica because of the fortune she possesses (302), and Scandal believes that she is primarily interested in Valentine's estate (225). It is this preoccupation with the materialistic aspects of marriage which is one of the most important themes of eighteenth- century comedy. In Resta'ation comedy, such oupidity is either condemned or subordinated to more important ideas. In The County; Wife, it is the coxcomb Sparkish who interests himself in Alithea's fortune and who would marry her only for her portion (31.5). As a woman, Aphra Behn was probably more sensitive to the insidiousness of forced marriages, particularly those motivated by economic considerations, and she never tires of attacking them. Through the character of Lucia in Sir Patient Fang: and Sir Cautious Fulbank in The Lug Chance, or m Alderman's Bargain (1686), she condoms mercmary marriages as both a social ani a mural evil. In fie Old Bachelor, Bellmour is not oblivious to the twelve- thousand pounis that Belinda brings with her (Al), but this is subwdinated to his basic philosophy that business should be left to idlers (37). In The Double Dealer, the idea becomes more dominart through Maskwell's attempts to disinherit Mellefont. In this respect, he seens closer to the enterprising middle-class 102 thm to his mcre aristocratic and less mercenary-minded Restoratim counterparts. In eighteenth-century comedy, the cmsideration of fortune becomes a more prevalent and acceptable attitude towards marriage, and one that is not always condemed. Many of the plus, in fact, evoke a bourgeois environment rather than the more aristocratic one of Restoration comedy. The mercantile atmosphere of Love for Love was admirably suggested in the 1967 London production at he National Theatre. he characters no longer were those costumes familiar in Restoration comedy, the frills, powdered wigs, and ivory combs, but the more austere and sober dress of the middle-class, while the backgrounds and interiors suggested the vicinity of Lombardy Street rather than Whitehall. Ionbardy Street is the background to Steele's he Tender Husband, while the characters distinctly belmg to the bourgeoisie with all their talk about investments and mrriage settlments. The settling of an estate and the material benefits of a prosperous marriage become significant aspects in eighteenth-century cornedy. Again one may point to the change which was gradually taking place in the audience at the turn of the century. It has been customary to see this change in terms of a movement from an aristocratic audience to the predominantly middle-class one of the early eighteenth century. But a recent critic, John Loftis in Comedy and Society from Congeve to Fielding (1959). has 103 pertinently remarked that the change was not so obvious and as drastic as the earlier theories seem to imply. He states that: he mortant changes seem rather to have been in the components of the beau monde one the one hand ani the citizenry on the other. Many of the merchants attending the theater, no longer considered ”citizens," were accepted in the audience as gentlemen; many of the prominent financiers, performing functions that earlier were performed by citizens, belonged to gentle or even noble families. The citizens recognized as such in the early-eighteenth-century theater were not the leading members of the business community, the exporters and financiers, but rather the petty traders, the shOpkeepers, ani the apprentices. he social relationships of the salience, then, remained constant on the surface; but the substance of the relaticmships, especially as they affected the business community, underwent an important change. (15-16) he characters, sepecially the young "rakes," in the comedies also appear to share in this change. In Cibber's plays, the young mm reveal a surprising amount of interest in the wealth of their prospective wives. In Love's Last Shift, Young Worthy believes that the dose of matrimony may be sweetened with a "swinging portion" (312), and finding no fault in Narcissa' s one-thousand-pounds annual income, he concludes that "She's only worth that brings her weight in gold” (317). In the comedies of Farquhar, love appears even more an economic affair, rather than the distraction it was in Restoration comew. In Love and a Bottle (1698), Iyrick's definition of a hero sums up quite clearly this new dimension 10!» givm to the activity of the gallant. He states that a hero is: A Compound of Iractial Rake, and Speculative Gentleman, who always bears off the great Fortune in the Play. (51) he problems confronting Plume and Worthy in he Recruith Officer arise directly over the newly-acquired fortunes of Silvia and Melinda. Silvia's father admonishes his daughter to be aware of her value: "you must set a just Value upon your self, and in plain Terms, think no more of Captain Plume" (57). he plot of he Beaux Stratggem evolves around the attempts of the fortune-hunters Aimwell and Archer. Both are more interested in the fortunes of their respective mistresses, Dorinda and Mrs. Sullen, than in their beauty. Archer's advice to Aimwell, that he should rivet his eyes upon a fortune rather than upon beauty, and Aimwell' 8 reply, that "no Woman can be a Beauty without a Fortune" (138), reveal the changed sensibilities of the heroes of eighteenth-century comedy. Even the heroine sometimes reflects the same attitude. In Vanbrugh' 3 he Provoked Wife, Belinda complains that she cannot marry Heartfree because he has no fortune (151), and she only decides to marry him because she realizes that she has enough money for both of them (169). In Cibber's he Careless Husband, Lady Betty affirms that no woman wants beauty that has a fortune (32). 105 Steele's comedies continue the trend to equate marriage with wealth. In he Tender Husband, Captain Clerimont possesses no trace of the libertinism of his Restoration predecessors but, similar to the heroes of Cibber's and Farquhar's consdies, he too is primarily concered with the economic advantages to be obtained from a prOSperous match. Unlike Aimwell in The Recruiting Officer, who turns into a man of feeling, Captain Clerimont renains a thorough—going materialist, am his interest in Biddy remains unequivocally mercmary. And fmm the main plot down to the subplots, the discussion focusses upon marriage settlements and the need to preserve the family wealth. In he Conscious Lovers, Bevil Junior senses no incongruity between his om rigid moral code and the fact that he sees his p'oposed narriage to Lucinda as a means by finish a fcrtune may be added to his tam—1y (289). Similarly, Lucinda accepts the idea that marriage now takes place ubut for increase of fortune" (319), but as a fanals she is more sensitive to the unhappiness involved in being "born to great forttmes!" (320). he extreme view, similar to that of Love for Love, is carried over into the subplots, in this case through Cimberton ani Mrs. Sealand. Althougl some ma]. distincticn Ith be made in Love for Love between the comon-smsical motivations of Valentine and Angelica on the one hand, and the cupidity of Mrs. Frail, Sir Sampson am Tattle on the other, both groups iniicate the prepensity to view marriage in terms of wealth. 106 And although having enoug1 mmey was no guarantee for a successful marriage, the dramatists seem to consider it as a prerequisite fcr one. G. M. Trevelyan's statement, in Illustrated English Social History, The Mteenth Ceatury (191.2), that in the eigiteenth century the "Bible had now a rival in the Ledger" (3), may be a slight emggeration. But the view of a mcre recent historian, H. J. Habakkuk, eaqaressed in his article "Marriage Settlements in the Eig1teenth Cmtury' (1951), that calculations of material interest in narriage play a more important part in the early eighteenth century than in the preceding two, is indisputable. Undoubtedly, the tendency discerned in these plays would seem to indicate a movement towards what Ian Watt call, in The Rise of the Novel (1957), "economic individualism" (63). What Congreve implies in Love for love is that a marriage without financial support may be as foolish as one which subordinates love to materialistic considerations. Both points of view are expressed by Valentine and Angelica and by the characters in the subplots. his tension betweal a realistic md sentimental approach to narriage lends the play its seriousness, but it is a seriosness which is situated between the ambiguous mality of such of Restmation comedy and the sometimes offensively overt morality of eigiteenth-century comedy. The tension and balance between tle two modes are also found in the young couple themselves and between then and the minor characters. 107 Valentine and Angelica possess the traits of both the gay and the serious couple. hey have the wit and vivacity of Bellmour and Belinda, without their trivial and flippant attitude towards love and marriage. They have the moral sensibility of Vainlove and Araminta, without their blind idealism and without the ineffectual and passive virtue of Mellefont and Cynthia. Whereas in the earlier two plays the young couples are an equal part of , or significantly subordinated to, a larger pattern, Valentine's and Angelica's presence is the dramatic and moral focal point by which the follies of the others are judged. Consequently, love for Love has a greater and more substantial moral basis than he Old Bachelor, and it lacks the clear-cut issues found in he Double Dealer, because both Valentine and Angelica each have one foot firmly implanted in the world of the Restoration and the other rooted in the eighteenth century. Congreve's own comments best describe Valentine's dual personality. To Jereny Collier, who sees in Valentine only the rake's prodigality, profanity and obscenity, Congreve affirms in his “Amendments to Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations" (1698), that Valentine is a "mix'd Character; his Faults are fewer than his good Qualities; and, as the World goes, he may pass well enough for the best Character in a Comedy."u‘ his 11». The C lete Works of William Cm ve ed. Montague Smmners (London, 1923), III, 200. 108 mixture is revealed through the two different perSpectives we are given on him. His past and some of his present actions illustrate distinct Restoration traits,and his present relationships with Angelica and others eccpress a sensibility more in accord with the heroes of later comedy. When the play Opens, Valentine's libertine days are already over, but sufficient information is given in the first scene to indicate that his past life, with its promiscuity and wild extravagance, firmly sets him within the tradition of the Restoration rake. A guinpse of his earlier sexual escapades and their consequences are afforded when J erary tells him that a "nurse with one of your Children from Twitnam" (221) have come to see him. When confronted with the responsibility of airing a bastard, he reveals an ill-nature even more callous in its import than is Dorimant's to Mrs. Loveit in the rejection scene of he Man of Mode (267-72). To Jeremy mouncement, Valentine complains: Pox on her, cou'd she find no other time to fling nw Sins in ny Face: here, give her this, gives among. and bid her trouble me no more 3 a thoughtless two hmdsd Whore, she knows ny Condition well enough, and might have overlaid the Child a Fortnight ago, if she had had any forecast in her. (221 A less reprehensibe fault is his prodigality, vhich estranges him from his father and causes his present impoverished 109 state. Jeremy remonstrates with him for his lavish tastes: I was always a Fool, when I told you what your Expences would bring you to; your Coaches and your Liveries; your Treats and your Balls; your being in Love with a Lady, that did not care a Farthing for you in your Prosperity; and keeping Company with Wits, that car‘d for nothing but your Prosperity; and now when you are poor, hate you as much as they do one another. (217) But Valentine' s extravagance is significantly played down, originating as it does from his sincere but wrong-headed desire to win Angelica by ostentatious diSplay and to rival uthe rich Fops, that made Court to her" (217). As a truewit, Valentine is able to distinguish between Scandal and Tattle who, to him, "are light and shadow, and show one another; he [Tattle] is perfectly thy [Scandal's] reverse both in humour and understanding" (225-26). he truewit's perception is also evidenced in his impatient but judicious reply to Angelica's ambiguous statement that faninine ill-nature is nothing more than affectation: I shall receive no Benefit from the Opinion: For I know no effectual Difference between continued 15 Affectation and Reality. (251.) he rake's frequent recourse to subversive action in order to 15. his speech is given to Scandal in other editions, but that does not change the substance of the argument because Scandal is also a Truetdt. 110 gull the fools is well outlined in his plan to fool Mrs. Frail into a mock narriage with himself and then, at Scandal's suggestion and with Jeremy's help, to dupe her into a marriage with Tattle - a trick somewhat similar to the one played on Silvia by Bellmour in The Old Bachelor. Valentine's delight in dissembling is best witnessed by the trick he uses, the feigned madness, in the hOpe of winning both the estate and Angelica. But despite his past misdemeanors and his penchant for intrigue, he is seen to be a well-meaning, generous and sincere lover, qualities which differentiate him from his wilder and more hedonistic predecessors. His courtship of Angelica also brings out these qualities, for his lack of success arises purely from the inability to separate his material concerns from his affections. It is precisely this mercenary attitude and his subsequent submission to the more sentimental aspects of love which now relate him to the heroes of eight eenth-century comechr. Already reformed by the virtue and beauty of Angelica, Valentine directs all his efforts to bring their relationship to a happy and natural conclusion in marriage. His goal is, therefore, an honorable one with no ulterior motives to mar it. At first, he believes that his poverty will enable him to "pursue Angelica with more Love than ever" (217), but his concern for his estate keeps intruding upon his desire to win her, with the result that he makes very little progress in either direction. His plan to see Angelica is quickly put aside then he meets his father and rakes his unsuccessful bid for his rights of inheritance (21,346). When he assumes madness, it is not only to force a confession of love from Angelica but also to postpone the signing over of the estate to Ben. It is not surprising, therefore, that Angelica is upset and annoyed that his "madness" is adOpted for what she calls "mercenary Ends and sordid Interest" (291.). Whai he attempts to defend himself, he does so in terns which betray his confused and mixed values: Nq, now you (b me Wrong; for if any Interest was considered, it was yours; since I thought I wanted more than Love, to make me worthy of you. (295) Ultimately, of course, Valentine's myopia is more than canpensated by his fidelity to Angelica, by his generosity and willingness to sacrifice everything to his love. When he is finally in danger of losing his mistress, everything seems worth— less. And so, having come to the realization through his own experience, he puts aside his mercenary concerns and prepares to sign the bmd. Qxly when he is able to sacrifice interest to constancy, vhen he is ready to exchange love for love, does Angelica confess her affection for him and accept his proposal (312). Progressing gradually from materialist to sentinentalist, a progress similar to the develOpment vhich takes place in Aimwell in Farquhar's 'Ihe Beaux Strategy, and ezqaeriencing the conflicting demands of both, Valentine learns the limitations of the former as he recognizes the importance of the other. It is his preoccupation with the more mercenary aspects of marriage and his incipient sentimentalism which differentiate him from the Restoration rake and which reveal his affinity with the new heroes. In playing the role of Truth in his relationship with his father, Valentine's moral awareness and soft nature are dancnstrated. The purpose of Valentine's madness, apart from furthering the plot, serves to give a new dimension to Valentine's character. As Congreve states in the "Amendments," it gives a liberty to the satire without breaking character decorum.l6 But although Valentine may be "out of character" when "mad? the final effect is to give, by way of his satirical comments on the immorality of the times, evidence of values based on stable and moral foundations and of flaws which are temporary aberrations rather than innate and permanent failings. That this is so, is fully expressed by his patimt attitude towards the tyrannical behavior of his father. Valentine's honesty is first detected in his willingness to agree to his father's hard bargain to forego his estate, an act performed so that he may honorabe discharge his debts. It is, in fact, the father who proves to be unnatural l6. Montague Sumners, III, 187. and undutiful to the son. In pressing his claim, Valentine only wants his right (2A6), and his attitude to his father is at all times respectful and just. It is not surprising that he fails to satisfy a father who is as ready to disinherit his other son as off-handedly as he does Valentine. It redounds to Valentine's credit that he can still retain some shred of filial loyalty after his father's abusive treatment, confessing as Valentine does at the end of the play to his error and begging his father's forgiveness in the posture of a penitent son. His consistent loyalty to his father anticipates the extrane filial duty which is witnessed betweai Bevil Junior and his father in The Conscious Lovers, and althougm Valentine does not exhibit the blind loyalty of Bevil Junior, his kindly and considerate nature relate him more readily to the men of sense than to the invariably egotistical rake. One other aspect of Valentine's character which distinguishes him from the Resta-ation gallant is his intro— spective and thoughtful temper. Thomas H. Fujimura points out in The Restcration Comedy of Wit that: that makes Valentine a more subtle and attractive figure than most Truewits is the sugestion of this latent reflectiveness, of a mini sensitive enough to have sons apprehension of the uniercurrents of human existence. In one of the most poetic passages in the play, he says to Angelica: "You're a Woman, - (he to than Heav'n gave Beauty, when it grafted Roses on a Briar. You are the Reflection of Heav'n in a Pond, and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white, a Sheet of lovely spotless Paper, when you first are born; but you are to be scrawl'd and blotted by every Goose’s Quill. I know you; for I lov'd a Woman, and lov'd her so long, that I found out a strange thing: I found out what a Woman was good for ...." For one mommt, Valentine puts his finger on the inscrutable and eternally feminine quality in the woman he loves. But almost immediately, his wit reasserts itself; and he tells us vhat a woman is good for: to keep a secret, because, thougq she should tell, no one would believe her. (179-80) And one may add that his temper is such that it enables him to see not only the roses and the briars of life but one which demonstrates in words and actions a spontaneity and liveliness which does not ignore or exclude the more tender and moral facets of existence, one in which both gaiety and wit are harmoniously reconciled with a moral sensibility. What is significant about the dual aspect of Valentine's character and the way in which Congreve deals with it, is the function it serves within the context of the whole play. Because Valentine's life as a rake is firmly relegated to the past, his final submission to Angelica, despite its suddenness, is logical and plausible. Congreve, therefore, avoids the exaggerated sentimaitality of those plays in which occur the artificial and incongruous fifth-act repentances. As Allardyce Nicoll points out in A Histm of Restoration Drama, 1660—1200 (1923), in plays like Cibber's The Careless 115 Husband and The gagfs Last Stake, the last-minute reforms and their subsequent resort to santimentalism are nothing more than "artistic clothing assumed to counter puritan prudery" (265), with the result that the moral conclusions are felt to be forced am even irrelevant. But what happens in the last scene of Love for Love has been prepared for by Valmtine's earlier rejection of his past mode of behavior and by his deveIOpment from wrong-headed materialist to sentimental. lover. Furthema‘e, his mixed character and the siglificance given to it in the action of the play make for a hero less morally ambiguous thm Bellmour, more realistic than Vainlove, and less passive than Mellefont. Angelica's character is also a mixed one, but she is even more complex than Valentine because her natural traits are frequently concealed by the assumed role she adapts with him. It becanes increasingly difficult to distinguish, as he complains, between “continued Affectation and Reality.“ Confronted with a lover those past cannot be easily forgotten, and unable to openly achowledge her love for him until he is willing to accept her om values, she has to make absolutely certain that his reformatim and protestations of love are sincere and that he is able to acknowledge the validity of her point of view. To successfully accomplish this, she has to draw upon her own natural sagacity, to play with Valentine at his own game and to match trick for trick. The different aspects of her character are, therefore, best discerned when ahe engages in the love- chase and when she affects the role of a fickle, inconstant and indifferent mistress, for she then reveals the traits of a typical.Restoration heroine - true wit, deceit, and an egotism which does not hesitate to exploit and fool.those who threaten to thwart her plans. But at the same time her good nature, materialism, strong sense of, and an unquestioned belief in, her own moral superiority, relate her to the sentimental comedy of the eighteenth century; Poised as she is between the two worlds, her complexity may also be explained in terms of the fusion of the two comic modes. The part that Angelica plays in public requires all the native wit and shrewdness that characterize her Restoration predecessors. That she is worthy of them.becomes evident as the play progresses. When she is first seen with her follish uncle, Foresight, she Shows that she is very much aware and contemptuous of'the folly which surrounds her, an attitude which justifies her skepticism.of Valentine. To old Foresight's insistence that the omens require She stay at home to prevent misfortune falling on the house, Angelica responds with ridicule, and tries to warn him.that he should pay more attention to the natural than to the supernatural: but I can neither make you a Cuckold, Uncle, by going abroad; nor secure you from.being one,‘hy 117 staying at home .... You know m Aunt is a little Retrograde (as you call it) in her Nature. Uncle, I'm afraid you are not Lord of the Ascendant. (236-37) It is when she is with Valentine and Scandal that she comes into her own as a truewit and shows her superiority over them. At first, all three join together in baiting the witwoud, Tattle, but it is Angelica who pertinently reveals Tattle's hypocrisy when she asks: "But whence comes the Reputation of Mr. Tattle's secresie, if he was never trusted?" (256). when Scandal attempts to turn this appraisal to her disadvantage by calling into question the value of her own virtue with a similar adage, "she is chaste, who was never ask'd the Question," she quickly offers her own experience with Valentine to diaprove his barbed attack. To which Valeitine can do nothing but painfully concur and Scandal acquiesce. Seeing througi Valentine's use to force a confession of love from her, she confirns the superiority of her tactics and morality when she reminds him that she is not the fool he takes her for and that he is and and does not know it (296). It is precisely this superiority which is used to test Valentine, to make him realize the wrong1ess of his values, and to cppose those who threaten their future together. So successful is she in fooling the truewits, Valentine and Scanial, that they do not comprehend that she is defeating them at their own game. Her fickleness is not now an inherent trait as it is with Belinda, but a mask adopted for the purpose of converting Valentine to her om standard of values. The confused Valentine has no option but to believe that she is indifferent, ard Scandal wrmgly supposes that she has an "airy temper" (225). Keeping up the dissembling until the very and of the play, she has little difficulty in convincing Valentine of her apathy. when Valentine complains of his desperate uncertainty, Angelica replies in a manner befitting Vainlove, but this time the sentiments are slim to her real nature and anathema to Valentine: Wou'd any thing, but a Madman complain of Uncertainty? Uncertainty and Expectation are the Joys of Life. Security is an insipid thing, and the overtaking and possessing of a Wish, discovers the Folly of the Chase. Never let us know one another better; for the Pleasure of a Masquerade is done, when we come to shew Faces. (296) Before she leaves him, he is forced to admit that she does, indeed, appear to be "a Medal with Reverse or Inscription; for Indifference has both sides alike" (297). And so dissembling with him in this way to gain her goal, she leads Valentine to acknowledge the validity of her own values. Neither does Angelica hesitate to use those who attempt to force her will and stand in her way. When her "Inclinations are in force" (237), no one can deter her iron her preordained course. This aSpect of her character is first intimated men old Foresight tries to prevent her from leaving his house. It is this determination vhich Vflentine has to ll? battle with when she consistently tells him that she cannot be forced to love him against her natural feelings: But I have consider'd that Passions are unreasonable and involuntary; if he loves, he can't help it; and if I don't love, I can't help it; no more than he can help his being a Man, or I my being a Woman; or no more than I can help ny want of Inclination to stay longer here. (278) Her treatment of Foresight is partly exonerated by his foolishness, ard her game with Valentine by his own trickery and mpia; but more ambiguous in its effect is her exploitation of Sir Sampson's gullibility. Certainly, he is to blame for believing that Angelica is capable of feeling any affection for him, but her attitude and behavior towards him are completely self-centered and ruthless. (lily if the end, a happy marriage with Valentine, is considered are her means justified. But any analysis of her character should not overlook those traits which clearly identify her with the egotism of her Restoraticn counter- parts. Angelica relates to Congreve's earlier and more laudable heroines as well, such as Araminta and Cynthia, while her implied materialistic attituie and her unquestioned belief in her own values connect her more readily with the heroines of eigiteenth-centwy comedy. Her fundamental good-nature and concern for Valentine are sometimes dis closed through the facade of indifference which she effects. than she first believes that 120 Valentine is mad, Jerenw rightly remarks that "She's concem'd, and loves him" (276). Soon afterwards, she reprimands Jeremy for what she considers to be his unseasonable wit on the "mad" Valentine. After Valentine is prepared to sign away his estate, she readily acknowledges his generosity and rewards it with an inmediate confession of love. But her attitude towards marriage is complex. She censures Valentine for his mercenary views but, at the same time, she goes to great lengths and by devious means, to win him with his estate intact. Although the fooling of Sir Sampson and the tearing of the bond are motivated by her affection for Valentine, it is difficult to ignore the bourgeois assumptions implied in her actions, for they reveal an attitude which closely resenbles the cupidity of Mrs. Frail, to whom "Marrying without an Estate, is like Sailing in a Ship without Ballast" (273). The difference between Angelica and Mrs. Frail at this point in the play is one of degree rather than kind. It is in the last wens of the play that Angelica is unequivocally related to the sentimental characters of eighteenth-century comecbr. When Valentine shows that he is ready to sigi away his fortune in the name of love, she tears up the bond and confesses to Valentine that her dissanbling is at an end, that she has always loved him and "struggl'd very hard to make this utmost ‘Iryal of your Virtue." Between "Pleasure and Amazement," Valentine falls on his knees before her to take her blsssing. She then turns towards his father and reprimands him 121 for his tyrannous and barbarous usage, pointing to the moral to be gained from it: Well, Sir Sampson, since I have plaid you a Trick, I'll advise you, how you may avoid such another. Learn to be a good Father, or you'll never get a second Wife. I always lov'd your Son, and hated your unforgiving Nature. I was resolv'd to try him to the utmost; I have try'd you too, and lmow you both. You have not more Faults than he has Virtues; and 'tis hardly more Pleasure to me, that I can make him and nnr self happy, than I can punish you. Valentine ach’xowledges the justness of her actions and promises to "doat on at that inmoderate rate, that your Fondness shall never distinguish it self enough, to be taken notice of. If ever you seem to love too much, it must be only when I can't love enough." But Angelica patronizingly and belligerently, and mindful of his past, warns him to "Have a care of large Promises; you know you are apt to run more in Debt than you are able to pay." And so acknowledging her superiority, he submissively yields his body to her as a prisoner. Now it is Scandal's turn to come within the ambiance of her graces as he, too, acknowledges her "Exemplary Justice" in punishing an inhuman father and rewarding a faithful lover. The "Third good Work" which Angelica accomplishes is his cmversion: I was an Infidel to your Sex; and you have converted me - For now I am convinc'd that 122 all Women are not like Fortune, blind in bestowing Favours, either on those who do not merit, or vho do not want 'em. But Angelica cannot accept this without once more moralizing upon Scandal's earlier mistaken view: 'Tis an unreasonable Accusation, that you lay upon our Sex. You tax us with Injustice, only to cover your om want of Merit. You would all have the Reward of Love; but few have the Constancy to stay till it becomes your due. Men are generally Hypocrites ard Infidels, they pretend to Worship, but have neither Zeal nor Faith: How few, like Valentine, would persevere even unto Martyrdom, and sacrifice their Interest to their Constancy! The Miracle to Day is, that we find A Lover true: Not that a Women's kind. It is on this highly moral and sentimental note that the play concltdes. With all the foregoing facts in mind, it because evident that Angelica has finally confirmed her affinity with her counterparts in sentimental comedy, with those characters who display much benevolence and who forgive and moralize with much gusto on the faults of others. In an article entitled "The Sentimental Mask" (1963), Paul E. Parnell discusses the nature am the role of several sentimental characters in the plays of Cibber, Steele and Lillo. Parnell's account of the attitudes and actions of such senti- mentalists as Manda in Love's Last Shift, Iady Easy in 'Ihe Careless Husband, Bevil Junior in The Conscious Lovers, and Maria in PE. London Merchant (1731), has a direct bearing on Angelica's function in the last act of Love fog me, and his remarks are pertinent 123 enough to be quoted at same length, Parnell states that: ... sentimental thinking is balanced delicately between hypocrisy and sincerity, simplicity and duplicity, self-consciousness and spontaneity. Unquestionably, the sentimentalist sees himself as sincerely simple, and Spontaneously virtuous, but only achieves this belief at the cost of a constant demonstration that his mask of virtue and his face are one .... [This] mask .... can take many forms, but all are clearly related to the assumption of moral perfection .... sentimentalists often invoke the relationship between parent and child, with its similar indications of love and discipline. And as love in this relationship may be spontaneously felt, or may be a means of concealing naked advantage, so the sentimentalist may play a game of spiritual coercion while seeming to exude nothing but love .... (Consequently) there seems to be a parallel between virtue and superiority of tactics .... (The) erring person does not primarily or emphatically ask forgiveness of God; he really hmniliates himself before the leading sentimental character. This behavior is in keeping with the sentimentalist's assuming the part of Christ, or at least Christ's viceregent; he feels himself able to dispense forgiveness and is happy when someone confirms his judgment of himself .... [The] sentimentalist is at once more sensible, more practical, and more virtuous .... But the pleasures of bestowing forgiveness, with its richly satisfying heightening of self-esteem cannot be indulged without saneone to forgive. fiance the value of the sinner to the sentimmtalist .... Thus the virtuous person in sentimental plays enjoys the satisfaction of humiliating his Opponents, and of taking them captive by converting them to his own ideas .... (The) dramatist encourages [us] by always showing the hero or heroine in a favorable light, no matter how unsavory the implications Of his actions might appear to an unbiased judge .... he can be malicious towards those who cppose his ideas or labor to defeat his ends .... Sentimentality (than) is a state of mind based on the assumption that one's own character is perfect, or as near perfection as necessary, or if certain grave faults seem to emerge, they met not be regarded as inherent .... He may share with the hypocrite a determination to keep his Opportunism intact; but, unlike the person of core cious duplicity, he feels obliged to wear at all times his sentimental mask. (530-35) 12A 'Jhese remarks apply well to Angelica and her little group of "sinners." It has been shown how doggedly sincere and determined Angelica is in her testing of Valentine, yet she may also be considered a hypocrite if her own dissembling with Valentine, her exploitation of Foresight and Sir Sampson, and her ambiguous interest in winning Valentine with his estate, are taken into consideration. But these faults are not regarded as inherent because they are used as temporary means to honorable ends. The "immorality" of her actions is, therefore, concealed by favorable motives. Furthermore, she does not question her own values, and in the last scene, it is difficult to avoid the feeling that she believes herself to be morally superior to those whom she forgives as they pay deference to the justness of her actions. The "sinners," particularly Valentine and Scardal, enforce her superiority as they are converted to her point of view. But on closer examination, it also becomes evident that much of Angelica's virtue may be explained in terms of her superior tactics which are used to outwit those who, in one way or mother, challenge her moral sensibilities and goals. ‘Ihis does not mom, of course, that love for Love is a "sentimental" comedy in the sense that the plays of Cibber, Steele and Lille are. But Angelica is well on the way to becoming a purely sentimental character. As yet, however, her sentimentalism is balanced by her Restoration traits, and it is only in evidence in the last few moments of the play. But Congreve's tendency toward 125 elements which come to characterize eighteenth-century comedy cannot be ignored. In relation to Congreve's earlier heroines, Angelica is not so natm'ally inclined towards inconstancy and fickleness as Belinda, fcr these traits are now part of the role she adapts to win Valentine. Unlike Araminta, Angelica is freer with her confessions of love - the nearest she comes to echoing Araminta's sentiments is when she uses them to tease Valentine. But she shares with both of them a penchant for plotting and an exuberance of wit. Angelica also possesses the eighteenth-century character- istics of Araminta and Cynthia - a refined moral sensibility and a superiority over her lover. All these aspects of her character result in a highly complex heroine who, like Valentine, stands midway between the two comic tradtiOns, and in whom the elements of the two comic modes are fused without a sense of incongrnity or loss of character consistency found in the play's of Congreve's ccmt emporaries. Scandal is yet another of the main characters who demonstrates the fusion of the two modes. Friend and confidant to Valentine, he echoes the cynicism and scepticism of Sharper in The Old Bachelor as well as the more positive qualities of Careless in 11;; Double Dealer. he former is evident in his summary of Angelica"s "airy temper" (225), and in his belief that she is more interested in the estate than in Valentine. Scandal 126 unquestionably accepts Angelica's facade of indifference because he believes that: ... Women are like Tricks by slight of Hand, I‘fhich, to admire, we should not understand. (297) As a defamer Of reputations, he fulfills part of the function Of the truewit, exposing the folly of those with whom he comes into contact. He is also a "Libertine in Speech, as well as Practice" (272), as witnessed in his brief affair with Mrs. Foresight. Like Homer and his ilk, Scandal deflates the traditional virtues of honor and conscience to justify his own moral laxity. To Mrs. Foresight, he claims that: Honour is a publick Enemy; and Conscience a Domestick Thief; and he that wou'd secure his Pleasure, may pay Tribute to one, and go halves with the t'other. As for Honour, that you have secur'd, for you have purchas'd a perpetual Opportunity for Pleasure. (271) But as with Careless, Scandal's loyalty to the hero absolves him from much censure. His affair with Mrs. Foresight, as is Careless' with Lady Plyant, is motivated by the desire to help a friend. And he is not so blinded by his cynicism as to be impervious to the diSplay of Angelica's benevolence and justice at the end Of the play, prepared as he is to reassess his earlier Opinion of women. It is here that Scandal closely resembles the new "rakes" of eighteenth-century comedy. Captain 127 Plume in Farquhar's 'Ihe Recruiting Officer has been shown to be not really a rake at all; he himself claims that "I am not that Rake that the World imagines; I have got an Air of Freedom, which PeOple mistake for Lewdness in me, as they mistake Formality in others for Religion" (82). And Plume, following the example Of Scandal with Angelica, is so over- come by the virtuous Silvia that he, too, recants his Opinion of the female sex in a manner which echoes Scandfl's comments on Angelica. Attacking the Restoration cynical attitude towards women, Plume now praises their mirtue: By some the Sex is blam'd without Design, light harmless Censure, such as yours and mine, Sallies of Hit, and Vapours of our Wine. Others the Justice of the Sex condemn, And wanting Merit tO create Esteem, Wou'd hide their own Defects by cens'ring them. But they secure in their all-conq'ring Charms laugh at the vain Efforts Of'false Alarms, He magnifies their Conquests who complains, For none wou'd Struggle were they not in Chains. (93-94) The characters in the subplots contrast greatly with those in the main plot, for they follow more closely the well- defined Restoration stereotypes. It is here, in the mamer Of the structure Of much eighteenth-century comedy, that the main force Of the satire is felt, arr]. this now enables Congreve to confine the more overtly moral and sentimental aspects in the main plot. Despite the fact that the characters have an individuality all their own, there is little of the complexity that is found in Heartwell, Fondlewife and the Froths. SO while 128 Valentine ard Angelica may have appealed to the newer elements in the audience, these minor characters no doubt pleased those who still demanded to see on the stage the familiar figures, ranging as these do in Love for love from Jonsonian humcrs to Restoration stereotypes. Both ch'esigit and Sir Sampson Oppose the young couple and produce the customary conflict between "crabbed age and youth." But as in The Double Dealer, the old no longer represent a moral world in Opposition to the bean monde, for the two Old men exemplify a world more closely associated with the Restoration ard which is now challenged by the more moral world of the young couple. The literary origins Of Foresight may be traced back through Aphra Behn's Mr. Gazer in The Counterfeit Brideg'oom-L or The Defeated widow (1677) to Jonson's Subtle and Face in The Alchemist. According to Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Congeve, the character was then common on the stage (228). Foresight remains what he is purported to be, "an illiterate Old Fellow, peevish, and positive, superstitious, and pretending to understand, Astrology, Palmistry, Phisiognomy, Omens, Dreams, 8:0" (215), ard whose senility and folly serve as a butt for others. He remains ignorant Of the events which take place under his nose, while he ironically attempts to control the future by pursuing the supe matural. 129 Sir Sampson is more Of a libertine than his son. His ruthless exploitation and egotism, his exclusively physical attitude towards marriage, all relate him to the figure of the superannuated rake, although he has not yet reached the last stages of impotence. "His exuberant self- confidence is a last protestation before the onset of real senility," Observes Elisabeth Mignon, and though he has “not reached his dotage, he is Old by contrast with those characters whom he attempts to victimize. Conforming to a pre-established pattern, he tries to marry a girl half his age and assumes himself to be a possible husband for Angelica, whom his son is to marry" (115). He attempts to disinherit Valentine, and when Ben,with mnrst justification, refuses to marry Prue, he also disowns him. When Collier attacks Valentine for his lack Of filial respect in A Short View, Congreve's reply in the "Amendments" indicates exactly with whom the sympathy should lie: That he [Valentine] is unnatural and undutiful, I don't understand: He has indeed a very unnatural Father; ard if he does not very passively submit to his Tyranny and barbrous Usage, I conceive there is a Moral to be apply'd from thence to such Fathers. It is to the credit of both Angelica and Valentine that they do not allow themselves to be influced by the examples of their l7. Montague Summers, III, 200. 130 morally inferior elders, who demonstrate a standard of values antithetical to that of the young couple. The two sisters, hrs. Foresight and Mrs. Frail, also attempt to thwart their juniors and belong in the same moral category as the Old men. Apart from several new torches given to their behavior, they stay within the boundaries set by their predecessors in Restoration comedy - those women rho affect honor and virtue while basically remaining easy to any would-be lever. that Horner says of lack Fidget and the Squeamishes in The Country Wife is also true Of them: these "womar of honour ... are only chary of their reputations, not their persons; and 'tis scandal they would avoid, not men" (251;). Similarly, to Lady Cockwood in She Would If She Could, honor means only reputation, a word which she reiterates to justify‘her attempts to gratify her sexual desires outside marriage. Mrs. Foresight and Mrs. Frail first try to conceal from each other their amorous exploits in the more notorious sections of the city (247), but neither being able to discover the other without betraying herself, they form a pact in "token Of sisterly secresie and affection" as Mrs. Foresight promises to help find a prosperous match for her sister. To accomplish this, Mrs. Frail first directs her attention to Valentine and thm to Ben, would move to Sir Sampson himself 131 if he did not hate her so mnrch (288), and then back to the "mad" Valentine, all the while pursuing the seemingly ubiquitous but elusive Legend fortune. She ends up marrying the penniless Tattle, whom she deepises, concluiing that "nothing but his being my Husband could have made me like him less" (310). Her sister succumbs to Scandal's seductive advances as soon as she is certain that he is "sound." This hypocritical view enables her to airily dismiss him the next morning with poise and style, blithely stating that "last Night was like the Night before" (281;). She possesses what Scandal describes as that "admirable quality Of forgetting to a man's face in tle morning, that she had layn with him all night, and denying favours with more impudence, than she cou'd grant 'em" (284). As a witwoud, Tattle is a suitable partner for the equally hypocritical Mrs. Frail and an apt foil for the truewits. His literary heritage may be found in Brisk in M Double Dealer and in such notable counterparts as Crowne's Sir Courtly Nice in the play Of that name (1685), in Wycherley's Sparkish in The Count}: Wife, and in Etherege's Sir FOpling Flutter in The than of Mode. He shares with them the same inability to distinguish true from false wit. Tattle sees no difference be’meen the wit Of Angelica and the Frail sisters, a blindness vhich is delightfully demonstrated in his 2132 belief that the veiled Hrs. Frail is Angelica. He shares with Sparkish the same mercenary attitude towards marriage, and he is deservedly, after his flirtation with Prue, paired off with the women he likes least. Miss Prue, "a silly awimard, Country girl" (215), is again a conventional character - the ingenue. Part of her function in the play, like Margery's in The Country Wife, is to expose through her naivete the shallowness and hypocrisy of city mes, particularly those demonstrated in the courtship scene between herself and Tattle, a scene which anticipates the one between Lord FOppington and Miss Hoyden in Vanbrugh's The Relapse. But Prue is more malicious that Wycherley's Margery. In her petulance and rudeness she is closer to D'Urfey's Miss Jenny and Lfiss Molly in Love chor honey; or The Boarding School (1689), and more particularly to his Margery in The Marriage-Hater Match'd (1692) who, similar to that "Land Monster" Prue, is a "Raw, Ignorant, Skittish Creature ... awkerdly confident . " Ben is also a character who follows the traditional concept of the sailor as being a plain-dealer. E‘chherley's Captain Manly in The Plain De__a:_l___e_x_'_ is perhaps the most obvious example. There is again Poruss in D'Urfey's Sir Barnaby mm (1681), a "blunt Tarpawlin, Captain, and one that uses his 133 Sea-phrases and terms upon all occasions." Ben is also outspoken and expects the same of others. To Prue, he states that: it's but folly to lie: For to speak one thing, and to think just the contrary way; is as it were, to look one way, and to row another. Now, for my part d'ee see, I'm for carrying things above Board, I'm not for keeping any thing under Hatches, - so that if you ben't as as I, say so a God's name, there's no harm done. (263) As Montague Summers points out in his edition of Congreve's plays, Ben is a "more elaborate and closely studied picture of the honest tarpaulin than is found heretofore" (81). Also the prOposal scene between Ben and Prue becomes something more than an attempt to couple a booby with a hoyden, something me than the patronizing farce provided by D'Urfey between Poruss and his Welsh friend, Winifred. In the hands of Congreve, ii: becomes a small masterpiece of comic observation on the affectation of town and country alike. More significantly also, Ben's presence in the subplot helps to establish a norm, 8. common-sense attitude which contrasts with the follies of the other minor characters. Jeremy, the clever servant, is more than usually witty; his wit is acknowledged both by Valentine and Scandal, the truewits. The scenes in mich Jeremy appears, particularly those with Valentine, seem to be ccntrived purely for the marvellous display of repartee. In these cases, one may be 13# inclined to agree with Walpole who, in "Thoughts on Comedy," complains that Congreve's characters "seem to meet only to show their wit" (317). Jeremy's fondness for similitudes antimipates Petulant's in The Way of the World, and one feels the need, along with Nillamant, to cry out a "truce with your smntudes: For I am sick of 'em -" (1.19). But Jeremy's witticisms are not so laborious as those of his predecessor, Sharper in The Old Bachelor. They frequently contain much common sense, and Norman Holland refers to his type of wit as a "skeptical naturalism which rejects philosophy, poetry, love and other intangibles in favor of belly-knowledge" (169). In the Opening scene, Jeremy's practical attitude towards poverty‘is contrasted with Valentine's more phi1080phical flights. He also shares with Sharper a fondness for hoisting the fools with their own petards, as witnessed in his plans to marry Tattle off to Mrs. Frail. And through his inplied references to a father's duty to his children, he serves to reveal the unjustness of Sir Sampson's bdiavior to Valentine (245). Apart from the few brilliant strokes of individuality and life which Congreve brings to these minor characters, they are all firmly planted within the Restoration tradition. Consequently, there is still felt that dichotomy, characteristic 1.35 of eightemth-century comedy, between the personages of the main and secondary plots. It is this division, coupled with the contrived scenes of wit, that make for a less than perfect comic structure. But Love for Love is Congreve's first play which demonstrates quite clearly a fusion of the two comic modes. The plot variety of Restoration comedy is now held in a tighter cohesion, for all the plot elements _ relate directly to Valentine's attempts to keep his estate. The theme is one which deals with conventional follies, but they are now more intrinsically associated with materialism. And the characters, particularly those in the subplots, belong to Restoration comedy, while the young couple, themselves a compound of Restoration and eighteenth-century characteristics, give the play greater clarity of focus which avoids the excesses of much of sentimental comedy. For these reasons, the play provides fare for the older and newer elements in the audience at the turn of the century. In The Way 3;"; the World, an even more successful synthesis is achieved which reveals Congreve's highly comprehensive and complex vision of life. gm WAY OF THE wean) In 1698 Jeremy Collier published his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English an; e and, although it is dangerous to over—estimate the influence of this work on the drama, it demonstrates the increasing dis-satisfaction with the apparent immorality of the Restoration comic tradition. In the Prologue to The Na 9;: the World (1700), Congreve refers to the growing morality of the times, but then he wittily reverts to Dryden's dictum on comedy. By this means, Congreve justifies his own approach to comedy while disarming Collier and his disciples: Satire, he thinks, you audit not to eaqoect, For so Reform'd a Town, who dares Correct? To please this time, has been his sole Pretence, He'll not instruct, lest it should give Offence. (393) Despite this implicit snub at Collier, the play is too much of its time to exclude the didactic element altogether, and it certainly belies Congreve's assertion, also in the Prologue, that he is a “Passive Poet." Both statements are, in fact, miss of the frequent and familiar deference paid to the audience, which is contradicted by the contents, for the play reveals, and may be partly defined as, the fusion between the two comic nodes. 136 137 go W31 of the World, notldthstanding its retention of intrigue, variety and moral focus, has not the loose-knit structure of The gg Bachelor nor the contrived plot develop- ment of go Double Dealer. Even after allowing for the temporary difficulty in ascertaining the familial ties within the Wishfort manage, the plot is not as complexmr as deliberately confusing as Norman Holland affirms (176). In dealing with this play, it is easier and more germane to talk of the plot in terms other than those of the conventional horizontal levels of action. As the title indicates, the play deals with the microcosm of society, and the perspective we aregiven ofthisworldmaybestbe explainedinterms ofs still center - the young lovers - and the ever-mending cmcentric circles of action involving the Fainall. triangle, Iady Wishfort and her nephew, the servants, and the witwouds. This gives the play a coherence, inclusiveness, and svmness of tare not found in the earlier comedies. This still center focuses attention on the relation- ship between Mirabell and Hillamsnt, with its courtship and attenuate to marry without losing half of her dowry. Unlike Love for Love, it is now the hero's turn to outwit those who threaten his plans, and it is he, rather than the heroine, who is responsible for bringing their courtship to the satisfactory and successful brink of natrimay. Part of Mirabell's .138 difficulty arises from the apparent reluctance of Hillamant to accept his, but after cataloguing their respective provisos they agree to harry. The next step is to gain the approval of her aunt, Lady Wishfort, without which Millamant stands to lose half her dowry, six-thousand pounds, and to thwart the plans of Fainall and Mrs. Marwood, who are also interested in it. After a series of setbacks, Mirabell succeeds in exposing the villains and gaining the atmt's blessing. I boss the are closest to the young lovers and who present the greatest threat to than are Fainall and his mistress, Mrs. Marwood. Disliked and spurned by Mirabell, Mrs. Harwood first does all she can to prevent him from marrying mllsmant. She reveals that his gallantry to the aunt is a plot to conceal his affection for the niece. Law Wishfort, angered by this discovery, now becomes adamant that he shall not have her consent. Wham Fainall points out to Mrs. Manhood that such a match would mean that his wife, Lady Wishfort's daughter, would then be entitled to the six-thousand pounds, the two attanpt to further the marriage plans. At the sale time, Fainall also wants to secure the rest of his Infe's estate so that he may enjoy its financial rewards with his mistress. The Opportunity to do this comes when Mrs. Marwood tells him that his wife had earlier bee: Mirabell's mistress. 139 Using this to blsclnnail Lady Wishfort, threatening to make the affair public by divorcing his wife, Fainall and his accomplice work on the confused aunt who is only too reaw to ages to sign over her dangxter's fortune to the grasping husband. the: they are about to achieve their goal, Mirabell exposes their own adulterous relationship and reveals that, as trustee to Mrs. Fainall's estate, the transfer cannot be made without his consent. Frustrated at the last moment and humiliated an'l defeated by Mirabell's superior tactics, the two villains make their exit. The actions of the Fainalls and Mn. Marwood are, therefore, inexorably tied up with, and motivated by, Mirabell's past relationship with Mrs. Fainall, with his rejection of Mrs. Marwood's advances, and with Millsmant's relationship with Mirabell and her aunt. At a firther remove from the young couple are Iady Wishfa't and her nephew, Sir Wilfull Witwoud. Lady Wishfort, furiom at being used as a tool to further Mirabell's cmrtship of Millsmsnt, opposes me match and prefers her rustic nephew as a suitable husbmd for the sophisticated heroine. Still passionately inclined to Mirabell but equally determned to revenge herself on him, Lady Wishful-t becomes an easy tool for Fsinall and Mrs. Marwood to nanipulate. She is completely blind to their imidiom madlinations and, too late, she realizes that she has become a puppet to her tyrannous MO son-in-law and treacherous friend. When she is faced with the threat of public scandal and ostracism, she readily agrees to accept Mirabell's offer of help, and she promptly breaks off the assumed match betweu Millanant and Sir Wilhll, not too difficult a task because the nephew had no mind to marry and had, in fact, volunteered his services to fool the villains and to further the lover's cause. Lady Wishfort than gives Millsmant to Mirabell with much Joy, while Sir Wilfull plumes his plans to travel abroad. 'Jhe action involving the servants, Waitwell and Foible, are also a result of Mirabell's attempts to win Hillamant. To counteract Lady Wishfort's plan to alienate him from Millsmrrt, Mirabell uses his servant Waitwell, the is to be disguised as Mirabell's imaginary uncle and benefactor, Sir Rowland. As Sir Rowland, he is to propose to Lady Wishfort the, after being caught in a marriage contract with him md informed of the imposture, will. then agree to any demsnis that Mirabell may care to make. To prevent arw possible attempt by I‘Iaitwell to turn the situation to his om advantage, Mirabell makes quite certain that he narries Iady Wishfort's mam, Foible. lhe plan is later eaglesed by Fainall and Mrs. Harwood Jmt before the contract is signed, aid this line of action comes to a close before the end of the play. lastly, there are the false wits, Witwoud and Petulant, those share in M1 the action is minimal. 'Ihey serve more as observers and as foils to the truewits than as participants, but they are given an important structural role because they had earlier served as witnesses for the conveyance of Mrs. Fainall's estate to Mirabell. ' The play concludes with the appmpriate rewards and punishments, and an Optimistic chord in struck when the idea is established that the villainous Fainall may be ultimately reconciled with his wife througl Mirabell's persuasion and tlu'cugl his wife's repossession of the deed of trust. Mirabell's brief moral on narriage mifies these different orbits of action involving his courtship of Millamant, the Fainall-Marwood triangle, the Lady Wishfort-Sir Wilfull conflict, and the servants' intrigue. Consequently, the plot of The Way of the M has the variety, but not the loosely-knit structure, of The Old Bachelor; it has the tighter pattern, but not the contrived plan, of The Double Dealer. As in Love for Love, the plot allows the moral to deve10p naturally and plausibly, while also avoiding the dichotomy between min plot and subplots. Mirabell and Millamant, at the structural center of the play, serve as the centrifugal and centripetal force around which all the other actions evolve, with the result that the play is a tightly-knit complex which coheres the action and material. into an aesthetically-satisfying whole. 11.2 the theme of narriage and its relationship to wealth is also a major concern in The Hg of the World, and as Mirabell and Millanant are the pivotal points of the action, they emphasize this theme, while their serious approach to narriage also serves as a norm by which we judge the attitudes of the other characters. Between them and iniividually, with their tentative movement towards marriage and their earnest desire to make a successful and happy union, Mirabell and Millamant effect a compromise between the attitudes of the gay couples in Rest oration canedy and the me sensible pairs in eigIteenth-cmtury comedy. Millamant, at first, is extremely reluctant to commit herself to marriage and fears that she will dwindle into a wife, but she is eventually overcans by the reasonableness of Mirabell's attitude. Her provisos stun from the desire to Ireserve liberty of thought and action after marriage, while his are more concerned with emhasizing the potential threats to marriage, such as cuckoldry and feminine affectation. In A New View of Congeve's Hg of the E914 (1953), Paul and Miriam Mueschke give the we satisfactory account of the scene and mention other pertinent aspects of the young couple's views. They state that Millamant's dmanis result from her desire to prolong 8111 increase the I 1&3 prenuptial glamour, and so she bans the despotism and prying curiosity which lead to disillusionment. Mirabell's, on the other hand, come from the ameness of the potential disaster inherent in hers, and so he separates the permanent values from the transitory and limits and qualifies her more fanciful provisos (BO—31). These demands are not trivial or cynical, for beneath the gaiety 8111 the wit is discerned a hard-headed and realistic approach to marriage. It is one which never tender-estimates the importance of Millmant's fortune. Both are determined to marry with the aunt's ‘ approval, not pl'i-rily to please her, but in order to obtain the fully dowry of twelve-thousand pounds. And like the heroes who pursue lvfiss Hayden in The Relapse, Silvia in ‘Jhe Itecrtfitin Offic er, and Mrs. Sullen in gs Beam: Strataggm, Mirabell sakes no attempt to conceal his interest in Millsmnt's fortune. his materialistic view towards marriage is even more explicit in Mirabell's concluding remark to Mrs. Faina'l.l, that her fortune "my be a means well manag'd to make you live Easily" with Fainall (1.78). Here is an Open indication of the tendency to see fortune as a prerequisite for a successful marriage. A less laudable view of mrriage becomes obvious in Finall, Mrs. Marwood, and Iady Wishfcrt, for they are all clmely identified with characters from Restoration comedy. As Libertines, Fainall and Mrs. Mamod exemplify a cynical attitude. Fainall relates marriage to mckoldry, the latter 1M» being as honorable as the former (4.43), and his own marital condition indicates how the narriages of such rakes as Dorimant am Bellmour my have materialized, and what the outcome would be of Homer's view of the marriage vow. Mrs. MarwoOd never considers narriage while carrying on her illicit affair. If she were to wed, it would be to make her husband suffer the pains and agony of jealousy and suspicion (1.11). Both Violate the marital laws and ruth- lessly exploit those who threaten to come betweal them and their adulterous passion. Like Sir Samson and Mrs. Frail in Love for Love, they are motivated by economic considerations - he by the desire to narry a fortune and to wheedle away his wife's estate, she by the urge to share in his lucrative plans to secure the rest of Mrs. Fainall's fortune and Pfillsmant's six-thousand pounds. Law Wishfort's marital views are . controlled by the strong desire to obtain a husband at all costs. She would "marry any 'lhing that resanbl'd a Man, tho' 'twere no more than that a Butler cou'd pinch eat of a ' Napkin" (A18), and so her indiscretion and passion make her a ready dupe for any would-be gallant. Mrs. Fainall, on the other hand, demonstrates a more moral point of view. Her om mrriage a failure and her life a misery, she endures patiently the tyranrv and inconstancy of her husband. She remains true to the marriage vow and does not seek solace in the arm of a lover. Consequently, 1A5 she m be identified with the wrmged but virtuous wives of eighteenth-century comedy. Implicit in her behavior is Mrs. Sullen's comment in he Beau: Stratagem, antithetical to the Restoration view, that marriage is "ordained by Heaven's Decree" (159). Although Mrs. Sullen is liberal enougz in her thinking to declare that when nature "has set tanpers Opposite, not all the golden links of Wedlock, nor iron Manacles of Law can keep 'em fast" (159), she does not advocate adultery but divorce, ard she only threatens to cuckold her brutal husband. Amanda in it; Relapse also rennins faithful to her ungrateful spouse, despite the advances nade to her by Worthy. l-trs. Fainall's fidelity to her husband and to the laws of marriage relate her directly to these other loyal wives. he final moral, that true marriages are not based on unnttual falsehood" and that I'marriage frauds too oft are paid in kind" (478), point respectively to the highly serious efforts of the young lovers to prepare a solid fomdation for a happy marriage and to the deceit of the Fdnall-Marwood affair. he moral also underlines the theme without imposing too didactic a tone and brings together the major ideas emessed earlier in the play. he result is that Congreve both instructs md delights. he moral ambiguity of The Old Bachelor and the heavy-handed didacticism of he Double Dealer are now balanced as in Love for love, and without last». minute recourse to sentimentelism. M6 he reason why there is not such a sharp division between the different levels of action as in love for Love is that all the characters now appear to inhabit the same ambivalent world made up of elements from Restoration comedy and those which were to prevail in eighteenth-century comedy. In Congreve's earlier plays, the serious young lovers, by virtue oftheir respective sensibilities, are alienated from their society. The result is that happiness for Vainlove and Araminta is more potential than real, for Mellefont and Cynthia an end contrived by the external dictates of poetic justice. Valentine and Angelica succeed because they are forced to resort to temporary dissembling and to play the game according to the rules of their society. But Mirabell and Millamsnt succeed not only because they are able to fool their adversaries but because they egg their right to happiness. Consequently, the cynical world-view of the Restoration dramatists, in which goodness becomes hopelessly confused or passive, is now blmded with the eighteenth-century idea of a more balanced and benevolent universe. Furthermore, the other characters in the play also represent ambivalent aspects of life, manifesting as they do the characteristics of Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy. hey are, therefore, less clearly demarcated from each other, and their traits are fused together in such a way that they take «1 the complexity of human nature itself. If some 147 individuals relate more readily to Restcration comedy, a balance is quickly achieved by incluiing in their group characters who belong to the more moral and reasonable world of later comedy. Mirabell has been viewed as both a treacherous rake am a gentleman. In he gm of Manners, John Palmer states that I'ii‘ we invoke the mal of a later period,“ Mirabell's bdiavior with Mrs. Fainall is "inexcusable, perfidious villainy" (192.). To John Wain, in ”Restoration Camdy ani its Modern Critics" (1956), Mirabell is an "munitigated cad" (381.). At the other extreme, Jean Gagen, in "Congreve's Mirabell and the Ideal of the Gentleman" (1964). very convincingly absolves him from all blame by eomlaining his actions in terms of the contemporary ideal gentlemen who were "often encouraged not only to polish their more in the company of ladies but to carry on amorous intrigues with them" (421.). It is extremely difficult to agree with any one of these views for they all carry some validity. It is the Mueschkes who, offering a compromise, come closest to reconciling the two sides of Mirabell's character. hey see him as a rake tho suffers for his former transgression before being permitted to marry a wealthy virgin (26). his hint given by them relates directly to the ambivalence which once again may be explained in terms of Mirabell's relationship 11.8 to Restoration and dgtteenth-century comedy, and which is best demonstrated in his attitude to Mrs. Fainall, his plot involving Iady Wishfort, his wit, and his relationship with Hillanant. At first, Hirabell may see: to amplify all the vanity and heartlessness characteristic of the rake in his behavior with his. Patnall. Having been her lover after the death of her first husband, he arranges for her to hurry Fainall “To save that Idol Reputation" diould there be any consequences to their familiarities (1.17). Mirabell selects whom he considers the best man for the purpose - Funall - because he is, as Iiirabell states: a Man lavish in his Morals, an interested and professing Friend, a false and designing Lover; yet one whose Wit 1nd outward fair Behaviour have gein'd a Reputation with the Tom, mough to make that Woman stand ecmus'd, who has suffer'd herself to be wen by his Addresses. A better Man ought not have been sacrific'd to the Occasion: a worse had nd: answer'd to the Purpose. (417) But Mrs. Fainsll, it should be added, does not mrry him without some "partial Opinion ani Fondness" (1.76). Neither is she wretchedly abmdoned by Mirabell to become the butt of society's scom and ridicule for he become her friend and confidant. She respect ad trusts him enough to convey the whole of her estate to him because she has received some hint about her husband's 11:9 "Inconstancy and Tyranny“ (#76). Consequently, Mirabell's corfiuct can hardly be see: in the same light as that of his Restoration gradecessors, such as Dorimant in The Count}; Wife, who mercilessly leaves Mrs. Loveit to her own misery. But Mirabell's affair with Mrs. Fainall cannot be as easily forgotten as Valentine's past libertinism because her presence throughout the play and their frequent discussions on their relationship link the past to the wesent in a stronger and more immediate way than in Love for Eve. The result is that MirabeIL's moral development and stamina areclearerandhisuizmixgoffiillmmnt allthemore commendable and plausible . No character belonging to the Restoration world is canplete without revealing a penchant for plotting, and Mirabell is no exception. First, there is his plan to win MiJlamant by playing the gallant with Lady Wishfort ani then, after making sure that Waituell and Foible are married, his attempt to fool her by having her contract herself to “Sir Rowland." But as with Mellefont 81d Valentine, his lack of success helps to underline his failure to qualify as a true-blooded rake. Another aspect of his character vhich further distinguishes him from his Restoration counterparts is his sensibility. In recapitulating his failure with Lech Wishfort, he affirms that: I did as much as Man eou'd, with aw reasonable 150 Conscience .... 'Jhe Devil's in't, if an old woman is to be flatter'd further, unless a man shou'd endeavour downright personally to debauch her; and that my Virtue forbad me. (397) With these references to conscience and virtue, Mirabell comes close to the newer type of hen In Vanbrugh's lige Relapse, Young Fashion's initial scruples and "qualms of conscience" make him hesitate in cheating his elder brother, Lord FOppington, as Mirabell's conscience prevents him from taking the initiative to its inevitable conclusion. And from what Fainall says to Mirabell about his slighting of Mrs. Marwood, it is clear that Mirabell's concept of "gallantry" is rather different from what it is for the rake in Restoration canedy: You are a gallant Man, Mirabell: and tho' you may have Cruelty enougz, not to satisfie a Lady's longing; you have too much Generosity, not to be tender of her Humor. (397) As with Valentine, Mirabell's dissembling is partially diminished because it is done for true love and because Iady Wishfort is foolish enougm to believe that the younger Mirabell. is interested in what she herself refers to as "an old peel'd Wall." (429). As a truesit of the Restoration school, Mirabell sees through the falsity of the witwouds. While Faisal]. believes that Witmud "does not always want Wit," Mirabell 151 realizes that his comparisons are commonplace, that "He is a Fool with a good Memory, and some few scraps of other Folks Witu (401). Wha: Petulsnt tries to Justify his own malicious strain of wit which he uses to attack women, by saying that "I always take blushing either for a sign of Guilt, or ill Breeding,n Mirabell reponds to him in a manner which echoes Manly's reprimand of Novel and Oldfox in The Plain Dealer (#93). Mirabell pertinently and wisely replies: I confess you ought to think so. You are in the right, that you may plead the error of your Judgnent in defence of your Practice. Where Modesty's ill Manners, 'tis but fit That Impudence and Malice, pass for Wit. (#09) It is because Millamant mixes with these coxcombs that Mirabell become jealous of her "Understanding" (399). Yet he is also capable of the kind of wit which delights the ear more than the sense, as when he states that to enquire of a husband for his wife is like asking after an old fashion (1.19); but this is the exception rather than the rule . Mirab ell' s attitude to and relationship with Millamant also demonstrate his kinship with and differmce from the Restoration vdtty hero. His perceptiveness is not restricted to exposing the fools. Fainall. genuinely feels that Mirabell is too discerning in the failings of his mistress but, unlike Bellmour with Belinda, Mirabell accepts 152 Millsmant's faults as he acknowledges them. At the same time, his comments va'ttily condone her faults as they reveal his. He says that Millamant's failings are "now grownsofamiliartomeasnyownFrailties; andinall probability in a little time longer I shall. like 'an as well" (399). In his first encounter with her, when he shows her that a lover is more necessary to a woman's beauty than a mirror, it is he vho has the last word: For Beauty is the Lover's Gift; 'tis he bestows your Charms -your Glass is all a Cheat. ‘me Ugly and the 01d, whom the Looking-Glass mortifies, yet after Commendation can be flatter'd by it, and discover Beauties in it: For that reflects our Praises, rather than your Face. (L20) In fact, Mirabell's vdt exemplifies much judgment. As the Mueschkes have noted, his wit is predominantly Judicial (32). It modifies Millamant's fanciful provisos and reveals his dislike of affectation. Millamnt recognizes his sound Judgmmt and realizes that "If Mirabell. shou'd not make a good Husband, I am a lost thing" ([53). But Mirabell's wit comes dangerously close to the sentmtiousness of Bevil Junior. When we first see him, he is grave and reserved. Both Fainall (397) and Millamant (#22) feel threatened, fbr different reasons, by his censorious cmnnents. At one point, Millamant begs him not to I'look with that violent and inflexible wise Face, like Solomon at the 153 dividing of the Child in an old Tapestry-hanging" (422), and she finds it impossible to share his melancholy. It is because his wit is not trivial but moral and realistic that he barely avoids becaning as tedious as Millamant finds his countenance. He may also be identified with his eighteenth- cmtury comrterparts in his attempts to win Millamant, not as Valentine tries with Angelica, but by ”plain-Dealing and Sincerity" (1,22). He may be compared with the heroes of Steele's comedies who are pattemed after the dramatist's belief, expressed in "Lover" No.7, that a “Man of Love . shou'd address hinself to his Mistress with Passion and Sincerity; and that if this Method fails, it is in vain for him to have recourse to Artifice or Dissembling" (273. a view of course which dispenses with the battle of wits and intrigues so important in Restcration comedy. But Mirabell is never as heavy-handed in his moralizing aid as overt in his sentimentality as the full- blown heroes of Cibber and Steele. Nor does he reveal, as does Angelica in the last moment of Love for Love, those traits which ally her to eighteenth-century comedy. ‘Ihis makes Mirabell. a more consistently drawn character and the tone of the play more evm. His brief moral on narriage comes after the action of the play is over, and there is not the implied but invidious relational ip between morality and superiority of tactics. In fact, Mirabell is only too well. aware of his om follies (399), and he knoas that in trying 15A to pin down the elusive Millamant and to "continue to be in Love, is to be made wise from the Dictates of Reason, and yet persevere to play the Fool by the force of Instinct" (#23). Lastly, Mirabell proves by virtue of his wit and moral stability to be a worthy husband for Millamant. Millamant is as elusive as Mirabell is stable. From the very first moment when die appears ”full. sail, with her Fan spread and her Streamers out , and a shoal of Fools for Tenders“ (1.18), she becomes the epitome of the gay and witty heroine of Restoration comedy. She passes through the play like a whirlwind, establishing her power over everyone. She believes that one may make "lovers as fast as one pleases," and that "they live as long as one pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases: And then if one pleases, one makes more" . (1.20). Her hair is pinned and curled with their verse letters and her followers flutter around her "Like moths about a Candle" (1.18). It is not surprising to learn that "it is almost a Fashion to admire her” 0.07). She is as self-willed as Araminta and Angelica, mixing with fools and truewits alike, and her self-regard is such that it is reluctant to acknowledge wit in others (A08) , particularly that of the witwouds (A19). She refuses to be reprimanded and instructed by Mirabell and Mrs. Marwood, who attempt to bring her dam to their mmdane level. But it met be agreed that her "Follies are so natural, 155 or so artful, that they become her; and those Affectations which in another Woman wou'd be odious, serve but to make her more agreeable" (399). Like the truewit that she is, this vivacious facade belies her powers of perception. She sees through Mrs. Marwood's hypocrisy (1.33), and she is able to cast aside the latter's malice with good-humored frivolity (1.31.) . The song she has sung is an indirect and delightful rejoinder directly aimed at Mrs. Marwood's consuming envy. It tells of "the Glory to have pierc'd a Swain/For whom inferior Beauties sigh'd in vain," and of the deligit in seeing "'Ihat Heart which others bleed for, blood for me" (1.35). But Millamant is also very mch aware that the power to assert her feminine prerogative does not extend to Mirabell, that she cannot cannmd him to be other than what he is (1.33); and she knows only too well that he is the only husband for her, for "If Mirabell shou'd not make a good Husband, I am a lost thing; - for I find '1 love him violently" (1.53). lraits which ally her more closely with the heroine of sense in eighteenth-century consdy are her basciflly good nature, politeness to those less sophisticated that herself, a serious attituie towards marriage, and her dislike of foolish affectation. From Mirabell it is learned that cruelty is not part of her nature, that her true vanity 156 is in the power of pleasing (1.20). To her gauche country cousin, Sir Wilfull, she excnqolifies a wit that is not restricted to verbal eloquence but one vhich extends itself to social bdiavior, and so she is able to reject his advances without his realizing that he has been dismissed (1.1.8). In the contract scene she demonstrates a fanciful wit which balances Hirabell's judicial commmts. She expects to retain her freedom and wants to preserve that respect so easily lost after marriage. Similar to Lady Sharlot in Steele's e Funeral (1701), who attempts to resist the vain and affected custcms of her society, Millamant wants to avoid the nauseous cant of name-calling between husbani and wife in public, which has little resemblance to actuality. Even after her acceptance of Mirabell, Millamant retains her earlier attitude to him, a mixture of Restoration and eight eenth-century qualities. At the end of the play, when he is still hesitating to take her, she frustratingly but good- humoredly asks, "Why do's not the man take me? wou'd you have me give nw self to you over again" (1.77). In her is refined and fused the gaiety and wit of her predecessors with the sensibility of her successors; in her the respective traits of Congreve's earlier heroines, from Belinda and Araminta to Cynthia and Angelica, are given consimnnate emression. But she does not submit to Mirabell as Valentine does to Angelica, and she makes no 2 attempt to moralize. Nor is there any hint in her 157 of Angelica's incth sentimentalism. These aspects are now kept firmly in check by her continuing vivacity and wit. Consequently, Congreve achieves, as he does with Mirabell, character consistency and a sureness and an evenness of tone. As Mirabell is more directly responsible for the comic resolution, Millmnant's role is more important in terms of the challenge she presents to him as a witty lover. She appears to be the Opposite in temperament to Mirabell, for she refuses to be weighed dam by his gravity, and she frequently ridicules his attempts to play the lover. In this respect, they may be considered to demonstrate the changes that were taking place in the relationship between the gay couple d; the turn of the century, changes that have been dealt with by J. H. Smith in 'Jhe Ga Couple in Restoration , m. Smith points out that the heroine of early. ‘ e131 temth-century comedy, while retaining the gaiety of her Restoration predecessors, belongs to the "difficult" rather than to the "pursuing" type, while the hero becomes more obviously moral and serious. With the heroine using the here as a butt for her wit, a conflict is set up between the gay heroine aui the man of sense (196-97). Although Mirabell still has the ability to meet Millannnt on her om terms and is more than equal to the witty love-game in which she indulges, there are many iniications that Mirabeu anticipates thme heroes who fail to meet the expectations 158 of the witty heroine. Millamant eicperiences much trouble with Mirabell because he does not fulfil her demands that a witty lover should be less serious. She complains that he is too coy, that he should display more gallantry, for ”'Tis hardly well bred to be so particular on one Hand, and so insensible on the other. But I despair to prevail, and so let him follow his own m" (43h). Millamant's coments, in fact, come close to the description and dis-satisfaction expressed by Clarinda of Colonel Trtmore in James Miller's The Humours of Oxford (1730), who is "one of your bashful Fellows, that approaches a Woman with as much Reverence as he would an Angel, and courts his Mistress out of Plutarch's Morals" (82. Of course, Mirabell is not as passive as Trmnore, but Millamant is forced to tell him that "If ever you will win me wooe me now" (1.22), a demand echoed by Hillaria in Thomas Baker's Tunbridge Walks (1703), than she advises her lover to "neither fawn nor flatter, but use a generous Courtship, and assert the Prerogative of your Sex" (27). But Mirabell's censoriousness is too much for Millamant, and so she resorts to making good- humored fun of his solemnity before and after accepting him, Just as Clarinda does with Morgand as Maria does with Mr. Heartly in Cibber's lbs Noanuror (1717). 159 For Mirabell and Nillamant, happiness and success in narriage become a greater possibility than for Congreve's earlier couples. With the cynical view of life dominating The Old Bachelor, the success of Bellmour's and Belinda's marriage is seen to be extremely doubtful, while for Vainlove and Araminta it remains more of a potentiality than a reality. For Mellefont and Cynthia in The Double Dealer, happiness is implausibly achieved through the way in which the play is governed by a simplified and artifical view of the world, a view whidn is controlled by the principles of poetic justice. In love for Love, Valentine and Angelica achieve happiness by the devious means of dissembling and by ultimate recourse to senti- mentalism. But now in ‘Ihe Way of the World, happiness in marriage is seen to be more substantial and plausible as Congreve's concept of life is a more comprehensive and balanced one than in the earlier comedies, ard because the young couple approach marriage without excessive cynicism or sentimentalian. The happy resolution comes not from any arbitrary method or sudden vision, but by the means of the deed of conveyance which springs from Mirabell's earlier concern for Mrs. Fainall, when at her request he becomes trustee to her estate. Consequently, a direct comection is nede between past goodness and present rewards. With Mirabell and Millamant also possessing sound wit and values, and with his judgment compensating for her fancy, they are seen 160 to be admirably matched. It is extrenely difficult to agree with Clifford Leech that there is an undertone of melancholy in the play (293). A comparison with the earlier comedies reveals quite readily that Mirabell and Millamant approach marriage cautiously and wisely, and that they are eventually willing and prepared for what Bellmour refers to as the "Journey for Life" (ll2). Althougx Fainall and Mrs. Marwood are similar to Mashtell and Lady Touchwood, they are not conceived in such absolute terns of personifications of evil, so they fit more naturally into the comic franework and remain a plausible part of the play's social fabric which illustrates the vagaries of the way of the world. Consequently, the contrived conflict of The Double Dealer is absent. 'Ilhis effect is achieved by many factors. The presence of the two villains never dominates the action, and the wit of the young lovers presents more of a challenge to their treachery. Unlike Maskwell, Fainall. has some redeeming features, mile Mrs. Marwood's adulterous affair does not involve her on husband. But it should be emphasized that the difference is one of demo rather than kind. And lastly, Mrs. Fainall's relationship to men as a group helps to balance their more negative qualities. In terms of their kindlip to Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy, the villain's treachery relate them both to the two comic modes, while Mrs. Fainall's generosity, humility, and patience identify her with the virtuous valves of eighteenth-century comedy. 161 Fainall's cynical view of the world and his subsequent jaundiced interpretation of the motives of others, place him firmly within the milieu of Restoration comedy. When he is informed of his wife's affair with Mirabell, he is at first angry, but then he sees that for a husband and wife to be both errant and rank are "all in the way of the world" (1.22), and that ".411 Husbands must, or pain, or shame, endure3/ 1116 Wise too Jealous are, Fools too secure" (1.1.1.). Wiih this attitude, it is not surprising that he regrds Mirabell's indifference to Mrs. Marwood as affected and negligent (397). As a Restoration rake, he believes that Mirabell is too discerning in the faults of his mistress, and he wilfully igicres his own wife's failing, her friendship with Mirabell, only in order that he might continue in his pleasures unsuspected (1.11;). His actions and moral standards may also be related to the newer rakes of eighteenth-century comedy, for they spring from a gross preoccupation with fortune. He mrries so that his wife my keep him, and he now hOpes to wheedle away her estate. ’lee reason he is angry with his accomplice for revealing to Lady Wishfort Mirabell's plan, is that he stands to lose the six-thousand pounds which would have gone to his wife if Millamant had married without her aunt's apIroval. He soon reveals that the little moral principle he does possess is influenced by economic considerations, for 162 he is quite prepared to accept cuckoldom so long as it is the means by which he may gain half of Millamant's dowry. To possess this and the rest of his wife's I estate, he schemes to further the match between Iviirabell and Millamant and to force Lady Wishfort into a situation where she will have no alternative but to sign over her daugiter's estate to him. With such a heart and constitution, Fainall. hopes "to bustle thro' the ways of Wedlock and this World“ (14-15). His few redeming points are his belief that Millamant would not marry for mercenary reasons (1.08) and his open acknowledgnent that I‘Jitwoud “has sanething of a good Nature" (1.01). But for the most part, he remains the same cynic and materialist throughout the play. With his infidelity with Mrs. Marmod exposed and his chance lost of gaining Millanant's dowry, he still believes that these reversals are, to use is own recurrent phrase, the ways of the world(l+71+), and he goes on dananding his wife's estate, unaware that Mirabell is about to perform the coup de Eace. Mrs. Harwood shares Fainall's distorted and mercenary motives. She believes that the world is treacherous (1.16), that love is a tyrannical force (1.10), and that marriage is a means by PhiCh the wife may torture the husband with the suspicion that he is a cuckold. To her, the Devil is an ass, for "Man shou'd have his Head and Hcrns, and woman 163 the rest of him“ (#31). As a result of this neagtive view of life, she assumes that Mrs. Fainall's reserved relation- ship with Mirabell stems "not fran a want of Appetite but from a Surfeit," and that Mrs. Fainall is attempting to procure Millamant for him (A31). Torn between the passion to avenge herself on Mirabell for his indifference and the desire to lay her hands on Millamant's six-thousand pounds, she decides to channel her efforts into obtaining the latter, at the same time suggesting to Fainall. how he could disinherit his wife as well. As cynics and Libertines, Fainall. and Mrs. Marwood look back to Restoration comedy, as materialists they relate to eighteenth-century comedy. As mentioned earlier, Mrs. Fainall makes more immediate Mirabell's past, underlines his moral developnent, and balances the more negative qualities of the other two members of her group, Fainall and Mrs. Marwood. In fulfilling these functions, she reveals her kinship with the two comic modes. Her characterizatim as a "rejected mistress" demonstrates, however, a marked deviation from the Restoration traditim. Not experiencing the customary thirst for revenge, as do Mrs. Loveit in The Man of Mode aid Silvia in Tue Old Bachelor, she, on the contrary, defends her past lover against Mrs. Harwood's accusation that he is proud (1.]2), and she makes him her confidant and trustee to her estate. The manner in which she behaves towards both Mirabell and Mllamant 161. deserves Foible's praise that she is "the Pattern of Generosity" and confirms the maid's belief that she still has a place in llirabell's heart (1.30). In suffering the tyranny and inconstancy of a husband who believes it scandalous to talk in public with his wife (1.12), and in remaining loyal to the marriage vow, Mrs. Fainall is similar to Cibber's heroines, Amanda and law Easy, and to Farquhar's Mrs. Sullen. Congreve avoids the sentimentalism which usually accompanies such a character and domestic relationship. She is not given the prominence in the play which is extended to her counterparts in eighteenth-century comedy, and there is no snmgness detected in her virtuous conduct. When she comments on the frailty of women, she not cmly refers to her mother but includes herself in the moral generalization (1.18). And despite her laudable conduct and attitude and the potential pathos of her situation, she never becomes insipid. Furthermore, as there is no definite reconciliation between husband and wife, the happy resolution to her marital problems being implied, the moral and sentimental elements so dominant in those fifth-act repentance scenes in the plays of Cibber, Vanbrugh and F arquhar are avoided. Within the context of the play as a whole, Hrs. Fainall represents another aspect of human nature, and so she is identified with the less cynical world of the young couple. Pointing to a more moral 165 and benevolent universe, she also helps to give a more comprehensive view of life. Consequently, the character of Mrs. Fainall, her situation with her husband, and her thematic function, all serve as an excellent example of how Congreve draws on the older comic mode and contributes to the deve10pment of a new one, while avoiding the excesses of both. Congreve lavishes the same geniality on Lady Wishfort as he does on Heartwell in ‘Jhe Old Bachelor, and with similar results. She is the feminine counterpart of the old rake, the superannuated coquette, but the stereotype is developed and enlarged to make way for a more humane attitude on the part of the dramatist. Consequently, little of the cynical and mocking tone of Congreve's predecessors is detected in this highly complex and subtle creation. Iady Wishfort's Restoration traits are revealed in her attitude towards Mirabell. Fooled by his sham addresses, she is determined to cppose his plans with her niece, and she hOpes that by marrying his benefactor and uncle, “Sir Rowland," she will be able to starve him to death. For this reason, she describes Mirabell as a precious: lover which, of course, does not come anywhere near the Mirabell we see in the play (1.58). But so desperate is she to find a husband that she will resort to anything, even to the extent of ignoring "Integrity to an Opportunity" (1.26), for only importunity, she argues, can 166 surmount decorums ((+29). Her folly is underscored by her diction, which is as circumventory as her attempts to preserve decorum without giving the impression of "Complacency" or "Lethargy of Continence" (1.58). Deeper-ate to preserve her appearance of integrity, yet eager not to lose an opportunity, she rehearses how best she can meet Sir Rowland, what air and posture she should affect (1.29). She finally decides to receive him with tenderness, a "sort of dyingness," seated on a couch (1.29), neither lying nor lolling, but leaning "upon one Elbow; with one Foot a little dangling off, Jogging in a thoughtful way.” And then she will rise to meet him in a pretty disorder, for "nothing is more alluring than a levee fran a couch in some confusion. - It shows the foot to advantage, and furnishes with Blushes, and re-composing Airs beyond Comparison" (M5). Ihe Shandean desceiption captures the whole psychological depth and subtlety of the character in this brief but very revealing reverie . It is precisely at this Juncture that lady Wishfort transcends type, surpassing the treatment accorded to Lady Cockwood by Etherege in She Would If She Coal and to Iady Flippant by Wycherley in Love in a Wood, for both these characters are treated by their creators with much derision and scorn. Furthermore, Lady Wishfort is not so foolish as 167 to be unaware of her physical deficiencies. Confronted with her looking-glass, she admits that she is "absolutely decay'd" (1.28), and "arrantly flea'd" like an "old peel'd Wall" (1.29). here is also something disarming in the . manner and tone in which she reveals ’me very real need she has for a husband. Her last words to Sir Rowland are to “Bring back what you will; but come alive, pray cane alive!" (1.61). And when Fainall demands of her the harsh ultimatum that she is never to marry, she tentatively and anxiously enquires, but what "in case of Necessity; as of Health, or some such Emergency" (1.68). here is also discerned, beneath this wreck of a woman, an individual who can still love (1.69), and who can be hurt by Foible's betrayal of her confidence (1.61.). It is not surprising. that John Palmer, seeing the play purely as a Restoration comedy, finds it difficult to "recover the mood in which Congreve conceived her" (191.). By taking into consideration Congreve's growing tendency to draw characters which relate more readily to later comedy, lady Wishfort's complexity may be explained in terms of the satirical treatment accorded to her type in Restoration comedy and with reference to the greater tolerance towards human nature which occurs in eighteenth-century comedy. he character of lady Wishfort is a superb piece of observation and realism and, as such, she fits naturally into a play which illustrates the complex nature of the ways of the world. 168 Sir Wilfull Witwoud, the robust country squire and half-brother to the f0p Witwoud, also deviates from the Restoration tradition and points to a more sympathetic treatment of the country which, as Nicoll points out in Early Eighteenth Centm Drama, "may be intimately associated with that genre [comedy of sensibility] which rose under Cibber and Steele (182). Although Congreve does not actually take us into the country as do Vanbrugh and Farquhar, he does make us realize that his attitude towards it is not so cynical and satirical as his predecessors'. At first, there is established, through the ridicule of Mirabell and Fainall (1.00), the idea that Sir Wilfull, over forty and prepared to do the grand tour, belongs to the same tradition as Etherege's Sir Oliver Cockwood and Sir Joslin Jolly in She Would If She Coull, and who Spend their time in London 'Wa'enching, and swearing, and drinking, and tearing" (100). Sir Wilfull gets drunk, "grows very powerful, " and smells so much that I-Iillamant is forced to leave his presence (1.56). He becomes an embarrassment to his aunt who, along with her guests, shares an aversion to the country which is typical of Restoration comedy. In Wycherley's The Gentleman Dancgng‘ -I~Iaster, the heroine Hippolita prefers to be a prisoner in the town than to be carried off by her lover into the country (169). 169 To Alithea in he Country Wigs, being sent into the country is "the last ill-usage of a husband to a wife" (309). Similarly, Etherege's Harriet in he Man of Mode can "scarce indure the Country in Landskapes and in Hangings" (222), and she believes that there is "musick in the worst cry in London" compared to the noise of rooks (287). But in he Way of the World, Congreve balances this attitude with others. Millamant, for examPle, detests the tom as much as she does the country (1.1.8), and Sir Wilfull's drunken state results directly from the attenpts of Fainall to make him incapable of preposing to her. Furthermore, Sir Wilfull is aware of the differences between the town and country, and so he fully realizes that the sephisticated heroine would not be a suitable wife for him. In fact, he volunteers to help the lovers in their plot against Fainall and Mrs. Ivlarwood. Sir Wilfull displays a common-salse that deflates the affectation of the witwouds. heir attenpt to "woke" him ends in his asserting his superiority over them, and he successfully reveals Witwoud for the f0p and fool that he is (1.38). In Vanbrugh's _‘I_h_e_ Relapse, Sir Tunbelly Clumsey also gets the better of the town fool, Lord FOppington, and it is the latter the becomes the main object of the dramatist's ridicule. Apart from Sir Wilfull‘s drunken fit, his behavior may be regarded eccentric only if the standards of the town are accepted as the norm, and Congreve gives sufficient evidmt to suppose that these 170 are far from perfect. One may detect in Congreve's treatment of Sir 151mm, the attitude of Farquhar, who in the Dedication to The Recruitin Officer, states that he has no desire to "make the Town merry at the expense of the Country Gentlemen" (la-l). In this respect, Congreve differs from his Restoration predecessors, and the fusion which is achieved in the character of Sir Wifull and the others, stables him to avoid that distinction between the main and minor characters evident in the plots of I_.o_t_r__e_ for Love and reveals further evidence of the synthesis of the two comic modes. he witwouds and servants also share the same ambivalence and appear to breathe the same charmed atmosphere as their superiors. Witwoui and Petulant belong to the same tradition as Congreve's own Tattle and Lord Froth, as Wycherley's Dapperwit, Oldfox and Novel, and as Etherege's Sparkish - allof whom affect to be the gallant and pretend to wit and decorum. Petulant makes absurd attempts to prove to the truewits that he is popular with the women. Witwoud relates how Petulant frequently sends sons trulls to call on him once a day in public places; at other times: he wou'd slip you out of this Chocolate-house, just when you had been talking to him - As soon as your Back was turn'd - Whip he was gone; - hen trip to his Lodging, clap on a Hood and Scarf, and Mask, slap into a Hackney—Coach, and drive hither to the Door again in a trice; where he wou'd send in for himself, that I mean, call for himself, wait for himself, nay and what's 171 more, not finding himself, sometimes leave a Letter for hire elf. (405) He has "an odd sort of small Wit" (AOB), and like Oldfox and Novel in he Plain Dealer (190), he also believes that malice constitutes true wit (#09). Similar to Lord Froth's, his perversity is seen in his readiness to "contradict any Body" (A03). Kitwoud's wit is merely composed of "some few Scraps of other Folks Hit" (401), and similar to those other fools who have a wrong concept of it, he believes that “A Wit shou'd no more be sincere, than a Woman constant; one argues a decay of Parts, as t'other of Beauty" (403). In one brief exchange where Witwoud and Petulant flatter each other, they reveal their own peculiar brand of verbal wit: Witwoud. hou hast utter'd Volumes, Folio's, in less than Decimo Sexto, 11y Dear Lacedomonian, Sirrah Petulant, thou art an Epitomizer of words. Petulant. Witwoud - You are an anihilator of sense. Witwoud. Thou art a retailer of Phrases; and dost deal in Remnants of Remnants, like a maker of Pincushions - thou art in truth (Metaphorically speaking) A Speaker of short-hand. (#53) To those with me wit, these fools become objects of amusement. In he Man of Mode, Mrs. Loveit finds Sir FOpling 172 entertaining (268), and Ifillamant sees Petulant and t’itwoud as being essential to her health (#21). Although Congreve was annoyed, as is shown in the play's Dedication, that some members of the audience could not "find the leisure to distinguish befixt the character of a Hitwoud and a Truewit" (390), it may well. be asked, as POpe phrased it in "he First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace," if "Congreve's fools are fools indeed?" (1.300). Both Witwoud and Petulant are frequently capable of making similitudes which, if not profound or intellectual in import, are quite descriptive and valid. Describing the encounter between the drunken Sir Wili‘ull. and the objectionable Petulant, Witwoud states that "they cou'd neither of 'em speak for rage; And so fell. a eputt'ring at one another like two roasting Apples" (1.53). And to Millamant's aversion to having an illiterate man as a lover, Petulant responds as follows: Why shou'd a Man be ever the further from being married tho' he can't Read, any more than he is from being Hang'd. .he Ordinary's paid for setting the Psalm, and the Parish-Priest for leading the Cerenony. And for the rest which is to follow in both Cases, a Man mm? do it without Book - So all's one for that. (1.36) . Here, Petulant' s common-sensical attittfle contrasts with the more affected one of the heroine. It may also be added that h'itwoud is not without some positive qualities. He has, as 173 Fainall remarks, "something of a good Nature, and does not always want Wit" (#01). Petulant, on the other hand, is less endearing and attractive because it is his humor to be cruel (1.05). lastly, there are the servants, who also take on some of the qualities of their masters or mistresses. In Restoration comedy, they are instrumental in furthering the love-intrigues of their superiors, as are Sentry in She Would If She Gould and Lucy in The Old Bachelor. Waitwelland Foible further thrabell'splan to fool Lady Uishfort, and Foible is responsible for exposing the adulterous relationship between F ainall and Mrs. lviarwood. But Congreve's servants reveal, as does Jeremy in Love fer Love, a wit and elegant turn of phrase. To Foible's description of Lady Wishfort's reaction to Sir Rowland's portrait, Nirabell replies that. "Matrimony has nade you eloquent in Love" (421+). There is also little of the envy and foolishness which are found in their Restoration counterparts, such as in Prue in Wycherley's he Gentleman Dancing-Master and in Dufoy in Etherege's comical Raven e, or even in Setter in he Old Bachelor. From .Waitwell. and Foible, down to hfincing, vho attempts to copy the speech of her mistress, Millamarrt, to Betty and the footman, Congreve diversifies and adds to these traits normally associated with the servant, far all of them are drawn with such good nature 174 and tolerance that their little follies, like I-Eillamant's evoke deliglt rather than scorn. To see The lan of the World purely as the quintessence of Restoration comedy is, therefore, to ignore those elements in it which are to be fund in eighteenth- century comedy. he plot and theme bring together into a harmonious whole ideas from both comic modes, while delight and instruction are so balanced that the one is not subordinated to the other. he characters, themselves compounded of a subtle mixture of Restoration and eighteenth- century comecw, help to bring the structure of the play into an aesthetic unity and demonstrate Congreve's ability to blend the old and the new. he excesses of (The Old Bachelgr and The Double Deals}; are avoided, while the more obvious eighteaith-century characteristics of Love for Love, the bipartite division of the plot and the sentimental conclusion, are now more subdued. Before concluding, it should also be emphasized that the total effect of The Hg: of the World is more than just a result of the fusion of the two comic modes. here is that element, to use a popular phrase of the seventeenth century, of "je ne sais quoi," which makes the play more than equal to the sum of its parts. Congreve states in the Dedication to the play that "little of it was prepar'd for 175 that general Taste which seems now to be predominant in the Pallets of our Audience" (390), and it may certainly be stated that the play transcends any classification or explication pureky in terms of either Restoration or eighteenth-century comedy, for the play is ultimately sui generis. Nevertheless, the fusion of the two comic modes, which is so essential to understanding and appreciating the complexity of the play, partly explains its greatness. VII CONCLUSICN It may now be seen how Ccngeve's development and achievement as a dramatist are related to his plays' relationships to Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy. After writing he Old Bachelor according to the well.- established tradition of Restoration comdy, Congreve moved on to attempt a rather different form of comedy in _T_t_1_9_ Double Dealer, 8. play which reflected and anticipated that type of comedy which was gradually to eclipse, and finally to dominate, the older tradition. he efforts expended upon this experiment were not entirely wasted. he brilliantly comic scenes in the subplots indicate that Congreve's forte’ was not in writing plays which viewed life in those simplified terms demonstrated in the main plot. Despite Congreve's passionate defence of the play in the Dedication, there is reason to suppose that his next play benefited from the lessons gained from composing the first two comedies. In Love for Love, Congreve brought together the wit, gaiety and the familiar character of Restoration comedy, with the moral and sentimental elements of eighteenth-century comedy. In the last play, e W of the War Congreve gave consummate 176 177 expression to his view of life, a concept which has been explained partly in terms of the manner in which he successfully reconciled the two comic modes. And an examination of the plots, theses and characterization has readily revealed the plays' siniliarities with Restoration and eighteenth-century com. If the dramatists of the Restoration were inclined to view life with only a jaundiced eye, those of the succeeding century failed to combine into an aesthetic unity the ambivalent sepects of life. In the plays of Cibber, Vanbrugh and Farquhar, the new spirit of eighteenth-century comedy rose to challenge the old, but it failed to unify the materials of the plays and only succeeded in imposing upon them an, incongruous pattern of sentimentalism and didacticism. In the comedies of Steele, what was left of the old Spirit was adapted to the needs of the new, which now reigned suprme. If one were to look for a worthy successor to Congreve, one would have to search beyond the world of the theater to that of the novel, to the works of Henry Fielding, in which there is contained that same realistic vein of humanism which gave birth to Eve for ER and he Wgy of the World. Before caprit finally gave way to benevolence in the theater, Congreve was able to look at life and see its ambiguities and complexities. At a time when the comic mask 178 was being transformed from.the derisive grin of the Restoration to the benign smile of the eighteenth- century muse , Congreve brought together the frequently contradictory features of the comic Spirit. For a moment in the development of English comecw, the double perspective afforded Congreve, enabled him to assimilate the influences of the earlier mode and to introduce into his plays elements which occur in later comedy. It is this perSpective, the plays' relationShips to Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy, and Congreve's ability to transpose all these influences into works of art, which give to his plays an added imaginative dimension and which also explain his development and achievement as a dramatist . BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLICHELAPHY Aristotle, me Rhetoric, tr. Lane COOper, New York, 1932. Baker, Thomas, Tunbrid e4lallcs' 0r ‘Ihe Yeoman of Kent, London, 1703. Behn, Aphra, 11.5253 Complete Flor-1133, ed. Montague Summers , 6 vols. London, 1915. 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