to the actual meaning of the sacred text; but as a treasury of practical religion and manual of hints for pulpit use, it soon secured a place in the very first class of expository works. Robert Hall for the last two years of his life read daily two chapters of Matthew Henry's Commentary, increasingly delighted with the copiousness, variety, and pious ingenuity of the thoughts; the simplicity, strength, and pregnancy of the expressions. Chalmers was a warm admirer of Henry; and for nearly two centuries the Commentary was the constant study companion and vade-mecum of a very large proportion of evangelical preachers of all denominations in English-speaking countries and colonies. The following extract from the exposition of Matthew vi. 24 may be taken as a specimen of the nervous and pointed remarks with which the work abounds :

'Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.' Mammon is a Syriack word that signifies gain, so that whatever it is in this world that is, or that we account to be gain to us (as St Paul speaks, Phil. iii. 7), that's mammon. 'Whatever is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life,' it is mammon. To some their belly is their mammon, and they serve that; to others, their ease, their sports and pastimes, are their mammon; to others, worldly riches; to others, honours and preferments: the praise and applause of men was the Pharisees' mammon; in a word, self, the unity in which the world's trinity centres, sensual secular self, is the mammon which cannot be served in conjunction with God; for if it be served, 'tis in competition with him, and in contradiction to him. He does not say we must not, or we should not, but we cannot serve God and mammon; we cannot love both, or hold to both, or hold by both, in observance, obedience, attendance, trust, and dependence, for they are contrary the one to the other. God saith: 'My son, give me thine heart;' Mammon saith: 'No, give it me.' God saith: 'Be content with such

things as ye have ;' Mammon saith: 'Grasp at all that ever thou canst-"Rem, rem, quocunque modo rem." God saith: Defraud not; never tell a lye; be honest and just in all thy dealings;' Mammon saith: 'Cheat thy own father if thou canst get by it.' God saith: Be charitable;' Mammon saith: 'Hold thy own; this giving undoes us all.' God saith: 'Be careful for nothing;' Mammon saith: 'Be careful for everything. God saith: Keep holy the Sabbath-day;' Mammon saith: Make use of that day, as well as any other, for the world.' Thus inconsistent are the commands of God and Mammon, so that we cannot serve both. Let us not, then, halt between God and Baal, but 'chuse you this day whom ye will serve,' and abide by your choice.

Henry Aldrich (1647-1710), born at Westminster, passed in 1662 from Westminster School to Christ Church, Oxford, of which he became a canon in 1682, and dean in 1689. He it was who urged Charles Boyle to edit the Epistles of Phalaris (see Vol. I. p. 754), and so started a memorable controversy. He designed the Peckwater Quadrangle, wrote the well-known

catch, Hark, the bonny Christ Church Bells, and a 'smoking catch' for four smokers, set English words to Italian anthems and songs, and indited Latin verses and epigrams; but he is less remembered as architect, verse-writer, composer, or inveterate smoker than as the author of the Artis Logica Compendium (1691), which was long a standard text-book, and of which, though it is a by no means brilliant performance, a new edition appeared in 1862.

Humphrey Prideaux (1648-1724), born at Padstow, from Westminster passed to Christ Church, Oxford. His Marmora Oxoniensia (1676), an account of the Arundel Marbles, procured for him patronage through which he was in 1679 appointed rector of St Clement's, Oxford, and erelong a canon of Norwich. In 1688 he became Archdeacon of Suffolk, and in 1702 Dean of Norwich. His nine works include a Life of Mahomet (1697), Directions to Churchwardens (1701; 15th ed. 1886), and The Old and New Testament connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations (1715-17; 27th ed. 1876). See Prideaux's Letters to John Ellis (Camden Soc. 1875). In virtue of the first and last named books he long ranked as a historian. The Life of Mahomet is wholly polemical, levelled as much against the English deists as against the Arabian impostor. But Prideaux's Connection, as the more important work was generally called, was a solid contribution to the knowledge of the subject, though in nowise profound or original; and was only superseded in general use by more scholarly works a century and a half after its appearance.

Sir George Etherege, the Restoration dramatist who in England founded the comedy of intrigue, was born probably in 1634. He lived much in his early life at Paris, studied law, had an intrigue with the actress Mrs Barry (on whose daughter he afterwards settled £6000), was knighted and married a wealthy widow, and in 1686 was Resident at the Imperial court at Ratisbon. He varied the monotony of what he regarded as banishment with coursing, drinking, play, flirtation with actresses, and correspondence with Middleton, Dryden, Betterton, and others. He seems to have died in Paris in 1691, and not, as used to be said, by falling downstairs after a banquet at Ratisbon. He sought his inspiration in Molière, and out of his comedy of intrigue grew the legitimate comedy of manners that culminated in Congreve and rendered possible the dramatic triumphs of Goldsmith and Sheridan. The Jonsonian types and 'humours' made way for real characters, sketched from the life even when the portraiture is but superficial; his fops are unsurpassed. He is less brutal and more sprightly and frivolous than Wycherley, but not so eminent a master of theatrical effect; several of his characters are more perfectly individualised, more

human concrete, and living than either Wycherley's

Congreve's, though Congreve's work shows more power. Rochester lamented that Etherege's madience checked the productiveness of a man who had as much sense, fancy, judgment, and was any writer of the day.' His three plays are The Comical Revenge; or, Love in a Tub 1564; She Would if She Could (1668); and The Man of Mode; or, Sir Fopling Flutter (1676)—all highly popular in their day. The first is mainly a farce; the second has serious scenes and a good deal of buffoonery; the third is the best and most readable. Dorimant, accepted as a sketch of Rochester, and Sir Fopling a study of the then famous Beau Hewitt, with points taken from Etherege himself, passed into literature as striking characterisations. Medley was Sir Charles Sedley. With all his grossness, 'gentle George' shows both restraint and a certain distinction.

From The Man of Mode.'

Medley. Is it not great indiscretion for a man of credit, who may have money enough on his word, to go and deal with Jews, who for little sums make men enter into bonds, and give judgment?

Bellair. Preach no more on this text; I am determin’d, and there is no hope of my conversion.

Dorimant. Leave your unnecessary fiddling; a wasp that's buzzing about a man's nose at dinner, is not more troublesome than thou art. [To HANDY.

Handy. You love to have your cloaths hang just, sir.

Dor. I love to be well dress'd, sir; and think it no scandal to my understanding.

Handy. Will you use the essence, or orange-flower water?

Dor. I will smell as I do to day, no offence to the ladies' noses.

Handy. Your pleasure, sir.

Dor. That a man's excellency shou'd lye in neatly tying of a ribbond, or a cravat! How careful's nature in furnishing the world with necessary coxcombs !

Bell. That's a mighty pretty suit of yours, Dorimant. Dor. I am glad 't has your approbation.

Bell. No man in town has a better fancy in his cloaths than you have.

Dor. You will make me have an opinion of my genius.

Med. There is a great critick, I hear, in these matters lately arriv'd piping hot from Paris.

Bell. Sir Fopling Flutter, you mean.

Med. The same.

Bell. He thinks himself the pattern of modern gallantry.

Dor. He is indeed the pattern of modern foppery. Med. He was yesterday at the play, with a pair of ves up to his elbows, and a perriwig more exactly "d than a lady's head newly dress'd for a ball. 3. What a pretty lisp he has!

Dor. Ho! that he affects in imitation of the people of lity in France.

Med. His head stands for the most part on one side, and his looks are more languishing than a lady's when she lolls at stretch in her coach, or leans her head carelessly against the side of a box i' the play-house.

Dor. He is a person indeed of great acquir'd follies. Med. He is like many others, beholden to his education for making him so eminent a coxcomb; many a fool had been lost to the world, had their indulgent parents wisely bestow'd neither learning nor good breeding on 'em.

Bell. He has been, as the sparkish word is, brisk upon the ladies already; he was yesterday at my aunt Townley's, and gave Mrs Loveit a catalogue of his good qualities, under the character of a complete gentleman, who, according to Sir Fopling, ought to dress well, dance well, fence well, have a genius for love-letters, an agree able voice for a chamber, be very amorous, something discreet, but not over constant.

Med. Pretty ingredients to make an accomplish'd person.

Dor. I am glad he pitch'd upon Loveit.
Bell. How so?

Dor. I wanted a fop to lay to her charge, and this is as pat may be.

Bell. I am confident she loves no man but you. Dor. The good fortune were enough to make me vain, but that I am in my nature modest.

Bell. Hark you, Dorimant, with your leave, Mr Medley, 'tis only a secret concerning a fair lady.

Med. Your good breeding, sir, gives you too much trouble; you might have whisper'd without all this ceremony.

Bell. How stand your affairs with Bellinda of late?
Dor. She's a little jilting baggage.

Bell. Nay, I believe her false enough, but she's ne'er the worse for your purpose; she was with you yesterday in a disguise at the play.

Dor. There we fell out, and resolv'd never to speak to one another more.

Bell. The occasion?

Dor. Want of courage to meet me at the place appointed. These young women apprehend loving, as much as the young men do fighting at first; but once enter'd, like them too, they all turn bullies straight. Handy. Sir, your man without desires to speak with [TO BELLAIR.

[Exit.

you. Bell. Gentlemen, I'll return immediately. Mid. A very pretty fellow this. Dor. He's handsom, well bred, and by much the most tolerable of all the young men that do not abound in wit.

Med. Ever well dress'd, always complaisant, and seldom impertinent; you and he are grown very intimate, I see.

Dor. It is our mutual interest to be so; it makes the women think the better of his understanding, and judge more favourably of my reputation; it makes him pass upon some for a man of very good sense, and me upon others for a very civil person.

Med. What was that whisper?

Dor. A thing which he wou'd fain have known, but I did not think it fit to tell him; it might have frighted him from his honourable intentions of marrying.

Med. Emilia, give her her due, has the best reputation of any young woman about the town, who has beauty enough to provoke detraction; her carriage is unaffected, her discourse modest, not at all censorious, nor pretending like the counterfeits of the age.

See Gosse's Seventeenth Century Studies (1883), and the edition of Etherege's works by A. W. Verity (1888).

Thomas Shadwell, a dramatic writer of some note in his day, though now hardly remembered save as the Mac Flecknoe' of Dryden's satire, was born in 1640 or 1642 at Broomhill House, near Brandon in Norfolk, the son of a gentleman of family. He passed from Cambridge without a degree to the Middle Temple; but not finding law to his liking, he deserted it, and after an interval of foreign travel, betook himself seriously to literature. His first comedy of The Sullen Lovers (1668), based on Molière, had great success, and he continued from year to year to entertain the town with a succession of pieces, of which nearly a score are extant and fill a complete edition in four volumes (1720). Pepys condemned The Royal Shepherdess (1668) for its silliness; The Humourists is not open to the same criticism. Epsom Wells (1720) is coarse but clever. The Miser is Molière's Avare with new characters and incidents. The Enchanted Island is a rifacimento of Shakespeare's Tempest; and in his preface to Timon of Athens, while professing respect for 'the inimitable hand of Shakespear,' Shadwell 'can truly say, I have made it into a play,' by dislocating the action, introducing new and superfluous characters (especially women) and new scenes and passages, omitting much of the best, abridging, paraphrasing, and expanding Shakespeare's words, and transmogrifying the whole into a caricature. The Libertine has Don Juan for hero. The True Widow, The Lancashire Witches, The Squire of Alsatia, Bury Fair, The Amorous Bigot, and The Volunteers (not published till 1693) are others of the plays. Shadwell made Ben Jonson his model, and sought to amuse by the humours or eccentricities of his typical characters; but most of his plays belong rather to the comedy of manners as illustrated by Wycherley. Shadwell also wrote numerous odes and occasional poems. The immortality which the plays must have failed to achieve for him he was fated to attain in another way. With Dryden he was at first on terms of friendly intimacy, and indeed the great poet contributed the prologue to his True Widow; but when Dryden flung his Absalom and Achitophel and The Medal into the cause of the court, Shadwell was rash enough to make a gross attack upon him in the Medal of John Bayes, with such uncomplimentary terms as 'half-wit, half-fool,' 'abandoned rascal,' 'knavery,' and the like. Dryden heaped deathless ridicule upon his antagonist in the stinging satire of MacFlecknoe and as 'Og' in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel. MacFlecknoe is called on the titlepage a Satire on the True Blue Protestant T. S., described further as the literary heir and representative of Flecknoe, whom Dryden thought proper to treat as a despicable rhymester (see Vol. I. p. 784).

Though Shadwell's works, hasty and careless as they are, exhibit lively talent and comic

force, all that the reading world now knows of Shadwell is that 'Shadwell never deviates into sense.' But this is obviously a preposterous exaggeration. He was not a poet, but his plays are clever and skilfully put together. That they were gross and indecent could be no reason for Dryden's denunciation; and no doubt personal, professional, and religious hostility made Dryden. uncritical in the extravagance of his abuse, as he was unreasonable in the vituperative terms he used of his habits and personal appearance. Rochester, who was no fool, credited Shadwell with exceptional wit and humour in conversation, if not in his plays. Addison praised his humour. Scott recognised him as an acute observer of human nature, and Mr G. A. Aitken has recently spoken of his 'excellent but coarse' comedies, giving interesting pictures of the times. It must have been some consolation to Shadwell to succeed his enemy in the laureateship, which in 1688 Dryden had to resign. He did not survive long to enjoy it, however, as in 1692 he died-of an overdose of laudanum, it is said. "The times' by Shadwell's representation seem to have been as unvirtuous and anti-virtuous as it is possible to conceive. Of the seven ladies or maids who appear in Epsom Wells, four are expressly described amongst the dramatis persona as 'an imperious strumpet,' 'very whorish,' or worse; and the other three might have been described in terms not much more complimentary. The main business and amusement alike of men and women was the unholiest self-indulgence. Spite of the obtrusive loyalty to Church and State professed by most of the characters, the clergy who appear are degraded, servile vulgarians, whom the fine old English gentlemen treat with the utmost contempt and insolence (the passages in the Lancashire Witches which give the most disrespectful pictures of a domestic chaplain were expunged at first playing by the Master of the Revels, but printed in italic; the grossest passages seem to have passed muster from the beginning). The fine old English gentleman who hates London ways and French habits equally gives an account of the London magistrates singularly like the revelations in the Tammany trials the magistrates live off blackmail exacted from footpads, pickpockets, and improper persons of various sex and condition. In the Lancashire Witches the Lancashire dialect is freely used, and with good effect; and the representation of witch-proceedings are justified by long notes from the Malleus Maleficarum, from Remigius, Bodinus, and many other authors.

In the Squire of Alsatia, Belfond, the foolish son of a country squire, comes to London in the absence of his father, and falls among a set of bullies and sharpers - Cheatly, Shamwell, and Captain Hackum-who frequent the Whitefriars or Alsatia, a place behind the Temple, which still preserved the old privileges of sanctuary, and had

thus become a notorious haunt of the worst characters in the town. Its privileges were abolished in 1697, nine years after Shadwell's play appeared.

From The Squire of Alsatia.'

Belfond. Cousin Shamwell, well met; good-morrow to

you.

Shamwell. Cousin Belfond, your humble servant: what makes you abroad so early? 'tis not much past seven.

Belf. You know we were bowsy last night: I am a little hot-headed this morning, and come to take the fresh air here in the Temple-Walks.

Sham. Well, and what do you think of our way of living here? Is not rich generous wine better than your poor hedge wine stum'd?

Belf. O yes, a world adad! Ne'er stir, I could never have thought there had been such a gallant place as London here I can be drunk over night, and well next morning; can ride in a coach for a shilling, as good as a deputy lieutenant ;-then for the women! Mercy upon us, so civil and well-bred! . . . And I am in that fear of my father besides, adad, he'd knock me i' th' head, if he should hear of such a thing. Lord! what will he say when he comes to know I am at London, which he in all his life-time would never suffer me to see, for fear I should be debauch'd, forsooth; and allows me little or no money at home, neither.

Sham. What matter what he says? Is not every foot of the estate entail'd upon you?

Belf. Well, I'll endure't no longer! If I can but raise money I'll teach him to use his son like a dog, I'll warrant him.

Sham. You can ne'er want that: take up on the reversion, 'tis a lusty one; and Cheatly will help you to the ready; and thou shalt shine, and be as gay as any spruce prig that ever walk'd the street. This morning your cloaths and liveries will come home, and thou shalt appear rich and splendid like thyself, and the mobile shall worship thee.

Belf. The mobile! that's pretty. [CHEATLY enters.] Sweet Mr Cheatly, my best friend, let me embrace thee.

Cheatly. My sprightly son of timber and of acres, my noble heir, I salute thee: the cole is coming, and shall be brought in this morning.

Belf. Cole! Why 'tis summer, I need no firing now. Besides, I intend to burn billets.

Cole

Cheat. My lusty rustic, learn and be instructed. is, in the language of the witty, money. The ready, the rhino; thou shalt be rhinocerical, my lad, thou shalt.

Belf. Admirable, I swear! Cole! ready! rhino! rhinocerical! Lord, how long may a man live in ignorance in the country.-And how much cole, ready, and rhino, shall I have?

:

Cheat. Enough to set thee up to spark it in thy brother's face and ere thou shalt want the ready, the darby, thou shalt make thy fruitful acres in reversion to fly, and all thy sturdy oaks to bend like switches! But thou must squeeze, my lad, squeeze hard, and seal, my bully. Shamwell and I are to be bound with thee. [HACKUM enters.] Belf. I am mightily beholden to you both. . . . O, noble Captain Hackum, your servant; servant, Captain. Hackum. Your humble trout, good noble squire; you were brave and bowzy last night, i' faith you were.

Belf. Yes, really I was clear; for I do not remember

what I did, or where I was: clear, clear, is not that right?

Sham. Ay, ay! Why you broke windows; scour'd, broke open a house in Dorset-Court, and took a pretty wench, a gentleman's natural, away by force.

Belf. Now you put me in mind, I recollect somewhat of this matter; my shoulders are plaguy sore, and my arms black and blue; but where 's the wench, the natural, ha, Captain?

Hack. Ah, Squire, I led her off. I have her safe for you.

Belf. But does not the gallant thunder and roar for her?

Hack. The scoundrel dares not; he knows me, who never knew fear in my life: for my part, I love magnanimity and honour, and those things; and fighting is one of my recreations.

Belf. O brave Captain.

Hack. But, Squire, I had damn'd ill luck afterwards; I went up to the Gaming Ordinary, and lost all my ready; they left me not a rag or sock: pox o' the tatts for me; I believe they put the doctor upon me.

Belf. Tatts and doctor! What's that? Sham. The tools of sharpers, false dice. Hack. Hark you, pr'ythee, noble Squire, equip me with a couple of meggs, or two couple of smelts. Belf. Smelts! What, shall we bespeak another dish of fish for our dinner?

Sham. No, no, meggs are guineas, smelts are half guineas; he would borrow a couple of guineas.

Belf. Meggs! smelts! Ha, ha, ha, very pretty by my troth and so thou shalt, dear Captain; there are two meggs; and I vow and swear I am glad I have 'em to pleasure you, adad I am.

Hack. You are so honest a gentleman, quarrel every day and I'll be your second; once a day at least: and I'll say this for you, there's not a finer gentleman this day walks the Fryars, no dispraise to any man, let him be what he will.

Belf. Adad you make me proud, sir. [LOLPOOP enters.] O Lolpoop, where have you been all this morning, sirrah? Lolpoop. Why 'tis but rear marry, 'tis meet a bit past eight by 'r Lady, yeow were sow drunken last neeght, I had thoughten yeow wouden ha leen a bed aw the morn: well, mine eyne ake a gazing up and down on aw the fine sights; but for aw that, sond me north to my own cauntry again.

Belf. O silly rogue! You are only fit for cattle. Gentlemen, you must excuse him, he knows no better.

Lolp. Marry, better quoth a! By th' mess, this is a life for the deel: to be drunken each night, break windows, roar, sing, and swear i' th' streets; go to loggerheads with the constable and watch, han harlots in gold and silver lace: Heaven bless us, and send me a whome again.

Belf. Peace, you saucy scoundrel, or I'll cudgel you to pap sirrah, do not provoke me, I say, do not.

Lolp. Odsflesh, where 's money for aw this? Yeowst be run agraunt soon, and you takken this caurse, Ise tell a that.

Belf. Take that, sirrah; I'll teach you to mutter: what, my man become my master.

Lolp. Waunds! give me ten times more, and send me whome again at after. What will awd maaster say to this? I mun ne'er see the face of him, I wot.

Sham. Hang him, rogue; toss him in a blanket.

Cheat. Why, put the case, you are indebted to me twenty pounds upon a scire facias; I extend this up to an outlawry, upon affidavit upon the nisi prius: I plead to all this matter, non est inventus upon the pannel: what is to be done more in this case, as it lies before the bench, but to award out execution upon the posse comitatus, who are presently to issue out a certiorari.

Lolp. I understand a little of sizes, nisi prizes, affidavi, sussurai! but by the mass I cannot tell what to mack of aw this together, not I.

Belf. Ha, ha, puppy! Owl! Loggerhead! O silly country put! Here's a prig indeed : he'll ne'er find out what 'tis to cut a sham or banter.

Lolp. Sham and banter are heathen Greek to me: but yeow have cut out fine wark for yoursel last neeght: I went to see the hause yeow had brocken, aw the windows are pood dawne. I askt what was the matter, and by th' mass they haw learnt your name too: they saiden Squire Belfond had done it . . . ; and that they hadden gotten the Lord Chief Justice warren for you, and wooden bring a pair of actions against yeow.

Belf. Is this true?

Lolp. Ay, by the mass.

Cheat. No matter; we'll bring you off with a wet finger; trust me for that.

Belf. Dear friend, I rely upon you for every thing.

Sham. We value not twenty such things of a rush. Hack. If any of their officers dare invade our privileges, we'll send 'em to hell without bail or mainprize.

(From Act i. sc. 2.)

Shadwell's works were published, with a Life, in four volumes in 1720. An edition of The Lancashire Witches was printed by Mr Halliwell (afterwards Halliwell-Phillipps) in 1853.

William Wycherley (1640?-1716), born at Clive near Shrewsbury, where his father possessed a handsome property, was, next to Congreve, chief of the school of the comedy of manners. Though bred to the law, Wycherley did not practise his profession, but lived gaily 'upon town.' Pope says he had a true nobleman look,' and he was one of the favourites of the Duchess of Cleveland. He wrote four comedies-Love in a Wood (1672), The Gentleman Dancing-master (1673), The Country Wife (1675), and The Plain Dealer (1677). The first was received with applause; the second, a farcical comedy of intrigue, was not so popular; the Country Wife, greatly cleverer, is much coarser in plot and details than Molière's École des Femmes, on which it is largely based; the Plain Dealer, his masterpiece, is founded on Le Misanthrope. The first was written when the author was only nineteen; the last was acted in 1674. In spite of its naughtiness, the Country Wife was praised by Steele as a 'very pleasant and instructive satire ;' Dryden calls Wycherley 'my dear friend' and an excellent poet, speaks of 'the satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherley,' and commends the Plain Dealer as 'one of the most bold, most general, and most useful satires which has ever been presented in the English theatre.' The phrase 'manly Wycherley' must surely have had

in it something of the nature of a complimentary pun, and an allusion to the chief character in the Plain Dealer. Voltaire says: All Wycherley's strokes are stronger and bolder than those of our Misanthrope, but then they are less delicate, and the rules of decorum are not so well observed.' Pope was proud to receive the notice of the author of the Country Wife. Their published correspondence is well known, and is interesting from the superiority maintained in their intercourse by the boy-poet of sixteen over his mentor of sixty-four. The pupil grew too great for his master, and the unnatural friendship was dissolved, renewed, and broken again. Wycherley represents the comedy of manners, not the comedy of human nature; wit, humour, sprightly conversation, mirthful situations and

talk, are aimed at rather than strength of plot or credibility. The whole is utterly artificial, and therefore the nastiness is perhaps less offensive. Congreve is vastly more brilliant in Wycherley's own line. Macaulay has vehemently impeached Wycherley's profligacy and the indecency and artificiality of his plays, and has justly said that his verse, of which a volume was published late in his life, was beneath criticism. Leigh Hunt thought some of the detached Maxims and Reflections written by Wycherley in his old age not unworthy of his reputation, and quoted as specially good, 'The silence of a wise man is more wrong to mankind than the slanderer's speech.' Wycherley married the young widow the Countess of Drogheda, lived unhappily with her, and after her death was constantly in debt or money troubles. He spent some years in the Fleet; but James II., having seen the Plain Dealer, paid his debts and gave him a pension. At the age of seventy-five