common. Dryden calculated nativities; both Cromwell and King
William had their lucky days; and Shaftesbury himself, though he had
no religion, was said to regard predictions. The Sailor is not
accounted very natural, but he is very pleasant. With this play was
opened the New Theatre, under the direction of Betterton, the
tragedian, where he exhibited two years afterwards (1687) The
Mourning Bride, a tragedy, so written as to show him sufficiently
qualified for either kind of dramatic poetry. In this play, of
which, when he afterwards revised it, he reduced the versification
to greater regularity; there is more bustle than sentiment; the plot
is busy and intricate, and the events take hold on the attention;
but, except a very few passages, we are rather amused with noise and
perplexed with stratagem, than entertained with any true delineation
of natural characters. This, however, was received with more
benevolence than any other of his works, and still continues to be
acted and applauded.

But whatever objections may be made either to his comic or tragic
excellence, they are lost at once in the blaze of admiration, when
it is remembered that he had produced these four plays before he had
passed his twenty-fifth year, before other men, even such as are
some time to shine in eminence, have passed their probation of
literature, or presume to hope for any other notice than such as is
bestowed on diligence and inquiry. Among all the efforts of early
genius, which literary history records, I doubt whether any one can
be produced that more surpasses the common limits of nature than the
plays of Congreve.

About this time began the long-continued controversy between Collier
and the poets. In the reign of Charles I. the Puritans had raised a