assumed an air of confidence and security. His chief art of
controversy is to retort upon his adversary his own words: he is
very angry, and hoping to conquer Collier with his own weapons,
allows himself in the use of every term of contumely and contempt,
but he has the sword without the arm of Scanderbeg; he has his
antagonist's coarseness but not his strength. Collier replied, for
contest was his delight. "He was not to be frighted from his
purpose or his prey."

The cause of Congreve was not tenable; whatever glosses he might use
for the defence or palliation of single passages, the general tenour
and tendency of his plays must always be condemned. It is
acknowledged, with universal conviction, that the perusal of his
works will make no man better, and that their ultimate effect is to
represent pleasure in alliance with vice, and to relax those
obligations by which life ought to be regulated.

The stage found other advocates, and the dispute was protracted
through ten years: but at last comedy grew more modest, and Collier
lived to see the reformation of the theatre.

Of the powers by which this important victory was achieved, a
quotation from Love for Love, and the remark upon it, may afford a
specimen:-

Sir Samps. "Sampson's a very good name; for your Sampsons were
strong dogs from the beginning."

Angel. "Have a care--if you remember, the strongest Sampson of your
name pulled an old house over his head at last."