were harmless to the batter.  He did not want boldness.  He attacked Dryden, now close upon his grave:  Congreve, a young man; Vanbrugh, Cibber, Farquhar, and the rest, all alive, all in the zenith of their fame, and all as popular as writers could be.  It was as much as if a man should stand up to-day and denounce Dickens and Thackeray, with the exception that well-meaning people went along with Jeremy, whereas very few would do more than smile at the zeal of any one who tilted against our modern pets.  Jeremy, no doubt, was bold, but he wanted tact, and so gave his enemy occasion to blaspheme.  He made out cases where there were none, and let alone what we moderns should denounce.  So Congreve took up the cudgels against him with much wit and much coarseness, and the two fought out the battle in many a pamphlet and many a letter.  But Jeremy was not to be beaten.  His ‘Short View’ was followed by ’A Defence of the Short View,’ a ‘Second Defence of the Short View,’ ’A Farther Short View,’ and, in short, a number of ‘Short Views,’ which had been better merged into one ‘Long Sight.’  Jeremy grew coarse and bitter; Congreve coarser and bitterer; and the whole controversy made a pretty chapter for the ‘Quarrels of Authors.’  But the Jeremiad triumphed in the long run, because, if its method was bad, its cause was good, and a succeeding generation voted Congreve immoral.  Enough of Jeremy.  We owe him a tribute for his pluck, and though no one reads him in the present day, we may be thankful to him for having led the way to a better state of things.[15]

Congreve defended himself in eight letters addressed to Mr. Moyle, and we can only say of them, that, if anything, they are yet coarser than the plays he would excuse.

The works of the young Templar, and his connection with Betterton, introduced him to all the writers and wits of his day.  He and Vanbrugh, though rivals, were fellow-workers, and our glorious Haymarket Theatre, which has gone on at times when Drury and Covent Garden have been in despair, owes its origin to their confederacy.  But Vanbrugh’s theatre was on the site of the present Opera House, and the Haymarket was set up as a rival concern.  Vanbrugh’s was built in 1705, and met the usual fate of theatres, being burnt down some eighty-four years after.  It is curious enough that this house, destined for the ’legitimate drama’—­often a very illegitimate performance—­was opened by an opera set to Italian music, so that ‘Her Majesty’s’ has not much departed from the original cast of the place.

Perhaps Congreve’s best friend was Dryden.  This man’s life and death are pretty well known, and even his funeral has been described time and again.  But Corinna—­as she was styled—­gave of the latter an account which has been called romantic, and much discredited.  There is a deal of characteristic humour in her story of the funeral, and as it has long been lost sight of, it may not be unpalatable here:  Dryden died on May-day, 1701, and Lord Halifax[16] undertook to give his body a private funeral in Westminster Abbey.