indeed, wallowed in it, not contentedly but morosely, truculently, like a mad wit. But Congreve picked his way through it disdainfully, like a fastidious wit."
"But did you not," inquires Mr. More, "in your Lives of the Poets, remark that the perusal of Congreve's works will make no man better?"
"True," retorts the Doctor, "but I acknowledged that I knew nothing of Congreve's plays. Years had passed since I had read them. I am better acquainted with them now. Sir, in the Elysian Fields, Hazlitt, Thackeray, and Meredith, your best judges of wit and the beauties of English prose, converse with the members of my Literary Club in the language of Congreve. Conversational English reached its height in Congreve. In my days of nature, I did him at least the justice of recording that he could name among his friends every man of his times, Whig and Tory alike, whom wit and elegance had raised to reputation. A man who wallows in filth does not win universal esteem. No, sir, Congreve was an acute critic, a man of taste, and a fine gentleman, a very fine gentleman. In your next edition you must retrieve your blunder of representing the patrician wit of the Restoration as wallowing in nastiness."
"I will make a note of it," says Mr. More with an audible sigh of regret. For, to tell the plain truth, Mr. More values the writers of the Restoration chiefly for their wickedness. It is such good
