aults of _The Double-Dealer_ are obvious on a first reading, and
were very justly condemned on a first acting. The intrigue is wearisome:
its involutions are ineffectively puzzling. Maskwell's villainy and
Mellefont's folly are both unconvincing. The tragedy of Lady Touchwood,
less tragic than that of Lady Wishfort in _The Way of the World_, is more
obviously than that out of the picture. The play is, in fact, not pure
comedy of manners: it is that _plus_ tragedy, an element less offensive
than the sentimentality which spoils _The School for Scandal_, but yet a
notable fault. For while you can resolve the tragedy of Lady Wishfort
into wicked and very grim comedy, you can do nothing with the tragedy of
Lady Touchwood but try to ignore it. In his epistle dedicatory to
Charles Montague, Congreve admits that his play has faults, but does not
take in hand those adduced above, with the exception of the objections to
Maskwell and Mellefont. 'They have mistaken cunning in one character for
folly in another': an ineffectual answer, because the extremity of
cunning is equally destructive of dramatic balance. He defends his use
of soliloquy very warmly: of which it may be said that, so long as his
rule--that no character may overhear the soliloquiser--is observed, it is
a tolerable convention, but a confession of weakness in construction. He
declares he 'would rather disoblige all the critics in the world than one
of the fair sex,' and, having made his bow, he turns upon the ladies and
rends them. An author campaigning against his critics is always a
pleasant spectacle, but Congreve's defence of _The Double-Dealer_ is
rather amusing than convincing.

It needed no defence; for with all its faults, such as they are, upon it,
there are in it scenes and characters which only Congreve could have
made. Brisk is a worthy forerunner of Witwoud, Sir Paul Plyant a
delicious old credulous fool; while the tyrannical and vain Lady Plyant
is so drawn that you almost love her. But the triumph is Lady Froth, 'a
great coquet, pretender to poetry, wit, and learning,' and one would
almost as lief have seen Mrs. Mountfort in the part as the Bracegirdle's
Millamant. Her serious folly and foolish wisdom, her poem and malice and
compliments and babbling vivacity--set off, it is fair to remember, by a
pretty face--are atonement for a dozen Maskwells. She is a female
Witwoud, her author's first success in a sort of character he draws to
perfe