es are not characteristic of the average
Englishman. Now, satiric comedy did not in its initiation depend upon
the average Englishman. It took its cue from the court of Charles the
Second, who--with a dash of thoroughly English humour--was more than half-
French in temperament, and attracted to himself all that was artistically
frivolous in his kingdom. Questions of decency and morality--which after
all are not perpetually amusing--apart, the social spirit typified in
this exceptional king is one of sceptical humour and ironical smiles: it
takes common emotions for granted--is bored by them, in fact--and is a
foe to sentimentality and gush and virtuously happy endings. It was the
spirit of Charles the Second that inspired English comedy, and inspired
it most thoroughly in Congreve but a few years after Charles's death.
Under changed conditions, one is apt to underestimate the influence of
the Court upon the Town two hundred years ago. Well, the Georges became
our defenders of the faith, and they hated 'boets and bainters.' English
comedy was thrown back upon the patronage and the inspiration of average
England, and up to the time of writing has shown few signs of recovery.
Of course, the decay was gradual: you may see it at a most interesting
stage in _The School for Scandal_, a comedy of manners with a strong dash
of common sentimentality. It would be just possible, one conceives, to
play _The School for Scandal_ as Charles Lamb says he saw it played, with
Joseph for a hero, as a comedy of manners: you can just imagine Sir Peter
as a sort of Sir Paul Plyant, and as not played to raise a lump in your
throat. But Sheridan made it a difficult task. Perhaps you may see the
evil influence at its worst in the so-called comedies which were our
glory twenty-five years ago: in such a play as _Caste_, an even river of
sloppy sentiment, where the acme of chivalrous delicacy is to refrain
from lighting a cigarette in a woman's presence, where the triumph of
humour is for a guardsman to take a kettle off the fire, and where the
character of Eccles shows what excellent comedy the author might (alas!)
have written.

One is fain to ask if the spirit of Congrevean comedy will ever come back
to our stage. An echo of it has been heard in dialogue once or twice in
the last few years: not a trace has been seen in action. And yet we
permit our dramatists a pretty wide range of subjects. We allow the
subjects: it is the Congrevean