[Illustration: Thomas Southerne Esq^r.] The great churchmen of the early years of the University were followed by the great dramatists. Save to the faithful in matters of literature, the name of Southerne, like that of many of his predecessors of the age of Elizabeth, is a name alone--“stat nominis umbra,”--and that although he counted Gray and Dryden among his admirers, and was the first author whose plays were honoured by a second and third night of representation, Shakespeare himself not excepted. In Southerne is to be found the last flicker of the passion and fervour of the great dramatic period of our literature. As we read, we are startled here and there by the “gusto of the Elizabethan voice,” the unmistakable tone which has “somewhat spoiled our taste for the twitterings” of modern verse. The great actress still lives, Helen Faucit, Lady Martin, whose impersonation of Isabella in the “Fatal Marriage” is vividly remembered by our older playgoers as one of the most powerful of her parts. But we of this generation can know nothing of Southerne save in the study. To the best known of his plays a place of unique honour belongs. The poet is ever foremost in the holy cause of freedom, and “Oroonoko” is the first work in English which denounced the slave trade. The story of the tragedy is said to be literally true down to the minutest details. Much court was paid to this “Victor in Drama” in his old age; and his person, no less than his reputation, seems to have demanded it, for he was “of grave and venerable aspect, accustomed to dress in black, with silver sword and silver locks.” To him, on his 81st birthday, Pope wrote:-- “Resigned to live, prepared to die, With not one sin but poetry; This day Time’s fair account has run Without a blot to eighty-one. Kind Boyle before his poet lays A table with a cloth of bays, And Ireland, mother of sweet singers, Presents her harp still to his fingers.” In the Dublin class-rooms two of the comic dramatists of the Restoration obtained their scholarship. The intellectual splendour of William Congreve did not more indisputably place him at the head of that coterie of letters than his learning and culture made him the most courted gentleman of the period--“the splendid Phœbus Apollo of the Mall.” “His learning,” says Macaulay, “does great honour to his instructors. From his writings, it appears not only that he was well acquainted with Latin literature, but that his knowledge of the Greek poets was such as was not in his time common, even in a College.” For those who feel with Charles Lamb, when he says, speaking of the comedy of the last century--“I confess, for myself, I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience,” Congreve must always remain prince of wits. He is as absolute master of his domain as Shakespeare of his. We do not now rank him, as Dryden and Johnson did, with the world’s master-mind--