Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/70

56 V A N V A N Maria, daughter of Colonel Yarborough of Haslington, and four years afterwards, at the accession of George I., he Avas knighted. He afterwards wrote again for the stage, and the unfinished fragment left at his death, which took place on 26th March 1726 at his house in Scotland Yard, London, shows that his powers remained to the last as fine as ever. In order to find and fix Vaiibrugh s place among English comic dramatists, an examination of the very basis of the comedy of repartee inaugurated by Etheredge would be necessary, and, of course, such an examination would be impossible here. It is chiefly as a humorist, however, that he demands attention. Given the humorous temperament the temperament which impels a man to get his enjoyment by watching the harlequinade of life, and contrasting it with his own ideal standard of good sense, which the harlequinade seems to him to mock and challenge given this temperament, then the quality of its humorous growths depends of course on the quality of the intellectual forces by means of which the temperament gains expression. Hence it is very likely that in original endowment of humour, as distinguished from wit, Vanbrugh was superior to Congreve. And this is saying a great deal : for, while Congreve s wit has always been made much of, it has, since Macaulay s time, been the fashion among critics to do less than justice to his humour, a humour which, in such scenes as that in Love for Love where Sir Sampson Legend dis courses upon the human appetites and functions, moves beyond the humour of convention and passes into natural humour. It is, however, in spontaneity, in a kind of lawless merriment, almost Aristophanic in its verve, that Vanbrugh s humour seems so deep and so fine, seems indeed to spring from a fountain deeper and finer and rarer than Congreve s. A comedy of wit, like every other drama, is a story told by action and dialogue, but to tell a story lucidly and rapidly by means of repartee is exceedingly difficult, not but that it is easy enough to produce repartee. But in comic dialogue the difficulty is to move rapidly and yet keep up the brilliant ball-throwing demanded in this form, and without lucidity and rapidity no drama, whether of repartee or of character, can live. Etheredge, the father of the comedy of repartee, has at length had justice done to him by Mr Gosse. Not only could Etheredge tell a story by means of repartee alone : he could produce a tableau too ; so could Congreve, and so also could Vanbrugh, but often far too often Vanbrugh s tableau is reached, not by fair means, as in the tableau of Congreve, but by a surrendering of probability, by a sacrifice of artistic fusion, by an inartistic mingling of comedy and farce, such as Congreve never indulges in. Jeremy Collier was perfectly right therefore in his strictures upon the farcical improbabilities of the Relapse. So farcical indeed are the tableaux in that play that the broader portions of it were (as Mr Swinburne discovered) adapted by Voltaire and acted at Sceaux as a farce. Had we space here to contrast the Relapse with the Way of the World, we should very likely come upon a distinction between comedy and farce such as has never yet been drawn. We should find that farce is not comedy with a broadened grin Thalia with her girdle loose and run wild as the critics seem to assume. We should find that the difference between the two is not one of degree at all, but rather one of kind, and that mere breadth of fun has nothing to do with the question. No doubt the fun of comedy may be as broad as that of farce, as is shown indeed by the celebrated Dogberry scenes in Much Ado about Nothing and by the scene in Love for Love between Sir Sampson Legend and his son, alluded to above ; but here, as in every other de partment of art, all depends upon the quality of the imaginative belief that the artist seeks to arrest and secure. Of comedy the breath of life is dramatic illusion. Of farce the breath of life is mock illusion. Comedy, whether broad or genteel, pretends that its mimicry is real. Farce, whether broad or genteel, makes no such pretence, but by a thousand tricks, which it keeps up between itself and the audience, says, My acting is all sham, and you know it." Now, while Vanbrugh was apt too often to forget this the fundamental ditference between comedy and farce, Congreve never forgot it, Wycherley rarely. Not that there should be in any literary form any arbitrary laws. There is no arbitrary law de claring that comedy shall not be mingled with farce, and yet the fact is that in vital drama they cannot be so mingled. The very laws of their existence are in conflict with each other, so much so that where one lives the other must die, as we see in the drama of our own day. The fact seems to be that probability of incident, logical sequence of cause and effect, are as necessary to comedy as they are to tragedy, while farce would stifle in such an air. Rather it would be poisoned by it, just as comedy is poisoned by what farce flourishes on, that is to say, inconsequence of reasoning topsy-turvy logic. Born in the fairy country of topsy-turvy, the logic of farce would be illogical if it were not upside-down. So with coincidence, with improbable accumulation of convenient events, farce can no more exist without these than comedy can exist with them. Hence we affirm that Jeremy Collier s strictures on the farcical adulterations of the Relapse pierce more deeply into Van brugh s art than do the criticisms of Leigh Hunt and Hazlitt. In other words, perhaps the same lack of fusion which mars Van brugh s architectural ideas mars also his comedy. (T. W. ) VAN BUREN, MARTIN (1782-1862), eighth president of the United States, was the son of a small farmer, and was born 5th December 1782 at Kinderhook, Columbia, New York State, on the banks of the Hudson. He was educated at the village school, and, entering on the study of law at the age of fourteen, was called to the bar in 1803. Possess ing in addition to his other abilities a peculiar power of winning personal trust and influence, his rise both in his profession and political reputation was rapid. In 1808 he was chosen surrogate of Columbia county, and in 1812 a member of the State legislature. From 1815 to 1819 he was attorney-general of the State, and during this period came to be recognized as the ruling spirit of the new Demo cratic school known as the Albany regency. In 1821 he was chosen to the United States senate and the same year was elected a member of the convention for revising the State constitution, in which, though advocating an extension of the franchise, he opposed universal suffrage. In 1828 he was appointed governor of New York State. From March 1829 to April 1831 he was secretary of state in the administration of President Jackson, of whom he was the chief political adviser. During the recess he was appointed minister to England ; but, on the ground that he had previously shown a too submissive attitude towards that country, and also a tendency to be influenced in his foreign predilections by home politics, the senate refused to ratify the appointment. In the following year he was, however, chosen vice-president of the United States, and in 1837 he succeeded Jackson as president. He entered upon office at the time of a severe commercial crisis (see UNITED STATES), and, although the methods he adopted to deal with it were in themselves admirable, the financial strain which existed during his term of office weakened for a time the influence of his party. Besides the establishment of the independent treasury system, Van Buren s name is associated with the pre-emption law giving settlers on public lands the preference in their purchase. On the expiry of his term of office he was again, in 1840, nominated for the presidency, but lost by a large majority. In 1844 a major ity of the delegates to the Democratic convention were pledged to support him, but on account of his opposition to the annexation of Texas they allowed a motion to be introduced making a two-thirds vote necessary for nomina tion. This he failed to obtain and his name was with drawn. In 1848 he was nominated by the anti-slavery section of his party, but the split caused the defeat of both Democratic candidates. The remainder of his life was spent chiefly in retirement on his estate at Kinderhook. In 1853-55 he went on a European tour. He died at Kinderhook, 24th July 1862. His Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States was published by his sons in 1867. See W. Allen Butler, Martin Van Burcn, Lawyer, Statesman, and Man, New York, 1862. VANCOUVER, GEOKGE (c. 1758-1798), English navi gator, was born about 1758. He entered the navy at the age of thirteen, and accompanied Cook in his second (1772-74) and third (1776-79) voyages of discovery. After serving for several years on the Jamaica station, Vancouver was appointed to command an expedition to the north-west coast of America, the object being to take over from the Spaniards their territory in that region, and to explore the coast from 30 N. lat. round to Cook s Inlet (or river as it was then called), with a view to the discovery of an eastward passage to the great lakes in the

British dominions. The special point which he had to