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And lurk'd in rocks and caves long unefpy'd.
But that fair crew of knights, and Una fair,
Did in that caftle afterwards abide,

To reft themfelves, and weary powers repair,

Where ftore they found of all, that dainty was and rare.

PRIO R.

To the close rock the frighted raven flies,
Soon as the rifing eagle cuts the air:

The fhaggy wolf unfeen and trembling lies,
When the hoarfe roar proclaims the lion near,
Ill-ftarr'd did we our forts and lines forfake,
To dare our British foes to open fight:
Our conquest we by ftratagem should make :
Our triumph had been founded in our flight.
'Tis ours, by craft and by surprise to gain :
'Tis theirs, to meet in arms, and battle in the plain.

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By this new ftructure of his lines he has avoided difficulties; nor am I fure that he has loft any the power of pleafing; but he no longer imitates Spenfer.

Some of his poems are written without regularity of measure; for, when he commenced poet, he had not recovered from our Pindarick infatuation; but he probably lived to be convinced, that the effence of verfe is order and confonance.

His numbers are fuch as mere diligence may attain; they feldom offend the ear, and feldom footh it; they commonly want airiness, lightness, and facility: what is fimooth, is not foft, His verfes always roll, but they feldom flow.

A furvey of the life and writings of Prior may exemplify a fentence which he doubtless understood well, when he read Horace at his uncle's ;

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"veffel long retains the fcent which it firft receives." In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college. But on higher occations and nobler fubjects, when habit was overpowered by the neceffity of reflection, he wanted not wifdom as a ftatefman, or elegance as a poet.

CON

CONGR E V E.

WILLIAM CONGREVE defcended from a family in Staffordshire, of fo great antiquity that it claims a place among the few that nd their line beyond the Norman Conqueft; and was the fon of William Congreve, fecond fon of Richard Congreve, of Congreve and Stratton. He vifited, once at least, the refidence of his ancestors; and, I believe, more places than one are ftill fhewn, in groves and gardens, where he is related to have written his Old Bachelor.

Neither the time nor place of his birth are certainly known; if the infcription upon his monument be true, he was born in 1672. For the place; it was faid by himself, that he owed his nativity to England, and by every body else that he was born in Ireland. Southern mentioned him with fharp cenfure, as a man that meanly difowned his native country. The biographers affign his nativity to Bardfa, near Leeds in Yorkshire, from the account given by himself, as they suppose, to Jacob.

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To doubt whether a man of eminence has told the truth about his own birth, is, in appearance, to be very deficient in candour; yet nobody can live long without knowing that falfehoods of convenience or vanity, falfehoods from which no evil immediately visible enfues, except the general degradation of human teftimony, are very lightly uttered, and once uttered are fullenly fupported. Boileau, who defired to be thought a rigorous and steady moralift, having told a petty lie to Lewis XIV. continued it afterwards by falfe dates; thinking himself obliged in honour, fays his admirer, to maintain what, when he faid it, was fo well received.

Wherever Congreve was born, he was educated firft at Kilkenny, and afterwards at Dublin, his father having fome military employment that stationed him in Ireland: but, after having paffed through the usual preparatory ftudies, as may be reasonably suppofed, with great celerity and fuccefs, his father thought it proper to affign him a profeffion, by which fomething might be gotten; and about the time of the Revolution sent him, at the age of fixteen, to ftudy law in the Middle Temple, where he lived for feveral years, but with very little attention to Statutes or Reports.

His difpofition to become an author appeared very early, as he very early felt that force of imagination, and poffeffed that copiousness of fentiment, by which intellectual pleasure can be given. His first performance was a novel, called Incognita, or Love and Duty reconciled: it is praised by the biographers, who quote fome part of the Preface, that is, indeed, for

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such a time of life, uncommonly judicious. I would rather praise it than read it.

His firft dramatick labour was The Old Bachelor; of which he fays, in his defence against Collier, "that comedy was written, as feveral know, fome

years before it was acted. When I wrote it, I had "little thoughts of the stage; but did it, to amuse "myself in a flow recovery from a fit of fickness.

Afterwards, through my indiscretion, it was seen, ❝and in fome little time more it was acted; and I, through the remainder of my indifcretion, fuffered myself to be drawn into the profecution "of a difficult and thankless study, and to be in"volved in a perpetual war with knaves and fools."

There feems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done every thing by chance. The Old Bachelor was written for amufement, in the languor of convalefcence. Yet it is apparently compofed with great elaboratenefs of dialogue, and inceffant ambition of wit. The age of the writer confidered, it is indeed a very wonderful performance; for, whenever written, it was acted (1693) when he was not more than twenty-one years old; and was then recommended by Mr. Dryden, Mr. Southern, and Mr. Maynwaring. Dryden faid, that he never had seen such a first play; but they found it deficient in fome things requifite to the fuccefs of its exhibition, and by their greater experience fitted it for the ftage. Southern used to relate of one comedy, probably of this, that, when Congreve read it to the players, he pronounced it fo wretchedly, that they had almost rejected it; but they were afterwards fo well perfuaded of its excellence, that, for half a

year

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