CONGRE VE.

WILLIAM CONGREVE defcended from a family in Staffordshire, of so great antiquity that it claims a place among the few that extend 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 Batchelor.

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. South

ern

ern mentioned him with fharp cenfure, as a man that meanly disowned his native country. The biographers affign his nativity to Bardfa*, near Leeds in Yorkshire, from the account given by himself, as they fuppofe, to Jacob.

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 supported. 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 first at Kilkenny, and afterwards at Dublin, his father having fome military employment that stationed him in Ireland: but

* The Villare has no Bardfa, nor a Bardfey, in Yorkshire.

after

after having paffed through the usual preparatory studies, as may be reasonably supposed with great celerity and fuccefs, his father thought it proper to affign him a profeffion, by which something might be gotten; and about the time of the Revolution fent him, at the age of fixteen, to ftudy law in the Middle Temple, where he lived for several years, but with very little attention to Statutes or Reports.

His difpofition to become an author ap peared very early, as he very early felt that force of imagination, and poffeffed that copiousness of sentiment, by which intellectual pleasure can be given. His firft performance was a novel, called Incognita, or Love and Duty reconciled: It is praised by the biogra→ phers, who quote fome part of the preface, that is indeed, for fuch a time of life, uncommonly judicious. I would rather praise it than read it.

His first dramatick labour was the Old Batchelor; of which he fays, in his defence against Collier, "that comedy was written,

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as feveral know, fome years before it

was

was acted. When I wrote it, I had little thoughts of the ftage; but did it, to amuse myself, in a flow recovery from a fit of ❝fickness. Afterwards through my indif "cretion it was seen, and in some little time 66 more it was acted; and I, through the re"mainder of my indifcretion, fuffered myself

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to be drawn in, to 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 The Old Batchelor was thing by chance. written for amufement, in the languor of convalefcence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness 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 said that he never had feen fuch a firft play; but they found it deficient in fome things requifite to

the

the fuccefs of its exhibition, and by their greater experience fitted it for the stage. 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 before it was acted, the manager allowed its author the privilege of the house.

Few plays have ever been fo beneficial to the writer; for it procured him the patronage of Halifax, who immediately made him one of the commiffioners for licenfing coaches, and soon after gave him a place in the pipeoffice, and another in the cuftoms of fix hundred pounds a year. Congreve's converfation must furely have been at least equally pleafing with his writings.

Such a comedy, written at fuch an age, requires fome confideration. As the lighter species of dramatick poetry profeffes the imitation of common life, of real manners, and daily incidents, it apparently presupposes a familiar knowledge of many characters, and VOL. III.

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exact