CONGREVE.

1670-1728-9.

Born at Bardsey in Yorkshire-Educated at Kilkenny and Dublin-Entered of the Middle Temple-Early appearance as a poet-His first dramatic labour-Obtains the patronage of Halifax-Writes 'The Double Dealer,' 'Love for Love,' and 'The Mourning Bride'-His controversy with Collier-His last play, and high poetical reputation-His government situations-Death, and burial in Westminster Abbey-Works and character.

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WILLIAM CONGREVE descended from a family in Staffordshire, of so great antiquity that it claims a place among the few that extend their line beyond the Norman Conquest and was the son of William Congreve, second son of Richard Congreve, of Congreve and Stratton.' He visited, once at least, the residence of his ancestors; and, I believe, more places than one are still shown, in groves and gardens, where he is related to have written his 'Old Bachelor.'

2

Neither the time nor place of his birth are certainly known ; if the inscription upon his monument be true, he was born in 1672. For the place, it was said by himself that he owed his nativity to England, and by everybody else that he was born in Ireland. Southerne mentioned him with sharp censure, as a man that meanly disowned his native country. The biographers assigned his nativity to Bardsa, near Leeds in Yorkshire, from the account given by himself, as they suppose, to Jacob.*

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1 Congreve's mother (a relationship always pleasing to ascertain) was Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Fitzherbert, and grand-daughter of Sir Anthony, the celebrated judge, who wrote the work praised by Blackstone, 'De Naturâ Brevium.'-LEIGH HUNT: Dram. Works of Wycherley, Congreve. &c., 1840, p. xxii.

2 Since Johnson wrote, the following entry has been discovered:-" William, the sonne of Mr. William Congreve, of Bardsey grange, was baptised Feb. 10, 1669 [70]."-Register of Bardsey or Bardsa, in the West Riding of York.

3 Malone supposes ('Life of Dryden,' p. 227) that John Earl of Orrery, with whom Southerne lived much in his latter days, was Johnson's authority for this statement.

4 I am in particular oblig'd to Mr. Congreve for his free and early communication of what relates to himself.-JACOB: Pref. to Poetical Register. Jacob states (p. 41) that "Bardsa was part of the estate of Sir John Lewis, his great-uncle by his mother's side,"

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 falsehoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which no evil immediately visible ensues, except the general degradation of human testimony, are very lightly uttered, and once uttered are sullenly supported. Boileau, who desired to be thought a rigorous and steady moralist, having told a pretty lie to Louis XIV., continued it afterwards by false dates; thinking himself obliged in honour, says his admirer, to maintain what, when he said it, was so well received.

Wherever Congreve was born, he was educated first at Kilkenny, and afterwards at Dublin, his father having some military employment that stationed him in Ireland: but after having passed through the usual preparatory studies, as may be reasonably supposed, with great celerity and success, his father thought it proper to assign him a profession, by which something might be gotten; and about the time of the Revolution sent him, at the age of sixteen," to study law in the Middle Temple, where he lived for several years, but with very little attention to Statutes or Reports.

His disposition to become an author appeared very early, as he very early felt the force of imagination, and possessed that copiousness of sentiment, 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 some part of the preface, that is indeed for such a time of life, uncommonly judicious. I would rather praise it than read it.

His first dramatic labour was the 'Old Bachelor' of which he says, in his defence against Collier, "that comedy was written, as several know, some years before it was acted. When I wrote it, I had little thoughts of the stage; but did it, to amuse myself in a slow recovery from a fit of sickness. Afterwards, through my indiscretion, it was seen, and in some little time more it was acted; and I, through the remainder of my indiscretion, suffered myself to be drawn in to the prosecution of a difficult and thankless study, and to be involved in a perpetual war with knaves and fools."

5 He became a member of the Middle Temple 17th March, 1690-1, when he was in his twenty-first year.

There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance. The Old Bachelor' was written for amusement, in the langour of convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dialogue, and incessant ambition of wit. The age of the writer considered, it is indeed a very wonderful performance; for, whenever written, it was acted (January 1692-3) when he was not more than twenty-one [four] years old; and was then recommended by Mr. Dryden, Mr. Southerne, and Mr. Maynwaring. Dryden said that he never had seen such a first play; but they found it deficient in some things requisite to the success of its exhibition, and by their greater experience fitted it for the stage. Southerne used to relate of one comedy, probably of this, that when Congreve read it to the players, he pronounced it so wretchedly, that they had almost rejected it; but they were afterwards so well persuaded 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 so beneficial to the writer ; for it procured him the patronage of Halifax, who immediately made him one of the commissioners for licensing coaches, and soon after gave him a place in the Pipe-Office, and another in the Customs of six hundred pounds a year. Congreve's conversation must surely have been at least equally pleasing with his writings.

Such a comedy, written at such an age, requires some consideration. As the lighter species of dramatic poetry professes the imitation of common life, of real manners, and daily incidents, it apparently presupposes a familiar knowledge of many characters, and exact observation of the passing world; the difficulty therefore is, to conceive how this knowledge can be obtained by a boy.

But if the Old Bachelor' be more nearly examined, it will be found to be one of those comedies which may be made by a mind vigorous and acute, and furnished with comic characters by the perusal of other poets, without much actual commerce with mankind. The dialogue is one constant reciprocation of conceits, or clash of wit, in which nothing flows necessarily from the occasion, or is dictated by nature. The characters both of men and women are either fictitious and artificial, as those of Heartwell and the

ladies ; or easy and common, as Wittol a tame idiot, Bluff a swaggering coward, and Fondle wife a jealous Puritan; and the catastrophe arises from a mistake not very probably produced, by marrying a woman in a mask.

Yet this gay comedy, when all these deductions are made, will still remain the work of very powerful and fertile faculties: the dialogue is quick and sparkling, the incidents such as seize the attention, and the wit so exuberant that it "o'er-informs its tenement."

He

Next year he gave another specimen of his abilities in The Double Dealer,' which was not received with equal kindness. writes to his patron the Lord Halifax a dedication, in which he endeavours to reconcile the reader to that which found few friends among the audience. These apologies are always useless: "de gustibus non est disputandum;" men may be convinced, but they cannot be pleased, against their will. But though taste is obstinate, it is very variable, and time often failed."

prevails when arguments have

Queen Mary conferred upon both those plays the honour of her presence; and when she died, soon after, Congreve testified his gratitude by a despicable effusion of elegiac pastoral; a composition in which all is unnatural, and yet nothing is new.

In another year (1695) his prolific pen produced 'Love for Love;' a comedy of near alliance to life, and exhibiting more real manners, than either of the former. The character of Foresight was then common. Dryden calculated nativities; both Cromwell and King William had their lucky days; and Shaftesbury himself, though he had no religion, was said to regard predictions. The Sailor is not accounted very natural, but he is very pleasant.

6 Rather the same year.

'The Double Dealer' was first acted in Nov. 1693.

7 Congreve's 'Double Dealer' is much censured by the greater part of the town, and is defended only by the best judges, who, you know, are commonly the fewest. Yet it gains ground daily, and has already been acted eight times. The women think he has exposed their witchery too much, and the gentlemen are offended with him for the discovery of their follies and the way of their intrigue under the notions of friendship to their ladies' husbands. My verses, which you will find before it, were written before the play was acted: but I neither altered them, nor do I alter my opinion of the play.-DRYDEN to Walsh. (Bell's 'Dryden,' i. 76.)

8 The Mourning Muse of Alexis, a Pastoral lamenting the Death of our late gracious Queen Mary, of ever blessed Memory. Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1695:' fol. (See Note 14, vol. i. p. 618. The King gave him 100%. for the poem. (Anthony à Wood's 'Life' by Bliss, ed. 1848, p. 808.)