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 son 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 still shewn, 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 upo his monument be true, he was born in 1572. For the place; it was faid by himself that he owed his nativity to England, and by every body elfe that he was born in Ireland. South

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ern 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.

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 false dates; thinking himfelf 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 ftationed him in Ireland: but

after

after having paffed through the ufual preparatory ftudies, as may be reasonably fuppofed. 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 fent 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 firft 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 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 says, 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 indif"cretion, it was feen, and in fome little time

more it was acted; and I, through the remainder of my indifcretion, fuffered myself "to be drawn in, to the profecution of a "difficult and thankless ftudy, and to be in"volved in a perpetual war with knaves and "fools."

There feems to be a ftrange affectation in authors of appearing to have done every thing by chance, The Old Batchelor was 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 faid that he never had seen fuch a firft play; but they found it deficient in fome things requifite to

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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 almoft 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 foon 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 pleasing with his writings.

Such a comedy, written at fuch an age, requires fome confideration. As the lighter fpecies 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