( 231 ) CONGRE VE. 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 Writes Obtains the patronage of Halifax 'The Double Dealer,' 'Love for Love,' and 'The Mourning Bride' His controversy with Collier His last play, and high poetical reputaDeath, and burial in Westminster tion - - His government situations Abbey Works and character. 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.' Neither the time nor place of his birth are certainly known ;2 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 York 3 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. Since Johnson wrote, the following entry has been discovered:-" William, the sonne of Mr. William Congreve, of Bardsey grange, was baptised Febru. 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. shire, 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 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. he His disposition to become an author appeared very early, as very early felt that 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 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 greatuncle by his mother's side." 5 He became a member of the Middle Temple 17th March, 1690-1, when he was in his twenty-first year. |
