veffel long retains the scent which it firft receives." In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college. But on higher occafions and nobler fubjects, when habit was overpowered by the neceffity of reflection, he wanted not wisdom as a statefman, or elegance as a poet. CON CONGRE VE. WILLIAM CONGREVE defcended from a family in Staffordshire, of fo 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, second son 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 elfe that he was born in Ireland. Southern mentioned him with fharp cenfure, as a man that meanly disowned his native country. The biographers affign his nativity to Bardfo, near Leeds in Yorkshire, from the account given by himself, as they fuppofe, to Jacob. Το 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 vifible 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 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 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 copioufnefs 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 fuch fuch 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 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 ftage; but did it, to amuse "myself in a flow recovery from a fit of fickness. "Afterwards, through my indifcretion, it was feen, "and in fome little time more it was acted; and I, "through the remainder of my indifcretion, fuf fered myself to be drawn into the profecution "of a difficult and thankless ftudy, and to be in*volved in a perpetual war with knaves and fools." There seems to be a ftrange affectation in authors of appearing to have done every thing by chance. The Old Bachelor was written for amusement, in the languor of convalefcence. Yet it is apparently compofed 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 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 ufed 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 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 Pipe-office, and another in the Customs of fix hundred pounds a year. Congreve's converfation muft furely have been at least equally pleafing 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 prefuppofes a familiar knowledge of many characters, and exact obfervation of the paffing 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 comick characters by the perufal of other poets, without much actual commerce with mankind. The dialogue is one constant reciprocation of conceits, or clafh of wit, in which nothing flows neceffarily from the occafion, 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 eafy and common, as Wittol a tame idiot, Bluff a fwaggering coward, and Fondlewife a jealous puritan; and the catastrophe arifes from a mistake not very probably produced, by marrying a woman in a mask. Yet |