CONGREVE, WILLI...NI, a celebrated English dra matist, was descended from a family in Staffordshire, which traced its lineage beyond the Norman conquest. His father was an officer in the army, who was long sta tioned in Ireland ; and in that kingdom young Congreve received so much of his early education,that he was believ ed by many to be an Irishman. Jacob, his biographer, had indeed told us, on the poet's own assurance, that he was born in England ; but Dr Johnson thinks proper to com mence the life of this great man, by suspecting him, in this instance, of telling a lie. His reasoning is thus con ducted: "Nobody can live long without seeing lies of con venience, or vanity, uttered lightly ; and once uttered, sul lenly supported. Boileau told a lie to Louis XIV. which he never retracted, and therefore we may suspect that Con grevc told Jacob a falsehood respecting the place of his birth." Mr Malone, however, has annihilated this lo gical suspicion, by producing the entry of Congreve's baptism, at Bardsea, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, in 1672. Every page of Johnson's biographies teems with those absurd aspersions on the memory of individuals, and the general character of human nature. Congreve received the first rudiments of his classical education at the high school of Kilkenny, where he is said to have discovered an early poetical vein, in a copy of verses which he wrote upon the death of his master's magpie. He went from thence to the university of Dublin, where, before he left it, at the age of sixteen, his biographer tells us, that he acquired a correct and critical acquaintance with the classics. This may seem almost incredible, yet the mind of Congreve seems to have been endowed with wonderful precocity ; and, as we find him consulted by Dryden on his translation of Virgil, it is but fair to be lieve that he possessed considerable classical knowledge. That species of knowledge a man seldom improves af ter he leaves the university, and we may believe that Con greve imbibed it at a very early age. Ile was sent from Dublin to the Middle Temple in London, with a view of studying the law ; but he proved one of the many deser ters who enlist in that profession ; and, at seventeen years of age, published a romance under a feigned name,. en titled, Love and Duty reconciled. This is the romance which Dr Johnson says he would rather read than praise. We confess our inability to do either, as the romance is not among the books within our reach. The passage, however, in the preface, that is quoted in the Biographia Britannica, bespeaks a mind wonderfully skilled, at the age of seventeen, in the technical views and language of criticism.
The first performance that brought him fairly before the public, appeared before he had completed his twenty second year,—his comedy of The Old Bachelor. Dry den and :\lainwaring corrected the piece, but the wit and genius were Congreve's. The stuff of it was said to be rich, but those experienced critics give it the cut of the fashion. The Old Bachelor was first acted in 1693, be fore a numerous and splendid audience, and received with thunders of applause ; from that period Congreve mounted the throne of comic poetry, and during his life had no rival. Halifax immediately became his patron, and 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, worth 6001. a year. Next year he produced his Double Dealer, which was not received with equal kindness. Queen Mary honoured the representation of this and the former piece with her presence ; and, at her death, which happened not long afterwards, Congreve displayed his gratitude in the pas toral strain, which was then absurdly customary on fu neral occasions. In 1695, Bctterton opened his new
theatre in Portugal-row, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields; and our author supported him by his comedy of Love for Love ; a comedy which, Dr Johnson remarks, has a nearer al liance to life, and exhibits more real manners, than any of the former. The character of the sailor, Dr Johnson adds, though pleasant, is not natural ; " we well remember," say the authors of the Biographia Britannica, in reply to this remark, " that forty years ago the charac ter of Ben was not deemed unnatural. It was then a com mon tradition," they add, " that Congreve had resided six weeks at Portsmouth, in order to draw the character from living manners." Two years after, lie exhibited, in his tragedy of The Mourning Bride, that he was qualifi ed for either kind of dramatic poetry. It was well received. The author had not yet completed his twenty eighth year. About this time he began his dispute with Collier, the puritan successor of Prynne, in hostility to the drama. Collier's attack upon the stage most proba bly checked its licentiousness: its contingent abuses the dramatic advocates could but lamely defend ; but Con greve was sufficiently eloquent in maintaining the gene ral moral utility of the drama. Congreve's last comedy was his Way of the World ; which, though written with labour and thought, was received with so little favour, that, in disgust, he resolved no longer to commit his quiet or his fame to the caprices of an audience. A masque, entitled The Judgment of Paris, and Semele, an opera, the first of which only was represented, finishes the list of his works for the stage. From this time his life ceased to be public ; he lived for himself and for his friends ; engaged in no controversy, contending with no rival, and mixing neither in public animadversions nor personal criticisms. Though adhering to Halifax and the Whigs, he was so far respected by the Tories, that Lord Oxford refused to turn him out of his place ; and when his friends returned to power, he was made secre tary to the island of Jamaica ; a place which, with that in the customs, raised his income to 1200/. a-year. Every writer mentioned him with respect: Steele made him the patron of his Miscellany, and Pope inscribed to him his translation of the Iliad. Having risen, by a happy fortuity, above the griefs of an author's profession, he is said to have affected superiority to the profession itself. The anecdote, of his telling Voltaire, when he came to visit him, that he desired to be considered only as a gentleman, and not as an author, is one of the mor tifying proofs, that the wisest may sometimes be foolish. The latter years of Congreve's life were clouded with sickness and infirmity. Cataracts in his eyes at length brought on total blindness ; and repeated attacks of the gout prematurely undermined the vigour of his constitu tion. He sought relief from Bath ; but the accident of being overturned in his carriage, left a durable pain in his side, and probably hastened his death, which took place in January 1729, in the sixtieth year of his age. Ile was interred with great funeral solemnity in West minster Abbey, where a monument was erected to his memory by Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough. To this lady, who is said to have had a most romantic re gard for him, he left the bulk of his fortune, to the prejudice of relations, whose natural claims, and embar rassed circumstances, it was not to his credit that he neglected.