dering himself an object of contempt, this singular character paid the debt of nature on October the 14th, 1756. The literary abilities of Henley, of which so much had been expected from the unwearied industry of his youth, proved of a very inferior order. On his first arrival in town, he had procured employment from the booksellers; he translated the Epistles of Pliny, several of the productions of the Abbe Vertot, and the Italian Travels of Montfaucon. At Melton, likewise, he had written a poem entitled Esther, and commenced a work which he termed Universal Grammar, of which it is related that he had finished ten languages with prefatory dissertations. Whilst at St. John's College, Cambridge, he became a correspondent in the Spectator, and two letters are attributed to him, on good authority; one in N° 396, on Punning, signed Peter de Quir, and another in N° 518, on Physiognomy, signed Tom Tweer. They are neither of them such as merit much notice; the first indeed may be pronounced little short of nonsense, but the second is seasoned with a portion of wit and humour. 25. SHEPHEARD, MISS. This lady and the subject of the next article were collateral descen dants of Sir Fleetwood Shepheard*. To Miss Shepheard we are indebted for two letters in the Spectator; the first, subscribed Parthenia, in N° 140, is written to request advice and direction on reading, and the choice of authors; and the second, with the signature of Leonora, in No 163, relates a severe disappointment in love, which, there is reason to believe, really occurred to the amiable writer of this epistle. They both impart a very pleasing idea of her talents and character; and the latter has the additional merit of eliciting from Addison in the succeeding number, the pathetic narrative of Theodosius and Constantia, intended by its author as a consolatory lesson for his afflicted correspondent. 26. PERRY, MRS. the sister of Miss Shepheard, has contributed one short letter to the Spectator, in N° 92, for the purpose of reminding Addison of a promise which he had made in No 37, of recommending a select library for the improvement of the fair sex. The answer, to which this letter has given birth, occupying the remainder of N° 92, is full of that exquisite humour and pleasantry so remarkably the characteristic of the author of Cato. * Spectator, vol. ii. p. 449-note. 27. WILLIAM CONGREVE was born at Bardsey, near Leeds, in February 1669 *; but, his father being a military man, and having a command in the army, which made it necessary for him to visit Ireland, he was consequently educated in the sister-kingdom. After the customary grammatical discipline in the public school of Kilkenny, he was sent to the university of Dublin, and, having there perfected himself in classical literature, he came over to England, and was entered as a student of the law at the Middle Temple. He soon, however, relinquished the initiatory studies of the law for the more inviting region of the Muses; and ventured, at a very early period of life, to solicit the attention of the literary world, by the publication of a work of fancy under the title of Incognita, or Love and Duty reconciled. Vivacity and imagination are to be found in this production, but neither nature nor probability; it has deservedly, therefore, dropped into oblivion; nor was its original reception fortunately such as to encourage our young au * Mr. Malone has, in his life of Dryden, published the entry of Congreve's baptism at Bardsey, and consequently terminated the dispute which has so long subsisted relative to the place of his birth. thor in the prosecution of novel-writing.—In a moment truly auspicious to the lovers of the drama, he commenced his first comedy, entitled The Old Batchelor, to amuse himself, as he affirmed, in a slow recovery from a fit of sickness. "The age of the writer considered," says Johnson, "it is indeed a very wonderful performance; for, whenever written, it was acted (1693) when he was not more than twenty-one years old *." It is evident, from the entry discovered by Mr. Malone, that the Doctor has made a considerable mistake with regard to the age of the author, and which has been followed by every succeeding biographer. Congreve must have been four and twenty when the Old Batchelor was first produced upon the stage; these additional three years, however, detract little or nothing from the value of the play, which still merits the encomium of Dryden, who declared, "that he never saw such a first play in his life." To the applause which Congreve received from the public in consequence of this dramatic effort, was added the substantial patronage of Lord Halifax, who, with a generosity highly to be praised, immediately made him a commissioner for licensing hackney coaches; and, shortly afterwards, presented him with a place *Lives of the Poets, vol. ii. p. 187. in the Pipe-office, and another in the Customs, the annual value of which was estimated at six hundred pounds. Thus encouraged, our author exhibited great fertility, as well as great genius, in the rapid production of his pieces. In the year 1694, appeared his Double Dealer, a comedy; in 1695, his Love for Love, a comedy; and in the year 1697, The Mourning Bride, a tragedy. Of these plays the Double Dealer was the only one which was coldly received. The new theatre, which Betterton had built in Lincoln's-inn-fields, was very successfully opened with Love for Love; and the Mourning Bride was, if possible, more rapturously welcomed than even the effusions of the laughter-loving muse. When Dr. Johnson asserts that Congreve "had produced these four plays before he had passed his twenty-fifth year," he is again led into an error; the poet had attained the age of twentyeight on the completion of his tragedy; they cannot, therefore, in my opinion, warrant the extraordinary encomium which the learned biographer has lavished upon them in the following sentence: "Among all the efforts of early genius which literary history records, I doubt whether any one can be produced that more surpasses the |