Life of William Congreve

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The Congreve family; William Congreve born at Bardsey,

February 10, 1670; removal to Youghal and Lismore ;

goes to Kilkenny, 1681, and to Trinity College, Dublin,

1685; begins to write at college; friendship with Swift;

returns to England, 1688; writes Incognita, not published

until February 25, 1692; account of that novel; The Old

Bachelor composed in a country garden, 1690; entered at

the Middle Temple, March 17, 1691; the life in London

coffee-houses; introduced to Dryden; the Juvenal and

Persius published October 27, 1692; forms the friendship

of Southerne, Hopkins, Maynwaring, Moyle, and other

men of letters; The Old Bachelor accepted at the Theatre

Royal, and produced, January, 1693, with very great suc-

cess; characteristics of this comedy; anecdote of Purcell

and Dennis

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CHAPTER II.

Congreve's success; friendship with Montague; The Double
Dealer produced in November, 1693; characteristics of
that play; Dryden's eulogy on it; Swift's epistle to the

author; Queen Mary's patronage of Congreve; introduc-

tion to Addison; theatrical intrigues in London, and

foundation of the Lincoln's Inn Theatre; Congreve pub-

lishes The Mourning Muse of Alexis, January 28, 1695;

Love for Love produced at Easter, 1695; characteristics

and history of that comedy; Dennis publishes Letters upon

Several Occasions, containing Congreve's essay on Humour

in Comedy, dated July 10, 1695; Congreve is made a

commissioner of hackney coaches; he publishes the Ode

to the King; produces The Mourning Bride early in 1697;

characteristics and history of that tragedy; Congreve pub-

lishes The Birth of the Muse, Nov. 18, 1697

CHAPTER III.

The licence of contemporary drama; the attitude of the clergy;

signs of impatience among the Puritans and Noncon-

formists; protests made early in 1698: those of Merriton

and Blackmore; Jeremy Collier publishes the Short View

in March, 1698; analysis of the contents of that work;

the sensation it produced; Gildon replies in the preface to

Phaeton, April, 1698; another hand, probably Wycherley's,

follows with A Vindication of the Stage; replies put forth

by Filmer and by Dennis; Vanbrugh publishes his Short

Vindication, June 8th; the Play-houses are prosecuted for

tending to debauchery and profanity; Congreve at length,

on the 12th of July, issues his Amendments in answer to

Collier; this treatise described; the scurrilous pamphlets

it called forth; The Stage Condemn'd and The Stage Ac-

quitted; Collier publishes, on the 10th of November, his

Defence of a Short View; the attitude of Dryden during

the controversy; the condition of literary society at the

close of the century

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CHAPTER IV.

Depression of the theatres in London; the Royal Order of
February 18, 1699, directing the actors to modify their
language; revival of The Double Dealer, March 4, 1699;

production of The Way of the World, at Lincoln's Inn

Theatre, March, 1700; partial failure of this play; its

publication, and description of its contents; death of Dry-

den, May 1, 1700; Congreve's retirement from public life;

he goes abroad; correspondence with Joseph Keally com-

mences; the masque of The Judgment of Paris is performed

in Dorset Garden, March, 1701; Ode for St. Cecilia's Day,

Nov. 22, 1701; The Reliquia Gethiniana of 1699 and

1703 described; Squire Trelooby, adapted by Congreve,

Vanbrugh, and Walsh, is performed at the New Theatre

on the 30th of March, 1704; the history of this farce

obscure; revivals of Love for Love in 1704 and 1705;