Did in that castle afterwards abide, To rest themselves, and weary powers repair, Where store they found of all that dainty was and rare'.' PRIOR. To the close rock the frighted raven flies, 'Tis theirs, to meet in arms, and battle in the plain".' 76 By this new structure of his lines he has avoided difficulties, nor am I sure that he has lost any of the power of pleasing; but he no longer imitates Spenser 3. 77 78 79 Some of his poems are written without regularity of measures, for when he commenced poet we had not recovered from our Pindarick infatuation; but he probably lived to be convinced that the essence of verse is order and consonance 5. His numbers are such as mere diligence may attain; they seldom offend the ear, and seldom sooth it; they commonly want airiness, lightness, and facility; what is smooth is not soft. His verses always roll, but they seldom flow". A survey of the life and writings of Prior may exemplify 1 Faerie Queene, bk. i, canto 8, last stanza. Ode to the Queen, Eng. Poets, xxxiii. 79. Ante, PRIOR, 59. 3Prior seems to have been the originator of this pseudo-Spenserian stanza.' PHELPS, English Romantic Movement, p. 50. In a note by James Boswell, jun., in Johnson's Works, viii. 21, it is stated that 'this stanza, excepting the alexandrine close, is to be found in Churchyard's Worthines of Wales. See his introduction for Brecknockshire.' The Worthines of Wales was published in 1587. 4 Ante, COWLEY, 143; post, CON GREVE, 44. 5 Prior, in a Postscript added ten years later than the Preface, says:— 'Odes once printed cannot well be altered, when the author has already said that he expects his works should live for ever.' Eng. Poets, xxxii. 141. ''Prior's seem to me amongst the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humorous of English lyrical poems.' THACKERAY, English Humourists, ed. Phelps, p. 152. Thackeray adds that ‘in reading his works one is struck with their modern air.' He proceeds to quote two verses, professedly taken from Lines to the Hon. Charles Montagu (version of 1692, quoted in Eng. Poets, xxxii. 176), but ingeniously turned into the metre of In Memoriam; and adds:'Would you not fancy that a poet of our own days was singing?' a sentence which he doubtless understood well, when he read Horace at his uncle's': 'the vessel long retains the scent which it first receives '.' In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college. But on higher occasions and nobler subjects, when habit was overpowered by the necessity of reflection, he wanted not wisdom as a statesman, nor elegance as a poet 3. ceed in. To make verse speak the language of prose without being prosaic,... is one of the most arduous tasks a poet can undertake. He that could accomplish this task was Prior.' COWPER, Works, iv. 175. Spence reports Harte as saying:'There are but three poets who have any constant great run of popularity now, Pope, Prior and Addison.' Anec. p. 339. When this was said there is nothing to show. Harte outlived Spence by six years, who died in 1768. For Harte see Boswell's Johnson, ii. 120, iv. 78. 1 2 CONGREVE' ILLIAM 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 2. He visited, once at least, the residence of his ancestors; and, I believe, more places than one are still shewn in groves and gardens where he is related to have written his Old Batchelor3. Neither the time nor place of his birth is certainly known: 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 every body else that he was born in Ireland. Southern mentioned him with sharp censure, as a man that meanly disowned his native country. The biographers assign his nativity to Bardsa, near Leeds in Yorkshire, from the account given by himself, as they suppose, to Jacob 5. cascade falling so near me that even I can distinctly see it.' Dramatic Works of Wycherley, &c., Preface, p. 44. Hunt wrote in 1840:- An oak is still shown at Stratton, on a lawn, under which part of The Old Bachelor is said to have been written.' Ib. p. See also Memoirs of Wordsworth, ii. 326. 22. 46 Johnson,' writes Malone, 'probably got this from the information of John, Earl of Orrery [post, FENTON, 19], with whom Southerne lived much in his latter days.' Malone's Dryden, i. 227. 5 Memoirs of Congreve, by Charles Wilson, 1730, p. 1. Giles Jacob, in the Preface to The Poetical Register, published nine years before Congreve's death, thanks him 'for his communication of what relates to himself.' The statement about his birthplace (ib. i. 41) is confirmed by the following entry in Malone's Dryden, i. 225: "William, the sonne of Mr. William Congreve, * Hunt writes Ham by mistake. To doubt whether a man of eminence has told the truth about 3 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 1. Boileau, who desired to be thought a rigorous and steady moralist, having told a petty lie to Lewis 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 2. Wherever Congreve was born he was educated first at Kilkenny3, 4 and afterwards at Dublin, his father having some military employment that stationed him in Ireland 5: 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. His disposition to become an author appeared very early, as 5 he very early felt that force of imagination and possessed that copiousness of sentiment by which intellectual pleasure can be of Bardsey Grange, was baptised 'On the prevalence of falsehood see Boswell's Johnson, iii. 229. ''Le Roi lui ayant demandé un jour en quel temps il était né, M. Despréaux [Boileau] lui répondit que le temps de sa naissance était la circonstance la plus glorieuse de sa vie. "Je suis venu au monde," dit-il, une année avant votre Majesté, pour annoncer les merveilles de son règne." Le Roi fut touché de cette réponse. . . . M. Despréaux... s'est cru depuis engagé d'honneur à soutenir un mot qu'il avait dit en pré sence de toute la cour.' Euvres de Boileau, ed. 1747, Preface, p. 59. 3 Swift was at the same school from 1674 to 1682. It was 'endowed and maintained by the Ormond family.' Post, SWIFT, 3; Scott's Life of Swift, Works, i. 11. [Berkeley received the first part of his education here, entering Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of fifteen in 1700. Biog. Brit. 1780, vol. ii. p. 247.] 4 Congreve entered Trinity College on April 5, 1685-' annos natus sexdecim' as the register says. N. & 2. 3 S. xi. 280. Swift took his B.A. degree ten months later. Scott's Life of Swift, Works, i. 17. 5 He commanded the garrison at Youghal, 'where he also became agent for the Earl of Cork.' Dict. Nat. Biog. 6 [The date of his admission is 6 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 dramatick labour was The Old Batchelor; of which he says, in his defence against Collier 3, 'that comedy was written, as several know, some years before it was acted. When I wrote it, I had little thoughts of the stage; but did it, to amuse myself, in a slow recovery from a fit of sickness 5. Afterwards, through my indiscretion, it was seen, and in some little time more it was acted; and I, through the remainder of my indiscretion, suffered myself to be drawn in, to the prosecution of a difficult and thankless study, and to be involved in a perpetual war with knaves and fools.' There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done every thing by chance. The Old Batchelor was written for amusement, in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborateness of dialogue, and incessant ambition of wit. The age of the writer considered, 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 I It is quoted in Biog. Brit. p. 1440. Congreve boasts that his novel " was begun and finished in the idler hours of a fortnight's time; for (he adds) I can only esteem that a laborious idleness which is parent to so inconsiderable a birth.'' In the British Museum there is only a copy of the edition of 1700 in which the preface is omitted. It and the novel are reprinted in Congreve's Memoirs, 1730, pt. 2, p. 65. 2 Johnson is thinking of Boileau where he says:-'J'aime qu'on me lise, et non pas qu'on me loue.' Euvres, ed. 1747, v. 98. Leigh Hunt, after quoting Johnson's words, says :-'Being of a less robust conscience on the reviewing side, it is our lot to have read it, without being able to praise it.' Wycherley, &c., ed. 1840, Preface, P. 24. 3 Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations, 1698, p. 39; ante, DRYDEN, 175; post, CONGREVE, 18. 'His excuse is, he was very much a boy when this comedy was written. Not unlikely. He and his Muse might probably be minors; but the libertines there are full grown.' COLLIER, A Defence of the Short View, p. 42. 5. What his disease was I am not to enquire;, but it must be a very ill one to be worse than the remedy.' Ib. Malone says that a song ('Tell me no more I am deceived,' Eng. Poets, xxxiv. 182) written in Jan. 1692-3 for Southerne's The Maid's Last Prayer was perhaps his first acknowledged publication.' Malone's Dryden, i. 227. 'It is announced,' says Malone, as ready for the stage in The Gentleman's Journal (by Motteaux), for January, 1692-3.' Prior's Malone, p. 451. Congreve was twenty-two. In the Dedication he says it was written almost four years earlier. Lord Falkland, in a Prologue in |