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WILLIAM CONGREVE (167o-1729)

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 939 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WILLIAM See also:CONGREVE (167o-1729)  , See also:English dramatist, the greatest English See also:master of pure See also:comedy, was See also:born at See also:Bardsey near See also:Leeds, where he was baptized on the loth of See also:February 1670, although the inscription on his See also:monument gives his date of See also:birth as 1672 . He was the son of See also:William See also:Congreve, a soldier who was soon after his son's birth placed in command of the 1 See also:garrison at See also:Youghal . To See also:Ireland, therefore, is due the See also:credit of his See also:education—as a schoolboy at See also:Kilkenny, as an under-See also:graduate at See also:Dublin, where he was a contemporary and friend of See also:Swift . From See also:college he came to See also:London, and was entered as a student of See also:law at the See also:Middle See also:Temple . The first-fruits of his studies appeared under the boyish See also:pseudonym of " Cleophil," in the See also:form of a novel whose existence is now remembered only through the unabashed avowal of so austere a moralist as Dr See also:Johnson, that he "would rather praise it than read it." In 1693 Congreve's real career began, and See also:early enough by the latest computation, with the brilliant See also:appearance and instant success of his first comedy, The Old See also:Bachelor, under the generous auspices of See also:Dryden, then as ever a living and immortal See also:witness to the falsehood of the vulgar See also:charge which taxes the greater among poets with See also:jealousy or envy, the natural badge and See also:brand of the smallest that would claim a See also:place among their See also:kind . The discrowned See also:laureate had never, he said, seen such a first See also:play; and indeed the graceless See also:grace of the See also:dialogue was as yet only to be matched by the last and best See also:work of Etherege, See also:standing as till then it had done alone among the barefaced brutalities of See also:Wycherley and See also:Shadwell . The types of Congreve's first work were the See also:common conventional properties of See also:stage tradition; but the See also:fine and clear-cut See also:style in which these types were reproduced was his own . The See also:gift of one place and the reversion of another were the solid fruits of his splendid success . Next See also:year a better play from the same See also:hand met with worse See also:fortune on the stage, and with yet higher See also:honour from the first living poet of his nation . The See also:noble verses, as faultless in the expression as reckless in the extravagance of their See also:applause, prefixed by Dryden to The See also:Double Dealer, must naturally have supported the younger poet, if indeed such support can have been required, against the momentary annoyance of assailants whose passing clamour See also:left uninjured and secure the fame of his second comedy; for the following year witnessed the crowning See also:triumph of his See also:art and See also:life, in the appearance of Love for Love (1695) . Two years later his ambition rather than his See also:genius adventured on the See also:foreign ground of tragedy, and The See also:Mourning See also:Bride (1697) began such a See also:long career of See also:good fortune as in earlier or later times would have been closed against a far better work . Next year he attempted, without his usual success, a reply to the attack of See also:Jeremy See also:Collier, the nonjuror, "on the immorality and profaneness of the English stage "—an attack for once not discreditable to the assailant, whose honesty and courage were evident enough to approve him incapable alike of the ignominious precaution which might have suppressed his own name, and of the dastardly mendacity which would have stolen the See also:mask of a stranger's .

Against this merit must he set the See also:

mistake of confounding in one indiscriminate See also:indictment the levities of a writer like Congreve with the brutalities of a writer like Wycherley— an See also:error which ever since has more or less perverted the See also:judgment of succeeding critics . The See also:general See also:case of comedy was then, however, as untenable by the See also:argument as indefensible by the See also:sarcasm of its most brilliant and comparatively blameless See also:champion . Art itself, more than anything else, had been out-raged and degraded by the See also:recent school of the Restoration; and the comic work of Congreve, though different rather in kind than in degree from the bestial and blatant See also:licence of his immediate precursors, was inevitably for a See also:time involved in the See also:sentence passed upon the comic work of men in all ways alike his inferiors . The true and triumphant See also:answer to all possible attacks of honest men or liars, brave men or cowards, was then as ever to be given by the See also:production of work unarraignable alike by See also:fair means or foul, by See also:frank See also:impeachment or furtive imputation . In 1700 Congreve thus replied to Collier with The Way of the See also:World—the unequalled and unapproached master-piece of English comedy, which may fairly claim a place beside or but just beneath the mightiest work of See also:Moliere . On the stage which had recently acclaimed with uncritical applause the author's more questionable appearance in the See also:field of tragedy, this final and flawless See also:evidence of his incomparable See also:powers met with a rejection then and ever since inexplicable on any ground of conjecture . During the twenty-eight years which remained to him, Congreve produced little beyond a See also:volume of fugitive verses, published ten years after the See also:miscarriage of his master-piece . His even course of good fortune under Whig and Tory governments alike was counterweighed by the See also:physical infirmities of See also:gout and failing sight . He died, See also:January 19, 1729, in consequence of an injury received on a See also:journey to See also:Bath by the upsetting of his See also:carriage; was buried in See also:Westminster See also:Abbey, after lying in See also:state in the See also:Jerusalem Chamber; and bequeathed the bulk of his fortune to the See also:chief friend of his last years, Henrietta, duchess of See also:Marlborough, daughter of the See also:great See also:duke, rather than to his See also:family, which, according to Johnson, was then in difficulties, or to Mrs See also:Bracegirdle, the actress, with whom he had lived longer on intimate terms than with any other See also:mistress or friend, but who inherited by his will only £200 . The one memorable incident of his later life was the visit of See also:Voltaire, whom he astonished and repelled by his rejection of proffered praise and the expression of his wish to be considered merely as any other See also:gentleman of no See also:literary fame . The great master of well-nigh every See also:province in the See also:empire of letters, except the only one in which his See also:host reigned supreme, replied that in that sad case Congreve would not have received his visit . The fame of the greatest English comic dramatist is founded wholly or mainly on but three of his five plays .

His first comedy was little more than a brilliant study after such See also:

models as were eclipsed by this earliest effort of their imitator; and tragedy under his hands appears rouged and wrinkled, in the patches and See also:powder of See also:Lady Wishfort . But his three great comedies are more than enough to sustain a reputation as durable as our See also:language . Were it not for these we should have no samples to show of comedy in its purest and highest form . See also:Ben See also:Jonson, who alone attempted to introduce it by way of reform among the mixed work of a time when comedy and tragedy were as inextricably blended on the stage as in actual life, failed to give the requisite ease and the indispensable grace of comic life and See also:movement to the See also:action and See also:passion of his elaborate and magnificent work . Of Congreve's immediate predecessors, whose aim had been to raise on See also:French See also:foundations a new English fabric of See also:simple and unmixed comedy, Wycherley was of too See also:base See also:metal and Etherege was of metal too See also:light to be weighed against him; and besides theirs no other or finer See also:coin was current than the crude See also:British ore of Shadwell's brutal and burly See also:talent . Borrowing a See also:metaphor from See also:Landor, we may say that a See also:limb of Moliere would have sufficed to make a Congreve, a limb of Congreve would have sufficed to make a See also:Sheridan . The broad and robust See also:humour of See also:Vanbrugh's admirable comedies gives him a place on the master's right hand; on the left stands See also:Farquhar, whose See also:bright light genius is to Congreve's as See also:female is to male, or "as moonlight unto sunlight." No English writer, on the whole, has so nearly touched the skirts of Moliere; but his splendid intelligence is wanting in the deepest and subtlest quality which has won for Moliere from the greatest poet of his See also:country and our See also:age the See also:tribute of exact and final See also:definition conveyed in that perfect phrase which salutes at once and denotes him—" ce moqueur pensif comme un apotre." Only perhaps in a single See also:part has Congreve See also:half consciously touched a See also:note of almost tragic See also:depth and See also:suggestion; there is something well-nigh akin to the See also:grotesque and piteous figure of Arnolphe himself in the unvenerable old age of Lady Wishfort, set off and relieved as it is, with grace and art worthy of the supreme French master, against the only figure on any stage which need not shun comparison even with that of Celiane . The See also:Works of William Congreve were published in 1710 (3 vols.) . The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve . . . edited by See also:Leigh See also:Hunt (184o), contains a See also:biographical and See also:critical See also:notice of Congreve . See also The Comedies of William Congreve (1895), with an introduction by W . G .

S . See also:

Street; and The Best Plays of William Congreve (1887, 1903), edited for the Mermaid See also:Series by A . C . See also:Ewald . The Life of William Congreve (1887) by See also:Edmund See also:Gosse, in E . S . See also:Robert-son's Great Writers, contains a bibliography by J . P . See also:Anderson . (A . C .

End of Article: WILLIAM CONGREVE (167o-1729)
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CONGRUOUS (from Lat. congruere, to agree)

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