of peace. N.]

[Footnote 6: It should be the earl of Dorset.]

[Footnote 7: Swift obtained many subscriptions for him in Ireland. II.]

[Footnote: 8 Spence.]

[Footnote: 9 Spence.]

[Footnote 10: Spence; and see Gent. Mag. vol l vii. p. 1039.]

[Footnote 11: Richardsoniana.]

[Footnote 12: It is to be found in Poggii Facetiae. J.B.]

[Footnote 13: The same thought is found in one of Owen's epigrams,
lib. i. epig. 123. and in Poggii Facetiae. J.B.]

[Footnote 14: Prior was not the first inventor of this stanza; for
excepting the alexandrine close, it is to be found in Churchyard's
Worthies of Wales. See his introduction for Brecknockshire. J.B.]

CONGREVE.

William 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. He visited, once, at
least, the residence of his ancestors; and, I believe, more places than
one are still shown, in groves and gardens, where he is related to have
written his Old Bachelor.

Neither the time nor place of his birth are certainly known: if the
inscription upon his monument be true, he was born in 1672[15]. 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.

To doubt whether a man of eminence has told the truth about 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. Boileau, who desired to be thought
a rigorous and steady moralist, having told a petty lie to Lewis the
fourteenth, 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.

Wherever Congreve was born, he was educated first at Kilkenny, and
afterwards at Dublin, his father having some military employment that
stationed him in Ireland: but, a