fter 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 he very
early felt that force of imagination, and possessed that copiousness of
sentiment, by which intellectual pleasure can be 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 Bachelor; of which he says, in
his defence against Collier, "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. 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 into 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 Bachelor 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 Mr. Dryden, Mr.
Southern, and Mr. Maynwaring. Dryden said, that he, never had seen such
a first play; but they found it deficient in some things requisite to
the success of its exhibition, and by their greater experience fitted it
for the stage.

Southern used to relate of one comedy, probably of this, that, when
Congreve read it to the players, he pronounced it so wretchedly that
they had almost rejected it; but they were afterwards so well persuaded
of its excellence, that, for half a year before it was acted, the
manager all