e case, we, as Englishmen, prefer to agree in the
commonly received opinion that he came into this wicked world at the
village of Bardsea, or Bardsey, not far from Leeds in the county of
York. Let the Bardseyans immediately erect a statue to his honour, if
they have been remiss enough to neglect him heretofore.

But our difficulties are not ended, for there is a similar doubt about
the year of his birth. His earliest biographer assures us he was born in
1672, and others that he was baptized three years before, in 1669. Such
a proceeding might well be taken as a proof of his Hibernian extraction,
and accordingly we find Malone supporting the earlier date, producing,
of course, a certificate of baptism to support himself; and as we have
a very great respect for his authority, we beg also to support Mr.
Malone.

This being settled, we have to examine who were his parents: and this is
satisfactorily answered by his earliest biographer, who informs us that
he was of a very ancient family, being 'the only surviving son of
William Congreve, Esq. (who was second son to Richard Congreve, Esq., of
Congreve and Stretton in that county),' to wit, Yorkshire. Congreve
_pere_ held a military command, which took him to Ireland soon after the
dramatist's birth, and thus young William had the incomparable advantage
of being educated at Kilkenny, and afterwards at Trinity, Dublin, the
'silent sister,' as it is commonly called at our universities.

At the age of nineteen, this youth sought the classic shades of the
Middle Temple, of which he was entered a student, but by the honourable
society of which he was never called to the bar; but whether this was
from a disinclination to study 'Coke upon Lyttleton,' or from an
incapacity to digest the requisite number of dinners, the devouring of
which qualify a young gentleman to address an enlightened British jury,
we have no authority for deciding. He was certainly not the first, nor
the last, young Templar who has quitted special pleading on a crusade to
the heights of Parnassus, and he began early to try the nib of his pen
and the colour of his ink in a novel. Eheu! how many a novel has issued
from the dull, dirty chambers of that same Temple! The waters of the
Thames just there seem to have been augmented by a mingled flow of
sewage and Helicon, though the former is undoubtedly in the greater
proportion. This novel, called 'Incognita; or, Love and Duty
Reconciled,' seems to have been--for I