ABSTRACT
Congreve belonged to a Staffordshire family; through his mother he was descended from the Timothy Bright who invented an early system of shorthand and wrote a book which is thought to have influenced Shakespeare’s conception of Hamlet—A Treatise of Melancholy; he was born at Bardsey, near Leeds; and, as his father was stationed in Ireland, he was educated at Kilkenny and Trinity College, Dublin. His first published work, the novel Incognita (1692), was written while Congreve was still in his ‘teens. He was invited by Dryden to contribute a translation of the 11th Satire of Juvenal, and urged by the veteran poet to translate Homer. But when Congreve showed Dryden the manuscript of The Old Batchelor, he declared that it was the best first play he had ever seen. He and Southerne helped Congreve prepare the play for the stage and it was performed at Drury Lane in 1693 with a splendid cast which included Betterton, Mrs Bracegirdle, Mrs Mountfort and Mrs Barry. It was a great success and when it was published it appeared with laudatory epistles in which Congreve was hailed as Dryden’s heir.
