Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/109

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HIS Gentleman was deſcended from an antient family in Cheſhire, which came originally from France; though by the name it would appear to be of Dutch extraction. He received a very liberal education, and became eminent for his poetry, and ſkill in architecture, to both which he discovered an early propenſion. It is ſomewhat remarkable in the Hiſtory of Poetry, that when the ſpirit of Tragedy, in a great meaſure, declined, when Otway and Lee were dead, and Dryden was approaching to old age, that Comedy ſhould then begin to flouriſh; at an Æra, which one would not have expected to prove auſpicious to the cauſe of mirth.

Much about the ſame time roſe Mr. Congreve, and Sir John Vanbrugh; who, without any invidious reflection on the genius of others, gave a new life to the ſtage, and reſtored it to reputation, which before their appearance had been for ſome time ſinking. Happy would it have been for the world, and ſome advantage to the memory of theſe comic writers, if they had diſcovered their wit, without any mixture of that licentiouſneſs, which while it pleaſed, tended to corrupt the audience. The