afterwards at Dublin, his father having some military employment
that stationed him in Ireland; but after 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 dramatic 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 everything 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