CON 



ISO 



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Congreve. 



Musical in- 

 struments. 



'History. 



pattaents of art is such as it might naturally be ex- 

 pected to be found among a people who had advanced 

 far in the progress of* civilization. Their houses are 

 low ill-built huts, thatched with straw or fern, without 

 windows, and which are not to be entered into even by 

 the door, without stooping; they are besides so slight- 

 ly built as to be liable to be blown away by a gust of 

 wind. The furniture consists chiefly of a few ill-con- 

 trived instruments of agriculture, a hatchet, a cutlass, 

 i\ ith the utensils for preparing or containing their pro- 

 visions. The Congoese have amongst them a variety of 

 rude musical instruments, such as those which they 

 distinguish by the names of the usambi and the marim- 

 ba, which are a very imperfect kind of stringed instru- 

 ments ; their ingambos or ingombos, a sort of drum 

 made of the long hollow trunk of a tree, with a single 

 skin stretched over one end of it, and which is beaten 

 with the fists, or by sticks of heavy wood, while the 

 other end of the instrument is left open, and the longa, 

 which consists of one or two small belts. Their dan- 

 cing has been characterised as merely a promiscuous 

 collection of men and women, all striving who shall 

 show the greatest agility and variety in their gambols, 

 contortions, and indecent postures. 



Before the arrival of the Portuguese in Congo, its 

 inhabitants were so totally unacquainted with letters 

 that its prior history may be considered as perfectly fa- 

 bulous. The tradition is, that its first prince was Lu- 

 guen, the son of a neighbouring sovereign, who gra- 

 dually united under his dominion the whole of the ter- 

 ritory between the mouth of the Zair and the city of 

 St Salvador, and whose legitimate successors have ever 

 since maintained themselves in possession of the throne. 

 This country was discovered by the Portuguese under 

 the reign of John II. who employed Diego Cam, a per- 

 son of enterprise and a famous navigator, in an expedi- 

 tion for extending the knowledge of the coasts of Ethi- 

 opia. The period when this took place was the year 

 1484. While engaged in this undertaking, Cam was 

 accidentally carried into the Congoese country, and ha- 

 ving been well received by the natives, was able to pre- 

 vail on four of them to accompany him to Europe. 

 Charmed with the accounts which they communicated 

 to him respecting it, the king ordered Cam to return 

 thither as speedily as possible, furnishing him with va- 

 luable presents for the sovereign and the court. He di- 

 rected that this prince should be exhorted to become a 

 convert to the worship of the only true God, and to 

 permit the Christian religion to be propagated through 

 nis dominions. Cam, accordingly, having arrived again 

 at Congo in the year 1485, was still very favourably 

 received there, and an alliance having been established 

 between the two crowns of Portugal and Congo, it 

 has still continued to subsist, and was followed by at 

 least a partial conversion of the country to the Chris- 

 tian faith. See Dapper's Hist. d'Africue ; Mod. Univer. 

 Hist. vol. xiii. Peuchet's Dictionnaire de la geographie 

 commcrcanle j Bibliotheque universclle de Voyages, &c. 



00 



CONGRESS. See America. 



CONGREVE, William, a celebrated English dra- 

 matist, was descended from a family in Staffordshire, 

 Vhich traced its lineage beyond the Norman conquest. 

 His father was an officer in the army, who was long 

 stationed in Ireland : and in that kingdom young Con- 

 greve received so much of his early education, that he 

 was believed by many to be an Irishman. Jacob, his 

 biographer, had indeed told us, on the poet's own as- 

 surance, that he was born in England ; but Dr John- 



son thinks proper to commence the life of this great Cougna 

 man, by suspecting him, in this instance, of telling a w -\-~ -' 

 lie. His reasoning is thus conducted : " Nobody can 

 live long without seeing lies of convenience, or vanity, 

 uttered lightly ; and once uttered, sullenly supported. 

 Boilcau told a lie to Louis XIW which he never re- 

 tracted, and therefore we may suspect that Congreve 

 told Jacob a falsehood respecting -the place of his birth." 

 Mr Malone, however, has annihilated this logical sus- 

 picion, by producing the entry of Congreve's baptism, 

 atBardsea, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, in 1672. Every 

 page of Johnson's biographies teems with those absurd 

 aspersions on the memory of individuals, and the ge- 

 neral character of human nature. Congreve received 

 the first rudiments of his classical education at the high 

 school of Kilkenny, where he is said to have discover- 

 ed an early poetical vein, in a copy of verses which he 

 wrote upon the death of his master's magpie. He 

 went from thence to the university of Dublin, where, 

 before he left it, at the age of sixteen, his biographer 

 tells us, that he acquired a correct and critical acquain- 

 tance with the classics. This may seem almost mere-, 

 dible, yet the mind of Congreve seems to have been 

 endowed with wonderful precocity; and, as we find 

 him consulted by Dry den on his translation of Virgil, 

 it is but fair to believe that he possessed considerable 

 classical knowledge. That species of knowledge a mail 

 seldom improves after he leaves the university, and we 

 may believe that Congreve imbibed it at a very early 

 age. He was sent from Dublin to the Middle Temple 

 in London, with a view of studying the law ; but he 

 proved one of the many deserters who enlist in that 

 profession ; and, at seventeen years of age, published a 

 romance under a feigned name, entitled, Love and Du- 

 ty reconciled. This "is the romance which Dr Johnson 

 says he would rather read than praise. We confess 

 our inability to do either, as the romance is not among 

 the books within our reach. The passage, however, in 

 the preface that is quoted in the Biograplua BrUannica, 

 bespeaks a mind wonderfully skilled, at the age of se- 

 venteen, in the technical views and language of criti- 

 cism. 



The first performance that brought him fairly be- 

 fore the pubbc, appeared before he had completed 

 his twenty-second year, — his comedy of The Old Ba- 

 chelor. Dryden and Mainwaring corrected the piece, 

 but the wit and genius were Congreve's. The stuff of 

 it was said to be rich, but those experienced critics give 

 it the cut of the fashion. The Old Bach lor was first- 

 acted in 1693, before a numerous and splendid au- 

 dience, and received with thunders of applause : from 

 that period Congreve mounted the throne of comic poe- 

 try, and during his life had no rival. Halifax imme- 

 diately became his patron, and made him one of the 

 commissioners for licensing coaches; and scon after 

 gave him a place in the pipe-office, and another in the 

 customs, worth £ 6'00 a-year. Next year he produced 

 his Double Dealer, which was not received with equal 

 kindness. Queen Mary honoured the representation 

 of this and the former piet;e with her presence ; and, at 

 her death, which happened not long afterwards, Con- 

 greve displayed his gratitude in the pastoral strain, 

 which was then absurdly customary on funeral occa- 

 sions. In 1G95, Betterton opened his neAv theatre in 

 Portugal-row, Lincoln' s-Inn-Fields ; and our author 

 supported him by his comedy of Love for Love : a co- 

 medy which, Dr Johnson remarks, has a nearer al- 

 liance to life, and exhibits more real manners, than 

 any cf the former. The character of the sailor, Dr 



