CON CON 73 
To CONGRA'TULATE, v. a. ^gratulor, I.at.] To 
compliment upon any happy event ; to exprefs joy for 
the good of another.—I congratulate our Englifh tongue, 
that it lias been enriched with words from all our neigh¬ 
bours. JVatts. —It has: fometimes the accufative cafe of 
the caufe of joy, and to before the perfon.—'The fubjeCts 
of England may congratulate to themfelves, that the na¬ 
ture of our government, and the clemency of our king, 
fecure us. Dry den. 
To CONGRA'TULATE, v. n. To rejoice in parti¬ 
cipation.'—I cannot but congratulate with my country, 
which hath outdone all Europe in advancing converfa- 
tion. Swift. 
CONGRATULATION,/ Profeflion of joy for the 
happinefs or fuccefs of another. 
CONGRATULATORY, adj. Exprefling joy for the 
good fortune of another. 
To CONGRE'E, v. n. [from gre, Fr.] To agree; to 
accord ; to join ; to unite. Not in ufe. 
For government, 
Put into parts, doth keep in one concent, 
Congreeing in a full and natural clofe. Shakefpeare. 
To CONGRE'ET, v. n. To falute reciprocally. Not 
in ufe. 
My office hath fo far prevail’d, 
That face to face, and royal eye to eye. 
You have congrectedi Shakefpeare. 
To CONGREGATE, v. a. [ con grego, Lat.] To coi¬ 
led together; to alfemble ; to bring into one place.—. 
Any multitude of Chriftian .men congregated, may be 
tenped by the name of a church. Hooker. 
The dry land, earth ; and the great receptacle 
Of congregated waters,.he call’d leas ;. 
And faw that it was good, Milton. 
To CONGREGATE, v.To aflemble ; to meet; to 
gather together : 
Tis true (as the old proverb dotli relate) 
Equals with equals often congregate. Denham. 
CONGREGATE, adj. Collected; compact.—Where 
the matter is molt congregate, the cold is the greater. 
Bacon. 
CONGREGATION, /: The act of collecting.—The 
means of reduction by the fire, is but by congregation of 
liomogeneal parts. Bacon. —A collodion; a mafs of va¬ 
rious parts brought together.—This brave o’erhanging 
firmament appears no other thing to me, than a foul and 
peltilent congregation of vapours. Shakcfpeare. —An affem- 
bly met to worfhip God in public, and hear dodtrine.— 
The words which the minifter firft pronounceth, the 
whole congregation fhall repeat after him. Hooker. —If 
thofe preachers, who abound in epiphonemas, would 
look about them, they would find part of their congrega¬ 
tion out cf countenance, and the other afleep. Swift. 
CONGREGATIONAL, adj. Public; pertaining to 
a congregation or affembly. It is a word ufed of inch 
Ghriftians as hold every congregation to be a feparate and 
independent church. 
CONGREGA'TIONALISTS,/. in church-hiftory, a 
feet of proteftants who rejedt all church government, ex¬ 
cept that of a ftngle congregation under the diredtion of 
©ne pallor. 
CONGRESS,/". \_congrcJfiis, Lat. ] Ameeting; affiock; 
a conflidt.—From thefe laws may be deduced the rules 
of the congrejfes and reflections of two bodies. Cheyne. 
Here Pallas urges on, and Laufus there; 
Their congrcfs in the field great Jove withftands. 
Both doom’d to fall, .but fall by greater hands. Dry den. 
An appointed meeting for fettlement of affairs between 
different nations : as, the congrcfs of Cambray. A par¬ 
liament, an alfembly of delegates : as, th c congrefs of 
America. 
Vol. V. No. 255. . 
CONGRES'SI VE, adj. Meeting; encountering; com¬ 
ing together.—If it be underltood of fexes conjoined, all 
plants are female ; and if of disjoined and congreffive ge¬ 
neration, there is no male or female in them. Brown. 
CONGREVE (William), an Englifh dramatic wri¬ 
ter and poet, defeended of an ancient family in Stafford- 
fhire, and born in 1672. He was carried into Ireland 
when very young; for his father had there a command 
in the army, and afterwards became fteward in the Bur¬ 
lington family, which fixed his refidence in that king¬ 
dom. Congreve was fent to the fchool of Kilkenny, and 
thence to the univerlity of Dublin; where he acquired a 
perfeCt fkill in all the branches of polite literature. In 
1688, he was fent to London, and placed in the Middle 
Temple; but the law proving too dry for him, he trou¬ 
bled himfelf little with it, and continued to purfue his 
former fludies. His firft production as an author, was a 
novel, which, under the affumed name of Cleophil, he 
dedicated to Mrs. Catherine Levefon. The title of it 
was, “ Incognita, or Love and Duty reconciled.” Vi¬ 
vacity of wit, fluency of l'tyle, and ftrength of judgment, 
are fhewn in this work ; and the merit of is great, if we 
confider it as the firft-fruits of a youth of feventecn. It 
has been faid, that at the bottom it is a true hiftory; and 
though the feene is laid in Italy, yet the adventures hap¬ 
pened in England. As he did-not then think proper to 
own this piece to the world, fo whatever reputation he 
gained by it, was confined within the circle of a few' ac¬ 
quaintance. 
Congreve formed himfelf'upon Wycherly; but- his wit 
is more flowing, his fancy more exuberant, his know¬ 
ledge more extenfive, and his judgment more profound. 
Though he is by no means a ftriCt obferver of the uni¬ 
ties, the conduCt of his fables is well ftudied, and fome- 
timesexaCt; but his cataftropbes are generally perplexed, 
and fometimes improbable. When Congreve began to 
write, the licentious manners introduced, by Charles II. 
were in full vigour; the endeavour to efiabli/h popery, 
in the reign of. his fucceffor, had not diminifhed the im¬ 
morality of the people : hence the oblcenity which runs 
through many of his comedies. Congreve feems to have 
known the foibles, paflions, humours, and vides, of the 
world, by intuition. His Old Bachelor was aCted when 
he was only twenty-one years of age ; and, in his dedi¬ 
cation, he tells lord Clifford that it had lain by him al- 
moft four years. Dryden and Southern were aftonilhed 
w'hen they perufed this play, and pronounced it a pro¬ 
digy of early genius. The audience, in Congreve’s time, 
were particularly fond of having a city cuckold dreffed 
O.ut for their entertainment; and Fondlewife is ferved up 
with very poignant fauce. This pleafed the town fo 
well, that in his next play, the Double Dealer, we have - 
no lefs than three of them. Love for Love is allowed 
by the critics to be Congreve’s beft play, and one of the 
beft in our language. His characters are drawn-with 
fuch ftrength and comprehenfion, that his comedies are a 
perpetual commentary on the paflions and humours of 
mankind ; and there is a part of a feene in the fecond 
aft of the Mourning Bride, his only tragedy, which Dr. 
Johnfon commends as the moft poetical paragraph in the 
whole mafs of Englifh poetry. Dr. Johnfon objects to the 
plots of Congreve’s comedies, in fome of which the play 
terminates with a marriage in a mafk. This excellent 
and acute critic did not, perhaps, recoiled how very 
much malks were ufed in thofe times; and that, till the 
beginning of queen Anne’s reign, women ufed to come 
to the theatres in a mafic. This practice w'as forbidden 
by a proclamation of that queen, in the firft year of her 
reign. 
Congreve had a fine tafte for mufic as well as poetry,, 
as appears from his Hymn to Harmony in Honour of St. 
Cecilia’s Day, 1701, fet by Mr. John Eccles,. to whom 
he was alfo obliged for fetting feveral of his fongs. His 
early acquaintance with the great had procured him an . 
eafy and independent Ration in life., to which it is very 
U.. rare--’ 
