William Congreve

William Congreve (1670–1729) was an English dramatist. Born in Yorkshire and raised in Ireland, where he was at school in Kilkenny and at Trinity College, Dublin, with Jonathan Swift, he came to London to study law and instead wrote comedies: The Old Bachelor (1693), The Double-Dealer, Love for Love (1695) and The Way of the World (1700), with the tragedy The Mourning Bride. The cool reception of The Way of the World ended his career as a playwright at thirty. He lived afterward on government sinecures, the friend of Pope and Swift and the lover of the Duchess of Marlborough, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.