_père_ held a military command, which took him to Ireland soon after the
dramatist's birth, and thus young William had the incomparable advantage
of being educated at Kilkenny, and afterwards at Trinity, Dublin, the
'silent sister,' as it is commonly called at our universities.

At the age of nineteen, this youth sought the classic shades of the
Middle Temple, of which he was entered a student, but by the honourable
society of which he was never called to the bar; but whether this was
from a disinclination to study 'Coke upon Lyttleton,' or from an
incapacity to digest the requisite number of dinners, the devouring of
which qualify a young gentleman to address an enlightened British jury,
we have no authority for deciding. He was certainly not the first, nor
the last, young Templar who has quitted special pleading on a crusade to
the heights of Parnassus, and he began early to try the nib of his pen
and the colour of his ink in a novel. Eheu! how many a novel has issued
from the dull, dirty chambers of that same Temple! The waters of the
Thames just there seem to have been augmented by a mingled flow of
sewage and Helicon, though the former is undoubtedly in the greater
proportion. This novel, called 'Incognita; or, Love and Duty
Reconciled,' seems to have been--for I confess that I have not read more
than a chapter of it, and hope I never may be forced to do so--great
rubbish, with good store of villains and ruffians, love-sick maidens who
tune their lutes--always conveniently at hand--and love-sick gallants
who run their foes through the body with the greatest imaginable ease.
It was, in fact, such a novel as James might have written, had he lived
a century and a half ago. It brought its author but little fame, and
accordingly he turned his attention to another branch of literature, and
in 1693 produced 'The Old Bachelor,' a play of which Dryden, his friend,
had so high an opinion that he called it the 'best first-play he had
ever read.' However, before being put on the stage it was submitted to