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Certain items in the inventory tend to confirm reports that have hitherto been given little credit. One of these has to do with Congreve’s interest in horses and horseback riding, which seems to be supported by item Number 277:

The gentleman’s jockey, and approved farrier; instructing in the natures, causes, and cures of all diseases incident to horses. 8^o. London, 1717.

Many people will find it difficult to associate with Congreve a special interest in horses, particularly an interest that extended beyond his youth, as suggested by the late date 1717. Another report that has seemed even less in keeping with Congreve concerns the impact of Quakerism on him. Could he have taken a special interest in one of the Quakers, visited him repeatedly, and could he have seriously considered adopting the beliefs of the Quakers? The report that he did so has not been taken seriously. But we must not overlook the fact that Congreve owned (as item Number 53 in his list) the most important document of Quakerism, the 574–page analysis and defense by Robert Barclay entitled An Apology for the True Christian Divinity as the same is Held Forth, and Preached, by the People, called in Scorn, Quakers, London, 1701 (or 1703).

Congreve did not, like his friend Jonathan Swift, lose interest in the purchase of books during the last third of his life. For Swift’s library we have an inventory made when Swift was about fifty. Another inventory at his death more than twenty-five years later showed but few additions. In the case of Congreve, the earliest inventory—the 587 items in the first hand made out about 1726—came only three years before his death. But active buying must have continued throughout his life as shown by the dates in the imprints. The thirty-one entries by the second hand seem to indicate approximately the purchases for 1727 and the forty-one entries by the third hand approximately those for 1728. Congreve was evidently an active purchaser of books from his youth and did not stop during his last years.

Congreve’s list emphasizes collected editions, especially for plays, and contains very few quartos. When he collected his works in three volumes in 1710, he apparently destroyed (at least he did not list) the earlier editions of his plays in quarto. He loved to write such ballads as the racy “Jack French-Man’s Defeat,” but he never recognized these by including them in his book list or in his collected works; nor did he list his youthful novel Incognita (1691), if indeed he had a copy of it. Such omissions were later made by men with much greater novels to their credit. In the sales catalogues listing the books of Defoe and Fielding, one looks in vain for Robinson Crusoe or Tom Jones.

But perhaps most important is the information given by the list about Congreve’s special fields of interest and the fact that the list provides likely sources for his literary work. Mention should be made of his fine collection of drama (Greek, Roman, French, and English); of some one hundred titles of literary criticism; of nearly as many carefully selected works in biography and history; of a choice collection of thirty travel books and somewhat smaller lots in medicine, music, and cookery. Many of the books might be classified under religion and philosophy. The poets, both English and foreign, are well represented. And surprisingly enough, there are more than one hundred items of prose fiction, chiefly French. The influence of this fiction, if any, on Congreve’s own Incognita, and the influence of the literary criticism on his essay Concerning Humour in Comedy, are only two of many studies that might be based on Congreve’s book list. Perhaps someone will use the