"Thus Congreve spent in writing plays, For poets open table kept, But ne'er consider'd where they slept. Was easy, though they wanted shoes ; Not owing to his happy vein The fortunes of his latter scene; Took proper principles to thrive ; And so might every dunce alive."—On Dr. Delany and Lord Carteret. Con We take Swift to have been in the right, as to the fact of the single office. greve's receipts from his various places have been usually huddled together, as though Halifax had given them all, and at once. Probably they did all come from him, or through him; but it is certain our author was not made a Commissioner of Wine Licences till the November of 1714. His richest appointment, that of Secretary for Jamaica, followed in the course of the next month. Halifax died the May ensuing. The whole of Congreve's offices now put him in possession, it is said, of twelve hundred a-year, a very handsome income in those days for a bachelor. Up to this period, he probably lived according to Swift's intimation, in straitened circumstances at home, though magnificently in the houses of his noble friends; not the happiest possible condition for a proud man, or any man; though pride can sooner reconcile itself, than less assuming passions, to whatsoever it condescends to be convenienced with. At all events, whether proud or philosophic, Congreve repaid with interest what he received, by the charms of his wit and conversation; and men of genius, of all parties, would have handed his name down to posterity, had he done nothing else for it himself. Dryden may be said to have eulogised him as long as he survived. Steele dedicated his "Miscellanies" to him, and Pope his "Iliad"; and he was visited by Voltaire. Occasionally he wrote some verses which were handed about, or a prologue for some friend, or a paper for a periodical work, or epistle to some coffee-house wit. But he lived more like a man of birth than of letters; and his powers of amusement being equal to his fame, he became celebrated for his bonnes fortunes, and was always in tender connexion with some reigning charmer. At one time, it appears to be Mrs. Arabella Hunt, the singer; at another, he is residing in the same house with "Madam Berenger;" at another, and for a long while, he is the friend of delightful Mrs. Bracegirdle (whose very name sounds like a Venus); and during the last years of his life he was the cherished companion of Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, wife of the Lord Treasurer Godolphin. Upon the subject of these two latter connexions it is proper to dilate somewhat, as they not only coloured his life and reputation, but form no inconsiderable portion of the essential history of the man and his nature. The date of his first acquaintance with Mrs. Bracegirdle was doubtless that of his introduction to the stage. It is observable, that she not only acted the heroine in every one of his plays, but always spoke either a prologue or epilogue to it. Her appearance on these occasions is not less certain, than the dedication of the play to some man of quality. Gallantry and fashion always went hand in hand with Congreve. Among the exquisite portraits of stage contemporaries painted by Colley Cibber,-who could become serious, and even feeling, when describing a cordial woman,—the following one of this delightful actress remains ever fresh on the canvas: "Mrs. Bracegirdle was now just blooming to her maturity; her reputation as an actress gradually rising with that of her person; never any woman was in such general favour of her spectators, which to the last scene of her dramatic life she maintained by not being unguarded in her private character. This discretion contributed not a little to make her the cara, the darling of the theatre: for it will be no extravagant thing to say, scarce an audience saw her that were less than half of them lovers, without a suspected favourite among them; and though she might be said to have been the universal passion, and under the highest temptations, her constancy in resisting them served but to increase the number of her admirers. And this perhaps you will more easily believe, when I extend not encomiums on her person beyond a sincerity that can be suspected; for she had no greater claim to beauty than what the most desirable brunette might pretend to. But her youth and lively aspect threw out such a glow of health and cheerfulness, that on the stage few spectators that were not past it could behold her without desire. It was even a fashion among the gay and young to have a taste or tendre for Mrs. Bracegirdle. She inspired the best authors to write for her; and two of them, when they gave her a lover in the play, seemed palpably to plead their own passion, and make their private court to her in fictitious characters. In all the chief parts she acted, the desirable was so predominant, that no judge could be cold enough to consider from what other particular excellence she became delightful. To speak critically of an actress that was extremely good, were as hazardous as to be positive in one's opinion of the best opera singer. People often judge by comparisons where there is no similitude in the performance. So that in this case we have only taste to appeal to, and of taste there can be no disputing. I shall, therefore, only say of Mrs. Bracegirdle, that the most eminent authors always chose her for their favourite character, and shall leave that uncontestable proof of her merit to its own value. Yet let me say there were two very different characters in which she acquitted herself with uncommon applause; if anything could excuse that desperate extravagance of love, that almost frantic passion of Lee's "Alexander the Great," it must have been when Mrs. Bracegirdle was his Statira: as, when she acted Millamant, all the faults, follies, and affectation of that agreeable tyrant were venially melted down into so many charms and attractions of a conscious beauty." With this charming woman, not only Congreve is understood to have fallen in love, but Rowe; who, by the way, if he did, left no small proof of the heartlessness of *Cibber's "Apology," 12mo, 1826, p. 102. which some have accused him, in a bantering copy of verses upon her, in which Lord Scarsdale is encouraged not to be ashamed to marry her, though her father did keep an inn at Northampton. "Do not, most fragrant Earl, disclaim Thy bright, thy reputable flame, To Bracegirdle the brown; But publicly espouse the dame, And say, G-d- the town," &c. It had not been discovered in those days, that a charming actress was worth marrying for her own sake, in proportion to the evidences she had given of genius and a good heart. Rowe, with a spite that would hardly have been found in a greater poet, and that is doubly revolting if he had loved her, compliments her upon the offers of wealth and rank which she had rejected, in the very lines which ridicule her parentage and her profession. Even one of these grounds of objection is said to have been false. A commentator in Nichols's edition of the Tatler (vol. i. p. 215), designates her father as "Justinian Bracegirdle of Northamptonshire, Esquire," who "ruined himself, among other ways, by becoming surety for some friends." Be this as it may, hear Davies's account of the share which Rowe as well as Congreve had in the admiration which she excited : “Mrs. Bracegirdle was the favourite actress of Congreve and of Rowe. In the several lovers they gave her in their plays, they expressed their own passion for her. In 'Tamerlane,' Rowe courted her Selima in the person of Axalla; in the 'Fair Penitent,' he was the Horatio to her Lavinia; and in Ulysses,' the Telemachus to Bracegirdle's Semanthe. Congreve insinuated his addresses in his Valentine to her Angelica, in Love for Love;' in his Osmyn to her Almeria, in the 'Mourning Bride;' and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, in the Way of the World.' ”* "Honest Tom Davies" proceeds to vindicate his heroine from the scandals of lawless "Tom Brown," who tells us that Congreve "dined with her every day, and visited her in public and private." The deduction thus intended to be implied cannot, argues Davies, be true, because Mrs. Bracegirdle was visited to the last moment of her life by "persons of the most unblemished character and the most exalted rank." He admits, at the same time, that Congreve's "assiduous courtship did not pass unnoticed; that he was constantly in her lodgings, and often rode out with her." Mr. Davies's gentle mystifications may be safely left to the reader's "candour" (to use a favourite word of those times). The toleration of polite life for temptations of the heart on the stage, has not been one of the least redeeming or sincere of its own claims to indulgence. Mrs. Bracegirdle's successor in the public admiration, Mrs. Oldfield, who was counted a model even to the fashionable world on every point but one, was intimate with the people of the "most unblemished character and exalted rank." Mr. Davies subsequently tells us so himself; adding, that the royal family did not disdain to see her at their levees: and he repeats an amusing instance of her address. The Princess of Wales (afterwards queen of George the Second) told her one day that she * "Miscellanics," ut sup., vol. iii. p. 360. had heard that General Churchill and she were married. "So it is said, may it please your highness," said Mrs. Oldfield; "but we have not owned it yet." From collateral as well as other circumstances that transpire in the literature of the period, we take the conclusion respecting Bracegirdle to be, that she was more truly in love with Congreve than he with her; that it is probable she expected him to marry her; that her expectations gradually gave way before his worldlier heart, probably to the ultimate consolation of her own, when he went to live with another; and that sufficient friendship was retained on both sides, to maintain an affectionate interest in one another for life ;-in Congreve, because he was a gentleman and a man of sense; and in the mistress, because the memory of the very dreams of a real regard is too sweet, to let the bitterness even of its waking turn angry. Congreve visited her to the last, and remembered her in his will, though not generously. And his kinder friend took what care she could of his reputation. "When Curll, whom Dr. Arbuthnot (says Davies) termed one of the new terrors of death, from his constantly printing every eminent person's life and last will, published an advertisement of Memoirs of the Life of Congreve, she (Mrs. Bracegirdle) interested herself so far in his reputation, as to demand a sight of the book in manuscript. This was refused. She then asked, by what authority his life was written, and what pieces contained in it were genuine. Upon being told that there would be several of his letters, essays, &c., she answered, 'Not one single sheet of paper, I dare say.' And in this (rightly concludes Davies) she was a true prophet; for in that book there is not a line of Congreve which had not been printed before *.” Cibber speaks of her in advanced life as retaining her usual agreeable cheerfulness. Some few years before her death, she retired, Davies informs us, to the house of W. Chute, Esq., and died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her age, bequeathing "her effects" to a niece, "for whom she expressed great regard." What sort of charms the greater lady possessed, for whose society Congreve appears to have forsaken that of Mrs. Bracegirdle, with the exception of her admiration of himself, her rank, and the beauty common to the house of Churchill, we know not. There is nothing to show for her having a grain of the other's sense and goodness. She was daughter and co-heir of the great Duke of Marlborough, and became duchess in her own right, and wife of the Earl of Godolphin. She was at variance with her mother, the famous Duchess; but so was all the world. Congreve was older than she by eight or nine years. Lord Chesterfield, speaking of her husband on a political occasion, calls him "that cypher;" and intimates, that what ability he possessed consisted in "sleeping t." Now certainly Congreve was a man for keeping a lady's eyes and ears open, however short he might have come of her heart; and accordingly, he seems, for many years, to have been as regular at her Grace's table, as the wine. They had a good deal of music at the house. Bononcini, the rival of Handel, was * Ut supra, p. 362.-He alludes to "Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Amours of William Congreve, Esq." purporting to be written by a Mr. Wilson, but supposed to be the manufacture of Oldmixon. It contains the novel of the "Incognita," and is still to be met with on the book-stalls. Mr. Wilson himself, in his preface, relates the above anecdote of Bracegirdle. + Letters to and from Henrietta, Countess of Suffolk, &c.-vol. ii. p. 82. patronised there. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has a passage on the subject, which reminds us that she too was so intimate an acquaintance of Congreve as to address very Lady-Mary-like verses to him, extremely resembling what in a male writer to a female would have looked like a declaration *. Perhaps this may explain the remainder "The reigning Duchess of Marlborough (writes her ladyship to her sister) has entertained the town with concerts of Bononcini's composition very often; but she and I are not in that degree of friendship to have me often invited; we continue to see one another like two people who are resolved to hate with civility +.” Congreve however, though not old, was now growing infirm. He had led a free and luxurious life; had become gouty, and was afflicted with cataracts in his eyes, which terminated in blindness. To relieve his gout, he took a journey to Bath, in the summer of 1728, for the benefit of the waters; but had the misfortune to be overturned there in his chariot, which is supposed to have occasioned some inward bruise; for returning to London, he complained thenceforward of a pain in his side, and died the 19th of January following, of a gradual decay, at his house in Surrey-street, in the Strand, and in the fifty-seventh year of his age. The Duchess of Marlborough took instant possession of the right of burial. On the Sunday following, the corpse lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber; and the same evening was borne with great solemnity into Henry the Seventh's Chapel, and interred in the south transept of the Abbey. The pall was supported by the Duke of Bridgewater (whose first wife was the Duchess's sister), Lord Cobham (Pope's friend), the Earl of Wilmington (the dull man, whom Thomson took for a patron), George Berkeley (who married Lady Suffolk), and General Churchill (above mentioned, the friend of Mrs. Oldfield, and cousin, we believe, of the Duchess). Colonel Congreve, the deceased's relation, followed as chief mourner. In the Suffolk Correspondence are two short letters to Mr. Berkeley, which may be here given as characteristic of the Duchess "Jan. 22, 1728-9. "SIR,-I must desire you to be one of the six next Sunday upon this very melancholy occasion. I always used to think you had a respect for him, and I would not have any there that had not. MARLBOROUGH." I am, &c., The next letter appears to have been accompanied with some memorial of Congreve : "Jan. 28, 1728-9. "SIR,―The last letter I writ to you was upon always having thought that you had a respect, and a kind one, for Mr. Congreve. I dare say you believe I could sooner think of doing the most monstrous thing in the world than sending anything that was his, where I was not persuaded it would be valued. The number of them I think so of, are a mighty few indeed; therefore I must always be in a particular manner, Yours, &c. * See them in her Works (by Lord Wharncliffe,) vol. iii., p. 401. MARLBOROUGH." + + Works, vol. ii., p. 135. Letters to and from Henrietta, Countess of Suffolk, vol. i. p. 330. |