We take Swift to have been in the right, as to the fact of the single office. Congreve'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, the lady 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. 10 1 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 a there can be no disputing. I shall, therefore, only say of Mrs. Bracegirdle, th authors always chose her for their favourite character, and shall leave that u her merit to its own value. Yet let me say there were two very different ch acquitted herself with uncommon applause; if anything could excuse that d of love, that almost frantic passion of Lee's "Alexander the Great," it n Mrs. Bracegirdle was his Statira: as, when she acted Millamant, all the faults, of that agreeable tyrant were venially melted down into so many charms and at beauty." With this charming woman, not only Congreve is understood to have fall who, by the way, if he did, left no small proof of the heartlessness of which so in a bantering copy of verses upon her, in which Lord Scarsdale is encouraged 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 sake, in proportion to the evidences she had given of genius and a good hear that would hardly have been found in a greater poet, and that is doubly revolti compliments her upon the offers of wealth and rank which she had rejected, ridicule her parentage and her profession. Even one of these grounds of ol been false. A commentator in Nichols's edition of the Tatler (vol. i. p. 215), as "Justinian Bracegirdle of Northamptonshire, Esquire," who "ruined hims by becoming surety for some friends." Be this as it may, hear Davies's accou Rowe as well as Congreve had in the admiration which she excited : "Mrs. Bracegirdle was the favourite actress of Congreve and of Rowe. In gave her in their plays, they expressed their own passion for her. In 'Tamerl Selima in the person of Axalla; in the Fair Penitent,' he was the Horatio in Ulysses,' the Telemachus to Bracegirdle's Semanthe. Congreve insinuate Valentine to her Angelica, in 'Love for Love ;' in his Osmyn to her Almeria, in and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, in the Way of the World.'"+ "Honest Tom Davies " proceeds to vindicate his heroine from the scan Brown," who tells us that Congreve "dined with her every day, and visit private." The deduction thus intended to be implied cannot, argues Da Mrs. Bracegirdle was visited to the last moment of her life by "persons of character and the most exalted rank." He admits, at the same time, that courtship did not pass unnoticed; that he was constantly in her lodgings, an her." Mr. Davies's gentle mystifications may be safely left to the reader' favourite word of those times). The toleration of polite life for temptatio stage, has not been one of the least redeeming or sincere of its own claims Bracegirdle's successor in the public admiration, Mrs. Oldfield, who was co the fashionable world on every point but one, was intimate with the people of t character and exalted rank." Mr. Davies subsequently tells us so himself; family did not disdain to see her at their levees: and he repeats an amusing i The princess of Wales (afterwards queen of George the Second) told her one *Cilber's" Apology," 12mo, 1926, p. 102. + Miscellanies," ut sup. 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 be 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."+ 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 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-Marylike 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 of the passage : "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; * 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. See them in her Werks (by Lord Wharncliffe,) vol. iii. p. 401. Works, vol. ii. p. 135. с but had the misfortune to be overturned there in his chariot, which is supposed to have occasioned 1ome inward bruise; for returning to London, he complained thenceforward of a pain in his side, and lied 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. I am, &c., MARLBOROUGH." 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., MARLBOROUGH." The word "him" in the first of these epistles, without any name specified, is touching. The other letter is slip-slop enough. A monument succeeded the funeral, the following inscription upon which was from her own hand :-"Mr. William Congreve died Jan, the 19th, 1728, aged fifty-six, and was buried near this place; to whose most valuable memory this monument is set up by Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, as a mark how deeply she remembers the happiness and honour she enjoyed in the sincere friendship of so worthy and honest a man, whose virtue, candour, and wit, gained him the love and esteem of the present age, and whose writings will be the admiration of the future." The old Duchess her mother, misquoting one of the words of this epitaph, said, "I know not what pleasure she might have in his company, but I am sure it was no honour."+ But the most curious evidence of her attachment remains to be told. According to Davies, she had an "automaton, or small statue of ivory, made exactly to resemble him, which every day was brought to table. A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was supposed to bow to her Grace, and to nod in approbation of what she spoke to it."‡ 66 This is as fantastic though not half so sensible as the whim of the cobbler, mentioned in the Tatler," who had a lay-figure which reverently bowed and held out one shoe to him, while he was mending its fellow. A more particular account of this folly is given by a correspondent of the 'Biographia Britannica :"— 66 "This lady (he says), commonly known by the name of the young Duchess of Marlborough, had a veneration for the memory of Mr. Congreve, which seemed nearly to approach to madness. Common fame reports, that she had his figure made in wax after his death, talked to it as if it had been alive, placed it at table with her, took great care to help it to different sorts of food, had an imaginary sore on its leg regularly dressed; and to complete all, consulted physicians with relation to its health."§ ↑ Walpole's Reminiscences, 1819, p. 68. *Letters to and from Henrietta, Countess of Suffolk, &c., vol. i. p. 330. As there seems however no better ground for these particulars than "common fame," most likely they are exaggerated. Some of them, from what we have seen of the Duchess's turn of mind, may easily enough be believed Nor were they wholly to be despised. There is something touching, notwithstanding their absudity, in the poorest whims connected with death and the affections; though they generally evince a want of imagination, and of faith in the spiritual and exalted. What the spirit has done with, had tetter be put away; and the thought be contented to wander where the survivor's own spirit must for. Love is more in company there with what it has loved, unless it has been of the most material description, and is tied and bound to what its companion has forsaken. The probability, we think, considering the characters of both parties, is, that Congreve's wit and conversation were necessary to the slow yet sensitive mind and humorous habits of the Duchess, and that she consequently loved him with all the heart she had, and a great deal of obstinacy; while on the other hand, Congreve was grateful for an attachment that glorified him and was convenient, and felt for her all the real tenderness of which a man of the world was capable, and which vanity would exaggerate. His bequest to her was quite as ridiculous in point of feeling, as her posthumous homage was in respect to the customs of society. With the exception of two hundred pounds to Mrs. Bracegirdle, the like sum to another female of the name of Anne Jellatt, and a few hundreds more to kindred who wanted all he could have given them (for the imprudence of a relation had reduced the family estate), he left her the whole of his property, which amounted to ten thousand pounds, "the accumulation (says Johnson) of attentive parsimony;" and though the " 'Biographia Britannica" accuses Cibber of mistake in saying that he made her his sole executrix, the sole executor having been the Earl her husband, yet it strangely overlooks in its authority the fact of a codicil amounting to that effect, and revoking every bequest unless she chose to ratify it, with the exception of the two to "Anne Bracegirdle" and "Anne Jellatt"-fair friends whom, in spite of his dotage or his slavery, (for his conduct, next to vanity, looks very like a regular hen-pecked weakness,) he chose, with the last dying spark of a gentleman in him, not to trust to the tender mercies of the all-grasping Henrietta. Mrs. Bracegirdle, who defended his memory, appears to have been in circumstances to which more than the two hundred would have been welcome. "" Congreve," observed Dr. Young, "was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and lived in the same street, his house very near hers, until his acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. He then quitted that house.* The Duchess showed me a diamond necklace (which Lady Di. used afterwards to wear) that cost seven thousand pounds, and was purchased with the money Congreve left her. How much better would it have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle !"+ Bravo, Doctor Young! With leave of thy very gloomy, mitre-missing, and most erroneous "Night Thoughts," this is the best and most christian thing thou didst ever say. Few men, if any, thoroughly surmount those prejudices in favour of rank and title in which they have been bred, and for which indeed, as part of the dispensation and progress of things, and as equally gifts after their kind with ascendancies more noble, a hardy logician could say more than many would suppose. The man the most jealous of his independence, had need watch his nature closely, lest he find himself inclined to be more grateful to a duke than to a commoner, and to a duchess than an ordinary mistress. A great and exquisite musician (Corelli) who had the reputation of being a very amiable man, and whose compositions are of a nature to confirm it, left all his property away from poor relations, to a Cardinal who had patronised him. It should be added, however, that Corelli looked upon the property as derived from the patronage. In Congreve's case, (unless indeed the bequest was to pay his bill for wine and dinners!) the ten thousand pounds came, not from the Duchess, but from the island of Jamaica, and the office of hackney-coaches! We are afraid it is not to be defended, except upon the ground of excessive weakness, and of a class of intellect that ended with believing in nothing. To judge from his portraits, Congreve was a handsome man, though with a face more smooth and * The house which Young alludes to was in Surrey-street, Strand. Mrs. Bracegirdle lived in Howard-street, which turns out of Surrey-street. If Congreve left his house at this juncture, he appears to have returned to it in his dying moments. But perhaps he retained though he seldom lived in it. † Spence's Anecdotes, ut sup. p. 376. © 2 |