Page:The English humourists of the eighteenth century. A series of lectures, delivered in England, Scotland, and the United States of America (IA englishhumourist00thacrich).pdf/77

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Marlborough's daughter, had such an admiration of him, that when he died she had an ivory figure made to imitate him,^[1] and a large wax doll with gouty feet to be dressed just as the great Congreve's gouty feet were dressed in his great lifetime. He saved some money by his Pipe-office, and his Custom-house office, and his Hackney-coach office, and nobly left it, not to Bracegirdle, who wanted it,^[2] but to the Duchess of Marlborough, who didn't.^[3]

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would it have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle,"—Dr. Young, Spence's Anecdotes.

1. "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."—Thos. Davies. Dramatic Miscellanies.
2. The sum Congreve left her was 200l., as is said in the "Dramatic Miscellanies" of Tom Davies; where are some particulars about this charming actress and beautiful woman.
   She had a "lively aspect," says Tom, on the authority of Cibber, and "such a glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, as inspired everybody with desire." "Scarce an audience saw her that were not half of them her lovers."
   Congreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. "In Tamerlane, Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of Axalla. . . . . .; Congreve insinuated his addresses in his Valentine to her Angelica, in his 'Love for Love;' in his Osmyn to her Almena, in the 'Mourning Bride;' and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, in the 'Way of the World.' Mirabel, the fine gentleman of the play, is, I believe, not very distant from the real character of Congreve."—Dramatic Miscellanies, vol. iii, 1784.
   She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be the public favourite. She died in 1745, in the eighty-fifth year of her age.
3. Johnson calls his legacy the "accumulation of attentive parsimony, which," he continues, "though to her (the Duchess) superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress."—Lives of the Poets.