MRS. MOUNTFORT.

85

action, mien, and gesture, quite changed from the quoif, to the cocked hat, and cavalier in fashion. People were so fond of seeing her a man, that when the part of Bayes in the "Rehearsal," had, for some time, lain dormant, she was desired to take it up, which I have seen her act with all the true, coxcombly spirit and humour, that the sufficiency of the character required. But what found most employment for her whole various excellence at once, was the part of Melantha, in 'Marriage à la Mode.' Melantha is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete system of female foppery, that could possibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, motion, manners, soul, and body, are in a continual hurry to be something more than is necessary or commendable. And though I doubt it will be a vain labour, to offer you a just likeness of Mrs. Mountfort's action, yet the fantastic impression is still so strong in my memory, that I cannot help saying something, though fantastically, about it. The first ridiculous airs that break from her, are, upon a gallant never seen before, who delivers her a letter from her father, recommending him to her good graces, as an honourable lover. Here now, one would think she might naturally show a little of the sex's decent reserve, though never so lightly covered. No, sir; not a tittle of

it. Modesty is the virtue of a poor-soul'd country gentlewoman; she is too much a court lady, to be under so vulgar a confusion; she reads the letter, therefore, with a careless, dropping lip, and an erected brow, humming it hastily over, as if she were impatient to outgo her father's commands, by making a complete conquest of him at once; and that the letter might not embarrass her attack, crack, she crumbles it at once, into her palm, and pours upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and motion; down goes her dainty, diving body, to the ground, as if she were sinking under the unconscious load of her own attractions; then launches into a flood of fine language, and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon waving water; and, to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit, that she will not give her lover leave to praise it: silent assenting bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is admitted to, which, at last, he is relieved from, by her engagement to half a score visits, which she swims from him to make, with a promise to return in a twinkling." She died in 1703.

MRS. BRACEGIRDLE may be said to have been reared in the theatre, for she made her first appearance, as a page, at six years old. She was a protégée and pupil of the Bettertons. From 1680 to 1707,

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MRS. BRACEGIRDLE.

87

never," says Cibber, was any woman in such general favour of the spectators." Her private character was unimpeachable, for the hints of such a dissolute fellow as Tom Brown are no proofs against the universal testimonies in her favour." When one of her would be lovers, the Earl of Burlington, sent her by a footman a present of china and a letter, she kept the letter but made the servant take back the china, saying he had made a mistake as that was for his lady. And his lady got it, much doubtless to her surprise and gratification, and to his lord's chagrin. "She was the darling of the theatre," to again quote Cibber, "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 may be said to have been the universal passion, and under the highest temptation, her constancy in resisting them served but to increase her admirers. It was even a fashion among the gay and young to have a taste or tendre for Mrs. Bracegirdle." In Dryden's epilogue to " King Arthur," written for her, allusion is made to these unceasing importunities, and it commences with

"I have had to-day a dozen billets-doux

From fops, and wits, and cits, and Bow Street beaux:
Some from Whitehall, but from the Temple more:

A Covent Garden porter brought me four."

She then proceeds to read one or two of these

effusions, probably rhymed from originals actually received.

glow of health

Of her personal appearance it was said: "She had no greater claim to beauty than the most desirable brunette might pretend to. But her youth and lively aspect threw out such a and cheerfulness, that on the stage few spectators could behold her without desire." Cibber is scarcely just to her attractions, for in the portrait I have seen the features are most charming. To coldly criticise such a siren would have been impossible, and the old actor adds: "In all the chief parts she performed, the desirable was so predominant that no judge could be cold enough to consider from what other particular excellence she became delightful. 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 affectations of that agreeable tyrant, were venially melted down into so many charms, and attractions of a conscious beauty." Congreve was her devoted admirer: she was the the original representative of all his heroines, and there was a warm friendship between them unto the end of his life; but there is no shadow of evidence that it exceeded the platonic boundary. Hear how he wrote of

her:

MRS. BRACEGIRDLE'S CHARITY.

89

"Pious Belinda goes to prayers

Whene'er I ask the favour :

Yet the tender fool's in tears

When she believes I'll leave her.
Would I were free from this restraint,

Or else had power to win her,
Would she could make of me a saint,

Or I of her a sinner."

The Lords Dorset, Devonshire, and Halifax presented her with the sum of eight hundred pounds, simply as a mark of their esteem for her private character. She was a good, charitable creature too, and used to go into Clare Market to give money to the poor unemployed basket-women, and she could not pass through that neighbourhood without being greeted with the grateful salutations of people of all degrees. She retired from the stage in 1707, in the very height of her fame; but beautiful Anne Oldfield had succeeded to some of her parts, and her youth and brilliant talents were casting the elder actress into the shade. She lived many years afterwards, and died in 1748 at over four score. Once she returned to the stage for a single night; it was to play Angelica in "Love for Love" for her old friend Betterton's benefit.

I have reserved the name, which is, perhaps, the greatest of all in that matchless company, immortalised by Cibber, for the last-ELIZABETH BARRY. It appears that she was the daughter of a barrister who raised a troop for the service of Charles I.