--Congreve abandons the Drama.--Jeremy Collier.--The
Immorality of the Stage.--Very improper Things.--Congreve's
Writings.--Jeremy's 'Short Views.'--Rival Theatres.--Dryden's
Funeral.--A Tub-Preacher.--Horoscopic Predictions.--Dryden's
Solicitude for his Son.--Congreve's Ambition.--Anecdote of
Voltaire and Congreve.--The Profession of Maecenas.--Congreve's
Private Life.--'Malbrook's' Daughter.--Congreve's Death and
Burial.
When 'Queen Sarah' of Marlborough read the silly epitaph which
Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, had written and had engraved on the
monument she set up to Congreve, she said, with one of the true Blenheim
sneers, 'I know not what _happiness_ she might have in his company, but
I am sure it was no _honour_,' alluding to her daughter's eulogistic
phrases.
Queen Sarah was right, as she often was when condemnation was called
for: and however amusing a companion the dramatist may have been, he was
not a man to respect, for he had not only the common vices of his age,
but added to them a foppish vanity, toadyism, and fine gentlemanism (to
coin a most necessary word), which we scarcely expect to meet with in a
man who sets up for a satirist.
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