Oldfield's
chair! Mrs. Barry's clogs! and Mrs. Bracegirdle's pattens!"' These three
ladies were all buried in Westminster Abbey, and, except Mrs. Cibber,
the most beautiful and most sinful of them all--though they were none of
them spotless--are the only actresses whose ashes and memories are
hallowed by the place, for we can scarcely say that they do _it_ much
honour.
The success of 'The Double Dealer,' was at first moderate, although that
highly respectable woman, Queen Mary, honoured it with her august
presence, which forthwith called up verses of the old adulatory style,
though with less point and neatness than those addressed to the Virgin
Queen:
'Wit is again the care of majesty,'
said the poet, and
'Thus flourished wit in our forefathers' age,
And thus the Roman and Athenian stage.
Whose wit is best, we'll not presume to tell,
But this we know, our audience will excell;
For never was in Rome, nor Athens seen
So fair a circle, and so bright a queen.'
But this was not enough, for when Her Majesty departed for another realm
in the same year, Congreve put her into a highly eulogistic pastoral,
under the name of Pastora, and made some compliments on her, which were
considered the finest strokes of poetry and flattery combined, that an
age of addresses and eulogies could produce.
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