The Profession of Macenas. 123 having to trudge from door to door in Paternoster Row, humbly requesting an interview, which is not always granted-instead of sending that heavy parcel of MS., which costs you a fortune for postage, to publisher after publisher, till it is so often 'returned with thanks' that you hate the very sight of it, the young author of those days had a much easier and more comfortable part to play. An introduction to an influential man in town, who again would introduce you to a patron, was all that was necessary. The profession of Mecenas was then as recognized and established as that of doctor or lawyer. A man of money could always buy brains; and most noblemen considered an author to be as necessary a part of his establishment as the footmen who ushered them into my lord's presence. A fulsome dedication in the largest type was all that he asked: and if a writer were sufficiently profuse in his adulation, he might dine at Mæcenas's table, drink his sack and canary without stint, and apply to him for cash whenever he found his pockets empty. Nor was this all if a writer were sufficiently successful in his works to reflect honour on his patron, he was eagerly courted by others of the noble profession. He was offered, if not hard cash, as good an equivalent, in the shape of a comfortable government sinecure; and if this was not to be had, he was sometimes even lodged and boarded by his obliged dedicatee. In this way he was introduced into the highest society; and if he had wit enough to support the character, he soon found himself facile princeps in a circle of the highest nobility in the land. Thus it is that in the clubs of the day we find title and wealth mingling with wit and genius; and the writer who had begun life by a cringing dedication, was now rewarded by the devotion and assiduity of the men he had once flattered. When Steele, Swift, Addison, Pope, and Congreve were the kings of their sets, it was time for authors to look and talk big. Eheu ! those happy days are gone! Our dramatist, therefore, soon discovered that a good play was the key to a good place, and the Whigs took care that he should have it. Oddly enough, when the Torles came in they did not turn him out. Perhaps they wanted to gain him over to themselves; perhaps, like the Vicar of Bray, he did not 124 Congreve's Private Life. mind turning his coat once or twice in a life-time. However this may be, he managed to keep his appointment without offending his own party; and when the latter returned to power, he even induced them to give him a comfortable little sinecure, which went by the name of Secretary to the Island of Jamaica, and raised the income from his appointments to £1200 a year. From this period he was little before the public. He could afford now to indulge his natural indolence and selfishness. His private life was perhaps not worse than that of the majority of his contemporaries. He had his intrigues, his mistresses, the same love of wine, and the same addiction to gluttony. He had the reputation of a wit, and with wits he passed his time, sufficiently easy in his circumstances to feel no damping to his spirits in the cares of this life. The Island of Jamaica probably gave him no further trouble than that of signing a few papers from time to time, and giving a receipt for his salary. His life, therefore, presents no very remarkable feature, and he is henceforth known more on account of his friends than for aught he may himself have done. The best of these friends was Walter Moyle, the scholar, who translated parts of Lucian and Xenophon, and was pretty well known as a classic. He was a Cornish man of independent means, and it was to him that Congreve addressed the letters in which he attempted to defend himself from the attacks of Collier. It was not to be expected that a wit and a poet should go through life without a platonic, and accordingly we find our man not only attached, but devoted to a lady of great distinction. This was no other than Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, the daughter of Malbrook' himself, and of the famous Queen Sarah.' Henrietta was the eldest daughter, and there was no son to inherit the prowess of Churchill and the parsimony of his wife. The nation-to which, by the way, the Marlboroughs were never grateful-would not allow the title of their pet warrior to become extinct, and a special Act of Parliament gave to the eldest daughter the honours of the duchy.* The two Duchesses of Marlborough hated each other * See Burke's 'Peerage.' 'Malbrook's' Daughter. 125 cordially. Sarah's temper was probably the main cause of their bickering; but there is never a feud between parent and child in which both are not more or less blameable. The Duchess Henrietta conceived a violent fancy for the wit and poet, and whatever her husband, Lord Godolphin, may have thought of it, the connection ripened into a most intimate friendship, so much so that Congreve made the duchess not only his executrix, but the sole residuary legatee of all his property.* His will gives us some insight into the toadying character of the man. Only four near relations are mentioned as legatees, and only £540 is divided among them; whereas, after leaving £200 to Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress; £100, 'and all my apparel and linnen of all sorts' to a Mrs. Rooke, he divides the rest between his friends of the nobility, Lords Cobham and Shannon, the Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Mary Godolphin, Colonel Churchill (who receives 'twenty pounds, together with my gold-headed cane'), and, lastly, 'to the poor of the parish,' the magnificent sum of ten pounds. 'Blessed are those who give to the rich; these words must surely have expressed the sentiment of the worldly Congreve. However, Congreve got something in return from the Duchess Henrietta, which he might not have received from 'the poor of the parish,' to wit, a monument, and an inscription on it written by her own hand. I have already said what 'Queen Sarah' thought of the latter, and, for the rest, those who care to read the nonsense on the walls of Westminster Abbey can decide for themselves as to the honour the poet received from his titled friend. The latter days of William Congreve were passed in wit and gout the wine, which warmed the one, probably brought on the latter. After a course of ass's milk, which does not seem to have done him much good, the ex-dramatist retired to Bath, a very fashionable place for departing life in, under easy and elegant circumstances. But he not only drank of the springs beloved of King Bladud, of apocryphal memory, but even went so far as to imbibe the snail-water, which was then the last species of quack cure in vogue. This, probably, despatched * The Duchess of Marlborough received £10,000 by Mr. Congreve's will. 126 Congreve's Death and Burial. him. But it is only just to that disagreeable little reptile that infests our gardens, and whose slime was supposed to possess peculiarly strengthening properties, to state that his death was materially hastened by being overturned when driving in his chariot. He was close upon sixty, had long been blind from cataracts in his eyes, and as he was no longer either useful or ornamental to the world in general, he could perhaps be spared. He died soon after this accident in January, 1729. He had the sense to die at a time when Westminster Abbey, being regarded as a mausoleum, was open to receive the corpse of any one who had a little distinguished himself, and even of some who had no distinction whatever. He was buried there with great pomp, and his dear duchess set up his monument. So much for his body. What became of the soul of a dissolute, vain, witty, and unprincipled man, is no concern of ours. quiescat in pace, if there is any peace for those who are buried in Westminster Abbey. Re BEAU NASH The King of Bath.-Nash at Oxford.-'My Boy Dick.'--Offers of Knighthood. -Doing Penance at York.-Days of Folly.-A very Romantic Story.-—Sickness and Civilization. -Nash descends upon Bath. - -Nash's Chefd'oeuvre. The Ball.-Improvements in the Pump-room, &c.-A Public Benefactor. Life at Bath in Nash's time.-A Compact with the Duke of Beaufort. Gaming at Bath.-Anecdotes of Nash. -Miss Sylvia.'-A Generous Act.-Nash's Sun setting.-A Panegyric.-Nash's Funeral.-His Characteristics. HERE is nothing new under the sun, said Walpole, by way of a very original remark. 'No,' whispered George Selwyn, 'nor under the grandson, either.' Mankind, as a body, has proved its silliness in a thousand ways, but in none, perhaps, so ludicrously as in its respect for a man's coat. He is not always a fool that knows the value of dress; and some of the wisest and greatest of men have been dandies of the first water. King Solomon was one, and Alexander the Great was another; but there never was a more despotic monarch, nor one more humbly obeyed by his subjects, than the King of Bath, and he won his dominions by the cut of his coat. But as Hercules was killed by a dress-shirt, so the beaux of the modern world have generally ruined themselves by their wardrobes, and brought remorse to their hearts, or contempt from the very people who once worshipped them. The husband of Mrs. Damer, who appeared in a new suit twice a-day, and whose wardrobe sold for £15,000, blew his brains out at a coffee-house. Beau Fielding, Beau Nash, and Beau Brummell all expiated their contemptible vanity in obscure old age of want and misery. As the world is full of folly, the history of a fool is as good a mirror to hold up to it as another; but in the case of Beau Nash the only question is, whether he or his subjects were the greater fools. So now for |