title this conceited beau and poet had to that position.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 13: The Kit-kat club was not founded till 1703.]

[Footnote 14: For some notice of Lord Dorset, see p. 61.]




WILLIAM CONGREVE.

When and where was he born?--The Middle Temple.--Congreve finds his
Vocation.--Verses to Queen Mary.--The Tennis-court
Theatre.--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 Mæcenas.--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