sisted by Mat. Clifford *, Sprat, and several of the best hands of those times.-Lockier.

SPRAT.

Sprat, a worse Cowley.-Mr. Pope.

ETHERIDGE.

Sir George Etheridge was as thorough a fop as ever I saw; he was exactly his own Sir Fopling Flutter, and yet he designed Dorimont, the genteel rake of wit, for his own picture!-Lockier.

WYCHERLY.

Wycherly was a very handsome man. His acquaintance with the famous Duchess of Cleaveland commenced oddly enough. One day as he passed that duchess's coach in the Ring, she leaned out of the window, and cried out, loud enough to be heard distinctly by him, "Sir, you're a rascal;

* Certainly not Martin Clifford, for he was dead when Absalom senior, the piece meant, came out.-M.

you're a villain." Wycherly from that instant entertained hopes. He did not fail waiting on her next morning; and with a melancholy tone begged to know, how it was possible for him to have so much disobliged her grace? They were very good friends from that time; yet, after all, what did he get by her? He was to have travelled with the young Duke of Richmond. King Charles now and then gave him 1007. -not often; and he was an equerry.

Mr. Pope.

Wycherly was fifteen or sixteen when he went to France, and was acquainted there with Madam de Rambouillet, a little after Balzac's death†.-The same.

He was not unvain of his face. That's a fine one which was engraved for him by Smith, in 1703. He was then about his grand climacteric; but sat for the picture from which it was taken when he was

* Dennis says, he was equerry to the Duke of Buckingham, as Master of the Horse to the King. Letters, p. 219.

+ Balzac died Feb. 18, 1654.-M.

about 28*. The motto to it (Quantum mutatus ab illo) was ordered by himself; and he used to repeat it sometimes with a melancholy emphasis.-The same.

It was generally thought by this gentleman's friends, that he lost his memory by old age. It was not by age, but by accident, as he himself has often told me. He remembered as well at sixty years old, as he had done ever since forty, when a fever occasioned that loss to him.-The same.

We were pretty well together to the last; only his memory was so totally bad, that he did not remember a kindness done him even from minute to minute. He was peevish, too, latterly; so that sometimes we were out a little, and sometimes in. He never did any unjust thing to me in his whole life; and I went to see him on his death-bed.-The same.

Wycherly died a Romanist, and he has owned that religion in my hearing.—The

same.

Wycherly's nephew (on whom his estate * About the year 1668.

was entailed, but with power of settling a widow's jointure) would not consent to his selling any part of it, which he wanted much to do, to pay off his debts, which were about a thousand pounds. He had therefore for some time been resolved to marry, in order to make a settlement from the estate to pay off his debt with his wife's fortune, and to plague his damn'd nephew, as he himself used to express it. When he found himself going off, he accordingly did marry, only about ten days before his death. This was about the time he had intended for it, for he only wanted to answer those ends, by marrying; and dreaded the ridicule of the world for marrying when he was old. After all, the woman he did marry* was a cheat; was a cast mistress

* He married Elizabeth Jackson, one of the daughters and co-heiresses of Mr. Jos. Jackson, of Hertingfordbury, whose fortune was 1000l. He settled a jointure of 400l. a year on her. By his last will, which was made on Saturday, Dec. 31, 1715 (the day of his death), and executed about two hours before that event, he left her by the name of his "dear and wellbeloved wife, Elizabeth Wycherly," after the payment

of the person who recommended her to him, and was supplied by him with money for her wedding clothes. After Wycherly's death, there were law quarrels about the settlement. Theobald was the attorney employed by her old friend, and it was by this means that Theobald came to have

of his debts and funeral charges, all the rest and residue of all his estate, ready money, plate, goods, and chattels whatsoever; and appoints his kinsman Thomas Shrimpton, Esq. his executor. About three months after his death she married Shrimpton, who was a half pay captain. Wycherley's nephew (his brother's son) soon afterwards filed a bill in chancery against Mr. and Mrs. Shrimpton, alleging that she was married to Shrimpton before she married Wycherly; that thus the old man had been imposed upon, and induced to make a jointure on her without any consideration, her fortune not having been paid to him. The defendants swore in their answer that he had received 190l. of it; and Lord Macclesfield finally decreed in their favour, so the allegation of her prior marriage must have been unfounded. She however, probably, was Shrimpton's mistress. The decree was made, I believe, in 1718.

See a curious letter, giving an account of these transactions, written by Shrimpton, in Egerton's (i. e. Curll's) Life of Mrs. Oldfield, p. 122. et seq.-M.