Mrs. Centlivre had unobtrusive humour, sayings full of significance rather than wit, wholesome fun in her comic, and earnestness in her serious, characters. Mrs. Centlivre, in her pictures of life, attracts the spectator. There may be, now and then, something, as in Dutch pictures, which had been as well away; but this apart, all the rest is true, and pleasant, and hearty; the grouping perfect, the colour faithful, and enduring too—despite the cruel sneer of Pope, who, in the Life of Curll, sarcastically alludes to her as "the cook's wife in Buckingham Court," in which vicinity to Spring Gardens, Mrs. Centlivre died in 1723.
Such were the characteristics of the principal authors who led, followed, trained, or flattered the public taste of the last half of the seventeenth century, and a few of them of the first part of the century which succeeded. Before we pass onward to the stage of the eighteenth century, let us cast a glance back, and look at the quality of the audiences for whom these poets catered.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] "Marcelia."
[67] Her father never resided at Surinam. He died on the voyage out.
[68] The Biographia Dramatica gives 1709 as the year of Mrs. Pix's last play; but this is certainly an error, as Mrs. Bracegirdle, who retired in 1707, is in the cast.
[69] Genest states in strong terms his utter disbelief in this story. It is stated in the Biog. Dram. that Wilks used this strong expression regarding "A Bold Stroke for a Wife."
