[140] "Gildon, in the Comparison between the two stages, 1702, attacks Mrs. Bracegirdle's private character.
"'Sullen. But does that Romantick Virgin still keep up her reputation?'
"'Critick. D' ye mean her reputation for acting?'
"'Sullen. I do; but if I were to be saved for believing that single article, I could not do it: 't is all, all a juggle, 't is legerdemain; the best on 't is, she falls into good hands, and the secrecy of the intrigue secures her; but as to her innocence, I believe no more on 't than I believe of John Mandevil.'
"Tom Brown, in his description of the playhouse, is still more severe on Mrs. Bracegirdle.... Among Tom Brown's Letters from the Dead to the Living, there is one from Mrs. Behn to the famous Virgin Actress—and another from the Virgin to Mrs. Behn.
"Gildon and Tom Brown seem to have had no foundation for their ill nature, but the extreme difficulty with which an actress at this period of the stage must have preserved her chastity.
"Mrs. Bracegirdle was perhaps a woman of cold constitution.
"Anthony Aston says—'Mrs. Bracegirdle, that Diana of the stage, had many assailants on her virtue, as Lord Lovelace and Mr. Congreve, the last of which had her company most; but she ever resisted his vicious attacks, and, yet was always uneasy at his leaving her—she was very shy of Lord Lovelace's company, as being an engaging man, who drest well; and as, every day, his servant came to her, to ask her how she did, she always return'd her answer in the most obeisant words and behavior, that she was indifferent well, she humbly thanked his Lordship ... her virtue had its reward, both in applause and specie; for it happen'd, that as the Dukes of Dorset and Devonshire, Lord Halifax, and other Nobles, over a bottle, were extolling Mrs. Bracegirdle's virtuous behavior, "Come," says Lord Halifax—"You all commend her virtue, etc., but why do we not present this incomparable woman with something worthy her acceptance?"—his Lordship deposited 200 guineas, which the rest made up to 800, and sent to her with encomiums on her virtue.'" (Genest: Some Account of the English Stage, vol. II, pp. 376-78.)
[141] Walpole, Horace: Anecdotes of Painting, vol. II, p. 381.
[142] Walpole, Horace: Anecdotes of Painting, vol. II, 537-44; Pilkington: Dictionary of Painters, 1770; Biographia Britannica, vol. II, p. 30; Cibber: Lives of the Poets, vol. II.