She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be the public favourite. She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her age.
He replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called “Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations,” &c. A specimen or two are subjoined:—
“The greater part of these examples which he has produced, are only demonstrations of his own impurity: they only savour of his utterance, and were sweet enough till tainted by his breath.
“Where the expression is unblameable in its own pure and genuine signification, he enters into it, himself, like the evil spirit; he possesses the innocent phrase, and makes it bellow forth his own blasphemies.
“If I do not return him civilities in calling him names, it is because I am not very well versed in his nomenclatures.... I will only call him Mr. Collier, and that I will call him as often as I think he shall deserve it.
“The corruption of a rotten divine is the generation of a sour critic.”
“Congreve,” says Dr. Johnson, “a very young man, elated with success, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and security.... The dispute was protracted through two years; but at last Comedy grew more modest, and Collier lived to see the reward of his labours in the reformation of the theatre.”—Life of Congreve.
The scene of Valentine's pretended madness in Love for Love is a splendid specimen of Congreve's daring manner:—
Scandal.—And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon him?
Jeremy.—Yes, Sir; he says he'll favour it, and mistake her for Angelica.