The young Templar could do nothing better now than write another play.  Play-making was as fashionable an amusement in those days of Old Drury, the only patented theatre then, as novel-writing is in 1860; and when the young ensign, Vanbrugh, could write comedies and take the direction of a theatre, it was no derogation to the dignity of the Staffordshire squire’s grandson to do as much.  Accordingly, in the following year he brought out a better comedy, ‘The Double Dealer,’ with a prologue which was spoken by the famous Anne Bracegirdle.  She must have been eighty years old when Horace Walpole wrote of her to that other Horace—­Mann:  ’Tell Mr. Chute that his friend Bracegirdle breakfasted with me this morning.  As she went out and wanted her clogs, she turned to me and said:  “I remember at the playhouse they used to call, Mrs. Oldfield’s chair!  Mrs. Barry’s clogs! and Mrs. Bracegirdle’s pattens!"’ These three ladies were all buried in Westminster Abbey, and, except Mrs. Cibber, the most beautiful and most sinful of them all—­though they were none of them spotless—­are the only actresses whose ashes and memories are hallowed by the place, for we can scarcely say that they do it much honour.

The success of ‘The Double Dealer,’ was at first moderate, although that highly respectable woman, Queen Mary, honoured it with her august presence, which forthwith called up verses of the old adulatory style, though with less point and neatness than those addressed to the Virgin Queen: 

    ‘Wit is again the care of majesty,’

said the poet, and

    ‘Thus flourished wit in our forefathers’ age,
     And thus the Roman and Athenian stage. 
     Whose wit is best, we’ll not presume to tell,
     But this we know, our audience will excell;
     For never was in Rome, nor Athens seen
     So fair a circle, and so bright a queen.’

But this was not enough, for when Her Majesty departed for another realm in the same year, Congreve put her into a highly eulogistic pastoral, under the name of Pastora, and made some compliments on her, which were considered the finest strokes of poetry and flattery combined, that an age of addresses and eulogies could produce.

    ’As lofty pines o’ertop the lowly steed,
     So did her graceful height all nymphs exceed,
     To which excelling height she bore a mind
     Humble as osiers, bending to the wind.

* * * * *

     I mourn Pastora dead; let Albion mourn,
     And sable clouds her chalkie cliffs adorn.’

This play was dedicated to Lord Halifax, of whom we have spoken, and who continued to be Congreve’s patron.