s
life were spent in ease and retirement, and he gave himself no trouble
about reputation. When the celebrated Voltaire was in England, he
waited upon Congreve, and pass'd some compliments upon him, as to the
reputation and merit of his works; Congreve thanked him, but at
the same time told that ingenious foreigner, he did not chuse to be
considered as an author, but only as a private gentleman, and in that
light expected to be visited. Voltaire answered, 'That if he had never
been any thing but a private gentleman, in all probability, he had
never been troubled with that visit.'

Mr. Voltaire upon this occasion observes, that he was not a little
disgusted with so unseasonable a piece of vanity:--This was indeed the
highest instance of it, that perhaps can be produced. A man who owed
to his wit and writings the reputation, as well as the fortune, he
acquired, pretending to divest himself of human nature to such a
degree, as to have no consciousness of his own merit, was the most
absurd piece of vanity that ever entered into the heart of man; and
of all vanity, that is the greatest which masks itself under the
appearance of the opposite quality.

Towards the close of his life, he was much troubled with the gout;
and for this reason, in the summer of the year 1728, he made a tour to
Bath, for the benefit of the waters, where he had the misfortune to be
overturned in his chariot, from which time he complained of a pain in
his side, which was supposed to arise from some inward bruise. Upon
his return to London, he perceived his health gradually decline, which
he bore with fortitude and resignation.

On January the 19th, 1728-9, he yielded his last breath, about five
o'clock in the morning, at his house in Surrey-street in the Strand,
in the fifty-seventh year of his age. On the sunday following, January
26, his corpse lay in state in the Jerusalem-Chamber, from whence the
same evening, between the hours of nine and ten, it was carried with
great decency and solemnity to Henry the VIIth's Chapel; and after the
funeral service was performed, it was interred in the Abbey. The pall
was supported by the duke of Bridgewater, earl of Godolphin, lord
Cobham, lord Wilmington, the honourable George Berkley, Esq; and
Brigadier-general Churchill; and colonel Congreve followed his corpse
as chief mourner; some time after, a neat and elegant monument was
erected to his memory, by Henrietta duchess of Marlborough.

Mr. Congreve's rep