page in _The Orphan_ at its first
performance at Dorset Garden in 1680. She was Lucia in Shadwell's
_Squire of Alsatia_ at the Theatre Royal in 1688, and played similar
parts until, in 1693, as Araminta in _The Old Bachelor_, she made her
first appearance in a comedy by Congreve, with whose works and life her
name is most closely connected. In 1695 she went with Betterton and the
other seceders to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where, on its opening with
Congreve's _Love for Love_, she played Angelica. This part, and those of
Belinda in Vanbrugh's _Provoked Wife_, and Almira in Congreve's
_Mourning Bride_, were among her best impersonations, but she also
played the heroines of some of Nicholas Rowe's tragedies, and acted in
the contemporary versions of Shakespeare's plays. In 1705 she followed
Betterton to the Haymarket, where she found a serious competitor in Mrs
Oldfield, then first coming into public favour. The story runs that it
was left for the audience to determine which was the better comedy
actress, the test being the part of Mrs Brittle in Betterton's _Amorous
Widow_, which was played alternately by the two rivals on successive
nights. When the popular vote was given in favour of Mrs Oldfield, Mrs
Bracegirdle quitted the stage, making only one reappearance at
Betterton's benefit in 1709. Her private life was the subject of much
discussion. Colley Cibber remarks that she had the merit of "not being
unguarded in her private character," while Macaulay does not hesitate to
call her "a cold, vain and interested coquette, who perfectly understood
how much the influence of her charms was increased by the fame of a
severity which cost her nothing." She was certainly the object of the
adoration of many men, and she was the innocent cause of the killing of
the actor William Mountfort (q.v.), whom Captain Hill and Lord Mohun
regarded as a rival for her affections. During her lifetime she was
suspected of being secretly married to Congreve, whose mistress she is
also said to have been. He was at least always her intimate friend, and
left her a legacy. Rightly or wrongly, her reputation for virtue was
remarkably high, and Lord Halifax headed a subscription list of 800
guineas, presented to her as a tribute to her virtue. Her charity to the
poor in Clare Market and around Drury Lane was conspicuous, "insomuch
that she would not pass that neighbourhood without the thankful
acclamations of people of all degrees." She died in 1748, and