complained from that time of a pain in his side, and died at his
house in Surrey Street in the Strand, January 29, 1728-9. Having
lain in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, he was buried in Westminster
Abbey, where a monument is erected to his memory by Henrietta
Duchess of Marlborough, to whom, for reasons either not known or not
mentioned, he bequeathed a legacy of about ten thousand pounds, the
accumulation of attentive parsimony, which, though to her
superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the
ancient family from which he descended, at that time, by the
imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress.


Congreve has merit of the highest kind; he is an original writer,
who borrowed neither the models of his plot nor the manner of his
dialogue. Of his plays I cannot speak distinctly, for since I
inspected them many years have passed, but what remains upon my
memory is, that his characters are commonly fictitious and
artificial, with very little of nature, and not much of life. He
formed a peculiar idea of comic excellence, which he supposed to
consist in gay remarks and unexpected answers; but that which he
endeavoured, he seldom failed of performing. His scenes exhibit not
much of humour, imagery, or passion: his personages are a kind of
intellectual gladiators; every sentence is to ward or strike; the
contest of smartness is never intermitted; his wit is a meteor
playing to and fro with alternate coruscations. His comedies have,
therefore, in some degree, the operation of tragedies, they surprise
rather than divert, and raise admiration oftener than merriment.
But they are the works of a mind replete with images, and quick in
combination.