Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/224

 Verbruggen and Lady Susan Malepert (sic) in Southerne's ‘Maid's Last Prayer.’

On 9 Dec. 1692 William Mountfort was assassinated by Captain Richard Hill (see, Apology, ed. Lowe, ii. 343 sq.; cf. , State Trials, xii. 578). Mrs. Mountfort remained on the stage, and was in 1693 the original Belinda in Congreve's ‘Old Bachelor;’ Catchat, an old maid, in Wright's ‘Female Virtuosoes,’ a rendering of Molière's ‘Femmes Savantes;’ Annabella in ‘Very Good Wife,’ an adaptation by Powell from Middleton's ‘No Wit, no Help like a Woman's;’ Dalinda in Dryden's ‘Love Triumphant;’ and Lady Froth in Congreve's ‘Double Dealer.’

Some time later than November 1693 she married John Verbruggen, an actor in the company (see below), and in 1694, as ‘Mrs. Verbruggen, late Mrs. Mountfort,’ played Mary the Buxom in the first and the second parts of D'Urfey's ‘Don Quixote’ and Hillaria in Ravenscroft's adaptation, ‘Canterbury Guests, or a Bargain Broken.’ In 1695, when she temporarily quitted Betterton's company, her name does not appear. In 1696 she repeated in the third part of ‘Don Quixote’ Mary the Buxom, and at Drury Lane or Dorset Garden was the first Charlot Welldon in Southerne's ‘Oroonoko,’ Ansilva in Gould's ‘Rival Sisters,’ Achmet, chief of the Eunuchs, in Mrs. Pix's ‘Ibrahim, thirteenth Emperor of the Turks,’ Olivia in Mrs. Manley's ‘Lost Lover, or the Jealous Husband,’ Demetria in Norton's ‘Pausanias the Betrayer of his Country,’ Clarinda in Scott's ‘Mock Marriage,’ Olivia in Mrs. Behn's ‘Younger Brother, or the Amorous Jilt,’ the Governor's Lady in Mrs. Pix's ‘Spanish Wives,’ and Narcissa in Cibber's ‘Love's Last Shift.’ To 1697 belong Berinthia in the ‘Relapse,’ Jacintha in Settle's ‘World in the Moon,’ Marsidia, in which she personated Mrs. Manley [q. v.], in the ‘Female Wits, or the Triumvirate of Poets at Rehearsal,’ by W. M., Doris in Vanbrugh's ‘Æsop,’ and was Cælia in a revival of the ‘Humorous Lieutenant.’ The next year she was the first Madame la Marquise in D'Urfey's ‘Campaigners,’ and Margaret the Shrew in ‘Sauny the Scot,’ an alteration by Lacy of ‘Taming the Shrew.’ In 1699 she was the first Letitia in ‘Love without Interest,’ and Lady Lurewell in Farquhar's ‘Constant Couple.’ No new part was taken in 1700, but in 1701 she was the original Louisa in Cibber's ‘Love makes a Man,’ Lucia in Baker's ‘Humour of the Age,’ Lady Lurewell in Farquhar's ‘Sir Harry Wildair,’ and Gillian Homebred, the Western Lass, in D'Urfey's ‘Bath, or the Western Lass.’ Lady Brampton in Steele's ‘Funeral,’ Bisarre in Farquhar's ‘Inconstant,’ Lady Cringe in Burnaby's ‘Modish Husband,’ and Hypolita in Cibber's ‘She would, and she would not,’ are her creations of 1702, and Hillaria in Baker's ‘Tunbridge Walks,’ and Mrs. Whimsey in Estcourt's ‘Fair Example,’ those of 1703. She was also, at a date not fixed, the original Mrs. Barnard in Vanbrugh's ‘Country House,’ and played Abigail in the ‘Scornful Lady,’ and Melantha in ‘Marriage à la Mode,’ and Bayes in the ‘Rehearsal.’ When, at the close of the season of 1703, the company went to Bath, she was too ill to accompany it. A few months later she died in childbirth.

Mrs. Verbruggen's powers were confined to comedy, over which she reigned almost supreme, many of the best parts in the finest Restoration comedies being assigned her. No portrait of Mrs. Verbruggen can be traced. Thanks, however, to the description of her appearance given by Aston, and that of her acting, we know her better than almost any actress of past days. Aston speaks of her as ‘the most pleasant creature that ever appeared … she was a fine fair woman, plump, full-featured; her face of a fine smooth oval full of beautiful, well-dispos'd moles on it, and on her neck and breast. Whatever she did was not to be called acting; no, no, it was what she represented. She was neither more nor less, and was the most easy actress in the world.’ Her acting was ‘all acquired, but she dressed it so nice it looked like nature.’ Cibber's praise is perhaps the most eloquent ever bestowed on an actress. She was, he says, mistress of more variety of humour than he ever knew in any actress; her elocution was ‘round, distinct, voluble, and various,’ she was an excellent mimic, and there was ‘nothing so barren that if within the bounds of nature it could be flat in her hands.’ ‘Her greatest charm was laughing, flirting her fan, and je ne sais quoi with a kind of affected twitter.’ Mrs. Oldfield copied her in some respects, but failed to reach her charm. In his ‘Comparison between the Two Stages,’ 1702, Gildon, after referring to Mrs. Oldfield and Mrs. Rogers, calls Mrs. Verbruggen ‘a miracle.’ D'Urfey praises her performance of Mary the Buxom (1696) with scarcely less enthusiasm than Cibber infuses into his well-known tribute to her in Melantha (a part of very different character) in ‘Marriage à la Mode’ (Apology, ed. Lowe, 1891, i. 167).

(fl. 1688–1707?), the actress's second husband, is first traceable at Drury Lane in 1688, when, under the name of Alexander, he was the original Termagant in the ‘Squire of Alsatia’ to the younger