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CENTLIVRE. of a friendly and benevolent disposition, and in conversa- tion was sprightly and entertaining. Her literary acqui- ns appear to have been merely the result of he application, and she is supposed to have understood the French, Dutch, and Spanish languages, and to have had some knowledge of the Latin. Mrs. Centlivre enjoyed, for many years, the intimacy and esteem of many of the most eminent wits of the time, particularly Sir Richard Steele, Farquhar, Rowe, Dr. Sewell, and Eastace Budgell. But she had the misfortune to incur the displeasure of Mr. Pope, who introduced her into the Dunciad, for hav- ing written a ballad against his Homer. In the third 459 book are the following lines- " Lo, next two slip-shod muses traipse along In lofty madness, meditating song, With tresses staring, from poetic dreams, And never wasli'd but in Castalia's streams: Haywood, Centlivre, glories of their race," &e. &e. An extensive acquaintance with men and manners is exhibited in her dramatic writings, and they are some- times justly censurable for their licentiousness; but she unfortunately flourished in a period when it was the fashion to admire vice in any shape, alluring or not. Her greatest merit is the incessant interest and bustle she has contrived to keep up throughout the whole five acts of her most popular plays: the language is spiritless, and at times ridiculous: neither is there a superabundance of wit to be found in any of her productions; but there is such a happiness of thought, in regard to plot, and so thorough a knowledge of stage effect displayed throughout the Wonder, Bold Stroke for a Wife, and Busy Body, that (with the exception of the Beaux Stratagem) it would be difficult to find an equal to either of them. Yet neither Farquhar, Centlivre, Vanbrugh, or Congreve, were the advocates of virtue; they have been characterised as writers, who, though- Heaven endow'd To scourge bold Vice with Wit's resistless rod, Embrae'd her chains, stood forth her priests avow'd, And scatter'd flow'rs in every path she trod.