23. _Letters from the Dead to the Living_: The Virgin’s [Mrs. Bracegirdle] Answer to Mrs. Behn. ‘You upbraid me with a great discovery you chanc’d to make by peeping into the breast of an old friend of mine; if you give yourself but the trouble of examining an old poet’s conscience, who went lately off the stage, and now takes up his lodgings in your territories, and I don’t question but you’ll there find Mrs. _Behn_ writ as often in black characters, and stand as thick in some places, as the names of the generation of _Adam_ in the first of _Genesis_.’ How far credence may be given to anything of Brown’s is of course a moot point, but the above passage and much that follows would be witless and dull unless there were some real suggestion of scandal. Moreover, it cannot here be applied to Hoyle, whereas it very well fits Ravenscroft. This letter which speaks of ‘the lash of Mr. C——r’ must have been written no great time after the publication of Jeremy Collier’s _A Short View of the Immorality of the English Stage_ (March, 1698), probably in 1701-2. Ravenscroft’s last play, _The Italian Husband_, was produced at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1697, and he is supposed to have died a year or two later, which date exactly suits the detail given by Brown. Ravenscroft’s first play, _Mamamouchi_, had been produced in 1672, and the ‘an old poet’ would be understood. 24. This occurrence is the subject of some lines in _The Rump_ (1662): ‘On the happy Memory of Alderman Hoyle that hang’d himself.’ 25. _The Muses Mercury_, December, 1707, refers to verses made on Mrs. Behn ‘and her very good friend, Mr. Hoyle’. 26. My attention was drawn to these lines by Mr. Thorn Drury, who was, indeed, the first to suggest that Hoyle is the person aimed at. I have to thank him, moreover, for much valuable information on this important point. 27. cf. Luttrell’s _Diary_, February, 1686-7, which records that an indictment for misconduct was actually presented against him at the Old Bailey, but the Grand Jury threw out the bill and he was discharged. The person implicated in the charge against Hoyle seems to have been a poulterer, cf. _A Faithful Catalogue of our Most Eminent Ninnies_, said to have been written by the Earl of Dorset in 1683, or (according to another edition of Rochester’s works in which it occurs) 1686. In any case the verses cannot be earlier than 1687. Which made the wiser Choice is now our Strife, _Hoyle_ his he-mistress, or the Prince his wife: Those traders sure will be beiov’d as well, As all the dainty tender Birds they sell. The ‘Prince’ is George Fitzroy, son of Charles II by the Duchess of Cleveland, who was created Duke of Northumberland and married Catherine, daughter of Robert Wheatley, a poulterer, of Bracknell, Berks; and relict of Robert Lucy of Charlecote, Warwickshire. 28. _Familiar Letters of Love, Gallantry, etc._ There are several editions. I have used that of 1718, 2 vols.