"Pious Belinda goes to prayers Whene'er I ask the favour, Yet the tender fool's in tears When she thinks I'd leave her. Would I were free from this restraint, Or else had power to win her; Would she could make of me a saint, Or I of her a sinner." The most singular testimony ever rendered to this virtue occurred on the occasion when Dorset, Devonshire, Halifax, and other peers, were making of that virtue a subject of eulogy over a bottle. Halifax remarked, they might do something better than praise her; and thereon he put down two hundred guineas, which the contributions of the company raised to eight hundred,--and this sum was presented to the lady, as a homage to the rectitude of her private character. Whether she accepted this tribute, I do not know; but I know that she declined another from Lord Burlington, who had long loved her in vain. "One day," says Walpole, "he sent her a present of some fine old china. She told the servant he had made a mistake; that it was true the letter was for her, but the china for his lady, to whom he must carry it. Lord! the countess was so full of gratitude, when her husband came home to dinner." Mrs. Bracegirdle lived to pass the limit of fourscore, and to the last was visited by much of the wit, the worth, and some of the folly of the town. On one occasion, a group of her visitors were discussing the merits of Garrick, whom she had not seen, and Cibber spoke disparagingly of his Bayes, preferring in that part his own pert and vivacious son, Theophilus. The old actress tapped Colley with her fan; "Come, come, Cibber," she remarked; "tell me if there is not something like envy in your character of this young gentleman. The actor who pleases everybody must be a man of merit." Colley smiled, tapped his box, took a pinch, and, catching the generosity of the lady, replied: "Faith, Bracey, I believe you are right; the young fellow _is_ clever!"