Kelly says, the trustees of the Theatrical Fund sold Baddeley's house at Moulsey. Adolphus thinks that the deviser infringed the statute of mortmain, and that the property, for want of heir, escheated to the crown. Strange, that of property left by players for the use of players, the poor actors should be cheated, at Moulsey as elsewhere. Baddeley is said to have challenged Foote to a duel with swords, as he did George Garrick to one with pistols:--"Here's a pretty fellow!" cried Foote; "I allowed him to take my spit from the rack and stick it by his side, and now he wants to stick me with it!" Baddeley is reported to have been cook, not only to Foote, but to Lord North. A greater artist than Baddeley left the stage soon after him, in 1795, after three and thirty years of service; namely, Parsons, the original Crabtree, and Sir Fretful Plagiary, Sir Christopher Curry, Snarl to Edwin's Sheepface; and Lope Tocho, in the "Mountaineers." Parsons was a Kentish man,[42] who might have been an apothecary, or an excellent artist, but that he preferred the stage. He was a merry, honest fellow, who kept the house in a roar by his looks as well as words, and loved to make the actors laugh, who were on the stage with him, by some droll remark, uttered in an undertone. His forte lay in old men, his picture of whom, in all their characteristics, passions, infirmities, cunning, or imbecility, was perfect. When Sir Sampson Legend says to Foresight, "Look up, old star-gazer! Now is he poring on the ground for a crooked pin, or an old horse-nail, with the head towards him!" we are told "there could not be a finer illustration of the character which Congreve meant to represent, than Parsons showed at that time in his face and attitude." He was finely discriminating, too. His Skirmish in the "Deserter" presented, says Adolphus, "a shrewd, quick-witted fellow, whose original powers were merged, but not absolutely drowned, in drink." In his own estimation, Corbaccio was his best played character; but, said he, generously, "All the merit I have in it I owe to Shuter." The last character he acted was Elbow, on the 30th of December 1794,[43] when Kemble revived "Measure for Measure;" but asthma had then reduced him to a shadow, and he had to yield the part to Waldron. He died soon after, and then ensued a singular domestic incident. His second wife was Dorothy Stewart, niece to the Earl of Galloway, whom he had married after the lively young lady had run away from a convent at Lille. Of this marriage there was a little son, who had for tutor a reverend young clergyman; and this tutor Dorothy Parsons married, four days after her husband's decease. So that she had two husbands in the house; one dead and the other living![44] The first had left her a fortune. The second spent it, and left herself and son destitute.