220] A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



the lawyers but of the law itself; which to me did not seem alto- 

 gether prudent in a man in his lofty station in the law : diverting 

 it certainly was, but prudent in the Lord High Chancellor I shall 

 never think it." 



After the fall of his patron, Mountfort returned to the stage, and 

 continued in that profession till his tragical death in 1692. What- 

 ever may have been the levity of this dramatic writer and per- 

 former, the manner in which he perished by the hands of unmanly 

 assassins is disgraceful to the age in which the crime was perpe- 

 trated. The following narrative of the circumstance is interesting : 



Lord Mohun and Captain Hill, two young men of dissolute lives, 

 had entered into close intimacy. Hill had long felt a passion for 

 Mrs. Bracegirdle, then the heroine of the English stage, and a 

 woman of great beauty and accomplishment, but she rejected his 

 suit with contemptuous disdain. This repulse was attributed by 

 the unsuccessful lover to the lady's predilection for some favoured 

 rival, and as Mountfort was a man of a very agreeable person, and 

 frequently performed the part of a lover on the stage it seems with 

 Mrs. Bracegirdle, his apparent assiduity and* respect iuduced Capt. 

 Hill to fix on him as the obstacle to his happiness, arid he secretly 

 vowed revenge. 



He also laid a plan to carry Mrs. Bracegirdle off, in concert with 

 his friend Lord Mohun, and for that purpose they went to the 

 play-house, but not finding her there, they got intelligence where 

 she was, and having hired a number of soldiers to assist them, they 

 waited near the door till she came out, seized her, and endeavoured 

 to force her into a coach, but were prevented by the resistance of 

 her mother and a gentleman who struggled with the ruffians, and 

 assisted by several passengers, rescued the actress, and conducted 

 her in safety to her own house. 



Enraged at this disappointment, Lord Mohun and Captain Hill 

 now directed their vengeance against the unsuspecting and unfortu- 

 nate Mountfort ; and with loud imprecations avowed their intention 

 Jo destroy him. Mrs. Bracegirdle's mother and the gentleman who 

 was with her heard their threats, and immediately went to inform 

 Mrs. Mountfort of her husband's danger. She sent a messenger to 

 warn him not to come home that night, but unfortunately he could 

 not find him. In the mean time Lord Mohun and Captain Hill 

 paraded the streets with their drawn swords, and about midnight 

 met Mr. Mountfort in Norfolk-street, in the Strand. He was ac- 

 costed in an amicable manner by Lord Mohun, who treacherously 



