My Lady Bountiful.

“My Lady Bountiful” is best understood as a stock phrase rather than a self-contained aphorism: it names (often with a hint of irony) the local grande dame who dispenses charity and patronage to dependents. In Restoration and early eighteenth‑century comedy, such labels can function as social shorthand, signaling class hierarchy, performative benevolence, and the way “good works” can double as social control. If Farquhar used the phrase, it likely served as a comic tag to evoke a recognizable type—generous in public, powerful in private—rather than as a standalone maxim.