Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/725

Rh the Haymarket. To them she applied for employment; they very gladly embraced so promising an addition to their company. Her genteel person, for she was then young and slender; her attractive countenance, which, in the phrase of Shakespeare, beat an alarm to love; her expressive, yet simple manner; her unembarrassed deportment, and proper action; charmed all the spectators, who congratulated themselves on a rising genius, capable of consoling them for the loss of their favourite Oldfield, then lately deceased.

Mr. Fleetwood, who united the two companies, engaged her; but is said, either from pique or prejudice, to have thrust her into characters unworthy of so great a genius. But, by degrees, she convinced the patentee, that it was his interest to have her often seen in parts of importance. Her delivery of dialogue, whether of humour, wit, or mere sprightliness, was never surpassed, if equalled. Not confined to any one walk in acting, she ranged through them all; and, what is singular, discovered a large degree of merit in every distinct class. Her tragic power was eminent, but particularly in characters which required force of expression, and dignity of figure.

She excelled in the Queen-mother of Hamlet, Zara in the Mourning Bride, Merope, Creüsa, and more especially in Queen Katherine, wife of Henry VIII. She gave to all those parts importance by her action, as well as speaking. Her few defects, in tragedy, proceeded from a too loud and profuse expression of grief, and want of grace in her manner: but a natural ease of deportment, and grandeur of person, generally hid this defect from the common spectator. Her great force, in comedy, lay in a middle path tween