Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/113

  I am not for damaged quality.' Johnson admired her acting greatly, and thought her only second to Garrick. 'Without the least exaggeration,' Goldsmith writes ('Bee,' No. 5), 'she has more true humour than any actor or actress on the English or any other stage I have seen.' Victor says 'her extraordinary talents could even raise a dramatic trifle, provided there were nature in it, to a character of importance. Witness the Fine Lady in [Garrick's] "Lethe," and the yet smaller part of Lady Fuz in the "Peep behind the Curtain." Such sketches in her hand showed high finished pictures.' Her merits in this respect are recognised in Churchill's 'Rosciad ' (1761): In spite of outward blemishes she shone, For humour famed, and humour all her own; Easy, as if at home, the stage she trod, Nor sought the critic's praise, nor fear'd his rod; Original in spirit and in ease, She pleased by hiding all attempts to please; No comic actress ever yet could raise, On humour's base, more merit or more praise.

Mrs. Clive died at Little Strawberry Hill on 6 Dec. 1785, and was buried in Twickenham Churchyard. Walpole put up an urn in the shrubbery attached to her cottage, with the following inscription by himself: Ye smiles and jests, still hover round; This is mirth's consecrated ground. Here lived the laughter-loving dame, A matchless actress, Clive her name; The comic muse with her retired, And shed a tear when she expired.

Mrs. Clive wrote four small dramatic sketches: 1. 'The Rehearsal, or Boys in Petticoats,' 1753. 2. 'Every Woman in her Humour,' 1760. 3. 'Sketch of a Fine Lady's Return from a Rout,' 1763. 4. 'The Faithful Irish Woman,' 1765. Only the first of these was printed. A fifth piece, the 'Island of Slaves,' translated from Marivaux's 'Isle des Esclaves,' acted for her benefit at Drury Lane, 26 March 1761, has been attributed to her on doubtful authority. There are several portraits of Mrs. Clive still in existence, one of great merit by Hogarth; one by Davison, engraved in mezzotint by Van Haacken; one now in the Garrick Club, by a painter unknown, but probably Van Haacken; and one which was sold at Strawberry Hill in 1884. There is also a rare engraving of her as Mrs. Riot, the Fine Lady, in 'Lethe,' with a pug dog under her arm, by A. Mosley, 1750, by which time she had developed into the full blown and florid dame, who looks quite the person to keep her stage associates in order, as Tate Wilkinson says she did. Her figure in this character in contemporary Chelsea ware is still in great demand among collectors.

 CLIVE, EDWARD (1704–1771), judge, eldest son of Edward Clive of Wormbridge, Herefordshire, by his wife Sarah, daughter of Mr. Key, a Bristol merchant, was born in 1704, and after being admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn on 27 March 1719 was called to the bar in 1725. In 1741 he was returned to parliament as one of the members for the borough of St. Michael's, Cornwall. There is no record of any speech of his while in the house. In Easter term 1745 he was made a serjeant-at-law and appointed a baron of the exchequer in the room of Sir Laurence Carter. On the death of Sir Thomas Burnet in January 1753 Clive was transferred to the common pleas, and on 9 Feb. received the honour of knighthood. After sitting in this court for seventeen years he retired from the bench in February 1770 with a pension of 1,200l. a year, and was succeeded by Sir William Blackstone. Clive is chiefly remarkable for having concurred with Mr. Justice Bathurst in the case of Buxton v. Mingay, where these two judges determined, in spite of the opinion of Lord-chief-justice Willes to the contrary, that a surgeon was 'an inferior tradesman,' within the meaning of 4 & 5 W. & M. c. 23, s. 10 (, ii. 70). He married, first, Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Symons of Mynde Park, Herefordshire; and secondly, Judith, the youngest daughter of his cousin, the Rev. Benjamin Clive, who survived him many years, and died at Wormbridge on 20 Aug. 1796. Clive died at Bath on 16 April 1771. As he had no children by either marriage, he left the Wormbridge estate to the great-grandson of his eldest uncle, Robert Clive. The present owner of Wormbridge is Percy Bolton Clive, the grandson of Mrs. Caroline Clive [q. v.], the authoress of 'Paul Ferroll.' Clive was the nephew of George Clive, the cursitor baron of the exchequer. His portrait was introduced by Hogarth in his engraving of 'The Bench' (1758 and 1764). 