Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/324

 last piece to which her name can be traced at Covent Garden is Constance in ‘King John,’ 29 March 1783. For the benefit of George Anne Bellamy she played for one night only at Drury Lane (24 May 1785) the Duchess of Braganza; this was her last appearance. She had played in Edinburgh in March 1785 a month's engagement, in which she appeared in a round of her tragic characters, and on her return journey had been seen in York on 26 April as Margaret of Anjou. She had engaged to act with Mrs. Crawford in the same tragedies. Through her illness the scheme fell through, and on 3 May 1787 she died of dropsy, and was buried with her father and mother at Richmond church in the chancel. Mrs. Yates left behind her a considerable fortune, which her husband augmented. Her last residences were on the banks of the Thames at Mortlake and at Stafford Row, Pimlico. In her house in Pimlico she entertained Home, Murphy, Cumberland, and a literary and theatrical circle. Boaden (Life of Kemble, i. 353) says that she contemplated joining (1747–1785) [q. v.], but was prevented by his death.

Mrs. Yates was one of the greatest of our tragic actresses, dividing during many years the supremacy with Mrs. Crawford. If her star paled before that of Mrs. Siddons, she was an old woman when that actress came on the stage. Tate Wilkinson, one of the best of judges, declared her Margaret of Anjou as unrivalled as Mrs. Siddons's Zara. It was far from a bad sign that she was kept back at the outset by timidity. Subsequently, though deficient in tenderness and apt to be too forcible and violent in the display of the stronger passions, she was unsurpassed and rarely equalled in rage and disdain. She is said to have spent some time in Paris studying the methods of the great tragic actress Mme. Clairon, who was at the height of her fame between 1750 and 1760. The retirement of Mrs. Cibber opened to her the command of tragedy. In comedy she was weak, weaker even than Mrs. Cibber. Her Lady Townly was poor, and in Desdemona and Monimia she was indifferent. Her Imogen and Calista were fine but not perfect performances. Mandane in the ‘Orphan of China’ and Cleopatra first raised her to eminence. Her Mandane in ‘Cyrus,’ Constance, and Lady Macbeth were superb performances, and as Medea in Glover's tragedy she was unrivalled. No other actress attempted this part during her life, and only one—Mrs. Pope—on a solitary occasion for a benefit after Mrs. Yates's death. Davies declares that her just elocution, noble manner, warm passion, and majestic deportment had excited the admiration of foreigners, and fixed the affection and applause of her own countrymen. Campbell, holding his customary brief for Mrs. Siddons, says that Mrs. Yates's ‘countenance, with the beauty of the antique statue, had also something of its monotony,’ but adds: ‘Taylor himself told me that she was the most commanding personage he had ever looked upon before he saw Mrs. Siddons.’ Boaden and Churchill speak in similar terms of disparagement. The latter, in his ‘Rosciad,’ concludes his estimate: The brow still fix'd in sorrow's sullen frame, Void of distinction, marks all parts the same. ‘Kitty’ Clive, with characteristic orthography, charges her with ‘totering about to much and flumping down to often.’ Dibdin says that what might have been monotony in other actresses, due to ‘an emulation of the best French actresses which gave a declamatory air to her delivery,’ was in her case ‘penetrating [sic] to admiration.’ In addition to a fine voice she had, he holds, ‘all the grand and noble requisites of tragedy in great perfection.’ Dr. [q. v.] spoke of Mrs. Siddons as, ‘in representing the passions of indignation and fury, inferior to my early favourite, Mrs. Yates.’ Goldsmith deemed her the first of English actresses, and wrote for her a prologue to be spoken at the Opera House, of which she was at one time joint-manager with Mrs. Brooke. He espoused her side in a quarrel she had with Colman. Reynolds stated that he saw Garrick, with whom he was seated in the orchestra on the first night of Jephson's ‘Braganza,’ melted to tears by her performance; and James Harris, the author of ‘Hermes,’ wrote to Hoadly that ‘she acted the part of Electra in the “Orestes” of Voltaire, translated on purpose for her. For tone and justness of elocution, for uninterrupted attention, for everything that was nervous, various, elegant, and true in attitudes and action, I never saw her equal but in Garrick, and forgive me for saying I cannot call him her superior.’

Of Mrs. Yates, who, in the words of Boaden, ‘courted a likeness to the statues of antiquity in the solemn composure of her attitudes,’ many portraits are in existence. The Mathews collection in the Garrick Club contains a portrait by Coates [Cotes?]. One as Electra, by Samuel Cotes, was engraved by P. Dawe and published 25 June 1771; a second by Pine, as Medea, was engraved by W. Dickinson; and a third, by Romney, said to be of her, was engraved by Dunkarton. Another portrait by Rom-