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64 have retained the most valuable, a pair of diamond shoe-buckles, which had cost her a considerable sum. She waited a month, and then addressed him a note, delicately reminding him that the buckles had not been found amongst the other articles he had sent back. He replied, “that they were the only little memorials he had of the many pleasant hours he had passed in her society, and he trusted she would permit him to keep them for her sake.” “She saw through this,” says our authority, “but she had too much spirit to reply, and Garrick retained the buckles to the last hour of his life.” She never forgave him, though she acted with him in various plays, for they were both servants of the same manager. But when, in 1747, he became joint patentee with Lacy of Drury Lane Theatre, the fact of her being a member of his company presented embarrassments to both. For a season escape was impossible. Her remaining in the theatre was additionally disagreeable to her, from the incessant struggle for parts which ensued; Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Pritchard, and Mrs. Clive being also actresses of the company, and all having claims for pre-eminence that could not be disregarded. “No two women of high rank,” says Davies, “ever hated one another more unreservedly than these great dames of the theatre, Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Woffington,” and their frequent conflicts in the green-room occasioned many grotesque scenes diverting enough to the other actors. Mrs. Clive was violent and impetuous; Mrs. Woffington “was well-bred, seemingly very calm, and at all times mistress of herself. She blunted the sharp speeches of Mrs. Clive by her apparently civil but keen and sarcastic replies, thus she often threw Clive off her guard, by an arch severity which the warmth of the other could not easily parry.”

At the commencement of the following season, Mrs. Woffington withdrew from Garrick’s theatre, and accepted an engagement at Covent Garden, where she remained three years. She had now full scope for her talents, and while she proved herself unequalled in elegant and humorous comedy, she achieved no inconsiderable fame from her efforts in the higher walks of tragedy. She was especially commended for her performance of Lady Jane Grey in Rowe’s tragedy of that name, while her Andromache and Hermione were greatly admired for their classical beauty. But it is manifest that her voice was not well adapted for displays of feeling and passion: it became harsh and strained in the effort to be declamatory. She had studied under Cibber, who had instructed her in a pompous system of elocution. He was of the old school of actors who delighted in a system of intoning the lines entrusted them to deliver, and who, in their desire to be musical, effectually excluded nature and pathos from their eloquence. Mrs. Woffington, however, had toiled indefatigably to attain excellence in this branch of her profession. She had indeed visited Paris to study the performances of the French actress Mademoiselle Dumesnil, who had acquired extraordinary repute for the classical grace of her action, and the natural beauty of her elocution. An anecdote is told of this lady which bears witness to the truthfulness of her performance. She was playing Cleopatra, and in the course of the fifth act of the tragedy had to declaim several violent and imprecatory lines with the excess of passion, amongst others, “Je maudrais les Dieux, s’ils me rendroient le jour.” “For shame of you, you vile hussy, be off!” exclaimed an old officer in the stage box, pushing her away from him. The indignation of the audience interrupted the performance, but the actress turned, and loudly expressed her thanks to the old gentleman for the most flattering marks of applause she had ever received.

Mrs. Woffington’s performance of Veturia, in Thomson’s play of “Coriolanus” was greatly admired. From the epilogue it appears that in order to represent the character as thoroughly as possible, she had painted her beautiful face with wrinkles. “What other actress would do this?” asks a critic. In Thomson’s play, Veturia is the mother and Volumnia the wife of Coriolanus. On one occasion when Mrs. Cibber had been suddenly taken ill, Mrs. Woffington undertook at a very short notice to supply her place as Constance in “King John.” The audience, to whom the change in the distribution of the characters was announced, were at first, we are told, lost in surprise, and for some minutes, maintained absolute silence. Presently, however, by loud plaudits again and again renewed, they strove to make amends for their inattention to the accomplished lady, who had spared them the disappointment of a change in the play announced for performance that evening.

But at the close of the theatre in 1751, Mrs. Woffington did not renew her engagement. She considered herself slighted by Rich, the manager. It seems that Barry and Mrs. Cibber had been often too ill to appear; when the tragedies in which they sustained characters were postponed, and Mrs. Woffington’s comedies were substituted. To this she had no objection; but she complained that the bills announcing her performances were half taken up with a notification of the future night on which the tragedies would be given, the names of the tragedians, Quin, Barry, and Cibber, appearing in letters of an extraordinary size. She declared that the next time this slight was put upon her performance, she should plead illness and decline to play. Shortly afterwards “Jane Shore” had been announced, and was put off; the “Constant Couple” was advertised to be given instead, the objectionable names appearing at the bottom of the notice. At five o’clock she sent a message that she was ill and could not appear. The management had to fall back upon the best play they could substitute under the circumstances: Mr. Fielding’s “Miser,” the part of Lovegold by Mr. Macklin.

But the public began to murmur at the frequent changes in the promised performances, and determined to resent the disappointments. When Mrs. Woffington next appeared in “Lady Jane Grey,” she was received with a storm of disapprobation. She always persisted in attributing the attack upon her to a conspiracy of the manager’s friends. “Whoever,” Wilkinson writes in his memoirs, “is living and saw her that night, will own they never beheld any figure half so beautiful since. Her anger gave a glow to her