recollect it, by an expression that fell from her in blank verse, in her last hours, when she was delirious,

viz.

Ha, ha! and so they make us lords by dozens!

Mrs Betterton, though far advanced in years, was so great a mistress of nature, that even Mrs Barry, who acted the lady Macbeth after her, could not in that part, with all her superior strength and melody of voice, throw out those quick and careless strokes of terror, from the disorder of a guilty mind, which the other gave us with a facility in her manner that rendered them at once tremendous and delightful. Time could not impair her skill, though he had brought her person to decay. She was to the last the admiration of all true judges of nature and lovers of Shakspeare, in whose plays she chiefly excelled, and without a rival. When she quitted the stage, several good actresses were the better for her instruction. She was a woman of an unblemished and sober life; and had the honour to teach queen Anne, when princess, the part of Semandra in "Mithridates," which she acted at court in king Charles's time. After the death of Mr Betterton, her husband, that princess, when queen, ordered her a pension for life; but she lived not to receive more than the first half-year of it.

Mrs Leigh, the wife of Leigh already mentioned, had a very droll way of dressing the pretty foibles of superannuated beauties. She had in herself a good deal of humour, and knew how to infuse it into the affected mothers, aunts, and modest stale maids that had missed their market; of this sort were the modisn mother in the "Chances," affecting to be politely commode for her own daughter; the coquette prude of an aunt, in "Sir Courtly Nice," who prides herself in being chaste and cruel at fifty; and the languishing lady Wishfort in "The Way of the World." In all these, with many others, she was extremely entertaining, and painted in a lively manner the blind side of nature.

Mrs Butler, who had her christian name of Char

lotte given her by king Charles, was the daughter of a decayed knight, and had the honour of that prince's recommendation to the theatre; a provident restitution, giving to the stage in kind what he had sometimes taken from it. The public, at least, was obliged by it; for she proved not only a good actress, but was allowed in those days to sing and dance to great perfection. In the dramatic operas of "Dioclesian," and "King Arthur," she was a capital and admired performer. In speaking, too, she had a sweet-toned voice, which, with her naturally genteel air and sensible pronunciation, rendered her wholly mistress of the amiable in many serious characters. In parts of humour too she had a manner of blending her assuasive softness even with the gay, the lively, and the alluring. Of this she gave an agreeable instance in her action of the (Villiers) duke of Buckingham's second Constantia in the "Chances." In which if I should say I have never seen her exceeded, I might still do no wrong to the late Mrs Oldfield's lively performance of the same character. Mrs Oldfield's fame may spare Mrs Butler's action this compliment, without the least diminution or dispute of her superiority in characters of more

moment.

Here I cannot help observing, when there was but one theatre in London, at what unequal salaries, compared to those of later days, the hired actors were then held by the absolute authority of their frugal masters, the patentees; for Mrs Butler had then but forty shillings a week, and could she have obtained an addition of ten shillings more, (which was refused her,) would never have left their service; but being offered her own conditions to go with Mr Ashbury to Dublin, (who was then raising a company of actors for that theatre, where there had been none since the revolu tion,) her discontent here prevailed with her to accept of his offer, and he found his account in her value. Were not those patentees most sagacious economists, that could lay hold on so notable an expedient to lessen their charge? How gladly, in my

time of being a sharer, would we have given four times her income to an actress of equal merit?

Mrs Mountfort, whose second marriage gave her the name of Verbruggen, was mistress of more variety of humour than I ever knew in any one woman actress. This variety too was attended with an equal vivacity, which made her excellent in characters extremely different. As she was naturally a pleasant mimic, she had the skill to make that talent useful on the stage; a talent which may be surprising in a conversation, and yet be lost when brought to the theatre-which was the case of Estcourt already mentioned. But where the elocution is round, distinct, voluble, and various, as Mrs Mountfort's was, the mimic there is a great assistant to the actor. Nothing, though ever so barren, if within the bounds of nature, could be flat in her hands. She gave many heightening touches to characters but coldly written, and often made an author vain of his work, that in itself had but little merit. She was so fond of humour, in what low part soever to be found, that she would make no scruple of defacing her fair form to come heartily into it: for when she was eminent in several desirable characters of wit and humour in higher life, she would be in as much fancy, when descending into the antiquated Abigail of Fletcher, as when triumphing in all the airs and vain graces of a fine lady; a merit that few actresses care for. In a play of D'Urfey's, now forgotten, called "The Western Lass," which part she acted, she transformed her whole being, body, shape, voice, language, look, and features, into almost another animal; with a strong Devonshire dialect, a broad laughing voice, a poking head, round shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the most bedizening, dowdy dress, that ever covered the untrained limbs of a Joan Trot. To have seen her here you would have thought it impossible the same creature could ever have been recovered to what was as easy to herthe gay, the lively, and the desirable. Nor was her humour limited to her sex; for while her shape permitted, she was a more adroit pretty fellow than is

usually seen upon the stage; her easy air, action, mien, and gesture, quite changed from the quoif to the cocked hat and cavalier in fashion. People were so fond of seeing her a man, that when the part of Bays in the "Rehearsal" had for some time lain dormant, she was desired to take it up, which I have seen her act with all the true coxcombly spirit and humour that the sufficiency of the character required.

But what found most employment for her whole various excellence at once, was the part of Melantha in "Marriage-Alamode." Melantha is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, motion, manners, soul, and body, are in a continual hurry to be something more than is necessary or commendable. And though I doubt it will be a vain labour to offer you a just likeness of Mrs Mountfort's action, yet the fantastic impression is still so strong in my memory, that I cannot help saying something, though fantastically, about it. The first ridiculous airs that break from her are upon a gallant never seen before, who delivers her a letter from her father, recommending him to her good graces as an honourable lover. Here now one would think she might naturally show a little of the sex's decent reserve, though never so slightly covered. No, sir; not a tittle of it; modesty is the virtue of a poor-souled country gentlewoman; she is too much a court lady to be under so vulgar a confusion; she reads the letter therefore with a careless, dropping lip, and erected brow, humming it hastily over as if she were impatient to outgo her father's commands by making a complete conquest of him at once; and that the letter might not embarrass her attack, crack! she crumbles it at once into her palm, and pours upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and motion; down goes her dainty diving body to the ground, as if she were sinking under the conscious load of her own attractions; then launches into

L

a flood of fine language and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon waving water; and to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit that she will not give her lover leave to praise it; silent assenting bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is admitted to, which at last he is relieved from by her engagement to half a score visits, which she swims from him to make, with a promise to return in a twinkling.

If this sketch has colour enough to give you any near conception of her, I then need only tell you that throughout the whole character her variety of humour was every way proportionable; as indeed in most parts that she thought worth her care, or that had the least matter for her fancy to work upon, I may justly say that no actress, from her own conception, could have heightened them with more lively strokes of

nature.

I come now to the last and only living person of all those whose theatrical characters I have promised you, Mrs Bracegirdle; who I know would rather pass her remaining days forgotten as an actress, than to ha e her youth recollected in the most favourable light I am able to place it; yet as she is essentially necessary to my theatrical history, and as I only bring her back to the company of those with whom she passed the spring and summer of her life, I hope it will excuse the liberty I take in commemorating the delight which the public received from her appearance while she was an ornament to the theatre.

Mrs Bracegirdle was now but just blooming to her maturity; her reputation as an actress gradually rising with that of her person; never any woman was in such general favour of her spectators, which to the last scene of her dramatic life she maintained by not being unguarded in her private character. This discretion contributed not a little to make her the cara, the darling of the theatre for it will be no extravagant thing to say, scarce an audience saw her that were less than