racter. Not content with this deviation from her own style in acting, she would fain try her abilities in the more lofty tread of the buskin. If Hogarth had never delighted the world with a genuine hiftory of nature in his Harlot's Progrefs, his Marriage Alamode, and other admirable works of humour, his Sigifmunda and his Pharaoh's Daughter might have paffed for tolerable pictures; fo Clive's attempts in the higher comedy and tragedy might have been unnoticed and uncenfured, had not her exquifite comic vein thrown a comparative contempt upon them. Nature has feldom given to the fame perfon the power to raise admiration, and to excite mirth; to unite the faculties of Milton and Butler, is a happiness fuperior to the common lot of humanity. The art of expreffing with equal force the effufion of comic gaiety and tragic terror, was a talent peculiar, in its fullest -extent, to Garrick, and to him alone; for even Mrs. Pritchard enjoyed these different powers of excelling in an inferior dégree. The uncommon applaufe which Mrs. Clive obtained in Shakespeare's Portia, was owing to her mifreprefentation of the character: mimickry in a pleader, when a client's life is in danger, is but misplaced buffoonry. This inclination to figure in parts, illadapted, not only to her genius, but her age and perfon, accompanied this great actress to the last, and sometimes involved her in difagreeable difputes, from which fhe had the good fortune to extricate herfelf by her undaunted fpirit. Mr. Garrick dreaded an altercation with her as much as a quarrel with an author whose play he had rejected; whenever he had a difference with Mrs, Clive, he was happy to make a drawn battle of it. At a time of life when he was utterly unfit to reprefent a girl of fixteen, he prevailed upon her to furrender Mifs Prue in Love for Love, by making her a prefent of Mrs. Frail in the fame play, a part part almost as improper for Mrs. Clive as the other. It was the wish of her life to act female characters of importance with Mr. Garrick: where-ever fhe could thrust herself into a play with him, he always exerted her utmost skill to excel, and particularly in Bizarre, in the Inconftant, when he acted Duretete. He feems to have ftudiously avoided a ftruggle for victory with her, which, I believe, fhe attributed to his dread of her getting the better of him. She certainly was true game, as her friend Mr. Lacy the manager expreffed it; and would have died upon the spot, rather than have yielded the field of battle to any body. Mr. Garrick complained that the difconcerted him, by not looking at him in the time of action, and neglecting to watch the motion of his eye; a practice he was fure to obferve to others. I am afraid this accufation is partly true; for Mrs. Clive would fuffer her eyes fometimes to wander from the ftage into the boxes in fearch of her great acquaintance, and now and then give them a comedy nod or half curtfy; fhe was in this guilty of the very fault which the ridiculed fo archly in Mingotti, and other Italian ladies of the opera; but yet it must not be denied, that though the feemed abfent by her look, fhe was prefent by her fpirit; the foul of humour was active on the ftage, though the bodily organs feemed to be elsewhere employed. Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Clive, though of characters extremely different, were closely united in the bonds of friendship for almost forty years. No actress ever laboured more affiduously to make her family affluent and happy than Mrs. Pritchard. In this Mrs. Clive followed her example, and more effectually. But whilft one feemed to confine all her attention to her relations, which indeed were verynumerous, the other occafionallyexerted her intereft in the fervice of others. refigned the Part of Polly, which was no trifling facrifice, in favour of Mifs Edwards, afterwards Mrs. Mozeen, whom the inftructed and encouraged; and, to promote the general intereft of the community, fhe VOL. II. under Clive undertook the part of Lucy, a character fo truly played by her, that it has never fince been equalled; to her leffons, care, and countenance, as well as to her own industry and abilities, we owe the proficiency of that very valuable actress Mifs Pope. Mrs. Clive, in private life, was fo far above cenfure, that her conduct, in every relation of it, was not only laudable, but exemplary. Her company was always courted by women of high rank and character, to whom the rendered herfelf very agreeable. She is ftill vifited by many diftinguished perfons of both fexes. Her converfation is a mixture of uncommon vivacity, droll mirth, and honeft bluntnefs. The polite and learned Horace Walpole, the son of a nobleman to whom this country is indebted for the extent of her commerce, and that greatest of all civil bleffings, the prefervation of her free conftitution, wrote Mrs. Clive's farewell epilogue, in which fhe took leave of an audience who parted with fo bright an ornament of the stage with much regret. CHAP. |