dential for us all that I can do so much; but I hope it is not wrong to say that I am tired, and should be glad to be at rest indeed. I hope yet to see the day when I can be quiet. My mouth is not yet well [she had had an attack of erysipelas, the disease that was ultimately to kill her], though somewhat less exquisitely painful. I have become a frightful object with it for some time, and, I believe, this complaint has robbed me of those poor remains of beauty once admired—at least, which, in your partial eyes, I once possessed."
She did not go to Dublin, but returned early in the following year to Drury Lane, where she performed above forty times.
On the 25th March 1802 she performed for the first time Hermione in the Winter's Tale. The enacting of this part is to be counted amongst her great successes. It was more suitable to her age and appearance than others that she undertook in later life. On the second or third night she had a narrow escape of being burned to death. We can give the incident as related in a letter to Mrs. Fitzhugh:—
". . . Except for a day or two, the weather has been very favourable to me hitherto. I trust it may continue so, for the Winter's Tale promises to be very attractive; and, whilst it continues so, I am bound in honour and conscience to put my shoulder to the wheel, for it has been attended with great expense to the managers, and, if I can keep warm, I trust I shall continue tolerably well. As to my plans, they are, as usual, all uncertain, and I am precisely in the situation of poor Lady Percy, to whom Hotspur comically says:
