not on that account the better pleased with young Wilkinson’s travesty of her. The play was the “Confederacy,” in which she appeared as Clarissa. Wilkinson had been treated to the theatre by an old friend, Captain Forbes, after a liberal dinner. They occupied seats in the front of His Majesty’s box. The actors were indignant that an inferior member of their own profession should appear in a position so distinguished. Presently, it seems, a woman in the balcony over the royal box caused some amusement by repeating in a shrill tone some words of Mrs. Woffington’s character. The actress at once attributed the interruption to Tate Wilkinson, and grew very angry. She came close to the stage box, finishing one of her speeches with so sarcastic a sneer at him, that it made him draw back. She roused the indignation of the greenroom by her relation of the affront that had been put upon her. She met the lad afterwards at Mr. Rich’s levee, which he had attended soliciting an engagement. “She advanced with queen-like steps, viewing him contemptuously, and said, ‘Mr. Wilkinson, I have made a visit this morning to Mr. Rich to command and insist on his not giving you any engagement whatever. No, not of the most menial kind. Merit you have none; charity you deserve not, for if you did, my purse should give you a dinner. Your impudence to me last night where you had with such assurance placed yourself, is one proof of your ignorance, added to that I heard you echo my voice when I was acting, and I sincerely hope in whatever barn you are suffered as an unworthy stroller, that you will fully experience the same contempt you dared last night to offer me.’” Without permitting a reply she darted into her sedan chair, and left him to learn from Mr. Rich that he could not on any account be received into the theatre.
According to his own account, Tate Wilkinson could imitate Mrs. Woffington with great exactness. He says that Mrs. Garrick, listening behind a screen while he mimicked Mrs. Woffington for Garrick’s amusement, betrayed herself by her laughter. “It was not in his power to restrain the pleasure and great satisfaction she experienced. Perhaps,” he judiciously adds, “female prejudice might operate in my favour.” Mrs. Garrick had probably heard the song of “Lovely Peggy.” Afterwards he played Dollabella, in the burlesque of “Tom Thumb,” in imitation of Mrs. Woffington, amidst much applause. “Take me off, a puppy!” cried Mrs. Woffington, with some violence, “and in Dublin, too! If he dare attempt it there, he will be stoned to death.” She was mistaken, however. By his own account, the imitation was received with roars of laughter.
Certainly the lady had a temper. She was on very bad terms, we are told, with a Mrs. Bellamy, an actress at Covent Garden, who played Statira to Mrs. Woffington’s Roxana, in Lee’s tragedy of “The Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great.” Mrs. Bellamy was a blond beauty, with golden hair and blue eyes, a rather affected but an accomplished actress. According to her story, the elegance of the costume she had received from Paris, and worn on the occasion, roused Mrs. Woffington’s animosity to the last degree. Roxana fairly drove Statira off the stage, and stabbed her almost behind the scenes: the audience saw her violence, and testified their displeasure at it. The affair excited some attention: in the summer Foote produced a burlesque, called “The Green Room Squabble; or a Battle Royal between the Queen of Babylon and the Daughter of Darius.” The same tragedy had been made a battle-ground on a former occasion by two rival actresses. Mrs. Barry had stabbed her Statira, Mrs. Boutell, with such violence, that the dagger, though the point was blunted, “made its way through Mrs. Boutell’s stays, and entered about a quarter of an inch into the flesh.”
On the 24th of March, 1857, Mrs. Woffington, on her benefit, undertook the part of Lothario in “The Fair Penitent.” This appears to have been rather a mistake: an actress can hardly expect to succeed as the hero of a tragedy. On the 3rd of May following she appeared upon the stage for the last time. The play was “As You Like It,” in which she sustained the role of Rosalind. She had been ailing from the beginning of the season, but she had striven hard to save the public from any disappointment. Yet there were symptoms of failure now in her health and spirits—even in her beauty. “I was standing in the wings,” says Wilkinson, “as Mrs. Woffington in Rosalind, and Mrs. Vincent in Celia, were going on the stage in the first act. Mrs. Woffington ironically said she was glad to have that opportunity of congratulating me on my stage success, and did not doubt but such merit would ensure me an engagement the following winter. I bowed, but made her no answer. I knew her dislike to me, and was humiliated sufficiently, and needed not any slight to sink me lower. For then, and not till then, adversity had taught me to know myself. She went through Rosalind for four acts without my perceiving that she was in the least disordered; but in the fifth act she complained of great indisposition. I offered her my arm, the which she graciously accepted. I thought she looked softened in her behaviour, and had less of the hauteur. When she came off at the quick change of dress, she again complained of being ill, but got accoutred, and returned to finish the part, and pronounced the epilogue speech, ‘If it be true that good wine needs no bush,’ &c. But when arrived at, ‘If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards,’ &c., her voice broke—she faltered—endeavoured to go on, hut could not proceed; then, in a voice of tremor, exclaimed, ‘O God! O God!’ and tottered to the stage-door, speechless, where she was caught. The audience of course applauded till she was out of sight, and then sunk into awful looks of astonishment, both young and old, before and behind the curtain, to see one of the most handsome women of the age, a favourite principal actress, and who had for several seasons given high entertainment, struck so suddenly by the hand of death, in such a situation as to time and place, and in her prime of life.” At the time it was imagined that she could not possibly survive many hours, but she lingered until the 28th of March in the following year, in a state of acute suffering, a mere skeleton, the veriest shadow of her former self.
One of its brightest ornaments was reft from