I will not divide the sketch of the story of Mrs. Spranger Barry from that of the greatest and most worthy of her three husbands. Her father was a gay, well-to-do, but extravagant apothecary in Bath, whose daughter, Miss Street, was one of the belles there, celebrated for her graceful figure, expressive beauty, and rich auburn hair. The handsome and clever girl was jilted by a lover, whose affection for the apothecary's daughter cooled, on a sudden accession of fortune occurring to himself. Poor Ariadne went for solace to the North, where, after some while, she found a Bacchus in a hot-headed, jealous, but seductive actor, named Dancer, who married her, and placed her, nothing loath, upon the stage.
Her friends were scandalised, and her widowed mother bequeathed her a trifling annuity, only on condition of her ceasing to be an actress. Mrs. Dancer declined; and the honest man to whom the annuity was thereby forfeited, surrendered the whole to her, and bade her prosper!
Prosperity, however, only came after long study and severe labour, and many trials and vexations. When Barry assumed the management of the Dublin Theatre, he found Mrs. Dancer a most promising actress, and her lord the most jealous husband in Ireland. Youth, beauty, genius, were the endowments she had brought to that husband; and he, on his death, left her in full possession of all she had brought with her, and nothing more. But these and a liberal salary were charms that attracted many admirers. An Irish earl was not ashamed, indeed, to woo the young, fair, and accomplished creature, with too free a gallantry; but all the earls in the peerage had no chance against the manly beauty and the silver tone of Spranger Barry.
Hand-in-hand with her new husband, she came to London. Garrick sat in the pit, at Foote's theatre, to witness her début. He approved; and forthwith she took a place at the head of her profession,—equal almost with her great namesake of the previous century, not inferior to Mrs. Pritchard or Mrs. Cibber, superior to Mrs. Yates, and not to be excelled till, in the evening of her days, Sarah Siddons came, to wish her gone, and to speed the going.
Mrs. Barry was otherwise remarkable, she had "a modest gaiety in her manners and address;" and though in Belvidera, Lady Randolph, Rutland, Euphrasia, Monimia, and Desdemona, she defied rivalry, she really preferred to act Lady Townley, Beatrice, the Widow Brady, Rosalind, and Biddy Tipkin. She acted tragedy, to gratify the house; comedy, to please herself; and she had a supreme indifference for the patronage of Ladies of Quality if she could only win the plaudits of the public at large. In the "Jubilee," however, she represented the Tragic muse.
Two years after Barry's death, his widow met with and married a scampish young Irish barrister, named Crawford, who spent her money, broke her heart, and was the cause of her theatrical wardrobe being seized by a Welsh landlord, for debt. The General who married the widow of Napoleon treated her with respect, but young Crawford only regarded the middle-aged but handsome and accomplished widow of Spranger Barry as a means whereby he might live. There is something supremely melancholy in the story of Mrs. Barry, after this time. She raised her young husband to such efficiency that in London, he played Pierre, to her Belvidera; and the bad fellow might have respected a woman who did this, and could also earn £1100 in sixteen nights of acting, in Ireland. In the latter country, whither Mrs. Crawford, as I regret to call her, went, after playing Zara, in 1781, thereby leaving a long-desired opening to Mrs. Siddons,—Mr. Crawford acquired a reputation for shabbiness. On his benefit night, in a supper scene, he provided no refreshments on the table, for the actors seated round it, and this omission produced a scene of unrehearsed effects,—of exposure of Crawford's meanness, on the part of the players, and indignation against him on the part of the audience. When he became lessee, after Ryder, his own unhappy wife could not trust him, and often refused to go on, till Crawford had collected the amount of her salary from the doorkeepers,—if they had taken as much. He was reduced to such straits that one night, on the desertion of his unpaid band, he himself, and alone, played the violin in the orchestra, dressed as he was for Othello, which he acted on the stage. The Irish audience enjoyed the fun, and even Mrs. Crawford was so attached to him, that when Jephson's "Count of Narbonne" was first produced, in which, from her age, she should have played the Countess, she chose to act Adelaide, that her husband might still make love to her, as Theodore!
All that she earned, Crawford squandered. Fortunately, the small annuity left by her mother was secured to her, and this Crawford could not touch. What became of this unworthy Irishman I cannot say; but he helped to spoil Mrs. Crawford, as an actress. Her health and spirits failed, and her acting grew comparatively languid. The appearance of Mrs. Siddons, in the best of her years, strength, beauty, and ability, quickened the jealous pulses of the older actress's heart, and she once more played Lady Randolph, with such effect, that the Morning Chronicle asserted, no competitor could achieve a like triumph. The younger actress at last outshone Mrs. Crawford, whose very benefits became unprofitable. Her last appearance on the stage was at Covent Garden, on the 16th of April 1798, in Lady Randolph, a character which Mrs. Siddons did not play that season,—her Mrs. Haller being the peculiar triumph of that glorious year.
Mrs. Barry, the original Euphrasia, died in 1801, having reaped honour enough to enable her to be free from envy of others, and having means sufficient to render her closing days void of anxiety. The Grecian Daughter, the Widow Brady, and Edwina, in Hannah More's "Percy," were the best of her original characters; of her other characters, Lady Randolph is the most intimately connected with her name. As between her and Mrs. Siddons, the judgment seems well-founded which declares that Mrs. Crawford was inferior to Mrs. Siddons in the terrific, but superior in the pathetic. At Mrs. Crawford's "Is he alive?" in Lady Randolph, Bannister had seen half the pit start to their feet. Mrs. Siddons was but a "demi-goddess," as Walpole has it, in comedy, where Mrs. Barry was often inimitable. Walpole saw both actresses in "Percy," and he most admired Mrs. Siddon's passionate scenes. When, years before, he saw Mrs. Barry in the same play, his mind was pre-occupied with politics, and he thought less of the actress than of passing events, of which he was reminded by passages in the play.
Mrs. Crawford, to take leave of her in her last name, was no admirer of the great actress by whom she was displaced; and albeit somewhat smartly, the old lady did not ill distinguish between the school to which she belonged and that founded by her comparatively young rival. "The Garrick school," she said, "was all rapidity and passion; while the Kemble school is so full of paw and pause that, at first, the performers, thinking their new competitors had either lost their cues, or forgotten their parts, used frequently to prompt them."
As we associate the name of Barry with that of Garrick, so do we that of Mossop with Spranger Barry. Mossop, whose career on the stage commenced in 1749, with Zanga,—type of characters in which alone he excelled,—died in 1773, at the age of forty-five. He was the ill-fated son of an Irish clergyman, and he was always on the point of becoming a great actor, but never accomplishing that end. His syllables fell from him like minute-guns, even in or-din-a-ry con-ver-sa-tion, and the nickname of the "tea-pot actor," referred to his favourite attitude with one arm on his hip and the other extended. In London, an evanescent success in Richard and similar characters, almost made of him a rival of Garrick. In Dublin, he ruined Barry by his opposing management, which also brought down ruin on himself. Of this "monster of perfection," or the "pragmatical puppy," as he was variously called, we learn something from the Dublin Journal of May 8th, 1772, which says, "A few days ago, the celebrated tragedian, Mossop, moved to his new apartments in the Rules of the Fleet." When Mossop repaired to London his powers had failed. He could not obtain "first business," declined to accept "second," and proudly died in poverty, at Chelsea, leaving for all fortune one poor penny.[118]