KITTY CLIVE'S HOUSE, TWICKENHAM.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
KITTY CLIVE, WOODWARD, AND SHUTER.
As Mr. Wilks passes along, to or from rehearsal, there are two young girls of about sixteen years of age who gaze at him admiringly. Day after day the graceful actor remarks this more graceful couple, the name of the brighter of whom is Raftor. If not Irish, she is of Irish parentage, and of good family. Her father, a native of Kilkenny, had served King James, and got ruin for his wages. When Catherine Raftor was born, in 1711, she was born into a poor household, and received as poor an education as many countesses, her contemporaries; and here we come upon her, some sixteen years afterwards, watching Sir Harry Wildair entering or issuing from that gate of Elysium, the stage-door of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. If she knew but the "Sesame!" that would give admission to her she would be as happy as a houri!
She had the potent magic in her voice which won access for her to the elder Cibber, who awarded the young thing fifteen shillings a week,[119] and then intrusted to her the little part of Ismenes in "Mithridates." In such solemn guise commenced the career of the very queen of hoydens and chambermaids. As for her companion in the occupation of gazing at Wilks, in the street,—a Miss Johnson, she was appropriated to himself by Theophilus Cibber, who made of her his first wife; but she failed to attain the celebrity of Miss Raftor, who charmed audiences by the magic of her voice, and authors by the earnestness with which she strove to realise their ideas. She had achieved a great reputation as a comic actress, when, in 1732,[120] Miss Raftor married Mr. Clive, the brother of Mr. Baron Clive. In the following year[121] Fielding thus writes a paragraph of her biography, in his manly dedication to her of the "Intriguing Chambermaid," in which she played Lettice: "As great a favourite as you are at present with the audience, you would be much more so were they acquainted with your private character, could they see you laying out great part of the profits which arise to you from entertaining them so well, in the support of an aged father; did they see you, who can charm them on the stage with personating the foolish and vicious characters of your sex, acting in real life the part of the best wife, the best daughter, the best sister, and the best friend."
"Kitty Clive," however, and her not very courteous husband, could not keep household together, and they separated. The lady was a little vivacious, and stood undauntedly persistent for her rights, whether at home or on the stage—against her husband, or against Mrs. Cibber, or Edward Shuter, or Garrick himself, who stood in more awe of her than she of him. She alone dared take a liberty with him, and, by a witty word well applied, to so incline him to irrepressible laughter as to render speaking impossible. None other dared so interfere with Roscius. But it was all done out of good nature, in which Mrs. Clive was steeped to the lips, and of which she was lavish even to young actresses who came, in her later days, to dispute the succession to her parts. To the most formidable and triumphant of these, good Miss Pope, she gave excellent counsel, warning, and encouragement, for which "Pope" never ceased to be grateful.
Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Clive, as Polly and Lucy, in the "Beggar's Opera," must have exhibited a matchless combination of singing and acting. Mrs. Clive was as ambitious as Mrs. Cibber, and would fain have played, like her, leading parts with Garrick. Her most successful attempt in this way was her Bizarre to his Duretete, in the "Inconstant." One effect of her careful, earnest, but perfectly natural and apparently spontaneous acting was to put every other player on his mettle. That done, Mrs. Clive took care the victory should not be lost to her for want of pains to gaily secure it. She was a capital mimic, particularly of the Italian signoras, whom she did not call by nice names. For a town languishing for the return of Cuzzoni, she had the most unqualified contempt. She herself was inimitable; she wrung from Johnson the rarest and most unqualified praise; and over her audiences she ruled supremely; they felt with her, smiled with her, sneered with her, giggled, tossed their heads, and laughed aloud with her. She was the one true Comic Genius, and none could withstand her.
She had that power of identification which belongs only to the great intellectual players. She was a born buxom, roguish chambermaid, fierce virago, chuckling hoyden, brazen romp, stolid country girl, affected fine lady, and thoroughly natural old woman of whatever condition in life. From Phillida, in "Love in a Riddle," her first original character, to Mrs. Winnifred, in the "School for Rakes," her last, with forty years of toil and pleasure between them, she identified herself with all. But, in parts like Portia and Zara, which Mrs. Clive essayed, she fell below their requirements, though I do not know how the most beautifully expressive voice in the world could have been "awkwardly dissonant" in the latter part. Her Portia was too flippant, and in the trial scene it was her custom to mimic the most celebrated lawyer of the day. The laughter raised thereby was uncontrollable, but it was as illegitimately awakened as Dogget's when he played Shylock as a low comedy part.
After forty years' service Mrs. Clive took leave of the stage, April 24, 1769, in Flora, in the "Wonder," and the Fine Lady in "Lethe." Garrick played Don Felix; King, Lissardo; and Mrs. Barry, Violante; a grand cast in which, we are told, Mrs. Clive made Flora, in the estimation of the audience, equal to Felix and Violante. Drury Lane, had it been capacious enough, would have held twice the number that gained admittance. From these she took leave, in an epilogue, weak and in bad taste, written by her friend Walpole, who affected to despise the writers of such addresses, and, in this case, did not equal those whom he despised.