The incident occurred in 1769. Three years later, Elizabeth was playing Columbine at Wakefield. She could sing as well as she could dance, gracefully; and, out of very love for the beautiful girl, Younger brought her out, at Liverpool, where her maternal grandfather had been a brewer of repute and good fortune, and where his grand-daughter proved such a Rosetta, that more than half the young fellows were more deeply in love with her than the paternal Younger himself.
After five years' training, the now radiant girl, glowing with beauty and intelligence, first charmed a London audience, on June the 9th, 1777, by appearing at the Haymarket, as Miss Hardcastle; Edwin making his appearance on the same night, as Old Hardcastle. In that first year of London probation, her Miss Hardcastle was a great success; the town was ecstatic at that and her Maria, in the "Citizen," was rapt at her Rosetta, rendered hilarious by her Miss Tittup, and rarely charmed by her playfulness and dignity, as Rosara (Rosina), in the "Barber of Seville." Of this character she was the original representative. Colman omitted the scene in which the Count was disguised as a tipsy dragoon, on the ground of its being injurious to morality! The same Colman thought the Fool, in "Lear," too gross for a London audience.
In the following year, the success of her Lady Townly transferred her to Drury Lane, where she divided the principal parts with Miss Walpole, Miss P. Hopkins (Mrs. Kemble, subsequently), and Perdita Robinson; and not one of the four was twenty years of age.
Her Lady Townly was no new triumph. She had produced such an effect in it at Liverpool, where, after her father's death, Younger had engaged the whole family, that, on the strength of the promise of fortune to come, tradesmen offered them unlimited credit.
For about a score of years she maintained a pre-eminence which she did not, however, attain all at once, or without a struggle; her most powerful and graceful opponent being Mrs. Abington. Her early days had been of such stern and humble aspect, such a strolling and starving with her stage-mad and improvident father, that an anonymous biographer says of her: "The early parts of the history of many eminent ladies on the stage must be extremely disagreeable to them in the recital; and to none, we apprehend, more than to Miss Farren, who, from the lowest histrionic sphere, has raised herself to the most elevated."
During the years above-named, she played principally at Drury Lane and the Haymarket, and chiefly the parts of fine ladies, for which she seemed born; though she attempted tragedy, now and then; and assumed low comedy characters, occasionally; but her natural elegance, her tall and delicate figure, her beautiful expression, her superbly modulated voice, her clear and refined pronunciation, made of her fine lady a perfect charm; not merely the Lady Betty Modish, and similar personages, but the sentimental Indianas and Cecilias.
Walpole says emphatically of Miss Farren, that, in his estimation, she was the most perfect actress he had ever seen. Adolphus praises "the irresistible graces of her address and manner, the polished beauties of her action and gait, and all the indescribable little charms which give fascination to the woman of birth and fashion," as among the excellences which secured a triumph for Burgoyne's "Heiress." In that play she acted Lady Emily Gayville.
Among her original characters were Rosara (Rosina), in the "Barber of Seville;" Cecilia, in "Chapter of Accidents;" Sophia, in "Lord of the Manor;" Lady Emily Gayville, in the "Heiress;" Eliza Ratcliffe, in the "Jew;" and Emily Tempest, in the "Wheel of Fortune." In the "Heiress" Adolphus again says of her:—"Whether high and honourable sentiments, burning and virtuous sensibility, sincere and uncontrollable affection; animated, though sportive reprehension; elegant persiflage, or arch and pointed satire were the aim of the author, Miss Farren amply filled out his thought, and, by her exquisite representation, made it, even when faint and feeble in itself, striking and forcible." In fewer words, she had feeling, judgment, grace, and discretion.