If your applause gives sanction to my aim,
And this night’s effort promise future fame,
She shall proceed—but if some bar you find,
And that my fondness made my judgment blind,
Discern no voice, no feeling she possess,
Nor fire that can the passions well express;
Then, then forever, shall she quit this scene,
Be the plain housewife, not the tragic queen.
Such an appeal, delivered with all the powers of an excellent speaker, and enforced by the genuine and unfeigned feelings of a father’s heart, told home—peals of applause gave assurance that her entrance was strewed with flowers, and that at least, her reception, would correspond with his fondest wishes.
The accounts that have been given by spectators of the events of that night are extremely interesting. Many, no doubt, went there with a prepossession, raised by the unfavourable reports of her personal appearance; and if lofty stature were indispensibly necessary to a heroine, no external appearance could be much less calculated to personify a Thalestris than Miss Brunton’s—but the mighty mind soon made itself to be felt, and every idea of personal dimensions vanished. “The audience (says a British author) expected to see a mawkin, but saw a Cibber—the applause was proportionate to the surprise: every mouth emitted her praise, and she performed several parts in Bath and Bristol, a phenomenon in the theatrical hemisphere.” Though the trepidation inseparable from such an effort diminished her powers at first, the sweetness of her voice struck every ear like a charm: the applause that followed invigorated her spirits so far that in the reciprocation of a speech or two more, her fine clear articulation struck the audience with surprise, and when, more assured by their loud approbation, she came to the speech: