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5th of December, he invited her to meet the Westminster Boys engaged in their Christmas play the young scholars, we may be sure, were highly pleased with her dramatic countenance, which Terence himself would have equally valued. Her legal friend Hardinge's house, near Kew, afforded some pleasant days; so did Mr. Woodfall's. She obtained an engagement at Covent-Garden theatre for Miss Grist, and zealously attended her performances. Poor Davis, "the first dresser in the world," as the theatrical empresses thought him, was now quite discarded, and Miss Hemet besought Mrs. Inchbald to lend him ten pounds, which we should think her unable to refuse.

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Her miscellaneous reading this year does not seem to have been of very great importance. A novel of Holcroft's, Mrs. Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest,' Lord Chatham's Life,' and 'Mrs. Billington's Memoirs.' In her religious studies we find her more than usually earnest. She regularly attends Mass, unless prevented by the weather; and once we find her record, that she prayed and made an examination of her conscience. The best close that can be put to the year 1792 is that of her own estimate, that she was, during it, "cheerful, content, and sometimes rather happy."

CHAPTER XIV.

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Splendid success of Every One has his Fault'—Buys Five per cent. stock-Politically attacked by the True Briton'-Her defence in a letter to Woodfall-Impostors at her door-Holcroft's passion for her-Her regulations for Brandenburg House -Attempts to extort money from her-Describes her feelings as to Dr. Warren-Taylor, the oculist, removes something from her eye -Horror at the regicides of France-Finishes Nature and Art' and copies it for the press-Mr. Hardinge's letters; those from his lady also-Copious illustrations of them.

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SHE commenced this year, 1793, with the very necessary attendance at the rehearsals of her fiveact comedy, Every One has his Fault.' On the 29th of January it was acted for the first time with the greatest applause. She had the usual three benefit nights; and, her piece threatening to go beyond the twentieth repetition, she asserted her claim to a fourth. On this occasion she received a severe letter from Harris, but it inclosed a present, (probably a one-hundred-pound note,) as she states its proceeds at seven hundred pounds, and purchases immediately six hundred and fifty pounds Five per cent. stock, at 107, £698. 15s.

She had blunted the edge of Harris's reproof, by the happy admission in the title of her playEvery one has his fault."

Of the comedy itself, it is unnecessary to speak at large. since every body has seen it, or read it. Both the play and the author were attended to assiduously successful as it was, some of her friends added the weight of presents to their compliments. Among whom we find (let avarice not believe it! General Martin himself. Mrs. Inchbald, alarmed lest the greatest misfortune should follow an act so unusual, returned the General's present. Mr. Robinson bought her copy-right, and the play was published in February: the sale was immense, for the True Briton' had been idle enough to make a political attack upon the doctrines it espoused, as tending to disorganisation. This journal was established for the avowed object of supporting Mr. Pitt in his endeavours to suppress the revolutionary spirit, then systematically exerting itself against the governments of all countries. They heard therefore with alarm anything like liberal opinions delivered with an emphasis upon the public stage, and caught up enthusiastically by the people, as sanctioning inferences that went still farther. The writers in that journal seem to have been precipitate, and were not borne out by the fact.

Mrs. Inchbald skilfully availed herself of their misconception, and the following letter was ad

dressed by her to her friend Woodfall, and published in his paper called The Diary.'

"SIR,

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"After the most laborious efforts to produce a dramatic work deserving the approbation of the town; after experiencing the most painful anxiety till that approbation was secured; a malicious falsehood, aimed to destroy every advantage arising from my industry, has been circulated in a print called The True Briton;' in which I am accused of conveying seditious sentiments to the public. This charge I considered of little importance, while an impartial audience were, every evening, to judge of its truth:-but my accuser having, in this day's paper, taken a different mode of persecution, saying I have expunged those sentences which were of dangerous tendency, the play can, now, no longer be its own evidence: I am, therefore, compelled to declare, in contradiction to this assertion, that not one line, or one word, has been altered or omitted since the first night of representation. As a further proof of the injustice with which I have been treated, had I been so unfortunate in my principles, or blind to my own interest, as to have written anything of the nature of which I am accused, I most certainly should not have presented it for reception to the manager of Covent-Garden theatre. "E. INCHBALD."

"Leicester Square, Feb. 1st, 1793."

Whatever was attempted to injure her, she succeeded to her most sanguine expectation, and was assailed in consequence from all quarters for gifts and loans, far beyond the usual limits. One day, as she relates, a grand beggar called with a footman, who said she was daughter to the late Earl of Harrington: probably a lady's maid and footman of the family; about which they could therefore talk correctly, and not be detected impostors. Her nephew, George Huggins, wanted to borrow four hundred pounds. Begging letters arrived from several of her connexions, and Mrs. Wells wrote in the same strain to her from prison. A little before this she had hundred-pound notes to leave with her friend, and money to extricate her landlady; there was a sum of four thousand pounds, too, mentioned as a settlement upon her; we suppose by Topham.

Our heroine now seems to have excited a very fierce flame indeed in the bosom of her friend Holcroft; and in June and July he was almost a daily visitor. On the 13th of August, she records that he called, and staid some time; brought her Verses upon his passion," and, as she says,

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wrongfully reproached her for her behaviour." After this appearance as the "Lover with a woful ballad made to his mistress' eye-brow," he came less frequently to see her. This occurred in the fiftieth year of Mr. Holcroft's age, and the fortieth of Mrs. Inchbald's.

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