Dr. Whalley must then needs press a tragedy of his own upon her, _The Castle of Mowal_, which was yawned at for three nights. It is said that when the author went down to Mr. Peake, the treasurer, to know what benefit might have accrued to him, it amounted to nothing. “I have been,” said the doctor, an old picquet-player, “piqued and repiqued”; and so he retired from the scene of his discomfiture to Bath, where he plumed himself on the fact of having “run for three nights.” Her next essay in the cause of friendship was in Bertie Greatheed’s tragedy of _The Regent_. She writes in reference to it:— “The plot of the poor young man’s piece, it strikes me, is very lame, and the characters very—very ill-sustained in general; but more particularly the lady, for whom the author had me in his eye. This woman is one of those monsters (I think them) of perfection, who is an angel before her time, and is so entirely resigned to the will of Heaven, that (to a very mortal like myself) she appears to be the most provoking piece of still life one ever had the misfortune to meet. Her struggles and conflicts are so weakly expressed, that we conclude they do not cost her much pain, and she is so pious that we are satisfied she looks upon her afflictions as so many convoys to Heaven, and wish her there, or anywhere else but in the tragedy. I have said all this, and ten times more, to them both, with as much delicacy as I am mistress of; but Mr. G. says that it would give him no great trouble to alter it, provided I will undertake the milksop lady. I am in a very distressed situation, for, unless he makes her a totally different character, I cannot possibly have anything to do with her.” The piece was eventually performed for twelve nights, and then consigned to oblivion; but the author was so satisfied that he gave a supper, which was followed by a drinking-bout at the “Brown Bear” in Bow Street, at which a subordinate actor named Phillimore was sufficiently tipsy to have courage enough to fight his lord and master, John Kemble, who was elevated enough to defend himself, and generous enough to forget the affair next morning. Other parts were declined by her for other reasons. Colman had written an epilogue to Mr. Jephson’s _Julia_, which she refused to speak because she declared it to be “coarse;” and the part of Cleopatra, she said she never would act, because “she would hate herself if she were to play it as she thought it should be played.” And there she was right; the “Serpent of Old Nile” was not within her range.