They who would see how Mrs. Barry looked living, have only to consult Kneller's grand picture, in which she is represented with her fine hair drawn back from her forehead, the face full, fair, and rippling with intellect. The eyes are inexpressibly beautiful. Of all her living beauty, living frailty, and living intelligence, there remains but this presentment. It was customary to compare Mrs. Barry with French actresses; but it seems to me that the only French actress with whom Mrs. Barry may be safely compared is Mademoiselle, or, as she was called with glorious distinction, "the Champmeslé." This French lady was the original Hermione, Berenice, Monimia, and Phædra. These were written expressly for her by Racine, who trained her exactly as Rochester did Elizabeth Barry,--to some glory on the stage, and to some infamy off it. La Champmeslé, however, was more tenderly treated by society at large than the less fortunate daughter of an old royalist colonel. The latter actress was satirised; the former was eulogised by the wits, and she was not even anathematised by French mothers. When La Champmeslé was ruining the young Marquis de Sevigné, his mother wrote proudly of the actress as her "daughter-in-law!" as if to have a son hurried to perdition by so resplendent and destructive a genius, was a matter of exultation! * * * * * Having sketched the outline of Mrs. Barry's career, I proceed to notice some of her able, though less illustrious, colleagues. FOOTNOTE: [39] Curll, in his History of the Stage (1741), says it was Lady Davenant, a particular friend of Sir William Davenant. [Illustration: CONTEST FOR DOGGET'S COAT AND BADGE.] CHAPTER VIII. "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE." On the 16th November 1682, the United Company, the flower of both houses, opened their season at the Theatre Royal, in Drury Lane. The theatre in Dorset Gardens was only occasionally used; and from 1682 to 1695 there was but one theatre in London. Betterton and Mrs. Barry were, of course, at the head of this company, to which there came some accessions of note; among others Mrs. Percival, better known as Mrs. Mountfort, and finally as Mrs. Verbruggen. A greater accession was that of the charming Mrs. Bracegirdle. The third lady was Mrs. Jordan, a name to be made celebrated by a later and a greater actress, who had no legal claim to it.