first. The language is as poor as the plot. Somebody asked me what prose Home had ever written. I said I knew none but his poetry." Then, to a version of Voltaire's "Orestes," Mrs. Yates, as Electra, could not give life; and when Craddock gave to her all the profits he derived from his tragedy of "Zobeide," he showed his sense of that lady's value. Kelly could give her nothing, for he gained nothing by his "Clementina," at which the audience yawned more than they hissed.[101] Managers seemed to understand little of the requirements of the public taste; and Colman still kept the Fool from "King Lear," as being "such a character in tragedy as would not be endured on the modern stage." In our own time, however, it has been not only endured, but enjoyed. One of the pleasantest of stage memories is connected with the Fool, as acted by Miss P. Horton, now Mrs. German Reed. Garrick taxed all Barry's powers, for he imposed on him the part of Tancred, in perhaps the most insufferable of the tragedies of this time, the "Almida" of Mallett's daughter, Madame Celisia, which Garrick brought out only because her husband had been hospitable to him in Italy! Cumberland laid as heavy a charge on him in his emendation of "Timon," in which there was more of Cumberland and less of Shakspeare than the public could welcome. Walpole lets pass Murphy's imbroglio of "Alzuma," and his over-rated "Grecian Daughter," the success of which was due to the Barrys alone, as Evander and Euphrasia; but he records his impression of Mason's "Elfrida," which may joyously close the tragic register of this period. "It is wretchedly acted," he writes to the author (Mason), in February 1773,[102] "and worse set to music. The virgins were so inarticulate, that I should have understood them as well if they had sung choruses of Sophocles. Orgar (Clarke) had a broad Irish accent. I thought the first virgin, who is a lusty virago, called Miss Miller, would have knocked him down; and I hoped she would. Edgar (Bensley) stared at his own crown, and seemed to fear it would tumble off." Miss Catley looked so impudent, and so _manifestly_ unlike the British virgin whom she was supposed to represent, "you would have imagined she had been singing the 'Black Joke,' only that she would then have been more intelligible. Smith did not play Athelwold ill. Mrs. Hartley is made for the part (Elfrida), if beauty and figure would suffice for what you write; but she has no one symptom of genius. Still, it is very affecting, and does admirably for the stage, under all these disadvantages. The tears came into my eyes, and streamed down the Duchess of Richmond's lovely cheeks." Those great folk must have been easily moved, or Mrs. Hartley must have had more talent than Walpole will acknowledge.