Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Clive, as Polly and Lucy, in the "Beggar's Opera," must have exhibited a matchless combination of singing and acting. Mrs. Clive was as ambitious as Mrs. Cibber, and would fain have played, like her, leading parts with Garrick. Her most successful attempt in this way was her Bizarre to his Duretete, in the "Inconstant." One effect of her careful, earnest, but perfectly natural and apparently spontaneous acting was to put every other player on his mettle. That done, Mrs. Clive took care the victory should not be lost to her for want of pains to gaily secure it. She was a capital mimic, particularly of the Italian signoras, whom she did not call by nice names. For a town languishing for the return of Cuzzoni, she had the most unqualified contempt. She herself was inimitable; she wrung from Johnson the rarest and most unqualified praise; and over her audiences she ruled supremely; they felt with her, smiled with her, sneered with her, giggled, tossed their heads, and laughed aloud with her. She was the one true Comic Genius, and none could withstand her. She had that power of identification which belongs only to the great intellectual players. She was a born buxom, roguish chambermaid, fierce virago, chuckling hoyden, brazen romp, stolid country girl, affected fine lady, and thoroughly natural old woman of whatever condition in life. From Phillida, in "Love in a Riddle," her first original character, to Mrs. Winnifred, in the "School for Rakes," her last, with forty years of toil and pleasure between them, she identified herself with all. _But_, in parts like Portia and Zara, which Mrs. Clive essayed, she fell below their requirements, though I do not know how the most beautifully expressive voice in the world could have been "awkwardly dissonant" in the latter part. Her Portia was too flippant, and in the trial scene it was her custom to mimic the most celebrated lawyer of the day. The laughter raised thereby was uncontrollable, but it was as illegitimately awakened as Dogget's when he played Shylock as a low comedy part. After forty years' service Mrs. Clive took leave of the stage, April 24, 1769, in Flora, in the "Wonder," and the Fine Lady in "Lethe." Garrick played Don Felix; King, Lissardo; and Mrs. Barry, Violante; a grand cast in which, we are told, Mrs. Clive made Flora, in the estimation of the audience, equal to Felix and Violante. Drury Lane, had it been capacious enough, would have held twice the number that gained admittance. From these she took leave, in an epilogue, weak and in bad taste, written by her friend Walpole, who affected to despise the writers of such addresses, and, in this case, did not equal those whom he despised. [Illustration: (Kitty Clive)]