In 1784 she came up to London to see Mrs. Siddons act. Mrs. Clive was born in the lifetime of Elizabeth Barry, who had acted before Charles II.; she had seen Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Yates, and Anne Barry; and finally, she saw Mrs. Siddons. Mrs. Clive listened to the new actress with profound attention; and on being asked, at the conclusion of the performance, what she thought of it: "Think!" said the vivacious old lady, in her ready way; "I think it's all truth and daylight!" In the December of the following year, the long career of this erst comic muse came to a close. Walpole tells it briefly, unaffectedly and well. "It did not much surprise me," he says; "and the manner comforts me. I had played at cards with her, at Mrs. Gostling's, three nights before I came to town, and found her extremely confused, and not knowing what she did; indeed I had seen something of this sort before, and had found her much broken this autumn. It seems, that the day after I saw her, she went to General Lister's burial, and had got cold, and had been ill for two or three days. On the Wednesday morning she rose to have her bed made; and while sitting on the bed, with her maid by her, sank down at once, and died without a pang or a groan." So departed the actress, of whom Johnson said, that she had more true humour than any other he had ever seen. She originated nearly fourscore characters; among others, Nell, in the latter "Devil to Pay;" Lappet ("Miser"); Edging[122] ("Careless Husband"); half a dozen Kittys; but chief of all, the Kitty of "High Life Below Stairs;" Muslin ("Way to Keep Him"); and Mrs. Heidelberg, in the "Clandestine Marriage." HARRY WOODWARD: to think of him, is to think of Captain Bobadil,--in which he never had equal,--and of Harlequin, in which he was second only to Rich. To remember Harry Woodward, is to remember the original French Cook, in Dodsley's "Sir John Cockle," wherein Woodward turned to good account the French he had learned at Merchant Tailors' school. He was also the first Beau in "Lethe;" and his Flash in "Miss in her Teens," his Jack Meggot in the "Suspicious Husband," his Dick in the "Apprentice," his Block in the "Reprisal," his Lofty in the "Good Natured Man," his Captain Ironsides in the "Brothers," and his Captain Absolute in the "Rivals," were all original and brilliant creations, in acting which, the best of his many brightly-endowed successors lacked something possessed by _him_, whose Slender and Petruchio are described as being perfect pictures of simplicity and manliness.