On the first night that the seceders opened the Haymarket, 21st September[19] 1733, with "Love for Love," Mrs. Pritchard played Nell, in the after-piece ("Devil to Pay"). The _Daily Post_ had already extolled the "dawning excellence" she had exhibited in a booth, and prophesied that she would charm the age. She played light comic parts throughout the season; but her powers as a tragedian do not seem to have been suspected. Mrs. Pritchard thus entered on her long and honourable career, a married woman, with a large family, and an excellent character, which she never tarnished. Cibber's daughter, Mrs. Charke, played a round of male parts during the same season,[20] Roderigo, in "Othello," being one of them. In the March of 1734, the seceders closed the Haymarket, and joined the wreck of the old company at Drury Lane, on which Mrs. Pritchard, like Macklin, was laid aside for a time. But while those eminent players were "under a cloud," there appeared Miss Arne, whose voice charmed all hearers, whose beauty subdued Theophilus Cibber, but who was not yet recognised as the tragic actress, between whom and Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Yates, critics, and the town generally, were to go mad with disputation. Meantime, no new drama was produced at Covent Garden, which lived in the public memory a month; but Quin shed a glory on the house, and quite eclipsed the careful, but heavy and decaying actor, Mills, who aspired to the parts which Booth's death had left unappropriated. In Macbeth and Othello, Thersites, Cato, Apemantus, and Gonzales, in the "Mourning Bride," he had at least no living rival. The contest for superiority had commenced before Booth's death; but Mills was never a match for Quin, and his name has not been preserved among us as that of a great actor. As it is otherwise with Quin, let us recapitulate some details of his previous career, before we accompany him over that period which he filled so creditably, till he was rudely shaken by the coming of Garrick.