The greatest loss to the stage, in the early years of the present century, was in the person of Miss Pope, the only real successor of Kitty Clive. She withdrew on the 26th of May 1808, after playing Deborah Dowlas in the "Heir-at-Law," for the first and last time. She had played as a child when Garrick was in the fullest of his powers; won his regard, and the friendly counsel of Mrs. Clive; played hoydens, chambermaids, and half-bred ladies, with a life, dash, and manner, free from all vulgarity; laughed with free hilarity that begot hilarious laughing; and the only question about her was not if she were an excellent actress or not, but as an actress, in what she most excelled. She gave up young parts for old as age came on, and would have done it sooner, but that managers found her still attractive in the younger characters. In them she had been without a rival; and when she took to the Duennas and Mrs. Heidelbergs, she became equally without a rival. She was the original Polly Honeycombe, Miss Stirling, Mrs. Candour, Tilburina, and of two or threescore other parts less known. Miss Pope was as good a woman, and as well bred a lady, as she was a finished actress, and was none the less a friend of Garrick for having little theatrical controversies with him touching costume, salary, or other stage matters. In the year she played Cherry, Polly Honeycombe, Jacinta, Phædra, Beatrice, Miss Prue, Miss Biddy, and other buoyant ladies and lasses, a poet said of her:-- "With all the native vigour of sixteen, Among the merry groups conspicuous seen, See lively Pope advance to jig and trip, Corinna, Cherry, Honeycombe, and Snip! Not without art, but yet to nature true, She charms the town with humour, just, yet new, Cheered by her promise, we the less deplore, The fatal time when Clive shall be no more." Such was she in Churchill's eyes, in 1761. The fairy of that day; but, in 1807, the fairy had expanded into "a bulky person, with a duplicity of chin." Such was she in the eyes of James Smith, to whom she told her love for handsome but fickle Holland, losing--or casting off whom--she never after heeded suit of mortal man.