as a vain, flighty, and vacillating person. He was rewarded by being the only man whom she ever seriously thought of marrying. Her mode of life was not conducive to the furtherance of her health, and at the comparatively early age of thirty-seven years her friends saw a change both in the demeanor and the appearance of the witty woman. The seeds of an internal disorder had been sown, but, with her usual recklessness, she failed to heed the premonitions of nature until the malady was too far advanced for cure. At about this time the famous John Wesley was stirring London with his preaching. She attended his chapel through curiosity, and afterward from conviction. She was clearheaded and honest enough to see the force of the religious truth which he presented, and was brought quite under the influence of the great preacher. As a result of the awakening of her religious nature, she determined on the reformation of her private life, although she does not appear to have linked with that the purpose of quitting her profession. She resolved, however, not to remain before the public until they tired of her. As she herself expressed it: "I will never destroy my reputation by clinging to the shadow after the substance is gone. When I can no longer bound on the boards with elastic step, and when the enthusiasm of the public begins to show symptoms of decay, that night will be the last appearance of Margaret Woffington." She was not destined to remain before the public until they wearied of her; on May 3, 1757, she appeared as Rosalind in _As You Like It_. The circumstances of the tragic close of her dramatic career, as quoted from a contemporary writer in Blackburn's _Illustrious Irish Women_, were as follows: "She went through Rosalind for four acts without my perceiving she was in the least disordered; but in the fifth she complained of great indisposition. I offered her my arm, the which she graciously accepted; I thought she looked softened in her behaviour, and had less of the hauteur. When she came off at the quick change of dress, she again complained of being ill, but got accoutred, and returned to finish the part, and pronounced in the epilogue speech,--'If it be true that good wine needs no bush, it is as true that a good play needs no epilogue,' &c., &c. But when she arrived at 'If I were among you, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me,' her voice broke, she faltered, endeavoured to go on, but could not proceed; then, in a voice of tremor, screamed, 'O God! O God!' and tottered to the stage door speechless, where she was caught. The audience, of course, applauded until she was out of sight, and then sunk into awful looks of astonishment--both young and old, before and behind the curtain--to see one of the most handsome women of the age, a favourite principal actress, and who had for several seasons given high entertainment, struck so suddenly by the hand of death in