retired in 1769) and documented by the
panegyrics of Fielding, Murphy, Churchill, Garrick, Dr. Johnson, Horace
Walpole, Goldsmith, fellow players, contemporary memoir writers, and
audiences who admired her.[3] Dr. Johnson, I feel, gives the most
balanced, just contemporary appraisal of Mrs. Clive the actress: "What
Clive did best, she did better than Garrick; but could not do half so
many things well; she was a better romp than any I ever saw in
nature."[4] Part of the half she could not do well were tragedy roles,
attested to by Thomas Davies, who comments on her performances as
Ophelia in _Hamlet_ and Zara in _The Mourning Bride_: "Of Mrs. Clive's
Ophelia I shall only say, that I regret that the first comic actress in
the world should so far mistake her talents as to attempt it." And on
Zara, "for her own benefit, the comic Clive put on the royal robes of
Zara: she found them too heavy, and, very wisely, never wore them
afterwards."[5] Part of the half she could do well is noticed, once
again, by Davies: particularly adroit and distinguished in chambermaid
parts, Mrs. Clive

excelled also in characters of caprice and affectation, from the
high-bred Lady Fanciful to the vulgar Mrs. Heidelberg; in country
girls, romps, hoydens and dowdies, superannuated beauties, viragos
and humourists; she had an inimitable talent in ridiculing the
extravagant action and impertinent consequence of an
Opera-singer--of which she gave an excellent specimen in _Lethe_.
Her mirth was so genuine that whether it was restrained to the arch
sneer, and suppressed half-laugh, or extended to the downright
honest burst of loud laughter, the audience was sure to accompany
her [my punctuation].[6]

Mrs. Clive's stature as a comic actress would, then, seemingly make her
a prize for Rich or Fleetwood, but they did their best to thwart her
career and happiness at their theaters.

I suspect that their motivation in so doing was fear that her temper,
her influence with other actors and her audiences, and her strong
loyalty to her profession would hinder their legislated power to control
absolutely London theaters, players, and audiences in 1743. Not much
investigation is required to see Mrs. Clive at her clamoring best, at
various times head to head with Susannah Cibber, Peg Woffington,
Woodward, Shuter, or Garrick. Her letters to Garrick show that as late
as the sixties she was quite capable of vitriol