Cymbeline - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

66.
times on November 16 and 20, 1826, without attracting any
notice. She had made her dfbut at Brury Lane at the beginning
of the season, as Violante in The Wonder. Talfourd's
criticism of her Jane Shore - that she "gave no reason to
believe that tragedy will ever be her forte. but afforded
assurance that she will beautifully express the milder
sorrows of the sentimental drama" - a criticism of her in
her first season, can be compared with the opinion of The
Atlas on her Olivia in Knowles's The Rose of Aragon;
... pervaded by an earnest and thrilling
expression of womanly feeling. Her parting
with her husband, her terrible scene with
Almagro, and that blushing passage in her
scene with her brother, where she reveals the
outrage that had been committed upon her by
Almagro, were alike distinguished by the
purity and pathos of her delivery.
By this time - June, 1842 - she had established herself in
this "line of business"; in the words of The Athenaeum.
reporting on her performance of Mrs. Beverley in The
Gamester, she "set the ladies sobbing for sympathy with her
sorrows" Miss Tree did not repeat her performance of
Imogen until 1833, when she appeared with Macready and
Cooper.
The Posthumus at Drury Lane in 1826 was Cooper, the
lachimo, Bennett. Cooper appeared as lachimo in 1828 at
Drury Lane (with Macready and Miss Foote) and in 1829 at the
same theatre; on the latter occasion Young played Posthumus
"with his accustomed energy" although he did not "look the
character" (The Morning Chronicle. February 10, 1829).
In 1829, Imogen was played, for the first time, by
Miss Phillips, of whom reports differ markedly. The
Examiner condemned the performance:
It is preferable, under any circumstances,
to say a kind word than an unkind one, above
all to a lady, as we believe in the correct
acceptation of the title. Upon the present
occasion, we could not acquit ourselves of