| Citation |
PC.773.032
1-8 Mar 1773:252 (321)
London, Nov. 7 . . . The following is the inscription upon
the monument of Mrs. Pritchard, which was put up last
Wednesday, at the east end of Westminster Abbey next to
Shakespear, and opposite Handel's monument:
"This tablet is here placed by a voluntary subscription of
those who admired and esteemed her. She retired from the
stage, of which she had long been the ornament, in the month
of April 1768, and died at Bath in the month of August
following, in the 57th year of her age.
Her comic vein had ev'ry charm to please,
'Twas nature's dictates breath'd with nature's ease,
E'en when her powers sustain'd the tragic load,
Full, clear, and just, th'harmonious accents flow'd;
And the big passions of her feeling heart
Burst freely forth, and sham'd the mimic art.
Oft, on the scene, with colours not her own,
She painted vice, and taught us what to shun;
One virtuous track her real life pursu'd,
That nobler part was uniformly good.
Each duty there to such perfection wrought,
That, if the precepts fail'd, the example taught. [signed]
W. Whitehead, P.L.
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