Mrs. Barry. A stately person, a graceful carriage, a melodious and powerful voice, and a well-trained understanding constituted Mrs. Barry's inducements to try her fortune on the stage. She was the daughter of Edward Barry, a barrister, afterwards called Colonel Barry, from his having raised a regiment of horse for the service of King Charles. His ruin was involved in that of his royal master, and his family were compelled to trust to their own exertions for their future subsistence. Lady Davenant, who had known the Colonel in his prosperous days, took charge of his daughter Elizabeth, superintended her education, and in the year 1673 obtained her admission into the Duke's company. After a year's trial, her talents were deemed so inferior, and her progress was so slow, that she was discharged as being a burden on the troupe. Through Lady Davenant's interest, she obtained a further trial, and received a second and a third dismissal for the same reasons. Such rebuffs might have daunted the most sanguine mind, but Mrs. Barry had resolved to succeed and did. Her principal defect was in the ear; but by the most untiring assiduity she so far perfected that organ, as to bring it into unison with her other extraordinary faculties, and when Otway brought his "Alcibiades" on the stage, she was included in the cast, and reaped the reward of her labours in the unexpected applause she commanded. Her spirited performance of Mrs. Lovitt, in Etheredge's "Man of the Mode" extorted universal commendation, and in 1680, her Monimia in Otway's "Orphan" fixed her future fame. Her Belvidera in "Venice Preserved," and her Isabella in Southerne's "Fatal Marriage," were exhibitions of the highest art; and the epithet of "famous" was so universally applied to her, that it became her distinguishing title. She was equally eminent in depicting the wildest passion and the most winning tenderness. Her outbursts of resentment or
