attentions might have developed into something serious if Miss Farren had not appeared in the part of Nancy Love in Colman's play of "The Suicide." Disguised as Dick Rattler, in what was then called a "breeches part," her grace and symmetry vanished. She was declared to be "all in one straight line from head to foot," and Fox ceased his attentions.
As Lady Townley in "The Provoked Husband," and Lady Fanciful in "A Provoked Wife," she was restored to public favour again and never repeated this unfortunate experiment. She was called "the lovely and accomplished Miss Farren" by George Colman, the younger, who adds that "no person more successfully performed the elegant levities of Lady Townley." Hazlitt speaks enthusiastically of "her fine lady airs and graces, with that elegant turn of the head and motion of her fan and tripping of her tongue." Horace Walpole goes so far as to say "she was the most perfect actress he had ever seen," and Richard Cumberland calls her style exquisite. When Mrs. Abington retired from the stage in 1782, Miss Farren reigned without a rival in depicting fine ladies of fashion. She sometimes took Shakespearean parts—Maria in "Twelfth Night," Portia, Hermione and Juliet—but she was always at her best as the fashionable lady of the period, wielding her fan with dexterity and grace. In August, 1785,
