Certes, Booth was in love when he wrote this eulogy.

But however sprightly and deftly did this charmer pirouette, she could not deny herself the luxury of appearing as a regular actress.  Her first venture in this direction was as the Eunuch of “Valentinian,” wherein she donned boy’s attire, and was much more successful in masculine garb than have been not a few better artists.  From this part to that of Dorcas Zeal in Shadwell’s play, “The Fair Quaker of Deal,"[A] was but a step, and a step, be it said, which for the moment consoled the public for her desertion from the ballet.  According to Cibber, Santlow was the happiest incident in the fortune of the play, and the Laureate tells us that she was “then in the full bloom of what beauty she might pretend to."[B] He adds that “before this she had only been admired as the most excellent dancer, which perhaps might not a little contribute to the favourable reception she now met with as an actress in this character which so happily suited her figure and capacity:  the gentle softness of her voice, the composed innocence of her aspect, the modesty of her dress, the reserv’d deceny of her gesture, and the simplicity of the sentiments that naturally fell from her, made her seem the amiable maid she represented.  In a word, not the enthusiastick Maid of Orleans was more serviceable of old to the French army when the English had distressed them, than this fair Quaker was at the head of that dramatick attempt upon which the support of their weak society depended.”

[Footnote A:  Produced at Drury Lane in February, 1710.]

[Footnote B:  It might appear from this remark of Colley’s that the Santlow was not over handsome.  Yet if a picture taken from life does not belie her the dancer was most fair to look upon.]

This “weak society” was the new company recruited by William Collier for Drury Lane Theatre, and wherein could be found, in addition to the light-limbed Hester, such players as her adoring swain, Barton Booth, Theophilus Keen, George Powell, Francis Leigh, Mrs. Bradshaw and Mrs. Knight.  Colley was at that time (1710) in opposition to Drury, his interest lying with the Hay market management, and it is very evident that the success of the “Fair Quaker”—­a success made in face of the counter attraction furnished by the long trial of Dr. Sacheverel—­went sorely against the grain with him.[A] The fact was that things at the Hay market were not flourishing, and the prosperity enjoyed by the Drury Lane comedy—­and the Sacheverel show—­seemed tantalising to bear.

[Footnote A:  Shadwell evidently had Cibber in mind when he wrote in the preface to the “Fair Quaker of Deal”:  “This play was written about three years since, and put into the hands of a famous comedian belonging to the Haymarket Playhouse, who took care to beat down the value of it so much as to offer the author to alter it fit to appear on the stage, on condition he might have half the profits of the third day; that is as much as to say, that it may pass for one of his, according to custom.  The author not agreeing to this reasonable proposal, it lay in his hands till the beginning of this winter, when Mr. Booth read it, and liked it, and persuaded the author that, with a little alteration, it would please the town.”]