“In our capacity of spectators we did not then see occasion to mention what had otherwise come to our knowledge—­that the evidences of extreme suffering manifested by Mrs. Glover on that evening—­her inability to go through her part, except as a mere shadow of her former self, and the substitution of an apologetic speech from Mr. Leigh Murray for the address which had been written for her by a well-known and talented amateur of the drama—­arose not merely from the emotion natural on a farewell night, after more than half a century of active public service, but also from extreme physical debility, the result of an attack of illness of a wasting character, which had already confined that venerable lady to her bed for many days.  In fact, it was only the determination of Mrs. Glover herself not to disappoint the audience, who had been invited and attracted for many weeks before, that overruled the remonstrances of her friends and family against her appearing at all.  She was then utterly unfit to appear on the stage in her professional character, and the most serious alarm was felt lest there should be some sudden and fatal catastrophe.  The result of the struggle of feeling she then underwent, superadded as it was to the physical causes which had undermined her strength, was, that Mrs. Glover sunk under the disease which had been consuming her, and quitted this life on Monday night.”

Mrs. Glover, born Julia Betterton, was daughter of an actor named Betterton, who held a good position on the London stage toward the close of the last century.  She is said to have been a lineal descendant of the great actor of the same name.  Her birthday was the 8th January, 1781.  Brought up, as most of our great actors and actresses have been, “at the wings,” she was even in infancy sent on the stage in children’s parts.  She became attached to the company of Tate Wilkinson, for whom she played, at York, the part of the Page in The Orphan; and she also exercised her juvenile talents in the part of Tom Thumb, for the benefit of George Frederick Cooke, who on the occasion doffed his tragic garb and appeared in the character of Glumdalcar.  Another character which she played successfully with Cooke was that of the little Duke of York in Richard the Third; into which, it is recorded, she threw a degree of spirit and childish roguishness that acted as a spur on the great tragedian himself, who never performed better than when seconded by his childish associate.  In 1796 she had attained such a position in the preparatory school of the provincial circuits, chiefly at Bath, that she was engaged at Covent Garden; in the first instance at L10 a week, and ultimately for five years at L15 a week, rising to L20; terms then thought “somewhat extraordinary and even exorbitant”.  Miss Betterton first appeared in London in October 1797, fifty-three years ago, as Elvira, in Hannah More’s tragedy of Percy.  Her success was great; and in