Charles James Fox, Joshua Reynolds, Arthur Murphy, the dramatist, and
various other men of distinguished talent.

Though her memoirs are briefly sketched, they are sufficiently vivid to
present us with various pictures of the social life of the period of
which she was the centre. Now we find her at the Pantheon, with its
coloured lamps and brilliant music, moving amidst a fashionable crowd,
where large hoops and high feathers abounded, she herself dressed in a
habit of pale pink satin trimmed with sable, attracting the attention of
men of fashion. Again she is surrounded by friends at Vauxhall Gardens,
and barely escapes from a cunning plot to abduct her,--a plot in which
loaded pistols and a waiting coach prominently figure; whilst on another
occasion she is at Ranelagh, where, in the course of the evening, half a
dozen gallants "evinced their attentions;" and ultimately she makes her
first appearance as an actress on the stage of Drury Lane, before a
brilliant house, David Garrick, now retired, watching her from the
orchestra, whilst she played Juliet in pink satin richly spangled with
silver, her head ornamented with white feathers.

The fact of her becoming an actress brought about the turning-point in
her life; it being whilst she played Perdita in "The Winter's Tale"
before royalty that she attracted the Prince of Wales, afterward George
IV., who was then in his eighteenth year. The incidents which follow are
so briefly treated in the memoirs that explanations are necessary to
those who would follow the story of her life.

The performance of the play in which the prince saw her, probably for
the first time, took place on the 3d of December, 1779. It was not until
some months later, during which the prince and Perdita corresponded,
that she consented to meet him at Kew, where his education was being