On Wednesday the 9th April 1777 Samuel Curwen walked to the Covent Garden Theatre to see a production of Sheridan’s Duenna followed by Wycherley’s Country Wife. He was bewitched by the actress Mrs. Wilson writing that,
‘the Duenna and Country Wife, very humorous and diverting, especially the last, the *Country Wife Mrs. Pinchwife justly performed by a Mrs. Wilson the most natural imitation I have seen on stage without excepting the applauded Mr Garrick…’
By the 1780s Mrs Wilson’s approach to stage craft appears to have changed, particularly in the eyes of one reviewer who wrote,
‘When Mrs. Wilson performed in the country, she seemed an easy, unaffected young lady, handsome, genteel, and a good voice; since she has been transplanted, those perfections seem to have fled, to leave room for affectation, &c. &c. To see her in the Widow of Delphos, she is so bestayed, and so becorked, and so bedizened in plumes and flowers, &c. and then she stalks, first to the right, and then to the left, and then she has so many evolutions, and revolutions, that all we can think is, that she has at least learned the manual exercise, since her arrival in town, with all the other qualifications of the fine folks of London. Her husband, Mr Wilson, does not stand in the same predicament, having improved so much, in low comedy, as to be at least equal to the late Mr. Shuter.’
Unfortunately little is known about Sarah (Mrs. Wilson) during this period of her life, but there was definitely a change in character and outlook about the year 1782/83 after or during her affair with Viscount Hinchingbrooke; this may not have caused the change of course and both the affair and the abandonment of Garrick’s naturalism may have been a consequence of it rather than the cause.
By 1782 she had clearly set out to become a fashion icon, hence the glammed up and often ridiculous appearances at the opera and at masquerades. After her rivalry with Mrs Robinson was truncated by Robinson’s removal to the continent, Sarah faded from public life. She may have been ill or she may have reconsidered her philosophy and returned to concentrating on her theatre roles at Covent Garden. This was cut short by her illness and eventual death in the winter of 1786/87 and makes this verse taken from a fan poem in tribute to her performance in The Beggar’s Opera all the more poignant:
‘But why do I rehearse this toyish rhyme?
Thy fame will live to the remotest time;
When actors, poets, from life’s stage are fled,
And rest in peace among the silent dead.’
J Hogdson aged 14
*Sarah Wilson fell ill on stage during this run of performances (10/02/1777) and was replaced by the future Mrs Cargill, Ann Brown; the cause of her illness is unknown.
MJ Holman @mishjholman
