The Laureat, in his Apology, thus characterises her:  ’She was, says he, though far advanced in years, so great a mistress of nature, that even Mrs. Barry, who acted Lady Macbeth after her, could not in that part, with all her superior strength, and melody of voice, throw out those quick and careless strokes of terror, from the disorder of a guilty mind, which the other gave us, with a facility in her manner that rendered them at once tremendous and delightful.  Time could not impair her skill, though it brought her person to decay:  she was to the last the admiration of all true judges of nature, and lovers of Shakespear, in whose plays she chiefly excelled, and without a rival.  When she quitted the stage, several good actresses were the better for her instruction.  She was a woman of an unblemished and sober life, and had the honour to teach Queen Anne, when Princess, the part of Semandra in Mithridates, which she acted at court in King Charles’s time.  After the death of Mr. Betterton, that Princess, when Queen, ordered her a pension for life, but she lived not to receive more than the first half year of it.’  Thus we have seen, that it is not at all impossible for persons of real worth, to transfer a reputation acquired on the stage, to the characters they possess in real life, and it often happens, as in the words of the poet,

  That scenic virtue forms the rising age,
  And truth displays her radiance from the stage.

The following are Mr. Betterton’s dramatic works;

1.  The Woman made a Justice; a Comedy.

2.  The Unjust Judge, or Appius and Virginia; a Tragedy, written originally by Mr. John Webster, an old poet, who lived in the reign of James I. It was altered only by Mr. Betterton, who was so cautious, and reserved upon this head, that it was by accident the fact was known, at least with certainty.

3.  The Amorous Widow, or the Wanton Wife, a Play, written on the plan of Moliere’s George Dandin.  The Amorous Widow has an under-plot interwoven, to accommodate the piece to the prevailing English taste.  Is was acted with great applause, but Mr. Betterton, during his life, could never be induced to publish it; so that it came into the world as a posthumous performance.

The chief merit of this, and his other pieces, lies in the exact disposition of the scenes; their just length, great propriety, and natural connexions; and of how great consequence this is to the fate of either tragedy or comedy, may be learned from all Banks’s plays, which, though they have nothing else to recommend them, yet never fail to move an audience, much more than some justly esteemed superior.  Who ever saw Banks’s earl of Essex represented without tears; how few bestow them upon the Cato of Addison.

Besides these pieces, Betterton wrote several occasional Poems, translations of Chaucer’s Fables, and other little exercises.  In a word, to sum up all that we have been saying, with regard to the character of this extraordinary person, as he was the most perfect model of dramatic action, so was he the most unblemished pattern of private and social qualities:  Happy is it for that player who imitates him in the one, and still more happy that man who copies him in the other.[8]