Woffington

In the second case, where Charles Reade sought to resume his rights in "Peg Woffington" and "Christie Johnstone," from his publisher Bentley, after all expenses had been paid and profits on several editions accounted for, the Vice Chancellor held that the contract, as of a personal nature, could be terminated by the author when that did not involve loss to the other party.

In the lives of scores of super-women—of Lola Montez, Marie de Chevreuse, Lady Hamilton, Adah Menken, Peg Woffington, Adrienne Lecouvreur, even of Cleopatra—there was somewhere a hiatus,—a "dark spot" that they would never afterward consent to illumine.

For once, when Woffington fell ill, he fiercely refused to have a physician summoned.

Next day, all London knew that Mistress Peg Woffington had been stricken with paralysis and that from the neck down she was dead.

Thus did Peg Woffington, a queen of her century's actresses and consummate heart conjurer, make her professional debut.