Priscilla Horton as a winged Ariel in The Tempest. Published in 1838.

In 1837, she joined in W. C. Macready's company at Covent Garden Theatre. There she played Mopsa in The Winter's Tale, the Boy in Henry V, and the Fool in King Lear, before playing Ariel. Historian Paul Buczkowski judges that "Horton brought a lively intelligence to her roles, and was almost as highly lauded in tragedy for instance, as Ophelia in Hamlet and the Fool in King Lear as in comedy." Horton joined Benjamin Webster's Haymarket company, playing Ophelia in 1840. The Athenaeum observed that "The only striking novelty in the performance is the Ophelia of Miss P. Horton, which approaches very nearly to the wild pathos of the original in one scene, and is touching and beautiful in all." In 1851 she played Hecate in Macready's farewell Macbeth. The earliest Ariels were necessarily male, but Victorians and Edwardians favored actresses in the role, while many modern productions have reverted to males for unexplained reasons (see, for example, Gallery 6, Image 64). Artist: H. Johnston; Taylor, Weld: lithographers; McLean & Haes: publisher;. Lithograph coloured by han.