ENNOBLED ACTRESSES.

BY MRS. MATHEWS.

"Shall those who pursue a profession which requires education, knowledge of the world, profound acquirement, elevation of mind, and every gift of nature, be the objects of continual humiliation? Shall they in no respect be on an equality with the rest of the public? What! shall the monarch who commands me to appear before him, the author who submits his productions to me, the public who come to hear and applaud me, all have their rights and privileges, and yet I possess none? I am obedient to the authority placed over me, I add new beauties to the characters entrusted to me, I enable the public to pass their hours agreeably, and I am rewarded by contempt! The disgrace which is attempted to be attached to the profession of the stage is a reflection upon the nation that suffers it." MADAME CLAIRON.

Or all the cants that now pervade a minor portion of periodical criticism, that which affects disdain of actors is surely the most inconsistent and ungrateful; since the most emphatic contemner of the man and his vocation,-he whose pen has been exercised during the morning in writing down the bitterest contempt of the artist and his art, may be seen in the evening laboriously elbowing his way, sometimes at the peril of life or limb, through a stubborn and offensive crowd, in eager solicitude to witness a display of those talents, the very existence of which he has perhaps previously denied, or at least questioned; or if at any time compelled to join the popular voice of praise, it follows that in proportion to the admission of his own enjoyment of the acting, the more implacable is his animosity towards the actor.

There is something in this more than natural, and philosophy might, we think, find it out.

It is pretended by blind detractors, that the lives of actors and actresses are consequently and necessarily immoral. Actors are not supposed to be exempt from the frailties of their fellowmen; their follies, vanities, and vices are in common: but to say that they are more depraved than any other class, is most illiberal and unjust. The wisest and best have encouraged the stage. That "majestic teacher of moral and religious wisdom," Dr. Johnson, not only wrote for it, but held intimacy-nay, friendship, with an actor: many divines have also contributed to the literature of the Drama, and held fellowship with its professors. Vice will creep into a theatre, as well as into other buildings made with human hands; and "where's the place whereinto vile things sometimes intrude not?" However individual prejudice may refuse to admit the public benefit derived from a theatre, that place of concourse and refinement has "done the state some service," and which the state acknowledges by its legal sanction and general patronage. To attempt to convince these pseudo-moralists that actors are partakers of the good as well as the bad qualities of our common-nature, would be a bootless task; but to the unprejudiced and fair-judging, a brief counter-statement, while we are upon the subject, may not be deemed intrusive or blameable; and we venture upon albeit "unmusical to Volscian ears."

the theme,

The interior of a London theatre is composed of a very nume

rous and varied class of human beings. Those visible before the curtain form but a small number compared with those behind it, whose silent labours uphold the building in an equal degree, and, numerically and conducively considered, are of as much importance to public gratification, as are the actors themselves. The various members of this body are of all degrees and temperaments, -the ignorant and well-informed - the rich and the poor-the master and the servant. Many of these humbler aids have been bred within the walls of a theatre, and know no other school of morality for six days out of the seven; yet a more orderly set of people are not to be found labouring for their weekly pittance in any public establishment in the kingdom. If the atmosphere of a theatre necessarily engender vice, and render its morals worse than those of people who congregate in other public buildings, how is it that vice's usual concomitant-crime, is so seldom heard of? How is it that, in the "volumes of report" which reach us through the columns of the public press, we so rarely see a member of this much-abused body cited in the daily registry of depravity, outrage, and murder? Years elapse without one instance of such delinquency being laid bare by judicial inquiry; and yet these people hold no patent of exemption from legal correction: so far from it, the actions of such persons are more exposed and open to detection and comment than others. If on the stage an actor give offencerefuse or fail to fulfil the just expectation of his audience; if he forget his assumed character in public, summary vengeance clamourously overtakes him: if he forget his private character, society is open-mouthed in his condemnation; and, if he trespass against the law, the law will surely be his schoolmaster.

It is too true, that we have more than once heard of an actor having incurred the disgrace of being for a certain portion of time sent to Coventry by his brethren and the laws of propriety; but we never yet heard of one being sent, even for a septennial season, to any penal settlement by the laws of his country; and further, there is not, we believe, a solitary instance on record, of an actor or actress, though they may have died many times in public upon their own stage, having made their final exit on the platform of the Old Bailey or elsewhere. Let these negative, but surely not inc ›nsiderable evidences in favour of the children of Thespis, and of the innoxious tendency of stage representations to demoralize the professors, in some measure relax the animosity of the indiscriminate censurer; let him "bind them as a sign upon his hand, and they will be as frontlets before his eyes" when he takes up his critical pen.

Or better than this,-let him, if he can, make acquaintance with such men as Charles Kemble, Charles Young, (they may be met with in the best society,) Mr. Liston, or others of our pattern actors. His dislike to the fraternity will then vanish into thin air, and he will thenceforth join in Barry Cornwall's eulogium on the profession generally; or at least adopt that gentleman's recorded opinion of the actors themselves, namely, that "they are an active and intelligent body of men, and beyond comparison the most amusing company extant." Having said thus much for the "poor player," our more immediate concern is with the feminine portion of the community. From these fair flowers we would form a garland to be placed over

the mirror of the young actress on her first entrance into a theatre, as an incitement to virtue, and to remind us how advantageous, even in a politick point of view, it is to have regard to private character. D'Alembert truly observed, "that the chastity of actresses is more exposed than that of any other women; but then," he adds, "the glory of the victory ought to be the greater." We further quote from him (for we love authorities in all cases) an opinion, that "grant but distinctions to virtuous actresses, and their order would be the most severe of all with regard to morals." D'Alembert's speculation referred, of course, to his own country women, but it applies equally to ours; and in calling the reader's attention to the history of those females who, by their beauty, talents, and private merits, have severally attained rank and station, out of a profession little congenial to any, after the glow of early enthusiasm has passed away, it will appear, that from the moment of such elevation, their conduct and character have been remarkable for every active moral quality. Not a solitary case of an actress, exalted by her husband's rank, and sharing with him the general privileges of his high position, can be adduced, of one, so distinguished, having disgraced it. In reference to our purposed chaplet of flowers, culled from the theatrical parterre, and transplanted by noble hands to "a more removed ground," we must regret that our first specimen, first by chronological claim of precedence and right of rank, is not presented in such perfect odour to the moral sense, as we hoped it would be when we selected it as a sample of the whole. The goodly blossom did not, it seems, escape a partial canker; but, as in fuller bloom it attained a great and permanent lustre, we must not throw it aside, (indeed our wreath, without it, would be incomplete,) remembering that in Persia the rose is not considered worthless until it has lost its "hundred leaves;" and that in our own country the judicious lapidary does not cast away a splendid diamond, because he has detected in it one flaw.

Having premised thus much, we at once present to our indulgent reader Her Grace

THE DUCHESS OF BOLTON,

(THE ORIGINAL "POLLY" IN THE BEGGARS' OPERA.")

The person so long known and celebrated under the name of Miss Fenton, was the daughter of a Mr. Beswick, a lieutenant in the Navy, and was born in 1708. Shortly after her birth, her mother married a Mr. Fenton, the keeper of a coffee-house at Charing Cross, who sensibly considering it more reputable to all parties that his infant daughter-in-law should bear his name, rather than that of her father, our heroine was thenceforth, until the period of her own marriage, known only as Lavinia Fenton.

The last two centuries have not, perhaps, produced a more striking instance of the caprice of fortune, than in the history of this remarkable person, of obscure birth, bred up in the bar of a public coffee-house, afterwards placed upon the boards of a theatre, and ultimately raised to the first rank of the country.

It is recorded that in childhood the little Lavínia evinced precocious talents, with extraordinary faculties and acquirements. Amongst other natural gifts, she was found to possess a clear and

melodious voice, and gave with this a decided evidence of a musical tendency and taste. As she increased in age and stature, her genius developed itself in equal progression, and obtained for her such notice as might be expected from the publicity of her situation, in which her great abilities could not fail to attract the attention of the habitués of the coffee-room. So much general praise, added to his natural shrewdness, at length suggested to her nominal father the prospective advantages that might ensue from a proper cultivation of these native powers; and it followed, that efficient masters were engaged to instruct the young Lavinia in various branches of polite education, especially in music.

In those days the Italian school of singing was little known, and less practised in England, a well-executed English ballad being considered the perfection of vocal excellence. In this style, then so popular, Lavinia was carefully trained; and, if we may rely upon the opinion of the best musical judges of her day, and the great reputation she obtained, Miss Fenton must have greatly excelled all contemporary singers. Her exceeding quickness of acquirement and her extraordinary talents were so loudly proclaimed by her father's patrons and friends, that the report of her varied excellence reached the ears of the manager of the Haymarket Theatre, who eventually engaged her, not, as it appears, exclusively for operatic performances, for she made her début in the character of Monimia, in Otway's play of "The Orphan," in the year 1726, she being then eighteen years of age. The experiment was as successful as the débutante's most sanguine friends and admirers could anticipate, and her improvement was so rapid, that Miss Fenton might very soon be said to be the fashion. Attractively accomplished, and handsome in person, it remained but to know her rigid propriety of conduct off the stage, to seal her favouritism with "the town," and win for the young actress universal praise, as well as substantial profit. In those times presents were the usual medium by which the good opinion of the public was evinced out of the theatre for performers of merit ; and of such, actresses might boast without the least disparagement to their private reputation. Costly gifts were then considered but oblations at the shrine of genius and virtue, and the recipients displayed them not only without any impeachment of their moral conduct, but without the slightest imputation of sordid or servile condescension. With such generally distinguishing manifestations of admiration, it will not be doubted that Miss Fenton attracted more particular proofs of her admirable qualities. Amongst her many professed adorers appeared a young man of very high rank, but not of equally exalted principles. This person made every effort that wealth and libertine passion could suggest, to draw the young actress from her honest, though public labours, into the privacy of vicious ease; and, in return for the sacrifices he required on her side, he proposed to surrender all his town-pleasures (i. e. vices), and to retire with her into the country, upon any terms, short of marriage, that she might dictate.* This offer was soon the talk of the

Here let it be noted by the prejudiced reader, who may have been told of the curtained immorality of the side-scenes, that in almost all cases of falling off in female conduct and character, the temptation and the tempter come from without the walls of a theatre; such persons are mostly strangers to the profession, unversed in the habits of actors, and, consequently, unvitiated by their baneful association.

VOL. XVII.

X X

town, for "his tongue became his own shame's orator." It was, consequently, also known that his dishonourable proposals were rejected with disdain; and as it was more than suspected that the young lady had not only anticipated, but hoped for a more flattering result from his attentions, her virtuous conduct endeared her still more to her private friends, and at the same time enhanced her public reputation.

Shortly after this she appeared in the character of Cherry in "The Beaux Stratagem," and with so much increased success, that Mr. Rich, the manager of the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields,* lured her thither by an offer of a larger salary; and she, who had so recently repulsed an agreeable but dishonourable lover, and refused his invitation to luxury and "gold, a store !" was not proof against the vast temptation offered by this rich manager, of-fifteen shillings per week!—an offer which a modern coryphée would reject with indignation. On these splendid terms our heroine made her first appearance at this theatre on the 15th of August in the same year, in the character of Lucilla, in "The Man's the Master," and remained at the same until the year 1728, the great era of her fame and fortune, when "The Beggars' Opera" was produced, in which Miss Fenton was the original Polly.

The unprecedented popularity of this opera for nearly two centuries is known to all theatrical amateurs; nevertheless, it may not be deemed irrelevant in this place to introduce some interesting particulars relating to it, not very commonly known. On its first representation its success was doubtful, until after the opening of the second act, when the chorus of "Let us take the road," produced unanimous applause, and decided the fate of the author. The character of Peachum was modelled upon that of Jonathan Wild, the notorious thief and thief-taker, who, two or three years before the production of the opera, had been executed for his innumerable villanies. Peachum's methodical and business-like perusal of the Tyburn list was but a representation of Wild's daily practice.

Gay, to whom and his party the Prime Minister was inimical, by frequent comparison in this opera of highwaymen to courtiers, with other political allusions, drew the attention of the public to the character of Sir Robert Walpole, who, like other prime ministers, had a strong party against him, ready to find a parallel, or, at least, a resemblance, between the two characters. The following fact will show what both friends and enemies were agreed upon; namely, that Sir Robert possessed a large fund of good humour, the which few accidents could overcome.

In the scene where Peachum and Locket are discovered settling their nefarious accounts, Locket's song,

"When you censure the age," &c.+

had such an effect upon the audience, that the major part of it simultaneously turned their eyes upon the stage-box, where the minister was sitting, and loudly encored it. Sir Robert, with his characteristic acuteness, instantly felt this stroke, and received it with good temper and discretion; for, no sooner was the song a second time ended, than he joined in the general applause, and called for another Known now as the premises of Mr. Spode, the china manufacturer, + This song was said to be written by Swift.