moiselle Adelina Patti has succeeded in doing. The audiences of more than a century ago were not less susceptible than are those of to-day to the charms of a reigning favourite, and the “Lavinia Fenton mania” of the past will stand a comparison with any more recent furore created by actresses or singers of the present.
We do not purpose to tell over again the story of the great success of the “Beggars’ Opera.” It is certain, however, that to the charm and cleverness of the original Polly Peachum, a great share of that success was due. Swift wrote from Dublin to Gay for “Polly’s messo-tinto.” The print-shops could barely keep pace with the demand for the engravings of her portrait; ladies of fashion wore her likeness as part of the decoration of their fans; band of devoted admirers guarded her every night on her way home from the theatre after her performance; and, as the Notes to the “Dunciad” inform us, “her life was written, books of letters and verses to her published, and pamphlets made even of her sayings and jests.”
The life of a lady but just twenty years of age, could in no case pretend to be a very voluminous work. “The Life of Lavinia Beswick, alias Fenton, alias Polly Peachum,” is simply an octavo pamphlet numbering forty-eight pages. It is “Printed for A. Moore, near St. Paul’s, and sold by the booksellers and pamphlet shops in London and Westminster, 1728, price one shilling.” We are bound to say that the work is of a most catchpenny order—of very coarse execution—in literary worth little better than those productions of Mr. Catnach’s press which follow the execution of a malefactor at Newgate. Among its contents it professes to give information touching the heroine’s “birth and education;” “her first acquaintance with a certain Portuguese nobleman;” “on the Portuguese nobleman being confined in the Fleet, and the honourable method she took to gain him his liberty;” “a copy of verses which she composed on a fop, which conduced to her acquaintance with Mr. Huddy, for whose benefit at the New Theatre in the Haymarket she first appeared on the stage; a particular account of a benefit she shared with one Mr. Gilbert, a few weeks after Mr. Huddy’s, at the same theatre; her first admittance into the Theatre Royal in Lincoln’s Inn Fields; her weekly salary both now and then, and the time when, and the cause why, it was raised;” “her judgment in poetry and history painting, and the reasonable reason why so many great men have been her humble servants.” “The whole interspersed with convincing proofs of her ingenuity, wit, and smart repartees, and concluding with some remarkable instances of her humanity to the distressed.”
All this, with much other corresponding matter, is printed on the title-page, which in this instance resembles very much the platform outside a booth at a fair, on which are generally exhibited very much more interesting performances than are ever to be witnessed by paying the admission-fee and contemplating the stage inside. The book is by no means so full of entertainment as its title-page would seem to promise.
We gather, however, that the lady was born in 1708. Her father, whose name was Beswick, was a lieutenant of a man-of-war. Called away for professional duties before the birth of his child, he departed with a request that, in the event of the unborn proving to be a boy, the name of Porteus (probably his own name) should be bestowed upon him; but if a girl, that she should be called Lavinia. The little girl was so baptised; but the father does not appear again upon the scene, if indeed he ever came back from the voyage on which he had started. When the little girl was still quite an infant, her mother married one Fenton in the Old Bailey, and soon afterwards set up a coffee-house in the more fashionable neighbourhood of Charing Cross. The child was then called by the surname of her mother’s husband, and “being,” we are told, “of a vivacious, lively spirit, and a promising beauty,” she became a favourite plaything and romp with the fops frequenting the coffee-house. Soon, it seems, while she was yet quite a child, the charm of her voice became a subject of remark, and not less so the extraordinary correctness of her ear for music. She caught at once the tunes the “humming beaux”—so the musical gentlemen were called,—or habitués of the coffee-house, brought from the playhouses, and repeated accurately every song she had once heard her mother sing: and her mother would seem to have had considerable ability in this respect. “A comedian belonging to the old house” took great delight in the exhibition of the child’s cleverness, and was at some pains to teach her new songs, and to impart to her such instruction as he could command. She was then sent to a boarding-school, but was withdrawn when she was thirteen, and went to reside with her mother, who had, meanwhile, quitted Charing Cross and returned to the Old Bailey.
In the year 1726, when she was but eighteen years of age, we find the lady making her first appearance on the stage. A Mr. Huddy, who had been turned out of the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and had become the master of a strolling company, took a benefit at the New Theatre in the Haymarket, when was performed Otway’s tragedy of “The Orphan; or, the Unhappy Marriage,” in which the part of Monimia was sustained by Miss Fenton. She gained great applause; various presents were sent to her as pledges of public esteem, a customary mode at that day of paying tribute to the success of a performer; and she received many letters expressive of love and admiration on the part of certain members of the audience. In her Life is quoted at length a “billet,” represented to proceed from an ensign, very much overcome with the charms of the lady. The letter is certainly amusing, but then it is very likely to be apocryphal. The gentleman woos rather in the King Cambyses vein. Let the reader judge for himself:
Madam,
You may be a person of Honour, for aught I know to the contrary, and I hope you will be so honourable as not to let a Man of Honour die dishonourably at your feet. For, by Heavens! though I thought nothing so bright as my sword, yet I find your eyes are much brighter. My Dear, Dear Guardian Angel, could you conceive