Who, meanly pilfering here and there a bit,
Deals music out as Murphy deals out wit,
Publish proposals, laws for taste prescribe,
And chant the praise of an Italian tribe:
Let him reverse kind Nature’s first decrees,
And teach e’en Brent a method not to please.
But the strangest treatment of all of the “Beggars’ Opera,” was reserved for the season of 1781, when Colman at the Haymarket produced the piece with all the men’s characters sustained by women, and the women’s by men. The oddity and grotesqueness of this entertainment attracted immense crowds, and the travestie was repeated several nights in succession. Eccentricities of this kind had been known before, but they had chiefly been confined to benefit nights, when the performers were often in the habit of doing strange things, or playing parts unsuited to them by way of amazing their friends and filling the theatre. The elegant actress, Mrs. Abington, played the low-comedy character of Scrub in the “Beaux Stratagem” on the occasion of her benefit in 1786; while during the same year, a very stout lady, Mrs. Webb, undertook the part of Falstaff, attracting an enormous crowd. Mrs. Cargill, who played Macheath, we read, “though short and thick, appeared quite at ease and acted with spirit.” Mrs. Webb appeared successfully as Lockit. “Edwin’s droll looks and awkward management of his petticoats; his love, his anger, and his distress in Lucy, the odd effect which his appearance, voice, and manner gave the songs, was a combination of burlesque which can never be forgotten by those who witnessed it.” “Any person,” continues the same critic, “who can recollect old Bannister, though he never saw him in Polly, can easily imagine how his rough manly face must look in a female head-dress, and his tall, robust person in a woman’s gown. His first appearance excited a tumultuous roar of laughter; and his fine low courtesies, with his grave, modest looks, conspired to keep it up for a considerable time. Though Bannister could take off Fenducci very exactly, and had performed Aronelli, both songs and dialogues, in falsetto, yet he did not disguise his natural voice either in speaking or singing when he acted Polly, nor excepting in holding up his train rather too high when he went off the stage sometimes, did he seem wilfully to burlesque the character. When he sang the songs, all was silent attention, and the travestie was forgotten; he sang them all in his finest style, and the serious ones in the most pathetic.” But the honours of the evening appear to have been carried off by Mrs. Wilson, who sustained the rôle of Filch. The original Filch had been a man called Nat Clarke, very lean in figure, meagre in face, shambling in gait, whose frequent employment it had been to appear as under or double Harlequin to Rich, whom he much resembled in size and form. Mrs. Wilson was a pretty, slight, dapper, piquant little woman, who played with remarkable spirit, and “seemed to be in reality as complete a young pickpocket as could be found among the boys who lurk about the doors of a theatre, and sang her song as if she had always frequented such society. Gay himself could not have wished for a better Filch!”
One more note and we conclude. Miss Fenton has not been the only lady who has been led to the peerage by her performance of Polly Peachum. Other representatives of the character have been similarly honoured. Lord Thurlow, the son of the chancellor of that name, who succeeded to his father’s title on the 12th September, 1806, was married to Miss Bolton, of Covent Garden Theatre, on the 13th November, 1813; and the famous Miss Stephens, of the same theatre, is now the Dowager Countess of Essex. Other ennobled actresses are chronicled in the following lines:
A Polly in a former age
Resigned the Captain and the stage,
To shine as Bolton’s Duchess;
Derby and Craven since have shown
That Virtue builds herself a throne,
Ennobling whom she touches.
The twelfth Earl of Derby married Miss Farren, and the late Lord Craven married Miss Louisa Brunton.
BALLAD OF THE PAGE AND THE KING’S DAUGHTER.
(TRANSLATED FROM GIEBEL.)
PART I.
The King rides forth to hunt to-day:
And midst the forest trees
The hunter’s horn, the hounds’ deep bay,
Are borne upon the breeze.
And when the noontide pours its rays
Through tangled bush and brake,
The King’s fair daughter slowly strays,
Nor knows which path to take.
Softly she rides, and by her side
The Page with golden hair;
And were she not a kingdom’s pride
They were a lovely pair.
He looks on her, loud beats his heart,
Crimsoned are brow and cheeks;
They’ve reached the beech trees’ thickest part
When glowing red he speaks.
“To hide my grief, it is in vain,
Oh, Princess, kind and fair;
My heart it breaks with love’s sweet pain,
Ah, listen to my prayer.
“If on that rosy mouth I might
Impress one single kiss,
The worst of deaths would seem but light
For such unhoped-for bliss.”
She says not “Yes”—no answer makes,
But checks her palfrey’s reins,
When from the saddle her he takes,
His hand her foot sustains.
Down to the woodland’s deepest shade
They steal and tell their love;
The nightingale sings in the glade,
Murmurs the turtle-dove.
The wild red roses bloom around
Beneath the leafy screen;
The green fresh moss strews all the ground,
Meet bed for Love’s soft Queen.
Upon the mossy bank they stay,
And let their horses rove,
Nor hear the nightingale’s sweet lay,
Nor horn wound in the grove.
