3. These sorrowful matrons, with hearts full of truth, With thoughts so profane, 'Tis a mercy to find that at church they contain; Even Henningham's' shapes their weak fancies entice, And rather than me they will ogle the Vice." Juliana, daughter of Henry Noel, second son of Edward, Viscount Gainsborough, and wife of Charles, the second Earl of Burlington and Corke; by whom she was mother of Richard, Earl of Burlington, the friend of Pope. 7 Lady Catharine Darnley, natural daughter of King James the Second, by Catharine Sidley, whom in 1685-6 he created Countess of Dorchester. Their daughter, who was born in 1683, was married October 28, 1699, to James, the third Earl of Anglesea; from whom, after about a year's cohabitation, she was separated for his cruel treatment of her. She afterwards (March 1, 1705-6,) married John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire. She died, March 13, 1742-3. A curious character of this lady, supposed to have been written by herself, may be found in Pope's Works. * Mary, daughter of William Fielding, Earl of Denbigh, and wife of Evelyn Pierrepont, Earl of Kingston. She was mother of the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley Montague. 9 Perhaps Arethusa Boyle, a daughter of Charles, Lord Clifford of Lanesborough, by his second wife. This lady afterwards married Vernon, Esq., son of Secretary Vernon. She was half-sister to Charles, Earl of Burlington, above mentioned; and therefore likely to have been grouped with his lady. 4. These practices, Madam, my preaching disgrace: Such disorders to end, And from the ripe vineyards such labourers send; ' The Honourable Henry Heveningham, who is sometimes called in the lampoons of the last age, Colonel Heveningham. In Motteux's GENTLEMAN'S JOURNAL are two songs, written by Colonel Heveningham; and that poet's tragedy, entitled BEAUTY IN DISTRESS, was dedicated to him, in 1698. In the Answer to a Satire in the STATE POEMS, iii. 148, he is called-well-shaped He'ningham; and in THE LOVERS' SESSION, a lampoon in the same collection, written about 1682, in imitation of Suckling's SESSION OF THE POETS, he is thus described: Harry He'ningham thought himself sure of a grant ; "But, O foolish, cries out villain Frank, he's a Cant; "His mistress ne'er knows, so odd 'tis exprest, "Whether he means to make love or a jest: "For he puts on so many several faces, "Is so full of his frank familiar grimaces, They cannot but think-he's acting a part, "And his passionate speeches has gotten by heart." The Hon. Peregrine Bertie, a younger son of Robert, Earl of Lindsey, and Lady Elizabeth Wharton, halfsister of Thomas, Earl of Wharton. He was appointed Vice-Chamberlain in 1690, and held that office till his death in 1711. 3 In the last age, and the early part of the present cen 5. The Princess, by rude importunity press'd, tury, ladies and gentlemen had so few opportunities of meeting, that the Church was frequently employed for the purposes of gallantry. Hence we find in the TATLER, No. 166, May 2, 1710, (written by Steele,) the following Advertisement, addressed to the belles and beaus of that period : "Whereas the several Church-wardens of most of the parishes within the bills of mortality have in an earnest manner applied themselves by way of petition, and have also made a presentment of the vain and loose deportment, during divine service, of persons of too great figure in all their said parishes for their reproof; and whereas it is therein set forth, that by salutations given each other, hints, shrugs, ogles, playing of fans, fooling with canes at their mouths, and other wanton gesticulations, their whole congregation appears rather a theatrical audience than an house of devotion: it is hereby ordered, that, all canes, cravats, bosom-laces, muffs, fans, snuff-boxes, and all other instruments made use of to give persons unbecoming airs, shall be immediately forfeited and sold; and of the sum arising from the sale thereof a ninth part shall be paid to the poor, and the rest to the Overseers." See also a Song by Motteux, entitled "the Bachelor's Wish," and published in the GENTLEMAN'S JOURNAL, in September, 1692: "One modestly free, not too proud of her means, "And tho' she writes woman, not out of her teens ; "Who visits the church, tho' custom can't move her "To play there at bo-peep, 'cross a pew, with a lover: "Yet let her with care shun a contrary evil, "Lest angel at church prove at home a mere devil." And now Britain's nymphs, in a Protestant reign,- As sure as a gun, Whenever a woman is kept like a nun. If any kind man from bondage will save her, THE CONFEDERATES: 4 or, The first Happy Day of THE ISLAND PRINCESS. S YE vile traducers of the female kind, Who think the fair to cruelty inclin'd, Recant your errour, and with shame confess Their tender care of Skipwith" in distress: 4 These spritely and elegant verses are also preserved in the STATE POEMS, vol. ii. p. 248. 5 Soon after the Revolution some original dramas were produced, with musical entertainments intermixed; and others were altered, and adapted to musick; among which we find THE PROPHETESS, THE FAIRY QUEEN, The INDIAN QUEEN, KING ARTHUR, DON QUIXOTE, and BONDUCA. These pieces, by the aid of Purcell's musick, having had great success, and the taste of the town for musical dramas growing daily stronger, the manager of the theatre in Drury-Lane, in 1699, employed Peter Motteux to convert Fletcher's ISLAND PRINCESS (which Tate had unsuccessfully revived a few years before) into a semi-opera; for which musick was composed by Jeremiah Clarke, (who, in 1697, had the honour of setting Dryden's ALEXANDER'S FEAST, when it was originally performed,) Daniel Purcell, and Richard Leveridge. Of For now, to vindicate this monarch's right, the piece itself an anonymous writer thus speaks in 1702; STATE POEMS, iv. 361: "Motteux and D'Urfey are for nothing fit, "But to supply with songs their want of wit. "Had not THE ISLAND PRINCESS been adorn'd "With tunes and pompous scenes, she had been scorn'd: "What was not Fletcher's, no more sense contains "Than he that wrote THE JUBILEE has brains; "Which ne'er had pleas'd the town, or purchased fame, "But that 'twas christen'd with a modish name." In a Petition presented to Queen Anne, about Nov. 1709, Charles Killigrew, Dr. Charles D'Avenant, Sir Thomas Skipwith, Baronet, Christopher Rich, William Collier, Lord Guilford, John Lord Hervey, Anne Shadwell, widow, and eleven other persons, are stated to have been then the proprietors of the two patents, which were granted by Charles II. in 1660, for establishing two companies of comedians, and were united in 1682; but when Sir Thomas Skipwith first acquired an interest in those united patents, I have not been able to ascertain.-It appears from the Report of the Attorney and Solicitor-General, (Edward Northey and Robert Raymond,) to whom a Petition of certain of these proprietors was referred in Feb. 1709-10, that Christopher Rich got a footing in DruryLane Theatre on the 24th of March, 1690-91, by Alexander D'Avenant assigning to him all his interest in that theatre, which in 1687 he derived from a similar assignment made to him by Charles D'Avenant, probably his brother; and from that time Rich has been considered as the principal manager of the entertainments exhibited there. In the Dedication of THE WORLD IN THE MOON |