Dramatis Personæ
[p. 9] Sancho, Pimp to Lucetta. Mr. John Lee. There were at this time two actors and two actresses of the name Lee, Leigh, who, especially in view of the eclectic spelling of seventeenth-century proper names, need to be carefully distinguished. John Lee, who appeared in the small rôle of Sancho and also took the equally unimportant part of Sebastian in Abdelazer this same year, had, according to Downes, joined the Duke’s Company about 1670. He never rose above an entirely insignificant line, and we find him cast as Alexas in Pordage’s Herod and Mariamne, 1673; Titiro in Settle’s Pastor Fido, 1676; Pedro in Porter’s The French Conjurer, and Noddy in The Counterfeit Bridegroom, 1677. He was, it is almost certain, the husband of the famous Mrs. Mary Lee. Downes’ entry runs as follows: ‘Note, About the year 1670, Mrs. Aldridge, after Mrs. Lee, after Lady Slingsby, also Mrs. Leigh Wife, Mr. John Lee, Mr. Crosby, Mrs. Johnson, were entertain’d in the Dukes House.’ There is of course some confusion here. Antony Leigh, it may be noted, is not mentioned in the Roscius Anglicanus for another three years to come (1673), and there can be little doubt that the above passage should read ‘also Mrs. Leigh’s [Lee’s] husband, Mr John Lee’. If this were not so, there would be no point in Downes mentioning so minor an actor at this juncture and in such a list. Crosby and Mrs. Johnson were both performers of great merit, in fact Downes, a page later, has a special warm word of praise for the lady whom we find cast as Carolina in Shadwell’s Epsom Wells (1672). Crosby played such parts as Mr. Cleverwit, Lucia’s lover, in Ravenscroft’s Mamamouchi (1672), Alonzo in Abdelazer (1677), Leander Fancy in Sir Patient Fancy (1678). John Lee disappears entirely after 1677, and his widow is first billed as Lady Slingsby in 1681. For a full account of this great tragedienne see note on Abdelazer, Vol. II.
Mrs. Elizabeth Leigh, Moretta in The Rover, Part I, who is so persistently confused with Mrs. Mary Lee, was the wife of Antony Leigh, the celebrated comedian. In Betterton’s comedy, The Revenge (1680), when she acted Mrs. Dashit, she is billed as Mrs. A. Lee. Her husband died in December, 1692. Their son Michael also gave great promise on the boards. The lad’s name occurs in the cast of Shadwell’s The Amorous Bigot (1690) as ‘young Leigh’, when he played Diego, a servant, to his father’s Tegue o’ Divelly, the Irish friar. Unfortunately he died at an early age, probably in the winter of 1701, but his younger brother Francis attained considerable success. Frank Leigh made his debut at Lincoln’s Inn’s Fields, 31 December, 1702, as Tristram in the original production of Mrs. Centlivre’s The Stolen Heiress. He died in the autumn of 1719. Mrs. Leigh was herself an actress of no small eminence, her special line being ‘affected mothers, aunts, and modest stale maids that had missed their market’. Says Cibber, ‘In all these, with many others, she was extremely entertaining’. After 10 June, 1707, when she acted Lady Sly in Carlile’s The Fortune Hunters, her name is no longer to be found in the bills, and in October, 1707, Mrs. Powell is playing her parts. Mrs. Leigh’s repertory was very large, and amongst her roles were Lady Woodvil in Etheredge’s The Man of Mode (1676); Lady Plyant in The Double Dealer (1694); the Nurse in Love for Love (1695); the Hostess in Betterton’s revival of Henry IV, Part I (1699); and Lady Wishfort in The Way of the World (1700). In comedies by Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Leigh only appears twice, Moretta, The Rover, Part I (1677); and Mrs. Closet, The City Heiress (1682).
In and about 1702 another Mrs. Leigh, perhaps Frank Leigh’s wife, made a brief appearance. She was at first cast for good parts but soon sank into obscurity. Thus on 21 October, 1702, she sustained Mrs. Plotwell in Mrs. Centlivre’s The Beau’s Duel; on 28 April, 1703, Chloris in the Hon. Charles Boyle’s insipid As You Find It. She may have been the Mrs. Eli. Leigh who with other performers signed a petition to Queen Anne in 1709. Of Mrs. Rachel Lee, who took the ‘walk-on’ part of Judy, a waiting-woman, in Southern’s The Maid’s Last Prayer (1693), nothing is known.
[p. 9] Angelica Bianca, a famous Curtezan. Mrs. Gwin. Anne Quin (or Quyn, Gwin, Gwyn as the name is indifferently spelt) was a famous actress of great personal beauty. She is constantly, but most erroneously, confounded with Nell Gwynne, and the mistake is the more unpardonable as both names twice occur in the same cast. When Nelly was acting Florimel in Dryden’s Secret Love, produced February, 1667, Mrs. Quin played Candiope. Again, in An Evening’s Love, June, 1668, Nell Gwynne was Jacinta, and Mrs Quin Aurelia, a role assumed later in the run by Mrs. Marshall. Among Mrs. Quin’s more notable parts were Alizia (Alice Perrers) in Orrery’s The Black Prince, produced 19 October, 1667; 1677, Thalestris in Pordage’s The Siege of Babylon, and Astrea in The Constant Nymph; 1678, Lady Knowell in Sir Patient Fancy and Lady Squeamish in Otway’s Friendship in Fashion; 1682, Queen Elizabeth in Banks’ The Unhappy Favourite, and Sunamire in Southerne’s The Loyal Brother. Mrs. Quin appears to have retired from the stage towards the close of the year 1682. There exists of this actress an extremely interesting portrait which was offered for sale at Stevens’ Auction Rooms, 26 February, 1901, but not reaching the reserve price, withdrawn. It is mistakenly described in the catalogue as ‘Miniature Portrait of Nell Gwynn on copper with original case and 30 cover dresses on talc...’ An illustrated article on it, entitled, ‘Nell Gwynne’s Various Guises’, appeared in the Lady’s Pictorial, 23 March, of the same year, p. 470, in the course of which the writer says: ‘Accompanying the miniature are some thirty mica covers in different stages of preservation upon which various headdresses and costumes are painted. The place where, in the ordinary course, the face would come is in all cases left blank, the talc being of course transparent, when it is laid upon the original miniature the countenance of the latter becomes visible, and we are enabled to see Nell Gwynne [Anne Quin] as she would appear in various characters.’ The old error has been perpetuated here, but the Lady’s Pictorial reproduced half-a-dozen of these painted mica covers, and the costumes for the two roles of Queen Elizabeth and Sunamire can be distinctly recognized. Doubtless an examination of the original micas would soon yield an identification of other characters. The miniature, it may be noted, does not in the least resemble Nell Gwynne, so there is bare excuse here for the confusion.
Act I: Scene i
[p. 11] Siege of Pampelona. Pampluna, the strongly fortified capital of Navarra, has from its geographical position very frequently been a centre of military operations. It will be remembered that it was during a siege of Pampluna in 1521 Ignatius Loyola received the wound which indirectly led to the founding of the Jesuits.
[p. 13] King Sancho the First. Sancho I, ‘the Fat’, of Castile and Leon, reigned 955-67: Sancho I of Aragon 1067-94. But the phrase is here only in a vague general sense to denote some musty and immemorial antiquity without any exact reference.
[p. 14] Hostel de Dieu. The first Spanish hospital was erected at Granada by St. Juan de Dios, founder of the Order of Hospitallers. ob. 1550.
[p. 14] Gambo. The Gambia in W. Africa has been a British Colony since 1664, when a fort, now Fort James, was founded at the mouth of the river.