How little do you guess what I’m to say!
I’m not to ask how you like Farce or Play:
For you must know I’ve other Business now;
It is to tell you, Sparks, how we like you.
In April she gave a fine performance of Cleopatra, Sedley’s Antony and Cleopatra; in June she was acting Circe, the title-rôle of Charles Davenant’s gorgeously mounted opera; in August, Astatius in a bucolic, whose scene is Arcady, entitled The Constant Nymph; or The Rambling Shepherd, ‘written by a Person of Quality,’ which proved anything but a success. In the autumn she created the Queen in Abdelazer; in November, Roxana in Pordage’s tumid The Siege of Babylon, a play founded upon the famous romance, Cassandra. In January, 1678, she played Priam’s prophetic daughter, a very strong part, in Banks’ melodrama, The Destruction of Troy; August of the same year, Elvira in Leanerd’s witty comedy, The Counterfeits, whence a quarter of a century later Colley Gibber borrowed pretty freely for She Wou’d and She Wou’d Not. That autumn Mrs. Lee acted Eurydice in Dryden and Lee’s Oedipus. It was this year that her husband died, and she was left a widow. In April, 1679, she played Cressida in Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida, and probably in the same month, Cleomena in Mrs. Behn’s The Young King; later in the autumn, Laura Lucretia in The Feign’d Curtezans; in October, Bellamira, the heroine of Lee’s excellent if flamboyant tragedy, Caesar Borgia, to the Borgia of Betterton and Smith’s Machiavel. In 1680 her rôles were Arviola in Tate’s The Loyal General; Julia in Lawrence Maidwell’s capital comedy, The Loving Enemies; Queen Margaret in Crowne’s The Misery of Civil War, a version of 2 Henry VI. In the winter of this year Mrs. Lee re-married, and thenceforward is billed as Lady Slingsby, our first titled actress. Her husband was probably Sir Charles Slingsby, second baronet, of Bifrons in Kent, a nephew of Sir Robert Slingsby, Comptroller of the Navy, who had died 26 October, 1661. Sir Charles is recorded to have sold Bifrons in 1677, but we know practically nothing about him.[2] Dr. Doran supposes Lady Slingsby to have been connected with the Slingbys of Scriven, but he adduces no authority. In 1681 Lady Slingsby performed Queen Margaret in Crowne’s Henry VI, the First Part with the Murder of Gloucester, an adaption of Shakespeare’s I Henry VI, suggested by the great success of his previous alteration. She also played Regan in Tate’s foolhardy tinkering with King Lear; Sempronia in Lee’s powerful Lucius Junitis Brutus; and in December, Marguerite in the same author’s excellent The Princess of Cleves. In 1682 she acted another Roman rôle, Tarpeia, in an anonymous tragedy, Romulus and Hersilia, produced 10 August. She also spoke Mrs. Behn’s famous epilogue reflecting upon the Duke of Monmouth. Two days later a warrant was issued for the arrest of ‘Lady Slingsby, Comoedian, and Mrs. Aphaw Behen,’ to answer for their ‘severall Misdemeanours’ and ‘abusive reflections upon Persons of Quality.’ Even if they were actually imprisoned, of which there is no evidence, the detention both of actress and authoress was very brief. On 4 December of the same year, after the union of the two companies, Lady Slingsby created Catherine de’ Medici in Dryden and Lee’s stirring tragedy, The Duke of Guise, produced at the Theatre Royal, In 1683 Lady Slingsby had no original part which is recorded, but her genius successfully helped the numerous revivals of older plays that belong to that year. In 1684 she sustained Calphurnia to the Caesar of Cardell Goodman, the Antony of Kynaston, the Brutus and Cassius of Betterton and Smith, the Portia of Mrs. Sarah Cook, in a notable revival of Julius Caesar (4to 1694), marred, however, by stagey alterations said to be the work of Davenant and Dryden two decades before. The same year she played Lucia in The Factious Citizen; Lady Noble in Ravenscroft’s Dame Dobson. In August, 1685, Clarinda in D’Urfey’s plagiarism of Fletcher’s The Sea Voyage, which he called A Commonwealth of Women. Shortly after she appears to have retired from the stage. Dame Mary Slingsby, widow, from St. Mary’s parish, was buried in old St. Pancras graveyard, 1 March, 1694. Careless historians and critics even now continually confuse Mrs. Mary Lee, Lady Slingsby, with Mrs. Elizabeth Leigh, the wife of the celebrated comedian, Antony Leigh. The two actresses must be carefully distinguished. Geneste curiously enough gives a very incomplete list of Lady Slingsby’s roles, a selection only, as he allows; he makes several bad mistakes as to dates, and entirely fails to appreciate the merits and importance of this great actress in the Restoration theatre. These errors have been largely followed, and it is become necessary to insist somewhat strongly upon the fact that Lady Slingsby was one of the leading performers of the day. In a contemporary Satire on the Players (1682-3), which has never been printed, she heads the list of actresses, and Mrs. Barry is vilipended second. The lines run as follows:—
Imprimis Slingsby has the fatal Curse
To have a Lady’s honour with a Player’s Purse.
Though now she is so plaguy haughty grown |
Yet, Gad, my Lady, I a Time have known |
When a dull Whiggish Poet wou’d go down. |
That Scene’s now changed, but Prithee Dandy Beast
Think not thyself an Actress in the least.
For sure thy Figure ne’er was seen before,
Such Arse-like Breasts, stiff neck, with all thy Store,
Are certain Antidotes against a Whore.
The ‘dull Whiggish Poet’ alluded to is Elkanah Settle, with whom at the beginning of her theatrical career Lady Slingsby was on terms of considerable intimacy. Scandal further accused her of an intrigue with Sir Gilbert Gerrard, which is referred to when the knight was attacked in A Satyr on Both Whigs and Tories, (1683, unprinted MS.)
Thou Thing made up of Buttons, Coach, and Show,
The Beasts that draw thee have more sense than thou.
Yet still thou mightst have fool’d behind the Scenes,
Have Comb’d thy Wig and set thy Cravat Strings,
Made love to Slingsby when she played the Queen,
The Coxcomb in the Crowd had passed unseen.
p. 9 Song. Poets and critics have been unanimous in their praise of this exquisite lyric, which, had she written nothing more, would alone have been amply sufficient to vindicate Aphara Behn’s genius and immortality. It was a great favourite with Swinburne, who terms it ‘that melodious and magnificent song’. Mr. Bullen is warm in its praise, whilst Professor Saintsbury justly acknowledges it to be ‘of quite bewildering beauty’.
p. 70 Stout Sceva. The centurion M. (Valerius Max. iii. ii. 23.) Cassius Scaeva at the battle of Dyrrachium, B.C. 48, showed heroic valour and maintained his post although he had lost an eye, was deeply wounded in shoulder and thigh, and his shield was pierced in 120 places. He survived, however, and lived until after Cassar’s assassination, v. Casar B.G. iii 53. Suet. Caes, 68. Flor. iv. 2. 40. Appian, B.C. ii. 60. He appears as a character in Fletcher’s The False One.
p. 98 little Mrs. Ariell. This actress doubtless belonged to the Nursery, a training theatre for boys and girls intended for the stage. Established under Royal Letters Patent issued 30 March, 1664, it is frequently alluded to in contemporary literature. There was only one Nursery, although, as it not infrequently changed its quarters, two are sometimes stated to have existed simultaneously, an easy and plausible mistake, The Nursery was originally in Hatton Garden, About 1668 it was transferred to Vere Street, and thence finally to the Barbican. Mr. W. J. Lawrence in an able history of Restoration Stage Nurseries, shows that Wilkinson’s oft-engraved view of the supposed Fortune Theatre is none other than this Golden Lane Nursery on the site of the old Fortune Theatre. Mrs. Ariell, a young girl, probably performed Fanny in Sir Patient Fancy. Occasionally the names of other Nursery actresses occur. We have a certain Miss Nanny, of whom nothing is known, billed as Clita, a small part in D’Urfey’s The Commonwealth of Women, produced August, 1685. The prefix ‘Miss’ as meaning a young girl occurs here in a bill for the first time. A decade later we have Miss Allinson as Hengo, a lad, in an alteration of Fletcher’s Bonduca, and Miss Cross as Bonvica, Bonduca’s youngest daughter. In 1693 Miss Allison, who took the part of Jano, a page boy, in Southerne’s The Maid’s Last Prayer, is billed as Betty Allison. In 1696 again, Miss Cross, with Horden, spoke the prologue to D’Urfey’s Don Quixote, Part III. In the cast, however, when she enacted Altisidora, she is described as Mrs. Cross, A Miss Howard acted Kitty in Motteux’s Love’s a Jest(1696) and, ‘in page’s habit,’ spoke the epilogue to Dilke’s The Lover’s Luck the same year. After that date ’.iss’ instead of the heretofore ‘Mrs.’ became more general.
The name of the child actress, doubtless from the Nursery, who took the young Princess Elizabeth in Banks’ Virtue Betray’d; or, Anna Bullen (1682) has not come down to us. Wits led by the Nose; or, A Poet’s Revenge, an alteration of Chamberlaine’s unacted Love’s Victory (4to 1658), produced at the Theatre Royal in the summer of 1677, has indifferent performers such as Coysh, Perrin, in the leading roles; whilst other parts are cast thus: Sir Jasper Sympleton, Stiles; Jack Drayner, Nathaniel Q.; Heroina, Mrs. Baker, Jun.; Theocrine, Mrs. F[arlee?]. Stiles, Nathaniel Q., Mrs. Baker, Jun., Mrs. F[arlee?] were all temporary recruits from the Nursery. In the spring of 1678 the younger members act again in Leanerd’s The Rambling Justice. Powre played Sir John Twiford; Disney, Contentious Surley; Mr. Q., Spywell; Mrs. Merchant, Petulant Easy; Mrs. Bates, Emilia. The Nursery disappears about 1686. Certainly in 1690 it was the custom for young aspirants to the sock and buskin to join the regular theatres without preliminary training elsewhere.