[Page 221,] line 9 from foot. "The City Madam." A play by Philip Massinger, licensed 1632, in which Luke Frugal is the leading character.
[Page 222,] lines 3-5. Whitfield ... Lady Huntingdon. George Whitefield (1714-1770), the great Methodist preacher, and chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon. Whitefield was actually put on the stage, in "The Mirror," by Foote, in 1760, as Dr. Squintum.
[Page 222,] line 13. Mr. Pearman. William Pearman, the tenor, a popular singer, second only to Braham in sea songs.
[Page 222.] V.—New Pieces at the Lyceum.
Examiner, August 8 and 9, 1819. Signed ****. This criticism was introduced by the following note by Leigh Hunt:—
We must make the public acquainted with a hard case of ours.—Here had we been writing a long elaborate, critical, and analytical account of the new pieces at the Lyceum, poring over the desk for two hours in the morning after a late night, and melting away what little had been left of our brains and nerves from the usual distillation of the week, when an impudent rogue of a friend, whose most daring tricks and pretences carry as good a countenance with them as virtues in any other man, and who has the face, above all, to be a better critic than ourselves, sends us the following remarks of his own on those two very pieces. What do we do? The self-love of your inferior critic must vent itself somehow; and so we take this opportunity of showing our virtue at the expense of our talents, and fairly making way for the interloper.
Dear, nine closely-written octavo pages! you were very good after all, between you and me; and should have given way to nobody else. If there is room left, a piece of you shall be got in at the end; for virtue is undoubtedly its own reward, but not quite.
[Page 222,] foot. "Belles without Beaux." This was probably, says Genest, another version of the French piece from which "Ladies at Home; or, Gentlemen, we can do without You" (by J. G. Millingen, and produced also in 1819) was taken. The date of production was August 6, 1819.
[Page 223,] lines 2-7. There is Miss Carew, etc. The seven ladies in the play were: Miss Kelly, who played Mrs. Dashington; Mrs. W. S. Chatterly, née Louisa Simeon (b. 1797), wife of William Simmonds Chatterly, the actor (1787-1822): she was said to be the best representative of a Frenchwoman on the English stage; Miss Carew (b. 1799), a comic opera prima donna, at first the understudy of Miss Stephens, and a special favourite with Barry Cornwall, who says in his Sicilian Story, "Give me (but p'r'aps I'm partial) Miss Carew;" Mrs. Grove, probably the wife of Grove, an excellent impersonator of whimsical old men and scheming servants; Miss Love (b. 1801), excellent in chambermaids, to whom Colonel Berkeley turned (see note on [page 521]) after leaving Miss Foote; Miss Stevenson (see note above); and Mrs. Richardson, who was probably the wife of Richardson, a member of the Covent Garden Company.