When you call Desdemona—enter Giant.”
Half a century elapsed before knight or gentleman took an actress from the stage, for the purpose of making her his wife. The squires, in this case, had precedence of the knights; and the antiquary, Martin Folkyes, led the way by espousing Lucretia Bradshaw, the uncorrupted amid corruption, and the original Corinna in the “Confederacy,” Dorinda in the “Beaux Stratagem,” and Arabella Zeal in the “Fair Quaker of Deal.” This marriage took place in 1713, and there was not a happier hearth in England than that of the antiquary and the actress. A knight of the Garter followed, with an earl’s coronet, and in 1735 the great Lord Peterborough acknowledged his marriage with that daughter of sweet sounds, Anastasia Robinson. This example at once flattered, provoked, and stimulated the ladies, one of whom, the daughter of Earl de Waldegrave, Lady Henrietta Herbert, married young Beard the actor. This was thought “low,” and another knight’s daughter was less censured for marrying her father’s footman. The “Beggars’ Opera” gave two coronets to two Pollys. Lavinia Fenton (Betswick), the original Polly at Lincoln’s Inn, in 1728, became Duchess of Bolton a few years later; and in 1813, no less a man than Lord Thurlow married Mary Catherine Bolton, who was scarcely an inferior Polly to the original lady, who gave up Polly to become a Bolton.
The squires once more took their turn when Sheridan married Miss Lindley; but before the last century closed, Miss Farren gave her hand to “the proudest earl in England,” the Earl of Derby, Knight of the Bath. In 1807, knight and squire took two ladies from the stage. In that year Mr. Heathcote married the beautiful Miss Searle; and Earl Craven married Louisa Brunton. We have still among us five ex-actresses who married men of the degree of noble, knight, or squire. These are Miss Stephens, the widowed Countess of Essex; Miss Foote, the widowed Countess of Harrington; Miss O’Neill the widow of Sir William Beecher, Bart.; Mrs. Nisbett, the relict of the bold Sir Felix Boothby; and Miss M. Tree, whose late husband, Mr. Bradshaw, was at one time M. P. for Canterbury.
There is something romantic in the lives of all these ladies, but most in that of “Lizzy Farren,” and as the life of that lady of a Knight of the Bath has something in common with the career of a celebrated legal knight and judge, I will take some of its incidents as the chief points in the following sketch, which is a supplementary chapter to the Romance of History, and perhaps not the least interesting one in such a series.
If gayety consists in noise, then was the market-place of Salisbury, toward the close of Christmas Eve, 1769, extremely joyous and glad. In the centre, on a raised stage, his Worship the Mayor was inaugurating the holyday-time, by having a bout at single-stick with an itinerant exhibitor of the art of self-defence from London. The “professor” had been soliciting the magisterial permission to set up his stage in the market-place, and he had not only received full license, but the chief magistrate himself condescended to take a stick and try his strength with the professor.
It was an edifying sight, and bumpkins and burgesses enjoyed it consumedly. The professional fencer allowed his adversary to count many “hits” out of pure gratitude. But he had some self-respect, and in order that his reputation might not suffer in the estimation of the spectators, he wound up the “set-to” by dealing a stroke on the right-worshipful skull, which made the mayor imagine that chaos was come again, and that all about him was dancing confusedly into annihilation.
“I am afraid I have accidentally hurt your worship’s head,” said the wickedly sympathizing single-stick player.
“H’m!” murmured the fallen great man, with a ghastly smile, and Iris’s seven hues upon his cheek, “don’t mention it: there’s nothing in it!”
“I am truly rejoiced,” replied the professor to his assistant, with a wink of the eye, “that his worship has not lost his senses.”
“Oh, ay!” exclaimed the rough aide, “he’s about as wise as ever he was.”