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[ “The Country Girl,” Which is still occasionally performed, is an adaptation by Garrick of one of the most brilliant, and most indecent, of Restoration comedies—Wycherley’s “Country Wife.” Mrs. Jordan played the part of “Peggy,” the “Margery Punchwife” of Wycherley’s play. It was in this part that she made her first appearance in London, at Drury Lane, October 18, 1785. She was one of the most admired actresses of her time. Genest, who saw her, writes of her, “As an actress she never had a superior in her proper line Mrs. Jordan’s Country Girl, Romp, Miss Hoyden, and all characters of that description were exquisite—in breeches parts no actress can be put in competition with her but Mrs. Woffington, and to Mrs. Woffington she was as superior in point of voice as Mrs. Woffington was superior to her in beauty” (viii. p. 430). Mrs. Jordan died at St. Cloud, July 5, 1816, aged fifty. There is an admirable portrait of her by Romney in the character of the “Country Girl.”—ED.]
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[ See ante, vol. i., p. 151.—-ED.]
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[ Fanny’s cousin, the son of Dr. Burney’s brother, Richard Burney of Worcester.—ED.]
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[ The poem in question is the “Ode to the Evening Star,” the fifteenth of the first hook of Odes. Mr. Akenside, having paid his tear on fair Olympia’s virgin tomb, roams in quest of Philomela’s bower, and desires the evening star to send its golden ray to guide him, it is pretty, however. The first stanza runs as follows:—
“To night retired, the queen of heaven With young Endymion strays; And now to Hesper it is given Awhile to rule the vacant sky, Till she shall to her lamp supply A stream of lighter rays.”—ED.]