THE INTRODUCTION.
From 1805 to 1808, he principally played at the provincial theatres, and in the latter year, being seventeen years of age, he was entered as a gentleman Commoner of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and also was gazetted as Cornet in the North Shropshire Yeomanry Cavalry. His father died in 1811, and he then left Cambridge, residing on an estate his father had purchased, near Shrewsbury. Here he stayed till he was twenty years old, when his passion for the stage revived; and he acted, with occasional intermissions, until he was thirty-two years old, when he retired from the stage, and lived a quiet life until his death, which took place on the 24th of August, 1874.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Betty’s imitators—Miss Mudie, “The Young Roscia”—Her first appearance in London—Reception by the audience—Her fate—Ireland’s forgery of “Vortigern and Rowena”—Fires among the theatres—Destruction of Covent Garden and Drury Lane.
BETTY’S success raised up, of necessity, some imitators—there were other Roscii, who soon disappeared; and, as ladies deny the sterner sex the sole enjoyment of all the good things of this world, a Roscia sprang into existence—a Miss Mudie, who entered on her theatrical career, even earlier than Master Betty. Morning Post, July 29, 1805: “The Young Roscia of the Dublin Stage (only seven years old), who is called the Phenomenon, closed her engagement there on Monday last, in the part of Peggy, in the Country Girl, which she is stated to have pourtrayed with ‘wonderful archness, vivacity, and discrimination.’”