THE ORPHAN;
OR,
THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE.
Qui pelago credit, magno se fœnore tollit;
Qui pugnas et castra petit, præcingitur auro;
Vilis adulator picto jacet ebrius ostro,
Et qui sollicitat nuptas, ad præmia peccat:
Sola pruinosis horret facundia pannis
Atque inopi lingua desertas invocat Artes.—
Petron. Arb. Satyric., Cap. 83.[15]
"The Orphan" was first represented in 1680, and printed during the same year. Thornton, following Langbaine, states that the play was founded on the story of Brandon, which he reprints in his edition of Otway, and which forms part of a novel entitled "English Adventures by a Person of Honour," published in 1676, and said to be by Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery. The adventures are supposed to occur to Henry VIII., who, when young, is reported to have often wandered abroad in disguise, like Haroun-Al-Raschid. He is represented going about with Brandon, a young nobleman, afterwards married to Henry's sister, widow of Louis XII., and founder of the Suffolk family. Brandon relates the circumstances (which are in substance identical with the story of The Orphan) as having happened to himself, the main incidents being alleged to be true. A yet earlier play, The Hog hath lost his Pearl, by Robert Tailor (1612-13), has very much the same foundation. As to the possibility of Monimia's deception through the personation of one twin brother by another, we must remember that this took place in darkness, and that not a word was spoken, total silence having been agreed upon when the secret meeting with Castalio was arranged, on account of the proximity of Acasto's chamber. Acasto, the guardian of Monimia, is believed to be a portrait of the first Duke of Ormond (see Carte's "Life of Ormond").
The Orphan was acted at Covent Garden in 1815, and subsequently at the Bath Theatre in 1819, when Miss O'Neill performed the part of Monimia. The celebrated Mrs. Bracegirdle appeared in the character of Cordelio, Polydore's page, when she was a child about six years old.