Answer.—Maggie Mitchell, one of the best-known of American actresses, was born in New York City in 1832 of Scotch parents, in very humble circumstances. When very young she was employed in simple child parts in the old Bowery Theater, for a pittance, which went to help support the family. When not more than 19 years of age, she had advanced to playing parts of some importance, and about this time, 1851, she made her first appearance at Burton’s Theater as Julia, in the “Soldier’s Daughter,” which was her first capital success. Soon after this she went on a “starring tour” that proved profitable and widely extended her reputation. She made her first appearance in Philadelphia at the Chestnut Street Theater on March 20, 1854, as Constance in “The Love Chase.” Up to 1862 Miss Mitchell was content to appear in amusing characters, earning the reputation of a clever comedienne, but about this time she got hold of a clumsy, heavy dramatization of George Sand’s popular novelette, “La Petite Fadette.” She applied herself to the animating and popularizing of this play, and the result is her now famous drama “Fanchon,” many of the most charming and pathetic parts being entirely of her own creation. Since June 9, 1862, when she first produced “Fanchon” on the stage at Laura Keene’s Theater, New York, it has maintained a living interest which never fails to draw a house. Other plays of her composition or dramatization have followed, including “Jane Eyre,” “The Pearl of Savoy,” and “Mignon,” a stage rendering of an episode in Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister,” but none have equaled, in popular esteem, Fanchon. Miss Mitchell was married Oct. 15, 1868, to Henry Paddock, of Cleveland, her present popular stage manager. Although she is now 51 years of age, she impersonates the girlish characters of her repertory with all the sprightliness and youthful vivacity that won the hearts of her auditors twenty years ago.
ARCHBISHOP LAUD—WHY BEHEADED.
Please give an account of the life, character, and death of Archbishop Laud.
C. P. B.
Answer.—William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, the son of a Berkshire clothier, was born in 1573. He was ordained priest in 1601, and became vicar of Stanford in 1607. From this position he rose rapidly in power, by his executive ability and manifestation of hatred of Puritanism, until in 1628 he was appointed Bishop of London. Early in his career he had won the favor of the King, who thought he saw in him a powerful advocate of the doctrine of the divine right of kings, though Laud was really more interested in maintaining the divine right of Episcopacy. In 1617 he attempted, with the aid of King James, to establish the Episcopacy in Scotland, but in vain. In 1630 he was made Chancellor of Oxford, the center of high-church loyalty, and, according to the wish of his sovereign, attempted to repress Puritanism by slitting noses, clipping ears, fines, branding, and imprisonment. In the high-commission and star-chamber courts his power was almost absolute. But gradually he won the bitterest hatred of the English people, until in March, 1640, seven years after his appointment to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, he was imprisoned in the Tower by order of the House of Commons. He was brought to trial in the House of Lords, Nov. 13, 1693, on charge of treason and other crimes, of which they acquitted him; but they soon afterward gave their assent to the ordinance for his execution, passed by the Commons. He had lived until the Puritans, whom he had despised and persecuted, had come into power, he had made the Scots his implacable foes, and nothing less than his blood would satisfy them. Despite of a royal pardon, by an act of arbitrary power on the part of Parliament, overriding all constitutional precedents, he was beheaded Jan. 10, 1644.
VICTORIA’S CHILDREN AND CHILDREN-IN-LAW.
Battle Creek, Mich.
Please name Queen Victoria’s children and their husbands and wives, and stations in life.