tion of the child's cleverness, and was at some pains to teach her new songs. She was then sent to a boarding-school, but was withdrawn when she was thirteen, and went to reside with her mother, who had meanwhile quitted Charing Cross and returned to the Old Bailey. In 1726 she made her first appearance on the stage as Monimia in Otway's ‘Orphans’ at the new theatre in the Haymarket. Five weeks later she was allowed to share a benefit with one Mr. Gilbert at the same theatre, on which occasion she played the part of Cherry, the innkeeper's daughter, in Farquhar's ‘Beaux' Stratagem.’ She was then engaged by a company of comedians who played twice a week during the summer season at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Her success was remarkable. ‘She became,’ writes one of her biographers, ‘the talk of the coffee-houses, the most celebrated toast in town. Her face, her form, her grace, her voice, her archness, her simplicity, were lauded alike on all hands.’ In a catchpenny ‘Life’ of her, published in 1728, is quoted at length a ‘billet’ supposed to have been penned by a stricken ensign; it is delightfully absurd, but clearly apocryphal. Rich, the manager at Lincoln's Inn Fields, next offered Miss Fenton an engagement for the winter season at the rate of fifteen shillings a week. She accepted the proposal, but after the extraordinary success of the ‘Beggar's Opera’ her salary was doubled.
On 29 Jan. 1728 Miss Fenton first appeared as Polly Peachum in Gay's ‘Beggar's Opera’ (Genest, Hist. of the Stage, iii. 220). The theatre was crowded night after night. The play had an uninterrupted and then unprecedented run until 9 March: Lavinia Fenton became the rage. Swift having written from Dublin to Gay to bespeak an early copy of ‘Polly's messotinto’ (Works, ed. Scott, 1824, xvii. 164), Gay sent it on 20 March, observing that ‘Polly, who was before unknown, is now in so high vogue that I am in doubt whether her fame does not surpass that of the Opera itself’ (ib. xvii. 181). Indeed, the print shops could barely keep pace with the demand for the engravings of her portrait; her likeness decorated the ladies' fans; a band of devoted admirers guarded her every night on her way home from the theatre after her performance; and; as the notes to the ‘Dunciad’ tell us, ‘her life was written, books of letters and verses to her published, and pamphlets made even of her sayings and jests.’ Although she could not be considered an accomplished vocalist, she could sing a simple English ballad in the most effective style. When the appeal to Mr. and Mrs. Peachum to spare Macheath,—‘O! ponder well: be not severe,’—rang through the house in tones of the deepest emotion, she fairly carried the whole audience away with her, and secured the success of the opera (ib. xvii. 164, note by Joseph Warton subjoined to a letter of Swift to Gay, dated from Dublin 27 Nov. 1727). Hogarth has painted the scene, introducing the Duke of Bolton in one of the side boxes, on the right-hand side, with his eyes fixed on the kneeling Polly. Polly wears a plainly made dress, ‘very like the simplicity of a modern quaker,’ just as Macklin saw and described her (Memoirs, 1804, p. 48).
On 14 March 1728 Miss Fenton, on the occasion of Quin's benefit, appeared as Alinda in Beaumont and Fletcher's ‘Pilgrim’ (as altered by Vanbrugh); on the 18th she played Ophelia in ‘Hamlet;’ and on 6 April as Leanthe in Farquhar's ‘Love and a Bottle,’ played for Tom Walker's (the original Macheath) benefit. On the 24th she was playing Marcella in Tom D'Urfey's comedy of ‘Don Quixote,’ and on the 29th she took her benefit, when she appeared as Cherry in the ‘Beaux' Stratagem’ (Genest, iii. 226, 227). But, having offended a great number of her patrons by joining pit and boxes together, many of her tickets were returned to her by those who objected to pay box prices for a seat in the pit. However, manager Rich, who was known to be a devoted admirer of ‘Pretty Polly,’ took the receipts of that night to himself, and on the following Saturday (4 May) gave her a second benefit, when the ‘Beggar's Opera’ was played for the forty-seventh time (ib. iii. 227). On 19 June the opera was played for the sixty-second and the last time that season, and Lavinia Fenton made her last appearance on the boards of a theatre. On 6 July 1728 Gay, writing to Swift from Bath, says: ‘The Duke of Bolton, I hear, has run away with Polly Peachum, having settled 400l. a year upon her during pleasure, and upon disagreement 200l. a year’ (Swift, Works, xvii. 199). This may have been near the truth, but the exact terms were never known.
Charles Paulet, third duke of Bolton, who was some twenty-three years older than his mistress, had been forced by his father to marry in 1713 Lady Anne Vaughan, only daughter and heiress of John, earl of Carbery, in Ireland. On the death of the old Duke of Bolton in 1722 the pair parted (Walpole, Letters, ed. Cunningham, i. 176 n., viii. 234). Soon after the death of the duchess (20 Sept. 1751) the duke married Lavinia Fenton at Aix in Provence. Both as mistress and wife her conduct was commendably discreet. Dr. Joseph Warton, in the note already cited, says of her: ‘She was very accomplished; was a
