the anxiety I suffer on your account, you would surely pity me; for there’s never an officer of our Regiment but takes notice of my being changed (since I saw you upon the stage) from the most lively, brisk, fashionable, mannerly, genteel Beau in the whole Army, to the most dull, insipid, slovenly, out-o’-the-way-tempered Dunce in Christendom. D—n me, Madam, if I am not so over-charged with Love that my Heart, which is the Bullet in the Barrel of my Body, will certainly burst and blow me into atoms if I have not your help to discharge the Burthen. And then, Blood! Madam, I am guilty of so many Blunders and mistakes in the execution of my office that I am become quite a Laughing-stock to the whole Army. Yesterday I put my sword on the wrong side, and this morning I came into the Park with one of my stockings the wrong side outward, and instead of applying myself to the Colonel, in the usual terms of Most Noble Sir, I looked pale, and with an affected d—d cringe called him Madam. Thus, Madam, you see how far I am gone already. Then, to keep me from Bedlam, take me to your Arms, when I will lay down my arms and be your slave and vassal.”
Five weeks after her performance for Mr. Huddy’s benefit, 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 comedy of the “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. The management appears to have been conducted upon the principle of a commonwealth, and the actors shared in the profits of the performances.
Her success was remarkable. She became 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. Rich, the manager, was not slow to perceive the advantage that would accrue to him by securing the lady’s services for his theatre during the winter season; forthwith he offered her an engagement, at the rate of fifteen shillings per week. The proposal was accepted; but after the extraordinary success of the “Beggars’ Opera,” Polly’s salary was raised to thirty shillings per week.
On the 29th of January, 1728, Miss Fenton first appeared as Polly Peachum. “In his ‘Beggars’ Opera,’” as Cibber was constrained to admit, “Gay has more skilfully gratified the public taste than all the brightest authors that ever writ before him.” The theatre was crowded night after night. There was no change in the performance until the 9th of March. The play had had, up to that date, an uninterrupted run: such an event was without precedent, for it was much more the custom of the theatre at that time to present to its patrons as great a variety of performances as possible, than to go on repeating night after night the same entertainment. Lavinia Fenton’s name was in every mouth: on all sides her praises were sounded. It is not to be supposed, however, that her singing was the perfection of art, or that she was even an accomplished vocalist. Her musical education had been of an indifferent character enough. Italian singing was little cultivated at that time, and probably was far beyond the reach of her parents’ means. But she had learnt, perhaps as much from intuition, as from other instruction, how to sing a simple English ballad in the most effective style. She had real feeling, and she had a lovely voice; she had, indeed, “tears in her voice,” as was said of a more recent singer,—it was mellow, powerful, and very tender and plaintive. And 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, as soon as their tears would permit them, they overwhelmed her with their plaudits.
Mr. Hogarth has painted the scene, as all the world knows. He has given us the only representation extant of the interior of the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, which stood in Portugal Row, was afterwards Spode and Copeland’s china warehouse, and was pulled down in 1848 to enlarge the museum of the College of Surgeons. It was opened by Davenant in 1662: it ceased to be a theatre in 1737. It had witnessed the triumphs of Betterton and Mrs. Bracegirdle; the production of the plays of Dryden and Congreve; the introduction of Harlequin to an English audience; and the performance of the first English opera. Thanks to this last, Mr. Rich made money enough to move to larger premises—Covent Garden Theatre, which he opened in 1732—the Crown being then in treaty for the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, to use as an office for the Commissioners of the Stamp Duties.
The proscenium is supported by satyrs. Above, in the centre, the royal arms, with large flying garters, inscribed—according to custom—with the words “Veluti in speculum,” and “Utile Dulci.” (Does the reader bear in mind the burlesque sentences put into the mouth of democratic William Cobbett, by the ingenious authors of “Rejected Addresses,” touching the reopening of Drury Lane Theatre in 1812? “And now, most thinking people, cast your eyes over my head, to what the builder—I beg his pardon—the architect calls the proscenium. No motto, no slang, no Popish Latin to keep the people in the dark. No Veluti in speculum. Nothing in the dead languages—properly so called—for they ought to die, ay, and be d—d, to boot;” and he goes on to congratulate the audience on the absence of the time-honoured inscriptions.) The side-boxes encroach on the stage;—they are filled by a select audience: His Grace the Duke of Bolton, a comely English gentleman with a star on his breast; Major Pounceford; Sir Robert Fagg, a baronet from Kent, famous for his horse-racing; Cock, the picture auctioneer, who whispers Mr. Rich, the manager, and Mr. Gay the poet, in the background. On the other side we find the Lady Jane Cook, with Anthony Henley, Lord Gage, Sir Conyers D’Arcy, and “long Sir Thomas Robinson,” so called to distinguish him from a diplomatist of the same name known afterwards as Lord Grantham. On
