Mrs Jordan's Profession
Page 39
7. Quoted in Brian Fothergill, Mrs Jordan: Portrait of an Actress (1965), p. 166.
8. RA Add. 40/41, 42, 44.
9. Cited in Mrs Jordan: Portrait of an Actress, pp. 168–9.
10. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d. but winter of 1794–5, RA Add. 40/48–52, and Mrs Jordan and Her Family, p. 30.
11. The words were written by the Prince of Wales in January 1796, when he wrote his will, leaving everything to Mrs Fitzherbert except for one shilling to the Princess of Wales.
12. The Prince of Orange’s visit was in August 1795, noted by Horace Walpole, 25 August, Lewis Melville, More Stage Favourites of the Eighteenth Century (1929), p. 233.
13. Lord Glenbervie, Diaries (1928), pp. 58, 71.
14. Horace Walpole to Mary Berry, 19 August 1795, Lady T. Lewis (ed.), Journals and Correspondence of Miss Berry, vol. 3 (1865). The Telegraph (25 August 1796) and the Morning Chronicle (5 September 1796) also noted her appearances at Richmond, cited in The Letters of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, vol. 2, p. 61n.
15. James Boaden, The Life of Mrs Jordan, vol. 1 (1831), p. 292n.
16. Miss De Camp married Kemble’s brother Charles and became the mother of Fanny Kemble. Information from H. Baker, John Philip Kemble (1942), p. 192; the quotation is from the Piozzi letters.
17. Richard Brinsley Sheridan to William Adam, September 1796, The Letters of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, vol. 2, p. 52.
18. Richard Brinsley Sheridan to John Grubb, n.d. but November or December 1796, The Letters of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, vol. 2, pp. 60–61.
19. ’Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Mary Evans from Jesus College, Cambridge, 7 February 1793, E. L. Griggs (ed.), The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. 1 (1956), p. 51.
20. Lamb, On Some of the Old Actors (1822) printed in E. V. Lucas (ed.), The Letters of Charles Lamb, vol.2 (1935), pp. 132–3. The passage reads in part,
Those who have only seen Mrs Jordan within the last ten or fifteen years can have no adequate notion of her performance of such parts as Ophelia; Helena in All’s Well…; and Viola… Her voice had latterly acquired a coarseness, which suited well enough with her Nells and Hoydens, but in those days it sank, with her steading melting eye, into the heart. Her joyous parts – in which her memory chiefly lives – in her youth were outdone by her plaintive ones. There is no giving an account of how she delivered the disguised story of her love for Orsino. It was no set speech, that she had foreseen, so as to weave it into an harmonious period, line necessarily following line to make up the music… but when she had declared her sister’s history to be a blank, and that she never told her love, there was a pause, as if the story had ended – and then the image of the worm in the bud came up as a new suggestion – and the heightened image of Patience still followed after that, as by some growing (and not mechanical) process, thought springing up after thought, I would almost say, as they were watered by her tears. So in those fine lines – Write loyal cantos of contemned love – Hollow your name to the reverberate hills – there was no preparation made in the foregoing image for that which was to follow. She used no rhetoric in her passion; or it was nature’s own rhetoric most legitimate then, when it seemed altogether without rule or law.
21. So she said to Helen Maria Williams at the end of her life; see Chapter 20.
22. Mrs Jordan and Her Family, pp. 34–5.
12 THE MAN OF THE FAMILY: BUSHY, 1797
1. See 31 January 1794, K. Garlick and A. Macintyre (ed.), The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol. 1 (1978), p. 151, reporting a conversation with Hoppner relating to an earlier summer. Hoppner had a sharp tongue, but it did not prevent him from asking the Duke to be godfather to his daughter, Helen Clarence Hoppner (information from unpublished D. Phil. thesis by John Human Wilson, June 1992). Wilson offers further evidence of intimacy between the two families in an undated letter from DJ to Phoebe Hoppner from Petersham Lodge (i.e., written between 1792 and 1797), quoted in Dobell’s Catalogue of Autograph Letters, p. 18, No. 214.
I never intentionally forfeited your friendship. I am of that unfortunate disposition that, when I once form a friendship I cannot relinquish it without much uneasiness… I could no longer resist the strong inclination I felt of writing to you, some unpleasant words that passed between you and my brother in the street, [?] alone prevented me at first… I have another motive: – that no misunderstanding between you and me should prevent a continuation of His Royal Highness’s regard and attention to Mr Hoppner…
2. Lord Glenbervie, Diaries (1928), p. 122, remark attributed to Lord Liverpool.
3. Queen Charlotte’s letter to William when he was still a boy at sea is quoted in Philip Ziegler, King William IV (1971), p. 35.
4. 31 January 1797, Lord Glenbervie, Diaries, p. 123: ‘saw the Duke of C yesterday at the Great Lodge with Mrs Jordan and two children’, etc.
5. Bushy House has been since 1900 part of the National Physical Laboratory, used partly as the home of its director and partly as offices. It has never been open to the public, but is being restored. I was shown round by the present director and his wife.
6. Unfortunately only three examples survive today.
7. J. Hemlow (ed.), The Journal and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. 4 (1973), p. 25. The aide-de-camp was Colonel Dalrymple, who remained a firm friend to Dora for many years and is frequently mentioned in her letters.
8 The Duke of Clarence to Thomas Coutts, 22 January 1797, Arthur Aspinall (ed.), Mrs Jordan and Her Family, being the Unpublished Letters of Mrs Jordan and the Duke of Clarence, later William IV (1951), p. 37, and 22 August 1797, p. 40.
9. 6 July 1798, letter from Soane to Treasury (Private Corr. XI.A.1.1–3). He writes of works done at Bushy, not yet completed, in which he finds very defective workmanship, materials by no means durable, bad carpentry, mortar made of unfit loam and river sand, extravagant charges ‘much beyond any experience of mine’, unworkmanlike and expensive, etc. Lead on gutters deficient – no supervision – ‘enormous charge’ for bell hanging – carpenters and iron workers charge for material they already have (from steps, iron taken from colonnades). The steps to the north and south entrances have been taken down, stone from them valued at 3/6d. per cubic foot, then used again in house, charging 3/6 per foot cube. ‘In the course of the investigation I have had frequent occasion to observe that all the Works have been done without any arranged or general Plan… carried out by workmen as their individual opinion suggested without any effective control whatever whereby many alterations and much expence has been incurred.’ Soane reduces the bill, item by item, from £3,789.17s.1½d to £3,154.14s.8½d. – saving the Treasury over £600.
10. Anonymous Life of 1886 (see Bibliography), p. 35.
11. The Duke of Clarence to Horatio Nelson, 1797, cited in Tom Pocock, Sailor King: The Life of King William IV (1991), p. 158.
12. The Duke of Clarence to Thomas Coutts, 7 February 1797, cited in Mrs Jordan and Her Family, p. 38.
13. 3 November 1797, Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. 4, p. 25.
14. The Duke of Clarence to Thomas Coutts, 3 September 1797, cited in Mrs Jordan and Her Family, p. 36.
15. DJ to Miss Turner, 9 July 1797, MS letter, Sir Brinsley Ford Archives.
16. She wrote this later, when playing in Dublin in 1809; DJ to the Duke of Clarence, 17 June 1809, cited in Mrs Jordan and Her Family, p. 95.
17. Walpole wrote a tragedy called The Mysterious Mother, printed in 1768, which was found too shocking and disgusting for performance, because it showed the Countess of Narbonne bearing a child to her own son. The Count of Narbonne was Robert Jephson’s 1780 tragedy based on The Castle of Otranto, and it was very popular.
18. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d. but?23 January 1798, Mrs Jordan and Her Family, p. 41.
19. Anonymous writer in York, quoted in the Life of 1886, p. 112. The article says Fanny is Daly’s child, and calls her Miss Jordan; it includes her and Ford’s daughters in its discussion of Lloyd’s pupils.
13 THE LO
NG IDYLL: 1797–1806
1. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d. but watermark 1801, Huntington Library MS; the second reference is also in Huntington Library MS, in a letter from DJ in Edinburgh dated 12 June 1810 that speaks of some kind of offer ‘respecting the dear boys… with the King’s approbation, it would be desirable, as it would give them some distinction in society as your Sons’.
2. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d., Huntington Library MS.
3. Philip Ziegler, King William IV (1971), p. 80.
4. The first reference is from K. Garlick and A. Macintyre (eds.), The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol. 6 (1979), p. 2,222, an entry for Friday, 20 January 1804, reporting what the artist Edridge told him after a visit from the Duke and Mrs Jordan. The second is from Monday, 31 December 1804, Lord Glenbervie, Diaries (1928), p. 414. The Latin tag means ‘If only all were like him.’ But George himself said later that his father stopped kissing him on his tenth birthday, telling him he was no longer a boy ‘and that he did not like kissing men’ (S. Leslie, The Letters of Mrs Fitzherbert, 1940, p. 246).
5. The Duke of Clarence to the Prince of Wales, 19 March 1807, The Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales 1770–1812, vol. 6 (1969), p. 152.
6. The Duke of Clarence to Thomas Coutts, 5 March 1805, cited in Arthur Aspinall (ed.), Mrs Jordan and Her Family, being the Unpublished Letters of Mrs Jordan and the Duke of Clarence, later William IV ( 1951 ), p. 60.
7. Henry Ripley, History and Topography of Hampton-on-Thames (1885), pp. 12, 30, 131. The school – funded 6 October 1803 and built 1805 – is credited to the Duchess, the Friendly Society – set up 25 October 1810 – to Queen Adelaide. No doubt she gave her support and patronage when she came to Bushy, first as Duchess in 1818, then as dowager Queen in 1837.
8. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, 23 June 1809, Mrs Jordan and Her Family, p. 98.
9. James Boaden, The Life of Mrs Jordan, vol. 2 (1831), pp. 54–5.
10. Queen Charlotte’s account from Olwen Hedley, Queen Charlotte (1975), pp. 201–2; see also J. Adolphus, Memoirs of John Bannister, vol. 2 (1839), p. 58.
11. Notice of 23 October 1802, reprinted in the Richmond & Twickenham Times, 19 February 1821.
12. Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, 8 January 1801, R.W. Chapman (ed.), The Letters of Jane Austen, vol. 1 (1952), p. 30; Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay, edited by her niece, vol. 4 (1842), p. 494.
13. British Library H 1650.j (no. 2). The cover says the song was sung by her at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, published for the Author at is. and sold by Buckenger, 443 Strand. It is dated 1801.
14. Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Thomas N. Longman, Monday, 15 December 1800, E. L. Griggs (ed.), The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. 6 (1971), p. 1,013. See also Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Thomas Poole, 19 January 1801, vol. 2, p. 665, in which Coleridge again mentions sending a copy of Lyrical Ballads to DJ.
15. The following is the text of ‘Her Eyes are Wild’ from Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads:
I
Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,
The sun has burnt her coal-black hair;
Her eyebrows have a rusty stain,
And she came far from over the main.
She has a baby on her arm,
Or else she were alone:
And underneath the hay-stack warm,
And on the greenwood stone,
She talked and sung the woods among.
And it was in the English tongue.
II
‘Sweet babe! they say that I am mad
But nay, my heart is far too glad;
And I am happy when I sing
Full many a sad and doleful thing:
Then, lovely baby, do not fear!
I pray thee have no fear of me;
But safe as in a cradle, here
My lovely baby! thou shalt be:
To thee I know too much I owe;
I cannot work thee any woe.
III
A fire was once within my brain;
And in my head a dull, dull pain;
And fiendish faces, one, two, three,
Hung at my breast, and pulled at me;
But then there came a sight of joy;
It came at once to do me good;
I waked, and saw my little boy,
My little boy of flesh and blood;
Oh joy for me that sight to see!
For he was here, and only he.
IV
Suck, little babe, oh suck again!
It cools my blood; it cools my brain;
Thy lips I feel them, baby! they
Draw from my heart the pain away.
Oh! press me with thy little hand;
It loosens something at my chest;
About that tight and deadly band
I feel thy little fingers prest.
The breeze I see is in the tree:
It comes to cool my babe and me.
V
Oh! love me, love me, little boy!
Thou art thy mother’s only joy;
And do not dread the waves below,
When o’er the sea-rock’s edge we go;
The high crag cannot work me harm,
Nor leaping torrents when they howl;
The babe I carry on my arm,
He saves for me my precious soul:
Then happy lie; for blest am I;
Without me my sweet babe would die.
VI
Then do not fear, my boy! for thee
Bold as a lion will I be;
And I will always be thy guide,
Through hollow snows and rivers wide.
I’ll build an Indian bower; I know
The leaves that make the softest bed:
And, if from me thou wilt not go,
But still be true till I am dead,
My pretty thing! then thou shalt sing
As merry as the birds in spring.
VII
Thy father cares not for my breast,
’Tis thine, sweet baby, there to rest:
’Tis all thine own! – and if its hue
Be changed that was so fair to view,
’Tis fair enough for thee, my dove!
My beauty, little child is flown.
But thou wilt live with me in love;
And what if my poor cheek be brown!
’Tis well for me, thou canst not see
How pale and wan it else would be.
VIII
Dread not their taunts, my little Life;
I am thy father’s wedded wife;
And underneath the spreading tree
We two will live in honesty.
If his sweet boy he could forsake,
With me he never would have stayed:
From him no harm my babe can take;
But he, poor man! is wretched made;
And every day we two will pray
For him that’s gone and far away.
IX
I’ll teach my boy the sweetest things:
I’ll teach him how the owlet sings.
My little babe! thy lips are still.
And thou hast almost sucked thy fill.
– Where art thou gone, my own dear child?
What wicked looks are those I see?
Alas! alas! that look so wild.
It never, never came from me:
If thou art mad, my pretty lad,
Then I must be for ever sad.
X
Oh! smile on me, my little lamb!
For I thy own dear mother am:
My love for thee has well been tried:
I’ve sought thy father far and wide.
I know the poisons of the shade;
I know the earth-nuts fit for food:
Then, pretty dear, be not afraid:
We’ll find thy father in the wood.
Now laugh and be gay, to the woods away!
And there, my babe, we’ll live for aye.’
16. Kathleen Coburn (ed.), The Notebooks of Sa
muel Taylor Coleridge, vol. 2 (1962), Note 2,059.
17. Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Lord Byron, 17 [15] October 1815, The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. 6, p. 1,038. Coleridge is talking of players he has seen in Calne, and mentions a Mrs Hudson, ‘who pronounced the blank verse of Shakespeare, & indeed Verse in general, better than I ever heard it pronounced, with the solitary exception of some verses by Mrs Jordan’.
18. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d. but watermark 1799, RA Add. 40/100.
19. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d. but watermark 1802, RA Add. 40/104.
20. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d. but probably 1805, Huntington Library MS.
21. DJ to the Duke of Clarence,? 1801, Huntington Library MS.
22. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d. but probably 1797, quoted in Mrs Jordan and Her Family, p. 41.
23. DJ the Duke of Clarence,? 1 September 1801, Mrs Jordan and Her Family, p. 47.
24. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d. but probably 1804, RA Add. 40/122.
25. See Note 11 above.
26. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d. but?3 September 1802, Mrs Jordan and Her Family, p. 50:
I thought it proper as the Duchess of Devonshire sent to know how long I stayed to let her know that my night was fixed for Friday, on which she sent me the most civil letter, highly pleased with the attention, desiring me to keep both stage boxes, & if her name would be of any use, to say by her desire. The Duke is very unwell, but if it is possible he will come that night; if not, she will quit him on that occasion, tho’ she goes nowhere. Was not this handsome?’
27. An unpublished letter (Huntington), probably from the autumn of 1801, indicates that she was playing in Brighton, and speaks of the Prince’s box. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, September 1802, says the Brighton manager has made her a very good offer from 20 September. She does not take it up, but goes to Liverpool instead. See Mrs Jordan and Her Family, pp. 51–3.
28. Lord Duncannon became Viscount Bessborough on the death of his father. Lady Bessborough to Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, 10 October 1805, Lady Granville (ed.), Private Correspondence 1781–1821, Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, vol. 2 (1916), p. 120.
29. DJ to the Duke of Clarence, n.d. but? August 1802, Mrs Jordan and Her Family, p. 48.