was that of Viola, in Twelfth Night, and her third, Imogen, in Cymbeline; but though she succeeded in both, she was not so much applauded as in her first character. She, consequently, played comic parts chiefly, during the remainder of the season; and drew such full houses, that her salary was doubled, and she was allowed two benefits.

A short time after she had been in London, she became the mistress of a Mr. Ford, by whom she had two or three children; one of whom was Mrs. Alsop, the actress. At the close of the Drury Lane season, Mrs. Jordan returned to Leeds; where the reception she met with fully compensated for the former coldness of her audience in that town. She then visited York, Edinburgh, and Glasgow; and, at the latter place, made such an impression on the theatrical portion of the public, that they presented her with a gold medal. She continued to act at the principal metropolitan and provincial theatres with her usual popularity, until the year 1790; when her connexion with the Duke of Clarence subjected her to some newspaper strictures, charging her with a less careful attention to her professional duties. On her appearance in the December of that year, some marks of displeasure were, in consequence, manifested, upon which she walked to the front of the stage, and thus addressed the audience :-"Ladies and Gentlemen, I should conceive myself utterly unworthy of your favour, if the slightest mark of public disapprobation did not affect me very sensibly. Since I have had the honour and the happiness to strive here to please you, it has been my constant endeavour, by unremitting assiduity, to merit your approbation. I beg to assure you, upon my honour, that I have never absented myself one minute from the duties of my profession, but from real indisposition; thus having invariably acted, I do consider myself under the public protection." This address had the desired effect; and her domestic circumstances were no more made the subject of complaint against her in her professional career.

At the time of her connexion with the Duke of Clarence, her salary, at Covent Garden, was £30 per week;

and want, therefore, could not have induced her to become his mistress. She submitted to his proposals on condition of receiving £1,000 per annum; which was paid her regularly until, as it is said, at the suggestion of the king, the duke proposed £500, as a sufficient sum. Mrs. Jordan's only answer to the proposition was, a blank cover, directed to the duke, inclosing that part of the play-bill on which was printed, "No money returned after the rising of the curtain."

Such is the statement of one of her biographers; but from more authentic accounts, we learn the following_particulars. At the time when the Duke of Clarence first made overtures to her, she was the mistress of Mr. Ford; who had, it seems, only hesitated to make her his wife, through fear of offending his father. It was now necessary for him to declare his intentions explicitly, as Mrs. Jordan informed him that she should certainly prefer the protection of the Duke of Clarence to his (Mr. Ford's); but that the duke should not be listened to for a moment, if the father of her present children would consent to become her husband. Mr. Ford refused; and Mrs. Jordan entered into that connexion with the Duke of Clarence, which brought her ten children; and lasted in an almost uninterrupted state of domestic harmony, until its sudden dissolution, in 1811. She was acting at Cheltenham at the time when the letter, communicating the duke's intention of separating from her, and desiring her to meet him at Maidenhead, was received. "She arrived at the theatre," says Mr. Boaden, "dreadfully weakened by a succession of fainting fits. She, however, struggled on with Nell, until Jobson arrived at the passage where he has to accuse the conjuror of making her laughing drunk. When the actress here attempted to laugh, the afflicted woman burst into tears. Her Jobson. with great presence of mind, altered the text, and exclaimed to her- Why, Nell, the conjuror has not only made thee drunkhe has made thee crying drunk,'thus covering her personal distress, and carrying her through the scene in character. After the performance, she was put into a travelling chariot in her stage dress, to keep her appointment

with the royal duke, in a state of anguish easily to be conceived. What passed at the meeting I would not wish to detail. After allowing her due time to recover her spirits, and endeavour to do herself justice, by making her statement to the Regent-submitting herself entirely to his judgment, and, finally, to the generous nature of the duke himself, she thus writes upon the subject of the separation to her confidential friend:

"My dear Sir,-I received yours, and its enclosure, safe this morning. My mind is beginning to feel somewhat reconciled to the shock and surprise it has lately received; for could you or the world believe that we never had, for twenty years, the semblance of a quarrel. But this is so well known in our domestic circle, that the astonishment is the greater! Money, money, my good friend, or the want of it, has, I am convinced, made him, at this moment, the most wretched of men; but having done wrong, he does not like to retract. But with all his excellent qualities, his domestic virtues, and his love for his lovely children, what must he not at this moment suffer! His distresses should have been relieved before; but this is entre nous.

"All his letters are full of the most unqualified praise of my conduct; and it is the most heartfelt blessing to know that, to the best of my power, I have endeavoured to deserve it. I have received the greatest kindness and attention from the R-t, and every branch of the royal family; who, in the most unreserved terms, deplore this melancholy business. The whole correspondence is before the R-t; and, I am proud to add, that my past and present conduct has secured me a friend, who declares he never will forsake me. 'My forbearance,' he says, 'is beyond what he could have imagined!' But what will not a woman do, who is firmly and sincerely attached? Had he left me to starve, I never would have uttered a word to his disadvantage. I enclose you two other letters; and in a day or two you shall see more, the rest being in the hands of the R--t. And now, my dear friend, do not hear the D. of C. unfairly abused. He has done wrong, and he is suffering for it. But as far as he has left it in his own power,

he is doing everything kind and noble, even to the distressing himself. I thank you sincerely for the friendly caution at the end of your letter, though I trust there will be no occasion for it; but it was kind and friendly, and as such I shall ever esteem it. I remain, dear sir, yours sincerely, DORA JORDAN."

What was the true cause of this separation is as much a mystery as ever; indeed, from the expression in the above letter, it would seem that Mrs. Jordan was a stranger to it herself. Mr. Galt thinks that state reasons may have led to it; there being a probability of failure of male heirs to the crown. But this appears to us a most improbable, not to say absurd, hypothesis; the Salic law does not obtain in this country; and if it did, there was the Duke of Kent to appropriate for state purposes, without making a victim of one already bound by ties next to sacred; and whose disunion from them was, to use the words of Mrs. Jordan, deplored by every branch of the royal family, in the most unreserved terms."

The particulars of the allowance made to Mrs. Jordan, and upon what conditions, after her separation from the duke, were publicly stated in a letter, from Mr. Barton, of the Mint, dated in January, 1824. She was to receive, for the maintenance of the duke's four daughters, and a house and carriage for their use, £2,100; for her own use, £1,500 per annum; and, to enable her to make a provision for her married daughters, children of a former connexion, £800 per annum; making, altogether, £4,400. This settlement was carried into effect, a trustee was appointed, and the monies, under such trust were paid, quarterly, to the respective accounts, at the banking-house of Messrs. Coutts and Co. The settlement was subject to a stipulation, that, in the event of Mrs. Jordan resuming her profession, the care of the duke's four daughters, together with the £1,500 per annum for their maintenance, should revert to his royal highness. In a few months afterwards, Mrs. Jordan expressed a wish to return to the stage; and the care of her four children by the duke, together with the allowance for their maintenance, was, in consequence, surrendered to their royal father. Her avowed motive for re

suming her professional labours, was to make that provision for herself, and her other children, which the duke's death might suddenly deprive her of. This was the commencement of her subsequent difficulties and miseries; which we cannot but think she, in some measure, entailed upon herself, by taking a step which appears to us to have been, just then, neither necessary nor expedient; and by her subsequent imprudences. The same considerations that induced her to a renunciation of four unmarried children, for the provision of three married ones (towards whose maintenance she was allowed £800 per annum), should have prevented her from entering into those engagements which drove her from the stage altogether; and thus deprived her of the society of both sets of children, without enabling her to provide for the maintenance of one.

The imprudences, to which we have alluded, arose certainly from too generous a motive, on the part of Mrs. Jordan, to be used in any other way against her, than as a vindication of the Duke of Clarence from the charge of compelling her to quit England, for the want of a sufficient allowance to remain in it. After having stated the return of Mrs. Jordan to the stage, Mr. Barton continues: "A cessation of correspondence between Mrs. Jordan and myself ensued, until September, 1815; when I, most unexpectedly, received a note from her, requesting to see me immediately. I found her in tears, and under much embarrassment, from a circumstance that had burst upon her, as she said, like a thunderstorm.' She found herself involved, to a considerable amount, by securities, which, all at once, appeared against her, in the form of bonds and promissory notes, given, incautiously, by herself, to relieve, as she thought, from trifling difficulties, a near relation, in whom she had placed the greatest confidence." Acceptances had been given by her, in blank, upon stamped paper, which she supposed were for small amounts, but which afterwards appear to have been laid before her, capable of carrying larger sums. "She was fearful of immediate arrest. She wished to treat all her claimants most fairly and honourably; and to save, if possible, the

wife and children of the person who had so deceived her, from utter ruin. She could not enter into negociations with her creditors unless at large; and, apprehending that, if she remained in England, that would not long be the case, she instantly adopted the resolution before-mentioned, of going to France." A list of creditors was made out, and an arrangement was in progress, to enable her to return to this country. All she required, in order to set her mind at ease on the extent of the demands that might be out against her was, that the person who had plunged her into all these difficulties should declare, upon oath, that the list he had given to her included the whole. This, the party, from time to time, refused to do; and disappointed thus in the hope she had so fondly cherished, of again returning to this country, and seeing those children for whom she had the most tender affection, she sunk under the weight of her afflictions; and, in the month of June, 1816, died at St. Cloud."

The above statement is confirmed by a letter, which Mr. Barton quotes from Mrs. Jordan herself, in which she very forcibly depicts the agony of her feelings; but in no part of it hints that she is in want of money for present subsistence. It seems, however, from Sir Jonah Barrington's account, that she was living in very gloomy and miserable apartments, at St. Cloud; not, as has been stated, without a single friend, but with only the female companion who had accompanied her from England, and who had formerly been governess to her children, at Bushy. However this may be, she died at St. Cloud, in a state, if not of pecuniary want, of extreme mental misery, after having resided there for some months under the feigned name of Johnson. her death, however, was a matter of mystery; for she was declared to be alive after the first report of it, and, in fact, she died on the 3rd of July, 1816; and not in June, as stated in Mr. Barton's letter, and at first generally credited. Indeed, Mr. Boaden tells us, that there was a notion, that so far from her being dead, Mrs. Jordan had been met by various persons in London, and he himself was strongly impressed with a notion that he had seen

Even

her. "I was taking," he says, "a very usual walk before dinner, and I stopped at a bookseller's window on the left side of Piccadilly, to look at an embellishment to some new publication that struck my eye. On a sudden a lady stood by my side, who had stopped with a similar impulse: to my conviction it was Mrs. Jordan. As she did not speak, but dropped a long white veil immediately over her face, I conIcluded that she did not wish to be recognised, and therefore, however I should have wished an explanation of what so surprised me, I yielded to her pleasure upon the occasion, grounded,

had no doubt, upon sufficient reason. "When I returned to my own house, at dinner time, I mentioned the circumstance at table, and the way in which it struck me is still remembered in the family. I used, on the occasion, the strong language of Macbeth, 'If I stand here, I saw her.' It was but very recently I heard, for the first time, that one of her daughters, Mrs. Alsop, had, to her entire conviction, met her mother in the Strand, after the report of her death; that the reality, or the fancy, threw her into fits at the time; and that to her own death, she believed that she had not been deceived. With her, indeed, it was deemed a vision, a spectral appearance at noon-day, which, I need not say, was not my impression in the rencontre with myself."

We have only one observation to make on the facts stated in Mr. Barton's letter, relative to the last moments of Mrs. Jordan:-If the Duke of Clarence knew the cause and extent of her distresses, and had the power to relieve them, the imputation of neglecting, in her last moments, the object of a long and next to conjugal attachment, is not wholly undeserved. Of the amiable and generous disposition of Mrs. Jordan, as a woman, and of her abilities, as an actress, there can be but one opinion. Speaking of her in the latter character, Hazlitt says: "Mrs. Jordan's excellences were all natural to her. It was not as an actress, but as herself, that she charmed every one. Nature had formed her in her most prodigal humour; and when Nature is in the humour to make a woman all that is delightful, she does it most effectually. Her face, her tones, her manner, were

irresistible. Her smile had the effect of sunshine, and her laugh did one good to hear it. Her voice was eloquence itself; it seemed as if her heart was always at her mouth. She was all gaiety, openness, and good-nature. She rioted in her fine animal spirits, and gave more pleasure than any other actress, because she had the greatest spirit of enjoyment in herself."

We shall conclude our memoir of this ill-fated woman, with the following anecdotes, related by Mr. Boaden. "When at Chester, Mrs. Jordan hearing that a widow, with three young children, was imprisoned for a small debt, with expenses, amounting to £8, paid the amount, and procured the debtor's release. The same evening, whilst taking shelter from the rain, under a porch in the street, she was surprised by the appearance of the woman with her children, kneeling before her, to thank her for her kindness. The scene strongly affected her, and not less a stranger, who had taken shelter under the same porch, who extended his hand to Mrs. Jordan, saying, 'Would to the Lord the world were all like thee!' Seeing that he was a Methodist parson, she retreated a little, saying, playfully, 'No, I won't shake hands with you.'

Why? Because you are a Methodist preacher; and when you know who I am, you'll send me to the devil.' 'The Lord forbid!' he replied; 'I am, as you say, a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who tells us to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and relieve the distressed; and do you think I can behold a sister fulfil the commands of my great Master, without feeling that spiritual attachment, which leads me to break through wordly customs, and offer you the hand of friendship and brotherly love?' Well, you

'I

are a good old soul, I dare say, but I don't like fanatics, and you'll not like me, when I tell you who I am.' hope I shall.'Well, then, I am a player.' The preacher sighed. Yes, I am a player, and you must have heard of me, Mrs. Jordan is my name.' After a short pause, the preacher extended his hand, and replied, "The Lord bless thee, whoever thou art! His goodness is unlimited. He has bestowed on thee a large portion of his spirit; and, as to thy calling, if thy soul

upbraid thee not, the Lord forbid that I should." Mrs. Jordan accepted his hand, and walked with him a short distance, when he parted from her, saying, 'Fare thee well, sister! I know not what the principles of people of thy calling

may be; thou art the first I ever conversed with; but, if their benevolent practices equal thine, I hope and trust, at the great day, the Almighty will say to each, Thy sins are forgiven thee.'"

THIS lady is the daughter of a Mr. Harvey, and was born at Launceston, in Cornwall, in the year 1765. She received a good education at Bath, and becoming acquainted with the manager of the theatre in that city, made her début on the stage, when about twenty years of age, as Lappet, in The Miser. She remained at Bath for the next two years; and during her residence there, is thus described by an eye-witness of her performances: "Miss Harvey, about the years 1785 and 1786, was a lively, animated, bustling actress; arch, and of exuberant spirits; her style was pointed and energetic; perhaps, indeed, she had less ease than was altogether the thing; but when she had to speak satirically or in irony,-when, in fact, she had to convey one idea to the person on the stage with her, and another to her audience, she was alone and inimitable; she did not carry you away with her so much as many young actresses that I have seen, but she always satisfied you more amply. Then her voice-what a voice was hers! nay, what a voice has she still, though it has had pretty fair exercise for the last half century and upwards. Then it had all the clearness for which it is even now distinguishable; and it had, besides, a witching softness of tone, that knew no equal then, and that I have never heard exceeded since."

After leaving Bath, our actress joined the Exeter company, and then married Mr. Davenport, an actor of ordinary talent in low comedy. After she had

been married a short time, Mrs. Davenport went to Birmingham, and from thence to London, where she remained a considerable time in hopes of obtaining an engagement. Being disappointed in this, she accepted an offer from Dublin, where she made her début as Rosalind, and first commenced that line of characters, in which she afterwards became so famous. On the death of Mrs. Webb, she was engaged to supply her place at Covent Garden, and, at the same time, received a very lucrative offer from America. preferred the former, and accordingly made her first appearance on London boards, in 1794, as Mrs. Hardcastle, in She Stoops to Conquer. She was received with enthusiastic applause, and at the close of the season, was engaged by Colman, for six years, at the Haymarket.

She

the

Mrs. Davenport's most celebrated personations are, her Nurse, in Romeo and Juliet, Mrs. Heidelberg, Mrs. Bundle, Aladdin's Mother, Alice, in The Castle Spectre, Lucretia Mac Tab, and a variety of other characters. It has not been inaptly said of her, that in the vulgar loquacity of the would-be youthful Mrs. Hardcastle-the_oglings of the antiquated virgin, Miss Durable -the imbecility of fourscore in Mrs. Nicely-the sturdy brutality of Mrs. Brulgruddery-the warm-hearted cottager in Lover's Vows,-the attempted elegances of Mrs. Dowlas,-the fieryhumoured dame Quickly, and the obtuse intellect of Deborah, she overcame all rivalry.