For OCTOBER, 1819.

A New and Improved Series.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ILLUSTRIOUS AND

DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS.

Number One Hundred and Twenty-eight.

BEAUTIES OF THE COURT OF CHARLES II.

MISS PRICE.

THE object of our present sketch was one of those captivating females who charm most by their wit and sprightliness of manner; which, when united to a certain loveliness of countenance, renders them often more irresistible than the regular beauty. The face of Miss Price, indicative of youth and freshness, was what is usually known by the epithet of pretty; but her figure was rather against her, for, excepting a very beautiful bust, it was short, and somewhat clumsily built.

of Sir Edmund Warcup; and perhaps took the second family name of Price, as Madame Kirke did that of Warmestre, on her being promoted maid of honour.

These are conjectures only, but they appear to us founded on truth: the following particulars of Miss Price we have gleaned from some authentic, though private, histories of the court at that period.

The fair subject of our present biography was possessed of all that tenderness of heart which, in a court like that of Charles II. was not likely to reduce a lover to despair: she was affected also with the mą

The historians of the reign of Charles II. differ as to her situation at his court; some saying she was maid of honour to Annenia of having a numerous train of admirers, Duchess of York; others that she was one of the Queen's ladies in waiting; though certain it is that she was in the train of the Duchess of York, when that lady, for her imprudent conduct, expelled her from

her situation.

At first, however, we always find her of the Queen's parties when her Majesty, yielding to the prevalent frolics of the time, went about in disguises and masquerade: we are also of opinion that she was the same person who is sometimes called Lady Price; especially as there is no distinct portrait of any other lady of the name of Price than that from whence our engraving is taken, by Sir Peter Lely, and who certainly took likenesses of every celebrated female belonging to the court. We may therefore almost venture to say, that this youthful and witty lady was the daughter

and she left no art unemployed to gain them: so far from being cruel or coy, she is said, whenever an occasion offered, not even to make any terms, but willingly accepted the vows of every one who aspired to her favour; so that it might literally be said of her-"It was si Signor, and Lia Mynheer, and s'il vous plait, Monsieur."

She exposed herself, however, to great and real inconveniences from the violence of her resentments as well as her attachments; so that every day she gave room to the licentious wits of the age to blazon forth her name in songs and lampoons, the subject of which was her imprudent conduct.

Miss Price, seldom or ever without intrigues of her own, was continually taken up with those of others: well skilled in keeping her own secrets, she was little

the pen of the gay and accomplished Rochester. The loss of a lover, to whom she was fondly attached, was only wanting to

Dongon, called by Sir Richard Fanshaw, Lord Dongon, a gentleman of great merit, of a most honourable family, and a Lieutenant in the Duke of York's life guards, paid the great debt of nature in his prime of years: added to the affliction experi

scrupulous in betraying those of her acquaintance; and not only did she divulge those of her enemies, but her love of gossip, united to her thoughtless levity and un-complete the anguish of mind she at that controlled gaiety of heart, caused her often time endured. to betray her real friends. She was acquainted with every amorous court adven- || ture, and no woman of her time knew better who and who were together: but amongst all her discoveries, and which she told to all she met with, was that of a very low amour in which the famous Earl of Roches-enced by Miss Price at his death, the inter was engaged. The whole weight of this nobleman's rssentment fell on the tattling fair one; and he wrote against her a most bitter lampoon, penned with all the spirit of his licentious satire; and this satire was continually exercised against the thoughtless and giddy Miss Price. Rochester, disguised as a fortune teller, retreated to one of the most obscure corners of the city, giving himself out as a famous German doctor, whose secret art consisted in knowing what was past, and foretelling, by the aid of astrology, what was to come. At first his practice was not very considerable; but as soon as his reputation became known at the court end of the town, all the women attending on the palace, the chambermaids belonging to ladies of qua lity, and those who were waiting-women to the ladies of honour, set off in crowds to hear not only his wouderful prognostics, but all the court intrigues in which they had borne their part, and which they thought buried in secresy, detailed to their astonished ears. The waiting-maids of the ladies of honour had been chiefly dispatched by their mistresses, aud the wily Ro-than the two first. chester, in his impenetrable disguise, was personally acquainted with them all. He recognized Miss Price's maid among the first who called on him; and the girl went back terrified to her mistress, telling her, that the cunning man, without even look-tolerated by the pernicious example of ing at her hand, had told her, that he knew she was in the service of a very good natured young lady, who had no other fault than that of loving wine and mên!

Poor Miss Price, after having voluntarily provoked the resentment of this noble libertine, knew not how to support the continual satire she experienced in a court where every one was eager to be possessed of any manuscript trifle that came from

ventory taken of his effects had nearly deprived her of her reason: there was in this inventory a small box, sealed up on all sides, and directed in the hand-writing of the deceased, to Miss Price. When the fatal box was brought to her, she averted her eyes, and had not courage to touch it. The governess of the young maids of honour thought it became her, in prudence, to take possession of it on the refusal of her to whom it was addressed; and she immediately delivered it into the hands of the Duchess of York, who had the curiosity to open it, in the presence of some ladies who happened then to be with her Royal Highness in her private apartment. The box contained all kinds of love trinkets which had been presented to the officer by the tender hearted Miss Price; there were several portraits of her, and her hair wrought into bracelets, lockets, &c. &c. in a thousand curious devices; and three or four packets of letters, written in so very amorous and rapturous a style, with so little choice or delicacy of expression, that the Duchess could not endure to read more

Though the Duchess was one of the kindest of mistresses, and though she made every allowance for the young and unwary, in a court where licentiousness of conduct and depravity of manners were

the great, yet her own correct demeanour, the virtuous pattern she had hitherto set, and the affair being now in a great degree public, by her incautious curiosity in opening the box before several ladies of rauk, it became impossible for the Duchess any longer to retaiu Miss Price as her maid of honour; and having restored to the imprudent girl all her valuables, her Royal Highness ordered her to seek consolation

for the loss of her lover in some other | nings was haughty, desired him to attend situation. to his own affairs, and declared she preferred the conversation of such an intelligent woman as Miss Price infinitely to his; and that if he only took the trouble to come from Ireland to read lectures on her conduct, he might go back as soon as he pleased.

Deprived of the countenance of those women amongst the nobility who set any value at all on decorum of conduct or rec=titude of manners, Miss Price threw herself 1 on the protection of the King's mistress, Lady Castlemain, afterwards Duchess of ■Cleveland. Enchanted by her sprightly wit, and that good natured complaisance || =which can accommodate itself to all humours, a gaiety also that diffused universal mirth and joy wherever she appeared, Lady Castlemain was delighted with her young companion, and could never bear her to be absent from her.

Of the intrigues of Miss Price, after the loss of her lover, we find none on record: and we rather hope that she expiated her former imprudencies by remaining as a widow to his memory. She was, however, too good natured not to be kind and accommodating to others. The Duchess of Cleveland, piqued at the numerous infideMiss Jennings, afterwards Duchess of lities of her royal lover, abandoned herself Tyrconnel, was one of those steady female to the most disorderly conduct; Miss Price friends who never desert the objects of became a more valuable companion than their regard because the great have frown- ever, as she knew all the heroes in love ed upon them. Never weary of the lively and gallantry about the court. Amongst and entertaining conversation of Miss Price, || these, she introduced to the Duchess young Miss Jennings seized every opportunity of Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlbobeing with her; when they would talk rough, never equalled in war, till he was over those sprightly innocent frolics they indeed surpassed by a Wellington.— had taken together, plan new ones, and Churchill was sure of finding favour in the enter into such plans with all the eager- eyes of the meretricious Duchess; his ness and spirit of childhood. Talbot, Duke || figure was most beautiful, but it was so far of Tyrconnel, Miss Jennings' lover, chid eclipsed by his fascinating manners that her, in the tone of a guardian, for keeping || he was said to be irresistible, either in the such disreputable company: but Miss Jen- presence of man or woman.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MUSIC.

STATE OF MUSIC DURING THE EIGHTEENTH

CENTURY.

THE art of singing has been very little || cultivated by the English before the commencement of the eighteenth century by either sex. The Honourable Roger North, in his memoirs of music, speaks of the younger Banister as an excellent singingmaster: it was, however, a powerful recommendation to a song, during the cen tury before last, to say it had been performed at the play-house! Till the reign of Queen Anne, the gentlemen of the Chapel Royal used occasionally to sing on the stage; but that Princess thinking the prac tice improper, it was discontinued.

An Irish gentleman, who was living in 1794, remembered Handel's being in Dublin, and perfectly recollected his performances, person, and manners.

In 1745 the only subscription concert at the west end of the town was at Hickford's room, or dancing-school, in Brewer-street; and in the city the best performers at the Italian Opera, and the favourite English singers were hired to perform at the Swan aud Castle concerts. Frasi and Beard sung at both, and Miss Turner was a favourite at the Swan.

The late Mr. Tyers, proprietor of the Vauxhall Gardens, who, by his taste in laying them out, his paintings, band of

||

music, good wines, and cold collations, had,, which treat she took good care they should attracted crowds of company; in the sum- not be ungrateful at his benefit. When mer of 1745 added, for the first time, vocal Mingotti, the Italian songstress, arrived to his instrumental music. here, as she had united her interests with those of Giardini in the conducting and managing the opera, Mrs. Lane espoused her cause also, and entered into all the spirit of her theatrical quarrels as eagerly as if they were her own; and whenever a benefit was in contemplation for one of her || favourites, she obliged her illustrious guests to be munificent.—“Come," she would say to her friends, "give me five guineas."—A demand, that was as readily complied with as if an highwayman had made it on the road.

Ranelagh had been planned by the late Mr. Lacey, joint patentee with Mr. Garrick of Drury-Lane Theatre. The orchestra was at first placed in the middle of the || Rotunda; the performance was in the morning, and oratorio choruses constituted the musical bill of fare. Sir John Barnard complaining of this morning amusement seducing young men from the shops and counting-houses to neglect their business,|| the morning entertainment was prohibited, and Ranelagh opened at six o'clock in the evening. The performance did not begin till eight.

The English pasticcio burletta of Love in a Village, The Summer's Tale, and The

In 1749 the celebrated Giardini arrived || Maid of the Mill, gave us a taste for Italian in England, whose great hand, taste, and || melody; The Duenna, auother favourite style of playing were so universally and pasticcio increased it, and Arnold, Dibdin, justly admired: he not only taught a great and Shield, have all complied with this number of scholars on the violin, but many taste, adopting the opera style. Linley, ladies of the first rank to sing; after he || aud Jackson of Exeter, kept to that pecuhad been here a few years he formed a liar manner, so exclusively their own; and morning concert at his house, composed this we are happy to see preserved, because chiefly of his scholars, vocal and instru- it is founded on the melodies of the best mental, who bore a part in the perform-old English masters.

ance.

Till the establishment of the Italian opera in this country, taste was but little thought of; all that was required of singers was a good voice and a good ear. So deficient were the English singers in taste and grace, that they at first listened to the Italiaus that partially came over with little or no admiration; and one manner of singing in England seems to have been the same for above half a century. The most rapid effect produced on public taste seems to

The elegant kind of private concerts which are now frequently given by the nobility and gentry, were then scarcely known. The first was given by Lady Brown, under the direction of the Count St. Germain. Her Ladyship had always distinguished herself as a persevering enemy || to Handel, and a protectress of all foreign musicians of the new Italian style: she was one of the first persons of fashion who had the courage, at the risk then of her win-have been by Tenducci's singing in the dows, to have a concert on Sunday evening.

opera of Artaxerxes. Every one possessed The most remarkable academia was esta- of a good ear and voice were stimulated to blished at the house of Mrs. Fox Lane, imitate him. In later times the scholars afterwards Lady Bingley, on Giardini's of Sacchini, Piozzi, Corri, and others, comarrival in England. Lady Bingley warmly || pleted what Tenducci's imitators had bepatronized that performer to the time of gun; and taste and judgment have wrought her death; she was not content with only such changes at concerts and at theatres, admiring him herself, but she contrived, that singers differ as much from what they by every plan she could think of, to make were thirty or forty years ago, as civilizahim the admiration of others. After Giar- tion differs from barbarism. dini's first arrival it was but very seldom that he was heard in public; Mrs. Lane, therefore, invited select parties of the first people in the kingdom to her own house, in order that they might hear him, and for

Of female vocal performers who have particularly distinguished themselves in this country, none ranked higher than Mrs. Billington. She was at once scientific, sweet, and captivating. No song was too