United States or Jamaica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As Queen Catherine Mrs. Porter was all mournful grace and dignity, as Lady Macbeth she breathed of battle, murder and sudden death, and in the rôle of Belvidera she showed yet another phase of her incomparable art. "I remember Mrs.
Hayter's graceful sketches of me in Juliet were lithographed and published with Mrs. Jameson's beautifully written but too flattering notice of my performance; the original drawings were purchased by Lord Ellesmere. The second part assigned to me by the theater authorities was Belvidera, in Otway's "Venice Preserved." I had never read the play until I learned my part, nor seen it until I acted it.
I remember a striking instance of this in a celebrated actress, whose copies of actual suffering were so painfully accurate, that I was forced to turn away from the scene, unable to endure it; her scream of agony in Belvidera seemed to ring in my ears for hours after. Not so was it with the great Mrs.
At six o'clock in the morning, a sail was descried, which was soon discovered to be a frigate. The signal was made for a chase, and the squadron made all sail on the starboard tack. This being perceived by Captain Byrn, who commanded the British frigate Belvidera, protecting the convoy, he tacked and made all sail, steering northeast by east.
I act in "Fazio" Monday and Wednesday, and Friday and Saturday Mrs. Beverley and Belvidera at Brighton. I was inexpressibly relieved by receiving a letter from my brother, and the intelligence that if I answered him he would be able to receive my reply, which I made immediate speed to send him. My brother John is alive, safe and well, in Gibraltar.
"The green-room, my dear madam, is the bower where houris put off their wings, and goddesses become dowdies; where Lady Macbeth weeps over her lap-dog, dead from repletion; and Belvidera soothes her broken heart with a dozen of oysters. In a word, it is the place where actors and actresses become men and women, and act their own parts with skill, instead of a poet's clumsily." Mabel.
I must now tell you what I do next week, that you may know where to find me. Monday, the king goes to hear "Cinderella," and I have a holiday and go with my mother to a party at Dr. Granville's. Tuesday, I act Belvidera, and afterward go to Lady Dacre's; I do this because, as I fixed the day myself for her party, not expecting to act that night, I cannot decently get off.
Master Rowland knows full well that she is Mistress Betty Lumley the great London actress, not Belvidera the Venetian senator's daughter; but he will never again turn from the chill of his stone-arched hall, where his fingers have grown benumbed riveting a piece of armour or copying an epitaph or an epigram, or linger under his mighty oak-tree, or advise with his poor tenants, or worship in church, without the sickening sense of a dull blank in his heart and home.
Curl mentions the great pains taken by Lord Rochester in instructing her; which were repaid by the rapid progress she daily made in her profession. She at last eclipsed all her competitors, and in the part of Monimia established her reputation. From her performance in this character, in that of Belvidera, and of Isabella, in the Fatal Marriage, Downes says she acquired the name of the famous Mrs.
Those who have witnessed the representation of the heart-rendings of jealousy in Kean's Othello, or of the agonies of "love and sorrow joined" in Miss O'Neil's Belvidera, will, we are persuaded, acknowledge the truth of this observation.
Word Of The Day