Cornish Characters and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Cornish Characters and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography; Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
In England an excellent conception of his, which he was able to
realize, was the foundation of the "British and Foreign Institute." To
this he was moved by seeing so many Orientals and others adrift in
London, without any centre where they could meet and communicate their
ideas with statesmen and politicians of Great Britain, and where they
might gather for refreshment of mind and body alike. The Duke of
Cambridge became President, and the Society attracted to its soirées
the literary and intellectual of all lands.
His pen and his voice were employed for some years in advocating
reforms.
He died on June 20th, 1855, in his seventieth year, and his wife died
in the house of her son-in-law, Henry R. Dewey, 22nd January, 1865, at
the age of eighty.
It is greatly to be regretted that he did not live to complete his
Memoirs. He had two sons--James, who died in Jamaica, 1867, and
Leicester Forbes Young Buckingham, who ran away with an actress,
Caroline Connor, and married her at Gretna Green, 5th April, 1844. She
had made her first appearance on the London stage at the Haymarket
Theatre in 1842. The marriage was not happy and they separated, she to
return to the stage, where she acted under the name of Mrs. Buckingham
White. He died at Margate 17th July, 1867.
MARY ANN DAVENPORT, ACTRESS
Mary Ann Harvey was born in Launceston in 1759, and was educated at
Bath, where she was seized with a passion for the stage, and made her
first appearance on the boards at Bath as Lappet in _The Miser_ in 1779.
She remained at Bath 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
the 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 hers
was! Nay, what a voice she has still, though it has had a 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."
There was an _espiègle_ charm about her; she was not exactly
beautiful, but had a witchery of face and of manner that was
unsurpassed by any of her fellow-actresses, who may have possessed
more regularity of feature.
[Illustration: _M^{rs}. Davenport_,
in the Character of M^{rs}. Grundy]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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