The deserved good fortune of Anastasia Robinson reminds me of the careers of two other vocalists of this period, one of them owed her elevation to a fortunate accident; while the third, though she entered upon the same possible road to the peerage as the second, yet never attained it. "The Duke of Bolton," says Swift, in one of his letters, "has run away with Polly Peachum, having settled four hundred a year on her during pleasure, and upon disagreement, two hundred more." This was the charming Lavinia Fenton, the original Polly of the Beggars' Opera, between whom and the Duke the disagreement anticipated by the amiable Swift never took place. Twenty-three years after the elopement, the Duke's wife died, and Lavinia then became the Duchess of Bolton. She was, according to the account given of her by Dr. Joseph Warton, "a very accomplished and most agreeable companion; had much wit, good strong sense, and a just taste in polite literature. Her person was agreeable and well made," continues Dr. Warton, "though I think she never could be called a beauty. I have had the pleasure of being at table with her, when her conversation was much admired by the first character of the age, particularly by old Lord Bathurst and Lord Granville." The beautiful Miss Campion, who was singing about the same time as Mrs. Tofts, and who died in 1706, when she was only eighteen, did _not_ become the Duchess of Devonshire; but the heart-broken old Duke, who appears to have been most fervently attached to her, buried her in his family vault in the church of Latimers, Buckinghamshire, and placed a Latin inscription on her monument, testifying that she was wise beyond her years, and bountiful to the poor even beyond her abilities; and at the theatre, where she had some times acted, modest and pure; but being seized with a hectic fever, she had submitted to her fate with a firm confidence and Christian piety; and that William, Duke of Devonshire, had, upon her beloved remains, erected this tomb as sacred to her memory. CHAPTER VI. THE ITALIAN OPERA UNDER HANDEL. Handel at Hamburgh.--Handel in London.--The Queen's Theatre.--The Royal Academy of Music.--Operatic Feuds.--Porpora and the Nobility's Opera. The great dates of Handel's career as an operatic composer and director are:-- 1711, when he produced _Rinaldo_, his first opera, at the Queen's Theatre, in the Haymarket; 1720, when the Royal Academy of Music was established under his management at the same theatre, (which, with the accession of George I., had become "the King's"); 1734, when in commencing the season at the King's Theatre with a new company, he had to contend against the "Nobility's Opera" just opened at the Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, under the direction of Porpora; 1735, when he moved to Covent Garden, Porpora and "la nobilita Britannica" going at the same time to the King's Theatre. [Sidenote: HANDEL AT HAMBURGH.]