Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/60

Fisher rides fastest, Miss Kitty Fisher or her gay gallant?' It is a single page, and claims to have been written and printed at Strawberry Hill. Mme. d'Arblay states (Memoirs, i. 66) that Bet Flint once took Kitty Fisher to see Dr. Johnson, but he was not at home, to her great regret. She died at Bath, and at her own request was placed in the coffin in her best dress. This gave rise to 'An Elegy on Kitty Fisher lying in state at Bath' (query same as the elegy previously mentioned?), an undated broadside with music assigned to Mr. Harrington. She was buried at Benenden. The Benenden registers give the date of her burial as 23 March 1767. It has been attempted to associate her with folklore in the expressions, 'My eye, Kitty Fisher,' and in a rhyme beginning 'Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it.' Her chief claim to recognition is that Sir Joshua Reynolds more than once painted her portrait. Several paintings of her by him seem to be in existence. One was in 1865 in the possession of John Tollemache, M.P., of Peckforton, Cheshire. Others were in 1867 lent to the National Portrait Gallery by the Earl of Morley and by Lord Crewe. The last is doubtless that concerning which in Sir Joshua's diary, under the date April 1774, is the entry, 'Mr. Crewe for Kitty Fisher's portrait, 52l. 10s.' This is curious, however, in being seven years after Mrs. Norris's death. Mitford says in his manuscript notes before mentioned that a portrait by Sir Joshua is 'at Field-marshal Grosvenor's, Ararat House, Richmond,' and one is gone to America. Two portraits, one representing her as Cleopatra dissolving the pearls, are engraved. In the 'Public Advertiser' of 30 March 1759 is an appeal to the public, signed C. Fisher, against 'the baseness of little scribblers and scurvy malevolence.' After complaining that she has been 'abused in public papers, exposed in print-shops,' &c., she cautions the public against some threatened memoirs, which will have no foundation in truth. The character of Kitty Willis in Mrs. Cowley's 'The Belle's Stratagem' is taken from Kitty Fisher. Hone's 'Every-day Book' says in error that 'she became Duchess of Bolton,' and Cunningham's 'Handbook to London' states that she lived in Carrington Street, Mayfair.

 FISHER, DANIEL (1731–1807), dissenting minister, born at Cockermouth in 1731, was appointed in 1771 tutor in classics and mathematics at Homerton College, where he was afterwards divinity tutor. He was a rigid Calvinist and staunch dissenter. He died at Hackney in 1807 after a lingering illness, in which he lost the use of all his faculties. Two funeral sermons were preached on the occasion, one of which, by the Rev. Samuel Palmer, was published under the title of 'The General Union of Believers,' London, 1807, 8vo.

[Brit. Mus. Cat.; Evans's Cat. of Engraved British Portraits, ii. 152.]

 FISHER, DAVID, the elder (1788?–1858), actor, one of the managers of Fisher's company, which had a monopoly of the Suffolk theatres, was the son of David Fisher (d. 6 Aug. 1832), manager of the same circuit. Fisher made his first appearance in London at Drury Lane, as Macbeth, 3 Dec. 1817. This was followed on the 5th by Richard III, and on the 10th by Hamlet. The recovery from illness of Kean arrested his career. On 24 Sept. 1818, at Drury Lane, then under Stephen Kemble, he played Jaffier in 'Venice Preserved.' Subsequently he appeared as Lord Townly in the 'Provoked Husband,' and Pyrrhus in 'Orestes.' He was the original Titus in Howard Payne's 'Brutus, or the Fall of Tarquin,' 3 Dec. 1818, and Angelo in Buck's 'Italians, or the Fatal Accusation,' 3 April 1819. He failed to establish any strong position, and discovered at the close of the second season that his presence was necessary on the Suffolk circuit. On 7 Nov. 1823 he appeared at Bath in 'Hamlet,' and subsequently as Shylock, Leon, and Jaffier. He was pronounced a sound actor, but with no claim to genius, and failed to please. Returning again to the eastern counties, he built theatres at Bungay, Beccles, Halesworth, Eye, Lowestoft, Dereham, North Walsham, and other places. About 1838 he retired to Woodbridge, where he died 20 Aug. 1858. He was a musician and a scene-painter, and in the former capacity was leader for some time of the Norwich choral concerts.

[Grenest's Account of the English Stage; Gent. Mag. 1858, ii. 422; Theatrical Inquisitor, vol. xi.]  FISHER, DAVID, the younger (1816?–1887), actor, the son of the elder [q. v.], was born at East Dereham, Norfolk, a town on a circuit established by his grandfather, and managed by his father and his uncle. An accident to his leg disqualified him for the stage, and he appeared as principal violinist at local concerts. A recovery, never perfect, enabled him to join the company at the Prince's Theatre, Glasgow. After a stay of four years he appeared 2 Nov. 1853 at the Princess's Theatre, under Charles Kean's