Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/207

 in the study of the dead languages and the composition of Latin verse.

His best speeches were made during the Reform debates of 1866 and 1867, when he delivered a series of addresses resembling in substance and style the classical orations of Canning. Then, as throughout his life, he never stooped to flattery nor concealed the truth. In force of sarcasm he excelled all his contemporaries at St. Stephen's, but this gift was sometimes exercised out of season. He wielded great powers of epigram, and never shrank from expressing the scorn which he felt. A little more readiness to conciliate his critics on the revised education code would have averted the vote which crippled his action for some years, but nothing could induce him to ‘suffer fools gladly.’ There were many members of the House of Commons whom he could not abide, and to them he showed an ‘extraordinary faculty’ of dislike. Personally he was a favourite with the public, who were attracted by the handsomeness of his figure and by the peculiarity of his white hair and eyebrows. He was an ardent advocate of bicycling. Lowe was twice married. His first wife, after a decline in health of some months, died at 34 Lowndes Square, London, 3 Nov. 1884. In the following year he married Caroline, daughter of Thomas Sneyd, of Ashcombe Park, Staffordshire, who survived him. He left no issue.



LOWE, THOMAS (d. 1783), vocalist and actor, first appeared at Drury Lane Theatre on 11 Sept. 1740 as Sir John Loverule in ‘The Devil to Pay,’ introducing a popular song, ‘The Early Horn.’ In the course of his first two seasons Lowe played or sang Quaver (‘Virgin Unmasked,’ 27 Sept. 1740), Leander (‘Mock Doctor,’ 8 Oct.), Macheath (‘Beggar's Opera,’ 17 Oct.), songs in Arne's ‘Œdipus’ (19 Nov.), Bacchanal (Arne's ‘Comus,’ 10 Dec.), Amiens, with Arne's music, in ‘As you like it,’ 20 Dec. (when the play with its new setting was received ‘with extraordinary applause’), Arne's songs in ‘Twelfth Night’ (15 Jan. 1741), Welford (‘Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green,’ 3 April), Lorenzo (‘Merchant of Venice,’ 11 Jan. 1742), and Marcus (‘Cato,’ 4 March).

[q. v.] returned after five years' absence to supersede Lowe at Drury Lane, and Lowe migrated to Covent Garden, where he appeared on 26 Sept. 1748 as Macheath. His Arviragus in ‘Cymbeline,’ 15 Feb. 1749, and Colonel Bully in the ‘Provoked Wife,’ 4 Oct. 1752, appear to have been, with some small singing parts, the most notable impersonations which he added to his Drury Lane répertoire. When at the beginning of the winter season of 1760 Beard removed to Covent Garden, Lowe returned to Drury Lane, taking part, among other performances, in Stanley's ‘Tears and Triumphs of Parnassus,’ 25 Nov. 1760; in Shakespeare's ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ (as Balthazar), and the ‘Tempest’ (as Hymen). After the summer of 1763 his connection with the great theatres ceased.

In the meantime Lowe was associated with the production of several of Handel's oratorios, 1742 to 1750 (see list in ), and was from 1745 a favourite singer at Vauxhall Gardens and at Ruckholt House. The ‘General Advertiser’ for 13 May 1745 announced a concert at Ruckholt ‘to begin at ten o'clock in the morning (N.B. Breakfasting gratis),’ and the first performance of ‘an ode, “The Lake,” with several new hunting songs; first huntsman, Mr. Lowe.’ Lowe was a member of the Madrigal Society between 1741 and 1751.

For five years, beginning in 1763, Lowe was lessee and manager of Marylebone Gardens. ‘The orchestra,’ wrote J. T. Smith, ‘before which I have listened with my grandmother to hear Tommy Lowe sing, stood upon the site of the house now (1828) No. 17 Devonshire Place, and … nearly opposite to the old church still standing in High Street’ (Life of Nollekens, i. 33). The elder Storace and Dr. Arnold supported the enterprise, and the first season was prosperous; but in spite of Miss Catley's singing, Miss Trusler's plum-puddings, and the rousing choruses (by the audience) to Lowe's ‘Fellowcraft’ and other songs, Lowe was ruined in 1769, after an exceptionally wet summer. Thenceforward his efforts to gain a livelihood met with scanty success. After holding an engagement at Finch's Grotto Garden and managing the wells at Otters' Pool, near Watford (1771), he was engaged by King, on his purchase of Sadler's Wells, to sing there from 20 April 1772. He retained the engagement until his death on 1 March 1783.

His voice was said by Dibdin to be more even and mellow than that of Beard, ‘and in love songs, when little more than mere utterance was necessary, he might be said to have exceeded him. … Lowe lost himself beyond the namby-pamby poetry of Vaux-