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 petition having been presented in his favour on 15 Feb. 1773, he was allowed to return home, and five years later a free pardon was granted him. But although he occasionally visited Scotland, he continued for a considerable time to make Paris his head-quarters. In 1797 he published ‘Remarks on the Antiquities of Rome and its Environs,’ which was reprinted in 1812. He also compiled a pedigree of his family, which was published in Maidment's ‘Analecta Scotica,’ vol. ii. He died in Edinburgh on 25 Dec. 1801. ‘Persons still alive,’ says Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, ‘remember him as a lively, laughing old gentleman, with polished manners and stiff curls, an esteemed diner-out, a teller of pleasant anecdotes, and a maker of elaborate bows in foreign fashion’ (Works, vi. 165). His sister, Isabella, was the wife of Sir Robert Strange [q. v.] A medallion of Lumisden by Tassie is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. It was engraved in stipple by W. Buchanan in Lumisden's ‘Remarks,’ and also in Denniston's ‘Memoirs.’ 

LUMLEY, BENJAMIN (1811–1875), author, and manager of the opera in London, born in 1811, was son of Louis Levy, a Jewish merchant of Canada, who died in London about 1831. Benjamin Levy assumed the name of Lumley early in life. After being educated at King Edward's School at Birmingham, he was admitted a solicitor in London in 1832. He became a parliamentary agent, and was studying for the bar under Basil Montagu, Q.C., when, in 1835, Laporte, manager of Her Majesty's Theatre, employed him on some legal business. In the following season, 1836, Lumley undertook the superintendence of the finances of the theatre. For five years he retained his position, and after the death of Laporte on 25 Sept. 1841 the reins of theatrical government fell into his hands. Her Majesty's Theatre had practically been the sole home of Italian opera since its establishment in England. When Lumley took over the management in 1842, the repertoire consisted of little else than the more insipid pieces of Bellini and Donizetti, but the company of singers included Grisi, Persiani, Rubini (Mario soon stepping into his place), Tamburini, and Lablache, a coalition of five superb artists, widely known as ‘la vieille Garde.’ Lumley rapidly found himself at war with these eminent vocalists, and adopted towards them a policy of reserve, which they resented. In 1841, Laporte's last season, a serious dispute had arisen between Tamburini and the management. Lumley, with more valour than discretion, dispensed in 1842 with that singer. In 1844 he made no effort to retain Madame Persiani's services (, Lyrical Drama, i. 17), and in 1846 Lumley refused the demand of Sir Michael Costa [q. v.], the conductor, to be allowed to accept the conductorship of the Philharmonic Society's band. Costa had other reasons connected with the production of his own music for discontent, and he seceded, with Grisi, Mario, and the greater part of his fine orchestra, to the new Royal Italian Opera House at Covent Garden in 1847. Lablache alone remained faithful to Lumley.

Up to 1847 Lumley's management met with brilliant success. ‘He found ill-paid and unpaid artists, an interior in disorder, a band and chorus in revolt, shabbiness and poverty rampant within the walls, and, as with the wand of the enchanter,’ he revolutionised the whole system (Musical World, 1847, p. 45). A magnificent ballet held the fashionable world entranced. Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, Cerito, Elssler, Lucille Grahn, with Perrot and St. Leon, male dancers, appeared in pas-seul and ballet-drama; the famous ‘pas de quatre’ was danced in 1845, the ‘pas de cinq’ in the following year.

The opening of the rival opera-house in 1847 imperilled Lumley's position. He engaged Balfe to take Costa's place, and Balfe conducted the band for the first time publicly on 3 March, at the opening of the season of 1847. In the same year Lumley announced that he had secured the services of Jenny Lind [q.v.]. Encouraged by Mendelssohn and Mrs. Grote, amongst others, Jenny Lind had consented to appear at Her Majesty's in spite of an old contract with Bunn. But so reluctant was the singer to bring upon herself and Lumley an action at law, that it was for many months a matter of doubt whether she would fulfil her engagement. At length, on 4 May, she made her first appearance at Her Majesty's in ‘Roberto,’ and the extraordinary spell which she exercised over the English public temporarily saved Lumley from disaster. At the end of her third season at Her Majesty's, in 1849, she retired from the stage, and Lumley's financial embarrassment thenceforth grew rapidly. In 1851 Sontag (Countess Rossi) was his chief support. In 1852 the bad faith of Mademoiselle Joanna Wagner, who failed to keep her engagement with him, and appeared at the rival house under Frederick Gye the