Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/154

 dral, and gives legacies to his wife Susanna, his daughter Grace Shaw, his son-in-law George Seagood, and also to the Company of Glaziers. William Faithorne the elder [q. v.] drew his portrait.

 OLIVER, JOHN (1838–1866), Welsh poet, was born on 7 Nov. 1838 at Llanfynydd, a small village in Carmarthenshire, where his parents kept a shop. He spent seven years (1843–50) at the village school, and nearly four at a Carmarthen school. Before he was sixteen he passed on to the presbyterian college in the same town. Here he made great progress with the regular studies, and read widely, on his own account, in English and German literature. He was soon able to preach with equal facility in Welsh and English. He left college in his twenty-first year, and abandoned an intention of continuing his studies at Glasgow, owing to failing health. Subsequently he preached occasionally, and devoted himself to Welsh poetry. Most of his Welsh poems were written during his enforced retirement. His most ambitious poem is one on 'David the Prince of the Lord.' Otherlong poems are 'The Beauties of Nature,' 'The Widow of Nain,' 'The Wreck of the Royal Charter,' all showing great promise. His shorter poems, however, are his best, and there is not a better in the language than 'Myfyrdod,' a meditation or soliloquy. Of his English poems, the be stare perhaps 'Life' and 'When I die;' but being his earliest productions, they are inferior to his Welsh poems. Oliver died on 24 June 1866, in his twenty-eighth year, and his remains were interred in the parish churchyard of Llanfynydd, of which he had sung so sweetly. His collected works (Welsh and English) were published at Newport, Monmouthshire, under the name 'Cerddi Cystudd,' by his brother, the Rev. Henry Oliver, with biographical preface and a photographic portrait, in 1867, small 8vo.

 OLIVER, MARTHA CRANMER, always known as (1834–1880), actress, daughter of John Oliver, a scene-painter, was born at Salisbury in 1834, and appeared on the stage of the theatre in that town when only six years old. Here and at Southampton her performances of children's parts attracted attention, till in 1847 she made her metropolitan début under Mrs. Warner's management at the Marylebone Theatre. Her success gained her an engagement with Madame Vestris at the Lyceum, which lasted from 1849 to 1855. In 1855 she went to Drury Lane, where on 10 Oct. she played Matilda in ‘Married for Money,’ and on 4 Sept. 1856 Celia in ‘As you like it.’ In the same year her performance of Helen in the ‘Hunchback’ won such praise from the critics that Buckstone offered her an engagement at the Haymarket. There she was seen in Talfourd's burlesque of ‘Atalanta’ on 14 April 1857. Accepting an offer from Miss Swanborough, she became the leading actress in comedy and burlesque at the Strand Theatre for several seasons. On 29 Dec. 1858 she acted Amy Robsart in the burlesque of ‘Ye Queen, ye Earl, and ye Maiden;’ on 14 June 1859 Pauline in Byron's burlesque, the ‘Lady of Lyons;’ on 26 Dec. Lisetta in Talfourd's burlesque ‘Tell and the Strike of the Cantons;’ and on 26 Dec. 1860 the Prince in Byron's burlesque, ‘Cinderella.’

At the Haymarket, on 16 Nov. 1861, she was cast for Mary Meredith in ‘Our American Cousin,’ on Sothern's first appearance as Lord Dundreary in London. In 1863 she was at the Princess's, and on 10 April took the title-rôle in Byron's burlesque, ‘Beautiful Haidee.’ On 31 March 1866 she became manageress of the New Royalty Theatre, and opened with a revival of the ‘Ticket-of-Leave Man,’ and Reece's burlesque, ‘Ulf the Minstrel.’ In a clever and successful piece by H. T. Craven, entitled ‘Meg's Diversion,’ which was produced on 17 Oct., she acted Meg, the author played Jasper Pidgeon, and F. Dewar took the part of Roland. On 29 Nov. 1866 she put on the stage F. C. Burnand's burlesque, ‘The Latest Edition of Black-eyed Susan, or the Little Bill that was taken up.’ The piece, although it failed to please the critics, had an unprecedented run, and on its performance at the Royalty on 23 Sept. 1868, it was said that Miss Oliver had repeated the song of ‘Pretty See-usan, don't say no,’ no less than 1775 times. During the run of this burlesque she produced as a first piece Andrew Halliday's drama, ‘Daddy Gray,’ 1 Feb. 1868, and on 26 Nov. 1868 a serio-comic drama by the same author, entitled ‘The Loving Cup.’ Other burlesques were afterwards introduced, but they were not very successful.

On 3 March 1870 ‘Black-eyed Susan’ was revived, and played for the four hundred and twenty-first time. The last night of Miss Oliver's lesseeship was 30 April 1870, when the burlesque was given for the four-hundred-and-ninetieth time. After this period she was seldom seen on the stage. She was a