Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/430

 she was unsuited, and her final retirement was accepted with something more than resignation. At her best she was a finished singer and an admirable comic actress.

Her portrait, by Sharpe, is in the Mathews collection in the Garrick Club.

[Genest's Account of the English Stage; Monthly Mirror, various years; Kelly's Reminiscences; Grove's Dict. of Music; Georgian Era; Gilliland's Dramatic Mirror; Thespian Dict.; and see under .]  STORACE, STEPHEN (1763–1796), musical composer, born in London in 1763, was son of Stephano Storace, and brother of Anna Storace [q. v.] Stephen's progress as a violinist was so rapid that at twelve he was placed in the St. Onofrio Conservatorio at Naples, where he studied for several years. Subsequently he travelled on the continent with his sister Anna. In Vienna he became acquainted with Mozart, but was imprisoned owing to a brawl with an officer, and on being released the Storaces returned in 1787 to England. Stephen, finding no opportunity of earning a livelihood as a musician, taught drawing, but was soon engaged by Linley as composer to Drury Lane, and to superintend the production of opera at the King's Theatre. As a theatrical manager he met with some successes, but was driven to Bath by the intrigue and jealousy of his associates. On his return to London he adapted Dittersdorf's opera ‘Doktor und Apotheker’ for Drury Lane. In 1783 he resumed work for a short time at the King's Theatre, but ultimately devoted himself to Drury Lane, where he produced his first English opera, ‘The Haunted Tower,’ on 24 Nov. 1789, which was an extraordinary success. On 20 Nov. 1792 he scored another triumph with ‘The Pirate’ (libretto by Cobb), the finale to which is considered his best musical effort. In this his sister sang. In the same year he brought out ‘Dido,’ and for the next two and a half years he was constantly engaged in producing new operas, and operas composed of music by himself and others. On 12 March 1796 ‘The Iron Chest,’ by Colman and Storace, was produced, the music making a popular success; but the anxiety and labour attendant on its production at Drury Lane brought to a climax an illness from which Storace had previously suffered. He died in Percy Street, Rathbone Place, on 19 March 1796, leaving a widow, daughter of John Hall (1739–1797) [q. v.] the engraver, and children.

Storace had a good gift for the invention of melody, and many of his compositions enjoyed an enormous vogue at the time of their production. He wrote about twenty operas, and a string quartet, which was played in Vienna by Haydn, Dittersdorf, Mozart, and Vanhall. Sheridan is said to have declared that Storace had a fine literary talent. His ballads are good; one from Hoare's ‘No Song, no Supper’ (1790), has been often reprinted.

[Harmonicon, vi. 1; Kelly's Reminiscences, passim; Parke's Musical Memoirs, vol. i. passim; Colman's Preface to The Iron Chest; Georgian Era, iv. 266; Baker's Biographia Dramatica; Musical World, 1840, p. 212.]  STORER, ANTHONY MORRIS (1746–1799), collector and man of fashion, born on 12 March 1746, was elder son of Thomas Storer of Westmoreland, Jamaica (d. Golden Square, London, on 21 July 1793, aged 76), who married Helen, daughter of Colonel Guthrie. Anthony was at Eton from about 1760 to 1764 with C. J. Fox and Earl Fitzwilliam, and some sets of Latin verse by him are in the ‘Musæ Etonenses.’ His ‘sense and good nature’ while at school are lauded by the fifth Earl of Carlisle in ‘Verses on his Schoolfellows,’ 1762. About 1765 he proceeded to Cambridge, probably to Corpus Christi College, and was a close friend there and at Eton of Lord Carlisle, but left without taking a degree.

Storer then blossomed in the gay world of London, becoming conspicuous as the best dancer and skater of his time, and beating all his competitors at gymnastics. He excelled, too, as a musician and a conversationalist. Like most of his school friends, he was both a man of fashion and a whig in politics. During 1778 and 1779 he was in America with Lord Carlisle and William Eden (afterwards first Lord Auckland). He visited Carlisle when lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1781, and, through his interest, succeeded Benjamin L'Anglois as a commissioner of the board of trade on 26 July 1781. Meanwhile he sat in the House of Commons as M.P. for Carlisle from 1774 to 1780, and subsequently—from 1780 to 1784—for Morpeth. Much of his time was passed with the family of Lord North, and in August 1782 he was a medium of communication between that nobleman and Fox. He enlisted under the ‘coalition,’ and in September 1783, greatly to the indignation of Gibbon, who was also an aspirant to the office, he was sent by Fox to Paris as secretary of the legation. On 13 Dec. 1783, when the ambassador, the Duke of Manchester, came home, he was nominated as minister plenipotentiary, but six days later his friends were ejected from office. His connection with politics then ceased. He had by that time