Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/67

 12 8. HI- JAN. 27, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

61

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARYS, 1917.

CONTENTS. No. 57.

"NOTES : Mrs. Esten, 61 From Liverpool to Worcester a Century Ago. 63 'Zoriada' and the Wordbooks, 65 Posset Pot Rime An Envoy of Henry VIII. to Turkey, 66 Barnacle Folk-Lore Editorially Solicited Contribu- tions, 67.

,

Adventures of a Post Captain ' Pictures : Where Exhibited? " Derby Rain " Toppe Family, 70-London Societies for Religious Purposes, 1821 Sir Isaac Newton :

(REPLIES : Army List of 1740, 71 National Flags: the Greek Flag Tiller Bowe : Brandretb, 73 Isaac Pening- ton, Lord Mayor of London Lieut. -Col. Lewis Wallis " Donkey's years " ' Jonathan Wild, the Great ' Ewald : Sir John Cutler North American Indian Marshals of France, 74 Author Wanted Shakespeare on Satan as an Angel of Light Pigeon-eating Wagers, 75*- Roger Handasyde, M P. Portraits in Stained Glass- Mother and Child Naming of Locomotives -Francis Timbrell, 76 The King and the Falcon Pronunciation of "ea" Naval Relic of Charles I. English Colloquial Similes, 77 Names of the Moon Stipendiary Magis- trates wearing Robes William of Orange : Inscription Mrs. Anne Button, 78.

JTOTES ON BOOKS: 'The Johnson Calendar' ' Surnames.'

''Recent Catalogues.

MRS. ESTEN. (See 10 S. iv. 190, 296.)

THIS once celebrated actress seems as much entitled to a place in the ' D.N.B.' as many of her kind who are included. Harriet Pye Esten was the natural daughter of Admiral Sir Thomas Pye and Agnes Maria Bennett, the popular novelist, authoress of ' Juvenile Indiscretions,' &c. (' Secret History of the Green-Room,' 1793, ii. 1-14 ; cf. Town and Country Magazine, xii. 177). Her brother Thomas Pye Bennett being in the Navy, she became acquainted with the purser of a man-of-war, named James Esten, to whom she was married, according to MB. GORDON GOODWIN (10 S. iv. 296), at Lower Tooting 'Graveney, Surrey, on Feb. 24, 1784 ; cf. ' Journal of House of Lords,' xli. 485. The historian of the Green- Room tells us that

" they lived together some years in a domestic And happy state, and two little ones were the fruits of their mutual fondness ; but Mr. Esten, desirous to procure the means of supporting so expensive
 * an establishment as a numerous family, ad-

ventured in some undertakings which provod unsuccessful ; his finances were ruined, and his wife was necessarily returned upon the hands of her mother" (cf. European Magazine, xviii. 381).

Her husband being unable to support her, Mrs. Esten turned to the stage, making her first appearance at Bath for Diamond's benefit as Alicia in ' Jane Shore,' on June 19, 1786(Genest, vi. 420-21). "Aided by her beauty, she made a very favourable im- pression upon the Bath audience," and in the next year she secured an engagement at Bristol. Here her benefit on July 2, 1787, happened to coincide with a sailing match, whereupon the actress, in an address to the public, complained of the manager's fixing her benefit on a bad night (Genest, vi. 461 - 2). Throughout her theatrical career she seems to have been of a somewhat com- bative disposition, never afraid of self- assertion.

A successful engagement in Dublin fol- lowed ; and on Jan. 19, 1790, she appeared at Edinburgh as Juliet :

" Her reception was a,s flattering as her most sanguine expectations could have formed. . . .and she was adopted by general voice as the theatrical child of Scotland " (' History of the Scottish Stage,' John Jackson, p. 194 ; cf. ' Annals of the Edinburgh Stage,' J. C. Dibdin, p. 209).

Contemporary accounts agree that she was a very attractive woman :

" Though rather small, Mrs. Esten's person is extremely neat. . . .her face is beautiful, and she is perfect mistress of the use of a fine pair of eyes. Her voice, like'Mrs. Siddons's, is well calculated for Tragedy, but is not sufficiently feminine for the gay 'scenes of the comic Muse " (' Secret History of the Green- Room ').

" She is rather small in stature, well-made, with a most eloquent eye and a very expressive face. Her countenance is handsome, and her voice clear and articulate " (European Maaazine, xviii. 381).

" She is a very lovely woman, and a promising actress " (' Memoirs of Mrs. Crouch,' M. A. Young, ii. 125-6).

" Of the person of Mrs. Esten we will venture to say that it is truly captivating ; . . . . blessed with a set of features uncommonly lovely and expressive ; a voice at once powerful and plain- tive, cheerful and mellow, her merit. . . .is nearly equal in the grave and in the gay " (' Memoirs of Tate Wilkinson,' iii. 156).

She appeared under Wilkinson at York on May 19, 1790, as Monimia in ' The Orphan.' According to her manager, " Mrs. Esten's peculiar neatness and elegance prepossessed the audience in her favour, and she had not finished her first scene before they, with one consent, adopted ' the orphan,' and wished to secure her as their own " (' Wandering Paten- tee,' Tate Wilkinson, iii. 103).

Her successes in the provinces made her ambitious of a London engagement. The