Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/269

 12 8. V. OCT., 1919.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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nistrusting the motives of the intercessor, and ,s for the second, it is very doubtful whether the )ean's proud, imperious spirit permitted him to sk favours." If Mr. Pearce refers to Swift's reluctance

asking favours generally, then his in- erence is scarcely justified by facts, for it is lear from the Calendar of MSS. of the Marquis of Bath (Hist. MSS. Com., 1904, ^ol. i. p. 228) that Swift personally sought idvancement at the hands of Walpole's )redecessor. To the Earl of Oxford he vrote on Jan. 5, 1713 :

"1 most humbly take leave to inform your ^ordship that the Dean of Wells died this morning it one o'clock. I entirely submit my poor fortunes )0 your Lordship."

J. PAUL DE CASTRO.

1 Essex Court, Temple.

IRA F. ALDRIDGE, THE AFRICAN Roscius. In addition to what has already appeared it 4 S. x. 35, 132, 373, and in Boase's'

1 Modern English Biography,' I can now present some fresh facts concerning this remarkable man and his family. Born in 1804 in Maryland of pure African parentage, after finishing his education at Glasgow University, he eventually adopted the stage as a profession. It was not, however, until he had appeared in ' Othello,' ' Titus Aixdronicus,' and certain other plays, comic as well as tragic, that his dramatic talent was established, and that even in the eyes of such good judges as J. W. Wallack, Miss O'Neill, and Sheridan Knowles.

His first wife must have been a white woman to judge from the complexion of his eldest son, whom I knew well in the sixties, though he was my senior at school by some years. The wife of the present Mayor of Canterbury, Dr. R. A. Bremner, who subse- quently knew the family personally, has kindly informed me that the actor's second wife was a Swedish beauty of noble birth who went by the name of Baroness Aldridge. This second marriage took place, I believe, about 1860, during the course of his pro- fessional tour through Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Russia, and Austria. After his death in 1867 Madame Aldridge lived in retirement at Aneiiey with her three children ; but having the misfortune to lose most of her money she died in very straitened circum- stances. Her only son is also dead, but the two daughters, whose dark faces con- trasted strangely with their mother's fair complexion, being accomplished singers and musicians, took to the stage. I do not know what became of the elder son, though I can recall his acting very effectively in an

amateur representation of ' Box and Cox/ The father is credited with having played Aaron in ' Titus Andronicus ' for six nights at the Britannia Theatre in March, 1852 y that being the last occasion of the play's production in England. N. W. HILL.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

WILLIAM PEER: THE ALLEGED ACTOR. The first and last mention of this actor occurs in No. 82 of The Guardian, published on June 15, 1713. In this essay Steele speaks of his

" concern for the death of Mr. William Peer of the Theatre-royal, who was an actor at the Restoration and took 'his theatrical degree with Better-ton, Kynaston and Harris," [and] "distinguished him- self particularly in two characters, which no man could ever touch but himself." These were the speaker of the three -line prologue to the play in ' Hamlet,' III. ii., and the apothecary in ' Caius Marius,' which was ' Romeo and Juliet ' adapted by Otway to the Restoration stage. Steele proceeds to describe and analyse Peer's excellence m these two very small parts, which, he says won " universal applause," and " more reputation than those who speak the length of a Puritan's sermon every night will ever attain to." He also held the post of property-man, and at last became so prosperous that " in the seventieth year of his age he grew fat," and so was unfitted for the only two parts he could play ; and this calamity hastened his death.

On the strength of Steele' s enconium Peer has been admitted to that Pantheon the ' D.N.B.,' yet it seems doubtful whether he ever existed. His career must have been a long one if he began to act at the Restoration and lived till 1713 ; and if he won such " reputation " and " great fame " as Steele attributes to him by these two parts it is strange that a man so well versed in the history of the stage as the late Joseph Knight, who wrote the notice of him in the ' D.N.B.,' could not find so much as a single mention of his name in all the voluminous theatrical literature of this long period, apart from this one essay written after his death.

Moreover, the essay itself is written in a humorous strain, scarcely suited to the obituary even of a minor or minimus actor.