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Life
?1759-1829; [Countess of Derby]; b. Cork, child actress and dg. of drunken actor-manager, who died young; appeared first as Miss Hardcastle in Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer (1774); toured in England; appeared first at Haymarket, 1777; Drury Lane, 1778; m. Edward Stanley, 12th Earl; commended by Hazlitt for ‘fine lady airs and graces’; there is a crayon portrait by Ozias Humphrey, a miniaturist; admired by Charles Fox until she wore breeches on stage; last appeared as Lady Teazle; there is an account of her in R. P. Peake, Memoirs of the Colman Family (Vol.
2). ODNB FDA
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Notes
Lady Morgan offers a comparison: ‘[...] like that charming picture of Miss Farren, in a similar costume, once the ornament of every dressing room’ (The O’Briens and the O’Flahertys, 1829; extract in The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 1991, Vol. 2, p.867).
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