MONTHLY MIRROR, FOR JULY, 1797. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF WITH A PORTRAIT. SOPHIA LEE is one of the four daughters of Mr. John Lee, a comedian of celebrity, and sufficiently powerful in talents to be, at one time, the formidable rival of the late master of the scene, Mr. Garrick. Mrs. Lee died while Miss Lee and her sisters were young. Mr. Lee was the sport of fortune for the last ten years of his life. Discontents at Drury-Lane theatre drove him to Edinburgh, and there he experienced misfortunes. When the Edinburgh theatre, some years afterwards, obtained a royal patent, he was a competitor with the late Mr. Ross, for the management under that authority, and the public voice was in his favour; but Mr. Ross, who was himself the son of a Scotch agent, and had powerful interest, carried the point, and was invested with all the rights that the patent gave, in the year 1766, Mr. Lee left Edinburgh in disgust, and was, for some years, unseen by the London audience. At length he was engaged at CoventGarden theatre, and performed there, for a season or two, with great reputation and success; after which he retired to Bath, where he held the acting management of the theatre till his death, which was occasioned by an inflammation in his bowels. When he died, he left one son, who was engaged with a manufacturer at Manchester, and four daughters. The girls, each happily possessing a good understanding, which their parents had taken care to improve by a proper education, and by an instructive example (their father being himself a literary man, and their mother by no means deficient in intelligence) finding themselves cast upon the world, without any other help than their own exertions could administer, set up a school at Bath; in which pursuit, from their excellent and unimpeachable character, their unwearied assiduity and sedulous attention, they have eminently succeeded; having been enabled, by the profits of their industry, to erect a handsome, spacious, and airy mansion, called Belvidere House, and, to this day, are at the head of a great and reputable school; it being allowed, by all who have had children under their tuition, that they have left their place of educacation with better manners, better morals, and more general know ledge, than was to be acquired in most seminaries of learning through out the kingdom. As soon as Sophia Lee felt herself on terra firma, and that the project of keeping a school was likely to answer, she gave way to her literary propensities, and employed the luxury of her leisure in the exercise of her pen. She wrote a work, rather voluminous, which has been in the writer's hands, but has never yet seen the light from the press. She afterwards wrote her play, called The Chapter of Accidents, which was first offered to Mr. Harris, who advised her to change it into an opera; she then wrote songs to it, but Mr. Harris made the best excuse he could for not bringing it aut. That the excuse did not appear satisfactory to our author, was evident from the preface she wrote and published with the first edi tion of her play. The real fact was, Mr. Harris had in his hands, at the time, a play written by Mr. Macklin, and founded on the Pere de famille of Diderot, from which the character of the Governor, in Miss Lee's comedy, was taken; and the manager, not entirely approving either the plan of Macklin, or that of Miss Lee, chose not to embarrass himself with an argument of controversy with the former, as Macklin had long since publicly boasted, "that he could manage a quarrel better than any man." To return to our heroine-Miss Lee took her opera-comedy from Covent Garden theatre, and sent it, anonymously, to the late Mr. Colman, who shewed it to a friend, whose advice happening to coincide with the opinion of Mr. Colman, that there was too much comic point and substance, as well as force in the scenes, to suffer the piece to remain in its shape of a comic opera, it was recommended to Miss Lee to omit the songs. She readily followed the advice, and the comedy succeeded eminently. The theatre reaped great advantage from it, but the author very little her whole emolument did not amount to 120). from the playhouse, the evenings of her nights of its representation accidentally falling on the close of most sultry days, when the public were driven to Vauxhall Gardens, the parks, and other walks, to gasp for breath in the open air, while the skies rained down their favours partially to the manager, espe cially towards the close of the season., : It is worthy of record, that the performance of the character of Cecilia in the Chapter of Accidents formed the base of Miss Farren's fame as an actress. Previous to her appearance in this character, Miss Farren was no otherwise known to the public than as a pretty girl, possessing a fine, delicate person, and being a promising comedian. Those, indeed, who had been acquainted with her from early infancy, had witnessed her opening virtues, not the least amiable of which was a due discharge of the relative duties, exemplified in an uniform manifestation of the most tender attentions to her mother, and affectionate regard for her sister. When she came forward in Cecilia, she surprised those who had before been among the most zealous of her admirers, with the corrrectness of her conception, and the extent of her judgment and talents. In fact, the admirable manner in which she entered into the spirit of the character, the delicate touches of sensibility and pathos which she displayed, the affecting propriety of her demeanour, and the deep sense of wounded honour that she manifested throughout the representation, won all hands and hearts in her favour, and proved that our author and her actress thought and felt congenially. The Chapter of Accidents came out on the fifth of August 1780, and was performed fourteen times the first season, and still more the second. Though the theatre yielded our heroine but a scanty and inadequate profit, the press proved a better friend to her. The price given by the booksellers for a play that was well received the first night of representation, had been generally 100l. for some years previous to the representation of the Clandestine Marriage, the conjoint work of Mr. Garrick and Mr. Colman ; and they received 200l. for the copy-right of that comedy. This broke into the general and established rule, and dramatic authors just got as much as they could persuade the bookseller they applied to for the purchase of their piece to give them, between the years 1767 and 1780. The consequence was, various prices having been given for dramatic pieces by the booksellers, sometimes 150l. sometimes zool. sometimes 250l. and in one case (that of Mr. Kelly's Clementina) 300l. the trade had so frequently burnt their fingers, that they became panic-struck, and would scarcely treat at all for a dramatic copy-right, when the Chapter of Accidents came to market. The price offered by a reputable bookseller to a friend of the author, was so contemptibly below the value, that he advised her to print it on her own account; the advice was taken, and several large impressions have been sold off, much to her advantage, and in proof that the trade might have ventured to have bid for the copy handsomely with safety. To the first edition, Miss Lee prefixed" a preface explaining its treatment from the different managers." But she has withdrawn that preface from the later editions of a play which still holds its place in the theatre, and is represented every winter and summer in town and country, with great popularity and success, although, by death, and other accidents B-VOL. IV.-2nd Edit. in life's varying chapter, the cast of it on the London stage has been weakened. In 1782, Miss Lee published the first volume of THE RECESS; or, a Tale of other Times: which no sooner saw the light than it was read with avidity; and the irresistible command over the tender passions which the work possessed, acknowledged, bowed to, and admired. A second and third volume of the RECESS were published (with a new edition of the first) in 1785, and other editions of the first volume in the next year. The Hermit's Tale was published by our author in the year 1787, which was a beautiful and affecting poetical morceau. The tragedy of Almeyda, which had been written some few years, was not presented to the theatre till the season 1795-6. It was pro. duced in the spring of 1796, and the heroine of the play was supported by the aid of the distinguished talents of Mrs. Siddons. The public received the tragedy with the loudest applause, and it produced very crowded audiences for four nights representation, when it was unaccountably stopped in its career. So unusual and injurious a circumstance to the author, both in point of profit and reputation, naturally alarmed her and her friends; the latter conceiving that it could not be intended by the theatre, to depart so entirely from all precedent and practice with respect to any author, whose play had been favourably received, and had not been acted to an indifferent house, undertook to wait on the principal proprietor, and enquire to what cause they were to ascribe the sudden cessation of the representation of Almeyda. They were received by that gentleman with great cordiality and friendly attention; an explanatory conversation took place, and the result was a declaration, on the part of the proprietor, that he thought Miss Lee had been very unhandsomely treated by the theatre, and a promise that the tragedy of Almeyda should be performed on the last night of the season, which was then near its close, and that it should be acted the remainder of its run in the course of the ensuing season. The promise, in the first instance, was duly performed; the tragedy was acted on the last night of the Drury Lane company's'performing that season; the receipt of the house was 400l. and upwards, and it has never been performed since. It is the province of the writer of the present memoir, to state the fact; he leaves it to others to account for it; he will only remark, that he does not believe a similar instance of such conduct of a theatre to an author of established reputation, is to be found in the history of the English stage. and an attentive compliance with all their desires, accompanied an affectionate regard for her brothers* and sisters, she early ende herself to the circle of her acquaintance; as she matured in life, displayed that degree of good understanding and valuable tal which have so well enabled her, with the joint industry and exert of her sisters, to establish that reputable and successful seminar education, over which she at present presides at Bath, and the lite uses to which she has put her understanding and talents in the h of leisure and relaxation, from the severer duties of her school, withstanding they have been attended with some mortifications, h built her a reputation in the world of letters equally enviable and nourable. May Miss Lee's example and success, and the circumstan above stated, teach all other females, who are left unprovided how preferable personal diligence and professional employment ar the precarious honour and profit of writing for a theatre, or of other visionary scheme of life. * Miss Lee has only one brother living at present. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MRS. INCH BALD. [Continued from Page 267.] ONCE more left to herself, her former wishes and her former cu sity returned; and, notwithstanding all the difficulties she had he tofore encountered, she again resolved" to see a little more of world," and again turned her attention to London; and though, up her arrival, she immediately obtained a situation in one of the t atres, she, for four long years, experienced little more than pover aggravated by persecution. For some trifling inattention, or arej tion of some peculiar article required by the manager, but repugn to her feelings, she was one winter expelled the theatre, and oblig to take refuge, under some hard terms, in Ireland. We well rec lect the event of her going to Dublin that season; but the particu circumstances that occasioned her quitting London, or her unhap |