TRANSCRIPTION

London April 21st   1744

Dear Daughter

I received yours which gives me great satisfaction to hear that all good well at home. I thank God I am almost shot of my cold. Your brother Jarvas set off last Wednesday and I received a letter from him today, wherein he tells me the officers received him with all the civilities imaginable and promised to assist him all that lay in their powers and told him if did not fear it answering his expectation. We was at a play last night called King Lear. A very deep tragedy. Also has been very little abed since I came to town. I have bought me a gown which you will like. Dare say I am to dress me in it tomorrow for we are to dine at Mr. Robert Cooper's and have set next Tuesday to go to Hackney. Mrs. Cooper and Mrs. Frost goes with us. I could almost wish now I had not bought it for your brother. Required a good deal of setting off so am afraid your father should think much. Please to give my love to your father and Doutty, to your grandmother, your brother and you and hope you'll accept the same from your ever loving and affectionate mother.

D Wright

P.S.  Please to give my respects to Mrs. Smith and let us know whether Mrs. Cawton be come or no. I have not bought your lace aught Cousin Pelley desires her service to you and Doutty to her mother. She is very well.

  

COMMENTARY

Letter[i] dated : 21 April 1744

To – Catherine Elliott

From : Dorothy Wright, London 

Dorothy is now in London, in all probability, staying with her daughter[ii] and son-in-law[iii]. Jervas[iv], her eldest son, seems to have now joined the army. In later life he calls himself a surgeon, so perhaps he has gone in as an army surgeon after an apprenticeship.

On the 21^st April, she states that on the previous day she had seen King Lear; a performance for which there was an advertisement in the General Advertiser[v]

“DRURY-LANE

By His Majesty’s Company of Comedians

At the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane

This Day,

will be presented a Tragedy, call’d

KING LEAR

And his Three Daughters.

The Part of King Lear to be performed by Mr. GARRICK ;

Edgar, Mr. Gifford ; Gloster, Mr. Bridges ; Bastard, Mr. Mills ;

Ken, Mr. Winstone ; Cornwall, Mr. Blakes ; Albany, Mr. Tur-

Butt ; Burgundy, Mr. Ray ; Gentleman Usher, Mr. Neale, Goneril,

Mrs. Bennet ; Regan,  Mrs. Cross ; 

And the Part of Cordelia by Mrs. Gifford.”

So Dorothy had the good fortune to see David Garrick[vi], probably the greatest of all English actors, in the title role, at an early point in his career; his first performance as King Lear, at 24 years of-age, was on 11 March 1742[vii]. Dorothy saw a version of King Lear, which is not performed today. It was re-written in 1681 by the Irish poet, Naham Tate[viii], in line with the sensibilities of the day. Tate’s version included a love interest between Edgar and Cordelia, and a happy ending with Lear, Gloucester and Cordelia all surviving. He also omitted the Fool. Over the years Garrick slowly restores most of Shakespeare’s original work but not the ending. It was Edmund Kean[ix], in 1823, who reinstated the original ending with the death of Cordelia. Dorothy obviously enjoyed the Tate version and probably would not have agreed with Joseph Addison who wrote in 1711 “King Lear is an admirable Tragedy as Shakespeare wrote it; but as it is performed according to the chimerical notion of poetical Justice in my humble opinion it hath lost half its Beauty.”[x]

The Mr. Robert Cooper[xi] herein mentioned, was the brother of her son-in-law David Cooper. Like his brother, he too had the Freedom of the City of London, and was a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Coopers. He was merchant, probably in the wine trade and according to an old hand-written pedigree of the Cooper family was “a partner in a Mercantile business in Oporto”.

When Dorothy, in this letter, refers to Mrs. Cooper, she probably means the wife of Robert Cooper and not her daughter Rebecca. Robert had married Mary Hennell[xii] in 1735, nearly ten years before the date of this letter. Mary was a cousin of the Hennell family, who were goldsmiths and silversmiths of London. We will meet some of them later. Mrs. Frost[xiii] was a sister of David Cooper, who had married Thomas Frost, a wine merchant, in 1737.

Why Hackney? It is possible that Robert Cooper resided there. David & Robert’s parents certainly lived there.

Finally at the end Dorothy mentions a brother but no name. It cannot be Jervas as she has already mentioned him by name. There are six sons in total, so perhaps it is the next son down, Joshua Wright[xiv] who at that date would have been about eighteen years old.