Perhaps there is no more pertinent illustration of a chequered career--a career with indigence at one end and splendid wealth at the other--than that furnished by the life of Harriet Mellon, afterwards Mrs. Coutts, and subsequently Duchess of St. Alban's. She was not the only actress who made a fortunate marriage. Anastasia Robinson married the Earl of Peterborough; Lavinia Fenton, the original Polly Peachem, in the 'Beggar's Opera,' gave her hand to the Duke of Bolton; Louisa Brunton became Countess of Craven, and Elizabeth Farren exchanged her name for that of Countess of Derby. But not one of those enumerated had known the privations and hardships suffered by Harriet Mellon. When raised to affluence as Mrs. Coutts, and when coroneted as a duchess, she sometimes with mirth and sometimes with pathos referred to those old days of her life, when she was downcast by harsh treatment and impecuniosity, and was never ashamed of the time when she was nothing more than a poor strolling actress.
In 1789 Harriet Mellon, with her mother and Entwisle, her step-father, joined the theatrical company of Stanton. In the city of Lichfield the tenement is still pointed out where the Entwisles lodged in a couple of rooms, each ten feet by four and three-quarters across, with windows two feet square; the rent for the lodgings being two shillings a week. Stanton on one occasion obtained a bespeak from a squire, who requested a performance of the 'Country Girl.' The manager was only too glad to play anything, so low had been the ebb of his fortunes. No copy of the comedy being in the manager's possession, an actor was despatched to a town not many miles distant for the necessary volume. Extra delay took place, the needy _commissionnaire_ having gone on foot, putting the coach-money in his pocket. When he returned the play-book was cut up leaf by leaf and distributed to the company to transcribe; at least to those acquainted with the art of penmanship. It is stated that the copyists were few. Harriet Mellon, though of junior rank in the company, was cast for Peggy. She had the part given her in virtue of her ready and trustworthy memory. The girl's heart filled with enthusiasm when she learned that she was to perform the title _rôle_. But her heart filled with sorrow an hour or two afterwards when she inspected the square-cut and dingy, snuff-coloured coat, held aloft by the manager, as the garment in which Peggy should appear as the boy, the character assumed in the park scene by the country girl. Being made acquainted with Harriet's disgust at the costume furnished by the manager, Mrs. Entwisle bethought her of acquaintances who might help her daughter out of the trouble. A lady housekeeper to whom the mother applied, suggested the loan of a fashionable suit from one of her young masters. The proposition was declined. The housekeeper then stated that an idea crossed her: she might be enabled to procure a small and well-cut suit of clothes elsewhere.