NATURE AND ART

by Mrs. [Elizabeth] Inchbald




INTRODUCTION



Elizabeth Simpson was born on the 15th of October, 1753, one of the
eight children of a poor farmer, at Standingfield, near Bury St.
Edmunds. Five of the children were girls, who were all gifted with
personal beauty. The family was Roman Catholic. The mother had a
delight in visits to the Bury Theatre, and took, when she could, her
children to the play. One of her sons became an actor, and her
daughter Elizabeth offered herself at eighteen--her father then
being dead--for engagement as an actress at the Norwich Theatre.
She had an impediment of speech, and she was not engaged; but in the
following year, leaving behind an affectionate letter to her mother,
she stole away from Standingfield, and made a bold plunge into the
unknown world of London, where she had friends, upon whose help she
relied. Her friends happened to be in Wales, and she had some
troubles to go through before she found a home in the house of a
sister, who had married a poor tailor. About two months after she
had left Standingfield she married, in London, Mr. Inchbald, an
actor, who had paid his addresses to her when she was at home, and
who was also a Roman Catholic. On the evening of the wedding day
the bride, who had not yet succeeded in obtaining an engagement,