Note 23 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY
Reading edition
The stone inscribed “Here lies Nancy Dawson” no longer exists. M. Dorsay Ansell, the obliging keeper of the burial-grounds (now laid out as one recreation-ground) of St. George the Martyr and St. George’s, Bloomsbury, is frequently applied to for information as to its existence. Eighteen years ago, when these grounds were formed, careful search was made for interesting stones, and the gravestone of Zachary Macaulay, among others, was discovered by Mr. Ansell. That of Nancy Dawson was never found, but it may be buried out of sight.
Nancy Dawson is stated to have died at Haverstock Hill, May 27, 1767. Her portrait in oils still hangs in the Garrick Club, and the print-sellers are familiar with her figure in theatrical costume. She is believed to have been born about 1730, to have been the daughter of a Clare Market porter, and to have lived in poverty in St. Giles’s or in a Drury Lane cellar. The rather ill-supported narratives of her career speak, as does Smith, of her waiting on the skittle-players at a Marylebone tavern, which Mr. George Clinch thinks (Marylebone and St. Pancras) may have been the old “Rose of Normandy” in High Street.
Nancy Dawson’s fortune was made in 1759 in the Beggars’ Opera. The man who danced the hornpipe among the thieves happened to have fallen ill, and his place was taken by Nancy, who was then a rising young actress. From that moment her success was secure. Her real monument is the song beginning—
“Of all the girls in our town, The black, the fair, the red, the brown, That dance and prance it up and down, There’s none like Nancy Dawson! Her easy mien, her shape so neat, She foots, she trips, she looks so sweet, Her ev’ry motion’s so complete, I die for Nancy Dawson!”