| Notes |
--- "The Public Advertiser" 24 Sep 1772, page 3:
We are informed that Mrs. Booth, who has lately erected a Monument to the Memory of her Husband, Barton Booth, Esq; the celebrated Player, is now upwards of ninety-two Years of Age. She was formerly the famous Miss Santlow, so much admired as an Actress and Dancer.
--- "Weekly Magazine or Edinburgh Amusement" Volumes 19-20, 1773, page 160:
[Jan.1773]15. At London, Mrs Booth, relict of Barton Booth, Esq; who died in 1733, to whose memory she had erected an elegant monument in Westminster-abbey, which she had compleated just before her death.
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-- "The Streets of London" by W.H. Davenport Adams, 1890, page 153:
Mrs. Barton Booth -- Gay's "Santlow, famed for dance" -- died here in 1773. Miss Hester Santlow's charms brought to her feet some of the most eminent men of the time, including "the hero of Blenheim." In 1709 [sic] she married Barton Booth the great actor, bringing with her an ample dowry. After her marriage she abandoned the ballet, and made her appearance as Dorcas Zeal, in Shadwell's Fair Quaker of Deal, with genuine success. "The gentle softness of her voice," says Cibber, "the composed innocence of her aspect, the modesty of her dress, the reserved decency of her gesture, and the simplicity of the sentiments that naturally fell from her, made her seem the amiable maid she represented." She survived her husband forty years.
--- "Some Account of the English Stage" Vol. 3 by John Genest, 1832, page 375:
Mrs. Hester Booth in all probability did not act after this season -- she seems to have been a pleasing actress with no great powers -- Theophilus Cibber speaking of her as Mrs. Santlow says -- "She was a beautiful woman, lovely in her countenance, delicate in her form, a pleasing actress, and a most admirable dancer; generally allowed, in the last mentioned part of her profession, to have been superiour to all who had been seen before her, and perhaps she has not been since excelled."
--- "The Lives and Characters of the Most Eminent Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and Ireland" Part 1, by Theophilus Cibber, page 33:
In the year 1719 Mr. Booth married the celebrated Mrs. Hester Santlow: --- She was a beautiful Woman, lovely in her Countenance, delicate in her form, a pleasing Actress, and a most admirable Dancer; generally allowed, in the last-mentioned part of her profession, to have been superior to all who had been seen before her, and perhaps she has not been since excelled: -- But, to do her Justice, she was more than all this, -- she was an excellent good wife; -- which he has frequently, in my hearing, talked of in such a Manner, as nothing but a sincere heart-felt gratitude could express; and I was often an eyewitness (our families being intimate) of their conjugal felicity. Her tender careful attendance on him, during his tedious illness, will not soon be forgot by his friends.
--- "The Dancing Master" Translated from French by J. Essex, 1728:
We have had a great many women attempt to be Theatrical Dancers, but none ever arrived to that height and pitch of applause as the incomparable Mrs. Booth, in whom art and nature are so beautifully wove together, that the whole web is of a piece so exquisitely formed to length and breadth, that the produce of the many different characters she represents is the wonder and admiration of the present age, and will scarce be credited by the succeeding. I shall beg leave to mention the Chaconne, Saraband, Menuet, in all which she appears with that grace, softness, and address none can look on but with attention, pleasure and surprise. She far excels all that went before her, and must be the just subject of imitation to all that dare attempt to copy after her. Besides all these, the Harlequin is beyond description, and the Hussar another opposite character in which she has no rival. All which show how many extensive as well as extraordinary qualifications must concentre in one person to form so bright a genius: A subject becoming the most elevated wit to describe, and the politest taste to contemplate.
--- "The Cornhill Magazine" Vol. 16 - 20, 1867, page 477:
Wilks looked at this "hash," and did not object to it. He was to play Orlando himself, he said, and he did, having for the first Rosalind on record as played by a woman, Mrs. Booth, the "Santlow, famed for dance," of Gay. Wonderful woman she was, with her dash of aristocratic beauty, and her all-conquering ways, and her supreme love for her husband; in token of which, and to indicate her enduring sorrow thirty years after his death, this first of our Rosalinds erected the tablet to his memory in Westminster Abbey, which still exists, but which, through dust, damp, and darkness, can now be deciphered only with difficulty.
. . . A handsomer pair than the Orlando and Rosalind who presented themselves on the stage of Drury Lane, on the 9th of January, 1723, the stage could not then supply. How they acted is nowhere on record; but Wilks's Orlando must have lacked no grace the part demanded; and Mrs. Booth's Rosalind was, in all probability, marked by more sauciness than passionate feeling in sentiment or expression. One thing is certain, that the public did not take to the piece kindly, and that they manifested a desire to have Shakspeare's original play, and not Johnson's mangling of three or four, to make an imperfect medley out of one perfect whole.
Whence came this English Rosalind no biography can tell. She first took the town by storm as a dancer. Terpsichore herself seemed to have visited the earth in the person of Hester Santlow, one of whose great points in the ballet was to let her clustered auburn hair suddenly loose over a pair of lustrous shoulders that carried the hearts of the whole house upon them. She was so full of fascination that even Marlborough would have given her gold for a smile; and Craggs, a cold Secretary of STate, did give her a house, where he was master and she was mistress. The daughter of that equivocal household married (successively) into the families of Hamilton and Eliot, whereby the present Marquis of Abercorn and Earl of St. German's are representatives or descendants of the earliest of our English Rosalinds, who left the ballet for comedy, but who was hardly equal to the exigencies of Shakspearean dramas. Yet her gifts were many; she had a soft, sweet voice, a refined aspect, and much intelligence, but she who originated, with such marked success the part of Dorcas Zeal left no mark in Rosalind.
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Abt 1690 - 1773 (83 years)
Married