Her real stage triumph, however, was yet to come.  After appearing in the Beaux’s Stratagem with brilliant success she was offered the part of Polly Peachum in Gay’s Opera, which was about to make its first bow to the public.  The salary was but fifteen shillings a week (afterwards doubled); but the part was after Lavinia’s own heart.  For a few intoxicating weeks she was the idol and rage of London; her picture filled the windows of every print-shop; the greatest ladies had it painted on their fans.  Royalty smiled its sweetest on her.

Then, at the very zenith of her triumph, the startling news went forth—­“The Duke of Bolton has run away with Polly Peachum.”  And the news was true.  The popular idol, who had turned her back on so many tempting offers, had actually run away with Charles Paulet, third Duke of Bolton and Constable of the Tower of London; and the stage knew her no more.  For twenty-three years she was a Duchess in all but name, until the Duke, on the death of his legal wife, daughter of the Earl of Carberry, was at last able to put Lavinia in her place.

As Duchess, a title which she lived nine years to enjoy, she won golden opinions by her modest dignity, her large-heartedness, and by the cleverness and charm of her conversation, which none admired more than Lord Bathurst and Lord Granville.

Duchess Lavinia had been dead thirty years when Mary Catherine Bolton, who was to follow in her footsteps, was obscurely cradled in Long Acre in 1790.  Like Lavinia Fenton, Mary Bolton was born for the stage.  As a child the sweetness of her voice and the grace of her movements charmed all who knew her.  The greatest teachers of the day taught her to sing, and when only sixteen she made a brilliant debut as Polly, recalling all the triumphs of her famous predecessor.

But it was as Ariel that she made her real conquest of London.  “So pretty and winning in pouting wilfulness, so caressing, her voice having the flowing sweetness of music, she bounded along with so light a foot that it scarcely seemed to rest upon the stage.”  It is little wonder that Ariel danced her way into many hearts, and that even such a sedate personage as Edward, second Lord Thurlow, should so far succumb to her fascinations as to offer her marriage.  Her wedded life was only too brief, but she rewarded her lord with three sons; and a liberal share of her blood flows in the veins of the Baron of to-day, her grandson.

Not many years after Mary Bolton had danced her way into the Peerage London was losing its head over still another “Polly Peachum”—­Catherine Stephens, daughter of a carver and gilder in the West of London.  Miss Stephens, who like her predecessors in the role, sang divinely even as a child, was but seventeen when she made her first stage curtsy, and won fame at a bound, as Mandano in Artaxerxes.  One triumph succeeded another until she reached the pinnacle of success as Polly of the Beggar’s Opera.