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STORIES OF
characters—rival dancers, in all probability, says Mr. F. Rimbault. Another correspondent in the "News" says, "In my youth I was accustomed to hear a song of which Kitty Fisher and the famous Countess of Coventry, who were rival beauties in their respective lines, were the heroines." He proceeds to give ex-tracts from the not very elegant song he refers to. Many particulars about these curious ladies and the manners and customs of the age in which they lived are to be found in " Mr. Gren-ville's Correspondence," edited by the Duke of Buckingham, published in 1855.
Kitty Fisher's portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the suggestive character of " Cleopatra dissolving the Pearl" for the Lord Bovingdon of that day. " Kitty Fisher's Jig" is in all probability a misprint for "Fisher's Jig," this last bearing a strong resemblance to the tune while the first does not. A " Yanky Doodle" was certainly published in Aird's "Selection of Scotch, English, and Irish Aiis," vol. i, 1782. " Fisher's Jig," besides being in Walsh's dances, reappears in Thomson and Sons' "Twenty-four Country Dances," 1760, and again in 1773.
A meritorious version of the song was written by one, J. S. Fessenden, "Original Poems,"
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