12 May 2012

Isabella Glyn's Grave, Kensal Green Cemetery, London


'HERE RESTS
ALL THAT WAS MORTAL
OF THE CELEBRATED TRAGEDIAN
ISABELLA GLYN
(WIDOW OF E. S. DALLAS)
BORN 22 MAY 1823. DIED 18 MAY 1889.
AGE COULD NOT WITHER HER NOR CUSTOM STALE
HER INFINITE VARIETY.
AFTER LIFE'S FITFUL FEVER SHE SLEEPS WELL.
NOTHING CAN TOUCH HER FURTHER.'

Enobarbus's praise of Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra is turned into an elegy for Isabella Glyn, who was most noted for her readings of Shakespeare.

'Widow of E. S. Dallas'? She married her second husband Eneas Sweetland Dallas (1828–79) in Scotland in 1853, and this was resolemnized in London in 1855. They separated soon after this, and she divorced him in 1874. She was later imprisoned for contempt of court in a matter related to the divorce case.

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