Catherine Stephens, Countess of Essex

Under his care she sang in Bath, Bristol, Southampton, Ramsgate, Margate and other places, appearing early in 1812 in subordinate parts at the Pantheon as member of an Italian opera company, headed by Teresa Bertinotti.

On 23 September 1813, she appeared at Covent Garden as Mandane in Artaxerxes, obtaining a conspicuous success, especially in the airs 'Checked by duty, racked by love,' and 'The soldier tired of war's alarms,' and being compared to Angelica Catalani and Elizabeth Billington.

At the concert of ancient music in March 1814 she was assigned the principal soprano songs, and she sang later in the year in the festivals in Norwich and Birmingham.

She played Matilda in Richard Cœur de Lion, and on 31 May, as Desdemona to Young's Othello, sang the original air of "My mother had a maid called Barbara".

Next season she was Sylvia in Cymon, Hermia in Midsummer Night's Dream, Imogen, Cora in Columbus, and on 12 March 1816, the first Lucy Bertram in Daniel Terry's adaptation of Guy Mannering.

[2] Among original parts in lesser works in the next season stands out Diana Vernon in Isaac Pocock's Rob Roy Macgregor.

In Terry's Antiquary on 25 January 1820, she was the first Isabella Wardour, and in an adaptation of Ivanhoe, which followed on 2 March, she was Rowena.She played Florence St. Leon in Henri Quatre, or Paris in the Olden Time.

After hearing her as Polly and as Mandane, Leigh Hunt said that they 'are like nothing else on the stage, and leave all competition far behind;' Thomas Noon Talfourd recalled the days when he heard her send forth 'a stream of such delicious sound as he had never found proceeding from human lips.'

[citation needed] A Miss Stephens, possibly an elder sister, made, as Polly in the 'Beggar's Opera,' a successful first appearance on the stage on 29 November 1799, and played in 1800 and 1801 Sophia in 'Of Age To-morrow,' Violetta in the 'Egyptian Festival,' Blanche in Mrs. Plowden's 'Virginia,' Rosetta in 'Love in a Village,' and other parts.