Louisa countess of Albany

Louisa Albany, countess of , 1752-1824, wife of Charles Edward Stuart (the Young Pretender), self-styled count of Albany; daughter of a German noble, the prince of Stolberg-Gedern. Married in 1772, she left her dissolute husband after eight years and became the mistress of the poet Vittorio Alfieri. After his death in 1803, she was mistress of a French painter, François Fabre. Secret marriages with both men were rumored, but not well attested.

Alfieri, Vittorio Amedeo (1749–1803), Italian dramatist, chiefly remembered as a writer of austere tragedies in verse. His first, Cleopatra, was performed at Turin in 1775 with great success. Of the other 20, of which it has been said that their action ‘flies like an arrow to its mark’, the best are probably Saul (1782) and Mirra (1784). A production in 1967 of one of the half-dozen comedies written towards the end of his life, Il Divorzio (1802), showed a gift for satiric humour. Alfieri, who was born in Asti of a noble and wealthy family, had an unhappy childhood, and at an early age left home to travel widely in Europe. He became the devoted lover of the Countess of Albany, wife of the Young Pretender, to whom he left all his books and manuscripts.

Drew, John (1827–62), actor and manager. He came as a ten‐year‐old with his parents from his native Dublin to New York, where his father assumed the post of treasurer at Niblo's Garden. Not until after going to sea and running a dry‐goods store in Ireland did he settle into the family profession, finding success in New York as Dr. O'Toole in The Irish Tutor at the Bowery Theatre. Thereafter, most of his best‐received roles were his Irish characters. In 1850 he joined the company at the Albany Museum, where he met and married Louisa Lane. Two years later he and Mrs. John Drew joined the ensemble at Philadelphia's Chestnut Street Theatre, and in 1853 they became co‐managers of the Arch Street Theatre with William Wheatley. An attempt by Drew to run the National Theatre in Washington quickly failed, so he returned to touring, both in America and in Ireland and England. When Mrs. Drew took over sole management of the Arch Street in 1861, he appeared under her aegis, playing not only his famous Irish parts but Meddle in London Assurance, William in Black‐Eyed Susan, and Sir Lucius O'Trigger in The Rivals, as well as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Dromio. He died as a result of injuries sustained in a fall.