The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield

by Edward Robins

CHAPTER XI

THE FADING OF A STAR

The life of Mistress Oldfield, like that of Barton Booth, was cast in pleasant places. Yet the lady had her little agitations, and found them, no doubt, rather an incentive to existence than otherwise. Take, for instance, the excitement surrounding the production, during the Drury Lane season of 1711-12, of Mrs. Centlivre's play, "The Perplexed Lovers." To the lovely Nance was entrusted the duty of speaking the epilogue thereto, wherein Prince Eugene (at that time on a visit to England) and the Duke of Marlborough were lauded in the true spirit of ancient flunkeyism. But the animosity which politics doth breed ran high, and the first night of the performance went by without the introduction of the eulogy. Some patriots objected to the sentiments which it contained, and the managers were cautious. As for Oldfield, she might have been cautious, too, and with reason, for she had received letters threatening her with dire pains and penalties if she spoke the offending words, but Anne stood ready to deliver them at whatsoever time the patentees might name. So when the second night of "The Perplexed Lovers" arrived, and a special licence from the Lord Chamberlain had been secured, the actress came valiantly forward and spoke the epilogue with success. Perhaps Eugene of Savoy thanked Mrs. Oldfield—let us hope that he did—and it is at least certain that after the withdrawal of the play his Highness sent Mrs. Centlivre an elaborate gold snuff-box.[A]

[Footnote A: Speaking of the beau's outfit in the reign of Queen Anne, Ashton says: "His snuff-box, too, was an object of his solicitude, though, as the habit of taking snuff had but just come into vogue, there were no collections of them, and no beau had ever dreamed of criticizing a box, as did Lord Petersham, as, 'a nice Summer box.' … Those of the middle classes were chiefly of silver, or tortoise-shell, or mother-of-pearl; sometimes of 'aggat' or with a 'Moco Stone' in the lid. A beau would sometimes either have a looking-glass, or the portrait of a lady inside the lid.">[

And who was the gratified Centlivre? A masculine looking female with a talent for play-writing, a tendency to appear in men's parts, and last, but far from least, a nice little wen adorning her left eyelid. She possessed other characteristics too, but those herein mentioned are the only ones which stand out clearly after the lapse of nearly two centuries. This doughty woman had been married twice before she went to Windsor, where she once more entered into the matrimonial noose, or rather, again inveigled an unfortunate into that treacherous device. The visit to the seat of Royalty was signalised by her acting of Alexander the Great, but from the atmosphere of Kings and Queens she passed without a murmur to the humbler air of a kitchen. In other words, she married a Mr. Centlivre, chief cook to her well-fed Majesty Queen Anne; and the mean-livered Pope would refer to her, later on, as "the cook's wife in Buckingham Court." She might, indeed, be a cook's wife, but she knew how to write with vivacity, and produced many an entertaining play. Among them were "A Bold Stroke for a Wife" and "The Wonder," that comedy which Garrick would so relish in after years.

The nature of the aforesaid "Wonder" was explained in the satirical reflection of the secondary title, "A Woman Keeps a Secret!" And Mrs. Centlivre had this to say in her epilogue, upon the mooted question of feminine loquacity:

"Keep a secret, says a beau,
And sneers at some ill-natured wit below;
But faith, if we should tell but half we know,
There's many a spruce young fellow in this place,
Wou'd never presume to show his face;
Women are not so weak, what e'er men prate;
How many tip-top beaux have had the fate,
T'enjoy from mama's secrets their estate!
Who, if her early folly had made known,
Had rid behind the coach that's now their own."

Mrs. Oldfield received fresh cause for nervousness, had she been of a timid temperament, when, some years later, during the season of 1717-18, Cibber's political play of "The Non-Juror" was brought out. The comedy was a blow aimed at the Jacobites and the Pretender, who had met with such disastrous treatment in the rebellion of 1715, and was a skilfully-wrought laudation of the Hanoverian dynasty.[A]

[Footnote A: The piece was published and dedicated to George I., who acknowledged his sense of the honour by paying to Cibber the sum of two hundred guineas. That the good old prejudice against the stage was still in full force, despite the march of liberal ideas, is clearly shown in the author's address to the King: "Your comedians, Sir, are an unhappy society, whom some severe heads think wholly useless, and others, dangerous to the young and innocent. This comedy is, therefore, an attempt to remove that prejudice, and to show what honest and laudable uses may be made of the theatre, when its performances keep close to the true purposes of its institution." Cibber also referred to himself as "the lowest of your subjects from the theatre," and thus mirrored the servility of the golden Georgian era.]

"About this time," writes Cibber, telling of the play's presentation, "Jacobitism had lately exerted itself by the most unprovoked rebellion that our histories have handed down to us since the Norman Conquest; I therefore thought that to set the authors and principles of that desperate folly in a fair light, by allowing the mistaken consciences of some their best excuse, and by making the artful Pretenders to Conscience as ridiculous as they were ungratefully wicked, was a subject fit for the honest satire of comedy, and what might, if it succeeded, do honour to the stage by showing the valuable use of it. And considering what numbers at that time might come to it as prejudiced spectators, it may be allow'd that the undertaking was not less hazardous than laudable."

And hazardous the project certainly seemed; for, while the uprising in the interests of the Pretender had been ostensibly crushed, the spirit of "divine right" was as strong as ever; there were many worthy gentlemen who drank secret bumpers to the King—"over the water"—and the Hanoverian throne had as yet a precarious lodgment on English soil. It was expected, therefore, that these malcontents would have anything but an appetite for the theatrical feast set before them in the shape of the "Non-Juror," and would prove none the less disgusted because the play happened to be an adaptation of Molière's "Tartuffe." As the latter comedy depicts a self-indulgent, crawling hypocrite of the worst type, and is an eloquent sermon against sham, it may be imagined that the Jacobites were not over enthusiastic when they learned that the moral of "Tartuffe" was to be applied to them.[A]

[Footnote A: Tartuffe, according to French tradition, is a caricature of the famous Père la Chaise (Confessor to Louis Quatorze), who had a weakness for the pleasures of the table, including truffles (tartuffes). After Cibber's day, Molière's play was again adapted into English, under the title of "The Hypocrite.">[

"Upon the hypocrisy of the French character," explains Cibber (who probably looked upon France, Papacy, and the Pretender as a threefold combination of sin), "I engrafted a stronger wickedness, that of an English Popish priest lurking under the doctrine of our own Church to raise his fortune upon the ruin of a worthy gentleman, whom his dissembled sanctity had seduc'd into the treasonable cause of a Roman Catholick outlaw. How this design, in the play, was executed, I refer to the readers of it; it cannot be mended by any critical remarks I can make in its favour. Let it speak for itself."

The "Non-juror" did speak for itself, too, and that in decided terms.[A] The production entailed the scorn of the disaffected, and made for Cibber some lasting enemies, but the friends of government were strong, Cibber was lauded for his loyalty, and the comedy achieved a triumph. The vivacity of Oldfield's acting, as Maria, delighted all beholders, and it was further agreed that the performance was well given throughout. In the cast were Booth, Mills, Wilks, Cibber, Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Oldfield, and Walker. The Walker here mentioned was at that time a very young man, not over seventeen or eighteen years of age, and made his first hit in the "Non-juror." When the "Beggars' Opera" was subsequently brought out, the mighty Quin refused to play the highwayman, Macheath, and Walker willingly took the part and made therein the reputation of his life. But success turned his unsteady head. "He follow'd Bacchus too ardently, insomuch that his credit was often drown'd upon the stage, and, by degrees, almost render'd him useless." Ungrammatical, but to the point, Mr. Chetwood.

[Footnote A: The success surpassed even expectation. It raised against Cibber a phalanx of implacable foes—foes who howled at everything of which he was afterwards the author; but it gained for him his advancement to the poet-laureateship, and an estimation which caused some people to place him, for usefulness to the cause of true religion, on an equality with the author of "The Whole Duty of Man."—DR. DORAN.]

This Walker was a genius in a small fashion. He possessed an expressive face and manly figure, with a native buoyancy and humour which stood him in good stead in the character of Macheath, while he had the further gift of dominating a tragic scene with an assumption of tyrannic fire which must have been greatly admired by the theatre-goers of his time. He could not sing, to be sure, when he graced the "Beggars' Opera," but the audiences took the will for the deed, applauded his gaiety of action, and quickly pardoned his lyric short-comings. We are equally lenient nowadays to many a comic-opera comedian, so called. Chetwood tells us that Walker was the supposed author of two pieces, "The Quakers' Opera," and a tragedy styled "The Fate of Villainy." The latter, it appears, "he brought to Ireland in the year 1744, and prevailed on the proprietors (of the Dublin theatre) to act it, under the title of 'Love and Loyalty.' The second night was given out for his benefit; but not being able to pay in half the charge of the common expences, the doors were order'd to be kept shut."

"But, I remember," laconically adds Chetwood, "few people came to ask the reason. However, I fear this disappointment hasten'd his death; for he survived it but three days; dying in the 44th year of his age, a martyr to what often stole from him a good understanding."

"He who delights in drinking out of season,
Takes wond'rous pains to drown his manly reason."

Poor Walker! He is not the only actor who has perished from a mixture of wine and injured vanity.

To return to the success of the "Non-juror," Cibber writes: "All the reason I had to think it no bad performance was, that it was acted eighteen days running, and that the party that were hurt by it (as I have been told) have not been the smallest number of my back friends ever since. But happy was it for this play that the very subject was its protection; a few smiles of silent contempt were the utmost disgrace that on the first day of its appearance it was thought safe to throw upon it; as the satire was chiefly employ'd on the enemies of the Government, they were not so hardy as to own themselves such by any higher disapprobation or resentment."[A]

[Footnote A: The production of the "Non-juror" added Pope to the list of Cibber's enemies, the great poet's father having been a Non-juror.]

Yet Cibber's enemies never failed to make things unpleasant for him if they could do so without running too great a risk. There was Nathaniel Mist, for instance, who published a Jacobite paper called Mist's Weekly Journal. This vindictive gentleman, whose political heresies once brought him to the pillory and a prison, began a systematic attack upon the actor-manager, and kept up the warfare for fifteen years. Once, when Colley was ill of a fever, Mist made up his journalistic mind that his enemy must have the good taste to depart the pleasures of this life. So he inserted the following paragraph in his paper:

"Yesterday died Mr. Colley Cibber, late Comedian of the Theatre Royal, notorious for writing the 'Non-juror.'"

The very day that this obituary appeared Cibber crawled out of the house, sick-faced but convalescent, and read the notice with keen interest. Whether he was amused thereat, or dubbed the joke a poor one, is a matter which he does not record, but he tells us that he "saw no use in being thought to be thoroughly dead before his time," and "therefore had a mind to see whether the town cared to have him alive again."

"So the play of the 'Orphan' being to be acted that day, I quietly stole myself into the part of the Chaplain, which I had not been seen in for many years before. The surprise of the audience at my unexpected appearance on the very day I had been dead in the news, and the paleness of my looks, seem'd to make it a doubt whether I was not the ghost of my real self departed. But when I spoke, their wonder eas'd itself by an applause; which convinc'd me they were then satisfied that my friend Mist had told a fib of me. Now, if simply to have shown myself in broad life, and about my business, after he had notoriously reported me dead, can be called a reply, it was the only one which his paper while alive ever drew from me."

The Jacobites could not interfere with the triumph of the "Non-juror," but they were shrewd enough to bide their time. That time came, as they thought, in 1728, when there was unfolded at Drury Lane a comedy which became famous under the title of "The Provoked Husband." The rough draft of the play was the work of Vanbrugh, now dead, but the dialogue and situations had been elaborated by Cibber. Here was a chance, therefore, to damn the latter writer, and accordingly the malcontents repaired to the theatre, hissed the performance roundly, and then went home with the comfortable reflection that they had gotten their revenge. Their revenge, however, was shortlived, for the general public liked the comedy, and soon flocked to its rescue.

"On the first day of 'The Provok'd Husband,'" says the Poet Laureate, "ten years after the 'Non-juror' had appear'd, a powerful party, not having the fear of publick offence or private injury before their eyes, appeared most impetuously concerned for the demolition of it; in which they so far succeeded that for some time I gave it up for lost; and to follow their blows, in the publick papers of the next day it was attack'd and triumph'd over as a dead and damn'd piece: a swinging criticism was made upon it in general invective terms, for they disdain'd to trouble the world with particulars; their sentence, it seems, was proof enough of its deserving the fate it had met with. But this damn'd play was, notwithstanding, acted twenty-eight nights together, and left off at a receipt of upwards of a hundred and forty pounds; which happened to be more than in fifty years before could be then said of any one play whatsoever."

The play was saved, and no one contributed more importantly to that result than did Mistress Oldfield. Her acting as the heroine, Lady Townley, was pronounced superb, and though she had now drifted into middle-age—was she not over forty?—Nance still seemed, on the stage at least, the incarnation of youth and grace. Is there not a certain English actress, now living (one, by-the-way, who plays Nance Oldfield and suggests her as well) who defies the inroads of time with equal carelessness.[A]

[Footnote A: In the wearing of her person she (Oldfield) was particularly fortunate; her figure was always improving to her thirty-sixth year, but her excellence in acting was never at a stand. And Lady Townley, one of her last new parts, was a proof that she was still able to do more, if more could have been done for her.—GENEST.]

Lady Townley is nothing more or less than a glorified, matured edition of Lady Betty Modish, and, therefore, a very charming woman. Charming, at least, on the boards of a theatre, if not upon the floor of a real drawing-room. For she has a love of pleasure which can hardly be called domestic, and her unfortunate husband, who would see more of her, is tempted to ask, in the very first scene of the play: "Why did I marry?" "While she admits no lover," Lord Townley soliloquises [for my lady is at least virtuous] "she thinks it a greater merit still, in her chastity, not to care for her husband; and while she herself is solacing in one continual round of cards and good company, he, poor wretch, is left at large to take care of his own contentment. 'Tis time, indeed, some care were taken, and speedily there shall be. Yet let me not be rash. Perhaps this disappointment of my heart may make me too impatient; and some tempers, when reproach'd, grow more untractable."

And when Lady Townley, all graces and ribbons and laces, enters on the scene my lord meekly asks:

* * * * *

"Going out so soon after dinner, madam?"

"Lady T. Lord, my Lord, what can I possibly do at home?

"Lord T. What does my sister, Lady Grace, do at home?

"Lady T. Why, that is to me amazing! Have you ever any pleasure at home?

"Lord T. It might be in your power, madam, I confess, to make it a little more comfortable to me.

"Lady T. Comfortable! and so, my good lord, you would really have a woman of my rank and spirit, stay at home to comfort her husband! Lord! what notions of life some men have!

"Lord T. Don't you think, madam, some ladies notions are full as extravagant?"

"Lady T. Yes, my lord, when tame doves live cooped within the pen of your precepts, I do think 'em prodigious indeed!

"Lord T. And when they fly wild about this town, madam, pray what must the world think of 'em then?

"Lady T. Oh! this world is not so ill bred as to quarrel with any woman for liking it.

"Lord T. Nor am I, madam, a husband so well bred as to bear my wife's being so fond of it; in short, the life you lead, madam—

"Lady T. Is, to me, the pleasantest life in the world.

"Lord T. I should not dispute your taste, madam, if a woman had a right to please nobody but herself.

"Lady T. Why, whom would you have her please?

"Lord T. Sometimes her husband.

"Lady T. And don't you think a husband under the same obligation?

"Lord T. Certainly.

"Lady T. Why then we are agreed, my lord. For if I never go abroad till I am weary of being at home—which you know is the case—is it not equally reasonable, not to come home till one's a weary of being abroad?

"Lord T. If this be your rule of life, madam, 'tis time to ask you one serious question.

"Lady T. Don't let it be long acoming then, for I am in haste.

"Lord T. Madam, when I am serious, I expect a serious answer.

"Lady T. Before I know the question? [Here we can imagine Wilks, who played Lord Townley, waxing exceeding wroth at my lady.]

"Lord T. Pshah—have I power, madam, to make you serious by intreaty?

"Lady T. You have.

"Lord T. And you promise to answer me sincerely.

"Lady T. Sincerely.

"Lord T. Now then recollect your thoughts, and tell me seriously why you married me?

"Lady T. You insist upon truth, you say?

"Lord T. I think I have a right to it.

"Lady T. Why then, my lord, to give you at once a proof of my obedience and sincerity—I think—I married—to take off that restraint that lay upon my pleasures, while I was a single woman.

"Lord T. How, madam, is any woman under less restraint after marriage than before it?

"Lady T. O my lord! my lord! they are quite different creatures! Wives have infinite liberties in life that would be terrible in an unmarried woman to take.

"Lord T. Name one.

"Lady T. Fifty, if you please. To begin then, in the morning—a married women may have men at her toilet, invite them to dinner, appoint them a party in a stage box at the play; engross the conversation there, call 'em by their Christian names; talk louder than the players;—from thence jaunt into the city—take a frolicksome supper at an India house—perhaps, in her gaieté de coeur, toast a pretty fellow—then clatter again to this end of the town, break with the morning into an assembly, crowd to the hazard table, throw a familiar levant upon some sharp lurching man of quality, and if he demands his money, turn it off with a loud laugh, and cry—you'll owe it to him, to vex him! ha! ha!

"Lord T. [Aside]. Prodigious!"

It is related that so magnificently did Oldfield describe the pleasures of a woman of fashion that the audience echoed, with a different meaning, Lord Townley's comment, and showered her with plaudits. "Prodigious," indeed, must have been her acting.

Nance was even more captivating, as the comedy progressed, and nowhere did she shine more brilliantly, it may be supposed, than in the following scene:

"Lady Townley. Well! look you, my lord; I can bear it no longer! Nothing still but about my faults, my faults! An agreeable subject truly!

"Lord T. Why, madam, if you won't hear of them, how can I ever hope to see you mend them?

"Lady T. Why, I don't intend to mend them—I can't mend them—you know I have try'd to do it an hundred times, and—it hurts me so—I can't bear it!

"Lord T. And I, madam, can't bear this daily licentious abuse of your time and character.

"Lady T. Abuse! astonishing! when the universe knows, I am never better company than when I am doing what I have a mind to! But to see this world! that men can never get over that silly spirit of contradiction—why, but last Thursday, now—there you wisely amended one of my faults, as you call them—you insisted upon my not going to the masquerade—and pray, what was the consequence? Was not I as cross as the Devil, all the night after? Was not I forc'd to get company at home? And was it not almost three o'clock in the morning before I was able to come to myself again? And then the fault is not mended neither—for next time I shall only have twice the inclination to go: so that all this mending and mending, you see, is but darning an old ruffle, to make it worse than it was before.

"Lord T. Well, the manner of women's living, of late, is insupportable, and one way or other—

"Lady T. It's to be mended, I suppose! Why, so it may, but then, my dear lord, you must give one time—and when things are at worst, you know, they may mend themselves! Ha! ha!

"Lord T. Madam, I am not in a humour, now, to trifle.

"Lady T. Why, then, my lord, one word of fair argument—to talk with you, your own way now—you complain of my late hours, and I of your early ones—so far we are even, you'll allow—but pray which gives us the best figure, in the eye of the polite world, my active, spirited three in the morning, or your dull, drowsy, eleven at night? Now, I think, one has the air of a woman of quality, and t'other of a plodding mechanic, that goes to bed betimes, that he may rise early, to open his shop—faugh!

"LORD T. Fy, fy, madam! is this your way of reasoning? 'Tis time to wake you then. 'Tis not your ill hours alone that disturb me, but as often the ill company that occasion those ill hours.

"LADY T. Sure I don't understand you now, my lord; what ill company do
I keep?

"LORD T. Why, at best, women that lose their money, and men that win it! or, perhaps, men that are voluntary bubbles at one game, in hopes a lady will give them fair play at another.[A] Then that unavoidable mixture with known rakes, conceal'd thieves, and sharpers in embroidery—or what, to me, is still more shocking, that herd of familiar chattering, crop-ear'd coxcombs, who are so often like monkeys, there would be no knowing them asunder, but that their tails hang from their head, and the monkey's grows where it should do.

[Footnote A: Women gambled as passionately as did the men in the early part of the eighteenth century. Ashton quotes the following from the "Gaming Lady": "She's a profuse lady, tho' of a miserly temper, whose covetous disposition is the very cause of her extravagancy; for the desire of success wheedles her ladyship to play, and the incident charges and disappointments that attend it make her as expensive to her husband as his coach and six horses. When an unfortunate night has happen'd to empty her cabinet, she has many shifts to replenish her pockets. Her jewels are carry'd privately into Lombard street, and fortune is to be tempted the next night with another sum, borrowed of my lady's goldsmith at the extortion of a pawnbroker; and if that fails, then she sells off her wardrobe, to the great grief of her maids; stretches her credit amongst those she deals with, or makes her waiting woman dive into the bottom of her trunk, and lug out her green net purse full of old Jacobuses, in hopes to recover her losses by a turn of fortune, that she may conceal her bad luck from the knowledge of her husband.">[

"Lady T. And a husband must give eminent proof of his sense that thinks their powder puffs dangerous!

"Lord T. Their being fools, madam, is not always the husband's security; or, if it were, fortune sometimes gives them advantages might make a thinking woman tremble.

"Lady T. What do you mean?

"Lord T. That women sometimes lose more than they are able to pay; and, if a creditor be a little pressing, the lady may be reduced to try if, instead of gold, the gentleman will accept of a trinket.

"Lady T. My lord, you grow scurrilous; you'll make me hate you. I'll have you to know I keep company with the politest people in town, and the assemblies I frequent are full of such.

"Lord T. So are the churches—now and then.

"Lady T. My friends frequent them, too, as well as the assemblies.

"Lord T. Yes; and would do it oftener if a groom of the chambers there were allowed to furnish cards to the company.

"Lady T. I see what you drive at all this while. You would lay an imputation on my fame to cover your own avarice! I might take any pleasures, I find, that were not expensive.

"Lord T. Have a care, madam; don't let me think you only value your chastity to make me reproachable for not indulging you in everything else that's vicious. I, madam, have a reputation, too, to guard that's dear to me as yours. The follies of an ungoverned wife may make the wisest man uneasy; but 'tis his own fault if ever they make him contemptible.

"Lady T. My lord, you make a woman mad!

"Lord T. You'd make a man a fool.

"Lady T. If heaven has made you otherwise, that won't be in my power.

"Lord T. Whatever may be in your inclination, madam, I'll prevent you making me a beggar, at least.

"Lady T. A beggar! Croesus, I'm out of patience. I won't come home till four to-morrow morning.

"Lord T. That may be, madam; but I'll order the doors to be locked at twelve.

"Lady T. Then I won't come home till to-morrow night.

"Lord T. Then, madam, you shall never come home again." [Exit Lord
Townley.

* * * * *

In the end, of course, Lady Townley is converted to the pleasures of domesticity, and ends the comedy by saying:

"So visible the bliss, so plain the way,
How was it possible my sense could stray?
But now, a convert to this truth I come,
That married happiness is never found from home."

Perhaps when Oldfield delivered these virtuous lines, she thought to herself that happiness, even of the unmarried kind, was never very far away from home. But she forgot sentiment when she came back to give the breezy epilogue:

"Methinks I hear some powder'd critics say
Damn it, this wife reform'd has spoil'd the play!
The coxcombs should have drawn her more in fashion,
Have gratify'd her softer inclination,
Have tipt her a gallant, and clinch'd the provocation.
But there our bard stops short: for 'twere uncivil
T'have made a modern belle all o'er a devil!
He hop'd in honor of the sex, the age
Would bear one mended woman—on the stage."

Continuing, after diverse moral reflections, Nance made this appeal to her hearers:

"You, you then, ladies, whose unquestion'd lives
Give you the foremost fame of happy wives,
Protect, for its attempt, this helpless play;
Nor leave it to the vulgar taste a prey;
Appear the frequent champion of its cause,
Direct the crowd, and give yourselves applause."

"Zounds, madam," cries a beau who is ogling a woman of quality in a stage box, "they say Anne Oldfield will never see forty-two again, but I'll warrant you, madam, she looks not a day older than yourself." And the woman of quality, who is over forty, bows at the compliment, as well she may. Bellchambers records that Lady Townley was universally regarded as Oldfield's ne plus ultra in acting. "She slided so gracefully into the foibles, and displayed so humorously the excesses, of a fine woman too sensible of her charms, too confident in her strength, and led away by her pleasures, that no succeeding Lady Townley arrived at her many distinguished excellencies in the character."[A] And the writer goes on to say that "by being a welcome and constant visitor to families of distinction, Mrs. Oldfield acquired a graceful carriage in representing women of high rank, and expressed their sentiments in a manner so easy, natural, and flowing, that they appeared to be of her own genuine utterance." Pray, sir, what is there so remarkable about that? Had not Anne as gentle blood as that which coursed through the veins of many a lady of rank?

[Footnote A: The Lady Townleys of later years included Mrs. Spranger
Barry and the imposing Mistress Yates.]

But the triumphs of the first Lady Townley were fast drawing to a close; the curtain would soon be rung down for ever upon that radiant face, with its angelic smile and dancing eyes, and the stage, whether Drury Lane or mother earth would see her no more. Ill health began to follow in her once careless path, and there were times when the duties of acting seemed almost unbearable. Yet she was a brave woman, and kept a merry front to the audience, although she was obliged, on occasions, to turn away from the house, that it might not see the tears of pain flowing down her cheek. Here was a combination of comedy and tragedy, with a vengeance!

Still Nance went on, delighting the town as of yore, and putting into her last original rôle, that of Sophonisba, a fire which breathed not of sickness nor failing powers. At last there came a day when she played her final part, and left Drury Lane only to be driven tenderly home to her death-bed. Think of the pathos of this last performance, this giving up of all that was most alluring in life, and let none of us poor moderns presume to analyse the heart-broken woman's feelings as she said good-bye to the dear old theatre. Anne worshipped art, and the public, in turn, worshipped her; she had acted her many parts, laughed, cried, sinned, and waxed exceeding happy—and now she was to be cast out into the darkness. Must she not have shivered when she entered her house in Lower Grosvenor Street for the last time? Poor lovable creature! There could be for her now neither lights, nor laughter, nor applause; all would be gloom and weariness to the end.

During the weeks which followed, the invalid received the untiring attentions of Mistress Saunders, who once upon a time played bouncing chambermaids, but who had, for ten years past, acted as a feminine valet de chambre and general factotum for Mrs. Oldfield. And if ever she played well, 'twas in thus ministering to the dying wants of one who in health had been ever helpful and generous. Pope, who hated the great comedienne in his petty, spiteful way, has immortalised the intimacy of mistress and handmaiden in these lines:

"'Odious! in woolen? 'twould a saint provoke!'
Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.
'No, let a charming Chintz and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face;
One would not sure be frightful when one's dead,
And, Betty, give this cheek a little red.'"[A]

[Footnote A: Pope's Moral Essays.]

These ante-mortem directions had no further reality than the imagination of the poet; but it is easy to believe that the woman who had set the fashions for the town these many years would have enough of the feminine instinct left, though Death waited without, to plan a becoming funeral garb. Woollen, forsooth! It was a beastly law which required that all the dead should be buried in that material, and Nance shuddered when she thought of it.[A]

[Footnote A: The dead were then buried in woolen, which was rendered compulsory by the Acts 30 Car. II. c. 3 and 36 ejusdem c. i. The first act was entitled "an Act for the lessening the importation of linnen from beyond the seas, and the encouragement of the woolen and paper manufactures of the kingdome." It prescribed that the curate of every parish, shall keep a register to be provided at the charge of the parish, wherein to enter all burials and affidavits of persons being buried in woolen; the affidavit to be taken by any justice of the peace, mayor, or such like chief officer in the parish where the body was interred…. It imposed a fine of five pounds for every infringement, one half to go to the informer, and the other half to the poor of the parish. This Act was only repealed by 54 Geo. III. c. 108, or in the year 1815. The material used was flannel, and such interments are frequently mentioned in the literature of the time.—ASHTON.]

Soon there were no more thoughts of dress, no more plaintive shudders at the iniquity of the woollen act. The eyes whose kindly light had illumined the dull soul of many a playgoer, closed for ever on the 23rd of October, 1730, and the incomparable Oldfield was no more. Surely old Sol did not shine on London that day; surely he must have mourned behind the leaden English sky for one of his fairest daughters, that child of sunshine who brightened the world by her presence, and made her exit, as she did her entrance, with a smile.

After the breath had left Anne's still lovely body, Mistress Saunders dressed her in a "Brussels lace head-dress, a Holland shift, with tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, and a pair of new kid gloves." It was, no doubt, the costume which the actress had commanded, and handsome she must have looked, as many an admirer took one last glimpse of the remains prior to the interment in Westminster Abbey. All that was mortal of Oldfield lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber,[A] and then there followed an elaborate funeral, at which were present a host of great men, and the two sons of the deceased, Mr. Maynwaring and young Churchill. Were these sons less grieved when they found that their mother had left them the major part of her fortune?

[Footnote A: The solemn lying in state of an English actress in the Jerusalem Chamber, the sorrow of the public over their lost favourite, and the regret of friends in noble, or humble, but virtuous homes, where Mrs. Oldfield had been ever welcome, contrast strongly with the French sentiment towards French players. It has been already said, that as long as Clairon exercised the power, when she advanced to the footlights, to make the (then standing) pit recoil several feet, by the mere magic of her eyes, the pit, who enjoyed the terror as a luxury, flung crowns to her, and wept at the thought of losing her; but Clairon infirm was Clairon forgotten, and to a decaying actor or actress a French audience is the most merciless in the world. The brightest and best of them, as with us, died in the service of the public. Monfleury, Mondory, and Bricourt died of apoplexy, brought on by excess of zeal. Molière, who fell in harness, was buried with less ceremony than some favourite dog. The charming Lecouvreur, that Oldfield of the French stage, whose beauty and intellect were the double charm which rendered theatrical France ecstatic, was hurriedly interred within a saw-pit. Bishops might be exceedingly interested in, and unepiscopally generous to living actresses of wit and beauty, but the prelates smote them with a "Maranatha!" and an "Avaunt ye!" when dead.—DR. DORAN.]

Later on Savage was inspired to write that famous poem of his, unsigned though it appeared, on the virtues of the departed:

"Oldfield's no more! and can the Muse forbear
O'er Oldfield's grave to shed a grateful tear?
Shall she, the Glory of the British Stage,
Pride of her sex, and wonder of the age;
Shall she, who, living, charm'd th' admiring throng,
Die undistinguish'd, and not claim a song?
No; feeble as it is, I'll boldly raise
My willing voice, to celebrate her praise,
And with her name immortalise my lays.
Had but my Muse her art to touch the soul,
Charm ev'ry sense, and ev'ry pow'r control,
I'd paint her as she was—the form divine,
Where ev'ry lovely grace united shine;
A mein majestic, as the wife of Jove;
An air as winning as the Queen of Love:
In ev'ry feature rival charms should rise,
And Cupid hold his empire in her eyes.
A soul, with ev'ry elegance refin'd,
By nature, and the converse of mankind:
Wit, which could strike assuming folly dead;
And sense, which temper'd ev'ry thing she said;
Judgment, which ev'ry little fault could spy;
But candour, which would pass a thousand by:
Such finish'd breeding, so polite a taste,
Her fancy always for the fashion pass'd;
Whilst every social virtue fir'd her breast
To help the needy, succour the distrest;
A friend to all in misery she stood,
And her chief pride was plac'd in doing good.
But now, my Muse, the arduous task engage,
And shew the charming figure on the stage;
Describe her look, her action, voice and mein,
The gay coquette, soft maid, or haughty Queen.
So bright she shone, in ev'ry different part,
She gain'd despotic empire o'er the heart;
Knew how each various motion to control,
Sooth ev'ry passion, and subdue the soul:
As she, o'er gay, or sorrowful appears,
She claims our mirth, or triumphs in our tears.
When Cleopatra's form she chose to wear
We saw the monarch's mein, the beauty's air;
Charmed with the sight, her cause we all approve,
And, like her lover, give up all for love:
Anthony's fate, instead of Caesar's choose,
And wish for her we had a world to lose.
But now the gay delightful scene is o'er,
And that sweet form must glad our world no more;
Relentless death has stop'd the tuneful tongue,
And clos'd those eyes, for all, but death, too strong,
Blasted that face where ev'ry beauty bloom'd,
And to Eternal Rest the graceful Mover doom'd."

In writing which Savage almost justified his existence.