Perceive the loss of what we might have had,
And dote to death."
Captain Farquhar, at whatever passage in the play, betrayed his presence by his involuntary applause. The girl looked towards him more pleased than abashed; and when the captain pronounced that there was in her the stuff for an exquisite actress, the fluttered thing clasped her hands, glowed at the prophecy, and protested in her turn, that of all conditions it was the one she wished most ardently to fulfil. From that moment the glory and the mischief were commenced. The tall girl stood up, her large eyes dilating, the assured future Lady Betty Modish and Biddy Tipkin, Farquhar's own Sylvia and Mrs. Sullen, the Violante and the Lady Townley that were to set the playgoing world mad with delight; the Andromache, Marcia, and Jane Shore, that were to wring tears from them; the supreme lady in all, but chiefest in comedy; and that "genteel," for which she seemed expressly born.
Farquhar talked of her to Vanbrugh, and Vanbrugh introduced her to Rich, and Rich took her into his company, assigned her a beginner's salary, fifteen shillings a week, and gave her nothing to do. She had a better life of it at the seamstress's in King Street. But she had time to spare and leisure to wait. She was barely fifteen, when, in 1700, she played Alinda, in Vanbrugh's adaptation from Beaumont and Fletcher, the "Pilgrim." The next three or four years were those of probation; and when, in the season of 1704-5, Cibber assigned to her the part of Lady Betty Modish, in his "Careless Husband," the town at once recognised in her the most finished actress of such difficult yet effective parts of her day.
The gentle Alinda suited the years and inexperience of Mrs. Oldfield; her youth was in her favour, and her figure, but therewith was such great diffidence, that she had not courage enough to modulate her voice. Cibber watched her; he could see nothing to recommend her, save her graceful person. But there reached his ear occasional silver tones, which seemed to assure him of the rare excellence of the instrument. Still, like "the great Mrs. Barry," her first appearances were failures; and such were those of Sarah Siddons, in after years. Warmed by encouraging applause, however, the promise ripened, and with opportunity, the perfection that came was demonstrated both to watchful Cibber and an expectant public.
In 1703 the company was at Bath, where Queen Anne might have been seen in the Pump Room in the morning,—later in the day, at the play. But the joyous and brilliant queen of comedy was not there. Mrs. Verbruggen, the Mrs. Mountfort of earlier days, was ill in town, nursing a baby, whose birth ultimately cost the life of the mother. There was a scramble for her parts. Each of the more influential actresses obtained several; but to young and unobtrusive Mrs. Oldfield, there fell but one,—the mediocre part of Leonora, in "Sir Courtly Nice." Cibber reluctantly ran over the scenes with her, at her request, in which the Knight and the Lady meet. He was careless, from lack of appreciation of the actress; she was piqued, and sullenly repeated the words set down for her. There was, in short, a mutual distaste. But, when the night came, Colley saw the almost perfect actress before him, and as he says,—"she had a just occasion to triumph over the error of my judgment by the almost amazement that her unexpected performance awaked me to; so sudden and forward a step into nature I had never seen. And what made her performance more valuable was, that I knew it all proceeded from her own understanding,—untaught and unassisted by any one more experienced actor." Any other player but Cibber, in his place, would have laid Anne Oldfield's success to the instruction he had given her at rehearsal.
Colley Cibber had then in his desk the unfinished manuscript of his "Careless Husband;" it had long lain there, through the author's hopelessness of ever finding an actress who would realise his idea of Lady Betty Modish. He had no longer any doubt. He at once finished the piece, brought it on the stage, and silent as to his own share in the triumph, attributed it all, or nearly all, to Mrs. Oldfield. "Not only to the uncommon excellence of her action; but even to her personal manner of conversing." I must repeat what Cibber tells us, that many of the sentiments were Mrs. Oldfield's, dressed up by him, "with a little more care than when they negligently fell from her lively humour." Respecting what Cibber adds, that "had her birth placed her in a higher rank of life, she had certainly appeared to be, in reality, what in the play she only excellently acted,—an agreeably gay woman of quality, a little too conscious of her natural attractions," I will remark that, as she really appeared to be so, her birth (she was a gentleman's daughter) could not prevent her from appearing so. And Cibber avows, what the testimony of Walpole confirms, that he had "often seen her in private societies, where women of the best rank might have borrowed some part of her behaviour without the least diminution of their sense of dignity."
In 1702, the merit of Mrs. Oldfield was not recognised by Gildon, who, in his "Comparison between the two Stages," classes her among "the rubbish," of which the stage should be swept. Of Mrs. Verbruggen (Mountfort), he speaks as "a miracle." He could not see that Oldfield would be her successor, and would, in some parts, even excel her. By the year 1706, however, she had risen to be on an equality with such a brilliant favourite as Mrs. Bracegirdle, whom, in the opinion of many, her younger competitor surpassed. The salary of the latter then, and for some years later, was not, however, a large one, if measured by modern rule. Four pounds a week, with a benefit,—in all, little more than £250 a year, cannot be called excessive guerdon. Her own benefit was always profitable; but I am sorry to add, that this joyous-looking creature, apparently brimful of good nature, was very reluctant to play for the benefit of her colleagues. Subsequently, her revenue from the stage-salary and benefit averaged about £500 a year.
A remark of hers to Cibber, shows how she entered into the spirit of her parts. Cibber had replaced Dicky Norris, who was ill, in the part of Barnaby Brittle, in the "Amorous Widow," in which Mrs. Oldfield played Barnaby's wife. The couple are a sort of George Dandin and his spouse. When the play was over, Cibber asked her, in his familiar way, "Nancy, how did you like your new husband?" "Very well," said she; "but not half so well as Dicky Norris." "How so?" asked Cibber. "You are too important a figure," she answered; "but Dicky is so diminutive, and looks so sneaking, that he seems born to be deceived; and when he plays with me, I make him what a husband most dislikes to be, with hearty good will."