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.