"In the wearing of her person she was particularly fortunate; her figure was always improving to her thirty-sixth year; but her excellence in acting was never at a stand; and the last new character she shone in (Lady Townly) was a proof that she was still able to do more, if more could have been done for her. She had one mark of good sense, rarely known in any actor of either sex but herself. I have observed several, with promising dispositions, very desirous of instruction at their first setting out; but no sooner had they found their best account in it, than they were as desirous of being left to their own capacity, which they then thought would be disgraced by their seeming to want any farther assistance. But this was not Mrs. Oldfield's way of thinking; for to the last year of her life she never undertook any part she liked, without being importunately desirous of having all the helps in it that another could possibly give her. By knowing so much herself, she found how much more there was of nature yet needful to be known.
"Yet it was a hard matter to give her any hint, that she was not able to take or improve. With all this merit, she was tractable, and less presuming in her station than several that had not half her pretensions to be troublesome. But she lost nothing by her easy conduct; she had everything she asked, which she took care should be always reasonable, because she hated as much to be grudged as denied a civility. Upon her extraordinary action in the 'Provoked Husband,' the managers made her a present of fifty guineas more than her agreement, which never was more than a verbal one; for they knew she was above deserting them to engage upon any other stage, and she was conscious they would never think it their interest to give her cause of complaint. In the last two months of her illness, when she was no longer able to assist them, she declined receiving her salary, though by her agreement she was entitled to it. Upon the whole she was, to the last scene she acted, the delight of her spectators."[263]
This charming actress (Mrs. Oldfield) is said to have been the Flavia of "The Tatler" (No. 212). The catch-penny writer of her memoirs equivocally speaks of it as her "vera effigies," and on his authority the assertion has been repeated. But as a Flavia mentioned in the same work (No. 239) turns out to be Miss Osborne, afterwards the wife of Bishop Atterbury (upon whom he wrote the lines on a fan there inserted, beginning
"Flavia the least and slightest toy
Can with resistless art employ,")
and as the first Flavia is praised for her quality and the extreme simplicity of her manners (which, according to Cibber, was not exactly one of the charms of Mrs. Oldfield,) the supposition, we think, falls to the ground. We need have less hesitation in admitting that Steele, who knew her well, alludes to her in another paper under her favourite title of Lady Betty Modish. Speaking of the effects of love upon a generous temper, in refining the manners, he says, "There is Colonel Ranter, who never spoke without an oath until he saw the Lady Betty Modish, now never gives his man an order, but it is, 'Pray, Tom, do it.' The drawers where he drinks live in perfect happiness. He asked Will at the George the other day, how he did? Where he used to say, 'Damn it, it is so;' he now 'believes there is some mistake; he must confess, he is of another opinion; but, however, he will not insist.'"[264] This Colonel Ranter is supposed by the commentators to have been Brigadier-General Churchill, one of the Marlborough family, who lived with Mrs. Oldfield after the death of Mr. Maynwaring. Steele elsewhere speaks of a "General" (supposed to be the same) "weeping for her, in the character of Indiana in his 'Conscious Lovers;'" upon which he said Mr. Wilks observed (for he had made all the fine gentlemen tender) that the General "would fight ne'er the worse for that."
Mrs. Oldfield's position in life was singular. With all her beauty and attraction, and the license of stage manners, she is understood to have attached herself but to two persons successively, and on the footing of a wife. The first was Mr. Maynwaring, a celebrated Whig writer, to whom one of the volumes of "The Spectator" is dedicated, and by whom she had a son; and, after his death, she lived with General Churchill, by whom she had a son also. "She left," says 'The General Biography,' "the bulk of her substance to her son Maynwaring, from whose father she had received it; without neglecting, however, her other son Churchill, and her own relations."
During the period of these two connections, Mrs. Oldfield appears to have been received into the first circles, where she is described as being a pattern of good behaviour; and yet the feeling of Mr. Maynwaring's friends against the connection was so strong, that she herself, though she is understood to have had a sincere affection for him, is said to have often remonstrated with him against it as injurious to his interest. Marriage with an actress, though the example had been set by a duke, appears in neither case to have been thought of. The feeling of society seems to have been this:—"Here is a woman bred up to the stage, and passing her life upon it. It is therefore impossible she should marry a gentleman of family; and yet, as her behaviour would otherwise deserve it, and the examples of actresses are of no authority for any one but themselves, some license may be allowed to a woman who diverts us so agreeably, who attracts the society of the wits, and is so capital a dresser. We will treat her profession with contempt, but herself with consideration." Upon these curious grounds Mrs. Oldfield lived in every respect like a woman of fashion, and as she became rich (which was, perhaps, not the least of her recommendations), she was admitted into the best society, and went to court. The pretence among her visitors during both her connections probably was, that she was privately married; but she was too sincere to warrant the deception. The Princess of Wales (afterwards queen of George II.) asked her one day at a levee if her marriage with General Churchill was true. "So it is said, may it please your highness, but we have not owned it yet."—"It may appear singular," says Mr. Chalmers, who tells us this story, "to quote the late pious Sir James Stonhouse for anecdotes of Mrs. Oldfield; yet in one of his letters we are informed, that she always went to the house in the same dress she had worn at dinner in her visits to the houses of great people; for she was much caressed on account of her professional merit and her connection with Mr. Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough's brother; that she used to go to the playhouse in a chair, attended by two footmen; that she seldom spoke to any one of the actors; and was allowed a sum of money to buy her own clothes."[265] Mrs. Oldfield's generosity was much admired in giving a pension to Savage, which he received regularly as long as she lived. This is what has given posterity a liking for her. When she died she lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and her funeral in Westminster Abbey was attended by several noblemen, among others, as pall-bearers. Mr. Chalmers has repeated, with other biographers, that, "at her own desire," she was elegantly dressed in her coffin; on which account, it is added, Pope introduced her in the character of Narcissa:
"Odious! in wollen! 'twould a saint provoke,
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke);