According to a recent magazine writer, Ann Oldfield, who once took
“London by storm,” “being much caressed in the houses of great people
and received in friendly terms at court,” is now chiefly recalled as
an actress who, when dying, was concerned most with the “becomingness
of the burial robe” in which she lay in state indeed in the Jerusalem
chamber of Westminster Abbey, in the vaults of which she was entombed.
“Odious in woollen ’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!”
(Text.)
(3382)
=Variation=--See FREEDOM THROUGH DRILL.