NANCE AT HOME
"Home?" An actress at home? Does it not seem strange to apply the dear
old English noun, so redolent of peace, and quiet, and privacy, to
the feverish life of a mummer? We go, night after night, to see our
favourite players shining 'mid the fierce glare of the footlights,
watch them approvingly as they pass from rôle to rôle, and finally
begin to believe, like the egotists we are, that they have no
existence apart from the one we are pleased to applaud. What fools
some of us must be to think there is never a time when the paint and
powder, the tinsel and eternal artifice of the stage--yea, even our
own condescending admiration--pall on the jaded spirits of the poor
player.
"How sparklingly is Miss Smith acting Lady Teazle to-night!" we say,
elegantly pressing our hands together in token of august favour. We
are entranced, and it follows, therefore, that the actress must be
entranced likewise. Mayhap Miss Smith does not share the same ecstacy;
perhaps, as she stands behind the screen in Joseph Surface's rooms,
Sir Peter's wife is wishing that the comedy were ended and she were
comfortably ensconced in her cosy little lodgings round the corner.
She pictures that crackling wood fire, and her old terrier basking
in the gentle heat, and the tea-urn hissing near by (or is it a cold
bottle of beer in the portable refrigerator?) and in the background
sweet good Mr. Smith, who does nothing but spend his lady's salary.
In that temple of domesticity there are no thoughts of rouge, or
paint-pots, or of Richard Brinsley Sheridan--it is merely home. Dost
thou always hurry back to so attractive a one, thou patronising
theatre-goer?
Our Nance had a home to which she was glad enough to hurry back, like
the aforesaid Miss Smith, after the play was over at Drury Lane. There
was no husband there to await her, but a very devoted knight in the
person of Mr. Arthur Maynwaring, who, though he gave not his name nor
the ceremony of bell, book, and candle to the union, played the part
of spouse to the fair charmer. The town looked with good-natured
tolerance on the moral code, or the want thereof, of the frail one,
just as other towns, in later days, have looked with equal benevolence
upon the peccadillos of some petted favourite. The times were not of
the straightlaced order and no one expected from an actress wonders
of chastity or conventionality. Are we ourselves exacting where the
Thespian is concerned?
[Illustration: ANNE OLDFIELD
By JONATHAN RICHARDSON]
Fashion'd alike by Nature and by Art
To please, engage, and interest ev'ry heart.
In public life, by all who saw, approv'd;
In private life, by all who knew her, lov'd.
"Even her amours," says Chetwood in treating of Mistress Oldfield,
"seemed to lose that glare which appears round the persons of the
failing fair; neither was it ever known that she troubled the repose
of any lady's lawful claim; and was far more constant than millions in
the conjugal noose." Being thus acquitted of predatory designs
upon the peace of English wives, and having the further virtue of
constancy, a host of Londoners, men and women, high and low alike,
gazed with charitable eyes upon Nance's private life. And she, dear
girl, sinned on joyously.
Mr. Maynwaring, who helped Oldfield to break the spirit of one
commandment, was a brilliant figure in the reign of Queen Anne,
albeit, like other brilliant figures of that period, he has passed
into the darkness of oblivion. A clever dabbler in literature, an
honest politician--a politician with scruples was as rare in those
days as he is now--and a man of honour who could drink as much as his
friends, the volatile Arthur was, perhaps, best known as the most
attractive talker of the famous Kit-Cat Club. The Kit-Cat Club! What
a wealth of anecdote doth its name conjure up to the student of the
past! 'Twas in this famous organisation that noblemen and wits met on
common ground, drank many a toast to the House of Hanover or to some
reigning belle of London town, and exercised a patronising censorship
over the world of letters. They were "the patriots that saved Briton,"
says Horace Walpole, in referring to their anti-Jacobitism, and yet
the most of them are forgotten.
If tradition is to be believed (and what siren is more comfortable to
hearken unto than tradition?) these self-same patriots took their name
of "Kit-Cats" from prosaic mutton pies. 'Twould be horrible to think
on this gastronomic derivation of the title were we not to remember,
quite fortunately, that geese saved classic Rome. Why, therefore,
should not the preservers of perfidious Albion suggest the aroma of a
lamb pasty?
It seems that the Club had its first headquarters in Shire Lane, near
Temple Bar, at the establishment of Christopher Cat, a pastrycook
who helped to enliven the inner man by delicious meat pies dubbed
"Kit-Cats." Hence the name of that notable coterie of Whigs which
included Addison and Dick Steele, Congreve and His Grace of
Devonshire.[A]
[Footnote A: Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and
drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which the
learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the
buffoon, can all of them bear a part. The Kit-Cat itself is said to
have taken its original from a mutton pie. The Beef-Steak and October
clubs are neither of them averse to eating and drinking, if we may
form a judgment of them from their respective titles.--ADDISON in the
_Spectator_.]
Maynwaring came of good English stock, and in early life showed the
results of his relationship to the aristocratic house of Cholmondeley
by supporting the lost cause of James II. So fervent an admirer was he
of that apology for royalty that he took up the pen, if not the sword,
in his behalf, and steeped the mightier weapon with satirical ink when
he wrote a pamphlet entitled "The King of Hearts." Rumour paid to
the young author an unintentional compliment by insisting that the
brochure came from the great Mr. Dryden, but that genius denied the
soft impeachment while gracefully praising the unknown writer.
This pursuit of Jacobitism was varied by the study of law--a study
"sometimes relieved with a temporary application to music and
poetry"--and when the disconsolate Arthur had lost his father, and
thereby gained 800 pounds a year, he drowned his sorrows by an almost
exclusive devotion to "society and pleasantry." We are told[A] that on
the ratification of the Peace of Ryswick he went to Paris, where
he was exceedingly well received in consequence of the numerous
introductory letters which had been furnished him from various
quarters. He there contracted an intimacy with Boileau,--
"Whose rash envy would allow
No strain that shamed his country's creaking lyre,
That whetstone of the teeth, monotony in wire."
[Footnote A: "Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons comprising the Kit-Cat
Club."]
"The French poet invited Maynwaring to his country seat, where he
behaved to him in a very hospitable manner, and frequently conversed
with him respecting the merits of our English poets, of whom, however,
he affected to know but little, and for whom he pretended to care
still less. Monsieur de la Fontaine was also at times one of their
company, and always spoke in very respectful terms of the poetry of
the sister nation. Boileau's pretending to be ignorant of Dryden
'argued himself unknown'; but, perhaps, another reason may be assigned
why the French writers found it convenient to know as little as
possible of their English contemporary, who in many of his admirable
prefaces and dedications has taken some trouble to explain the
frivolity of the French poets, their tiresome _petit maître-ship_, and
all the finessing and trick with which they endeavour to make amends
to their readers for positive deficiency of genius."
After playing the _dilettante_ in France, Maynwaring returned home,
and in time became a staunch Whig, a Government official, and, later
on, a Member of Parliament. The cause of the Pretender knew him no
more, and in future this brilliant gentleman would be one of the
greatest friends of that stupid Hanoverian family which waited
drowsily, across the sea, for the death of Anne.
But what counted all the glamour of public life compared to the
possession of Nance Oldfield and an honoured seat at the festive board
of the Kit-Cat Club? Love and conviviality, youth and wit, carried the
day, and through the influence of these seductive companions handsome
Arthur failed to achieve greatness as a statesman. But when it came
to waging political warfare against sour Swift, or to assisting Dick
Steele with the "Tatler," or--better still--toasting some fair one at
the Club,[A] this _bon viveur_ was in his finest mood.
[Footnote A: The (Kit-Cat) club originated in the hospitality of Jacob
Tonson, the bookseller, who, once a week, was host at the house in
Shire Lane to a gathering of writers. In an occasional poem on the
Kit-Cat club, attributed to Sir Richard Blackmore, Jacob is read
backwards into Bocaj, and we are told:
"One Night in Seven at this convenient seat
Indulgent Bocaj did the Muses treat;
Their Drink was gen'rous Wine and Kit-Cat's Pyes their Meat.
Hence did th' Assembly's Title first arise,
And Kit-Cat Wits spring first from Kit-Cat's Pyes."
About the year 1700 this gathering of wits produced a club in which
the great Whig chiefs were associated with foremost Whig writers,
Tonson being secretary. It was as much literary as political, and its
"toasting glasses," each inscribed with lines to a reigning beauty,
caused Arbuthnot to derive its value from "its pell mell pack of
toasts."
Of old Cats and young Kits.
Tonson built a room for the Club at Barn Elms to which each member
gave his portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was himself a member.
The pictures were on a new-sized canvas adopted to the height of the
walls, whence the name "Kit-Cat" came to be applied generally
to three-quarter length portraits.--HENRY MORLEY'S Notes on the
_Spectator_.]
It is to be supposed that at some time or other the health of Mistress
Oldfield was drunk by the Kit-Cats, whose custom of honouring
womankind in this bibulous way may have given rise to Pope's plaintive
query:
"Say why are beauties prais'd and honoured most,
The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast?
Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford,
Why Angels call'd, and angel-like adored?"
And if the actress was thus deified or spiritualised, who drained his
glass more fervently than did Arthur Maynwaring? For whatever may have
been the faults of this dashing Whig, he had the courage of his sins,
and took up his abode with Anne in the full light of day, as though
a marriage ceremony were a bagatelle not worth the recollecting. The
world was forgiving, to be sure, nor is it probable that either one
of this easily-mated pair suffered any loss of public esteem by the
union. Dukes--nay, even Duchesses--were glad to meet Nance, and
Royalty allowed her to bask in the sunshine of its gracious approval.
"She was to be seen on the terrace at Windsor, walking with the
consorts of dukes, and with countesses, and wives of English barons,
and the whole gay group might be heard calling one another by their
Christian names."
No wonder that the women of fashion, none of them saints, loved
Oldfield and winked at the elasticity of her moral ethics. The dear
creature was so bright in conversation, so full of _espièglerie_, and,
still more important, she looked so charming in her succession of
handsome toilettes, that she could be ever sure of a cordial welcome.
"Flavia," as Steele calls her, "is ever well-dressed, and always
the genteelest woman you meet, but the make of her mind very much
contributes to the ornament of her body. She has the greatest
simplicity of manners of any of her sex. This makes everything look
native about her, and her clothes are so exactly fitted, that they
appear, as it were, part of her person. Every one that sees her knows
her to be of quality; but her distinction is owing to her manner,
and not to her habit. Her beauty is full of attraction, but not of
allurement. There is such a composure in her looks, and propriety in
her dress, that you would think it impossible she should change the
garb you one day see her in, for anything so becoming until you next
day see her in another. There is no mystery in this, but that however
she is apparelled, she is herself the same: for there is so immediate
a relation between our thoughts and gestures that a woman must think
well to look well."
* * * * *
Here, verily, was an actress who could set the town wild by the beauty
and exquisite taste of her costumes, and who was conscientious enough,
nevertheless, to keep the millinery phase of her art modestly in the
background. You, ladies, who depend for theatrical success upon the
elegance of your gowns, and fondly believe that fairness of face and
litheness of figure will atone for a thousand dramatic sins, take
pattern by the industry of Oldfield. It will be a much better pattern
than those over which you are accustomed to worry your pretty heads.
The enterprising dressmakers who go to the play to get inspiration for
new clothes may cease to worship you, but think of the other sort of
inspiration which you will give to lovers of the drama! Then shall
there be no more announcements to the effect that, "Miss Lighthead
will act Lady Macbeth in ten Parisian gowns made by Worth," or that
when she treats us to the death of Marguerite Gautier (the aforesaid
Mdlle. Gautier dying, as everybody knows, in actual poverty) "Miss
Lighthead will wear diamonds representing one hundred thousand
dollars."
There is not much to say about the domesticity of Nance and Arthur
Maynwaring. How could there be? The lady kept house for her lord and
master with grace and modesty (if it seems not paradoxical to mention
modesty in this alliance), and it is safe to believe that more than
one member of the Kit-Cat Club often tasted a bit of beef and pudding,
and sipped a glass of port, at the table of the happy pair. Congreve,
the particular friend and _protégé_ of the host, must have dined more
than once with brilliant Nance, regaling his plump being with the joy
of food and drink, and wondering, perhaps, how any one could prefer
the hostess to his particular _chère-amie_, Anne Bracegirdle. And
Oldfield, of what did she think as she gazed into the rounded face of
Mr. Congreve, or listened to the merry wit of her devoted liege? Did
the ghost of poor, dead Farquhar ever arise before her, the reminder
of a day when love was younger and passion stronger? Let us ask no
impertinent questions.
What with acting, and supping, and an easy conscience, Mistress
Oldfield gaily trod the primrose path of dalliance, and Cupid hovered
near, albeit there was no law to chain him to the scene. But one day
he took to his wings and flew away, after witnessing the untimely
death (November 1712) of Mr. Maynwaring. The latter made his exit with
the assistance of three physicians, and Nance was near to smooth the
departure.[A] Then came the funeral, and after that Mrs. Mayn--Mrs.
Oldfield dried her lovely eyes (did she not have enough weeping to do
when she played in tragedy?), and began once more to think upon the
joys of existence.
[Footnote A: He died at St. Albans, November 13, 1712, of a
consumption, and was attended in his last illness by Doctors Garth,
Radcliffe and Blackmore. In his will he appointed Mrs. Oldfield, the
celebrated actress, his executrix, with whom he had lived for several
years, and by whom he had a son, named Arthur Maynwaring. His
estate was equally divided between this child, its mother and his
sister.--"Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons Comprising the Kit-Kat
Club."]
When General Churchill, a nephew of the great Duke of Marlborough,
suggested to the disconsolate widow-by-brevet that she should share
his home, the proposal was accepted, and the actress entered for
a second time into a free-and-easy compact, and for a second time
remained faithful thereto until her new admirer went the way of Mr.
Maynwaring. It was even rumoured--scandalous gossip!--that the two
were married; and one day the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen
Caroline, asked the "incomparable sweet girl," who was attending a
royal levee, whether such were indeed the case. "So it is said, may
it please your Royal Highness," diplomatically replied Nance, "but we
have not owned it yet."
To Churchill our unsteady heroine presented one son, and it was
through the marriage of the latter that the swift-running blood of
Oldfield now courses through the veins of the first Earl of Cadogan's
descendants.[A] This son and the one who bore the name of Maynwaring
were the only two children credited, or discredited, to the actress,
but there appears to have been a mysterious daughter, a Miss Dye
Bertie, who became, as Mrs. Delany tells us, "the pink of fashion
in the _beau monde_, and married a nobleman." It would not be wise,
however, to peer too closely into the dim vista of the past. The
picture might prove unpleasant.
[Footnote A: Her son, Colonel Churchill, once, unconsciously, saved
Sir Robert Walpole from assassination, through the latter riding home
from the House in the Colonel's chariot instead of alone in his own.
Unstable Churchill married a natural daughter of Sir Robert, and
their daughter Mary married, in 1777, Charles Sloane, first Earl of
Cadogan.... When Churchill and his wife were travelling in France, a
Frenchman, knowing he was connected with poets or players, asked him
if he was Churchill the famous poet. "I am not," said Mrs. Oldfield's
son. "Ma foi!" rejoined the polite Frenchman, "so much the worse for
you."--DR. DORAN.]
Surely we may have charity for Oldfield, when she dispensed the same
virtue to those around her. Towards none did she show it more sweetly
than to that disreputable fraud and alleged man of genius, Richard
Savage. In his own feverish day Dick Savage cut a literary swath more
wide than enviable, but when he is viewed from the unsympathetic light
of the present he seems merely a clever vagabond. Yet Dr. Johnson, who
could be so stern towards some of his contemporaries, condescended
to love the aforesaid vagabond, in a ponderous, elephantine way,
and deified him by writing the life of the ingrate, or an apology
therefor. Savage had, once upon a time, led the youthful Johnson more
than a few feet away from the path of rectitude, but the philosopher
forgave, without forgetting, the wiles of the tempter, and treated
him with a generosity by no means deserved. In the years of his
prosperity--and the remembrance did him credit--Johnson could never
forget that Savage and himself had been poor together, and had often
wandered through London with hardly a penny to show between them.
* * * * *
"It is melancholy to reflect," says Boswell, "that Johnson and Savage
were sometimes in such extreme indigence that they could not pay for
a lodging; so that they have wandered together whole nights in the
streets. Yet in these almost incredible scenes of distress, we may
suppose that Savage mentioned many of the anecdotes with which Johnson
afterwards enriched the life of this unhappy companion, and those of
other poets.
"He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular, when
Savage and he walked round St. James's Square for want of a lodging,
they were not at all depressed by their situation; but in high spirits
and brimful of patriotism, traversed the square for several hours,
inveighed against the Minister, and resolved they would _stand by
their country_."
* * * * *
The claim of Savage that he was the illegitimate son of the Countess
of Macclesfield--a claim which he was always asserting to the point of
coarseness--seems to have been the stock-in-trade of this vagabond's
life. There never was proof that the relationship which he thus
flaunted really existed; for, although the conduct of the Countess[A]
was unpardonable, the poet could never show that he had been the
mysterious infant which had this lady for its mother and Lord Rivers
for an unnatural father. The child disappeared, and nothing more was
ever known of its existence.
[Footnote A: Anne Mason, wife of Charles Gerrard, first Earl of
Macclesfield, was divorced from that nobleman by an Act of Parliament.
Another earl, Richard Savage, Lord Rivers, was the co-respondent.
This was the same Countess of Macclesfield who subsequently married
Cibber's friend, Colonel Brett.]
But Savage discovered, or affected to discover, that he was the
missing one, and from that moment made the Countess miserable by his
importunities for recognition and money, more particularly for
the latter. "It was to no purpose," records Dr. Johnson, "that he
frequently solicited her to admit him to see her; she avoided him with
the most vigilant precaution, and ordered him to be excluded from her
house, by whomsoever he might be introduced, and what reason soever he
might give for entering it." And the Doctor, who had an abiding and
very misplaced confidence in the fellow, adds plaintively: "Savage was
at the same time so touched with the discovery of his real mother that
it was his frequent practice to walk in the dark evenings for several
hours before her door in hopes of seeing her as she might come by
accident to the window, or cross her apartment with a candle in her
hand."
"Touched with the discovery," forsooth! 'Twas a species of blackmail
cloaked in the guise of filial sentiment.
This talented blackguard was wont to pray for alms from Mistress
Oldfield; and that dear charitable creature (are not most actresses
dear, charitable creatures?) would often waste her practical sympathy
upon him. She despised the man, but, with that generosity so
characteristic of her craft, was ever ready to relieve his
necessities.[A] Well, well, how the glitter from a few guineas can
envelop the fragile doner in a golden light, and throw over her faults
the soft glow of forgiveness.
[Footnote A: In this (Johnson's) "Life of Savage" 'tis related that
Mrs. Oldfield was very fond of Mr. Savage's conversation, and allowed
him an annuity during her life of £50. These facts are equally
ill-grounded; there was no foundation for them. That Savage's
misfortunes pleaded for pity, and had the desired effect on Mrs.
Oldfield's compassion, is certain; but she so much disliked the man,
and disapproved his conduct, that she never admitted him to her
conversation, nor suffered him to enter her house. She indeed often
relieved him with such donations as spoke her generous disposition.
But this was on the solicitation of friends, who frequently set his
calamities before her in the most piteous light; and, from a principle
of humanity, she became not a little instrumental in saving his
life.--CIBBER'S "Lives of the Poets."]
Savage himself once turned player, and no one must have been more
amused thereat than the Oldfield. It happened during the summer of
1723, when the poet, who was in his customary state of (theatrical)
destitution, determined to replenish his shabby purse by bringing out
a tragedy. While this play, "The Tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury,"[A]
was in rehearsal at Drury Lane, Colley Cibber kept the author in
clothes, and the Laureate's son Theophilus, then a very young man,
studied the part of Somerset. The principal actors were not in London
just then, it being the off season, when the younger players strutted
across the classic boards of the house, and Savage determined himself
to enact Sir Thomas. He did so with melancholy results; even Johnson
admits the failure of so presumptuous a leap before the footlights,
"for neither his voice, look, nor gesture were such as were expected
on the stage; and he was so much ashamed of having been reduced to
appear as a player, that he always blotted out his name from the list
when a copy of his tragedy was to be shown to his friends."[B]
[Footnote A: Savage, with his usual bad taste, published this tragedy
as the work of "Richard Savage, _son of the late Earl Rivers_."]
[Footnote B: In the publication of his performance he was more
successful, for the rays of genius that glimmered in it, that
glimmered through all the mists which poverty and Cibber had been able
to spread over it, procured him the notice and esteem of many persons
eminent for their rank, their virtue, and their wit. Of this play,
acted, printed, and dedicated, the accumulated profits arose to an
hundred pounds, which he thought at that time a very large sum, having
been never master of so much before. In the "Dedication," for which
he received ten guineas, there is nothing remarkable. The preface
contains a very liberal enconium on the blooming excellence of Mr.
Theophilus Cibber, which Mr. Savage could not in the latter part of
his life see his friends about to read without snatching the play out
of their hands.--DR. JOHNSON.]
What a sublime hypocrite our Richard was, to be sure. That he felt so
keenly the disgrace (?) of "having been reduced to appear as a player"
was, no doubt, a sentiment intended for the exclusive ear of the great
lexicographer, whose prejudice against the stage and its followers was
strong to the point of absurdity. Despite the qualms of the poet
over exposing his sacred self to the gaze of an audience he had no
sensitiveness in receiving the money of an actress, and he was willing
enough to have her aid in another direction.
That aid was cheerfully given once upon a time when Savage came
dangerously near the scaffold. This prince of scamps and wanderer
among the beery precincts of pot-houses happened to stroll one night,
accompanied by two choice spirits (and himself full of spirits) into
a disreputable coffee-house near Charing Cross. The three men rudely
pushed their way into a parlour where some other roisterers were
drinking; the intrusion was naturally resented, and as each and every
one of the party chanced to be better filled with wine than with
politeness, a brawl was the consequence. Swords were drawn and Savage
killed a Mr. Sinclair, after which drunken act he cut the head of
a barmaid who tried to hold him. Then more swearing, shrieking and
sword-thrusting, a cry for soldiers, a flight from the coffee-house,
and an almost instant arrest. A pretty picture, was it not?
When Savage was put on trial for his life, he pleaded that the killing
of Sinclair was done in self-defence, and his acquittal would probably
have followed but for the shrewdness of the prosecution. This
prosecution was conducted by Francis Page, whose severity Pope
immortalised in the lines:
"Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage
Hard-words or hanging--if your judge be Page."
Page surely understood human nature, or that portion of it
appertaining to the average jurymen, and he disposed of Mr. Savage's
defence by one well-directed blow when he said to the good men and
true: "Gentlemen of the jury, you are to consider that Mr. Savage is
a very great man, a much greater man than you or I, gentlemen of the
jury; that he wears very fine clothes, much finer clothes than you
or I, gentlemen of the jury; that he has abundance of money in his
pocket, much more money than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; but,
gentlemen of the jury, is it not a very hard case, gentlemen of the
jury, that Mr. Savage should therefore kill you, or me, gentlemen of
the jury."
Whereupon the defendant began to make a speech in his own behalf, but
his flow of eloquence was quenched by the judge, and the jury soon
found Savage as well as Gregory, one of his companions in the drunken
broil, to be guilty of murder. Many influences were now brought to
bear on Queen Caroline, consort of George II., to secure a pardon for
the rascal, but that good lady was for a time obdurate. She had heard
a few choice stories anent the man, and among them, one which Dr.
Johnson glosses over in this way: "Mr. Savage, when he had discovered
his birth, had an incessant desire to speak to his mother, who always
avoided him in public, and refused him admission into her house.
One evening walking, as it was his custom, in the street that she
inhabited, he saw the door of her house by accident open, he entered
it, and, finding no person in the passage to hinder him, went upstairs
to salute her. She discovered him before he entered her chamber,
alarmed the family with the most distressful outcries, and when she
had by her screams gathered them about her, ordered them to drive
out of the house that villain who had forced himself in upon her and
endeavoured to murder her. Savage, who had attempted with the most
submissive tenderness to soften her rage, hearing her utter so
detestable an accusation, thought it prudent to retire."
Thus the Queen refused to interfere until the Countess of Hertford
pleaded the cause of the imprisoned poet. In the meantime Mistress
Oldfield interceded with the mighty Robert Walpole, and the result of
all this wire-pulling was that Savage received the king's pardon,[A]
being thus left free to continue the persecution of his alleged
mother, to beg from friends and strangers alike, and to follow a
mode of life which scandalised even his kindly biographer. And when
Oldfield, the latchets of whose shoes he was not worthy to tie, played
her last part and passed away from the earthly stage, Richard wore
mourning for her, as for a mother, "but did not celebrate her in
elegies;[B] because he knew that too great profusion of praise would
only have revived those faults which his natural equity did not allow
him to think less because they were committed by one who favoured him;
but of which, though his virtue would not endeavour to palliate them,
his gratitude would not suffer him to prolong the memory or diffuse
the censure."
[Footnote A: March 1728. It is cheerful to know that Mr. Gregory also
escaped hanging. It was contended during the trial, and afterwards,
that the testimony against both these defendants was more damning than
the facts warranted.]
[Footnote B: Nevertheless Savage did write a poem in Oldfield's
honour, although he did not sign his virtuous name thereto. The verses
are quoted by Chetwood. _Vide_ Chapter XI.]
Poor, crusty Samuel! what rot you could write now and then, and how
you did hate players and their craft. But may not the bewildered
reader ask how the aphorisms of the doctor and the disreputable
affairs of Savage concern that home life of Nance to which the
chapter is presumably consecrated? In answer the writer can only cry
"Peccavi," and, having done so, will sin boldly again by giving one
more anecdote. The story concerns Savage, but Steele is the hero of
it, and as winsome Dick is always welcome, we may take leave of the
other Dick in a pleasant way.
Savage was once desired by Sir Richard (says Johnson), with an air
of the utmost importance, to come very early to his house the next
morning. Mr. Savage came as he had promised, found the chariot at the
door, and Sir Richard waiting for him and ready to go out. What was
intended, and whither they were to go, Savage could not conjecture,
and was not willing to inquire; but immediately seated himself with
Sir Richard. The coachman was ordered to drive, and they hurried with
the utmost expedition to Hyde Park Corner, where they stopped at a
petty tavern and retired to a private room. Sir Richard then informed
him that he intended to publish a pamphlet, and that he had desired
him to come thither that he might write for him. He soon sat down to
the work. Sir Richard dictated, and Savage wrote, till the dinner that
had been ordered was put upon the table. Savage was surprised at the
meanness of the entertainment, and after some hesitation ventured to
ask for wine, which Sir Richard, not without reluctance, ordered to
be brought. They then finished their dinner, and proceeded in their
pamphlet, which they concluded in the afternoon.
Mr. Savage then imagined his task over, and expected that Sir Richard
would call for the reckoning and return home; but his expectations
deceived him, for Sir Richard told him that he was without money, and
that the pamphlet must be sold before the dinner could be paid for;
and Savage was therefore obliged to go and offer their new production
to sale for two guineas, which with some difficulty he obtained. Sir
Richard then returned home, having retired that day only to avoid his
creditors, and composed the pamphlet only to discharge his reckoning.
Savage also told Johnson another merry tale of careless Dick. "Sir
Richard Steele having one day invited to his house a great number of
persons of the first quality, they were surprised at the number of
liveries which surrounded the table; and after dinner, when wine and
mirth had set them free from the observation of a rigid ceremony,
one of them inquired of Sir Richard how such an expensive train of
domestics could be consistent with his fortune. Sir Richard very
frankly confessed that they were fellows of whom he would very
willingly be rid. And being then asked why he did not discharge them,
declared that they were bailiffs, who had introduced themselves with
an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had
thought it convenient to embellish with liveries, that they might
do him credit while they stayed. His friends were diverted with the
expedient, and by paying the debt discharged their attendants, having
obliged Sir Richard to promise that they should never again find him
graced with a retinue of the same kind."
These little pleasantries are echoes of the halcyon days when Steele
thought Savage a very fine fellow, made him an allowance and even
proposed to become the poet's father-in-law. But the recipient of all
this favour was caddish enough to ridicule his patron, a kind friend
mentioned the fact to Sir Richard, and the knight shut his doors on
the ingrate. Let us, likewise, give the fellow his _congé_.