CHAPTER XI

THE FADING OF A STAR

The life of Mistress Oldfield, like that of Barton Booth, was cast in

pleasant places. Yet the lady had her little agitations, and found

them, no doubt, rather an incentive to existence than otherwise. Take,

for instance, the excitement surrounding the production, during the

Drury Lane season of 1711-12, of Mrs. Centlivre's play, "The Perplexed

Lovers." To the lovely Nance was entrusted the duty of speaking the

epilogue thereto, wherein Prince Eugene (at that time on a visit to

England) and the Duke of Marlborough were lauded in the true spirit of

ancient flunkeyism. But the animosity which politics doth breed ran

high, and the first night of the performance went by without the

introduction of the eulogy. Some patriots objected to the sentiments

which it contained, and the managers were cautious. As for Oldfield,

she might have been cautious, too, and with reason, for she had

received letters threatening her with dire pains and penalties if she

spoke the offending words, but Anne stood ready to deliver them at

whatsoever time the patentees might name. So when the second night of

"The Perplexed Lovers" arrived, and a special licence from the Lord

Chamberlain had been secured, the actress came valiantly forward and

spoke the epilogue with success. Perhaps Eugene of Savoy thanked Mrs.

Oldfield--let us hope that he did--and it is at least certain that

after the withdrawal of the play his Highness sent Mrs. Centlivre an

elaborate gold snuff-box.[A]

[Footnote A: Speaking of the beau's outfit in the reign of Queen Anne,

Ashton says: "His snuff-box, too, was an object of his solicitude,

though, as the habit of taking snuff had but just come into vogue,

there were no collections of them, and no beau had ever dreamed of

criticizing a box, as did Lord Petersham, as, 'a nice Summer box.' ...

Those of the middle classes were chiefly of silver, or tortoise-shell,

or mother-of-pearl; sometimes of 'aggat' or with a 'Moco Stone' in

the lid. A beau would sometimes either have a looking-glass, or the

portrait of a lady inside the lid."]

And who was the gratified Centlivre? A masculine looking female with

a talent for play-writing, a tendency to appear in men's parts, and

last, but far from least, a nice little wen adorning her left eyelid.

She possessed other characteristics too, but those herein mentioned

are the only ones which stand out clearly after the lapse of nearly

two centuries. This doughty woman had been married twice before she

went to Windsor, where she once more entered into the matrimonial

noose, or rather, again inveigled an unfortunate into that treacherous

device. The visit to the seat of Royalty was signalised by her acting

of Alexander the Great, but from the atmosphere of Kings and Queens

she passed without a murmur to the humbler air of a kitchen. In other

words, she married a Mr. Centlivre, chief cook to her well-fed Majesty

Queen Anne; and the mean-livered Pope would refer to her, later on, as

"the cook's wife in Buckingham Court." She might, indeed, be a cook's

wife, but she knew how to write with vivacity, and produced many an

entertaining play. Among them were "A Bold Stroke for a Wife" and "The

Wonder," that comedy which Garrick would so relish in after years.

The nature of the aforesaid "Wonder" was explained in the satirical

reflection of the secondary title, "A Woman Keeps a Secret!" And Mrs.

Centlivre had this to say in her epilogue, upon the mooted question of

feminine loquacity:

"Keep a secret, says a beau,

And sneers at some ill-natured wit below;

But faith, if we should tell but half we know,

There's many a spruce young fellow in this place,

Wou'd never presume to show his face;

Women are not so weak, what e'er men prate;

How many tip-top beaux have had the fate,

T'enjoy from mama's secrets their estate!

Who, if her early folly had made known,

Had rid behind the coach that's now their own."

Mrs. Oldfield received fresh cause for nervousness, had she been of

a timid temperament, when, some years later, during the season of

1717-18, Cibber's political play of "The Non-Juror" was brought out.

The comedy was a blow aimed at the Jacobites and the Pretender, who

had met with such disastrous treatment in the rebellion of 1715, and

was a skilfully-wrought laudation of the Hanoverian dynasty.[A]

[Footnote A: The piece was published and dedicated to George I., who

acknowledged his sense of the honour by paying to Cibber the sum of

two hundred guineas. That the good old prejudice against the stage was

still in full force, despite the march of liberal ideas, is clearly

shown in the author's address to the King: "Your comedians, Sir, are

an unhappy society, whom some severe heads think wholly useless,

and others, dangerous to the young and innocent. This comedy is,

therefore, an attempt to remove that prejudice, and to show what

honest and laudable uses may be made of the theatre, when its

performances keep close to the true purposes of its institution."

Cibber also referred to himself as "the lowest of your subjects from

the theatre," and thus mirrored the servility of the golden Georgian

era.]

"About this time," writes Cibber, telling of the play's presentation,

"Jacobitism had lately exerted itself by the most unprovoked rebellion

that our histories have handed down to us since the Norman Conquest;

I therefore thought that to set the authors and principles of that

desperate folly in a fair light, by allowing the mistaken consciences

of some their best excuse, and by making the artful Pretenders to

Conscience as ridiculous as they were ungratefully wicked, was a

subject fit for the honest satire of comedy, and what might, if it

succeeded, do honour to the stage by showing the valuable use of

it. And considering what numbers at that time might come to it as

prejudiced spectators, it may be allow'd that the undertaking was not

less hazardous than laudable."

And hazardous the project certainly seemed; for, while the uprising in

the interests of the Pretender had been ostensibly crushed, the spirit

of "divine right" was as strong as ever; there were many worthy

gentlemen who drank secret bumpers to the King--"over the water"--and

the Hanoverian throne had as yet a precarious lodgment on English

soil. It was expected, therefore, that these malcontents would have

anything but an appetite for the theatrical feast set before them in

the shape of the "Non-Juror," and would prove none the less disgusted

because the play happened to be an adaptation of Molière's "Tartuffe."

As the latter comedy depicts a self-indulgent, crawling hypocrite of

the worst type, and is an eloquent sermon against sham, it may be

imagined that the Jacobites were not over enthusiastic when they

learned that the moral of "Tartuffe" was to be applied to them.[A]

[Footnote A: Tartuffe, according to French tradition, is a caricature

of the famous Père la Chaise (Confessor to Louis Quatorze), who had

a weakness for the pleasures of the table, including truffles

(tartuffes). After Cibber's day, Molière's play was again adapted into

English, under the title of "The Hypocrite."]

"Upon the hypocrisy of the French character," explains Cibber (who

probably looked upon France, Papacy, and the Pretender as a threefold

combination of sin), "I engrafted a stronger wickedness, that of an

English Popish priest lurking under the doctrine of our own Church

to raise his fortune upon the ruin of a worthy gentleman, whom his

dissembled sanctity had seduc'd into the treasonable cause of a Roman

Catholick outlaw. How this design, in the play, was executed, I refer

to the readers of it; it cannot be mended by any critical remarks I

can make in its favour. Let it speak for itself."

The "Non-juror" did speak for itself, too, and that in decided

terms.[A] The production entailed the scorn of the disaffected, and

made for Cibber some lasting enemies, but the friends of government

were strong, Cibber was lauded for his loyalty, and the comedy

achieved a triumph. The vivacity of Oldfield's acting, as Maria,

delighted all beholders, and it was further agreed that the

performance was well given throughout. In the cast were Booth, Mills,

Wilks, Cibber, Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Oldfield, and Walker. The Walker here

mentioned was at that time a very young man, not over seventeen or

eighteen years of age, and made his first hit in the "Non-juror." When

the "Beggars' Opera" was subsequently brought out, the mighty Quin

refused to play the highwayman, Macheath, and Walker willingly took

the part and made therein the reputation of his life. But success

turned his unsteady head. "He follow'd Bacchus too ardently, insomuch

that his credit was often drown'd upon the stage, and, by degrees,

almost render'd him useless." Ungrammatical, but to the point, Mr.

Chetwood.

[Footnote A: The success surpassed even expectation. It raised against

Cibber a phalanx of implacable foes--foes who howled at everything

of which he was afterwards the author; but it gained for him his

advancement to the poet-laureateship, and an estimation which caused

some people to place him, for usefulness to the cause of true

religion, on an equality with the author of "The Whole Duty of

Man."--DR. DORAN.]

This Walker was a genius in a small fashion. He possessed an

expressive face and manly figure, with a native buoyancy and humour

which stood him in good stead in the character of Macheath, while he

had the further gift of dominating a tragic scene with an assumption

of tyrannic fire which must have been greatly admired by the

theatre-goers of his time. He could not sing, to be sure, when he

graced the "Beggars' Opera," but the audiences took the will for the

deed, applauded his gaiety of action, and quickly pardoned his lyric

short-comings. We are equally lenient nowadays to many a comic-opera

comedian, so called. Chetwood tells us that Walker was the supposed

author of two pieces, "The Quakers' Opera," and a tragedy styled "The

Fate of Villainy." The latter, it appears, "he brought to Ireland

in the year 1744, and prevailed on the proprietors (of the Dublin

theatre) to act it, under the title of 'Love and Loyalty.' The second

night was given out for his benefit; but not being able to pay in half

the charge of the common expences, the doors were order'd to be kept

shut."

"But, I remember," laconically adds Chetwood, "few people came to ask

the reason. However, I fear this disappointment hasten'd his death;

for he survived it but three days; dying in the 44th year of his age,

a martyr to what often stole from him a good understanding."

"He who delights in drinking out of season,

Takes wond'rous pains to drown his manly reason."

Poor Walker! He is not the only actor who has perished from a mixture

of wine and injured vanity.

To return to the success of the "Non-juror," Cibber writes: "All the

reason I had to think it no bad performance was, that it was acted

eighteen days running, and that the party that were hurt by it (as I

have been told) have not been the smallest number of my back friends

ever since. But happy was it for this play that the very subject

was its protection; a few smiles of silent contempt were the utmost

disgrace that on the first day of its appearance it was thought safe

to throw upon it; as the satire was chiefly employ'd on the enemies of

the Government, they were not so hardy as to own themselves such by

any higher disapprobation or resentment."[A]

[Footnote A: The production of the "Non-juror" added Pope to the list

of Cibber's enemies, the great poet's father having been a Non-juror.]

Yet Cibber's enemies never failed to make things unpleasant for him if

they could do so without running too great a risk. There was Nathaniel

Mist, for instance, who published a Jacobite paper called _Mist's

Weekly Journal_. This vindictive gentleman, whose political heresies

once brought him to the pillory and a prison, began a systematic

attack upon the actor-manager, and kept up the warfare for fifteen

years. Once, when Colley was ill of a fever, Mist made up his

journalistic mind that his enemy must have the good taste to depart

the pleasures of this life. So he inserted the following paragraph in

his paper:

"Yesterday died Mr. Colley Cibber, late Comedian of the Theatre Royal,

notorious for writing the 'Non-juror.'"

The very day that this obituary appeared Cibber crawled out of the

house, sick-faced but convalescent, and read the notice with keen

interest. Whether he was amused thereat, or dubbed the joke a poor

one, is a matter which he does not record, but he tells us that he

"saw no use in being thought to be thoroughly dead before his time,"

and "therefore had a mind to see whether the town cared to have him

alive again."

"So the play of the 'Orphan' being to be acted that day, I quietly

stole myself into the part of the Chaplain, which I had not been

seen in for many years before. The surprise of the audience at my

unexpected appearance on the very day I had been dead in the news, and

the paleness of my looks, seem'd to make it a doubt whether I was not

the ghost of my real self departed. But when I spoke, their wonder

eas'd itself by an applause; which convinc'd me they were then

satisfied that my friend Mist had told a fib of me. Now, if simply to

have shown myself in broad life, and about my business, after he had

notoriously reported me dead, can be called a reply, it was the only

one which his paper while alive ever drew from me."

The Jacobites could not interfere with the triumph of the "Non-juror,"

but they were shrewd enough to bide their time. That time came, as

they thought, in 1728, when there was unfolded at Drury Lane a comedy

which became famous under the title of "The Provoked Husband." The

rough draft of the play was the work of Vanbrugh, now dead, but the

dialogue and situations had been elaborated by Cibber. Here was a

chance, therefore, to damn the latter writer, and accordingly the

malcontents repaired to the theatre, hissed the performance roundly,

and then went home with the comfortable reflection that they had

gotten their revenge. Their revenge, however, was shortlived, for the

general public liked the comedy, and soon flocked to its rescue.

"On the first day of 'The Provok'd Husband,'" says the Poet Laureate,

"ten years after the 'Non-juror' had appear'd, a powerful party, not

having the fear of publick offence or private injury before their

eyes, appeared most impetuously concerned for the demolition of it; in

which they so far succeeded that for some time I gave it up for lost;

and to follow their blows, in the publick papers of the next day it

was attack'd and triumph'd over as a dead and damn'd piece: a swinging

criticism was made upon it in general invective terms, for they

disdain'd to trouble the world with particulars; their sentence, it

seems, was proof enough of its deserving the fate it had met with.

But this damn'd play was, notwithstanding, acted twenty-eight nights

together, and left off at a receipt of upwards of a hundred and forty

pounds; which happened to be more than in fifty years before could be

then said of any one play whatsoever."

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.

"Lady T. Comfortable! and so, my good lord, you would really have a

woman of my rank and spirit, stay at home to comfort her husband!

Lord! what notions of life some men have!

"Lord T. Don't you think, madam, some ladies notions are full as

extravagant?"

"Lady T. Yes, my lord, when tame doves live cooped within the pen of

your precepts, I do think 'em prodigious indeed!

"Lord T. And when they fly wild about this town, madam, pray what must

the world think of 'em then?

"Lady T. Oh! this world is not so ill bred as to quarrel with any

woman for liking it.

"Lord T. Nor am I, madam, a husband so well bred as to bear my wife's

being so fond of it; in short, the life you lead, madam--

"Lady T. Is, to me, the pleasantest life in the world.

"Lord T. I should not dispute your taste, madam, if a woman had a

right to please nobody but herself.

"Lady T. Why, whom would you have her please?

"Lord T. Sometimes her husband.

"Lady T. And don't you think a husband under the same obligation?

"Lord T. Certainly.

"Lady T. Why then we are agreed, my lord. For if I never go abroad

till I am weary of being at home--which you know is the case--is it

not equally reasonable, not to come home till one's a weary of being

abroad?

"Lord T. If this be your rule of life, madam, 'tis time to ask you one

serious question.

"Lady T. Don't let it be long acoming then, for I am in haste.

"Lord T. Madam, when I am serious, I expect a serious answer.

"Lady T. Before I know the question? [Here we can imagine Wilks, who

played Lord Townley, waxing exceeding wroth at my lady.]

"Lord T. Pshah--have I power, madam, to make you serious by intreaty?

"Lady T. You have.

"Lord T. And you promise to answer me sincerely.

"Lady T. Sincerely.

"Lord T. Now then recollect your thoughts, and tell me seriously why

you married me?

"Lady T. You insist upon truth, you say?

"Lord T. I think I have a right to it.

"Lady T. Why then, my lord, to give you at once a proof of my

obedience and sincerity--I think--I married--to take off that

restraint that lay upon my pleasures, while I was a single woman.

"Lord T. How, madam, is any woman under less restraint after marriage

than before it?

"Lady T. O my lord! my lord! they are quite different creatures! Wives

have infinite liberties in life that would be terrible in an unmarried

woman to take.

"Lord T. Name one.

"Lady T. Fifty, if you please. To begin then, in the morning--a

married women may have men at her toilet, invite them to dinner,

appoint them a party in a stage box at the play; engross the

conversation there, call 'em by their Christian names; talk louder

than the players;--from thence jaunt into the city--take a frolicksome

supper at an India house--perhaps, in her _gaieté de coeur_, toast a

pretty fellow--then clatter again to this end of the town, break with

the morning into an assembly, crowd to the hazard table, throw a

familiar levant upon some sharp lurching man of quality, and if he

demands his money, turn it off with a loud laugh, and cry--you'll owe

it to him, to vex him! ha! ha!

"Lord T. [_Aside_]. Prodigious!"

It is related that so magnificently did Oldfield describe the

pleasures of a woman of fashion that the audience echoed, with a

different meaning, Lord Townley's comment, and showered her with

plaudits. "Prodigious," indeed, must have been her acting.

Nance was even more captivating, as the comedy progressed, and nowhere

did she shine more brilliantly, it may be supposed, than in the

following scene:

"Lady Townley. Well! look you, my lord; I can bear it no longer!

Nothing still but about my faults, my faults! An agreeable subject

truly!

"Lord T. Why, madam, if you won't hear of them, how can I ever hope to

see you mend them?

"Lady T. Why, I don't intend to mend them--I can't mend them--you know

I have try'd to do it an hundred times, and--it hurts me so--I can't

bear it!

"Lord T. And I, madam, can't bear this daily licentious abuse of your

time and character.

"Lady T. Abuse! astonishing! when the universe knows, I am never

better company than when I am doing what I have a mind to! But to

see this world! that men can never get over that silly spirit of

contradiction--why, but last Thursday, now--there you wisely amended

one of my faults, as you call them--you insisted upon my not going to

the masquerade--and pray, what was the consequence? Was not I as cross

as the Devil, all the night after? Was not I forc'd to get company at

home? And was it not almost three o'clock in the morning before I

was able to come to myself again? And then the fault is not mended

neither--for next time I shall only have twice the inclination to go:

so that all this mending and mending, you see, is but darning an old

ruffle, to make it worse than it was before.

"Lord T. Well, the manner of women's living, of late, is

insupportable, and one way or other--

"Lady T. It's to be mended, I suppose! Why, so it may, but then, my

dear lord, you must give one time--and when things are at worst, you

know, they may mend themselves! Ha! ha!

"Lord T. Madam, I am not in a humour, now, to trifle.

"Lady T. Why, then, my lord, one word of fair argument--to talk with

you, your own way now--you complain of my late hours, and I of your

early ones--so far we are even, you'll allow--but pray which gives us

the best figure, in the eye of the polite world, my active, spirited

three in the morning, or your dull, drowsy, eleven at night? Now,

I think, one has the air of a woman of quality, and t'other of a

plodding mechanic, that goes to bed betimes, that he may rise early,

to open his shop--faugh!

"LORD T. Fy, fy, madam! is this your way of reasoning? 'Tis time to

wake you then. 'Tis not your ill hours alone that disturb me, but as

often the ill company that occasion those ill hours.

"LADY T. Sure I don't understand you now, my lord; what ill company do

I keep?

"LORD T. Why, at best, women that lose their money, and men that win

it! or, perhaps, men that are voluntary bubbles at one game, in hopes

a lady will give them fair play at another.[A] Then that unavoidable

mixture with known rakes, conceal'd thieves, and sharpers in

embroidery--or what, to me, is still more shocking, that herd of

familiar chattering, crop-ear'd coxcombs, who are so often like

monkeys, there would be no knowing them asunder, but that their tails

hang from their head, and the monkey's grows where it should do.

[Footnote A: Women gambled as passionately as did the men in the early

part of the eighteenth century. Ashton quotes the following from the

"Gaming Lady": "She's a profuse lady, tho' of a miserly temper, whose

covetous disposition is the very cause of her extravagancy; for the

desire of success wheedles her ladyship to play, and the incident

charges and disappointments that attend it make her as expensive to

her husband as his coach and six horses. When an unfortunate night has

happen'd to empty her cabinet, she has many shifts to replenish her

pockets. Her jewels are carry'd privately into Lombard street, and

fortune is to be tempted the next night with another sum, borrowed

of my lady's goldsmith at the extortion of a pawnbroker; and if that

fails, then she sells off her wardrobe, to the great grief of her

maids; stretches her credit amongst those she deals with, or makes her

waiting woman dive into the bottom of her trunk, and lug out her green

net purse full of old Jacobuses, in hopes to recover her losses by a

turn of fortune, that she may conceal her bad luck from the knowledge

of her husband."]

"Lady T. And a husband must give eminent proof of his sense that

thinks their powder puffs dangerous!

"Lord T. Their being fools, madam, is not always the husband's

security; or, if it were, fortune sometimes gives them advantages

might make a thinking woman tremble.

"Lady T. What do you mean?

"Lord T. That women sometimes lose more than they are able to pay;

and, if a creditor be a little pressing, the lady may be reduced to

try if, instead of gold, the gentleman will accept of a trinket.

"Lady T. My lord, you grow scurrilous; you'll make me hate you. I'll

have you to know I keep company with the politest people in town, and

the assemblies I frequent are full of such.

"Lord T. So are the churches--now and then.

"Lady T. My friends frequent them, too, as well as the assemblies.

"Lord T. Yes; and would do it oftener if a groom of the chambers there

were allowed to furnish cards to the company.

"Lady T. I see what you drive at all this while. You would lay an

imputation on my fame to cover your own avarice! I might take any

pleasures, I find, that were not expensive.

"Lord T. Have a care, madam; don't let me think you only value your

chastity to make me reproachable for not indulging you in everything

else that's vicious. I, madam, have a reputation, too, to guard that's

dear to me as yours. The follies of an ungoverned wife may make the

wisest man uneasy; but 'tis his own fault if ever they make him

contemptible.

"Lady T. My lord, you make a woman mad!

"Lord T. You'd make a man a fool.

"Lady T. If heaven has made you otherwise, that won't be in my power.

"Lord T. Whatever may be in your inclination, madam, I'll prevent you

making me a beggar, at least.

"Lady T. A beggar! Croesus, I'm out of patience. I won't come home

till four to-morrow morning.

"Lord T. That may be, madam; but I'll order the doors to be locked at

twelve.

"Lady T. Then I won't come home till to-morrow night.

"Lord T. Then, madam, you shall never come home again." [_Exit_ Lord

Townley.

* * * * *

In the end, of course, Lady Townley is converted to the pleasures of

domesticity, and ends the comedy by saying:

"So visible the bliss, so plain the way,

How was it possible my sense could stray?

But now, a convert to this truth I come,

That married happiness is never found from home."

Perhaps when Oldfield delivered these virtuous lines, she thought to

herself that happiness, even of the unmarried kind, was never very far

away from home. But she forgot sentiment when she came back to give

the breezy epilogue:

"Methinks I hear some powder'd critics say

Damn it, this wife reform'd has spoil'd the play!

The coxcombs should have drawn her more in fashion,

Have gratify'd her softer inclination,

Have tipt her a gallant, and clinch'd the provocation.

But there our bard stops short: for 'twere uncivil

T'have made a modern belle all o'er a devil!

He hop'd in honor of the sex, the age

Would bear one mended woman--on the stage."

Continuing, after diverse moral reflections, Nance made this appeal to

her hearers:

"You, you then, ladies, whose unquestion'd lives

Give you the foremost fame of happy wives,

Protect, for its attempt, this helpless play;

Nor leave it to the vulgar taste a prey;

Appear the frequent champion of its cause,

Direct the crowd, and give yourselves applause."

"Zounds, madam," cries a beau who is ogling a woman of quality in a

stage box, "they say Anne Oldfield will never see forty-two again, but

I'll warrant you, madam, she looks not a day older than yourself." And

the woman of quality, who is over forty, bows at the compliment, as

well she may. Bellchambers records that Lady Townley was universally

regarded as Oldfield's _ne plus ultra_ in acting. "She slided so

gracefully into the foibles, and displayed so humorously the excesses,

of a fine woman too sensible of her charms, too confident in her

strength, and led away by her pleasures, that no succeeding Lady

Townley arrived at her many distinguished excellencies in the

character."[A] And the writer goes on to say that "by being a welcome

and constant visitor to families of distinction, Mrs. Oldfield

acquired a graceful carriage in representing women of high rank, and

expressed their sentiments in a manner so easy, natural, and flowing,

that they appeared to be of her own genuine utterance." Pray, sir,

what is there so remarkable about that? Had not Anne as gentle blood

as that which coursed through the veins of many a lady of rank?

[Footnote A: The Lady Townleys of later years included Mrs. Spranger

Barry and the imposing Mistress Yates.]

But the triumphs of the first Lady Townley were fast drawing to a

close; the curtain would soon be rung down for ever upon that radiant

face, with its angelic smile and dancing eyes, and the stage, whether

Drury Lane or mother earth would see her no more. Ill health began to

follow in her once careless path, and there were times when the duties

of acting seemed almost unbearable. Yet she was a brave woman, and

kept a merry front to the audience, although she was obliged, on

occasions, to turn away from the house, that it might not see the

tears of pain flowing down her cheek. Here was a combination of comedy

and tragedy, with a vengeance!

Still Nance went on, delighting the town as of yore, and putting into

her last original rôle, that of Sophonisba, a fire which breathed not

of sickness nor failing powers. At last there came a day when she

played her final part, and left Drury Lane only to be driven tenderly

home to her death-bed. Think of the pathos of this last performance,

this giving up of all that was most alluring in life, and let none of

us poor moderns presume to analyse the heart-broken woman's feelings

as she said good-bye to the dear old theatre. Anne worshipped art, and

the public, in turn, worshipped her; she had acted her many parts,

laughed, cried, sinned, and waxed exceeding happy--and now she was to

be cast out into the darkness. Must she not have shivered when she

entered her house in Lower Grosvenor Street for the last time? Poor

lovable creature! There could be for her now neither lights, nor

laughter, nor applause; all would be gloom and weariness to the end.

During the weeks which followed, the invalid received the untiring

attentions of Mistress Saunders, who once upon a time played bouncing

chambermaids, but who had, for ten years past, acted as a feminine

_valet de chambre_ and general factotum for Mrs. Oldfield. And if ever

she played well, 'twas in thus ministering to the dying wants of one

who in health had been ever helpful and generous. Pope, who hated the

great comedienne in his petty, spiteful way, has immortalised the

intimacy of mistress and handmaiden in these lines:

"'Odious! in woolen? '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.'"[A]

[Footnote A: Pope's Moral Essays.]

These ante-mortem directions had no further reality than the

imagination of the poet; but it is easy to believe that the woman who

had set the fashions for the town these many years would have enough

of the feminine instinct left, though Death waited without, to plan a

becoming funeral garb. Woollen, forsooth! It was a beastly law which

required that all the dead should be buried in that material, and

Nance shuddered when she thought of it.[A]

[Footnote A: The dead were then buried in woolen, which was rendered

compulsory by the Acts 30 Car. II. c. 3 and 36 ejusdem c. i. The first

act was entitled "an Act for the lessening the importation of linnen

from beyond the seas, and the encouragement of the woolen and paper

manufactures of the kingdome." It prescribed that the curate of every

parish, shall keep a register to be provided at the charge of the

parish, wherein to enter all burials and affidavits of persons being

buried in woolen; the affidavit to be taken by any justice of the

peace, mayor, or such like chief officer in the parish where the

body was interred.... It imposed a fine of five pounds for every

infringement, one half to go to the informer, and the other half to

the poor of the parish. This Act was only repealed by 54 Geo. III.

c. 108, or in the year 1815. The material used was flannel, and

such interments are frequently mentioned in the literature of the

time.--ASHTON.]

Soon there were no more thoughts of dress, no more plaintive shudders

at the iniquity of the woollen act. The eyes whose kindly light had

illumined the dull soul of many a playgoer, closed for ever on the

23rd of October, 1730, and the incomparable Oldfield was no more.

Surely old Sol did not shine on London that day; surely he must

have mourned behind the leaden English sky for one of his fairest

daughters, that child of sunshine who brightened the world by her

presence, and made her exit, as she did her entrance, with a smile.

After the breath had left Anne's still lovely body, Mistress Saunders

dressed her in a "Brussels lace head-dress, a Holland shift, with

tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, and a pair of new

kid gloves." It was, no doubt, the costume which the actress had

commanded, and handsome she must have looked, as many an admirer took

one last glimpse of the remains prior to the interment in Westminster

Abbey. All that was mortal of Oldfield lay in state in the Jerusalem

Chamber,[A] and then there followed an elaborate funeral, at which

were present a host of great men, and the two sons of the deceased,

Mr. Maynwaring and young Churchill. Were these sons less grieved when

they found that their mother had left them the major part of her

fortune?

[Footnote A: The solemn lying in state of an English actress in the

Jerusalem Chamber, the sorrow of the public over their lost favourite,

and the regret of friends in noble, or humble, but virtuous homes,

where Mrs. Oldfield had been ever welcome, contrast strongly with the

French sentiment towards French players. It has been already said,

that as long as Clairon exercised the power, when she advanced to the

footlights, to make the (then standing) pit recoil several feet, by

the mere magic of her eyes, the pit, who enjoyed the terror as a

luxury, flung crowns to her, and wept at the thought of losing her;

but Clairon infirm was Clairon forgotten, and to a decaying actor or

actress a French audience is the most merciless in the world. The

brightest and best of them, as with us, died in the service of the

public. Monfleury, Mondory, and Bricourt died of apoplexy, brought on

by excess of zeal. Molière, who fell in harness, was buried with

less ceremony than some favourite dog. The charming Lecouvreur, that

Oldfield of the French stage, whose beauty and intellect were the

double charm which rendered theatrical France ecstatic, was hurriedly

interred within a saw-pit. Bishops might be exceedingly interested in,

and unepiscopally generous to living actresses of wit and beauty, but

the prelates smote them with a "Maranatha!" and an "Avaunt ye!" when

dead.--DR. DORAN.]

Later on Savage was inspired to write that famous poem of his,

unsigned though it appeared, on the virtues of the departed:

"Oldfield's no more! and can the Muse forbear

O'er Oldfield's grave to shed a grateful tear?

Shall she, the Glory of the British Stage,

Pride of her sex, and wonder of the age;

Shall she, who, living, charm'd th' admiring throng,

Die undistinguish'd, and not claim a song?

No; feeble as it is, I'll boldly raise

My willing voice, to celebrate her praise,

And with her name immortalise my lays.

Had but my Muse her art to touch the soul,

Charm ev'ry sense, and ev'ry pow'r control,

I'd paint her as she was--the form divine,

Where ev'ry lovely grace united shine;

A mein majestic, as the wife of Jove;

An air as winning as the Queen of Love:

In ev'ry feature rival charms should rise,

And Cupid hold his empire in her eyes.

A soul, with ev'ry elegance refin'd,

By nature, and the converse of mankind:

Wit, which could strike assuming folly dead;

And sense, which temper'd ev'ry thing she said;

Judgment, which ev'ry little fault could spy;

But candour, which would pass a thousand by:

Such finish'd breeding, so polite a taste,

Her fancy always for the fashion pass'd;

Whilst every social virtue fir'd her breast

To help the needy, succour the distrest;

A friend to all in misery she stood,

And her chief pride was plac'd in doing good.

But now, my Muse, the arduous task engage,

And shew the charming figure on the stage;

Describe her look, her action, voice and mein,

The gay coquette, soft maid, or haughty Queen.

So bright she shone, in ev'ry different part,

She gain'd despotic empire o'er the heart;

Knew how each various motion to control,

Sooth ev'ry passion, and subdue the soul:

As she, o'er gay, or sorrowful appears,

She claims our mirth, or triumphs in our tears.

When Cleopatra's form she chose to wear

We saw the monarch's mein, the beauty's air;

Charmed with the sight, her cause we all approve,

And, like her lover, give up all for love:

Anthony's fate, instead of Caesar's choose,

And wish for her we had a world to lose.

But now the gay delightful scene is o'er,

And that sweet form must glad our world no more;

Relentless death has stop'd the tuneful tongue,

And clos'd those eyes, for all, but death, too strong,

Blasted that face where ev'ry beauty bloom'd,

And to Eternal Rest the graceful Mover doom'd."

In writing which Savage almost justified his existence.

APPENDIX

THEATRICAL CLAPTRAP

(_What Addison has to say about it in the "Spectator_")

No. 44. FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1711.

"Tu quid ego, et populus mecum desideret, audi."

HOR. ARS POET. ver. 153.

"Now hear what ev'ry auditor expects."

ROSCOMMON.

Among the several artifices which are put in practice by the poets to

fill the minds of an audience with terror, the first place is due to

thunder and lightning, which are often made use of at the descending

of a god, or the rising of a ghost, at the vanishing of a devil, or

at the death of a tyrant. I have known a bell introduced into several

tragedies with good effect; and have seen the whole assembly in a very

great alarm all the while it has been ringing. But there is nothing

which delights and terrifies our English theatre so much as a ghost,

especially when he appears in a bloody shirt. A spectre has very often

saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the stage,

or rose through a cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one

word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors; and when

they only come in as aids and assistances to the poet, they are not

only to be excused, but to be applauded. Thus the sounding of the

clock in "Venice Preserved" makes the hearts of the whole audience

quake, and conveys a stronger terror to the mind than it is possible

for words to do. The appearance of the ghost in "Hamlet" is a

masterpiece in its kind, and wrought up with all the circumstances

that can create either attention or horror. The mind of the reader is

wonderfully prepared for his reception by the discourses that precede

it. His dumb behaviour at his first entrance strikes the imagination

very strongly; but every time he enters he is still more terrifying.

Who can read the speech with which young Hamlet accosts him without

trembling?

"_Hor_. Look, my Lord, it comes!

"_Ham_. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd;

Bring with thee airs from heav'n, or blasts from hell;

Be thy events wicked or charitable;

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,

King, Father, Royal Dane. Oh I answer me.

Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell

Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements? Why the sepulchre,

Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,

Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws

To cast thee up again? What may this mean?

That thou dead corse again in complete steel

Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous?"

I do not therefore find fault with the artifices above mentioned,

when they are introduced with skill and accompanied by proportionable

sentiments and expressions in the writings.

For the moving of pity our principal machine is the handkerchief; and

indeed in our common tragedies we should not know very often that the

persons are in distress by anything they say, if they did not from

time to time apply their handkerchiefs to their eyes. Far be it from

me to think of banishing this instrument of sorrow from the stage; I

know a tragedy could not subsist without it: all that I would contend

for is to keep it from being misapplied. In a word, I would have the

actor's tongue sympathise with his eyes.

A disconsolate mother, with a child in her hand, has frequently drawn

compassion from the audience, and has therefore gained a place in

several tragedies. A modern writer, that observed how this had took

in other plays, being resolved to double the distress, and melt

his audience twice as much as those before him had done, brought a

princess upon the stage with a little boy in one hand and a girl

in the other. This too had a very good effect. A third poet being

resolved to outwrite all his predecessors, a few years ago introduced

three children with great success: and, as I am informed, a young

gentleman, who is fully determined to break the most obdurate hearts,

has a tragedy by him where the first person that appears upon the

stage is an afflicted widow in her mourning weeds, with half a dozen

fatherless children attending her, like those that usually hang about

the figure of Charity. Thus several incidents that are beautiful in a

good writer become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one.

But among all our methods of moving pity or terror, there is none so

absurd and barbarous, and which more exposes us to the contempt and

ridicule of our neighbours, than that dreadful butchering of one

another, which is very frequent upon the English stage. To delight in

seeing men stabbed, poisoned, racked, or impaled is certainly the sign

of a cruel temper; and as this is often practised before the British

audience, several French critics, who think these are grateful

spectacles to us, take occasion from them to represent us as a people

who delight in blood. It is indeed very odd to see our stage strewed

with carcasses in the last scenes of a tragedy; and to observe in the

wardrobe of the playhouse several daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for

poison, and many other instruments of death. Murders and executions

are always transacted behind the scenes in the French theatre, which

in general is very agreeable to the manners of a polite and civilised

people; but as there are no exceptions to this rule on the French

stage, it leads them into absurdities almost as ridiculous as that

which falls under our present censure. I remember in the famous play

of Corneille, written upon the subject of the Horatii and Curiatii,

the fierce young hero, who had overcome the Curiatii one after another

(instead of being congratulated by his sister for his victory, being

upbraided by her for having slain her lover), in the height of his

passion and resentment kills her. If anything could extenuate so

brutal an action, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, before the

sentiments of nature, reason, or manhood could take place in him.

However, to avoid public bloodshed, as soon as his passion is wrought

to its height, he follows his sister the whole length of the stage,

and forbears killing her till they are both withdrawn behind the

scenes. I must confess, had he murdered her before the audience, the

indecency might have been greater; but as it is, it appears very

unnatural, and looks like killing in cold blood. To give my opinion

upon this case, the fact ought not to have been represented, but to

have been told if there was any occasion for it.

It may not be unacceptable to the reader to see how Sophocles has

conducted a tragedy under the like delicate circumstance. Orestes was

in the same condition with Hamlet in Shakespeare, his mother having

murdered his father and taken possession of his kingdom in conspiracy

with her adulterer. That young prince, therefore, being determined to

revenge his father's death upon those who filled his throne, conveys

himself by a beautiful stratagem into his mother's apartment, with a

resolution to kill her. But because such a spectacle would have been

too shocking to the audience, this dreadful resolution is executed

behind the scenes. The mother is heard calling to her son for mercy,

and the son answering her that she showed no mercy to his father;

after which she shrieks out that she is wounded, and by what follows

we find that she is slain. I do not remember that in any of our plays

there are speeches made behind the scenes, though there are other

instances of this nature to be met with in those of the ancients:

and I believe my reader will agree with me that there is something

infinitely more affecting in this dreadful dialogue between the

mother and her son behind the scenes than could have been in anything

transacted before the audience. Orestes immediately after meets the

usurper at the entrance of his palace; and by a very happy thought of

the poet avoids killing him before the audience, by telling him that

he should live some time in his present bitterness of soul before he

would despatch him, and by ordering him to retire into that part

of the palace where he had slain his father, whose murder he would

revenge in the very same place where it was committed. By this means

the poet observes that decency, which Horace afterwards established as

a rule, of forbearing to commit parricides or unnatural murders before

the audience.

"Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet,"

ARS POET. ver. 185.

"Let not Medea draw her murd'ring knife,

And spill her children's blood upon the stage."

ROSCOMMON.

The French have therefore refined too much upon Horace's rule, who

never designed to banish all kinds of death from the stage; but only

such as had too much horror in them, and which would have a better

effect upon the audience when transacted behind the scenes. I would

therefore recommend to my countrymen the practice of the ancient

poets, who were very sparing of their public executions, and rather

chose to perform them behind the scenes, if it could be done with as

great an effect upon the audience. At the same time, I must observe,

that though the devoted persons of the tragedy were seldom slain

before the audience, which has generally something ridiculous in it,

their bodies were often produced after their death, which has always

in it something melancholy or terrifying; so that the killing on the

stage does not seem to have been avoided only as an indecency, but

also as an improbability.

"Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet:

Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus;

Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem.

Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi."

HOR. ARS. POET. ver. 185.

"Medea must not draw her murd'ring knife,

Nor Atreus there his horrid feast prepare;

Cadmus and Progne's metamorphoses

(She to a swallow turn'd, he to a snake);

And whatsoever contradicts my sense,

I hate to see, and never can believe."

ROSCOMMON.

I have now gone through the several dramatic inventions which are made

use of by the ignorant poets to supply the place of tragedy, and

by the skilful to improve it; some of which I could wish entirely

rejected, and the rest to be used with caution. It would be an

endless task to consider comedy in the same light, and to mention the

innumerable shifts that small wits put in practice to raise a laugh.

Bullock in a short coat, and Norris in a long one, seldom failed of

this effect.[A] In ordinary comedies a broad and a narrow brimmed

hat are different characters. Sometimes the wit of a scene lies in a

shoulder-belt, and sometimes in a pair of whiskers. A lover running

about the stage, with his head peeping out of a barrel, was thought a

very good jest in King Charles the Second's time, and invented by

one of the first wits of the age.[B] But because ridicule is not so

delicate as compassion, and because the objects that make us laugh are

infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much

greater latitude for comic than tragic artifices, and by consequence a

much greater indulgence to be allowed them.

[Footnote A: Addison's comment about these two favourite comedians

shows that then, as now, eccentricity in dress formed a popular

species of stage humour.]

[Footnote B: Sir George Etherege, in his comedy of "The Comical

Revenge, or Love in a Tub."]

COMIC EPILOGUES

_(From the "Spectator")_

No. 338. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1712.

"Nil fuit unquam

Sic dispar sibi."

HOR. SAT. III. 1-1-18.

"Made up of nought but inconsistencies."

I find the tragedy of the "Distressed Mother" is published to-day. The

author of the prologue,[A] I suppose pleads an old excuse I have read

somewhere, of "being dull with design;" and the gentleman who writ the

epilogue[B] has, to my knowledge, so much of greater moment to value

himself upon, that he will easily forgive me for publishing the

exceptions made against gaiety at the end of serious entertainments in

the following letter: I should be more unwilling to pardon him, than

anybody, a practice which cannot have any ill consequence, but from

the abilities of the person who is guilty of it.

[Footnote A: Steele.]

[Footnote B: Addison credited Budgell with the epilogue.]

"MR. SPECTATOR,--I had the happiness the other night of sitting very

near you, and your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting of the new

tragedy, which you have in a late paper or two so justly recommended.

I was highly pleased with the advantageous situation fortune had given

me in placing me so near two gentlemen, from one of which I was sure

to hear such reflections on the several incidents of the play as pure

nature suggested; and from the other, such as flowed from the exactest

art and judgment; though I must confess that my curiosity led me so

much to observe the knight's reflections that I was not so well at

leisure to improve myself by yours. Nature, I found, played her part

in the knight pretty well, till at the last concluding lines she

entirely forsook him. You must know, Sir, that it is always my custom,

when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat

before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that those pieces are

often very well writ, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a

fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art

can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some

of it home with me; and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of

all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world. However, I kept my

seat the other night, in hopes of finding my own sentiments of this

matter favoured by your friend's; when, to my great surprise, I found

the knight, entering with equal pleasure into both parts, and as much

satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety, as he had been before with

Andromache's greatness. Whether this were no more than an effect of

the knight's peculiar humanity, pleased to find at last, that, after

all the tragical doings, everything was safe and well, I do not know.

But for my own part, I must confess I was so dissatisfied, that I was

sorry the poet had saved Andromache, and could heartily have wished

that he had left her stone-dead upon the stage. For you cannot

imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mischief she was reserved to do me. I

found my soul, during the action, gradually worked up to the highest

pitch; and felt the exalted passion which all generous minds conceive

at the sight of virtue in distress. The impression, believe me, Sir,

was so strong upon me, that I am persuaded, if I had been let alone in

it, I could at an extremity have ventured to defend yourself and Sir

Roger against half a score of the fiercest Mohocks; but the ludicrous

epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made me look

upon all such noble achievements as downright silly and romantic. What

the rest of the audience felt, I cannot so well tell. For myself I

must declare, that at the end of the play I found my soul uniform,

and all of a piece; but at the end of the epilogue, it was so jumbled

together and divided between jest and earnest, that, if you will

forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here set it down. I could

not but fancy, if my soul had at that moment quitted my body, and

descended to the poetical shades in the posture it was then in, what

a strange figure it would have made among them. They would not have

known what to have made of my motley spectre, half comic and half

tragic, all over resembling a ridiculous face, that, at the same time,

laughs on one side, and cries on the other. The only defence, I think,

I have ever heard made for this, as it seems to me the most unnatural

tack of the comic tail to the tragic head, is this, that the minds of

the audience must be refreshed, and gentlemen and ladies not sent away

to their own homes with too dismal and melancholy thoughts about them:

for who knows the consequence of this? We are much obliged indeed to

poets for the great tenderness they express for the safety of our

persons, and heartily thank them for it. But if that be all, pray,

good Sir, assure them, that we are none of us like to come to any

great harm; and that, let them do their best, we shall, in all

probability, live out the length of our days, and frequent the

theatres more than ever. What makes me more desirous to have some

reformation of this matter is, because of an ill consequence or two

attending it: for a great many of our church musicians being related

to the theatre, they have, in imitation of these epilogues, introduced

in their farewell voluntaries, a sort of music quite foreign to the

design of church-services, to the great prejudice of well-disposed

people. Those fingering gentlemen should be informed, that they ought

to suit their airs to the place and business; and that the musician is

obliged to keep to the text as much as the preacher. For want of this,

I have found by experience a great deal of mischief. For when the

preacher has often, with great piety, and art enough, handled his

subject, and the judicious clerk has with the utmost diligence called

out two staves proper to the discourse, and I have found in myself,

and in the rest of the pew, good thoughts and dispositions, they have

been all in a moment dissipated by a merry jig from the organ loft.

One knows not what further ill effects the epilogues I have been

speaking of may in time produce: but this I am credibly informed of,

that Paul Lorrain[A] has resolved upon a very sudden reformation in

his tragical dramas; and that, at the next monthly performance, he

designs, instead of a penitential psalm, to dismiss his audience with

an excellent new ballad of his own composing. Pray, Sir, do what you

can to put a stop to these growing evils, and you will very much

oblige your humble servant,

"PHYSIBULUS."

[Footnote A: At that time ordinary of Newgate; and who, in his

accounts of the convicts executed at Tyburn, generally represented

them as true penitents, and dying very well.]

No. 341. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1712.

"--Revocate animos, maestumque timorem

Mittite--"

VIRG. AEN.I. 206.

"Resume your courage, and dismiss your care."

DRYDEN.

Having, to oblige my correspondent Physibulus, printed his letter last

Friday, in relation to the new epilogue, he cannot take it amiss, if I

now publish another, which I have just received from a gentleman who

does not agree with him in his sentiments upon that matter.

"Sir,--I am amazed to find an epilogue attacked in your last Friday's

paper, which has been so generally applauded by the town, and received

such honours as were never before given to any in an English theatre.

"The audience would not permit Mrs. Oldfield to go off the stage the

first night till she had repeated it twice; the second night the noise

of _ancora_ was as loud as before, and she was again obliged to speak

it twice; the third night it was called for a second time; and, in

short, contrary to all other epilogues, which are dropped after the

third representation of the play, this has already been repeated nine

times.

"I must own I am the more surprised to find this censure, in

opposition to the whole town, in a paper which has hitherto been

famous for the candour of its criticisms.

"I can by no means allow your melancholy correspondent, that the

new epilogue is unnatural, because it is gay. If I had a mind to be

learned, I could tell him that the prologue and epilogue were real

parts of the ancient tragedy; but every one knows, that on the British

stage, they are distinct performances by themselves, pieces entirely

detached from the play, and no way essential to it.

"The moment the play ends, Mrs. Oldfield is no more Andromache, but

Mrs. Oldfield; and though the poet had left Andromache stone-dead upon

the stage, as your ingenious correspondent phrases it, Mrs. Oldfield

might still have spoke a merry epilogue. We have an instance of this

in a tragedy where there is not only a death, but a martyrdom.[A] St.

Catherine was there personated by Nell Gwyn; she lies stone-dead upon

the stage, but, upon those gentlemen's offering to remove her body,

whose business it is to carry off the slain in our English tragedies,

she breaks out into that abrupt beginning of what was a very

ludicrous, but at the same time thought a very good epilogue:--

"'Hold: are you mad? you damn'd confounded dog!

I am to rise and speak the epilogue.'

[Footnote A: "Tyrannic Love; or, the Royal Martyr." By Dryden.]

"This diverting manner was always practised by Mr. Dryden, who, if he

was not the best writer of tragedies in his time, was allowed by every

one to have the happiest turn for a prologue or an epilogue. The

epilogues to 'Cleomenes,' 'Don Sebastian,' the 'Duke of Guise,'

'Aurengezebe,' and 'Love Triumphant,' are all precedents of this

nature.

"I might further justify this practice by that excellent epilogue

which was spoken, a few years since, after the tragedy of 'Phaedra and

Hippolitus;'[A] with a great many others, in which the authors have

endeavoured to make the audience merry. If they have not all succeeded

so well as the writer of this, they have however shown that it was not

for want of good will.

[Footnote A: By Edmund Neal.]

"I must further observe, that the gaiety of it may be still the more

proper, as it is at the end of a French play; since every one knows

that nation, who are generally esteemed to have as polite a taste as

any in Europe, always close their tragic entertainments with what they

call a _petite pièce_, which is purposely designed to raise mirth, and

send away the audience well pleased. The same person who has supported

the chief character in the tragedy, very often plays the principal

part in the _petite pièce_; so that I have myself seen, at Paris,

Orestes and Lubin acted the same night by the same man.

"Tragi-comedy, indeed, you have yourself, in a former speculation,

found fault with very justly, because it breaks the tide of the

passions, while they are yet flowing; but this is nothing at all to

the present case, where they have already had their full course.

"As the new epilogue is written conformably to the practice of our

best poets, so it is not such an one, which, as the Duke of Buckingham

says in his 'Rehearsal,' might serve for any other play; but wholly

rises out of the occurrences of the piece it was composed for.

"The only reason your mournful correspondent gives against this

facetious epilogue, as he calls it, is, that he has a mind to go home

melancholy. I wish the gentleman may not be more grave than wise. For

my own part, I must confess, I think it very sufficient to have the

anguish of a fictitious piece remain upon me while it is representing;

but I love to be sent home to bed in a good humour. If Physibulus is

however resolved to be inconsolable, and not to have his tears dried

up, he need only continue his old custom, and when he has had his

half-crown's worth of sorrow, slink out before the epilogue begins.

"It is pleasant enough to hear this tragical genius complaining of the

great mischief Andromache had done him. What was that? Why, she

made him laugh. The poor gentleman's sufferings put me in mind of

Harlequin's case, who was tickled to death. He tells us soon after,

through a small mistake of sorrow for rage, that during the whole

action he was so very sorry, that he thinks he could have attacked

half a score of the fiercest Mohawks in the excess of his grief. I

cannot but look upon it as a happy accident, that a man who is so

bloody-minded in his affliction, was diverted from this fit of

outrageous melancholy. The valour of this gentleman in his distress

brings to one's memory the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, who

lays about him at such an unmerciful rate in an old romance. I shall

readily grant him that his soul, as he himself says, would have made a

very ridiculous figure, had it quitted the body and descended to the

poetical shades in such an encounter.

"As to his conceit of tacking a tragic head with a comic tail, in

order to refresh the audience, it is such a piece of jargon, that I

don't know what to make of it.

"The elegant writer makes a very sudden transition from the playhouse

to the church, and from thence to the gallows.

"As for what relates to the church, he is of opinion that these

epilogues have given occasion to those merry jigs from the organ-loft,

which have dissipated those good thoughts and dispositions he has

found in himself, and the rest of the pew, upon the singing of two

staves culled out by the judicious and diligent clerk.

"He fetches his next thought from Tyburn; and seems very apprehensive

lest there should happen any innovations in the tragedies of his

friend Paul Lorrain.

"In the mean time, Sir, this gloomy writer, who is so mightily

scandalised at a gay epilogue after a serious play, speaking of

the fate of those unhappy wretches who are condemned to suffer an

ignominious death by the justice of our laws, endeavours to make

the reader merry on so improper an occasion by those poor burlesque

expressions of tragical dramas and monthly performances.--I am,

Sir, with great respect, your most obedient, most humble servant,

"PHILOMEDES."

ON DRAMATIC CRITICS

(_Addison in the "Spectator_")

No. 592. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1714.

"--Studium sine divite veni."

HOR. ARS POET. 409.

"Art without a vein."

ROSCOMMON.

I look upon the playhouse as a world within itself. They have lately

furnished the middle region of it with a new set of meteors, in order

to give the sublime to many modern tragedies. I was there last winter

at the first rehearsal of the new thunder,[A] which is much more deep

and sonorous than any hitherto made use of. They have a Salmonus

behind the scenes who plays it off with great success. Their

lightnings are made to flash more briskly than heretofore; their

clouds are also better furbelowed, and more voluminous; not to mention

a violent storm locked up in a great chest, that is designed for the

"Tempest." They are also provided with above a dozen showers of snow,

which, as I am informed, are the plays of many unsuccessful poets

artificially cut and shredded for that use. Mr. Rymer's "Edgar" is to

fall in snow, at the next acting of "King Lear," in order to heighten,

or rather to alleviate, the distress of that unfortunate prince; and

to serve by way of decoration to a piece which that great critic has

written against.

[Footnote A: Mr. Dennis's new and approved method of making thunder.

Dennis had contrived this thunder for the advantage of his tragedy of

"Appius and Virginia"; the players highly approved of it, and it is

the same that is used at the present day. Notwithstanding the effect

of this thunder, however, the play was coldy received, and laid aside.

Some nights after, Dennis being in the pit at the representation of

"Macbeth," and hearing the thunder made use of, arose from his seat in

a violent passion, exclaiming with an oath, that that was his thunder.

"See (said he) how these rascals use me: they will not let my play

run, and yet they steal my thunder."--"Notes on the _Spectator_."]

I do not indeed wonder that the actors should be such professed

enemies to those among our nation who are commonly known by the name

of critics, since it is a rule among these gentlemen to fall upon a

play, not because it is ill written, but because it takes. Several of

them lay it down as a maxim, that whatever dramatic performance has a

long run, must of necessity be good for nothing; as though the first

precept in poetry were "not to please." Whether this rule holds good

or not, I shall leave to the determination of those who are better

judges than myself; if it does, I am sure it tends very much to the

honour of those gentlemen who have established it; few of their pieces

having been disgraced by a run of three days, and most of them being

so exquisitely written, that the town would never give them more than

one night's hearing.

I have great esteem for a true critic, such as Aristotle and Longinus

among the Greeks; Horace and Quintilian among the Romans; Boileau and

Dacier among the French. But it is our misfortune, that some, who set

up for professed critics among us, are so stupid, that they do not

know how to put ten words together with elegance or common propriety;

and withal so illiterate, that they have no taste of the learned

languages, and therefore criticise upon old authors only at second

hand. They judge of them by what others have written, and not by any

notions they have of the authors themselves. The words unity, action,

sentiment and diction, pronounced with an air of authority, give them

a figure among unlearned readers, who are apt to believe they are very

deep because they are unintelligible. The ancient critics are full

of the praises of their contemporaries; they discover beauties which

escaped the observation of the vulgar, and very often find out reasons

for palliating and excusing such little slips and oversights as were

committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most

of the smatterers in criticism, who appear among us, make it their

business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains

applause, to descry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by farfetched

arguments, that what pass for beauties in any celebrated piece are

faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, compared

with those of the ancients, are like the works of the sophists

compared with those of the old philosophers.

Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance; which

was probably the reason that in the heathen mythology Momus is said

to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who

have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves,

are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject

to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes

to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the

name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious

ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in which

they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there

is sometimes a greater judgment shown in deviating from the rules of

art than in adhering to them; and, secondly, that there is more beauty

in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of all the rules of

art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but

scrupulously observes them.

First, we may often take notice of men who are perfectly acquainted

with all the rules of good writing, and notwithstanding choose to

depart from them on extraordinary occasions. I could give instances

out of all the tragic writers of antiquity who have shown their

judgment in this particular; and purposely receded from an established

rule of the drama, when it has made way for a much higher beauty

than the observation of such a rule would have been. Those who have

surveyed the noblest pieces of architecture and statuary, both ancient

and modern, know very well that there are frequent deviations from

art in the works of the greatest masters, which have produced a much

nobler effect than a more accurate and exact way of proceeding could

have done. This often arises from what the Italians call the _gusto

grande_ in these arts, which is what we call the sublime in writing.

In the next place, our critics do not seem sensible that there is more

beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of the rules of

art, than in those of a little genius who knows and observes them. It

is of those men of genius that Terrence speaks in opposition to the

little artificial cavillers of his time:

"Quorum aemulari expotat negligentiam

Potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam."

AND. PROL. 20.

"Whose negligence he would rather imitate, than these men's obscure

diligence."

A critic may have the same consolation in the ill success of his play

as Dr. South tells us a physician has at the death of a patient,

that he was killed _secundum artem_. Our inimitable Shakespeare is a

stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would

not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a single rule of

the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic where there

is not one of them violated![A] Shakespeare was indeed born with all

the seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus's

ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine

Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature

without any help from art.

[Footnote A: With all his fondness for classic models, Addison breaks

away from conventionality of form in this essay, and pays his tribute

to the genius of Shakespeare. But critical Joe could never forget the

bard's so-called "faults" of construction.]

THEATRICAL PROPERTY

(_Steele in "The Tatler," No. 42_)

It is now twelve of the clock at noon, and no mail come in; therefore

I am not without hopes that the town will allow me the liberty

which my brother news-writers take in giving them what may be for

information in another kind, and indulge me in doing an act of

friendship, by publishing the following account of goods and

moveables.

This is to give notice, that a magnificent palace, with great

variety of gardens, statues, and water works, may be bought cheap in

Drury-lane; where there are likewise several castles, to be disposed

of, very delightfully situated; as also groves, woods, forests,

fountains, and country-seats, with very pleasant prospects on all

sides of them; being the moveables of Christopher Rich, Esquire,[A]

who is breaking up house-keeping, and has many curious pieces of

furniture to dispose of, which may be seen between the hours of six

and ten in the evening.

[Footnote A: This essay was written (July, 1709) at the time that

Drury Lane was closed, by order of the Lord Chamberlain.]

THE INVENTORY.

Spirits of right Nantz brandy, for lambent flames and apparitions.

Three bottles and a half of lightning.

One shower of snow in the whitest French paper.

Two showers of a browner sort.

A sea, consisting of a dozen large waves; the tenth bigger than

ordinary, and a little damaged.

A dozen and a half of clouds, trimmed with black, and well

conditioned.

A rainbow, a little faded.

A set of clouds after the French mode, streaked with lightning and

furbelowed.

A new moon, something decayed.

A pint of the finest Spanish wash, being all that is left of two

hogsheads sent over last winter.

A coach very finely gilt, and little used, with a pair of dragons, to

be sold cheap.

A setting-sun, a pennyworth.

An imperial mantle, made for Cyrus the Great, and worn by Julius

Caesar, Bajazet, King Harry the Eighth, and Signor Valentini.

A basket-hilted sword, very convenient to carry milk in.

Roxana's night-gown.

Othello's handkerchief.

The imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once.

A wild boar killed by Mrs. Tofts[A] and Dioclesian.

[Footnote A: A favourite singer of the day.]

A serpent to sting Cleopatra.

A mustard-bowl to make thunder with.

Another of a bigger sort, by Mr. D----'s[A] directions, little used.

[Footnote A: John Dennis, the critic.]

Six elbow-chairs, very expert in country dances, with six flower-pots

for their partners.

The whiskers of a Turkish Pasha.

The complexion of a murderer in a band-box; consisting of a large

piece of burnt cork, and a coal-black peruke.

A suit of clothes for a ghost, viz., a bloody shirt, a doublet

curiously pinked, and a coat with three great eyelet-holes upon the

breast.

A bale of red Spanish wool.

Modern plots, commonly known by the name of trapdoors, ladders of

ropes, vizard-masques, and tables with broad carpets over them.

Three oak-cudgels, with one of crab-tree; all bought for the use of

Mr. Pinkethman.[A]

[Footnote A: The comedian.]

Materials for dancing; as masques, castanets, and a ladder of ten

rounds.

Aurengezebe's scymitar, made by Will Brown in Piccadilly.

A plume of feathers, never used but by Oedipus and the Earl of Essex.

There are also swords, halbards, sheep-hooks, cardinals' hats,

turbans, drums, gallipots, a gibbet, a cradle, a rack, a cart-wheel,

an altar, an helmet, a back-piece, a breast-plate, a bell, a tub, and

a jointed baby.

ACTORS AND AUDIENCE.

(_From Cibber's "Apology_")

Among our many necessary reformations, what not a little preserved to

us the regard of our auditors was the decency of our clear stage, from

whence we had now for many years shut out those idle gentlemen who

seemed more delighted to be pretty objects themselves than capable of

any pleasure from the play; who took their daily stands where they

might best elbow the actor, and come in for their share of the

auditor's attention. In many a laboured scene of the wannest humour

and of the most affecting passion I have seen the best actors

disconcerted, while these buzzing muscatos have been fluttering round

their eyes and ears. How was it possible an actor, so embarrassed,

should keep his impatience from entering into that different temper

which his personated character might require him to be master of?

Future actors may perhaps wish I would set this grievance in a

stronger light; and, to say the truth, where auditors are ill-bred, it

cannot well be expected that actors should be polite. Let me therefore

show how far an artist in any science is apt to be hurt by any sort of

inattention to his performance.

While the famous Corelli,[A] at Rome, was playing some musical

composition of his own to a select company in the private apartment of

his patron-Cardinal, he observed, in the heighth of his harmony,

his Eminence was engaging in a detached conversation, upon which

he suddenly stopt short and gently laid down his instrument. The

Cardinal, surprised at the unexpected cessation, asked him if a string

was broke? To which Corelli, in an honest conscience of what was due

to his musick, reply'd, "No, Sir, I was only afraid I enterrupted

business." His Eminence, who knew that a genius could never shew

itself to advantage where it had not its regards, took this reproof in

good part, and broke off his conversation to hear the whole concerto

played over again.

[Footnote A: Arcangelo Corelli, the "father of modern instrumental

music."]

Another story will let us see what effect a mistaken offence of this

kind had upon the French theatre, which was told me by a gentleman of

the long robe, then at Paris, and who was himself the innocent author

of it. At the tragedy of "Zaire," while the celebrated Mademoiselle

Gossin[A] was delivering a soliloquy, this gentleman was seized with

a sudden fit of coughing, which gave the actress some surprise and

interruption; and his fit increasing, she was forced to stand silent

so long that it drew the eyes of the uneasy audience upon him, when a

French gentleman, leaning forward to him, asked him, If this actress

had given him any particular offence, that he took so publick an

occasion to resent it? The English gentleman, in the utmost surprise,

assured him, So far from it, that he was a particular admirer of

her performance; that his malady was his real misfortune, and if he

apprehended any return of it, he would rather quit his seat than

disoblige either the actress or the audience.

[Footnote A: Jeanne, Catherine Gossin, of the Comédie Française.]

This publick decency in their theatre I have myself seen carried so

far that a gentleman in their second Loge, or middle-gallery, being

observed to sit forward himself while a lady sate behind him, a loud

number of voices called out to him from the pit, "_Place à la

Dame! Place à la Dame_!" When the person so offending, either not

apprehending the meaning of the clamour, or possibly being some John

Trott who feared no man alive, the noise was continued for several

minutes; nor were the actors, though ready on the stage, suffered to

begin the play till this unbred person was laughed out of his seat,

and had placed the lady before him.

Whether this politeness observed at plays may be owing to their clime,

their complexion, or their government, is of no great consequence;

but if it is to be acquired, methinks it is a pity our accomplished

countrymen, who every year import so much of this nation's gawdy

garniture, should not, in this long course of our commerce with them,

have brought over a little of their theatrical good-breeding too.

INDEX

Abington, Mrs.

Actors and audience, Colley Cibber on

Addison, Joseph

his "Cato"

Anne, Queen

Anne's reign, Life in Queen

Ashbury, Joseph

Ashton's "Reign of Queen Anne"

Aston, Tony

Attorneys of Queen Anne's day

Baggs, Zachary

Baker of Dublin

Barry, Spranger,

Mrs. Spranger

Barry, Mrs. Elizabeth

Bartholomew Fair

Bath life

"Beaux' Stratagem," Farquhar's

Bellchambers, Edmund

Bertie, Miss Dye

Betterton, Thomas

Blackmore, Dr. (Sir Richard)

Boileau

Bolingbroke, Lord

Booth, Barton

Mrs. Barton

_see also_ Santlow

Boswell, James

Bowman, an actor

Bracegirdle, Anne

Bradshaw, Mrs.

Brett, Colonel

Miss Anne

Broschi, Carlo (Farinelli)

Budgell, Eustace

Bullock, an actor

Burney, Dr.

"Busiris," Young's

Cadogan, Charles Sloane, 1st Earl

Campbell, Thomas

"Careless Husband," Cibber's

Cat, Christopher

Cat-calls

"Cato," Addison's

Centlivre, Mrs.

her "Perplexed Lovers"

Centlivre, Mr.

Charles II., King

Chener, Mons.

Chetwood, W.R.

"Christian Hero, The," Steele's

Church and stage

Church music and the theatre

Churchill, General (Marlborough's nephew)

Churchill, Colonel (Oldfield's son)

Churchill, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough

Churchill, Mary, Countess of Cadogan

Cibber, Caius Gabriel

Cibber, Colley

"Cibber, Apology for the Life of"

Cibber, Theophilus

Clive, Mrs.

Coffee-houses of Addison's day

Collier, William

Colman's "Random Records"

Congreve

Corelli, Arcangelo

Costumes, Stage

Courthorpe's "Addison"

Covent Garden Theatre

Craggs, Mr. Secretary

Crawley, the showman

Critics, Addison on dramatic

Crown, John

Cuzzoni, Francesca

Davenant, Alexander

Davies, T.

Defoe, Daniel

Delany, Mrs.

Dennis, John,

"Essay on the Operas"

Diction of the eighteenth century

"Distressed Mother, The," Philips'

Dod, Benjamin

Dogget, Thomas

Doran, Dr.

Dorset, Earl of

Dorset, Garden Theatre

Downes, the prompter

Drama and the Restoration

Dramatic critics (Addison)

Dramatic writings, old and new

Drury Lane Theatre

Drury Lane,

revolt of Betterton

another exodus

riot

Drury Lane, Company

Dryden

"Duke of York's Company"

D'Urfey's "Western Lass"

"Echoes of the Playhouse"

Elrington, Thomas

Epilogues, Comic (The _Spectator_)

Estcourt, Dick

Eugene, Prince

Evans, John

"Fair Quaker of Deal," Shadwell's

Farinelli

Farquhar, Capt. George

Faustina, Bordoni Hasse

Fielding, Henry

Fitzgerald, Percy

Fontaine, Monsieur de la

Foote, Samuel

"Funeral, or Grief à la Mode, The," Steele's

Funeral customs, old time

Gambling women

Garrick, David

Garth, Dr.

Genest, P.

George I., King

Gildon, Charles,

Gossin, Jeane Catherine

Gregory, Mr.

Griffith, Thomas

Gwyne, Nell

Habits of society

Halifax, Lord

Haymarket Theatre,

restricted to operas

"Hearts, The King of," Maynwaring's

Hendon, Heywoodhill

Henley, Mr.

Hertford, Countess of

Hill, Aaron

Horton, Mrs.

Howard, Bronson

Hoyt, Mr.

Hughes, Mr.

Hulet, Charles

Ibsen

"Inconstant, The," Farquhar's

Ingolsby, General

Italian opera

"Jane Shore," Rowe's

Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster

Johnson, Dr. Samuel

Johnstone, Drury Lane machinist

Jones, Henry Arthur

Jonson, Benjamin

Keen, Theophilus

Killigrew, Charles

"King's Company, The"

Kit-Cat Club

Knight, Mrs.

Knipp, Mrs.

Lambro, Miss

Lecouvreur, French actress

Leigh, Francis

Lincoln's Inn Field Theatre of 1695,

re-opened

"Lives of the Poets," Cibber's

Lorrain, Rev. Paul

Lowe, R.W.

Macclesfield, Anne, 1st Countess of

Macklin

"Make-up," Art of

Marlborough, _see_ Churchill

Master of the Revels, office of

Maynwaring, Arthur,

Maynwaring, Mr. (Oldfield's son)

"Milk White Flag, A," Mr. Hoyt's

Mills, John

Misson's, Henre, "Memoirs"

Mist, Nathaniel

_Mist's Weekly Journal_

Mitford, M.R.

Mitre Tavern

Molière

Montagu, Captain

Morley's "Notes on The _Spectator_"

Mountford, Will

Mountford, Mrs., _see_ Verbruggen

Mountford, Susan

Neal, Edmund, "Phaedra and Hippolitus"

"Non-Juror, The," Cibber's

Norris, an actor

Oldfield, Captain

Oldfield, Mrs.

Oldfield, Anne (Nance)

birth

meets Farquhar

introduced to Vanbrugh,

joins the stage

Bath _début_

first stage triumph

Cibber's "Careless Husband" her success

deportment

as Sylvia in Farquhar's "Recruiting Officer"

leaves Drury Lane for the Haymarket

supplants Mrs. Bracegirdle

salary at the Haymarket

---- and at Drury Lane

as Andromache in "Distressed Mother"

plays Marcia in "Cato"

meets Alexander Pope

tragic parts

rivals produce a riot, her triumph

as Jane Shore

adheres to Drury Lane

takes Sophonisba, praised by Thomson

meridian lustre

mistress of A. Maynwaring

personal attractions

accepts protection of Marlborough's nephew

received at Court

her natural children

ancestress of Earls of Cadogan

sympathy for Richard Savage

intercedes for his life

mourned by Savage

contemporaries

her equipage

sweetness and common sense

retains her bloom

captivating as Lady Townley

moved in polite circles

ill-health, dies in Lower Grosvenor Street

laid in State in the Jerusalem Chamber

interred in Westminster Abbey

Oldfield, Anne, elegy by Richard Savage

Opera, Italian

Operatic singers

Oxford and the drama

actors contribute to St. Mary's restoration fund

Page, Francis

Pepy's Diary

"Perplexed Lovers, The," Centlivre's

Philips, Ambrose

Players in Queen Anne's time

Pope, Alexander

Porter, Mistress

Powell, George

Prince George of Denmark

Pritchard, Sir William

"Provoked Husband, The," Vanbrugh and Cibber's

Radcliffe, Dr.

"Recruiting Officer, The," Farquhar's

Rich, Christopher

Rich, John

Rivers, Lord

Rogers, Mrs.

Rowe, Nicholas

Russell Court Chapel

Ryan, Lacy

Sandridge, Dean

Santlow, Hester

_see also_ Booth, Mrs.

Saunders, Mistress

Savage, Richard

Schlegel, Augustus Wm.

"Scornful Lady, The"

Shadwell, Thomas

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

Side-shows

"Sir Courtly Nice," Crown's

"Sir Thomas Overbury," Savage's

Skipworth, Sir Thomas

Smith, an actor

_Spectator, The_

Stage armies

Stanyan, T.

Steele, Sir Richard

Strolling players

Swift, Dean

Swiney, Owen

"Tamerlane," N. Rowe's

"Tartuffe," Molière's

Theatre and church

and playgoers

Theatrical dress

claptrap, Addison on

property, Sir R. Steele on

Theatricals began, Hour

Thomas, Augustus

Thomson's "Sophonisba"

Thurmond, John

Toasts

Toasting glasses

Tofts, Mrs.

Tonson, Jacob

Trumbull, Sir William

Vanbrugh, Sir John

Verbruggen, Mrs.

Voltaire

Voss, Mrs.

Walker, an actor

Walpole, Horace

Walpole, Sir Robert

Ward, Ned

Wig, cost of a full-bottomed

Wilks, Robert

William III., King

Williams, Joseph

Woffington, Peg

"Wonder, The," Mrs. Centlivre's

Woollen shrouds

Yates, Mistress

Young's, Dr., "Busiris"