"None led through youth a gayer life than he, so it may be imagined that he proved a gay companion for the yielding Nance. By him she had one son who married Lady Mary Walpole, a natural child of the great Sir Robert Walpole, and she was also the mother of a son who had been publicly acknowledged by his father, Mr. Maynwaring. Little eccentricities of conduct like this were tenderly treated. Chetwood, in his General History of the Stage, kindly observes that "her amours 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." The same writer, who had himself seen Oldfield in the meridian of her fame, remembered that “in her full round of glory in comedy she used to slight tragedy. She would often say I hate to have a page dragging my tail about. Why do they not give Porter these parts? She can put on a better Tragedy face than I can. When Mithridates was revised, it was with much difficulty she was prevailed upon to take the part, but she perform'd it to the utmost length of perfection, and, after that, seem'd much better reconcil'd to Tragedy." Indeed, while the actress was much more en rapporte with comedy à la mode she could play tragic parts on occasion, just as Chetwood pointed out. What a majestical dignity in Cleopatra !" he exclaims fer vently, recalling her achievements. "Such a finish'd figure on the stage was never yet seen. In Calista, the Fair Penitent, she was inimitable in the third act, with Horatio, when she tears the letter, with To atoms! thus! Thus let me tear the vile detested falsehood, her excellent clear voice of passion, her piercing flaming eye, with manner and action suiting, us'd to make me shrink with awe, and seem'd to put her monitor Horatio into a mouse-hole. I almost gave him up for a troublesome puppy; and though Mr. Booth play'd the part of Lothario I could hardly lug him up to the importance of triumphing over such a finish'd piece of perfection, that seemed to be too much dignified to lose her Virtue.” The power of Mrs. Oldfield's acting seems to have come from a subtle charm difficult to suggest because of its delicacy and elusive-like quality, just as the most fluent dramatic critic finds it hard to photograph the witchery and piquancy of Ellen Terry through the prosaic medium of pen, ink, and paper. "She was tallish in stature," as Cibber pictures his frail friend, "beautiful in action and aspect, and she always looked like one of those principal figures in the finest paintings that first seize and longest delight the eye of the spectator. Her countenance was benevolent like her heart, yet it could express contemptuous indignity so well that once, when a malignant beau rose in the pit to hiss her, she made him instantly hide his head and vanish by a pausing look, and her utterance of the words, 'poor creature.' Her benevolence of heart, to which Cibber thus alludes in passing, had practical exemplification in her assisting, with a pension of fifty pounds a year, that curious literary individual, Richard Savage. She was charitable in other directions, too, and she added to this virtue a great good-sense and amiability in matters connected with her art. It appears that "to the last year of her life" (again I must quote from the indispensable Apology) "she never undertook any part she liked without being importunately desirous of having all the helps in it that another could possibly give her. By knowing so much herself, she found how much more there was of nature yet needful to be known.* Yet it was a hard matter to give her any hint that she was not able to take or improve. With all this merit she was tractable and less presuming in her station than several that had not half her pretensions to be troublesome. But she lost nothing by her easy conduct; she had everything she ask'd, which she took care should be always reasonable, because she hated as much to be grudg'd as deny'd a civility. Upon her extraordinary action in the Provoked Husband, the managers made her a present of fifty guineas more than her agreement, which never was more than *This quotation deserves to be posted in the greenroom of every theatre. a verbal one; for they knew she was above deserting them to engage upon any other stage, and she was conscious they would never think it their interest to give her cause of complaint." What a shining example is Mistress Oldfield for many an actress who, without one tenth of her ability, turns the managerial hair almost white by her exactions and assumption, and thinks the breaking of the most ironclad contract quite in order-if the violation thereof is done by herself. With all her amiability the genial Nance had a mind of her own, and even in her lovers she showed herself a woman of decision. She might sacrifice her honor and risk her reputation for Mr. Maynwaring or Charles Churchill, but she also could be as icy to an admirer as was the chaste Bracegirdle. That trait was displayed very clearly in the case of Sir Roger Mostings, a baronet who was madly enamoured of the actress, despite the indifference with which his attentions were invariably treated. After the unsuccessful Jacobite uprising of 1715, Sir Roger, who then commanded a troop in the Life Guards, spoke so freely in behalf of the noblemen imprisoned for complicity in the rebellion, that he was banished from Court and ordered to retire at once to his estates. When the news of his disgrace came, his greatest concern was at the prospect of leaving the irresistible Oldfield. She might snub him as much as she dared, yet it was a pleasure for him to see her, notwithstanding, and now that even this enjoyment was |