The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield | Page 4

for our heroine, but think of the
inestimable luxury of brushing up against Colley Cibber. This
remarkable man, who would be in turn actor, manager, playwright, and
a pretty bad Poet Laureate before death would put an extinguisher on
his prolific muses, had at first no exalted opinion of the newcomer's
powers.
"In the year 1699," he writes in that immortal biography of his,[A]
"Mrs. Oldfield was first taken into the house, where she remain'd about
a twelvemonth, almost a mute and unheeded, 'till Sir John Vanbrugh,
who first recommended her, gave her the part of Alinda in the 'Pilgrim'
revis'd. This gentle character happily became that want of confidence
which is inseparable from young beginners, who, without it, seldom
arrive to any excellence. Notwithstanding, I own I was then so far
deceiv'd in my opinion of her, that I thought she had little more in her
person that appeared necessary to the forming a good actress; for she
set out with so extraordinary a diffidence, that it kept her too
despondingly down to a formal, plain, (not to say)flat manner of
speaking."
[Footnote A: "An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber."]
How strange it seems, as we peer back behind the scenes of history, to
think of a theatrical _débutante_ rejoicing in an extraordinary
diffidence. "Rather a cynical remark, isn't it?" the reader may ask. Well,
perhaps it is, but these are piping times of advertising, when even
genius has been known to employ a press agent.
Nance Oldfield may have been almost mute for a twelvemonth, yet
more than a few feminine novices, Anno Domino 1898, would never be
content to remain silent; not only must they make a noise behind the
footlights, but they feel it incumbent to be heard in the newspapers as
well. Any dramatic editor could tell a weary tale of the importunities of

a progressive young lady who wants to enlighten an aching public at
least six times a week as to the number of her dresses, the colour of her
hair, and the attention of her admirers. There is a blessed consolation in
all this: the female with the trousseau, the champagned locks and the
notoriety lasts no longer than the butterfly, and her place is soon taken
by the girl who never bothers about the paragraphs, because she is sure
to get them.
To return to the more congenial subject of Oldfield, it is strange that so
shrewd a Thespian as Cibber (who seems to have been clever in all
things but poetry) was so long in coming to a real appreciation of her
genius. He is manly enough to confess that not even the silvery tone of
that honeyed voice could, "'till after some time incline my ear to any
hope in her favour." "But public approbation," he tells us, "is the warm
weather of a theatrical plant, which will soon bring it forward to
whatever perfection nature has design'd it. However, Mrs. Oldfield
(perhaps for want of fresh parts) seem'd to come but slowly forward 'till
the year 1703." So slowly had she come forward indeed, that in 1702,
Gildon, a now forgotten critic and dramatist, included her among the
"meer Rubbish that ought to be swept off the stage with the Filth and
Dust."[A] Time has avenged the actress for this slight; who, excepting
the student of theatrical history, remembers Gildon?
[Footnote A: From the "Comparison Between the Two Stages."]
What is more to the purpose, Nance was able to avenge herself in the
flesh, only a few months after these contemptuous lines had been
penned. It happened at Bath, in the summer of 1703, and the story of
her triumph, brief as it is, sounds quaint and pretty, as it comes down to
us laden with a thousand suggestions of fashionable life in the reign of
Queen Anne--a life made up of gossip and cards, drinking, gaming,
patches and powder, fine clothes, full perriwigs and empty heads. What
a picturesque lot of people there must have been at the great English
spa that season, all anxious to get a glimpse of her plump majesty, who
was staying there, and all willing enough to do anything except to test
the waters or the baths from which the place first acquired fame. They
were all there, the pretty maids and wrinkled matrons, the young rakes

of twenty, ready for a frolic, and the old rakes of thirty too weary to do
much more than go to the theatre and cry out, "Damme, this is a damn'd
play." Then the children, who were always in the way, and the aged
fathers of families who liked to swear at the dandified airs and newly
imported French manners of their sons. And such sons as some of them
were too--smart fellows, of