The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield | Page 8

asleep in the box, and snores so deeply that Manager Rich, who
has been in the front of the house, pokes his inquisitive face into the
poorly-lighted auditorium, and quickly pokes it back again.
But hush! Wake up, Prince, and look at the stage. The play has begun,
and some member of the company, we know not who, has recited the
archaic prologue, which asks:
"What are the Charmes, by which these happy Isles Hence gain'd
Heaven's brightest and eternal smiles? What Nation upon Earth besides
our own But by a loss like ours had been undone? Ten Ages scarce
such Royal worths display As England lost, and found in one strange
Day. One hour in sorrow and confusion hurld, And yet the next the
envy of the World."
[Illustration: COLLEY CIBBER
In the character of "Sir Novelty Fashion, newly created Lord
Foppington," in Vanbrugh's play of "The Relapse, or, Virtue in
Danger."
From the Painting by J. GRISONI, _the property of the Garrick Club_]

The King is dead! Long live the Queen! The prologue was written in
honour of his most Catholic Majesty James II. and his consort, Marie
Beatrice of Modena, but the opening lines are admirably adapted to
flatter Anne, and so they are retained, even though what follows
happens to be new.[A]
[Footnote A: The remainder of the original prologue, had it been
recited, would have raised a storm.]
But what care we for the prologue when the first scene is on and
Violante and Leonora are confessing their respective love affairs, as
women always do--on the stage. Leonora has a dragon of a brother who
would compel her to marry that pink of empty propriety, Sir Courtly,
but she rebels against the admirer selected for her, as all well-bred
young women should in plays, and sets her heart upon another. In
consequence there is trouble of the dear old romantic kind.
"I never stir out, but as they say the Devil does, with chains and
torments," Leonora tells Violante. "She that is my Hell at home is so
abroad."
"Vio. A New Woman?
"LEO. No, an old Woman, or rather an old Devil; nay, worse than an
old Devil, an old Maid.
"Vio. Oh, there's no Fiend so Envious.
"LEO. Right; she will no more let young People sin, than the Devil will
let 'em be sav'd, out of envy to their happiness.
"Vio. Who is she?
"LEO. One of my own blood, an Aunt.
"Vio. I know her. She of thy blood? She has not a drop of it these
twenty years; the Devil of envy sucked it all out, and let verjuice in the
roome."

These lines are decidedly unfeminine and coarse, as viewed from a
nineteenth century standard, and there is nothing in them to recommend
the two girls to the particular favour of the audience. Yet, in the case of
Leonora, they are given with such rare spirit, and the speaker, with her
almost sensuous charm and the melody of that marvellous voice, is so
fascinating, that the house is suddenly caught in some entrancing spell.
Oldfield has burst upon it in all the sudden glory of a newly unfolded
flower, and murmurs of admiration and surprise are heard on every side.
More than this, Queen Anne, whose thoughts may have been far away
with the dead Duke of Gloucester, betrays a sudden interest in the
performance, and thus sets the fashion for all those around her,
excepting his most sleepy Royal Highness, the Prince of Denmark. He
dozes on; twenty angels from heaven would not disturb him.
As the play proceeds, the curiosity centres around the new Leonora, so
that even the scene where Sir Courtly is found making the most
elaborate of toilets, with the assistance of a bevy of vocalists, does not
exert the attraction to be found in the presence of Oldfield. The episode
is all very funny, of course, and there is an appreciative titter when the
fop defines the characteristics of a gentleman:
"Complaisance, fine hands, a mouth well furnished--
"SERVANT. With fine language?
"SIR COURTLY. Fine teeth, you sot; fine language belongs to pedants
and poor fellows that live by their wits. Men of quality are above wit.
'Tis true, for our diversion, sometimes we write, but we ne'er regard wit.
I write, but I never write any wit.
"SERVANT. How then, sir?
"SIR COURTLY. I write like a gentleman, soft and easy."
It is only a titter, however, that Cibber can produce this afternoon, or
evening,[A] nor does the audience take the usual relish in that
touch-and-go rubbish of a duet sung by a supposed Indian and his love,
a duet in which the former declares:

"My other Females all Yellow, fair or Black, To thy Charmes shall
prostrate fall, As every kind of elephant does