The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield Part 19

"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 t.i.tle 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 d.a.m.n 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 d.a.m.n'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 d.a.m.n'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 p.r.o.nounced 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 chast.i.ty, 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 n.o.body 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.