The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield Part 4

"LADY EASY. That I can't comprehend; for you see, among the men, nothing's more ridiculous than a new fashion. Those of the first sense are always the last that come into' em.

"LADY BETTY. That is, because the only merit of a man is his sense; but doubtless the greatest value of a woman is her beauty; an homely woman at the head of a fashion, would not be allowed in it by the men, and consequently not followed by the women; so that to be successful in one's fancy is an evident sign of one's being admir'd, and I always take admiration for the best proof of beauty, as beauty certainly is the source of power, as power in all creatures is the height of happiness.

"LADY EASY. At this rate you would rather be thought beautiful than good.

"LADY BETTY. As I had rather command than obey. The wisest homely woman can't make a man of sense of a fool, but the veryest fool of a beauty shall make an a.s.s of a statesman; so that, in short, I can't see a woman of spirit has any business in this world but to dress--and make the men like her.

"LADY EASY. Do you suppose this is a principle the men of sense will admire you for?

"LADY BETTY. I do suppose that when I suffer any man to like my person, he shan't dare to find fault with my principle.

"LADY EASY. But men of sense are not so easilly humbled.

"LADY BETTY. The easiest of any. One has ten thousand times the trouble with a c.o.xcomb....The men of sense, my dear, make the best fools in the world: their sincerity and good breeding throws them so entirely into one's power, and gives one such an agreeable thirst of using them ill, to show that power--'tis impossible not to quench it."

Compare this bristling dialogue with the inane stuff that too often pa.s.ses for comedy nowadays, and one finds all the difference between real humour and flippancy. We stand at the threshold of the twentieth century, boastfully proclaiming that we do everything better than ever could our ancestors, yet where are the new comedies that might hold a candle to the "Careless Husband," the "Inconstant," or the "School for Scandal?" We may be presumptuous enough, nevertheless, to hold up that much-quoted candle, but the light from it will burn pale and dim when placed near the golden glow of the past. Would that we could purify some of the old-time pieces and thus preserve them for future generations of theatre-goers. Alas! that is impossible, for to cleanse them with a sort of moral soap and water would destroy nearly all their delightful glitter.

The lines of Lady Betty must have fairly sizzled with the fire of comedy as they fell from the pretty lips of Oldfield. No wonder that Londoners thought the character bewitching; no wonder that Cibber wrote so enthusiastically of the actress in that wonderful Apology.

"Had her birth plac'd her in a higher rank of life," he notes, perhaps forgetting that her very descent ent.i.tled the poor sewing-girl to a position which poverty denied her, "she had certainly appear'd in reality what in this play she only excellently acted, an agreeably gay woman of quality a little too conscious of her natural attractions. I have often seen her in private societies where women of the best rank might have borr'd some part of her behaviour without the least diminution of their sense or dignity. And this very morning, when I am now writing at the Bath, November 11, 1738, the same words were said of her by a lady of condition, whose better judgment of her personal merit in that light has embolden'd me to repeat them."

The best of us have a wee bit of sn.o.bbishness buried deep in the inmost recesses of our souls, and Colley, who was neither the best nor the worst of humanity, had this quality well developed. To see that one has but to read the above quotation between the lines. He loved a lord as ardently as did the next man, and he attached to rank the same exaggerated importance which pervades, with all the unwelcome odour of sickening incense, the literature of his age. As Macklin so well said of him, Nature formed Cibber for a c.o.xcomb, and it is quite probable that he took greater delight in being thought a leader of fashion than a writer of charming plays. Indeed, he was careful to cultivate the society of young n.o.blemen, and this he was able to do by virtue of his theatrical successes, and, more helpful still, by a levity of character which stuck to him despite his great earnestness in many directions. Perhaps his frivolity and his love of pleasure, including the delights of the gaming table, may have been half a.s.sumed; perhaps he was only playing one of his many parts. He certainly succeeded in the role; he enlivened the dissipations of many a beau by his quaint conceits and flashes of humour, and went on his way rejoicing that he could be the boon companion of twenty idle lords.[A]

[Footnote A: Colley Cibber, one of the earliest of the dramatic autobiographers, is also one of the most amusing. He flourished in wig and embroidery, player, poet, and manager, during the Augustan age of Queen Anne, somewhat earlier and somewhat later. A most egregious fop, according to all accounts, he was, but a very pleasant one notwithstanding, as your fop of parts is apt to be. Pope gained but little in the warfare he waged with him, for this plain reason--that the great poet accuses his adversary of dullness, which was not by any means one of his sins, instead of selecting one of the numerous faults, such as pertness, petulance, and presumption, of which he was really guilty.--M.R. Mitford.]

If he was surprised, therefore, that Oldfield could act the high-born woman of fashion, the "lady of condition," who shall blame him? A tavern does not seem the proper school for deportment, and, though one has the bluest blood in Christendom, humble surroundings may keep it from flowing very freely. Still, Anne was naturally a thoroughbred; the girl had a personal distinction which was hers by right of inheritance, and what she lacked in elegance she was quick to acquire as she grew into womanhood.

It is a strange coincidence that the actress who in after years rejuvenated Lady Betty[A], and made her again a living, breathing creature, had at one period of her career been a tavern girl. Abington it was who seemed the very incarnation of aristocracy, and made the audience forget that, high as she stood upon the stage, she had once been almost in the gutter.

[Footnote A: Mrs. Abington, one of the most graceful and spirited actresses of the eighteenth century, was born in 1731, shortly after the death of Oldfield. She had the honour of being the original Lady Teazle, a part which she rehea.r.s.ed under the direction of Sheridan, and she enjoyed the further distinction of being detested by Garrick.

The latter said of her: "She is below the thought of any honest man or woman."]

The same welcome anomaly is noticed now, when the actresses who play the women of the "hupper circles" with the greatest delicacy and keenness of touch are frequently the products of the lower or middle cla.s.s. On the other hand, the _dame de societe_ who trips lightly from the drawing-room to the stage, amid the blare of trumpets and the excitement of her friends, usually fails to make a mark. To be sure, several of them have made marks--very black ones.

Now let us turn the pages of the "Careless Husband," as we scan them in Lowndes's "British Theatre," and see if we cannot extract some amus.e.m.e.nt therefrom. The scene opens in the lodgings of Sir Charles Easy, who, like many other dramatic personages of the eighteenth century, has a name that signifies his character. Easy, Sir Charles is in every sense of the word, particularly easy as to morals, for the possession of a lovely wife does not prevent him from prosecuting an amour with a woman of quality, Lady Graveairs, or having a vulgar intrigue with the maid of his own spouse. In fine, he is a right amiable gentleman, according to the curious standards of long ago; a very prince of good fellows, who in these days would pa.s.s for a cad.

We are hardly begun with the comedy before we are introduced to this paragon, who enters just after Lady Easy and the maid, Edging, have discovered fresh proofs of his flirtation with Lady Graveairs. Charles is inclined to be philosophical in a blase, tired way, and he says: "How like children do we judge of happiness! When I was stinted in my fortune almost everything was a pleasure to me, because most things then being out of my reach, I had always the pleasure of hoping for 'em; now fortune's in my hand she's as insipid as an old acquaintance.

It's mighty silly, faith, just the same thing by my wife, too; I am told she's extremely handsome [as though the sad devil didn't know it], nay, and have heard a great many people say she is certainly the best woman in the world--why, I don't know but she may, yet I could never find that her person or good qualities gave me any concern. In my eye, the woman has no more charms than my mother"--and we may be sure that Sir Charles had never bothered himself much about the attractions of the last named lady.

Then the fair Edging comes to centre of stage and the following innocent dialogue ensues:

"EDGING. Hum--he takes no notice of me yet--I'll let him see I can take as little notice of him. [_She walks by him gravely, he turns her about and holds her; she struggles_.] Pray, sir!

"SIR CHARLES. A pretty pert air that--I'll humour it--what's the matter, child--are you not well? Kiss me, hussy.

"EDGING. No, the deuce fetch me if I do. [Here was a model servant, of course.]

"SIR CHARLES. Has anything put thee out of humour, love?

"EDGING. No, sir, 'tis not worthy my being out of humour at ... don't you suffer my lady to huff me every day as if I were her dog, or had no more concern with you--I declare I won't bear it and she shan't think to huff me. For aught I know I am as agreeable as she; and though she dares not take any notice of your baseness to her, you shan't think to use me so--"

But enough of this delectable conversation. The picture which it gives us is unpleasant and coa.r.s.e; there is about it none of the glitter that can make vice so alluring. We will also skip an interview between Sir Charles and Lady Easy (who thinks it the part of diplomacy to hide her knowledge of her master's peccadilloes), and hurry on to the entrance of Lord Morelove, our hero. Morelove, who must have been admirably played by the fiery, impetuous Powell, is neither a libertine, nor, on the other hand, a prig; he is simply a gentlemanly and essentially human fellow who is consumed with an honest pa.s.sion for Lady Betty Modish. Nay, he would be glad to marry the fine creature, but she has quarrelled with him and he is now telling Sir Charles all about it:

"So, disputing with her about the conduct of women, I took the liberty to tell her how far I thought she err'd in hers; she told me I was rude and that she would never believe any man could love a woman that thought her in the wrong in anything she had a mind to [Rather exacting, are you not, Lady Betty?], at least if he dared to tell her so. This provok'd me into her whole character, with as much spite and civil malice, as I have seen her bestow upon a woman of true beauty, when the men first toasted her:[A] so in the middle of my wisdom, she told me she desir'd to be alone, that I would take my odious proud heart along with me and trouble her no more. I bow'd very low, and as I left the room I vow'd I never wou'd, and that my proud heart should never be humbled by the outside of a fine woman. About an hour after, I whipp'd into my chaise for London, and have never seen her since."

[Footnote A: Many of the wits of the last age will a.s.sert that the word (toast), in its present sense, was known among them in their youth, and had its rise from an accident at the town of Bath, in the reign of Charles II. It happened that, on a public day, a celebrated beauty of those times was in the Cross Bath, and one of the crowd of her admirers took a gla.s.s of the water in which the fair one stood, and drank her health to the company. There was in the place a gay fellow half fuddled, who offered to jump in, and swore, though he liked not the liquor, he would have the toast. He was opposed in his resolution; yet this whim gave foundation to the present honour which is done to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever since been called a Toast.--The _Tatler_.]

What a quaint, circ.u.mspect and very ceremonious affair must that lovers' row have been. No swearing, no slang or loud talking, but everything deliberate and in the best of form. Lady Betty telling Morelove to go about his business, and that quickly, but doing so with a stately elegance worthy of the great Mrs. Barry; the suitor bowing low, with his white hand pressed against that "odious proud heart"

which is gently breaking at the thought of departing. What a nice painting it would make for a Watteau fan.

Thus nearly all our characters have their entrances, Lady Betty is revealed to us through the medium of the lively dialogue quoted a few pages back, and then there is another stir. In comes Lord Foppington, otherwise Colley Cibber, in all the vapid glory of fine clothes, and a great periwig. A very prince of c.o.xcombs, with his soft smile and conscious air of superiority--a mere bag of vanity, whose emptiness is partly hidden by gorgeous raiment, gold embroidery, rings, snuff-box, m.u.f.f and what-not. With what genteel condescension does he greet Sir Charles; how gracefully nonchalant is he to my Lord Morelove. "My dear agreeable! _Que je t'embra.s.se! Pardi! Il y a cent ans que je ne t'ai veu_. My lord, I am your lordship's most obedient humble servant."

So Foppington takes his place in the comedy, and begins to play his brainless but important part. He, the disconsolate Morelove, and the brilliant Lady Betty all meet at dinner with Sir Charles and Lady Easy. Of course the hero makes an unsuccessful attempt to regain the good graces of his inamorata, and, of course, the c.o.xcomb carries on a violent flirtation with her in the angry face of his rival. With the meal over, and everybody on the _qui vive_, this scene ensues:

Enter Foppington (who has been chatting to the ladies and who now seeks the post-dinner conversation of his host and Lord Morelove).

"FOPPINGTON. Nay, pr'ythee, Sir Charles, let's have a little of thee.

We have been so chagrin without thee, that, stop my breath [what a bloodcurdling oath, so suggestive of the awful curses of our own _jeunesse d'oree_], the ladies are gone, half asleep, to church for want of thy company.

"SIR CHARLES. That's hard indeed, while your lordship was among 'em.

Is Lady Betty gone too?

"FOP. She was just upon the wing. But I caught her by the snuff-box, and she pretends to stay to see if I'll give it her again or no.

"MORE. Death! 'tis that I gave her, and the only present she ever would receive from me. [_Aside to_ SIR CHARLES.] Ask him how he came by it?

"SIR CHARLES. Pr'ythee don't be uneasy. Did she give it to you, my lord?

"FOP. Faith, Charles, I can't say she did or she did not, but we were playing the fool, and I took it--_a la_--pshah--I can't tell thee in French, neither, but Horace touches it to a nicety--'twas _Pignas direptum male pertinaci_. [_Nota Bene_: Our modern comedians seldom quote Horace; their humour is not of the cla.s.sic kind.]

"MORE. So! But I must bear it. If your lordship has a mind to the box, I'll stand by you in the keeping of it.

"FOP. My lord, I'm pa.s.sionately oblig'd to you, but I am afraid I cannot answer your hazarding so much of the lady's favour.

"MORE. Not at all, my lord; 'tis possible I may not have the same regard to her frown that your lordship has. [Here's a bit of human nature. Morelove stands in awe of that frown, but he doth valiantly protest, and that too much, that the displeasure of Lady Betty is no more to him than a dozen of ciphers.]

"FOP. That's a bite, I am sure--he'd give a joint of his little finger to be as well with her as I am. [_Aside_.] But here she comes!