The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield Part 7

"If I should farther say, that this person has been well known in almost every metropolis in Europe; that few private men, with so little reproach, run through more various turns of fortune; that, on the wrongside of three-score,[A] he has yet the open spirit of a hale young fellow of five and twenty; that though he still chuses to speak what he thinks to his best friends with an undisguised freedom, he is, notwithstanding, acceptable to many persons of the first rank and condition; that any one of them (provided he likes them) may now send him, for their service, to Constantinople at half a day's warning; that Time has not yet been able to make a visible change in any part of him but the colour of his hair, from a fierce coal-black to that of a milder milk-white: When I have taken this liberty with him, methinks it cannot be taking a much greater if I at once should tell you that this person was Mr. Owen Swiney."

[Footnote A: Swiney, or MacSwiney, died in 1754, after making Peg Woffington his legatee]

Swiney was an ardent Irishman who had, for some mysterious reason, formed a friendship with Rich, and his advice and energy often stood the manager of Drury Lane in good stead. When, in the summer of 1706, Vanbrugh proposed that Swiney should lease the Haymarket, Sir John being anxious to relinquish management, just as Congreve had done some time before, cunning Christopher gave his consent, curiously enough, to what was nothing more or less than the setting up of a rival company of actors. In the first place, he probably looked upon his players as an enc.u.mbrance, since he was in the vein for operatic entertainments just then, and, furthermore, he pictured himself as a future monopolist controlling the destinies of two houses. For he never dreamed, did this haggling, pettifogging lawyer, that Swiney would swerve from the old time allegiance to him, and he felt so secure on this point that he privately encouraged the desertion of his own forces. He made one exception, however, by stipulating that Cibber should remain at Drury Lane. Colley was too experienced, too versatile a man to be lost with impunity; he could do everything in a theatre, from acting to writing good plays and bad poetry, and while the wily Rich chiefly depended upon his singers and dancers, he said "it would be necessary to keep some one tolerable actor with him, that might enable him to set those machines a going."

It so happened that Cibber was one of the men that Swiney needed most, and, while the new manager of the Haymarket apparently acquiesced in the exception insisted on by Rich, it was not long before he showed his hand. It was a better hand than that of his whilom a.s.sociate, who had been foolish enough to think that he held the trump card in the game. The card in question was a little matter of two hundred pounds owing from Swiney to Rich, and the latter fondly believed that this loan would bind the debtor to him as with hooks of steel. But we do not love men the more because they chance to be our creditors; sometimes, indeed, we love them the less for it, and so these two hundred pounds did not prevent the Celt from breaking over the traces of the Englishman. Let Cibber continue the story:

"The first word I heard of this transaction was by a letter from Swiney, inviting me to make one in the Hay-Market Company. whom he hop'd I could not but now think the stronger party. But I confess I was not a little alarm'd at this revolution. For I considered that I knew of no visible fund to support these actors but their own industry; that all his recruits from Drury Lane would want new cloathing; and that the warmest industry would be always labouring up hill under so necessary an expence, so bad a situation, and so inconvenient a theatre," &c.

In fine, Master Colley resolved that it would be the course of wisdom to stay at Drury Lane, where he seems to have enjoyed to an unusual degree the confidence of the very manager whom afterwards he did not hesitate to abuse. So when Cibber came up to London from Gloucestershire, where he had been spending his vacation, he returned to the fold of his old master.

"But I found our company so thinn'd that it was almost impracticable to bring any one tolerable play upon the stage. When I ask'd him where were his actors, and in what manner he intended to proceed? he reply'd, _Don't you trouble yourself, come along, and I'll shew you_.

"He then led me about all the by-places in the house, and shew'd me fifty little backdoors, dark closets, and narrow pa.s.sages in alterations and contrivances of which kind he had busied his head most part of the vacation; for he was scarce ever without some notable joyner or a bricklayer extraordinary, in pay, for twenty years. And there are so many odd obscure places about a theatre, that his genius in nook-building was never out of employment, nor could the most vain-headed author be more deaf to an interruption in reciting his works, than our wise master was while entertaining me with the improvements he had made in his invisible architecture; all which, without thinking any one part of it necessary, tho' I seem'd to approve, I could not help now and then breaking in upon his delight with the impertinent question of--_But, Master, where are your actors_?"

This exhibition of a spirit so commonplace and inartistic proved too much for Cibber. Perhaps he might have pardoned it had there been no salary owing him, for your greatest apostle of the drama will sometimes do a good deal of winking at glaring inconsistencies when a money _quid pro quo_ looms up in the distance. Here was a case, however, where the _quid pro quo_ loomed not at all, and the author of the "Careless Husband" became correspondingly disgusted. I told him (Rich) I came to serve him at a time when many of his best actors had deserted him; that he might now have the refusal of me; but I could not afford to carry the compliment so far as to lessen my income by it; that I therefore expected either my casual pay to be advanced, or the payment of my former sallary made certain for as many days as we had acted the year before. No, he was not willing to alter his former method; but I might chuse whatever parts I had a mind to act of theirs who had left him.

"When I found him, as I thought, so insensible, or impregnable, I look'd gravely in his face, and told him--He knew upon what terms I was willing to serve him, and took my leave."

Shortly after the interview Cibber joined the Haymarket company, and one result of his defection was an open quarrel between Rich and Swiney.

This season of 1706-7 was a memorable one for Oldfield. She then played for the first time with the chaste Anne Bracegirdle,[A] whom she quickly cast into the shade. So apparent, indeed, was the shadow that the elder of the two retired from the stage in the course of a few months, in the very prime of her beauty. It was a pathetic incident, and yet the cloud had its silver lining. How often are we called upon to pity players who linger before the footlights long after they should have made their exits; instead of departing at the right moment, leaving behind them charming memories, they die by inches in full view of the audience.

[Footnote A: "Mrs. Bracegirdle was perhaps a woman of a cold const.i.tution," says Genest.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. ANNE BRACEGIRDLE]

Perhaps poverty keeps them at work, but, be that as it may, the public gives a sigh of relief when the few remaining sparks of genius are at last snuffed out. When one of them is taken from us, and we read of the death in the morning paper, we murmur, "Poor old Jones! Well, it's certainly time he shuffled off." Then we drink our coffee placidly, turn to some other news, and never think of him again. Many a once-beloved actor gets this cruel epitaph.

There was nothing superannuated about Bracegirdle when she made her exit, for the actress still displayed that comeliness which had, until recently, held the attention of London. "She was of a lovely height,"

says Tony Aston, "with dark brown hair and eyebrows, black, sparkling eyes, and a fresh, blushy complexion; and, whenever she exerted herself, had an involuntary flushing in her breast, neck, and face, having continually a cheerful aspect, and a fine set of even white teeth; never making an exit, but that she left the audience in an imitation of her pleasant countenance." When Aston wrote Mrs.

Bracegirdle was still living. "She has been off the stage these 26 years or more, but was alive July 20, 1747, for I saw her in the Strand, London, then--with the remains of charming Bracegirdle." Poor old Diana! Time brought her at least one revenge; she had outlived Nance Oldfield these many years.[A]

[Footnote A: Bracegirdle died in September 1748.]

"Bracey," as Cibber loved to call her, had just left the boards when George Farquhar's lively comedy, "The Beaux' Stratagem," was produced at the Haymarket. Perhaps she saw the performance from the audience side of the house, and was generous enough to admire the sparkle of Oldfield as Mrs. Sullen; and perhaps, as she was a very charitable body, Mistress Bracegirdle went to pay a last visit to the brilliant author of the play. For poor, worn-out Farquhar was dying, nor could the laughter with which the theatre re-echoed bring much merriment into that poverty-stricken home which he was so soon to leave for a world where there would be neither guineas nor debts.

The ill man was game to the last, and his sense of humour never deserted him. When Oldfield was rehearsing Mrs. Sullen (a woman who separates from one husband only to have another, Archer, in prospect) she told Wilks that "she thought the author had dealt too freely with Mrs. Sullen, in giving her to Archer, without such a proper divorce as would be a security to her honor." Wilks, who was to play Archer, spoke of this criticism to Farquhar in the course of a visit to the dying playwright. "Tell her," gaily replied the latter, "that for her peace of mind's sake, I'll get a real divorce, marry her myself, and give her my bond she shall be a real widow in less than a fortnight."

Poor fellow! He was faithful to Mistress Farquhar unto the end, but who shall say that he had forgotten the old days which began so fairly at the Mitre Tavern?

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. BRACEGIRDLE

As the Sultaness]

Soon there will be another theatrical revolution by which the rival companies of the Haymarket and Drury Lane will be united under one management at the latter house, while Owen Swiney will be left free to devote his attention to Italian opera. This union comes about through the efforts of Colonel Brett[A], a very _debonnaire_ gentleman from Gloucestershire, whom Cibber, his warmest admirer, trots out for our inspection in the perennial "Apology." It appears that Sir Thomas Skipwith, who has a share in the Drury Lane Patent, becomes so disgusted with the antics of Rich and his refusal to make any accounting of the profits of the house, that he presents Brett with his interest.[B] To the Colonel the gift is a congenial one; he has pa.s.sed many a pleasant hour behind the scenes at Drury Lane, and doubtless thinks that in doing so he writes himself down a very knowing dog.

[Footnote A: Colonel Brett was the father of Anne Brett, who became a very dear friend of George I.]

[Footnote B: Sir Thomas afterwards a.s.serted that he only gave his share to Brett strictly "in trust."]

Probably he is, for Cibber says that though he spent some time at the Temple, "he so little followed the Law there that his neglect of it made the Law (like some of his fair and frail admirers) very often follow him." As he had an uncommon share of social wit and a handsome person, with a sanguine bloom in his complexion, no wonder they persuaded him that he might have a better chance of fortune by throwing such accomplishments into the gayer world than by shutting them up in a study.

"The first view that fires the head of a young gentleman of this modish ambition just broke lose from business is to cut a figure (as they call it)in a side box at the play, from whence their next step is to the Green Room behind the scenes, sometimes their _non ultra_.

Hither at last, then, in this hopeful quest of his fortune, came this gentleman-errant, not doubting but the fickle dame, while he was thus qualified to receive her, might be tempted to fall into his lap. And though possibly the charms of our theatrical nymphs might have their share in drawing him thither, yet in my observation the most visible cause of his first coming was a more sincere pa.s.sion he had conceived, for a fair full-bottom'd perriwig which I then wore in my first play of the 'Fool in Fashion' in the year 1695."

This love affair would suggest what Mr. Gilbert calls:

"A Pa.s.sion a la Plato For a bashful young potato."

were we not to remember that in Anne's time handsome full-bottomed periwigs were regarded with an enthusiasm far too fervid to be called Platonic. Actors made it a point to have this indispensable headgear as elaborate as possible, and it is even related that Barton Booth and Wilks actually paid forty guineas each "on the exorbitant thatching of their heads."

But let loquacious Colley have his say: "For it is to be noted that the _Beaux_ of those days were of a quite different cast from the modern stamp, and had more of the stateliness of the peac.o.c.k in their mein than (which now seems to be their highest emulation) the pert air of a lap-wing. Now, whatever contempt philosophers may have for a fine perriwig, my friend, who was not to despise the world, but to live in it, knew very well that so material an article of dress upon the head of a man of sense if it became him, could never fail of drawing to him a more partial regard and benevolence than could possibly be hoped for in an ill-made one."

Brett expresses such an admiration for this particular full-bottomed periwig that Cibber is highly flattered, and the two are soon laughing themselves into the best of terms. Nay, they spend the night roistering over a bottle or two of wine, and dear, vain Colley, like many who come after him, falls into the belief that he is a bold, fast man. With an air of conscious rakishness that is charmingly ridiculous, he writes: "If it were possible the relation of the happy indiscretions which pa.s.sed between us that night could give the tenth part of the pleasure I then received from them, I could still repeat them with delight."

Instead of pausing, however, to relate those happy indiscretions, Cibber prattles on in his colloquial way, telling us that through the goodly offices of Sir Thomas Skipwith, Brett was introduced to the divorced wife of the Earl of Macclesfield, "a lady who had enough in her power to disenc.u.mber him of the world and make him every way easy for life."[A]

[Footnote A: One story of the day made this woman the mother of Richard Savage.]

"While he was in pursuit of this affair [coyly adds the Apologist]

which no time was to be lost in (for the Lady was to be in town for but three weeks) I one day found him idling behind the scenes before the play was begun. Upon sight of him I took the usual freedom he allow'd me, to rate him roundly for the madness of not improving every moment in his power in what was of such consequence to him. [Oh, fie, thou worldly old Colley.] Why are you not (said I) where you know you only should be? If your design should once get wind in the town, the ill-will of your enemies or the sincerity of the Lady's friends may soon blow up your hopes, which in your circ.u.mstances of life cannot be long supported by the bare appearance of a gentleman."

And now Cibber announces that he expects to shock us, although the story he goes on to disclose is not in any sense improper. Could it be that according to his eighteenth century reverence for precedence the crime lay in the rough and tumble way in which, as he ventures to show, an humble player treated the future husband of a dethroned Countess. Here, at least, is the awful tale: