The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield

he charms of

nt than the

e down of

inds when z

as descen

climes, and t

o hard upon him. In this case the verses were addressed to the object of his passion, a lady who seems to have bee

look creat

e can ne'

heart, again

u bleed's

he conquest

the wounds

when'er my

ng, shuns

be bold! and s

flying f

endship, stil

ight and d

tion: BAR

r from the path of domestic constancy, and bring a Secretary of State almost to the verge of matrimony.[A] She seemed the apotheosis of grace, did this merry, moving Hester, and when she forsook the art she so delightfully adorned, and took to the "legitimate," there were not a few among her admirers who regretted the change. "They mourned," says Dr. Doran, "as if Terpsichore herself had been on earth to charm mankind, and had gone never

Marlborough and Secreta

of Barton Booth, which he had completely lost in watching

lying fingers

y notes the

und! she bound

essenger had l

ly limbs, so flushe

neck! her e

ing chest! so flo

ft feet outst

enamor'd God

in love when he

ublic for her desertion from the ballet. According to Cibber, Santlow was the happiest incident in the fortune of the play, and the Laureate tells us that she was "then in the full bloom of what beauty she might pretend to."[B] He adds that "before this she had only been admired as the most excellent dancer, which perhaps might not a little contribute to the favourable reception she now met with as an actress in this character which so happily suited her figure and capacity: the gentle

ced at Drury Lane

the Santlow was not over handsome. Yet if a picture taken from

gh, Mrs. Bradshaw and Mrs. Knight. Colley was at that time (1710) in opposition to Drury, his interest lying with the Hay market management, and it is very evident that the success of the "Fair Quaker"-a success made in face of the counter attraction fu

o took care to beat down the value of it so much as to offer the author to alter it fit to appear on the stage, on condition he might have half the profits of the third day; that is as much as to say, that it may pass for one of his, accordin

which was given at the Haymarket during the season of 1709-10, on the days when the regular dramatic company did not appear. The opera had already proved a drawing attraction, but at the time here mentioned the popular interest in the perf

oom but for a season, and when that is over are only dead nosegays. From this natural cause we have seen within these two years even Farinelli singing to an audience of five and thirty pounds, and yet, if common fame may be credited, the same voice, so neglected in one country, h

King of Sardinia. The tenor Farinelli (whose real name was Carlo B

ich inevitably follow in the wake of an opera

iciently warn'd or apprized of, threw our musical affairs into perplexities we knew not easily how to get out of. There is scarce a sensible auditor in the Kingdom that has not since that time had occasion to

t that the heavenly maid of music is too often atte

while this greatness of soul is their unalterable virtue, it will never be practicable to make two capital singers of the same sex do as they should do in one opera at the same time! No, tho' England were to double the sums it has already thrown after them. For even in their own country, where an extraordinary occasion has called a greater number of their be

her rival's a mezzo-soprana, and while the latter excelled in brilliant execution, the former was supreme in pathetic expression. Dr. Burney("History of Music," iv. 319) quotes from M.

lves than to oppose or deprive another of an occasion to shine. Yet any one would sing a bad song, provided nobody else had a good one, till at last they were thrown together like so many feather'd warriors, for a battle-royal in a cock-pit, where every one was oblig'd to kill another to save himself!

psa Roma vi

mighty opera, ruin'd by the too great excellency of its singers! For, upon the

e nimble Santlow. For the dear creature prospered exceeding well as Dorcas Zeal; the heart of the public waxed warm toward the ex-dancer, and so did the cardiac or

hought of the pulpit, and from the time that he acted in the "Andria" of Terence, at Westminster School, his hope was all for the stage. 'Tis very easy to applaud that hope now; perhaps his relations looked upon it as a temptation offe

ve guineas, which was the more acceptable as his last shilling was reduced to brass (as he inform'd me). But an odd accident fell out upon this occasion. It being very warm weather, in his last scene of the play, as he waited to go on, he inadvertently wiped his face, that, when he enter'd, he had the appearance of a chimney-sweeper (his own words). At his entrance he was surprised at the variety of noises he heard in the audience (for he knew not what he had done), that a little confounded him,

of the Revels, in Ireland, actor, an

he face are ivory-black and pomatum, which is, with some pains, clean'd wit

nt toward the formation of a fine actor; he possessed keen dramatic instinct, poetic sensibility, a beautiful voice, a handsome person, and, above all, a dogged ambition. In after years, when his health began to fail and the sweets of success had, perhaps, become a trifle cloying, the tr

to know whether he was acting for his own diversion or in the service and for the entertainment of the public? On another occasion, with a thin house and a cold audience, he was languidly going through one of his usually grandest impersonations, namely, Pyrrhus. At his very dullest scene he started into the utmost brilliancy and effectiveness. His eye had just previously detected in t

ing postulant, and brought him before the patrons of Lincoln's Inn Fields, the success of Booth seemed assured. The latter never forgot the generosity and kindly interest of his idol, and he spoke with all the sincerity of gratitude when he once said: "When I acted

ears, but not long enough to witness his triumphs in the "Distressed Mother" and the classic "Cato." As Chetwood well said, "Pyrrhus in the 'Distressed Mother' placed him in the seat of Tragedy, and Cato fixed him there."

nd Lord Bolingbroke had his hand in the theatrical pie. "To reward his merit," chronicles Chetwood, "he (Booth) was joined in the patent, tho' great interest was made against him by the other patentees, who, to prevent his soliciting his patrons at Court, then at Windsor, gave out

; the first set carrying him to Hounslow from London, ten miles; and the next set, ready waiting with another chariot to carry him to Windsor." Evident

f this young woman, but he gave her his protection after the death of the baronet's daughter, and continued to do so until the fragile creature ran off with a craven fellow named Minshull. This Mins

. Booth gained nothing; the lady won a prize of 5000 pounds, and kept it. His friends counselled him to claim half the sum, but he laughingly remarked that

he loved the great man tenderly, ministered to his wants with a wifely devotion which would hardly suit the "New Woman," and when he was wont to eat t

tempt and distress Powel had plung'd himself by the same vice, he was so struck with the terror of his example, that he fix'd a resolution (which fr

o stand continually in the glare of that fierce light which beats upon the stage, and never, perhaps, did she give the town more to talk about than by her celebrated rencontre with

iselle then thought them worth listening to; for, notwithstanding the fine things he said to her, she rather chose to give the Musick the preference of her attention. This indifference was so offensive to his high heart, that he began to change the Tender into the Terrible, and, in short, proceeded at last to treat he

dience, he, dispensing with the respect which some people think due to a polite assembly, began to interrupt her performance with such loud and various notes of mockery, as other young men of honour in the same place had sometimes made them

e words were soon brought by his spies, whom he had plac'd behind the scenes to observe how the action was taken there, came immediately from the pit in a heat, and demanded to know of the author of those words if he was the person that spoke them? to which he c

A: Secreta

ask'd for satisfaction was obliged afterwards to ask his life too; whether he mended it or not, I have not y

he turtle-dove appears to have been heard in the home of the happy couple. Yea, the husband waxed ecstatic after several

when first our s

rtues and the

ed our days, be

cord and her cla

n on without a ripple, save that of sickness. There was one direction, however, wherein Booth found variety and excitement, and that was in the wondrous diversity of parts which he assumed. In tragedy, his work took a wide range, going all the way from Laertes to Othello, while he sallied forth now and again into the field of comedy, and emerged therefrom with honour. He did not, to be sure, d

the versatility of

ts (among many not her

io and the Prince in

Worthy in the "Fair Qu

the "Conscious Lovers

g Lear, Hotspur, Wild

th, Banquo, Lennox, Hen

can match suc

of thwarting his associate. We remember how the commonplace Mills was pushed forward, with the idea of hiding the genius of Barton, and Cibber refers more than once to this short-sighted policy of Wilks. "And yet, again," he writes, "Booth himself, when he came to be a manager, would sometimes suffer his judgment to be blinded by his inclination to actors whom the town seem'd to have but an indifferent opinion of." And thereupon Colley

de a creditable Hamlet), the comedian looked with more regard upon his own peculiar vein of work, the impersonation of the graceful, the genteel, and the elegantly picturesque. In one way the latter proved more generous than his rival. "It might be imagin'd," runs on

s power to go on the stage, in good health, and went among the players for his amusement. His curiosity drew him to the playhouse on the nights when Wilks acted these characters, in which him

tage even though he had to hobble to his hackney-coach when the piece was ended, made his last exit in the autumn of 1732. Booth followed on the same long journey in the May of 1733, after an illness during whi

that all I am now possessed of does not amount to two-thirds of the fortune my wife brought me on the day of our marriage, together with the yearly additions and advantages since arising from her laborious employment on the stage during twelve years past, I thought myself bound by h

ter. Hence arose a peculiar grace which was visible to every spectator, tho' few were at the pains of examining into the cause of their pleasure. He could soften, or slide over, with a kind of elegant negligence, the improprieties in a part he acted; while, on the contrary,

on, the judicious Booth need not have lived in vain. His soul,