OCR Text |
Show I TODAY IN HISTORY WHAT HAPPENED OCTOBER 23. Pretty Nanca Oldflcld. Today is tho birthday of pretty Anne Oldllold, or "Nnncy" Oldflcld, as hc became known after she had tho whole of London at hqr feet an tho most beautiful, beau-tiful, most charming and most versatile actress who had graced tho ISngllsh stage. No actress since her time has boen more popular than was "Nancy." The court raved ovor her, the critics lauded her to the skies, tho" poctB wrote sonnets to her, and tho publlu thronged the theater nightly during the height of her success. , , , Even the sneering Pope, who loved to inako game of any public personage through hln pen. wrote, in hts unpublished unpub-lished "Sober Advlco from Horace : "Engaging Oldflcld! who with grace and Could Join the arta to ruin and to pleuac." Ample testimony is home of the beau-ly. beau-ly. vivacity and charm of Nancy Old-fleld. Old-fleld. As lo her art. r.ho la said to have had few equals as an exponent of both tragedy and comedy. Chetwood. not too Intelligibly rhapsodising, says: "She, was of a superior height, but with a lovely proportion: and the dignity of her aojil equal lo hor force nnd stature, made up of benevolent -charity, nffablo nnd good-natured to all that deserved It. Campbell Imagines her lo have been the moxt beautiful woman that ever trod tho British stago. , Clbbcr wroto more than one of nlB fnmous plays with a special view to her. The extent of her powers could only, he holds, ho gauged by the variety va-riety of characters she. played. Steele. In "the "Tatler" and tho "Spectator hars warm tribute, to her distinction and her power. Swift. In his "Journal lo Stella.'' mentions her opprobrioUsly as "(he drab that a-t: Cato's daughter. Nancy Oldflcld was much caressed by people, of fashion, and generally went to tho theater In a chair, attended by two footmen, and In a dresn she had worn at somo aristocratic dinner. Tho nclress was the granddaughter of a vintner, vint-ner, and daughter of a soldier in the guards, and war. born al Pall Mall on October 23, 1GS.1. As a young girl ho worked as a seiiniHtroap. but, sho spent all her npnro time reading plays- Far-quhar. Far-quhar. tlv drpmntlst. overheard her reciting re-citing pns.vagCH from ono of Beaumont and Flotcher'i; plays, and expressed a fn.vorable opinion of hor capacity. When nqt n dozen years old she was Introduced to the manager of tho Drury Lane theater, who offered her an en-gHgemont en-gHgemont at a weekly salary of IS shillings shil-lings lo play juvenile parts. The first character In which she appeared was In an original part In a prose, adaptation adapta-tion bv Vanbrugh. of the "Pilgrim." of Beaumont und Fletcher, produced In 1700 at Drury I-ano, Sho mado her Inst appearance on the stago as Lady Brute In tho "Provoked Wife," on April 2S. l'no. She died several months later. Afler lying In slate in the .Ternr.alcm church, her body wns burled beneath the monument of Congrevo In Westminster Westmin-ster Abbey, at the west end of tho nave According to the testimony of her rnald. Margaret Sa.unders. she was Interred "in a very fine Brusols laco head, a Holland Hol-land shift and double ruffles of the. same laco. a pair of new kind gloves and her body wrapped in a winding sheet." , This elicited from Pope the well known lines: "Odious! in woolen! 'twould a nalni provoke, pro-voke, Were the Inst words that poor Narclssa spoke; No. let a charming chintz and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbB and shade my lifo-lcsa' lifo-lcsa' face: One, would not, sure, be frightful when onc'a dead. f And Betty give this cheek a little red. I A fon of airs. Oldfleld married Lady I Mary Wnlpole. nnd the actress wns thus l connected, through marriage, with somo of the principal families in England, Including In-cluding that of tho duko of Wellington. Today Is the birthday of Thomas Plnckncv. tho American statesman and diplomatist (17.'01: Marshal Andouchc Junot. the French commander (1771): Francis. Lord .leffery. tho ISngllsh statesman states-man aud critic (177:0; John It. Bartlott. Ihe. American author (1805); .lames W. Denver, the Colorado pioneer and statesman. states-man. nftu- whom Denver was named (1S17); John R. Thompson, the poet and jnurnallst (1S23); Adlal E. Stevenson, vice president undor Cleveland (1S35); and Francis Hopkinson Smith, the1 engineer, engi-neer, artist, author und lecturer (ISitS). |