f
sickening incense, the literature of his age. As Macklin so well said
of him, Nature formed Cibber for a coxcomb, 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 noblemen, 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 assumed; 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 gutte