But what care we for the prologue when the first scene
is on and Violante and Leonora are confessing their
respective love affairs, as women always do—on
the stage. Leonora has a dragon of a brother who
would compel her to marry that pink of empty propriety,
Sir Courtly, but she rebels against the admirer selected
for her, as all well-bred young women should in plays,
and sets her heart upon another. In consequence
there is trouble of the dear old romantic kind.
“I never stir out, but as they say the Devil
does, with chains and torments,” Leonora tells
Violante. “She that is my Hell at home is
so abroad.”
“Vio. A New Woman?
“Leo. No, an old Woman, or rather
an old Devil; nay, worse than an old Devil, an old
Maid.
“Vio. Oh, there’s no Fiend so Envious.
“Leo. Right; she will no more let
young People sin, than the Devil will let ’em
be sav’d, out of envy to their happiness.
“Vio. Who is she?
“Leo. One of my own blood, an Aunt.
“Vio. I know her. She of thy blood?
She has not a drop of it these twenty years; the Devil
of envy sucked it all out, and let verjuice in the
roome.”
These lines are decidedly unfeminine and coarse, as
viewed from a nineteenth century standard, and there
is nothing in them to recommend the two girls to the
particular favour of the audience. Yet, in the
case of Leonora, they are given with such rare spirit,
and the speaker, with her almost sensuous charm and
the melody of that marvellous voice, is so fascinating,
that the house is suddenly caught in some entrancing
spell. Oldfield has burst upon it in all the sudden
glory of a newly unfolded flower, and murmurs of admiration
and surprise are heard on every side. More than
this, Queen Anne, whose thoughts may have been far
away with the dead Duke of Gloucester, betrays a sudden
interest in the performance, and thus sets the fashion
for all those around her, excepting his most sleepy
Royal Highness, the Prince of Denmark. He dozes
on; twenty angels from heaven would not disturb him.
As the play proceeds, the curiosity centres around
the new Leonora, so that even the scene where Sir
Courtly is found making the most elaborate of toilets,
with the assistance of a bevy of vocalists, does not
exert the attraction to be found in the presence of
Oldfield. The episode is all very funny, of course,
and there is an appreciative titter when the fop defines
the characteristics of a gentleman:
“Complaisance, fine hands, a mouth well furnished—
“Servant. With fine language?
“Sir courtly. Fine teeth, you
sot; fine language belongs to pedants and poor fellows
that live by their wits. Men of quality are above
wit. ’Tis true, for our diversion, sometimes
we write, but we ne’er regard wit. I write,
but I never write any wit.
“Servant. How then, sir?
