* * * * *

In the original text, Cibber, in pursuance of that old-fashioned method of capitalising every third or fourth word without any particular rhyme or reason, has spelled occasion with a big O. Well he might, for it was, perhaps, the most important occasion in all the eventful life of Oldfield.  She would win many a more popular triumph in days to come, but what were all of them compared to the honour of having compelled the writer to admit that he had blundered.

“Though this part of Leonora in itself was of so little value, that when she got more into esteem it was one of the several she gave away to inferior actresses; yet it was the first (as I have observed) that corrected my judgment of her, and confirmed me in a strong belief that she could not fail in very little time of being what she was afterwards allow’d to be, the foremost ornament of our Theatre.”

It takes but slight exercise of fancy to see inside the stuffy little theatre of Bath, on that memorable summer afternoon, when “Sir Courtly Nice"[A] is produced, with Cibber in the foppish title-role and the fair unknown as Leonora, “Belguard’s sister, in love with Farewell.”  Her fat, peaceful, and phlegmatic Majesty, Anne Stuart, is in the royal box, perhaps (although she is far from being a playgoer), and with her retinue may be seen her dearest of friends, Sarah Churchill, now Duchess of Marlborough, and the most brilliant political Amazon of her time.  How appropriate, by-the-way, that they should be together at the comedy.  The whole intimacy of the two, gentle Sovereign and fiery subject, is nothing more or less than a curious play, wherein Anne takes the role of Queen (unwillingly enough, poor thing, for she was born to be bourgeoise) and the Duchess assumes the leading part.  Unfortunate “Mrs. Morley"![B] You have a weary time of it, trying to act up to royalty when you would be so much happier as a middle-class housewife, and, perhaps, you have never been more bored than you are to-day in viewing “Sir Courtly Nice.”  Nor can the performance be as delightful as it might otherwise prove to her of Marlborough; ’tis but a few months since her son, the Marquis of Blandford, had ended in small-pox a career which promised to carry on the greatness of his house.

[Footnote A:  “Sir Courtly Nice; or, It Cannot be,” was from the pen of John Crown.  In dedicating it to the Duke of Ormond, as can be seen in the original publication of the piece ("London, Printed by H.H.  Jun. for R. Bently, in Russell street, Covent Garden, and Jos.  Hindmarsh, at the Golden-Ball over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, MDCLXXXV").  The author says:  “This comedy was Written by the Sacred Command of our late Most Excellent King, of ever blessed and beloved Memory (Charles II.).  I had the great good fortune to please Him often at his Court in my Masque, on the Stage in Tragedies and Comedies, and so to advance myself in His good opinion; an Honour may render a wiser Man than I vain; for I believe he had more equals in extent of Dominion than of Understanding.  The greatest pleasure he had from the Stage was in Comedy, and he often Commanded me to Write it, and lately gave me a Spanish Play called ‘No’ Puedeser Or, It Cannot Be’ out of which I took part o’ the Name and design o’ this.”]