Nay, Christopher actually went so far that he once sought the services of an elephant to add to the strength of his company, thus anticipating the realism of our own time, when a few cows, a horse or two, a lot of chickens and some real straw will cover a multitude of sins in the construction of a play.[A] Yet, sad to relate, the elephant was never allowed to lend weight to the drama, as “from the jealousy which so formidable a rival had rais’d in his dancers, and by his bricklayer’s assuring him that if the walls were to be open’d wide enough for its entrance it might endanger the fall of the house [the old theatre in Dorset Garden, which Rich wished to use] he gave up his project, and with it so hopeful a prospect of making the receipts of the stage run higher than all the wit and force of the best writers had ever yet rais’d them to.”

[Footnote A:  Apropos to the appearance of elephants on the stage, a capital anecdote is told by Colman in his “Random Records.”  Johnstone, a machinist employed at Drury Lane during the latter portion of the eighteenth century, was celebrated for his superior taste and skill in the construction of flying chariots, triumphal cars, palanquins, banners, wooden children to be tossed over battlements, and straw heroes and heroines to be hurled down a precipice; he was further famous for wickerwork lions, pasteboard swans, and all sham birds and beasts appertaining to a theatrical menagerie.  He wished on a certain occasion to spy the nakedness of the enemy’s camp, and therefore contrived to insinuate himself, with a friend, into the two-shilling gallery, to witness the night rehearsal of a pantomime at Covent Garden Theatre.  Among the attractions of this Christmas foolery a real elephant was introduced, and in due time the unweildly brute came clumping down the stage, making a prodigious figure in a procession.  The friend who sat close to Johnstone jogged his elbow, whispering, “This is a bitter bad job for Drury.  Why, the elephant’s alive!—­he’ll carry all before him, and beat you hollow.  What d’ye think on’t, eh?” “Think on’t,” said Johnstone, in a tone of the utmost contempt, “I should be very sorry if I couldn’t make a much better elephant than that at any time!”]

Yet it was under the auspices of such a man that Oldfield made several of her most brilliant successes, not forgetting the memorable appearance as Lady Betty.  And all the while, no doubt, Mr. Rich was thinking how much more sensible an attraction would be an elephant or a tight-rope walker.  But Nance, who had now a firm friend in Cibber, went merrily on her way, creating new characters in comedy and astonishing even her most enthusiastic admirers by the imposing air she could frequently give to a tragic part.  In none of them, grave or gay, was she more charming than as Sylvia, the heroine of Farquhar’s “Recruiting Officer,” a play in which she graced man’s clothes.  Sylvia is a delightful creature who masquerades as a dashing youth, and thereby has the