Farquhar sounded the praises of Anne Oldfield the future Sir John quickly repaired to the sign of the Mitre, with which, no doubt, he was already familiar, and met the young enchantress of that historic little room behind the bar.  The arrival of this second and more distinguished captain was evidently the signal for a family council.  We can see them all—­Nance, glowing with excitement, her Brahmin-like, aristocratic beauty heightened by a dash of natural colour, quite different from the rouge she might use later; Mrs. Voss, sleepy, comfortable, and well pleased; and Mrs. Oldfield, full of importance and maternal solicitude.  Vanbrugh, with his good-humoured smile and military bearing, talks in a fatherly way to the daughter, is deeply impressed with her many attractions, and is not sorry to learn that her ambition is all for comedy.  He promises to use his good offices with Mr. Rich to have her enrolled as a member of the Drury Lane company, keeps his word, too—­something for a gentleman to do in the year 1699—­and soon has the satisfaction of seeing his new protegee hobnobbing with Mrs. Verbruggen, Wilks, Cibber, and other players of the house, while drawing fifteen shillings a week for the privilege.

To hobnob, receive a few shillings, and do next to nothing on the stage does not seem a glorious beginning for our heroine, but think of the inestimable luxury of brushing up against Colley Cibber.  This remarkable man, who would be in turn actor, manager, playwright, and a pretty bad Poet Laureate before death would put an extinguisher on his prolific muses, had at first no exalted opinion of the newcomer’s powers.

“In the year 1699,” he writes in that immortal biography of his,[A] “Mrs. Oldfield was first taken into the house, where she remain’d about a twelvemonth, almost a mute and unheeded, ’till Sir John Vanbrugh, who first recommended her, gave her the part of Alinda in the ‘Pilgrim’ revis’d.  This gentle character happily became that want of confidence which is inseparable from young beginners, who, without it, seldom arrive to any excellence.  Notwithstanding, I own I was then so far deceiv’d in my opinion of her, that I thought she had little more in her person that appeared necessary to the forming a good actress; for she set out with so extraordinary a diffidence, that it kept her too despondingly down to a formal, plain, (not to say)flat manner of speaking.”

[Footnote A:  “An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber.”]

How strange it seems, as we peer back behind the scenes of history, to think of a theatrical debutante rejoicing in an extraordinary diffidence.  “Rather a cynical remark, isn’t it?” the reader may ask.  Well, perhaps it is, but these are piping times of advertising, when even genius has been known to employ a press agent.