[Footnote A:  The rivalry between Rogers and Oldfield once reached such a pass that Wilks sought to end it, and stop the complaints of the former’s admirers, by a severe expedient.  “Mr. Wilks,” says Victor, “soon reduced this clamor to demonstration, by an experiment of Mrs. Oldfield and Mrs. Rogers playing the same part, that of Lady Lurewell in the ‘Trip to the Jubilee;’ but though obstinacy seldom meets conviction, yet from this equitable trial the tumults in the house were soon quelled (by public authority) greatly to the honour of Mr. Wilks.  I am, from my own knowledge thoroughly convinced that Mr. Wilks had no other regard for Mrs. Oldfield but what arose from the excellency of her performances.  Mrs. Roger’s conduct might be censured by some for the earnestness of her passion towards Mr. Wilks, but in the polite world the fair sex has always been privileged from scandal.”]

So when Nance was cast for the distraught Andromache there was trouble.  Rogers demanded the part, and on being refused set about to make things as unpleasant as possible for her detested rival.  Friends of the disappointed actress packed Drury Lane when the “Distressed Mother” was performed, and the appearance of Oldfield was made the signal for a riot.  Royal messengers and guards were sent to put an end to the disorder, but the play had to be stopped for that night.

Colley, who had ever an eye to the pounds, shillings and pence, was disgusted at what he chose to call an exhibition of low malevolence.  “We have been forced,” he says, “to dismiss an audience of a hundred and fifty pounds, from a disturbance spirited up by obscure people, who never gave any better reason for it, than that it was their fancy to support the idle complaint of one rival actress against another, in their several pretentious to the chief part in a new tragedy.  But as this tumult seem’d only to be the Wantonness of English Liberty, I shall not presume to lay any further censure upon it.”

Finally the combined charms of Oldfield and the “Distressed Mother” triumphed, and young beaux who had helped to swell the riot were glad to come back meekly to Drury Lane and extol the attractions of Andromache.  In the play itself Nance must have been all that the troublous part suggested, but it was when she tripped on gaily and gave the humorous epilogue that the house found her most delightful.  She, who could reign so imperially in tragedy, had glided back to her better-loved kingdom of comedy, and what cared her captivated hearers if this self-same epilogue made an inharmonious ending to a serious play.  It was quite enough that Andromache, with all her sufferings dispelled, should say melodiously: 

  “I hope you’ll own, that with becoming art,
  I’ve play’d my game, and topp’d the widow’s part. 
  My spouse, poor man, could not live out the play,
  But dy’d commodiously on wedding-day,[A]
  While I his relict, made at one bold fling,
  Myself a princess, and young Sty a King. 
  You, ladies, who protract a lover’s pain,
  And hear your servants sigh whole years in vain;
  Which of you all would not on marriage venture,
  Might she so soon upon her jointure enter?”