Into this merry throng came Anne Oldfield during that never-to-be-forgotten summer—­not, however, as an equal, but as an humble player of the troupe from Drury Lane.  They had moved down from London, these happy-go-lucky Bohemians, as they were wont to do each season, among them being the ubiquitous Cibber, the gentlemanly Wilks, and that very talented vagabond, George Powell.  Powell it was who liked his brandy not wisely but too well, and who made such passionate love on the stage that Sir John Vanbrugh used to wax nervous for the fate of the actresses.  One great artiste was missing, however.  Mrs. Verbruggen was ill in London, and that shining exponent of light comedy, who Cibber said was mistress of more variety of humour than he ever knew in any one actress, would never more tread those boards which were dearer to her than life.[A] Before she disappears for ever from these “Palmy Days” let us read a page or two about her from the graphic pictures in that famous “Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber":—­

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“As she was naturally a pleasant mimick, she had the skill to make that talent useful on the stage, a talent which may be surprising in a conversation, and yet be lost when brought to the theatre....  But where the elocution is round, distinct, voluble, and various, as Mrs. Montfort’s was, the mimick there is a great assistant to the actor.”

[Footnote A:  A brief memoir of Mrs. Verbruggen and her first husband, handsome Will Mountford, will be found in “Echoes of the Playhouse.”]

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Which reminds one that more than a baker’s dozen of modern comedians, so called, are nothing less than mimics.  However, this is digressing, and so we continue: 

“Nothing, tho’ ever so barren, if within the bounds of nature, could be flat in her hands.  She gave many heightening touches to characters but coldly written, and often made an author vain of his work that in itself had but little merit.  She was so fond of humour, in what low part soever to be found, that she would make no scruple of defacing her fair form to come heartily into it;[A] for when she was eminent in several desirable characters of wit and humour in higher life, she would be in as much fancy when descending into the antiquated Abigail of Fletcher (’Scornful Lady’) as when triumphing in all the airs and vain graces of a fine lady, a merit that few actresses care for.  In a play of D’Urfey’s, now forgotten, called the ‘Western Lass,’ which part she acted, she transformed her whole being, body, shape, voice, language, look, and features, into almost another animal, with a strong Devonshire dialect, a broad, laughing voice, a poking head, round shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the most bediz’ning, dowdy dress that ever cover’d the untrain’d limbs of a Joan Trot.  To have seen her here you would have thought it impossible the same creature could ever have been