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-rôle 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 rôle 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.