Wou'd I were free from this Restraint, Or else had Power to win her! Wou'd she cou'd make of me a Saint, Or I of her a Sinner! And D'Urfey, in his 'Don Quixote,' sings of her:-- Since that our Fate intends Our Amity shall be no dearer, Still let us kiss and be Friends, And sigh we can never come nearer. She was wonderfully charitable, and would go daily about the slums of Clare Market relieving the necessitous; and woe be to anyone who should have dared to molest her--his fate would have been speedy. She retired from the stage in 1707, but did not die till 1748. Her personal description is: 'She was of a lovely Height, with dark-brown Hair and Eye brows, black sparkling Eyes, and a fresh blushy Complexion; and, whenever she exerted herself, had an involuntary Flushing in her Breast, Neck and Face, having continually a chearful Aspect, and a fine Set of even White Teeth; never making an _Exit_, but that she left the Audience in an Imitation of her pleasant Countenance. Genteel Comedy was her chief Essay, and that too when in Men's Cloaths, in which she far surmounted all the Actresses of that Age' (Aston). Her great rival was Mrs. Anne Oldfield, who was born in Pall Mall in 1683. Her father was in the Horse Guards, and on his death left his wife and daughter in very straitened circumstances. Tradition says that she was living with her aunt, who kept the Mitre Tavern in St. James's Market, when Sir John Vanbrugh heard her read some plays: certain it is, he introduced her to Rich in 1699, when she played Candiope, in 'Secret Love, or The Maiden Queen.'[464] Mrs. Oldfield was far from being as immaculate in character as her rival. Her last performance was on April 28, 1730; she died October 23, 1730, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Allusion has been made to her mode of burial at the commencement of this book (p. 38). [Footnote 464: By Dryden.] Steele[465] gives her portrait thus: 'FLAVIA is ever well dressed, and always the genteelest woman you meet; but the make of her mind very much contributes to the ornament of her body. She has the greatest simplicity of manners of any of her sex. This makes everything look native about her, and her clothes are so exactly fitted, that they appear, as it were, part of her person,' etc. [Footnote 465: _Tatler_, 212.] _Ramble._ There's Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Verbruggen---- _Critick._ The last is a miracle, but the others mere rubbish, that ought to be swept off the stage with the filth and dust.