"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 recover'd to what was as easy to her, the gay, the lively, and the desirable. Nor was her humour limited to her sex; for, while her shape permitted, she was a more adroit pretty fellow than is usually seen upon the stage. Her easy air, action, mien, and gesture quite chang'd, from the quoif to the cock'd hat and cavalier in fashion. People were so fond of seeing her a man, that when the part of Bays in the 'Rehearsal' had for some time lain dormant, she was desired to take it up, which I have seen her act with all the true coxcombly spirit and humour that the sufficiency of the character required." [Footnote A: Davies, in his "Life of Garrick," says of Peg Woffington that "in Mrs. Day, in the 'Committee,' she made no scruple to disguise her beautiful countenance by drawing on it the lines of deformity and the wrinkles of old age, and to put on the tawdry habilaments and vulgar manners of an old hypocritical city vixen."] Let us cry peace to her manes and then wander back to Mistress Oldfield, whom we have a very ungallant way of leaving from time to time. Well, Verbruggen having been taken out of the dramatic lists "most of her parts," as Colley chronicles, "were, of course, to be disposed of, yet so earnest was the female scramble for them, that only one of them fell to the share of Mrs. Oldfield, that of Leonora in 'Sir Courtly Nice'; a character of good plain sense, but not over elegantly written."