£ s. d. To Mrs. Oldfield, at 4 l. a week salary, which for 14 weeks and one day; she leaving off acting presently after her benefit (viz.) on the 17th of March last, 1708, though the benefit was intended for her whole nine months acting, and she refused to assist others in their benefits; her salary for these 14 weeks and one day came to, and she was paid 56 13 4 In January she required, and was paid ten guineas, to wear on the stage in some plays, during the whole season, a mantua petticoat that was given her for the stage and though she left off three months before she should, yet she hath not returned any part of the ten guineas 10 15 0 And she had for wearing in some plays a suit of boys cloaths on the stage; paid 2 10 9 By a benefit play; paid 62 7 8 [Footnote A: June 1709.] But what cares laughing Nance for Master Baggs' spiteful paragraph about the mantua petticoat. Mantua petticoat, forsooth! she has more artistic things to think about than that, and so pray do not plague her, gentle reader, with so commonplace an incident. Let her act on serenely until that glorious night in April 1713, when, back at Drury Lane, under the triumvirate of Cibber, Wilks and Dogget, she helps to make sedate Addison's equally sedate "Cato" a triumphant success. CHAPTER V A DEAD HERO "The soul, secur'd in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years; But thou shall flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the war of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds." So doth noble Cato philosophise when, in Addison's stately tragedy, he gazes on his sword and plans to admit the Grim Visitor whom the most of us wish to keep without our threshold until the last fatal moment. How those lines used to thrill the classic hearts of our ancestors; how Barton Booth, who "shook the stage, and made the people stare," could put into this mild plea for suicide a fervour that caused Drury Lane to ring with applause. What mattered it if the actor, as Pope related, wore a long wig and flowered gown? Cato was none the less himself for that, nor did Booth's elegance of delivery seem unwelcome because his clothes pictured the dandified spirit of the eighteenth century. "Cato!" The play is forgotten now, but there was magic in its name in the palmy days of its author, gentle, kindly Joseph Addison. So potent was that magic, such vivid impression did the fate of the grand old Roman make on more than one mind, when thus retold in lofty verse, that the tragedy was cited as a justification of self-destruction. "What Cato did, and Addison approved Cannot be wrong."