year 1699--and soon has the satisfaction of seeing his new protégée hobnobbing with Mrs. Verbruggen, Wilks, Cibber, and other players of the house, while drawing fifteen shillings a week for the privilege. To hobnob, receive a few shillings, and do next to nothing on the stage does not seem a glorious beginning for our heroine, but think of the inestimable luxury of brushing up against Colley Cibber. This remarkable man, who would be in turn actor, manager, playwright, and a pretty bad Poet Laureate before death would put an extinguisher on his prolific muses, had at first no exalted opinion of the newcomer's powers. "In the year 1699," he writes in that immortal biography of his,[A] "Mrs. Oldfield was first taken into the house, where she remain'd about a twelvemonth, almost a mute and unheeded, 'till Sir John Vanbrugh, who first recommended her, gave her the part of Alinda in the 'Pilgrim' revis'd. This gentle character happily became that want of confidence which is inseparable from young beginners, who, without it, seldom arrive to any excellence. Notwithstanding, I own I was then so far deceiv'd in my opinion of her, that I thought she had little more in her person that appeared necessary to the forming a good actress; for she set out with so extraordinary a diffidence, that it kept her too despondingly down to a formal, plain, (not to say)flat manner of speaking." [Footnote A: "An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber."] How strange it seems, as we peer back behind the scenes of history, to think of a theatrical _débutante_ rejoicing in an extraordinary diffidence. "Rather a cynical remark, isn't it?" the reader may ask. Well, perhaps it is, but these are piping times of advertising, when even genius has been known to employ a press agent. Nance Oldfield may have been almost mute for a twelvemonth, yet more than a few feminine novices, Anno Domino 1898, would never be content to remain silent; not only must they make a noise behind the footlights, but they feel it incumbent to be heard in the newspapers as well. Any dramatic editor could tell a weary tale of the importunities of a progressive young lady who wants to enlighten an aching public at least six times a week as to the number of her dresses, the colour of her hair, and the attention of her admirers. There is a blessed consolation in all this: the female with the trousseau, the champagned locks and the notoriety lasts no longer than the butterfly, and her place is soon taken by the girl who never bothers about the paragraphs, because she is sure to get them.