had profited by the instruction, he denounced them all as "children of the devil!" Louis XVIII., however, put an effectual check on the unseemly practice of treating as dead dogs the geniuses who had been idolised when living. When the priests of the Church of St. Roch closed its doors against the body of Rancourt, brought there for a prayer and a blessing, Paris rose against the insulters; and the King, moved by Christian charity, or dread of a Paris riot, sent his own chaplain to recite the prayer, give the benediction, and to show that an honest player was not a something less than a fellow-creature. After the lying in state of Mrs. Oldfield, there was a funeral of as much ceremony as has been observed at the obsequies of many a queen. Among the supporters of the pall were Lord Hervey, Lord Delawarr, and Bubb Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe. The first used to ride abroad with Mrs. Oldfield, as Mrs. Delaney has recorded. Lord Delawarr was a soldier who became a great "beau," and went a philandering. His wife and the Countess of Burlington headed the Faustina party at the opera against the faction which supported Cuzzoni. There were anthems, and prayers, and sermon; and Dr. Parker, who officiated, remarked, when all was over, to a few particular friends, and with some equivocation, as it seems to me, that he "buried her very willingly, and with much satisfaction." Her sons Maynwaring and Churchill were present, and the contemporary notices say that she had no other children. Her friends were apt to express a different opinion; and Mrs. Delaney, in one of the very first passages in her _Autobiography_ says:--"At six years old I was placed under the care of Mdlle. Puelle, a refugee of a very respectable character, and well qualified for her business. She undertook but twenty scholars at a time, among whom were Lady Catherine Knollys, daughter to the" (self-styled) "Earl of Banbury, and great aunt to the present Lord; Miss Halsey, daughter to a very considerable brewer, and afterwards married to Lord Temple, Earl of Cobham; Lady Jane Douglas, daughter of the Duke of Douglas, and Miss Dye Bertie, a daughter of Mrs. Oldfield the actress, who, after leaving school, was the _pink of fashion_ in the _beau monde_, and married a nobleman." Whom did this mysterious Diana marry?[2] This daughter is not mentioned in Mrs. Oldfield's will; but to the two sons Mrs. Oldfield bequeathed the bulk of a fortune which she had amassed more by her exertions than by the generosity of their respective fathers. She was liberal, too, in leaving memorials to numerous friends; less so in her bequests to old relations of her sempstress and coffee-house days. A very small annuity was Narcissa's parting gift to her mother, who long survived her.