In such wise went her money; but whither has the blood of Oldfield gone? When Winnifred, the dairymaid, married into the family of the Bickerstaffes, she is said to have spoilt their blood, while she mended their constitutions. The great actress herself was at least an honest man's daughter, a man of fair descent. Her son, Colonel Churchill, once, unconsciously, saved Sir Robert Walpole from assassination, through the latter riding home, from the House, in the Colonel's chariot instead of alone in his own. Unstable Churchill married a natural daughter of Sir Robert, and _their_ daughter Mary married, in 1777, Charles Sloane, first Earl of Cadogan. The son of this Mary is the present Earl, the great grandson of charming Anne Oldfield. When Churchill and his wife were travelling in France, a Frenchman, knowing he was connected with poets or players, asked him if he was Churchill the famous poet. "I am not," said Mrs. Oldfield's son. "Ma foi!" rejoined the polite Frenchman, "so much the worse for you!" I have seen many epitaphs to her memory, but there is not one which is so complete and beautiful as the following, which tells the reader that she lies amid great poets, not less worthy of praise than they, whose works she has illustrated and ennobled. It records the apt universality of her talent, which made her seem not _made_, but born for whatever she undertook. In tragedy, the glory of her form, the dignity of her countenance, the majesty of her walk, touched the rudest spectator. In comedy, her power, her graceful hilarity, her singular felicity, were so irresistible, that the eyes never wearied of gazing at her, nor the hands of applauding her. "Hic juxta requiescit Tot inter poetarum laudata nomina, ANNA OLDFIELD. Nec ipsa minore laude digna, Quippe quæ eorum opera. In scenam quotidies prodivit, Illustravit semper et nobilitavit. Nunquam ingenium idem ad parties diversissimas Habilius fuit. Ita tamen ut ad singulas Non facta sed nata esse videretur, In tragoediis Formæ splendor, oris dignitas, incessus majestas, Tanta vocis suavitate temperabantur. Ut nemo esset tam agrestis, tam durus spectator, Quin in admirationem totus raperetur. In comoedia autem Tanta vis, tam venusta hilaritas, tam curiosa felicitas Ut neque sufficerent spectando oculi, Neque plaudendo manus." I have said that her last original part was Sophonisba. Among the last words she uttered in it, when mortal illness was upon her, were these:-- "And is the sacred moment then so near, The moment when yon sun, these heavens, this earth Shall sink at once, and straight another state, New scenes, new joys, new faculties, new wonders, Rise, on a sudden, round?" These words were first spoken by her, on the last day of February 1730. On the 23rd of the following October she died, in her forty-seventh year. A week later, Dr. Parker "buried her very willingly, and with much satisfaction!"