Colley Cibber had then in his desk the unfinished manuscript of his "Careless Husband;" it had long lain there, through the author's hopelessness of ever finding an actress who would realise his idea of Lady Betty Modish. He had no longer any doubt. He at once finished the piece, brought it on the stage, and silent as to his own share in the triumph, attributed it all, or nearly all, to Mrs. Oldfield. "Not only to the uncommon excellence of her action; but even to her personal manner of conversing." I must repeat what Cibber tells us, that many of the sentiments were Mrs. Oldfield's, dressed up by him, "with a little more care than when they negligently fell from her lively humour." Respecting what Cibber adds, that "had her birth placed her in a higher rank of life, she had certainly appeared to be, in reality, what in the play she only excellently acted,--an agreeably gay woman of quality, a little too conscious of her natural attractions," I will remark that, as she really appeared to be so, her birth (she was a gentleman's daughter) could not prevent her from appearing so. And Cibber avows, what the testimony of Walpole confirms, that he had "often seen her in private societies, where women of the best rank might have borrowed some part of her behaviour without the least diminution of their sense of dignity." In 1702, the merit of Mrs. Oldfield was not recognised by Gildon, who, in his "Comparison between the two Stages," classes her among "the rubbish," of which the stage should be swept. Of Mrs. Verbruggen (Mountfort), he speaks as "a miracle." He could not see that Oldfield would be her successor, and would, in some parts, even excel her. By the year 1706, however, she had risen to be on an equality with such a brilliant favourite as Mrs. Bracegirdle, whom, in the opinion of many, her younger competitor surpassed. The salary of the latter then, and for some years later, was not, however, a large one, if measured by modern rule. Four pounds a week, with a benefit,--in all, little more than £250 a year, cannot be called excessive guerdon. Her own benefit was always profitable; but I am sorry to add, that this joyous-looking creature, apparently brimful of good nature, was very reluctant to play for the benefit of her colleagues. Subsequently, her revenue from the stage-salary and benefit averaged about £500 a year.