Youth will not continue long.
Oh, be kind, my dear, be kind."




CHAPTER II

AN ENTRE-ACTE


While Anne Oldfield is resting from her first triumph and preparing
for another, let us glance for a moment at the theatrical conditions
which surround her. Curious, perplexing conditions they are, marking
as they do a transition between the brilliant but generally filthy
period of the Restoration--a period in which some of the worst and
some of the best of plays saw the light--and the time when the
punctilio and artificial decency of the age will cast over the stage
the cold light of formality and restraint. The nation is but slowly
recovering from the licentiousness which characterised the merry reign
of Charles II., that witty, sceptical sovereign, who never believed in
the honesty of man nor the virtue of frail woman. The playwrights are
recovering too, yet, if anything, more tardily than the people; for
when a nasty cynicism, like that pervading the old comedies, is once
boldly cultivated, many a long day must elapse ere it can be replaced
by a cleaner, healthier spirit.

Charles has surely had much to answer for at the bar of public opinion
(a bar for which he evidently felt a profound contempt), and the evil
influence which he and his Court exerted on the drama supplies one of