In this episode the sunny spirit of Nance was brought prettily into
the foreground. "When Mrs. Oldfield was nominated as a joint sharer in
our new agreement to be made with Swiney [again is the quotation from
Cibber], Dogget, who had no objection to her merit, insisted that our
affairs could never be upon a secure foundation if there was more than
one sex admitted to the management of them." Beastly, unchivalrous,
narrow-minded Dogget. Were you alive to-day, how the New Woman would
champ with rage. "He therefore hop'd that if we offer'd Mrs. Oldfield
a _Carte Blanche_ instead of a share, she would not think herself
slighted." And Oldfield, with the affability which sat so well upon
her, did not think herself in the least slighted. She "receiv'd it
rather as a favour than a disobligation. Her demands therefore were
two hundred pounds a year certain, and a benefit clear of all charges,
which were readily sign'd to."

In the meantime Drury Lane is closed by order of the Lord
Chamberlain,[A] on the ground that in seeking to take from the actors
one-third of their benefit receipts the management have proceeded
illegally. Soon the new forces of Swiney take possession of the
Haymarket, and for a short time London has but one playhouse. Mayhap
Mr. Rich is chagrined, or perhaps he is not ill-pleased, and in any
case he extracts great comfort from a manifesto published in his
behalf by the treasurer of Drury Lane, sweet-named Zachary Baggs. In
this formidable document, which seeks to prove that the seceders are a
lot of ingrates, Oldfield is held up to the public as a sad example of
depravity. Her account with Master Rich is thus itemised:

£ s. d.
To Mrs. Oldfield, at 4 l. a week salary, which
for 14 weeks and one day; she leaving off acting