"Their Majesties' Servants." Annals of the English Stage (Volume 2 of 3)

CHAPTER I.

MRS. OLDFIELD.

Artists who have been wont to look into the _Vicar of Wakefield_, _Gil Blas_, and last century comedies, for picturesque subjects, would find account in referring to the lives of our actresses. Here is not a bad picture of its class. The time is at the close of the seventeenth century; the scene is at the Mitre Tavern in St. James's Market, kept ...