We stand at the threshold of the twentieth century, boastfully proclaiming that we do everything better than ever could our ancestors, yet where are the new comedies that might hold a candle to the "Careless Husband," the "Inconstant," or the "School for Scandal ?" We may be presumptuous enough, nevertheless, to hold up that much-quoted candle, but the light from it will burn pale and dim when placed near the golden glow of the past.

Would that we could purify some of the old-time pieces and thus preserve them for future generations of theatre-goers.

Alas! that is impossible, for to cleanse them with a sort of moral soap and water would destroy nearly all their delightful glitter.
The lines of Lady Betty must have fairly sizzled with the fire of comedy as they fell from the pretty lips of Oldfield.

No wonder that Londoners thought the character bewitching; no wonder that Cibber wrote so enthusiastically of the actress in that wonderful Apology.
"Had her birth plac'd her in a higher rank of life," he notes, perhaps forgetting that her very descent entitled the poor sewing-girl to a position which poverty denied her, "she had certainly appear'd in reality what in this play she only excellently acted, an agreeably gay woman of quality a little too conscious of her natural attractions.

I have often seen her in private societies where women of the best rank might have borr'd some part of her behaviour without the least diminution of their sense or dignity.