To
assist in this lachrymose operation, the girls on the stage are supplied
with clean white aprons--time out mind a charity-girl's
pocket-handkerchief. In the next scene we are introduced to Mr. and Mrs.
Brownrigg's domestic arrangements, and are made acquainted with their
private characters--a fine stroke of policy on the part of the author; for
one naturally pities a poor girl who can sing so nicely, and can get the
corners of so many white aprons wetted on leaving her last place, when one
sees into whose hands she is going to fall. The fact is, the whole family
are people of taste--peculiar, to be sure, and not refined. Mrs. B. has a
taste for starving apprentices--her son, Mr. Jolin B., for seducing
them--and Mr. B. longs only for a quiet life, a pot of porter, and a pipe.
Into the bosom of this amiable family Mary Clifford enters; and we tremble
for her virtue and her meals! not, alas, in vain, for Mr. John is not slow
in commencing his gallantries, which are exceedingly offensive to Mary,
seeing that she has already formed a liaison with a school-fellow, one
William Clipson, who happily resides at the very next door with a baker.
During the struggles that ensue she calls upon her "heart's master," the
journeyman baker. But there is another and more terrible invocation. In
classic plays they invoke "the gods"--in Catholic I ones, "the saints"--the
stage Arab appeals to "Allah"--the light comedian swears "by the lord
Harry"--but _Mary Clifford_ adds a new and impressive invocative to the
list.
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