THE DRAMA.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
OR, THE COURT OF QUEEN ANNE.
Perhaps it was the fashion at the court of Queen Anne, for young gentlemen who had attained the age of sixteen to marry and be given in marriage. At all events, some conjecture of the sort is necessary to make the plot of the piece we are noticing somewhat probable—that being the precise circumstance upon which it hinges. The Count St. Louis, a youthful attaché of the French embassy, becomes attached, by a marriage contract, to Lady Bell, a maid of honour to Queen Anne. The husband at sixteen, of a wife quite nineteen, would, according to the natural course of things, be very considerably hen-pecked; and St. Louis, foreseeing this, determines to begin. Well, he insists upon having “article five” of the marriage contract cancelled; for, by this stipulation, he is to be separated from his wife, on the evening of the ceremony (which fast approaches), for five years. He storms, swears, and is laughed at; somebody sends him a wedding present of sugar-plums—everybody calls him a boy, and makes merry at his expense—the wife treats him with contempt, and plays the scornful. The hobble-de-hoy husband, fired with indignation, determines to prove himself a man.
At the court of Queen Anne this seems to have been an easy matter. St. Louis writes love-letters to several maids of honour and to a citizen’s wife, finishing the first act by invading the private apartments of the maiden ladies belonging to the court of the chaste Queen Anne.
The second act discovers him confined to his apartments by order of the Queen, having amused himself, while the intrigues begun by the love-letters are hatching, by running into debt, and being surrounded by duns. The intrigues are not long in coming to a head, for two ladies visit him separately in secret, and allow themselves to be hid in those never-failing adjuncts to a piece of dramatic intrigue—a couple of closets, which are used exactly in the same manner in “Foreign Affairs,” as in all the farces within the memory of man—ex. gr.:—The hero is alone; one lady enters cautiously. A tender interchange of sentiment ensues—a noise is heard, and the lady screams. “Ah! that closet!” Into which exit lady. Then enter lady No. 2. A second interchange of tender things—another noise behind. “No escape?” “None! and yet, happy thought, that closet.” Exit lady No. 2, into closet No. 2.
This is exactly as it happens in “Foreign Affairs.” The second noise is made by the husband of one of the concealed ladies, and the lover of the other. Here, out of the old “closet” materials, the dramatist has worked up one of the best situations—to use an actor’s word—we ever remember to have witnessed. It cannot be described; but it is really worth all the money to go and see it. Let our readers do so. The “Affairs” end by the boy fighting a couple of duels with the injured men; and thus, crowning the proof of his manhood, gets his wife to tolerate—to love him.
The piece was, as it deserved to be, highly successful; it was admirably acted by Mr. Webster as one of the injured lovers—Mr. Strickland and Mrs. Stirling, as a vulgar citizen and citizeness—by Miss P. Horton as Lady Bell—and even by a Mr. Clarke, who played a very small part—that of a barber—with great skill. Lastly, Madlle. Celeste, as the hero, acquitted herself to admiration. We suppose the farce is called “Foreign Affairs” out of compliment to this lady, who is the only “Foreign Affair” we could discover in the whole piece, if we except that it is translated from the French, which is, strictly, an affair of the author’s.
MARY CLIFFORD.
If, dear readers, you have a taste for refined morality and delicate sentiment, for chaste acting and spirited dialogue, for scenery painted on the spot, but like nothing in nature except canvas and colour—go to the Victoria and see “Mary Clifford.” It may, perhaps, startle you to learn that the incidents are faithfully copied from the “Newgate Calendar,” and that the subject is Mother Brownrigg of apprentice-killing notoriety; but be not alarmed, there is nothing horrible or revolting in the drama—it is merely laughable.
“Mary Clifford, or the foundling apprentice girl,” is very appropriately introduced to the auditor, first outside the gates of that “noble charity-school,” taking leave of some of her accidental companions. Here sympathy is first awakened. Mary is just going out to “place,” and instead of saying “good bye,” which we have been led to believe is the usual form of farewell amongst charity-girls, she sings a song with such heart-rending expression, that everybody cries except the musicians and the audience. 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. When young Brownrigg attempts to kiss, or his mother to flog her, she casts her eyes upward, kneels, and placing her hands together in an attitude of prayer, solemnly calls upon—“the governors of the Foundling Hospital!!” Nothing can exceed the terrific effect this seems to produce upon her persecutors! They release her instantly—they slink back abashed and trembling—they hide their diminished heads, and leave their victim a clear stage for a soliloquy or a song.
We really must stop here, to point out to dramatic authors the importance of this novel form of conjuration. When the history of Fauntleroy comes to be dramatised, the lover will, of course, be a banker’s clerk: in the depths of distress and despair into which he will have to be plunged, a prayer-like appeal to “the Governor and Company of the Bank of England,” will, most assuredly, draw tears from the most insensible audience. The old exclamations of “Gracious powers!”—“Great heavens!”—“By heaven, I swear!” &c. &c., may now be abandoned; and, after “Mary Clifford,” Bob Acres’ tasteful system of swearing may not only be safely introduced into the tragic drama, but considerably augmented.
But to return. Dreading lest Miss Mary should really “go and tell” the illustrious governors, she is kept a close prisoner, and finishes the first act by a conspiracy with a fellow-apprentice, and an attempt to escape.
Mr. Brownrigg, we are informed, carried on business at No. 12, Fetter-lane, in the oil, paint, pickles, vinegar, plumbing, glazing, and pepper-line; and, in the next act, a correct view is exhibited of the exterior of his shop, painted, we are told, from the most indisputable authorities of the time. Here, in Fetter, lane, the romance of the tale begins:—A lady enters, who, being of a communicative disposition, begins, unasked, unquestioned, to tell the audience a story—how that she married in early life—that her husband was pressed to sea a day or two after the wedding—that she in due time became a mother, and (affectionate creature!) left the dear little pledge at the door of the Foundling Hospital. That was sixteen years ago. Since then fortune has smiled, and she wants her baby back again; but on going to the hospital, says, that they informed her that her daughter has been just “put apprentice” in the very house before which she tells the story—part of it as great a fib as ever was told; for children once inside the walls of that “noble charity,” never know who left them there; and any attempt to find each other out, by parent or child, is punished with the instant withdrawal of the omnipotent protection of the awful “governors.” This lady, who bears all the romance of the piece upon her own shoulders, expects to meet her long-lost husband at the Ship, in Wapping, and instead of seeking her daughter, repairs thither, having done all the author required, by emptying her budget of fibs.
The next scene is harrowing in the extreme. The bills describe it as Mrs. Brownrigg’s “wash-house, kitchen, and skylight”—the sky-light forming a most impressive object. Poor Mary Clifford is chained to the floor, her face begrimed, her dress in rags, and herself exceedingly hungry. Here the heroine describes the weakness of her body with energy and stentorian eloquence, but is interrupted by Mr. Clipson, whose face appears framed and glazed in the broken sky-light. A pathetic dialogue ensues, and the lover swears he will rescue his mistress, or “perish in the attempt,” “calling upon Mr. Owen, the parish overseer,” to make known her sufferings. The Ship, in Wapping, is next shown; and Toby Bensling, alias Richard Clifford, enters to inform his hearers that he is the missing father of the injured foundling, and has that moment stepped ashore, after a short voyage, lasting sixteen years! He is on his way to the “Admiralty,” to receive some pay—the more particularly, we imagine, as they always pay sailors at Somerset House—and then to look after his wife. But she saves him the trouble by entering with Mr. William Clipson. The usual “Whom do I see?”—“Can it be?”—“After so long an absence!” &c. &c., having been duly uttered and begged to, they all go to see after Mary, find her in a cupboard in Mrs. B.’s back-parlour, and—the act-drop falls.
We must confess we approach a description of the third act with diffidence. Such intense pathos, we feel, demands words of more sombre sound—ink of a darker hue, than we can command. The third scene is, in particular, too extravagantly touching for ordinary nerves to witness. Mary Clifford is in bed—French bedstead (especially selected, perhaps, because such things were not thought of in the days of Mother Brownrigg) stands exactly in the middle of the stage—a chest of drawers is placed behind, and a table on each side, to balance the picture. The lover leans over the head, the mother sits at the foot, the father stands at the side: Mary Clifford is insane, with lucid intervals, and is, moreover, dying. The consequence is, she has all the talk to herself, which consists of a discourse concerning the great “governors,” her cruel mistress, and her naughty young master, interlarded with insane ejaculations, always considered stage property, such as, “Ah, she comes!” “Nay, strike me not—I am guiltless!” Again, “Villain! what do you take me for?—unhand me!” and all that. Then the dying part comes, and she sees an angel in the flies, and informs it that she is coming soon (here it is usual for a lady to be removed from the gallery in strong hysterics), and keeps her word by letting her arm fall upon the bed-clothes and shutting her eyes, whereupon somebody says that she is dead, and the prompter whistles for the scene to be changed.
In the last scene, criminal justice takes its course. Mrs. Brownrigg, having been sentenced to the gallows, is seen in the condemned cell; her son by her side, and the fatal cart in the back-ground. Having been brought up genteelly, she declines the mode of conveyance provided for her journey to Tyburn with the utmost volubility. Being about to be hanged merely does not seem to affect her so poignantly as the disgraceful “drag” she is doomed to take her last journey in. She swoons at the idea; and the curtain falls to end her wicked career, and the sufferings of an innocent audience.