may look for the most unrelenting opposition from two or three stalwart critics, or, rather, literary vassals. Fortunately, however, the despicable partisanship of these people is now too well known to be hurtful. Whether they chronicle their injustice in bold falsehood, or with an affectation of candour, examine a drama to find in it nothing but what is contemptible, the disinterested motive is equally manifest. However, the abuse of these folks, like certain poisons long exposed to light, does not destroy—it only nauseates."
The cast of The White Milliner was remarkably strong. It contained, in addition to Madame Vestris, who played the heroine, Albina, Charles Mathews, James Vining, Robert Keeley, and William Farren. The opening scene is the "Exterior of England's Burse." The last scene of the first act is laid in the interior of the New Exchange. A crowd of milliners, with Doddles, the Beadle of the Burse, in the centre, fill the stage:
"Doddles. Silence! Silence!
Betty. Hear the Beadle!
1st Milliner. Attention for Doddles!
2nd Milliner. Does it concern us all?
Doddles. All: maids, wives, widows, and young women. Silence!
Betty. Now, then; we're still as mice.
Doddles. Yes—when the cat's dead. Silence! and no winking.
Betty. La! Make haste.
Doddles. Manners, Betty Furbelow, manners! When I was in the army——
Betty. We've heard all about that.
Doddles. Before sleeping in wet blankets, I gloriously lost my voice in the defence of my country——
Betty. I'm sure your country ought to be much obliged to you. But the rules! the rules!
Milliners. The rules!
Doddles. Silence! Attention! Rear rank, take close order. Stand off! Baggages, do you call smothering a man taking close order? Hear the rules!
Milliners. Silence! the rules!
Doddles. 'Rules for the better regulation of England's Burse. Whereas'——
Betty. Oh, skip that!
Doddles. Skip it!
Betty. Yes. I hate everything with a whereas. Come to the rules.
Doddles. Well, the 'whereas' is long, and—the fortune of war—I've lost my voice. But it means that these new rules are not only for the morals of the Burse, but, above all, for the better transaction of business.
Betty. Now for it! Attention, ladies, this is business.
Doddles (reads). 'Rule the first. Any milliner who shall deal in smuggled goods shall forfeit her stall for ever.'
Milliners. Shame! Shame!
Betty. Are the articles specified? No! Ladies, here's oppression of the fair sex: for mayn't the most innocent of us smuggle a little, and never know it? And then to forfeit, and for ever!
Doddles. Not only eternally, but for ever. 'Rule second. No milliner shall talk'——
Milliners. Ha! ha! ha!
Doddles. 'Or laugh'——
Milliners. Ha! ha! ha!
Doddles. 'Talk or laugh, under pain of—of'——
Betty. Opening her mouth.
Doddles. Silence! Talk or laugh, under—under—my breath!—'under'—somebody read it—somebody—(Albina comes down the Burse.)
Betty. Here comes our white friend, she'll read it. Here—(giving Albina paper)—read—read: they're new rules made to keep us in order. To put down smuggling and—ha! ha!—talking and laughing, and—ha! ha!—for all I know, all our other little privileges. Read, for Doddles, having lost his voice, they made him beadle. Here: read rule third, for the second's nonsense.
Albina (reads). 'Rule third. No milliner shall be allowed to whisper to her customers, or titter, or blush.'
Betty. That's a hit at you, Sally Sly.
1st Milliner. What do you mean, ma'am? I whisper—I titter—I blush! I scorn you, ma'am!
Doddles. Silence!
Albina (reads). 'And whereas, divers sober people, purchasers of gloves, have complained of certain pinching of the fingers by certain persons, it is ordered that such unseemly practice be discontinued.'
Betty. And very proper too. I don't sell gloves.
Albina. 'Rule fourth. All strong waters, or other intoxicating cordials'——
Betty. Attention, ladies! This may be important.
Albina. 'Are rigorously prohibited.'
Betty. You see, Miss Bitters, I warned you what 'twould come to.
2nd Milliner. I! I! I defy you, ma'am! What do you mean?
Betty. My meaning's plain, ma'am: that everybody's to suffer for one person, ma'am.
2nd Milliner. Do you insinuate? Mr Doddles, does she dare——
Betty. I insinuate nothing; but this I will say: bottles are not so dear that people should use tea-cups.
Doddles. Silence! A very proper rule: not that I see any harm in folks having comforts, but then they ought to be corked. Silence!
Albina. Rule fifth. 'Henceforth no milliner shall presume to—to—to'——
Doddles (reads). 'Wear a mask.'
2nd Milliner. A very excellent and moral regulation Now we shall see who's who.
1st Milliner. If some people never wore anything else, their faces wouldn't be the losers.
Betty. A mask, ma'am, may be good at a pinch—at a pinch, ma'am; but as I've said, ma'am, I don't sell gloves, ma'am.
1st Milliner. Why, you scandalising, wicked——
Doddles. Silence! Silence!
3rd Milliner. Company! Company! To your stalls, ladies. (All the Milliners station themselves at their stalls. Albina retires among them.)
Visitors come down the Burse from c. Enter Lord and Lady Ortolan, she masked.
Lord O. My dear Lady Ortolan, you know I have the worst taste. I am a very Vandal—a Hottentot. I know no more about gowns and petticoats than an ancient Briton.
Lady O. Oh, my lord, I will not have you libel your capacity; for, certainly, no one has studied the subject with greater perseverance. I must have your judgment on a satin.
Lord O. (aside). She has dragged me here. I had as lieve made a journey on a hurdle. One comfort is, I don't see my enigma in white.
Lady O. (aside). She is not here: yet I'll not stir till I confront them.
Doddles (bringing down Albina). Here 'tis; rule fifth: no masks. So you must conform: therefore, uncover your face and——
Lady O. She's here!
Lord O. Confusion!
Doddles. Rule the fifth, which forbids masks, and—and——
Lady O. Nay, poor girl, I'll answer for't she has good reason for her mystery. Eh, my liege lord? a modest, excellent, worthy maid, no doubt?
Lord O. (aside). When women do praise women, what kind creatures!
Albina (aside). Surely there stands my tormentor. Her liege lord! So, so, now for my revenge.
Lady O. Come, we would see your merchandise. His lordship has forced me here to buy a dress.
Albina. And his lordship is such a judge of satin.
Lady O. Indeed?
Albina. Oh, yes, and so good to his mother.
Lord O. (aside). Would I were hanged, now, in a skein of silk!
Albina. Twenty gowns for his honoured parent.
Lord O. Nay, the girl mistakes me for some other customer. She—she——
Lady O. This insult, my lord, passes endurance. (Unmasking herself) Tell me, woman——
Albina (aside). Heavens! Olivia! You, you his wife!
Lady O. You see Lady Ortolan.
Albina. Happy chance; I have much, indeed, to tell you—much to reveal.
Lord O. (aside). Was ever poor married rogue in such a plight?"
Visitors come down the Burse from c. Enter Lord and Lady Ortolan, she masked.
In commenting on the failure of The White Milliner, Jerrold's son, Blanchard Jerrold, wrote that the "author was bitterly disappointed that its pointed and tender dialogue, and its brisk action, failed to achieve success; more,—as may be gathered from his own words,—that personal enmity, carried dishonestly into public criticism, sought to put it aside as a thing in all respects worthless." It was not long, however, before Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures gave Jerrold a foremost place as a wit and removed him far beyond the petty spite which had helped towards the failure of The White Milliner.
Another personage of greater note, although of lower birth, than the Duchess of Tyrconnel, connected with the history of the New Exchange, is "Nan" Clarges, subsequently Duchess of Albemarle. This remarkable woman was the daughter of John Clarges, a blacksmith and farrier, who lived in Drury Lane, at the Strand end, a spot now obliterated. Her mother was one of five women-barbers of notorious disrepute. A contemporary ballad has the refrain:
"Did you ever hear the like,
Or ever hear the fame,
Of five women barbers
Who lived in Drury Lane?"
In the Lives and Adventures of Whitney, John Cottington alias Mul-Sack, and Thomas Waters (1753), there is a reference to these women: "They were five noted amazons in Drury Lane, who were called women-shavers, and whose actions were then talked of much about town; till being apprehended for a riot, and one or two of them severely punished, the rest fled to Barbadoes." Such an origin was not very promising; but Anne Clarges, when she was married to General Monk, upheld her position despite her personal disadvantages, for she was ill-favoured in appearance and by no means cleanly in her habits.
Anne Clarges was married, in 1632, to one Thomas Ratford, son to a farrier who resided in the Royal Mews at Bloomsbury. She had a daughter, who was born in 1634, and died four years later. She had been instructed in the trade of a milliner, and this led to her taking up her abode, after her marriage, at the Three Spanish Gipsies, in the New Exchange. Here she sold wash-balls, powder, gloves, and similar articles, and gave lessons to girls in plain needlework. In 1647, being then sempstress to Colonel Monk, she was in the habit of carrying his linen to him. This was the beginning of her intimacy with the famous soldier. Her parents died in 1648, and, in the following year, she quarrelled with her husband, who apparently left her. At any rate, from that date nothing more was heard of him. When Monk was a prisoner in the Tower—1644-1646—Anne Ratford became his mistress, and had a child of which he was the father—hence, no doubt, the reason of her separation from her husband.