[100] Mary Ann Falkner was a niece of George Falkner, the Dublin printer, whom Foote caricatured on the stage. She appeared at Marylebone from 1747 to about 1752, giving such songs as “Amoret and Phyllis,” “The Happy Couple,” and “The Faithful Lover.” Much sought after, she remained faithful to her husband, a linen draper named Donaldson, until his conduct threw her under the protection of the second Earl of Halifax.
[101] M. Wroth says, on good evidence, that Trusler became proprietor only in 1756.
[102] The career of young John Trusler, afterwards the Rev. Dr. Trusler, is interesting. Without a collegiate training, he took Holy Orders, and officiated as a curate in London. His eye for business revealed to him the possibilities of sermon-mongering, and he was soon making a respectable income by supplying clergymen all over the country with sermons in script characters. His operations became something of a scandal, and Cowper scourged him in “The Task”—
“He grinds divinity of other days
Down into modern use, transforms old print
To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.
Are there who purchase of the doctor’s ware?
Oh, name it not in Gath! It cannot be
That grave and learned clerks should need such aid.