ページの画像
PDF
ePub
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

Gas, which now promises to be superseded in its turn by electricity, was introduced into Boulton & Watts' foundry, at Birmingham, as early as the year 1798, and the Lyceum Theatre was lit with gas (by way of experiment) in 1803; it met however with much opposition from persons interested in the conservation of the oil trade, and made no real progress in London until 1807, when it was introduced into Golden Lane on the 16th of August. Pall Mall, however, was not lighted with gas until 1809, and it was really not finally and generally introduced into London until the year 1820. We meet with an excellent satire published by S. W. Fores, in 1807, wherein a harlequin is depicted sitting on a rope suspended between a couple of lamp posts. The lamps and the hat of the figure are garnished with lighted burners; the neighbours in the windows of the adjoining houses, the people on the pavement below, the fowls, the dogs, the cats on the roofs, are suffocated with the noxious vapour. The figure holds in his hand a paper, whereon we read, "This is the speculation to make money, £10,000 per cent. profit all in Air-light air. 'Tis there, 'tis here, and 'tis gone for ever." This caricature bears the title of The Good Effects of Carbonic Gas. A caricature of Woodward, engraved by Rowlandson, and published by Ackermann on the 23rd of December, 1809, gives us A Peep at the Gas Lights in Pall Mall, the interest of which chiefly centres in the eccentric form of the early street lamps. Among the groups looking on are a wondering "country cousin" and a "serious" companion. "Ay, friend," says the latter, anxious of course, in season and out of season, to turn the occasion to profitable account, "verily it is all vanity! What is this to the inward light?" Some more disreputable members of the community are expressing their fears that the new light will interfere with their own peculiar modes of livelihood.

A clever and somewhat remarkable woman succeeded in achieving an unenviable notoriety in 1809. The daughter of a printer residing in Bowl and Pin Alley, near White's Alley, Chancery Lane, the remarkably intelligent girl had early attracted the notice of friends, one of whom placed her at a boarding school, where she

INTRODUCTION

OF GAS.

MARY ANNE
CLARKE.

one.

picked up an education (such as it was) sufficient to sharpen her natural abilities. Her commencement in life was scarcely a hopeful Mary Anne Thompson eloped at seventeen years of age with one Joseph Clarke, the son of a builder on Snow Hill, and after living with him three years married him. The marriage was not a happy one. The pair after some years separated, and Mary Anne was thenceforth driven to trust for her support to her own resources and attractions.

These proved fully equal to the occasion. Somewhat small in stature, nature had nevertheless endowed her with a remarkably well turned figure, well shaped arms, comely features, a singularly clear complexion, and blue eyes full of light and vivacity. Dressing with considerable taste and elegance-utterly shameless-without principle or character, with nothing to lose-everything to gain, the woman was eminently fitted to succeed in the peculiar path in life she had elected to follow. Throwing her line with all the dexterity of an accomplished angler, she succeeded almost at her first cast in hooking a very large fish indeed-his Royal Highness Frederick Duke of York, Commander-in-chief, Prince-bishop of Osnaburgh, who had attained at this time the respectable age of forty-six years.

Mary Anne proved, as might have been expected, an expensive plaything. In the short space of two years, the duke seems to have handed his mistress upwards of £5,000, besides expending on her in payments to tradesmen for wine, furniture, and other "paraphernalia," at least £16,000 or £17,000 more. In time, as is not unusual in matters of this kind, the duke seems to have grown tired of his enslaver, and endeavoured to pension her off with an annuity of £400 a year; but with the niggardliness which was so distinguishing a characteristic of his family, payment was not only withheld, but when the woman applied for payment, the duke was mean and foolish enough to threaten her with prison and the pillory. Mrs. Clarke, a woman of genius and resource, instead of being frightened, straightway betook herself to Messrs. Wilberforce and Whitbread, the supporters of the impeachment of Lord Melville, and confessed to them certain irregularities of which she had been guilty.

[blocks in formation]

Into the unsavoury revelations of Mary Anne Clarke, her traffic in the sale of military commissions, and still worse, in a system of ecclesiastical patronage in which she alleged his Royal Highness connived, we need not enter. They are set out as far as is necessary in Mr. Grego's book, and also in Mr. Wright's treatise on James Gillray and his works. Suffice it to say, that all these miserable exposures would have been saved, had the duke, instead of seeking to save his pocket, paid the annuity to which the woman was entitled. If by resigning, he thought to silence his unscrupulous persecutor, he was quickly and unpleasantly undeceived. The clever, unscrupulous woman had reserved her trump-card to the last. All this time she had been engaged in preparing her "Memoirs," comprising not only the history of her transactions with his Royal Highness, but a series of his letters, containing, it is said, anecdotes of illustrious personages of the most curious and recherché description. The immediate publication of these "Memoirs" having been announced to his Royal Highness, the duke was driven in spite of himself to effect an arrangement. For a payment of £7,000 down, an annuity of £400 for her own life, and one of £200 for each of her daughters, the printed "Memoirs" (eighteen thousand copies) were destroyed, the publication suppressed, and above all the terrible private correspondence duly surrendered.

The mover of the committee of inquiry was one Wardle, colonel of a militia regiment, who for a very brief space of time was permitted to figure as a patriot; that he was a mere instrument in the hands of other persons seems now abundantly clear. No sooner had Mary Anne Clarke landed his Royal Highness, than she fixed her hook in the jaws of the luckless colonel, who, tool as he was, proved to be by no means a sharp one. It is obvious a woman of Mrs. Clarke's character would be the last person to open her lips, unless it was made clear to her that it would be worth her while to do so. Her go-between in the transaction was a certain " Major" Dodd. Wardle gave Mrs. Clarke £100 for present necessities, and by way of earnest of more liberal promises which seem afterwards to have been repudiated by his employers. Through Major Dodd,

THE END OF
MARY ANNE
CLARKE.

the clever, unprincipled woman secured a house in Westbourne Place, which she furnished in a style of comfortable elegance, and succeeded by her blandishments in swindling Wardle into becoming security for her furniture. The inevitable result of course followed. On the 3rd July, 1809, Wright, the upholsterer, brought his action against Wardle and recovered £1,400 damages,* besides costs, "for furniture sold to the defendant to the use of Mary Anne Clarke." The colonel, like the commander-in-chief, thus found himself not only out-manœuvred by his clever and unscrupulous ex-ally, but reaped the obloquy attendant on exposure and ridicule, instead of the glorification which had at first greeted his patriotic exertions.

Mary Anne Clarke and the Duke of York, afforded (as might have been expected) plenty of employment to the caricaturists. The theme, however, is treated too grossly for description, a subject to be regretted, as most of the satires, containing as they do admirable portraits of the principal personages, are exceedingly clever. The subject suited an artist who delighted in delineating the immodest and full-blown beauties of Drury Lane; and accordingly, more than forty caricatures on the subject of "The Delicate Investigation," as it was called, are due to the pencil of Thomas Rowlandson.

In order to show the character of this infamous woman, we must follow her progress a little farther than either Mr. Grego or Mr. Wright appear to have done. In February, 1814, she once more made a public appearance: this time in the Court of Queen's Bench. She seems to have got the Right Hon. William Fitzgerald, Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, by some means or other into her clutches, in connection with the proceedings of 1809. By this time, however, she had descended so low, that exposure was threatened unless a sum of money was deposited under a stone. In her threats, she announced her intention of "submitting to the public in a very short time two or three volumes, which might be followed by others as opportunity should suit or circumstances

· According to Mr. Grego, £2,000.

« 前へ次へ »