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.

* * * * *

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
1, August 21, 1841, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***

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