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. [Illustration: ADAM STREET, ADELPHI.]