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Smollett, Tobias George, 1721-1771

"The Expedition of Humphry Clinker"


Nature intended Jenkins for something very different from the
character of her mistress; yet custom and habit have effected a
wonderful resemblance betwixt them in many particulars. Win, to
be sure, is much younger and more agreeable in her person; she is
likewise tender-hearted and benevolent, qualities for which her
mistress is by no means remarkable, no more than she is for being
of a timorous disposition, and much subject to fits of the
mother, which are the infirmities of Win's constitution: but then
she seems to have adopted Mrs Tabby's manner with her cast
cloaths. -- She dresses and endeavours to look like her mistress,
although her own looks are much more engaging. -- She enters into
her scheme of oeconomy, learns her phrases, repeats her remarks,
imitates her stile in scolding the inferior servants, and,
finally, subscribes implicitly to her system of devotion. -- This,
indeed, she found the more agreeable, as it was in a great
measure introduced and confirmed by the ministry of Clinker, with
whose personal merit she seems to have been struck ever since he
exhibited the pattern of his naked skin at Marlborough.
Nevertheless, though Humphry had this double hank upon her
inclinations, and exerted all his power to maintain the conquest
he had made, he found it impossible to guard it on the side of
vanity, where poor Win was as frail as any female in the kingdom.


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