A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833Smith, John Thomas
History
A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833
Smith, John Thomas
Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 18th century; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
[94] M. Wroth says: “In 1691 the place was known as Long’s Bowling
Green at the Rose, and for several years (_circ._ 1679-1736)
persons of quality might have been seen bowling there during the
summer-time.
‘At the Groom Porters battered bullies play;
Some Dukes at Marybone bowl time away.’”
These lines, often erroneously attributed to Lady Mary Wortley
Montague, occur in Pope’s _The Basset-table, an Eclogue_.
[95] Rockhoult, or Rockholt House, was at Leyton, in Essex, and was
“for a short period an auxiliary place of amusement for the Summer
to the established Theatres” (_Gentleman’s Magazine_, July 1814).
It was opened about 1742, and was apparently regarded as “the place
to spend a happy day.” A ballad to “Delia” exclaimed--
“Delia, in whose form we trace
All that can a virgin grace,
Hark where pleasure, blithe as May,
Bids us to Rockholt haste away.”
[96] “The principal shareholder and manager of Ranelagh at this
date was Sir Thomas Robinson, Bart., M.P., whose gigantic form was
for many years familiar to frequenters of the Rotunda; a writer of
1774 calls him its Maypole, and Garland of Delights. Robinson lived
at Prospect Place, adjoining the gardens.”
[97] The New Wells belonged to the Islington group of pleasure
gardens, and stood on ground now occupied by Lower Rosomon Street,
Clerkenwell. It flourished 1737-50, and numbered a collection of
rattlesnakes among its attractions.
[98] Cuper’s Gardens, a great resort. The Feathers Tavern at the
end of Waterloo Bridge is the successor of the tavern originally in
the gardens, the site of which is traversed by the Waterloo Road.
They were closed in 1759, after which Dr. Johnson, passing them in
a coach with Langton, Beauclerk, and Lady Sydney Beauclerk (mother
of his friend), jokingly proposed, to Lady Sydney’s horror, that
they should lease them: “She had no notion of a joke, sir; she had
come late into life, and had a mighty unpliable understanding.”
[99] Advertised as “the Pariton, an instrument never played in
publick before.”
[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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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