Eighteenth Century Vignettes

Name: Eighteenth Century Vignettes
Author: Dobson, Austin

Dobson, Austin

English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 18th century

To the British Museum he paid a flying visit of little more than an
hour, with a miscellaneous and 'personally conducted' party,--a visit
scarcely favourable to minute impressions. But of the Haymarket Theatre,
to which he went twice (Covent Garden and Drury Lane being closed
as usual for the summer months), he gives a fairly detailed account.
Foote's 'Nabob' was the play on the first night; that on the second, the
'English Merchant,' adapted by the elder Colman from the 'Ecossaise' of
Voltaire. With this latter he was already familiar in its German dress,
having seen it at Hamburg. On both occasions the performance wound up
with O'Keeffe's once-famous ballad farce of 'The Agreeable Surprise.'
That excellent bur-letta singer, John Edwin, took the part of 'Lingo'
the schoolmaster (which he had created), * to the entire satisfaction
of Moritz, who thought him, with his '_Amo, amas_, I love a lass,' etc.,
and his musical voice, 'one of the best actors of all that he had seen,'
notwithstanding that Jack Palmer (Lamb and Goldsmith's Palmer!) acted
the Nabob.

     * There is a print of Edwin in this character after a
     picture by Alefounder. He was also a favourite 'Croaker' in
     the 'Good Natur'd Man.'

But if he was pleased with the acting, he was not equally impressed by
the audience. The ceaseless clamour of the upper gallery and the steady
hail of missiles were anything but agreeable. 'Often and often whilst I
sat here [i.e. in the pit], did a rotten orange, or pieces of the peel
of an orange, fly past me, or past some of my neighbours, and once one
of them actually hit my hat, without my daring to look round, for fear
another might then hit me on my face.' Another passage connected with
this part of the entertainment illustrates the old fashion of sending
the lackeys to keep their masters' places: 'In the boxes, quite in a
corner, sat several servants, who were said to be placed there, to keep
the seats for the families they served, till they should arrive; they
seemed to sit remarkably close and still, the reason of which, I was
told, was their apprehension of being pelted, for, if one of them dares
but to look out of the box, he is immediately saluted with a shower of
orange peel from the gallery.'

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Eighteenth Century VignettesDobson, Austin

History

Eighteenth Century Vignettes

Dobson, Austin

English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 18th century

To the British Museum he paid a flying visit of little more than an
hour, with a miscellaneous and 'personally conducted' party,--a visit
scarcely favourable to minute impressions. But of the Haymarket Theatre,
to which he went twice (Covent Garden and Drury Lane being closed
as usual for the summer months), he gives a fairly detailed account.
Foote's 'Nabob' was the play on the first night; that on the second, the
'English Merchant,' adapted by the elder Colman from the 'Ecossaise' of
Voltaire. With this latter he was already familiar in its German dress,
having seen it at Hamburg. On both occasions the performance wound up
with O'Keeffe's once-famous ballad farce of 'The Agreeable Surprise.'
That excellent bur-letta singer, John Edwin, took the part of 'Lingo'
the schoolmaster (which he had created), * to the entire satisfaction
of Moritz, who thought him, with his '_Amo, amas_, I love a lass,' etc.,
and his musical voice, 'one of the best actors of all that he had seen,'
notwithstanding that Jack Palmer (Lamb and Goldsmith's Palmer!) acted
the Nabob.

     * There is a print of Edwin in this character after a
     picture by Alefounder. He was also a favourite 'Croaker' in
     the 'Good Natur'd Man.'

But if he was pleased with the acting, he was not equally impressed by
the audience. The ceaseless clamour of the upper gallery and the steady
hail of missiles were anything but agreeable. 'Often and often whilst I
sat here [i.e. in the pit], did a rotten orange, or pieces of the peel
of an orange, fly past me, or past some of my neighbours, and once one
of them actually hit my hat, without my daring to look round, for fear
another might then hit me on my face.' Another passage connected with
this part of the entertainment illustrates the old fashion of sending
the lackeys to keep their masters' places: 'In the boxes, quite in a
corner, sat several servants, who were said to be placed there, to keep
the seats for the families they served, till they should arrive; they
seemed to sit remarkably close and still, the reason of which, I was
told, was their apprehension of being pelted, for, if one of them dares
but to look out of the box, he is immediately saluted with a shower of
orange peel from the gallery.'

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Eighteenth Century Vignettes

Eighteenth Century Vignettes

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