In 1774[115] there was music every week-day evening. Several novelties were introduced, but the fortunes of the Gardens appear to have been waning. Dr. Arnold’s “Don Quixote” was performed for the first time on 30 June. The first Fête Champêtre took place in July, but the newspapers attacked the management for charging five shillings for an entertainment which consisted of a few tawdry festoons and extra lamps. Some of the visitors, we are told, “injured the stage and broke its brittle wares.” One cannot help suspecting that Dr. Johnson was at the bottom of this outrage: at any rate during a visit of his to the Gardens at some time between 1772–1774 a similar incident occurred. Johnson, who had heard of the fame of Torré’s fireworks, went to the Gardens one evening, accompanied by his friend George Steevens. It was showery, and notice was given to the few visitors present, that the fireworks were water-soaked and could not be displayed. “This” (said Johnson) “is a mere excuse to save their crackers for a more profitable company. Let us both hold up our sticks and threaten to break those coloured lamps, ... and we shall soon have our wishes gratified. The core of the fireworks cannot be injured: let the different pieces be touched in their respective centres, and they will do their offices as well as ever.” Some young men standing by indulged in the violence suggested, but failed to ignite the fireworks. “The author of _The Rambler_,” as Mr. Steevens judiciously observes, “may be considered, on this occasion as the ringleader of a successful riot, though not as a skilful pyrotechnist.” A second Fête Champêtre succeeded better, and the company did not leave till six in the morning. During this year (1774), and in 1775 and 1776 the Gardens were open on Sunday, after five p.m., for a promenade (without music); and sixpence, returned in tea, coffee, and Ranelagh rolls, was charged for admission. As far back as 1760 the Gardens had been opened on Sunday, and “genteel persons were admitted to walk gratis,” and to drink tea there. But this tea-drinking had been prohibited in 1764. The “Sunday Rambler,” who visited Marybone Gardens about this time, speaks of them with profound contempt as a place of tea-table recreation. Nobody was there, the tablecloths were dirty, and the rubbish for Signor Torré’s fireworks was left lying about. The Gardens, he adds, were “nothing more than two or three gravel roads, and a few shapeless trees.” In the same year (1774) the managers of the Gardens advertised and opened (6 June) the Marybone Spa. In the winter of 1773 the City Surveyor, while searching for the City Wells in Marybone, had discovered in the Gardens a mineral spring. The public were now admitted to drink this water from six o’clock in the morning. It was suggested that the waters might be useful for nervous and scorbutic disorders, but, in any case, “they strengthen the stomach, and promote a good appetite and a good digestion.”