If their Operas were thus productive of such Delectable Entertainment (abating the Rain and crowding), I cannot say much for their Comedies and Drolls, which were highly Ridiculous. We went to the German Playhouse, and saw the Story of Amphytrion very scurvily represented. Jupiter falls in love out of a peep-hole in the clouds in the beginning, and the end of it was the Birth of Hercules. It was very pitiful to see Jove, under the figure of Amphytrion, cheating a Tailor of a laced coat, and a Banker of a bag of Money, and a Jew of a Diamond Ring, with the like rascally Subterfuges; and Mercury's usage of Sosia was little more dignified. And the play was interlarded with very gross expressions and unseemly gestures, such as in England would not be tolerated by the Master of the Revels, or even in France by the Gentleman of the Chamber having charge over the Theatres, but at which the Viennese Quality, both Male and Female, did laugh Heartily and with much Gusto. Memorandum. As some of the Manners then existing have passed away (in this sad changeful age, when every thing seems melting away like Cowheel Jelly at a Wedding Feast), I have set down for those curious in such matters that the Vienna Dames were squeezed up in my time in gowns and gorgets, and had built fabrics of gauze on their Heads about a yard high, consisting of Three or Four Stories, fortified with numberless yards of heavy Ribbon. The foundation of this alarming structure was a thing they called a _Bourle_, which was exactly of the same shape and kind--only four times Bigger--as those Rolls which our Milkmaids make use of to fix their Pails upon. This machine they covered with their own hair, with which they mixed a great deal of False; it being a particular and Especial Grace with them to have their Heads too large to go into a moderate-sized Tub. Their Hair was prodigiously powdered to conceal the mixture, and so set out with numerous rows of Bodkins, sticking out three or four Inches on each side, made of Diamonds, Pearls, Green, Red, and Yellow Stones, that it certainly required as much Art and Experience to carry the load upright as to dance on May-day with the Garland that the Dairy Wenches borrow (under good security) from the Silversmiths in Cranbourne Alley. Also they had Whalebone Petticoats, outdoing ours by several yards in circumference. Vastly Ridiculous were these Fashions--think you not so, good Sir or Madam, as the case may be? and yet, may I be shot, but much later in the present century I have seen such things as hoops, _bourles_, tours, and toupees, not one whit less Ridiculous.