[Footnote 24: In 1706 John Dennis, the critic (1657-1734), wrote an 'Essay on the Operas after the Italian manner, which are about to be established on the English Stage'; to show that they were more immoral than the most licentious play.] [Footnote 25: One of the gangways in the Opera House, where the young men of fashion used to assemble. (See letter to Murray, Nov. 9, 1820; _Life_, p. 62.)] [Footnote 26: In the year 1808, happening at the opera to tread on the toes of a very well-dressed man, I turned round to apologize, when, to my utter astonishment, I recognized the face of the porter of the very hotel where I then lodged in Albemarle Street. So here was a gentleman who ran every morning forty errands for half a crown, throwing away half a guinea at night, besides the expense of his habiliments, and the hire of his "Chapeau de Bras."--[_MS. L. (a)_.]] [Footnote 27: The first theatrical representations, entitled "Mysteries and Moralities," were generally enacted at Christmas, by monks (as the only persons who could read), and latterly by the clergy and students of the universities. The dramatis personae were usually Adam, Pater Coelestis, Faith, Vice, and sometimes an angel or two; but these were eventually superseded by 'Gammer Gurton's Needle'.--'Vide' Warton's 'History of English Poetry [passim]'.--['MSS. M., L. (b)'.]] [Footnote 28: 'Benvolio' [Lord Grosvenor, 'MS. L'. ('b')] does not bet; but every man who maintains racehorses is a promoter of all the concomitant evils of the turf. Avoiding to bet is a little pharisaical. Is it an exculpation? I think not. I never yet heard a bawd praised for chastity, because 'she herself' did not commit fornication. [Robert, second Earl Grosvenor (1767-1845), was created Marquis of Westminster in 1831. Like his father, Gifford's patron, the first Earl Grosvenor, he was a breeder of racehorses, and a patron of the turf. As Lord Belgrave, he brought forward a motion for the suppression of Sunday newspapers, June 11, 1799, denouncing them in a violent speech. The motion was lost; but many years after, in a speech delivered in the House of Lords, January 2, 1807, he returned to the charge. (See 'Parl. Hist'., 34. 1006, 1010; and 'Parl. Deb'., 8. 286.) (For a skit on Lord Belgrave's sabbatarian views, see Peter Pindar, 'Works' (1812), iv. 519.)]]