I
Had Mr. Wendeborn's Book In My Pocket, And It, At Least, Enabled Me
To Take A Somewhat More Particular
Notice of some of the principal
things; such as the Egyptian mummy, a head of Homer, &c. The rest
of
The company, observing that I had some assistance which they had
not, soon gathered round me; I pointed out to them as we went along,
from Mr. Wendeborn's German book, what there was most worth seeing
here. The gentleman who conducted us took little pains to conceal
the contempt which he felt for my communications when he found out
that it was only a German description of the British Museum I had
got. The rapidly passing through this vast suite of rooms, in a
space of time little, if at all, exceeding an hour, with leisure
just to cast one poor longing look of astonishment on all these
stupendous treasures of natural curiosities, antiquities, and
literature, in the contemplation of which you could with pleasure
spend years, and a whole life might be employed in the study of
them - quite confuses, stuns, and overpowers one. In some branches
this collection is said to be far surpassed by some others; but
taken altogether, and for size, it certainly is equalled by none.
The few foreign divines who travel through England generally desire
to have the Alexandrian manuscript shewn them, in order to be
convinced with their own eyes whether the passage, "These are the
three that bear record, &c.," is to be found there or not.
The Rev. Mr. Woide lives at a place called Lisson Street, not far
from Paddington; a very village-looking little town, at the west end
of London. It is quite a rural and pleasant situation; for here I
either do, or fancy I do, already breathe a purer and freer air than
in the midst of the town. Of his great abilities, and particularly
in oriental literature, I need not inform you; but it will give you
pleasure to hear that he is actually meditating a fac-simile edition
of the Alexandrian MS. I have already mentioned the infinite
obligations I lie under to this excellent man for his extraordinary
courtesy and kindness.
The Theatre in the Haymarket.
Last week I went twice to an English play-house. The first time
"The Nabob" was represented, of which the late Mr. Foote was the
author, and for the entertainment, a very pleasing and laughable
musical farce, called "The Agreeable Surprise." The second time I
saw "The English Merchant:" which piece has been translated into
German, and is known among us by the title of "The Scotchwoman," or
"The Coffee-house." I have not yet seen the theatres of Covent
Garden and Drury Lane, because they are not open in summer. The
best actors also usually spend May and October in the country, and
only perform in winter.
A very few excepted, the comedians whom I saw were certainly nothing
extraordinary. For a seat in the boxes you pay five shillings, in
the pit three, in the first gallery two, and in the second or upper
gallery, one shilling. And it is the tenants in this upper gallery
who, for their shilling, make all that noise and uproar for which
the English play-houses are so famous. I was in the pit, which
gradually rises, amphitheatre-wise, from the orchestra, and is
furnished with benches, one above another, from the top to the
bottom. Often and often, whilst I sat there, 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.
All over London as one walks, one everywhere, in the season, sees
oranges to sell; and they are in general sold tolerably cheap, one
and even sometimes two for a halfpenny; or, in our money,
threepence. At the play-house, however, they charged me sixpence
for one orange, and that noways remarkably good.
Besides this perpetual pelting from the gallery, which renders an
English play-house so uncomfortable, there is no end to their
calling out and knocking with their sticks till the curtain is drawn
up. I saw a miller's, or a baker's boy, thus, like a huge booby,
leaning over the rails and knocking again and again on the outside,
with all his might, so that he was seen by everybody, without being
in the least ashamed or abashed. I sometimes heard, too, the people
in the lower or middle gallery quarrelling with those of the upper
one. Behind me, in the pit, sat a young fop, who, in order to
display his costly stone buckles with the utmost brilliancy,
continually put his foot on my bench, and even sometimes upon my
coat, which I could avoid only by sparing him as much space from my
portion of the seat as would make him a footstool. 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.
In Foote's "Nabob" there are sundry local and personal satires which
are entirely lost to a foreigner. The character of the Nabob was
performed by a Mr. Palmer. The jett of the character is, this
Nabob, with many affected airs and constant aims at gentility, is
still but a silly fellow, unexpectedly come into the possession of
immense riches, and therefore, of course, paid much court to by a
society of natural philosophers, Quakers, and I do not know who
besides. Being tempted to become one of their members, he is
elected, and in order to ridicule these would-be philosophers, but
real knaves, a fine flowery fustian speech is put into his mouth,
which he delivers with prodigious pomp and importance, and is
listened to by the philosophers with infinite complacency.
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