| Citation |
NP.782.033
20 Jun 1782:11,12 (9/454)
The Pilgrim, No. V. . . [Several columns on the British
manners and customs]
This credulity has also often made them the dupes of knaves
and sharpers. I remember when I was in London, the
proprietor of one of the last considerable theatres fell
upon a scheme of levying large contributions upon the
public, merely from profiting upon their weakness in this
respect.
He advertised in the public papers that a person of
middling stature should appear upon the stage on an
appointed evening, who should then, in view of the whole
company, without equivocation, leap into a quart bottle (or
for a double price into a pint bottle) that shou'd there be
corked up, and while in that situation sing any song that a
majority of the company should pitch upon; that he should
remain constant in the bottle for at least half an hour, or
as much longer as the spectators saw fit; that immediately
upon his release, he should take a common walking staff from
any one of the company, and should not only play, upon the
same, whatever tune should be demanded, but also in the
particular music of every modern instrument, from the organ
down to the Jews harp.
The public were both pleased and amazed at the prospect
of such aggreeable entertainment and without once allowing
themselves to reflect upon the impossibility of those
promises being accomplished, strove who should be foremost
in purchasing tickets to gain admittance to these
extraordinary exhibitions. The Princes of the blood, the
fathers of the people, the nobles of the land, the reverends
and right reverends, the gentry and vulgar, contended who
should be earliest at the scene of action. The doors of the
theatre were at length thrown open, the stage was lighted
up, and the company sat some time in anxious expectation;
but by means of a malicious whisper, soon found to their
confusion that they had come to see what it was impossible
should be seen, and had paid away their money as the price
of their folly and delusion. It was in vain to seek the
author of the deception; he had prudently made a timely
escape with the money so easily acquired; the theatre,
however, with its furniture, was demolished to satisfy the
rage of the audience, who returned to their abodes vexed,
shamed and disappointed. . . [Several paragraphs]
The English are extravagantly fond of what they call
immortality after death. . . In short there are political
weavers, drunken and sweating clergymen, ladies that write
lascivious comedies . . .
|