"Most of the carriages that came to the masquerade were chalked by the populace with 'Wilkes and Liberty.'"
It will no doubt be remembered by many, that a very good representation of an eruption of Mount Ætna, on a large scale, with Cyclops at work in the centre of the mountain, was exhibited a few years since in the garden at Ranelagh.
That it may not be supposed that this scene was a new thought, I shall describe the entertainment of an evening at Mary-le-bon gardens when they were in full reputation. The usual concerts and songs were performed; but Signior Torré had been employed to prepare a representation of Mount Ætna as an addition to the common fire-works, consisting of vertical wheels, suns, stars, globes, &c. in honour of the King's birth-day, June 4, 1772, who was, with the Queen, represented in transparencies surrounded by stars. When the fire-works were concluded, a curtain which covered the base of the mountain rose, and discovered Vulcan leading the Cyclops to work at their forge; the fire blazed, and Venus entered with Cupid at her side, who begged them to make for her son those arrows which are said to be the causes of love in the human breast: they assented, and the mountain immediately appeared in eruption with lava rushing down the precipices.
A few trees stand as mementoes of Mary-le-bon gardens near the North end of Harley-street.
January 27, 1772, was rendered remarkable in the annals of Amusement by the opening of the Pantheon in Oxford-street, which had been erected at a vast expence from the designs of Wyatt, the celebrated architect. Near two thousand persons of the highest rank and fashion assembled on this occasion to admire the splendid
structure, which contained fourteen rooms, exclusive of the rotunda: the latter had double colonnades or recesses for the reception of company, ornamented with the reliefs peculiar to the Grecian style of building; and the dome contained others equally rich. In order to support the propriety of the name given to this superb place of fashionable resort, the architect introduced niches round the base of the dome with statues of the Heathen Deities; and to complete the circle, added Britannia and their present Majesties. Such were the ideas of classic taste exhibited by the proprietors; the Gods worshiped in the real Pantheon , were compelled to witness a modern Pantheon dedicated to pleasures and amusements of which even Jupiter himself was ignorant when in the Court of Olympus.
One of the first steps of the conductors was an order to exclude all loose women: an order which deserves honourable mention, but one impossible to be executed. The Masquerades given at the Pantheon would have been thin of company indeed, had not improper persons formed part of the silly groupe. The nature of those masked entertainments is so confined, that when one is seen or described, novelty is at an end. I shall therefore pass them over, and merely mention, that part of the commemoration of Handel, noticed at large in the first volume of "Londinium Redivivum," was celebrated at the Pantheon;
after which caprice or some other cause converted it into an Opera-house, and very soon after an accidental fire consumed it. The Pantheon has been rebuilt, but on a miserable plan indeed compared with the original: it now serves for Masquerades at different periods; and Garnerin and Lunardi have exhibited their balloons there.
It is by no means creditable to the memory of Mr. Garrick, that he acted the Beggar's Opera for two seasons in opposition to the entreaties of Sir John Fielding and his brethren the Magistrates, and after they had informed him that the representation invariably produced fresh victims to offended Justice. The latter season alluded to, 1773, produced a long and serious contention between persons who never before saw or had received the least injury from each other, through the turbulent and daring effrontery of the late veteran Macklin. This actor, offended at the conduct of a player named Reddish, and that of Sparks, the son of another, presumed to make the publick parties in the affair, by thus addressing the audience at Covent-garden Theatre on the night of October 30.
"Ladies and Gentlemen—My appearing before you in my own character, instead of that which I am this night appointed to perform, is an unexpected measure; but in my distressed condition, from my feelings as a man and an actor, and in