"The company consisted of about 2000, amongst which were the first personages of distinction; viz. the Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland, Duke of Northumberland, Lords North, Harrington, Stanley, Tyrconnel, Lincoln, their respective ladies, &c. also Lords Lyttelton, Colrane, Carlisle, March, Melbourne, Cholmondeley, Petersham, &c.; the French, Spanish, Prussian, Russian, and Neapolitan Ambassadors, &c.
"Mrs. Cornely had the sole management of the decorations and supper, for which she was
allowed 700 guineas; the supper was but indifferent, and the wine very scarce.
"It is said that part of the company returning this morning early from Ranelagh by water met with some accidents, and that four persons were drowned."
I shall now confine myself entirely to the Theatres, with which this article necessarily concludes. The different amusements of the present day will come under review in another place.
Mr. Foote had long entertained the inhabitants of London with a variety of scenic representations, and met with the most rapturous applause; his dramatic pieces are pregnant with satire, and he stung the votaries of vice and folly by the most pointed applications. His dispute with the Dutchess of Kingston has been too often repeated to bear another recital; but his letter to the Lord Chamberlain on the suppression of the "Trip to Calais," in which the above lady was supposed to be alluded to, is too short to create tedium , and too witty not to give pleasure after twenty perusals.
"My Lord, I did intend troubling your lordship with an earlier address; but the day after I received your prohibitory mandate, I had the honour of a visit from Lord Mountstuart, to whose interposition, I find, I am indebted for your first commands, relative to the 'Trip to Calais,'
by Mr. Chetwynd, and your final rejection of it by Colonel Keen.
"Lord Mountstuart has, I presume, told your Lordship, that he read with me those scenes to which your Lordship objected; that he found them collected from general nature, and applicable to none but those who, through consciousness, were compelled to a self-application. To such minds, my Lord, the Whole Duty of Man, next to the Sacred Writings, is the severest satire that ever was wrote; and to the same mark if Comedy directs not her aim, her arrows are shot in the air; for by what touches no man, no man will be mended. Lord Mountstuart desired that I would suffer him to take the play with him, and let him leave it with the Dutchess of Kingston: he had my consent, my Lord, and at the same time an assurance, that I was willing to make any alteration that her Grace would suggest. Her Grace saw the play, and, in consequence, I saw her Grace; with the result of that interview, I shall not, at this time, trouble your Lordship. It may perhaps be necessary to observe, that her Grace could not discern, which your Lordship, I dare say, will readily believe, a single trait in the character of Lady Kitty Crocodile, that resembled herself.
"After this representation, your Lordship will, I doubt not, permit me to enjoy the fruits of my labour; nor will you think it reasonable