In the following April another match commenced, to continue for a week, at four guineas a battle, and forty guineas the odd battle, between the Gentlemen of London, and those of Warwickshire,
at the new Cockpit behind Gray's-Inn-walks.
The presentments were, however, of some service, as the proprietors of the Bear-garden advertised subsequently "without beat of drum ." Wrestling was exhibited by them, and the prizes were gloves at two shillings and sixpence per pair. Lambeth-wells opened on Easter Mondays, and had public days on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with musick from seven in the morning till sunset; on other days till two. The price of admission was three pence; the water one penny per quart to the affluent, and gratis to the poor.
The good people at Bartholomew Fair were entertained in 1701 by a Tiger, who had been taught to pick a fowl's feathers from the body. This feat seems to have roused the proprietors of the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-fields; and they immediately, "at the desire of several persons of quality," exhibited "that delightful exercise of vaulting on the managed horse according to the Italian manner," after the play of the Country Wife.
Amongst the variety of amusements with which London has abounded, public exhibitions may be fairly included. The first upon record within the century appears to have been certain models representing William the Third's palaces at Loo, Keswick, and Hunslaerdike: those were shown in 1701 from ten in the morning till one, and from two till eight at night, "at the White head near
Pall-Mall facing the Haymarket, within two doors of the glass lamps ." The proprietors elegantly observe in their advertisement, that they were "brought over lately by outlandish men;" and that, "to render those diversions altogether more delightful and acceptable, there will be a collection of several curiosities to be sold and raffled for at the opening, and likewise every Monday and Friday following, those days being appointed the public raffling-days, besides a great variety of rarities: and to entertain the nobility and gentry (who, the undertakers hope, will countenance them with the honour of their company) there shall be on Wednesday the 14th instant (January) a concert of musick by the best performers; and if all these diversions please such for whom they are intended, there shall be from time to time great additions made."
However pleasing and moral the Stage may be at present, we are in great measure indebted to our Ancestors for the improvements which have taken place. In the reign of Charles II. the licence permitted to Dramatic Authors was indecent and infamous in the extreme, and the profane and immoral expressions inserted in many plays really rendered the use of masks necessary for those ladies who possessed the least delicacy of sentiment.
In 1701-2 another and effectual effort was made to reform this evil, by a prosecution instituted in
the Court of King's-bench, and tried before Lord Chief Justice Holt. The Jury on this occasion found the players of Lincoln's-Inn-fields play-house guilty of uttering impious, lewd, and immoral expressions.
In April 1702, an advertisement appeared in the papers, inviting the publick to see the skeleton of a Whale then lately caught in the Thames, which the proprietors had carefully scraped and put together in the field near King-street, Bloomsbury. They asserted that one bone of his head weighed 40 cwt. The price of admission was threepence.