The reader will pardon the introduction of the substance of an advertisement inserted in the Postman, August 19, 1703, by Barnes and Finley, who, after the usual exordium of their superior excellence, mention that the spectator will "see my Lady Mary perform such curious steps on the dancing rope , &c. &c." This lady Mary is subsequently noticed in Heraclitus Ridens, No. 7, by Earnest, who says, "Look upon the old gentleman; his eyes are fixed upon my lady Mary: Cupid has shot him as dead as a Robin. Poor Heraclitus! he has cried away all his moisture, and is such a dotard to entertain himself with a prospect of what is meat for his betters; wake him out of his lethargy, and tell him the young noblemen and senators will take it amiss, if a man of his years makes pretensions to what is more than a match for their youth. Those, &c. &c. and roguish eyes have brought her more admirers than ever Jenny Bolton had; it is a pity, say I, she has no more manners, and less ill-nature." Chetwood, in his History of the Stage, mentions
a Lady Isabella, which name, writing from memory, he has evidently mistaken for Mary, who was the daughter of noble parents inhabitants of Florence, where they immured her in a Nunnery; but, most fruitlessly careful of their beautiful offspring, she accidentally saw a Merry Andrew, who unfortunately saw her; in consequence of which a clandestine intercourse took place, an elopement followed, and finally this villain taught her his infamous tricks, which she exhibited for his profit till vice had made her his own; as Heraclitus proves. The catastrophe of the Lady Mary was dreadful; her husband , impatient of delays or impediments to profit, either permitted or commanded her to exhibit on the rope when eight months had elapsed in her pregnancy: encumbered by her weight, she fell, never more to rise; her infant was born on the stage, and died a victim with its Mother.
Mr. Abel advertised a concert and dancing at Covent Garden Theatre for Tuesday December 29, 1702: the performers, himself, Monsieur l'Abbé, Mr. Isaac's scholar , and others. The galleries were let for the benefit of the proprietors of the Playhouse.
Hitherto we have had to notice amusements which involved the performers in little corporeal injury, unless from accidents, or sudden quarrels. I shall now introduce an entertainment the very zest of which consisted in a great number of
broken pates. "At the White Horse at Bristol Causeway (now denominated Brixton) in Surrey, three miles from London in the road to Croydon, will be a Hat played for at Cudgels, on the 23d of April, 1703; the Country against the Londoners. He that breaks most heads to have the hat; he that plays puts in sixpence." Smock-races were run at this elegant place of resort "by young women and maids," to the utter disgrace of the neighbouring Magistracy.
The year 1703 produced a new source of amusement, which is noticed by Tutchin in the Observator: "But I have some Play-house news to tell you: the great Play-house has calved a young one in Goodman's fields, in the passage by the Ship Tavern betwixt Prescot and Chambers-street. Observator—It is in a very good place in Rosemary-lane precinct; I know no reason why the quality at both ends of the town should not have the same diversions. This will be a great ease to the Ladies of Rag Fair, who are now forced to trudge as far as Lincoln's-inn-fields to mix themselves with quality. The mumpers of Knockvargis will now have the Playhouse come to them, who were not able to stump it to the other end of the town on their wooden legs: the Does in Tower-hill Park and Rosemary-lane purlieu will be foddered nearer home this winter; and the sailors will have better entertainment for their loose coins than formerly."
The Grand Jury of Middlesex presented May Fair in November 1703. And early in the ensuing year, the public mind had been so influenced by the dreadful storm of November, the effects of which were felt in every direction, that prelates, the clergy, authors, and in short all men of virtue, joined in one grand exclamation against the obscenity, the immorality, and the blasphemy of the stage, which its most ardent admirers must admit to have arrived at such a height as fully warranted an order from the Queen to restrain it. At the same period the Lord Mayor and Aldermen issued a proclamation, forbidding the cruel practice of throwing at Cocks on Shrove Tuesday; and the Tatler of April 18, 1709, mentions the total abolition of May Fair as far as related to the exhibition of puppets, and similar contemptible traps for the vulgar.
The Theatre in the Haymarket was opened in 1705, when these strange and almost impious lines were pronounced as part of the Prologue:
"Such was our Builder's art, that, soon as nam'd,
This fabrick, like the infant World, was fram'd: