[127] The sights in this famous cockpit are recorded by Hogarth in his print of 1759, and by Rowlandson in Ackermann’s Microcosm of London (1808).
Bainbridge Street survives as a narrow lane behind New Oxford Street, leading from Dyott Street to the back of Meux’s brewery.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the cockpit behind Gray’s Inn (its exact locality is not easily discovered), enjoyed “the only vogue” (Hatton). Mr. William B. Boulton (The Amusements of Old London, 1901) quotes a description of it by Von Uffenbach, a German traveller, who says it was specially built for the sport.
Pickled-Egg Walk, afterwards Crawford’s Passage (now Crawford Passage, Ray Street, Clerkenwell), was named after the proprietor of the Pickled-Egg Tavern, who brought from the West of England a recipe for pickled eggs and supplied this novel cate to his customers. Pink mentions a tradition that Charles II. once paused here in a suburban journey and ate a pickled egg. The mains fought at the cockpit here were regularly advertised in the newspapers.
Charles Hughes and Charles Dibdin, the song-writer, opened the “Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy” in 1782.
Cock-fighting was made illegal in 1849, but a statement in Cocking and its Votaries (1895), by S. A. T. (for private circulation), makes it quite manifest that “not a few wealthy men in England still follow up this sport, stealthily but with much zeal—a fact that is as discreditable to the guardians of the law as it is to themselves.” I quote Mr. J. Charles Cox in his admirable edition of Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes (1903).
[128] Behind this formal entry lies the most affecting farewell scene ever enacted on a London stage. The doors of Drury Lane Theatre were opened at “half after five” on that evening of June 10, 1776, and the profits of the performance were announced to be given to the Theatrical Fund. It was but the last of a series of farewell nights in which Garrick had played his great parts for the last time to densely crowded houses. As Mr. Percy Fitzgerald says: “Other actors retire in one night, Garrick’s departure filled a whole season and only culminated on this last night.” “Last night,” he wrote, “I played Abel Drugger for the last time. I thought the audience were cracked, and they almost turned my brain.”
On June 5, King George and his Queen attended to see Garrick’s last “Richard.” Distinguished people were turned nightly from the doors, and many became almost frantic to think that they must see Garrick now or never again. Hannah More wrote: “I pity those who have not seen him. Posterity will never be able to form the slightest idea of his perfections.… I have seen him within three weeks take leave of Benedick, Sir John Brute, Kitely, Abel Drugger, Archer, and Leon.”
On the last night, of all, Garrick played Don Felix in Mrs. Centilivre’s comedy, which he chose, perhaps, as a foil to the tragedy of his farewell. In his Life of the actor Mr. Fitzgerald thus describes the supreme moment: “He retired slowly—up—up the stage, his eyes fixed on them with a lingering longing. Then stopped. The shouts of applause from that brilliant amphitheatre were broken by sobs and tears. To his ears were borne from many quarters the word ‘Farewell! Farewell!’ Mrs. Garrick was in her box, in an agony of hysterical tears. The wonderful eyes, still brilliant, were turned wistfully again and again to that sea of sympathetic faces, one of the most brilliant audiences perhaps that ever sat in Drury Lane; and at last, with an effort, he tore himself from their view.”
[129] Garrick’s last season at Drury Lane was Mrs. Siddons’ first. She was but twenty-one years of age, and made no striking success, though “her type was enlarged in the bill” (Boadley).