The city, so he says, is well stocked with rich stores, and “at the Governor’s House upon Birthnights and at Balls and Assemblies, I have seen as fine an appearance, as good diversion, and as splendid entertainments in Governor Spotswood’s time as I have seen anywhere.”
When Governor Botetourt (pronounced after the English fashion, Bottatot) came over to Virginia, he took the oath of office here at Williamsburg, and rode in state in a great coach drawn by six milk-white horses. After the oath had been administered, a grand supper was given in his honor at the Raleigh Tavern. The Gazette gives a full account of the affair. An ode was sung, beginning:
“He comes! His Excellency comes
To cheer Virginia’s plains.
Fill, your brisk bowls, ye loyal sons,
And sing your loftiest strains!
Be this your glory, this your boast,
Lord Botetourt’s the favorite toast.
Triumphant wreaths entwine!
Fill your bumpers swiftly round,
And make your spacious rooms resound
With music, joy and wine!”
The air being ended, the recitative took up the strain of effusive compliment:
“Search every garden, strip the shrubby bowers,
And strew his path with sweet autumnal flowers!
Ye virgins, haste; prepare the fragrant rose
And with triumphant laurels crown his brows!”
The virgins thus called forth, appeared from their “shrubby bowers,” bearing roses and laurel, and singing, as they advanced toward the hero of the evening:
“See, we’ve stripped each flowery bed—
Here’s laurels for his lordly head,
And while Virginia is his care,
May he protect the virtuous fair!”
As I looked on Lord Botetourt’s statue, and marked its moss-covered figure and its fatuously smiling face, robbed of its nose by the stone of contempt, I remembered this festival, and mused on the vicissitudes of fame.
In the year 1752 a new delight was opened to the provincials. Hallam’s company of comedians came over in The Charming Sally to act for them. A playbill of that year announces that “at the new theatre in Annapolis by the company of comedians, on Monday next, being the sixth of this instant July, will be performed The Busy Body, likewise a farce called The Lying Valet. To begin precisely at 7 o’clock. Tickets to be had at the printing-office. No persons to be admitted behind the scenes. Box seats 10s., pit 7s. 6d, gallery 5s.” A later bill announces that “children in laps will not be admitted.”
The favorite plays given by Hallam’s Company seem to have been—