“There’s a Bower in Stangate’s respectable street,
There’s a company acting there all the night long;
In the days of my childhood, egad—what a treat!
To listen attentive to some thundering song.
That Bower and its concert I never forget;
But oft when of halfpence my pockets are clear,
I think, are the audience sitting there yet,
Still smoking their pipes, and imbibing their beer?”
Upon entering the door, you are called on to pay your money, which is threepence for the saloon and sixpence for the boxes. The saloon is a large space fitted up something like a chapel, or rather a court of justice; there being in front of each seat a species of desk or ledge, which, in the places last named would hold prayer-books or papers, but at the Bower are designed for tumblers and pewter-pots. The audience, like the spirits they imbibe, are very much mixed; the greater portion consisting of respectable mechanics, while here and there may be seen an individual, who, from his seedy coat, well-brushed four-and-nine hat, highly polished but palpably patched highlows, outrageously shaved face and absence of shirt collar, is decidedly an amateur, who now and then plays a part, and as he is never mistaken for an actor on the stage, tries when off to look as much like one as possible.
The boxes are nothing but a gallery, and are generally visited by a certain class of ladies who resemble angels, at least, in one particular, for they are “few and far between.”