[295] This appears from the evidence brought forward in the prosecution of Grist; see The Whitehall Evening Post for May 7 to May 10, 1796 (referring to May 7).
[296] Newspapers cited by E. M. Borrajo in Notes and Queries, 7th ser. xi. 138.
[297] “The English translator of Lamotte’s Life says she fell from the leads of her house, nigh the Temple of Flora, endeavouring to escape seizure for debt, and was taken up so much hurt that she died in consequence. Another report runs that she was flung out of window.... Where the Temple of Flora was, or is, one knows not” (Carlyle, Diamond Necklace, note near end). The Temple of Flora alluded to was certainly in London, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the popular resort now described is the place in question.
[298] At the period when the gardens were open “The Asylum” (i.e. Female Orphan Asylum) stood where Christ Church now stands.
[299] Cp. Wilkinson, Londina Illust. vol. ii. “Pantheon Theatre.”
[300] Allen (History of Lambeth, 319) states that the Apollo Gardens were suppressed about 1791, but this is certainly erroneous, as the gardens were frequently advertised in 1792. Kearsley’s Strangers’ Guide to London (1793?) mentions the place as “the resort of company in the evenings,” and says that music was occasionally performed there. The Temple of Apollo was described about 1796–7 in A Modern Sabbath as already becoming ruinous, and it is there stated that Claggett, the proprietor, had become bankrupt. A newspaper paragraph of December 1796 refers to a field opposite the Asylum, close by “the ditch that encircles that place of late infamous resort, the Apollo Gardens.”
[301] This was probably the orchestra that seems to have stood in the centre of the gardens and not that in the concert room.
[302] Cp. a token of 1651 (“At the Dogg and Ducke in Southwarke,” type, Spaniel with Duck in mouth) in Boyne’s Trade Tokens, ed. Williamson, p. 1022, there assigned to The Dog and Duck in Deadman’s Place, Southwark, by Mr. Philip Norman, who, however, suggests the possibility of its belonging to the Dog and Duck in St. George’s Fields. A specimen is in the British Museum.
[303] The ponds are marked in Rocque’s Map, circ. 1745. The duck-hunting probably took place at an early period, not later than circ. 1750.
[304] Newspaper cutting of 1731 (W. Coll.): see also The Country Journal or the Craftsman for 12 Aug. 1732; also 26 Aug. 1732.