Transcription
The recent conviction of the unfortunate Mr. Weston, for forgery, furnishes an additional proof (if any were wanting) of the necessity of immediately suppressing those sinks of infamy and vice, public gambling-houses. This ill-fated young man was driven to the commission of a crime which he will probably shortly expiate with his life, in order to discharge a sum of 7000l. lost at one sitting at a house of this description in Pall-mall.
The European Museum, St. James’s-square, is always crowded during the Exhibition of the Royal Academy; the fashionable world are constantly passing from one gallery to the other.
The reports from our different correspondents all agree that ASTLEY’s was most numerously attended last night, and, what is very extraordinary on such a great holiday night, the boxes were crowded with rank and fashion. Of the new entertainments, suffice it to say, they could not be better. The Marriage by Comedy, or the Fashionable Playfolks, translated from the French of Monsieur Beaumarchais, is most beautifully imagined: one would think this author had his eye upon our private theatricals. The dancing consisted of double and treble hornpipes, which were well adapted to the times as was Johannot’s medley song, in the musical piece of Greenwich a-hoy! The homeward-bound fleet heaving in sight ay be truly stiled [sic] a Panorama, with the advantage of the ships being in motion. The pantomime, called the Magician of the Rocks, or Harlequin in London, is certainly one of the first-rate productions of the kind ever seen. The different perspective views of London were well fancied; but the carpenters and scene-shifters were deficient in many respects. In the scene of London-bridge and Dowgate-hill, one of the balance weights fell upon the stage. The Monument tumbled on the cutler’s shop, and put the pastry-cook’s, near the corner of Turnagain-lane, in an uproar. Two arches of London-bridge, with the water-works, were carried away upon a man’s back; this circumstance set the house in a roar of laughter. There are many comic stroked in the pantomime; but, in our opinion, the whole wants curtailing, which, no doubt, Mr. Astley will do before its second representation, this evening. Pantomimes of such extent are certainly exceeding troublesome to move; for which reason many allowances are to be made for a first representation.
