The sports and pastimes of the people of England including the rural and domestic recreations, May games, mummeries, shows, processions, pageants, and pompous spectacles, from the earliest period to the present time / By Joseph Strutt. Illustrated by one hundred and forty engravings.

  • Joseph Strutt
Date:
183l
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sports and pastimes of the people of England including the rural and domestic recreations, May games, mummeries, shows, processions, pageants, and pompous spectacles, from the earliest period to the present time / By Joseph Strutt. Illustrated by one hundred and forty engravings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SPORTS AND PASTIMES BOOK IV. upon the supposition that the frequenting- of it was altogether superstitious; and so by degrees it grew out of remembrance, and Mas M-hoIly lost until then found out; when a gentleinaii named Sadler, who had lately built a new inusic^house there, and being surveyor of the highways, had employed men to dig- gravel in his garden, in the midst whereof they found it stopped up and covered with an arch of stone. ” i After the decease of Sadler, one Francis Forcer, a musician and composer of songs, became occupier ot tl^well and music-room; he was succeeded by his son, udio first exhibited there the diversion of rope-dancing* and tumbling-,2 which M^ere then performed abroad in the garden. There is now a small theatre appropriated .to this purpose, fur- nished w-ith a stage, scenes, and other decorations proper for the representation of dramatic pieces and pantomimes. The diversions of this place are of various kinds, and form upon the whole a succession of performances very similar to those displayed in former ages by the gleemen, the minstrels, and the jugglers. VII.—MARY-BONE GARDENS—ORATORIOS. To the three preceding places of public entertainment, w-e may add a fourth, not now indeed in existence, but which about thirty years back^ Mas held in some degree of estimation, and much frequented; I mean Mary-bone Gardens; where, in addition to the music and singing, there were burlettas and fire-works exhibited. The site of these gardens is now covered with buildings. There were also other places of smaller note M'here singing and music were introduced, but none of them of any long continuance; for being much frequented by idle and dissolute persons, they were put down by the magistrates. The success of these musical assemblies, I presume, first sug- gested the idea of introducing operas upon the stage, which were contrived at once to please the eye and delight the ear; and this double gratification, generally speaking, was procured at the expense of reason and propriety. Ilence, also, we may trace the establishment of oratorios in England. I need not say that this noble species of ^dramatic music was brought to gveat perfection by Handel; the oratorios produced by him display ih a wonderful manner his powers as a composer of music j * A. D. 1683. > Hanrkiiu, at sapra. J> [About 1770.]