what these letters very positively assert, to wit, that a great part of the performance was done in Italian: and a great critic fell into fits in the gallery, at feeling, not only time and place, but languages, and nations confused in the most incorrigible manner. His spleen is so extremely moved on this occasion, that he is going to publish a treatise against operas, which, he thinks, have already inclined us to thoughts of peace, and if tolerated, must infallibly dispirit us from carrying on the war. He has communicated his scheme to the whole room, and declared in what manner things of this kind were first introduced. He has upon this occasion considered the nature of sounds in general, and made a very elaborate digression upon the London cries,[1] wherein he has shown from reason and philosophy why oysters are cried, card-matches[2] sung, and turnips and all other vegetables neither cried, sung, nor said, but sold, with an accent and tone neither natural to man or beast. This piece seems to be taken from the model of that excellent discourse of Mrs. Manly the school mistress, concerning samplers.[3] Advices from the upper end of Piccadilly say that Mayfair is utterly abolished;[4]
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- ↑ The street cries of 1709 are described in Lauron's "Habits and Cries of the City of London." They included "Any card-matches or save-alls" and "Twelve-pence a peck, oysters."
- ↑ Matches made by dipping pieces of card in melted sulphur. In the Spectator (No. 251), Addison speaks of vendors of card-matches as examples of the fact that those made most noise who had least to sell.
- ↑ In vol. ii. of Dr. W. King's Works (1776) is "An Essay on the Invention of Samplers, by Mrs. Arabella Manly, schoolmistress at Hackney."
- ↑ May Fair was abolished in 1709, after it had on several occasions been presented as a nuisance by the Grand Jury at Westminster. This fair was granted by King James II. under the Great Seal, in the fourth year of his reign, to Sir John Coell and his heirs for ever, in trust for Henry Lord Dover and his heirs for ever, to be held in the field called
