Social England : a record of the progress of the people in religion, laws, learning, arts, industry, commerce, science, literature and manners, from the earliest times to the present day . t Garden Theatre was built, l)ut opera languished, and at 1 Hervey, Memoirs, iii, 142. SOCIAL LIFE. 191 1742] the close of the period the fashionable world was seeking oratoriofor variety (p. 125). In 1734 an oratorio by Porpora was per-formed at Lincolns Inn Fields; Mrs. Pendarves found it toosolemn for a theatre, and preferred Handels oratorios, Estherand Deborah. In 1741 elaborate scenery was tried at the
Social England : a record of the progress of the people in religion, laws, learning, arts, industry, commerce, science, literature and manners, from the earliest times to the present day . t Garden Theatre was built, l)ut opera languished, and at 1 Hervey, Memoirs, iii, 142. SOCIAL LIFE. 191 1742] the close of the period the fashionable world was seeking oratoriofor variety (p. 125). In 1734 an oratorio by Porpora was per-formed at Lincolns Inn Fields; Mrs. Pendarves found it toosolemn for a theatre, and preferred Handels oratorios, Estherand Deborah. In 1741 elaborate scenery was tried at the opera-house, with improved dancing, and for a while the town ranafter it. Horace Walpole says : • They have flung opeu the stage to a great leugtli, and made a perfectview of Yeuice, with the Rialto and numbers of gondolas that row aboutfull of masks, who land and dance. The love of card-playing, which had formerly been char- cardsactcristic of aristocratic circlesonly, now infected all alike. Thefavourite games at court were quadrille, an improvement onombre, and commerce. Bothgames depended on the stakes fortheir interest. Writing in 1733,Chesterfield says to Lady Suftblk :—. Your Hampton Court recreations, 1find, give the lie to those who complainof the uncertainty and instability ofCourts, since the same joyous measureshave for these sixteen revolving yearsbeen steadily pursued without interrup-tion. Commerce must surely have playedits cards excellently well, to have keptits ground so long or—the first courteousopener of this letter may insert therest. ^ In the kings absence, Hervey writes that the Queen at passed her common evenings just as she had done atKensington ?—that is, in her private apartments, playingquadrille with two ladies, whilst the Princess Caroline, a maidof honour, and Lord Hervey played pools at cribbage ; andthe duke, Princess Emily, and the rest of the chance-comers ofthe family played at basset. The gains and losses of the king and
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