Page:Manners and customs of ye Englyshe.djvu/45



O the Queen's Houſe in the Haymarket to hear Jemmy Lind, whom Everybody do call the Swediſh Nightingale. Did go with a Pit Ticket, coll me 8 s. 6d., which is a mighty Sum of Money to pay for only the Chance of a Seat. Went at 6, p. m., expecting a Crowd, and there a Mob of People already at the Doors, and ſome did ſay they had come as early as Five. Got as cloſe as I could to the Pit Entrance, and the Throng increaſing; and by-and-by Ladies in their Opera Dreſſes ſtanding without their Bonnets in the Street. Many of them between the Carriage Wheels and under the Horſes' Meads: and methinks I did never ſee more Carriages together in my Life. At laſt the Doors open; which did begin to fear they never would, and I in with the Preſs, a moſt terrible Cruſh, and the Ladies (creaming and their Dreſſes torn in the Scramble, wherefore I thought it a good Job that my Wife was not with me. With much ado into the Pit, the Way being ſtopped by a Snob in a green Jockey Coat and Bird's Eye Neckcloth, that the Checktakers would not ſuffer to paſs. The Pit full in a  Twinkling, and I fain to ſtand where I bed might, nigh to Fop's Alley: but preſenty a Lady fainting with the Heat and carried out, which was glad of; I mean that I got her Place. I did never behold ſo much Company in the Houſe before; and every Box full of Beauties, and hung