Marigold, you and I have had many a pleasant hour
in those gardens during our courting days, when the little naked Cupid
used to sit astride of a swan, and the water spouted from its beak as
high as the ~93~~monument; then the grotto was so delightful and
natural as life, and the little bridge, and the gold fish hopping about
underneath it, made it quite like a terrestrial paradise{2}; but about
that time Dr. Whitfield and the Countess of Huntingdon undertook to
save the souls of all the sinners, and erected a psalm-singing shop in
Tottenham Court Road, where they assembled the pious, and made wry
faces at the publicans and sinners, until they managed to turn the heads
without turning the hearts of a great number of his majesty's liege
subjects, and by the aid of cant and hypocrisy, caused the orthodox
religion of the land to be nearly abandoned; but we are beginning to
be more enlightened, Mr. Blackmantle, and Understand these _trading_
missionaries and _Bible merchants_ much better than they could wish us
to have done. Then, sir, the Pantheon, in Spa Fields, was a favourite
place of resort for the bucks and gay ladies of the time; and Sadler's
Wells and Islington Spa were then in high repute for their mineral
waters. At White Conduit House the Jews and Jewesses of the metropolis
held their carnival, and city apprentices used to congregate at Dobney's
bowling-green, afterwards named, in compliment to Garrick's Stratford
procession, the Jubilee tea-gardens; those were the times to grow rich,
Mr.
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