had a specimen of the rough insular manners. By some accident or other
the company could not give the piece that had been announced, and the
audience were in a tumult. Garrick, the celebrated actor who was buried
twenty years later in Westminster Abbey, came forward and tried in vain
to restore order. He was obliged to retire behind the curtain. Then the
king, the queen, and all the fashionables left the theatre, and in less
than an hour the theatre was gutted, till nothing but the bare walls were
left.

After this destruction, which went on without any authority interposing,
the mad populace rushed to the taverns to consume gin and beer. In a
fortnight the theatre was refitted and the piece announced again, and
when Garrick appeared before the curtain to implore the indulgence of the
house, a voice from the pit shouted, "On your knees." A thousand voices
took up the cry "On your knees," and the English Roscius was obliged to
kneel down and beg forgiveness. Then came a thunder of applause, and
everything was over. Such are the English, and above all, the Londoners.
They hoot the king and the royal family when they appear in public, and
the consequence is, that they are never seen, save on great occasions,
when order is kept by hundreds of constables.

One day, as I was walking by myself, I saw Sir Augustus Hervey, whose
acquaintance I had made, speaking to a gentleman, whom he left to come to
me. I asked him whom he had been speaking to.

"That's the brother of Earl Ferrers," said he, "who was hanged a couple
of months ago for murdering one of his people."

"And you speak to his brother?"