Could it be Magical?

"The Chevalier Pinetti with his Consort will exhibit most wonderful, stupendous, and absolutely inimitable, mechanical, physical, and philosophical pieces, which his recent deep scrutiny in those sciences, and assiduous exertions have enabled him to invent and construct; among which Chevalier Pinetti will have the special honour and satisfaction of exhibiting various experiments of new discovery, no less curious than seemingly incredible, particularly that of Madame Pinetti being seated in one of the front boxes, with a handkerchief over her eyes, and guessing at everything imagined and proposed to her by any person in the company."

Advertisement, 1784.

Dangers of Writing, ii: Critical Reviews

"[The author affects] contempt of all newspaper strictures; though, at the same time, he is the sorest man alive, and shrinks like scorched parchment from the fiery ordeal of true criticism: yet he is so covetous of popularity, that he had rather be abused than not mentioned at all."

Richard Sheridan, The Critic

Well, Toto, I guess we're not in Starbucks anymore...

Members of the Royal Society (scientists, philosophers and artists, mostly) took their coffee at the Grecian Coffee House, just off the Strand in Devereux Court.

It was within its august walls that Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley once dissected a dolphin.

Try THAT tomorrow with your double-mocha half-fat decaf with extra chocolate sprinkles.

The Latest Thing

In the grounds of Alexander Pope's status-symbol Palladian villa at Twickenham, which he designed himself, were all the latest whims and fancies: a vineyard, orangery, hothouses for pineapples, hives for bees, rare varieties of French pear, and a large kitchen garden.

Beyond the domestic garden lay extensive landscaping: straight avenues, winding interlaced paths, dense woods, many different trees, a grove of cypresses leading to an obelisk, an amphitheatre, quincunxes, groves, arcades, a wilderness, a bowling green, a shell temple, three mounts, a panorama and a camera obscura built within a grotto.

A restless striving quarrel between ingenuity, variety and naturalism, all crammed into a bare five acres of ground - and as good a metaphor for the eighteenth century as you might care to find.

The Devil in the Detail

Diabolus in Musica - a tri-tone formed by C and F sharp played together.

It was long considered as having an ugly, eerie or even evil quality. Its use was forbidden to early ecclesiastical composers, who gave it this name.

St. James Park, daytime view

Not, sadly, showing the pelicans: in 1664, a Russian ambassador presented a pair to the king, a tradition which foreign ambassadors continue to this day.

St. James's Park, after Dark

Much Wine had pass’d, with grave Discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse ..

And nightly now, beneath their shade
Are Buggeries, Rapes and Incests made ..
Great Ladies, Chambermaids and Drudges
The Rag-picker and the Heiress trudges.

Carmen, Divines, Great Lords and Taylors
Prentices, Poets, Pimps and Jaylers,
Footmen, fine Fopps do here arrive
And here – promiscuously – they swive ..

James Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: A Ramble in St. James' Park (1672)


My Lord of London, chancing to remark
A noted Dean much busy’d in the Park
‘Proceed’ he cry’d, ‘proceed my Reverend Brother
‘tis Fornicatio Simplex and no other;
Better than lust for Boys, with Pope and Turk
Or other Spouses like my Lord of York’.

Alexander Pope: Imitations (1735)