Event Comment: By Particular Desire of several Ladies of Quality. Positively
the last Night. [Intended as satire on
the Reverend John Henley's Oratory (eccentric preacher, 1692-1756) and as a puff for
The Midwife or
Old Woman's Magazine, edited by
Christopher Smart and
John Newberry, 1751-53.
The Old Woman's Oratory written and produced by Smart. See
the Gentleman's Magazine, 1752, p. 43; and
Horace Walpole's letter to
Montagu 12 May 1752, as follows: It appeared
the lowest buffoonery in
the world, even to me who am used to my uncle Horace.
There is a bad oration to ridicule, what is too like, Orator Henley; all
the rest is perverted music.
There is a man who plays so nimbly on
the kettle drums, that he has reduced that noisy instrument to be an object of sight; for if you don't see
the tricks with his hands, it is no better than ordinary. Ano
ther play on a violin and trumpet toge
ther; ano
ther mimics a bagpipe with a
German flute, and makes it full if disagreeable.
There is an admired dulcimer, a favourite saltbox and a really curious Jew's Harp.
Two or three men intend to persuade you that
they play on a broomstick, which is drolly brought in, carefully shrouded in a case, so as to be mistaken for a bassoon or bass viol, but
they succeed in nothing but
the action.
The last fellow imitates farting and curtseying to a
French horn.
There are twenty medley overtures, and a man who speaks a prologue and epilogue, in which he counterfeits all
the actors and singers upon earth' (
The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, IX, p. 131). [See 3 Dec. 1751.