Note 38 — RULE, BRITANNIA.
Reading edition
Commentary on the practice of securing seats at Drury Lane Theatre is to be found in the “Private correspondence” addressed to David Garrick: “Sir.—The many proofs you have given the town of your desire to oblige them, encourage me to propose to you a scheme no less advantageous than useful to the public, especially the polite part of it. The alterations lately made in your theatre for the convenience of the spectators, naturally suggested to me an inconvenience arising from the servants who are sent to keep places. I have, with concern, seen a lady finely dressed forced to sit down by a servant whose clothes and feet have been very dirty, and behaviour extremely offensive; it has happened, to my knowledge, that some servants, in order to follow their own pleasures, have hired common porters of the street to keep their places, whose company better suited a prison than a place of polite entertainment.”
Signed T. B. Nov. 25, 1762.