Note 47 — Chapter XV
Reading edition
The season of 1807-8, at Covent Garden, closed June 27th, 1808, not the 13th of July. That of 1808-9, began September 12th, and on Monday 19th were performed "Pizarro," and the "Portrait of Cervantes." About four o'clock on the following morning, flames were seen to issue from the roof, alarm was given, but too late; in two hours more, the whole theatre, all the adjacent buildings in Hart-street and Bow-street, were a pile of smouldering ruins. The fire was occasioned by leaving a German stove in the property-room, charged with fuel, after the man had left; the pipe is supposed to have conducted the heat to the roof, which by that means took fire. The Covent Garden Company continued their season at the King's Theatre, from September 28th till December 3rd, and removed to the Haymarket on December 5th.