Introduction
John Macky published Travels Through England in 1714. It takes the form of letters supposedly written by a foreign tourist while in England, and sent home to his friend abroad. The preface declares frankly that Macky’s purpose is to help his reader appreciate an Englishman’s liberties under the benign King George I, in contrast to the wretched oppression on the Continent. Here, he describes a leisurely day in London.
I AM lodged in the street called Pall Mall, the ordinary residence of all strangers. If you would know our manner of living it is thus: We rise by nine, and those that frequent great men’s levees* find entertainment at them till eleven or, as in Holland, go to tea-tables. About twelve the beau monde* assembles in several coffee or chocolate houses, the best of which are the Cocoa Tree and White’s Chocolate-houses, St James’s, the Smyrna, Mrs Rochford’s and the British Coffee-houses; and all these so near to one another that in less than an hour you see the company of them all. We are carried to these placed in chairs,* which are here very cheap, a guinea a week, or one shilling per hour, and your chair-men serve you for porters to run on errands. [...]
If it is fine weather we take a turn in the park till two, when we go to dinner, and if it be dirty,* you are entertained at picquet or basset at White’s,* or you may talk politics at Smyrna, or St James’s.
Précis
John Macky, in the person of a foreign tourist, described a day in early eighteenth-century London. He rose at nine, and at once climbed into a sedan chair to be carried off for a series of social engagements with fashionable people in the city’s numerous coffee-houses, punctuated by a turn in the park or a game of cards.
(58 / 60 words)
John Macky, in the person of a foreign tourist, described a day in early eighteenth-century London. He rose at nine, and at once climbed into a sedan chair to be carried off for a series of social engagements with fashionable people in the city’s numerous coffee-houses, punctuated by a turn in the park or a game of cards.
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