"The Costard-Monger & Covent-Garden Theatre" by John Leighton

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Covent-Garden Theatre & The Costard-Monger!

John Leighton

1847

The Cries of London & Public Edifices, Plate 10

See below for Leighton's text.

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Image capture and formatting by George P. Landow.

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The Costard-Monger

(so called from an apple of that name) is an itinerant vendor of garden stuff. He mostly transports his vegetable wares in a cart drawn by a donkey. His cry varies with the seasons and their produce : at one time we have "Cabbage plants," "New potatoes," or "Ripe Asparagus;" at another, "Fine young peas, fresh gathered," "Ripe rhubarb," "Baking or boiling apples:" he is now calling "Gooseberries! fourpence an ale-house quart, gooseberries !" In the background is a seller of

Hearthstones and Flanders Brick

Punch's opera is proceeding along Bow Street with dog Toby in the rear, from whose petty stage we turn to one of the largest in the metropolis,

Covent-Garden Theatre

The former theatre was burnt down, Sept. 20, 1808, and the present one erected on its site, at a cost of £150,000, by R. Smirke, R.A., who has taken as his model the temple of Minerva at Athens, and the first stone was laid in September, 1809, by George IV., then Prince of Wales. It was built with great rapidity, having been completed in less than a year after the destruction of the former building. Along the front are basso-relievos representing the ancient and modern drama ; and in niches at either end figures of Comedy and Tragedy, by Flaxman.

Related materials

Bibliography

Limner, Luke [John Leighton]. The Cries of London & Public Edifices from Sketches on the Spot. London: Grant & Griffith successors to Newberry and Harris. Corner of St Paul's Church Yard, [1847]. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of Toronto Library. Web. 17 September 2013.

Last modified 18 September 2013