Some retained a supply of prostitutes. Many
taverns had a rentable private room for the better-off to drink
wine, have meals, meet friends, gamble, do business, and hold
meetings of societies and clubs, especially political clubs. From
this beginning sprang private clubs such as the Blue Stocking Club
in 1750 and the Literary Club in 1764; Lloyd's for sale and
insurance of ships in 1771; and the stock exchange in 1773. The
Blue stocking Club was established by women who organized
conversational parties with guests of intellect and wit. There was
opera, playhouses, concerts usually with Georg Handel's oratorios
such as The Messiah or the foreigners Bach and Haydn, tea-gardens,
fire works, balls, masquerades, wax works, beer shops, and bawdy
houses, except on Sunday. There were straight plays, comic operas,
and melodramas. Three-dimensional sets replaced the two-
dimensional backdrop. Plays containing thinly veiled satires on
politicians were becoming popular. Some plays had crude and
licentious material. Theaters still shared a close association
with brothels. Unlicensed theaters were closed down by a statute
of 1737, but most came to acquire patronage to get a license. This
shaped the development of drama in London for a century.
The Beggar's Opera depicting an immoral society unable to master
its bandits was written by John Gay as a powerful attack on a
government which most of London hated.
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