Joyful prospects now appear,
Heav'n restores our monarch dear!
Loyal Britains'lyre and lute
At such blessings can't be mute.
Happy then your voices raise,
Peals of gratitude and praise!

Prelude at Drury Lane, April 15th, 1789.

THE King's recovery was the signal for festivities which
had not been paralleled for a century -- galas, masquer-
ades, balls, operas, and plays were the vogue. On March
21 st, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York were among
the brilliant audience which attended Drury Lane for the pro-
duction of Mary Queen of Scots by the Hon. St. John John.

The Queen and her daughters, the Princesses Augusta and
Elizabeth, attended Covent Garden, showing her displeasure
with Sheridan, by not visiting Drury Lane.

Then came a series of magnificent galas; White's Club, at-
tended by two thousand persons of rank and fashion, was held
in the Pantheon, on March 31 st. Brookes's Club, anxious to re-
move any impression of disloyalty, followed on April 20th with
a gala -- "promenade concert, supper, ball and so on," at the
Opera House in the Haymarket, which was fitted up "superb-
ly." An occasional Ode was written by Captain Robert Merry,
"this furious zealot for liberty," said the Tories, "contrived to
infuse into his composition a subtle mixture of the sentiments
of the members of Brookes's; for the vehemence of his longing

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