Thomas Lowe

Musical Address to the Town

The Gentleman's Magazine, May 1763.

[Mr. Lowe]
Now the summer advances, and pleasure removes,
From the smoke of the town, to the fields and the groves
Permit me to hope that your favours again,
May smile, as before, on this once happy plain.

The once happy plain was Marylebone Gardens, reopened in 1763 under the management of Thomas Lowe, 'the favourite tenor of Vauxhall Gardens...Lowe opened in May with a "Musical Address to the Town", in which the singers...apologised for the absence of some of the attractions of Ranelagh and Vauxhall' (Warwick Wroth, The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century. Macmillan, 1896, p.101).

[Miss Catley]
Tho' here no rotunda expands the wide dome,
No canal on its borders invites you to roam;
Yet nature some blessings has scattered around,
And means to improve may hereafter be found...

[Chorus]
To gain your esteem's the full scope of our plan,
And we'll strive to deserve it as well as we can.