CHAPTER VI.

The limitation of Bartholomew Fair to three days, and the interdiction of theatrical booths in two successive years, was a serious blow, regarding the matter from the professional point of view, to the interests of the fair. Though actors worked hard during the twelve or eighteen days of the fair, they earned higher salaries during that time than they would have received at the theatres, and looked forward to Bartholomew-tide as the labourer to harvest. Though the theatres remained open during the fair when theatrical booths and puppet-shows were interdicted by the Court of Aldermen, actors missed their extra earnings, and managers found their receipts considerably diminished. In these we have only a passing interest; but the glory of the fairs began to wane when the great actors ceased to appear on the boards of the canvas theatres, for the nobility and gentry withdrew their patronage when the luminaries of Drury Lane and Covent Garden were no longer to be seen, and fairs began to be voted low by persons of rank and fashion.

The removal of the interdict on theatrical booths had little or no effect in arresting the progress of the decadence which had commenced; for the three days to which Bartholomew Fair remained limited did not afford to actors engaged at the London theatres, opportunities for earning money sufficient to induce them to set up a portable theatre, which, except for Southwark Fair, they could not use again until the following year. The case was very different when the fair lasted two or three weeks, and the theatres were closed during the time; but when its duration was contracted to three days, the attendance of a theatrical company could be made remunerative only for inferior artistes who strolled all through the year from one fair to another.

Towards the middle of the last century, therefore, a new race of showmen came prominently before the visitors to the London fairs, and two or three only of the names familiar to fair audiences afterwards re-appeared in the bills of the temporary theatres. Even these had, with the exception of Mrs. Lee, come into notice only since the fair, by being limited to three days, had lost its attractiveness for actors of the theatres royal. The site made famous by Fielding was occupied in 1746 by a new manager, Hussey, who presented a drama of Shakspeare’s (without announcing the title), sandwich-like, between the two parts of a vocal and instrumental concert, concluding the entertainment with a pantomime called The Schemes of Harlequin, in which Rayner was Harlequin, and his daughter, who did a tight-rope performance, probably Columbine. Rayner was an acrobat at Sadler’s Wells, where his daughter danced on the tight rope. The pantomime concluded with a chorus in praise of the Duke of Cumberland, whose victory at Culloden in the preceding year had finally crushed the hopes of the disaffected Jacobites.

The younger Yeates joined Mrs. Lee in a theatrical booth facing the hospital gate, where they presented Love in a Labyrinth, a musical entertainment called Harlequin Invader, and “stiff and slack rope-dancing by the famous Dutch woman.” This can scarcely be the woman who did such wonders on the rope about the time of the Revolution, though Madame Saqui performed on the rope at a very advanced age; she may have been the same, for she does not appear again, but, considering that she is spoken of as a woman at the time of her first appearance in England, it is more probable that the rope-dancer of Mrs. Lee’s booth was another Dutch woman, perhaps a daughter of the elder and more famous performer.

Adjoining Mrs. Lee’s booth was one of which Warner and Fawkes were the proprietors, and in which a drama called The Happy Hero was performed, followed by a musical entertainment called Harlequin Incendiary, in which the parts of Harlequin and Columbine were sustained by a couple named Cushing, who afterwards appeared at Covent Garden. Warner personated Clodpole, a humorous rustic. Not to be outdone in loyalty by Hussey, he concluded the performance by singing a song in praise of the victor of Culloden.

Entertainers are, as a class, loyal, under whatever dynasty or form of government they live, providing that it does not interfere with the exercise of their profession; and in this instance their sympathies accorded with the popular political creed.

In the following year, Hussey’s booth again stood in George Yard, and presented Tamerlane the Great, with singing and “several curious equilibres on the slack rope by Mahomet Achmed Vizaro Mussulmo, a Turk just arrived from Constantinople, who not only balances without a pole, but also plays a variety of excellent airs on the violin when on the slack rope, which none can perform in England but himself.” Though said to have just arrived from Constantinople, this Turk was probably the same that had performed at Bartholomew Fair three years previously.

Warner disconnected himself from Fawkes this year, and joined Yeates and Mrs. Lee, whose booth stood in the same position as before, presenting the Siege of Troy, and an entertainment of singing and dancing. Adjoining it stood a new show, owned by Godwin and Reynolds, with “a curious collection of wax-work figures, being the richest and most beautiful in England;” and a panoramic view of the world, “particularly an accurate and beautiful prospect of Bergen-op-Zoom, together with its fortifications and adjacent forts, and an exact representation of the French besieging it, and the Dutch defending it from their batteries, etc.” The movements of this exhibition were effected by clock-work. Opposite the Greyhound was another new venture, Chettle’s, in which a pantomimic entertainment called Frolicsome Lasses was presented, with singing and dancing between the acts, and a display of fireworks at the end.

The only theatrical booth at Southwark Fair this year seems to have been Mrs. Lee’s, in which the entertainments were the same as at Bartholomew Fair. In Mermaid Lane was exhibited “the strange and wonderful monstrous production of Nature, a sea-elephant head, having forty-six teeth, some of them ten inches long, fluted, and turning up like a ram’s horn.”

The shows increased in number and variety, though the theatrical booths could no longer boast of the great names of former years. George Yard was occupied in 1748 by a new theatre, owned by Bridges, Cross, Barton, and Vaughan, from the theatres royal, who availed of the interest created by recent events to present a new historical drama called The Northern Heroes, followed by dancing and a farce called The Volunteers, founded on the ‘Adventures of Roderick Random.’ Smollett was now running Fielding hard in the race of fame, and the new managers were keen in turning his popularity to account for their own interests. This booth was the most important one in the fair, and the charge for admission ranged from sixpence to half-a-crown.

Hussey’s booth, at which the prices ranged from sixpence to two shillings, stood opposite the gate of the hospital. The entertainments consisted of the comedy of The Constant Quaker, singing and dancing, including “a new dance called Punch’s Maggot, or Foote’s Vagaries,” and a pantomime called Harlequin’s Frolics.

In Lee and Yeates’s booth, opposite the Greyhound, The Unnatural Parents was revived, “shewing the manner of her (the heroine) being forced to wander from home by the cruelty of her parents, and beg her bread; and being weary, fell into a slumber, in a grove, where a goddess appears to her, and directs her to a nobleman’s house; how she was there taken in as a servant, and at length, for her beauty and modest behaviour, married to a gentleman of great fortune, with her return to her parents, and their happy reconciliation. Also the comical humours and adventures of Trusty, her father’s man, and the three witches.” Then follow the dramatis personæ, which show a strong company. “With the original dance performed by three wild cats of the wood. With dancing between the acts by Mr. Adams and Mrs. Ogden. A good band of music is provided, consisting of kettle-drums, trumpets, French horns, hautboys, violins, etc. To begin each day at twelve o’clock. The scenes and clothes are entirely new, and the droll the same that was performed by Mrs. Lee fifteen years ago, with great applause.”

Near Cow Lane stood another new theatrical booth, that of Cousins and Reynolds, at which the charges for admission ranged from threepence to a shilling. Here the romantic drama of The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green was presented, with dancing between the acts, an exhibition of life-size wax figures, representing the Court of Maria Theresa, and the performance of the Italian sword-dancers, “who have had the honour of performing before the Prince of Wales, with great applause.”

Among the minor shows was one at “the first house on the pavement, from the end of Hosier Lane,” where the sights to be seen were a camel, a hyæna, a panther, “the wonderful and surprising satyr, call’d by Latin authors, Pan,” and a “young Oronutu savage.” On the pavement, at the end of Cow Lane, was a smaller show, the charge for admission to which was threepence, consisting of a large hog, said to weigh a hundred and twenty stones, and announced as “the greatest prodigy in Nature;” and an “amazing little dwarf, being the smallest man in the world.”

Bartholomew Fair was visited this year for the first time by the female dwarf who obtained such wide-spread celebrity as the Corsican Fairy. It will be seen from the following copy of the bill issued by her exhibitors that she was not shown in a booth, but in a room hired for the purpose:—

Hussey’s theatrical booth attended Southwark Fair, where it stood on the bowling-green, the entertainments being the same as in Smithfield. Lee and Yeates can scarcely have been absent from a scene with which the former had been so long and intimately associated. Yeates took a benefit this year at the New Wells, near the London Spa, Clerkenwell, where a concert was followed by a performance of the Beggar’s Opera, with the bénéficiaire as Macheath and his wife as Polly, and the farce of Miss in her Teens, in which the part of Captain Flash was sustained by the former, and that of Miss Biddy by his wife. The place was probably unlicensed for theatrical performances, as the dramatic portion of the entertainment was announced to be free to holders of tickets for the concert.

Tottenham Court Fair was continued this year for fourteen days, but does not appear to have been attended by any of the shows which contributed so much to the attractiveness of the fairs of Smithfield and Southwark Green. The only advertisement of the entertainments which I have been able to find mentions a “great theatrical booth,” but it was devoted on the day to which the announcement relates to wrestling and single-stick playing. As a relic of a bygone time, it is curious enough to merit preservation:—

“For the entertainment of all lovers and encouragers of the sword in its different uses, and for the benefit of Daniel French, at the great theatrical booth at Tottenham Court, on Monday the 14th instant, will be revived a country wake. Three men of Gloucestershire to play at single-stick against three from any part, for a laced hat, value fifteen shillings, or half a guinea in gold; he that breaks most heads fairly in three bouts, and saves his own, to have the prize; half-a-crown for every man breaking a head fairly, besides stage-money. That gentlemen may not be disappointed, every gamester designing to engage is desired to enter his name and place of abode with Mr. Fuller, at the King’s Head, next the booth, before the day of sport, or he will not be admitted to play, and to meet by eight in the morning to breakfast and settle the play for the afternoon. Money will be given for the encouragement of wrestling, sword and dagger, and other diversions usual on the stage, besides stage-money. That no time may be lost, while two are taking breath, two fresh men shall engage. The doors to be opened at twelve o’clock, and the sport to begin precisely at three in the afternoon. Note, there will be variety of singing and dancing for prizes, as will be expressed in the bills and papers of the day. Hob, clerk of the revel.”

Newspapers of this year contain advertisements of several shows which probably visited the London Fairs, where they were sufficiently announced by their pictures. There are no fewer than three menageries, all on a small scale. The best seems to have been Perry’s, advertised as follows:—“This is to give notice to all Gentlemen, Ladies, and others, that Mr. Perry’s Grand Collection of Living Wild Beasts is come to the White Horse Inn, Fleet Street, consisting of a large he-lion, a he-tiger, a leopard, a panther, two hyenas, a civet cat, a jackall, or lion’s provider, and several other rarities too tedious to mention. To be seen at any time of the day, without any loss of time. Note.—This is the only tiger in England, that baited being only a common leopard.” The note alludes to a recent baiting of a leopard by dogs, the animal so abused being described in the announcements of the combat as a tiger.

The second menagerie under notice was advertised as follows:—

“To be seen, at the Flying Horse, near the London workhouse, Bishopsgate Street, from eight in the morning till nine at night, the largest collection of living wild creatures ever seen in Europe. 1. A beautiful large he-tiger, brought from Bengal by Captain Webster, in the Ann. He is very tame, and vastly admired. 2. A beautiful young leopard, from Turkey. 3. A civet cat, from Guinea. 4. A young man-tiger, from Angola. 5. A wonderful hyæna, from the coast of Guinea. 6. A right man-tiger, brought from Angola by Captain D’Abbadie, in the Portfield Indiaman. This is a very curious creature, and the only one that has been seen in England for several years. It comes the nearest to human nature of any animal in the world. With several others too tedious to mention.” Perry seems to have been in error in announcing that he had the only tiger in England; though the one exhibited at the Flying Horse may have been a more recent importation. The “man-tigers” of the latter collection were probably gorillas, though those animals seem to have been lost sight of subsequently until attention was recalled to them by M. Du Chaillu.

The third collection was advertised as follows:—

“To be seen, at the White Swan, near the Bull and Gate, Holborn, a collection of the most curious living wild creatures just arrived from different parts of the world. 1. A large and beautiful young camel from Grand Cairo, in Egypt, near eight feet high, though not two years old, and drinks water but once in sixteen days. 2. A surprising hyæna, from the coast of Guinea. 3. A beautiful he-panther, from Buenos Ayres, in the Spanish West Indies. 4. A young Riobiscay, from Russia: and several other creatures, too tedious to mention. Likewise a travelling post-chaise from Switzerland, which, without horses, keeps its stage for upwards of fifty miles a day, without danger to the rider. Attendance from eight in the morning till eight at night.” What the riobiscay was is now beyond conjecture; but the panther from Buenos Ayres was, of course, a jaguar, the panther being limited to the eastern hemisphere. This collection was exhibited in Holbom early in the year, and removed at Easter to the Rose and Crown, near the gates of Greenwich Park.

There was a bovine monstrosity shown this year as a “double cow,” probably at the fairs, as the following paragraph, extracted from a newspaper of the time, refers to a second locality:—

“As we are well assured that that most wonderful living curiosity, the double cow, has given uncommon satisfaction to the several learned bodies by whom it has hitherto been seen, we hope the following account and description of it will not be disagreeable to our readers. This wonderful prodigy was bred at Cookfield in Sussex, being one entire beautiful cow, from the middle of whose back issues the following parts of the other cow, viz., a leg with the blade-bone quite perfect, and about two feet long; the gullet, bowels, teats, and udder, from which udder, as well as from the udder of the perfect cow, it gives milk in great plenty, though more than a yard asunder; and what is very extraordinary, and has astonished the most curious observers, is the discontinuation of the back-bone about sixteen inches from the shoulder. This wonderful beast is so healthy as to travel twenty miles a day, is extremely gentle, and by all the gentlemen and ladies who have already seen it is thought as agreeable as astonishing. It is now shewn in a commodious room, facing Craigg’s Court, Charing Cross, at one shilling each person.”

There was also exhibited at the Heath Cock, Charing Cross, “a surprising young Mermaid, taken on the coast of Aquapulca, which, though the generality of mankind think there is no such thing, has been seen by the curious, who express their utmost satisfaction at so uncommon a creature, being half like a woman, and half like a fish, and is allowed to be the greatest curiosity ever exposed to the public view.”

In 1749, there was again a large muster of shows on the ancient arena of West Smithfield. Yates re-appeared as a theatrical manager, and in some measure restored the former repute of the fair, Oates and Miss Hippisley being members of his company. His booth stood in George Yard, where he played Gormandize Simple, while Oates personated Jupiter and Miss Hippisley the wanton chambermaid, Dorothy Squeezepurse, in “a New, Pleasant, and Diverting Droll, call’d the Descent of the Heathen Gods, with the Loves of Jupiter and Alcmena; or, Cuckoldom no Scandal. Interspersed with several Diverting Scenes, both Satyrical and Comical, particularly the Surprising Metamorphosis of Jupiter and Mercury; the very remarkable Tryal before Judge Puzzlecause, with many Learned Arguments on both sides, to prove that One can’t be Two. Likewise the Adventures and whimsical Perplexities of Gormandize Simple the Hungarian Footman; with the wonderful Conversation he had with, and the dreadful Drubbing he received from, His Own Apparition; together with the Intrigues of Dorothy Squeezepurse the Wanton Chambermaid.”

Opposite the George stood the theatrical booth of the elder Yeates, who had been absent from the fair for a few years, and whom Mr. Henry Morley confounds with his son, now in partnership with Warner and Mrs. Lee. He produced The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with singing and dancing between the acts, and the pantomime of The Amours of Harlequin. Cross and Bridges, whose booth stood opposite the gate of the hospital, produced a new drama, called The Fair Lunatic, “founded on a story in real life, as related in the memoirs of the celebrated Mrs. Constantia Phillips,” with dancing by Master Matthews and Mrs. Annesley. Next to this booth stood that of Lee, Yeates, and Warner, in which was revived the “true and ancient history of Whittington, Lord Mayor of London,” as performed in Lee’s booth fourteen years before, with singing and dancing between the acts. Cushing whom we have seen playing Harlequin three years before in Warner and Fawkes’s booth, but who was now performing at Covent Garden, set up a booth opposite the King’s Head, and produced King John, the part of Lady Constance being sustained by Miss Yates, a Drury Lane actress, while Cushing’s wife personated Prince Arthur, and the manager the mirth-provoking Sir Lubberly Lackbrains.

At a house in Hosier Lane (No. 20), a performing Arabian pony was exhibited. There were also shows in the fair, which did not advertise, and the memory of which has, in consequence, not been preserved. Of one, owned by a person named Phillips, the only record is a very brief newspaper report of a fatal accident, occasioned by the breaking down of the gallery, by which four persons were killed, and several others severely injured.

Garrick, who had married the dancer Violette two months previously, took his bride to Bartholomew Fair, where they visited the theatrical booth of Yates, which was the best in the fair. He was one of the few great actors of the period who had not performed in the fair; and was probably impelled by curiosity, rather than by the expectation of seeing good acting, though it was not many years since he had made his first appearance on any stage at Goodman’s Fields, playing Harlequin at a moment’s notice when Yates was seized with a sudden indisposition as he was about to go on the stage. The crowd pressing upon his wife and himself very unpleasantly as he approached the portable theatre, he called out to Palmer, the Drury Lane bill-sticker, who was acting as money-taker at the booth, to protect them. “I can’t help you here, sir,” said Palmer, shaking his head. “There aren’t many people in Smithfield as knows Mr. Garrick.”

It was probably not at Yates’s booth, but at one of much inferior grade, that the money-taker rejected Garrick’s offer to pay for admission, with the remark, “We never take money of one another.” The story would be pointless if the incident occurred at any booth in which dramatic performances were given by comedians from the principal London theatres.

We now approach a period when a new series of strenuous efforts for the suppression of the London fairs was commenced by persons who would willingly have suppressed amusements of every kind, and were aided in their endeavours by persons who had merely a selfish interest in the matter. In the summer of 1750, a numerously signed petition of graziers, cattle salesmen, and inhabitants of Smithfield was presented to the Court of Aldermen, praying for the suppression of Bartholomew Fair, on the ground that it annoyed them in their occupations, and afforded opportunities for debauchery and riot. The annual Lord Mayor’s procession might have been objected to on the same grounds, and the civic authorities well knew that the riots which had sometimes occurred in the fair had been occasioned by their own acts, in the execution of their edicts for the exclusion of puppet-shows and theatrical booths. Their action to this end was generally taken so tardily that booths were put up before the proprietors received notice of the intention of the Court of Aldermen to exclude them; and then the tardiness of the owners in taking them down, and the sudden zeal of the constables, produced quarrels and fights, in which the bystanders invariably took the part of the showmen.

The revenues which the Corporation derived from rents and tolls during the fair constituted an element of the question which could not be overlooked, and which kept it in a state of oscillation from year to year. The civic authorities would have been willing enough to suppress the fair, if the question of finance had not been involved. If the fair was abolished, some other source of revenue would have to be found. So they compounded with their belief that the fair was a fount of disorder and immorality by again limiting its duration to three days, and excluding theatrical booths and puppet-shows, while abstaining from interference with the gambling-tables and the gin-stalls.

Giants and dwarfs, and learned pigs and performing ponies had now the fair to themselves, though their showmen probably took less money than they did when the theatrical booths and puppet-shows attracted larger numbers of people. Henry Blacker, a native of Cuckfield, in Sussex, twenty-seven years of age, and seven feet four inches in height, exhibited himself at the Swan, in Smithfield, during the three days to which the fair was restricted in 1751. The principal show seems to have been one containing two dwarfs, a remarkable negro, a female one-horned rhinoceros, and a crocodile, said to have been the first ever seen alive in this country. The more famous of the two dwarfs was John Coan, a native of Norfolk, who at this time was twenty-three years of age, and only three feet two inches in height, and of thirty-four pounds weight. His fellow pigmy was a Welsh lad, fourteen years of age, two feet six inches in height, and weighed only twelve pounds. The negro could throw back his clasped hands over his head and bring them under his feet, backward and forward; and was probably “the famous negro who swings his arms about in every direction,” mentioned in the ‘Adventurer.’

The exclusion of the theatrical booths and puppet-shows from the fair produced, in the following year, a serious disturbance in Smithfield, in the suppression of which Birch, the deputy-marshal of the City, received injuries which proved fatal. This resistance to their edict did not, however, deter the civic authorities from applying the same rule to Southwark Fair, which was this year limited to three days, and diminished of its attractions by the exclusion of theatrical booths and puppet-shows. The principal shows were Yeates’s, which stood in George Yard, and consisted of an exhibition of wax figures, the conjuring tricks of young Yeates, and the feats on the slack wire of a performer named Steward; and the female Samson’s, an Italian woman, who exhibited feats of strength in a booth opposite the Greyhound, similar to those of the French woman seen by Carter at May Fair, with the addition of supporting six men while resting on two chairs only by the head and heels.

Towards the close of this year a man named Ballard brought from Italy a company of performing dogs and monkeys, and exhibited them as a supplementary attraction to the musical entertainments then given at a place in the Haymarket, called Mrs. Midnight’s Oratory. The Animal Comedians, as they were called, became famous enough to furnish the theme of an ‘Adventurer.’ The author states that the repeated encomiums on their performances induced him to be present one evening at the entertainment, when he “was astonished at the sagacity of the monkies; and was no less amazed at the activity of the other quadrupeds—I should have rather said, from a view of their extraordinary elevations, bipeds.

“It is a peculiar happiness to me as an Adventurer,” he continues, “that I sally forth in an age which emulates those heroick times of old, when nothing was pleasing but what was unnatural. Thousands have gaped at a wire-dancer daring to do what no one else would attempt; and thousands still gape at greater extravagances in pantomime entertainments. Every street teems with incredibilities; and if the great mob have their little theatre in the Haymarket, the small vulgar can boast their cheaper diversion in two enormous bears, that jauntily trip it to the light tune of a Caledonian jig.

“That the intellectual faculties of brutes may be exerted beyond the narrow limits which we have hitherto assigned to their capacities, I saw a sufficient proof in Mrs. Midnight’s dogs and monkies. Man differs less from beasts in general, than these seem to approach man in rationality. But while I applaud their exalted genius, I am in pain for the rest of their kindred, both of the canine and cercopithecan species.” The writer then proceeds to comment humorously upon the mania which the exhibition had created for teaching dogs and monkeys to perform the tricks for which the Animal Comedians were famous. “Every boarding-house romp and wanton school-boy,” he says, “is employed in perverting the end of the canine creation.”

The contributor of this paper seems to have had a familiar acquaintance with the shows attending the London fairs, for it was he, whoever he was, who wrote the third number of the ‘Adventurer,’ in which, giving the details of a scheme for a pantomime, he says that he has “not only ransacked the fairs of Bartholomew and Southwark, but picked up every uncommon animal, every prodigy of nature, and every surprising performer, that has lately appeared within the bills of mortality.” He proceeds to enumerate them, and to assign parts in his intended entertainment for “the Modern Colossus,” “all the wonderful tall men and women that have been lately exhibited in this town,” “the Female Sampson,” “the famous negro who swings his arms about in every direction,” “the noted ox, with six legs and two bellies,” “the beautiful panther mare,” “the noted fire-eater, smoking out of red-hot tobacco pipes, champing lighted brimstone, and swallowing his infernal mess of broth,” “the most amazing new English Chien Savant,” “the little woman that weighs no more than twenty-three pounds,” “the wonderful little Norfolk man,” “the fellow with Stentorian lungs, who can break glasses and shatter window-panes with the loudness of his vociferation,” and “the wonderful man who talks in his belly, and can fling his voice into any part of a room.” Incidentally he mentions also “the so much applauded stupendous ostrich,” “the sorcerer’s great gelding,” “the wire dancer,” and dancing bears.

The showmen’s bills and advertisements of the period enable us to identify most of the wonders enumerated by this writer. The female Samson and the wire-walker had been seen that year in the fairs, the famous negro and the Norfolk dwarf the year before, and the Corsican fairy and the double cow in 1748. The fire-eater was probably Powell, though I have seen no advertisement of that human salamander earlier than 1760.

The Bartholomew Fair riot was repeated in 1753, when Buck, the successor of the unfortunate Birch, was very roughly handled by the rioters, and severely bruised. This tumult was followed by an accident to a wire-walker, named Evans, who, by the breaking of his wire, was precipitated to the ground, breaking one of his thighs and receiving other injuries. This was the year of the demonstration against the claim of the Corporation to levy tolls upon the goods of citizens, as well as upon those of strangers, during the time of Bartholomew Fair. Richard Holland, a leather-seller in Newgate Street, had, in the preceding year, refused the toll demanded on a roll of leather with which he had attempted to enter the fair, and, on the leather being seized by the collector, had called a constable, and charged the impounder with theft. The squabble resulted in an action against the Corporation, which was not tried, however, till 1754, when the judge pronounced in favour of the citizens.

While the action was pending, Holland’s cart was driven through the fair with a load of hay, and was not stopped by the collector of the tolls, who had, probably, been instructed to hold his hand until the matter was determined. The horses’ heads were decorated with ribbons, and on the leader’s forehead was a card, upon which the following doggrel lines were written in a bold round hand:—

“My master keeps me well, ’tis true,
And justly pays whatever is due;
Now plainly, not to mince the matter,
No toll he pays but with a halter.”

On each side of the load of hay hung a halter, and a paper bearing the following announcement:—

“The time is approaching, if not already come,
That all British subjects may freely pass on;
And not on pretence of Bartholomew Fair
Make you pay for your passage, with all you bring near.
When once it is try’d, ever after depend on,
’Twill incur the same fate as on Finchley Common.
Give Cæsar his due, when by law ’tis demanded,
And those that deserve with this halter be hanged.”

The disturbances occasioned by the interference of the authorities with the entertainers of the fair-goers were not renewed in 1754, though the elements of disorder seem to have been present in tolerable strength; for on a swing breaking down in Smithfield, without any person being seriously hurt, a number of persons broke up the apparatus, and throwing the wreck into a heap, set it on fire. Every swing in the fair was then attacked and wrecked in succession, and the frames and broken cars thrown upon the blazing pile, which soon sent a column of fire high into the air, to the immense danger of the many combustible erections on every side. To keep up the fire, all the tables and benches of the sausage-vendors were next seized, and cast upon it; and the feeble police of that period was inadequate to the prevention of this wholesale destruction, which seems to have gone on without a check.

The exclusion of theatrical entertainments from Southwark Fair was not maintained in 1755, when Warner set up a booth on the bowling-green, in conjunction with the widow of Yeates (who had died about this time), and revived the favourite London fair drama of The Unnatural Parents. In the following year, Warner’s name appears alone, as the proprietor of a “great tiled booth,” in which he produced The Lover’s Metamorphosis, with dancing between the acts, and a pantomimic entertainment called The Stratagems of Harlequin.

In 1757, Yates and Shuter, the former engaged at the time at Drury Lane, and the latter at Covent Garden, tried the experiment of a variety entertainment, at the large concert-room of the Greyhound Inn, in Smithfield, “during the short time of Bartholomew Fair,” as all bills and advertisements had announced since the duration of the fair had been limited to three days. By this device, they evaded the edict of the Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen, which applied only to temporary erections in Smithfield. They did not repeat the experiment in Southwark, where the only booth advertised was Warner’s, with “a company of comedians from the theatres,” in The Intriguing Lover and Harlequin’s Vagaries.

Yates and Shuter re-appeared at the Greyhound next year, when they presented Woman turned Bully, with singing and dancing between the acts, and a representation of the storming of Louisbourg. Theatrical representations were this year permitted or connived at in the fair, for Dunstall and Vaughan set up a booth in George Yard, associating with them in the enterprise the more experienced Warner, and announcing “a select company from the theatres royal.” The Widow Bewitched was performed, with an entertainment of singing and dancing. Next door to the George Inn was an exhibition of wax-work, the chief feature of which was a collection of figures representing the royal family of Prussia.

Southwark Fair was this year extended to four days, so fitful and varying was the policy of the Court of Aldermen with regard to the fairs, which, while they professed to regard them as incentives to idleness and vice, they encouraged in some years as much as they restricted in others. The names of Dunstall and Vaughan do not appear in the bills issued by Warner for this fair, but the comedy performed was the same as at Bartholomew Fair, followed by a representation of the capture of Louisbourg, concluding with a procession of colours and standards, and a song in praise of the heroes of the victory.

Yates and Shuter again attended Bartholomew Fair in the following year. Mr. Henry Morley claims for the latter the invention of the showman’s device of announcing to the players, by a cant word, that there was another audience collected in front, and that the performances might be drawn to a close as soon as possible. Shuter’s mystic words are said to have been “John Audley,” shouted from the front. The practice appears, however, to have been in operation in the earliest days of Sadler’s Wells, where, according to a description of the place and the entertainments given by Macklin, in a conversation recorded in the fortieth volume of the ‘European Magazine,’ the announcement was made in the query, “Is Hiram Fistoman here?”

It was about this time that the “cat’s opera” was announced by the famous animal-trainer, Bisset, whose pupils, furred and feathered, were regarded as one of the most wonderful exhibitions ever witnessed. Bisset was originally a shoemaker at Perth, where he was born in 1721, but, on coming to London, and entering the connubial state, he commenced business as a broker, and accumulated a little capital. Having read an account of a performing horse, which was exhibited at the fair of St. Germain in 1739, he was induced to try his own skill in the teaching of animals upon a dog, and afterwards upon a horse, which he bought for the purpose. Succeeding with these, he procured a couple of monkeys, one of which he taught to play a barrel-organ, while the other danced and vaulted on the tight-rope.

Cats are generally regarded as too susceptible of nervous excitement to perform in public, though their larger relatives, lions, tigers, and leopards, have been taught to perform a variety of tricks before spectators, and cats are readily taught to perform the same tricks in private. Bisset aimed at something higher than the exhibition of the leaping feats of the species, and succeeded in teaching three cats to play the dulcimer and squall to the notes. By the advice of Pinchbeck, with whom he had become acquainted, he hired a large room in the Haymarket, and announced a public performance of the “cat’s opera,” supplemented by the tricks of the horse, the dog, and the monkeys. Besides the organ-grinding and rope-dancing performance, the monkeys took wine together, and rode on the horse, pirouetting and somersaulting with the skill of a practised acrobat. One of them also danced a minuet with the dog.

The “cat’s opera” was attended by crowded houses, and Bisset cleared a thousand pounds by the exhibition in a few days. He afterwards taught a hare to walk on its hind legs, and beat a drum; a feathered company of canaries, linnets, and sparrows to spell names, tell the time by the clock, etc.; half-a-dozen turkeys to execute a country dance; and a turtle (according to Wilson, but probably a tortoise) to write names on the floor, having its feet blackened for the purpose. After a successful season in London, he sold some of the animals, and made a provincial tour with the rest, rapidly accumulating a considerable fortune. Passing over to Ireland in 1775, he exhibited his animals in Dublin and Belfast, afterwards establishing himself in a public-house in the latter city. There he remained until 1783, when he reappeared in Dublin with a pig, which he had taught to perform all the tricks since exhibited by the learned grunter’s successors at all the fairs in the kingdom. He was on his way to London with the pig when he became ill at Chester, where he shortly afterwards died.

The question of suppressing both Bartholomew and Southwark Fairs was considered by the Court of Common Council in 1760, and the City Lands Committee was desired to report upon the tenures of the fairs, with a view to that end. Counsel’s opinion was taken, and the committee reported the result of the inquiry, upon which the Court resolved that Southwark Fair should be abolished henceforth, but that the interests of Lord Kensington in the revenues of Bartholomew Fair prevented the same course from being pursued in Smithfield. The latter fair was voted a nuisance, however, and the Court expressed a determination to abate it with the utmost strictness. Shuter produced a masque, called The Triumph of Hymen, in honour of the approaching royal nuptials; it was the production of a forgotten poet named Wignell, in a collected edition of whose poems it was printed in 1762. Among the minor entertainers of this year at Bartholomew Fair were Powell, the fire-eater, and Roger Smith, who gave a musical performance upon eight bells, two of which were fixed upon his head-gear, and one upon each foot, while two were held in each hand.

CHAPTER VII.

The relations between Yates and Shuter in the last two or three years of their appearance as showmen at Bartholomew Fair are somewhat doubtful; but all the evidence that I have been able to obtain points to the conclusion that they did not co-operate subsequently to 1758. In 1761 they seemed to have been in rivalry, for the former’s name appears singly as the director of the “company of comedians from both the theatres” that performed in the concert-room at the Greyhound, while an advertisement of one of the minor shows of the fair describes it as located in George Yard, “leading to Mr. Shuter’s booth.” I have not, however, been able to find an advertisement of Shuter’s booth.

Yates’s company performed The Fair Bride, which the bills curiously describe as “containing many surprising Occurrences at Sea, which could not possibly happen at Land. The Performance will be highly enlivened with several entertaining Scenes between England, France, Ireland, and Scotland, in the diverting Personages of Ben Bowling, an English Sailor; Mons. Soup-Maigre, a French Captain; O’Flannaghan, an Irish Officer; M’Pherson, a Scotch Officer. Through which the Manners of each Nation will be characteristically and humorously depicted. In which will be introduced as singular and curious a Procession as was ever exhibited in this Nation. The objects that comprise the Pageantry are both Exotic and British. The Principal Figure is the Glory and Delight of OLD ENGLAND, and Envy of our ENEMIES. With Variety of Entertainments of Singing and Dancing. The whole to conclude with a Loyal Song on the approaching Marriage of our great and glorious Sovereign King GEORGE and the Princess CHARLOTTE of Mecklenberg.”

There were two shows in George Yard, in one of which “the famous learned canary bird” was exhibited, the other consisting of a moving picture of a city, with an artificial cascade, and “a magnificent temple, with two mechanical birds which have all the exact motions of living animals; they perform a variety of tunes, either singular or in concert. During the performance, the just swelling of the throat, the quick motions of the bills, and the joyous fluttering of the wings, strike every spectator with pleasing astonishment.”

Shuter seems to have been the last actor who played at Bartholomew Fair while engaged at a permanent theatre. Some amusing stories are told of his powers of mimicry. When Foote introduced in a comedy a duet supposed to be performed by two cats, in imitation of Bisset’s feline opera, he engaged for the purpose one Harris, who was famous for his power of producing the vocal sounds peculiar to the species. Harris being absent one day from rehearsal, Shuter went in search of him, and not knowing the number of the house in which Cat Harris, as he was called, resided, he began to perform a feline solo as soon as he entered the court in which lived the man of whom he was in search. Harris opened his window at the sound, and responded with a beautiful meeyow.

“You are the man!” said Shuter. “Come along! We can’t begin the cats’ opera without you.”

There is a story told of Shuter, however, which is strongly suggestive of his ability to have supplied Cat Harris’s place. He was travelling in the Brighton stage-coach on a very warm day, with four ladies, when the vehicle stopped to receive a sixth passenger, who could have played Falstaff without padding. The faces of the ladies elongated at this unwelcome addition to the number, but Shuter only smiled. When the stout gentleman was seated, and the coach was again in motion, Shuter gravely inquired of one of the ladies her motive for visiting Brighton. She replied, that her physician had advised sea-bathing as a remedy for mental depression. He turned to the others, and repeated his inquiries; the next was nervous, the third bilious—all had some ailment which the sea was expected to cure.

“Ah!” sighed the comedian, “all your complaints put together are nothing to mine. Oh, nothing!—mine is dreadful but to think of.”

“Indeed, sir!” said the stout passenger, with a look of astonishment. “What is your complaint? you look exceedingly well.”

“Ah, sir!” responded Shuter, shaking his head, “looks are deceitful; you must know, sir, that, three days ago, I had the misfortune to be bitten by a mad dog, for which I am informed sea-bathing is the only cure. For that purpose I am going to Brighton; for though, as you observe, I am looking well, yet the fit comes on in a moment, when I bark like a dog, and endeavour to bite every one near me.”

“Lord have mercy on us!” ejaculated the stout passenger, with a look of alarm. “But, sir, you are not in earnest—you—”

“Bow-wow-wow!”

“Coachman! coachman! Let me out!—let me out, I say!”

“Now, your honour, what’s the matter?”

“A mad dog is the matter!—hydrophobia is the matter! open the door!”

“Bow-wow-wow!”

“Open the door! Never mind the steps. Thank God, I am safe out! Let those who like ride inside; I’ll mount the roof.”

So he rode to Brighton outside the coach, much to the satisfaction of Shuter and his fair companions who were very merry at his expense, the former repeating at intervals his sonorous bow-wow-wow!

Theatrical booths and puppet-shows were again prohibited in 1762, and, as the jugglers, the acrobats, and the rope-dancers who attended the fairs did not advertise their performances, only casual notices are to be found in the newspapers of the period of the amusements which that generation flocked into Smithfield in the first week of September to witness, and which lead them somewhat earlier to the greens of Camberwell and Stepney. Some of the entertainers of the period are mentioned in an anonymous poem on Bartholomew Fair, which appeared in 1763. The names are probably fictitious.

“On slender cord Volante treads;
The earth seems paved with human heads:
And as she springs aloft in air,
Trembling they crouch below for fear.
A well-made form Querpero shows,
Well-skilled that form to discompose;
The arms forget their wonted state;
Standing on earth, they bear his weight;
The head falls downward ’twixt the thighs,
The legs mount upward to the skies;
And thus this topsy-turvy creature
Stalks, and derides the human nature.
Agyrta, famed for cup and ball,
Plays sleight of hand, and pleases all:
The certainty of sense in vain
Philosophers in schools maintain;
This man your sharpest wit defies,
He cheats your watchful ears and eyes.
Ah, ’prentice, well your pockets fence,
And yet he steals your master’s pence.”

In 1765, “the celebrated lecture on heads” was advertised to be given, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, “in a large and commodious room near the end of Hosier Lane.” The name of the lecturer was not announced, but the form of the advertisement implies that the lecture was Steevens’s. The lecturer may, however, have been only an imitator of that famous humorist; for the newspapers of the preceding week inform us that a similar announcement was made at Alnwick, where the audience, finding that the lecturer was not Steevens, regarded him as an impostor, and demanded the return of their money, with a threat of tossing him in a blanket. The lecturer attempted to vindicate himself, but the production of a blanket completed his discomfiture, and he surrendered, returning to the disappointed audience the money which they had paid for admission.

In 1769, the chief attraction of the London fairs was Pidcock’s menagerie, which was the largest and best which had ever been exhibited in a temporary erection, the animals being hired from Cross’s collection at Exeter Change. Pidcock exhibited his animals at Bartholomew Fair for several successive years, and was succeeded by Polito, whose zoological collection attracted thousands of spectators every year.

Breslaw, the conjuror, appeared in 1772, in a large room in Cockspur Street, where his tricks of legerdemain were combined with a vocal and instrumental concert by three or four Italians, imitations by a young lady announced as Miss Rose of “many interesting parts of the capital actresses in tragedy and comedy,” and imitations by an Italian named Gaetano of the notes of the blackbird, thrush, canary, linnet, bull-finch, sky-lark, and nightingale. In 1774, the entertainment was given on alternate days in the large ball-room of the King’s Arms, opposite the Royal Exchange. In 1775, it was given in Cockspur Street only, and in the following year at Marylebone Gardens. He then appears to have been absent from London for a couple of years, as he always was during a portion of each year, when he made a tour through the provinces.

Caulfield says that Breslaw was superior to Fawkes, “both in tricks and impudence,” and relates an anecdote, which certainly goes far to bear out his assertion. Breslaw, while exhibiting at Canterbury, requested permission to display his cunning a little longer, promising the Mayor that if he was indulged with the required permission, he would give the receipts of one night for the benefit of the poor. The Mayor acceded to the proposition, and Breslaw had a crowded house; hearing nothing about the money collected on the specified evening, the Mayor called upon Breslaw, and, in as delicate a manner as possible, expressed his surprise.

“Mr. Mayor,” said the conjuror, “I have distributed the money myself.”

“Pray, sir, to whom?” inquired the Mayor, still more surprised.

“To my own company, than whom none can be poorer,” replied Breslaw.

“This is a trick!” exclaimed the Mayor indignantly.

“Sir,” returned the conjuror, “we live by tricks.”

In 1773, the Corsican fairy reappeared, having probably made the tour of Europe since her first exhibition in London in 1748, which has been overlooked by some writers, though there is no doubt that the girl exhibited at the latter date was the same person. Two years later, the Turkish rope-dancer, who had displayed his feats in 1744, reappeared at Bartholomew Fair. In the same year, Rossignol exhibited his performing birds at Sadler’s Wells, and afterwards at the Smock Alley theatre, in Dublin. He returned to Sadler’s Wells in 1776, where his clever feathered company attracted as many spectators as before. Twelve or fourteen canaries and linnets were taken from their cages, and placed on a table, in ranks, with paper caps on their heads, and tiny toy muskets under their left wings. Thus armed and accoutred, they marched about the table, until one of them, leaving the ranks, was adjudged a deserter, and sentenced to be shot. A mimic execution then took place, one of the birds holding a lighted match in its claw, and firing a toy cannon of brass, loaded with powder. The deserter fell, feigning death, but rose again at the command of Rossignol.

Breslaw had formidable competitors this year in Ambroise and Brunn, who gave a variety entertainment in a large room in Panton Street, of which we have the following account in their advertisements:—

“On the part of Mr. Ambroise, the manager of the Ombres Chinoises, will be performed all those scenes which, upon repeated trial, have had a general approbation, with new pieces every day; the whole to be augmented with a fourth division. By the particular desire of the company, the danses de caractère in the intervals are performed to the astonishment of all, and to conclude with the comic of a magician, who performs metamorphoses, etc. He had the honour to represent this spectacle before his Most Christian Majesty Louis XVI. and the Royal Family; likewise before His Serene Highness the Prince d’Orange and the whole Court, with an approbation very flattering for the performer.

“The Saxon Brunn, besides various tricks of his dexterity, will give this day a surprising circular motion with three forks and a sword; to-morrow, with a plate put horizontally upon the point of a knife, a sword fixed perpendicularly, on the top of which another plate, all turning with a remarkable swiftness; and on Saturday the singular performance with a bason, called the Clag of Manfredonia; all which are of his own invention, being the non plus ultra for equilibriums on the wire. The applause they have already received makes them hope to give an equal satisfaction to the company for the future. To begin at seven precisely. Admittance, five shillings.”

In 1778, a foreigner exhibited in Bartholomew Fair the extraordinary spectacle of serpents dancing on silken ropes to the sound of music, which performance has never, I believe, been repeated since. The serpents exhibited by Arab and Hindoo performers, of whose skill an example was afforded several years ago in the Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s Park, dance on the ground. It was in this year that the fair was visited by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, who entered at Giltspur Street, and passing the puppet-shows of Flockton and Jobson, the conjuring booths of Lane and Robinson, and several other shows the names only of whose proprietors—Ives, Basil, Clarkson,—have been preserved, rode through Cow Lane into Holborn.

This year appears to have been the first in which puppet-shows were allowed to be set up in Smithfield after being excluded for several years; as in 1776 a more than ordinary degree of irritation was produced by their exclusion, “Lady Holland’s mob” proclaiming the fair without any restriction, and a disturbance arising afterwards, in the course of which the windows of nearly every house round Smithfield were broken by the rioters. Flockton and Jobson attended the fair regularly for many years. The former used to perform some conjuring tricks on the outside of his show to attract an audience, but Strutt says that he was a very poor conjuror. Lane’s performances were varied by posturing and dancing by his two daughters. The following doggrel appears in one of his bills:—

“It will make you laugh, it will drive away gloom,
To see how the egg it will dance round the room;
And from another egg a bird there will fly,
Which makes the company all for to cry,
‘O rare Lane! cockalorum for Lane! well done, Lane!
You are the Man!’”

One of the chief shows of the fair in 1779 was the fine collection of preserved animals of Hall, of the City Road, who was famous for his skill in that art. This museum did not prove so attractive as Pidcock’s menagerie, however, the frequenters of the fair preferring to see the animals living; and in the following year even the expedient of parading a stuffed zebra round the fair did not attract spectators enough to induce Hall to attend again. His museum remained open in the City Road, however, for many years.

Breslaw, the conjuror, had a room in 1779 at the King’s Head, near the Mansion House, as well as in Cockspur Street (opposite the Haymarket), and a bill of this year shows, better than any of his earlier announcements, the nature of the tricks which he performed. His exposition of “how it is done” was probably not more intelligible than Dr. Lynn’s. “Between the different parts,” says the bill, “Mr. Breslaw will discover the following deceptions in such a manner, that every person in the company shall be capable of doing them immediately for their amusement. First, to tell any lady or gentleman the card that they fix on, without asking any questions. Second, to make a remarkable piece of money to fly out of any gentleman’s hand into a lady’s pocket-handkerchief, at two yards distance. Third, to change four or five cards in any lady’s or gentleman’s hand several times into different cards. Fourth, to make a fresh egg fly out of any person’s pocket into a box on the table, and immediately to fly back again into the pocket.”

Breslaw had Rossignol in his company at this time, as will be seen from the following programme:—“1. Mr. Breslaw will exhibit a variety of new magical card deceptions, particularly he will communicate the thoughts from one person to another, after which he will perform many new deceptions with letters, numbers, dice, rings, pocket-pieces, &c., &c. 2. Under the direction of Sieur Changee, a new invented small chest, consisting of three divisions, will be displayed in a most extraordinary manner. 3. The famous Rossignol, from Naples, will imitate various birds, to the astonishment of the spectators. 4. Mr. Breslaw will exhibit several new experiments on six different metals, watches, caskets, gold boxes, silver machineries, &c., &c.”

Rossignol (said to be an assumed name) afterwards obtained an engagement at Covent Garden Theatre, where he attracted attention by an imitation of the violin with his mouth; but, being detected in the use of a concealed instrument, he lost his reputation, and we hear of him no more. Breslaw filled up the vacancy in his company by engaging Novilli, who played “at one time on the German flute, violin, Spanish castanets, two pipes, trumpet, bassoon, bass, Dutch drum, and violin-cello, never attempted before in this kingdom.” I have not been able to discover anything that would throw some light upon the manner in which this extraordinary performance was accomplished. He engaged for his London season this year a large room in Panton Street, probably the one in which Ambroise and Brunn performed in 1775. The entertainment commenced, as before, with a vocal and instrumental concert, between the parts of which lyrical and rhetorical imitations were given by “a young gentleman, not nine years of age;” the concluding portion consisting of the exhibition of Breslaw’s “new invented mechanical watches, sympathetic bell, pyramidical glasses, magical card deceptions, &c., &c.,” and particularly “a new grand apparatus and experiments never attempted before in this kingdom.”

It was in this year that the famous Irish giant, Patrick O’Brien, first exhibited himself at Bartholomew Fair, being then nineteen years of age, and over eight feet high. His name was Cotter, that of O’Brien being assumed when he began to exhibit himself, to accord with the representation that he was a descendant of the ancient royal race of Munster. His parents, who were both of middle height only, apprenticed him to a bricklayer; but, at the age of eighteen, his extraordinary stature attracted the attention of a showman, by whom he was induced to sign an agreement to exhibit himself in England for three years, receiving a yearly salary of fifty pounds. Soon after reaching England, however, on his refusing his assent to a proposed cession of his person to another showman, his exhibitor caused him to be arrested at Bristol for a fictitious debt, and lodged in the city goal.

Obtaining his release, and the annulment of the contract, by the interposition of a benevolent inhabitant of Bristol, he proceeded to London, and exhibited himself on his own account in Bartholomew Fair, realising thirty pounds by the experiment in three days. He exhibited in this fair four or five successive years, but, as he made money, he changed the scene of his “receptions,” as they would now be called, to public halls in the metropolis, and the assembly-rooms of provincial hotels. He attained the height of eight feet seven inches, and was proportionately stout, but far from symmetrical; and so deficient in stamina that the effort to maintain an upright attitude while exhibiting himself was painful to him.

Theatrical booths again appeared at Bartholomew Fair in 1782, when Mrs. Baker, manageress of the Rochester Theatre, took her company to Smithfield. Tradition says that Elizabeth Inchbald was at this time a member of Mrs. Baker’s company, but I have not been able to discover any ground for the belief. The diary of the actress would have set the matter at rest; but she destroyed it before her death, and Boaden’s memoirs of her were based chiefly upon her letters. They show her to have performed that year at Canterbury, and it is within the limits of probability that she may have performed at Rochester also; though it would still remain doubtful whether she accompanied Mrs. Baker to Bartholomew Fair. According to Boaden, she proceeded to Edinburgh on the termination of her Canterbury engagement.

Lewis Owen, who was engaged by Mrs. Baker as clown for her Bartholomew Fair performances, was a young man of reputable family and good education, who had embraced the career of a public entertainer from choice, as more congenial to his tastes and habits than any other. His eccentric manners and powers of grimace, joined with a considerable fund of natural wit, caused him to be speedily recognised as a worthy successor of Joel Tarvey, who, after amusing more than one generation, as the Merry Andrew of various shows and places of amusements, had died at Hoxton of extreme old age in 1777.