1603.

The plague was again threatening the City, and James I. issued a proclamation, dated from Hampton Court, 8th August, ordaining that for the “desire of preventing an universal contagion among our people,” that (inter alia) Bartholomew Fair should not be holden, “nor anything appertaining unto them, at the times accustomed, nor any time till they shall be licensed by us.” These last words might have been held to imply more than was directly understood.

Proclamation by City of London.—1604. The arrangement of 1596 prepared the way for the Corporation taking the active control of the fair. Hence among the Orders of my Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and the Sheriffs for their meetings and wearing of their apparel through this year, was the following:—

“On Saint Bartholomew’s Even for the Fair in Smithfield.—The Aldermen meet my Lord and the Sheriffs at the Guildhall Chapel, at two of the Clock after dinner, in their violet gowns lined, and their horses, without cloaks, and there hear Evening Prayer; which being done, they take their horses and ride to Newgate, and so forth to the gate entering in at the Cloth Fair, and there make a Proclamation,” which was as follows:—

Proclamation.—The Right Hon. the Lord Mayor of the City of London, and his right worshipful Bretheren the Aldermen of the said City, streightly charge and command, on the behalf of our Sovereign Lord the King, that all manner of persons, of whatsoever estate, degree, or condition they be, having recourse to this fair, keep the Peace of our said Sovereign Lord the King.

That no manner of persons make any congregation, conventicle, or affrays, by the which the same peace may be broken or disturbed, upon pain of imprisonment and fine, to be made after the discretion of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen.

Also, that all manner of sellers of wine, ale, or beer, sell by measures ensealed, as by gallon, pottle, quart and pint, upon pain that will fall thereof.

And that no person sell any bread, but if it keep the assize, and that it be good and wholesome for man’s body, upon pain that will fall thereof.

And that no manner of person buy nor sell but with true weights and measures, sealed according to the Statute in that behalf made, upon pain that will fall thereof.

And that no manner of person, or persons take upon him, or them, within this Fair to make any manner of arrest, attachment, summons, or execution, but if it be done by the officer of this City, thereunto assigned, upon pain that will fall thereof.

And that no person or persons whatsoever, within the limits and bounds of this fair, presume to break the Lord’s Day in selling, showing, or offering for sale, or in buying or offering to buy, any commodities whatsoever, or in sitting, tippling, or drinking in any tavern, inn, alehouse, or cook’s-house, or in doing any other thing that may lead to any breach thereof, upon the pain and penalties contained in the several acts of parliament, which will be severely inflicted upon the breakers hereof.

And finally, that whatever person soever find themselves aggrieved, injured or wronged by any manner of person in this Fair, that they come with their plaints before the Stewards of this Fair, assigned to hear and determine pleas, and they will minister to all parties justice, according to the laws of the Land and the Customs of this City. God save the King!

Then, the mayor, sheriffs and aldermen, sitting on horseback, robed in their violet gowns, having again made this proclamation at a point between the City Fair and that owned by the Warwick or Holland family (as successors of Sir Richard Rich?), ride through the Cloth Fair, and so return back again, through the Churchyard of Great St. Bartholomew’s to Aldersgate, and thence home again to the Lord Mayor’s house.

Tradition declares that the mayor, when he had read the Proclamation, drank ale from a silver flagon, and that thereupon the bustle and business of the fair began. I believe as a matter of fact the proclamation was usually read by the Lord Mayor’s attorney, and repeated after him by the sheriff’s officer, in the presence of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and sheriffs. The officers of the Lord Mayor’s household afterwards dined at the Sword-bearer’s table. This may have become the custom at a later date. See 1688.

Merchant Taylors’ right of search.—1609. An incident occurred this year which raised the question of jurisdiction concerning an important function which had heretofore been deemed of much consequence. Immediately before the fair of this year the Drapers questioned the right of search, for cloth pieces of insufficient length or quality, as exercised by the Merchant Taylors. What followed is shown by the records of the last-named company. Its clerk was ordered thereupon to attend Drapers’ Hall on the next court day with a message to the following purport, viz., That the Merchant Taylors’ Company had right to search, and that they had quietly enjoyed the same since the 27th of Henry VI., being above 150 years past, and still earlier, as by the Merchant Taylors’ records appeared, wherein is mentioned a lengthened lawsuit between them and the Drapers about the same question of right of search, when a sentence was passed for the Merchant Taylors. There is in 1612 a note of a dinner at Merchant Taylors’ Hall “for the search on St. Bartholomew’s Eve.”

The Drapers were incorporated as a Guild in 1364. In their charter was a special exemption made against any prohibitions to be exercised by the Company regarding the sale of cloth by any who were not free drapers, in favour of the King’s beloved in God, the Prior of St. Bartholomew’s, in West Smithfield, and other lords who had fairs in the suburbs of London. A draper meant originally one who made the cloth he sold. It was the London designation for clothier, a very few members of the Drapers’ Company being resident beyond the limits of the City. Therefore, say the old writers, that Bartholomew Fair was frequented by “the clothiers of England and the drapers of London.” Mercers especially frequented fairs and markets, where their standings were gay with haberdashery, toys, and even drugs and spices, the small articles of traffic on which they throve. Mercers attending the French fairs towards the close of the thirteenth century paid only half-toll when they were not stall keepers, but exposed their wares on the ground. They, and the class of pedlers to which they were allied, may have enjoyed a like privilege in England. But while many of the mercers were thus of the brotherhood of Autolycus, others dealt largely in silk and velvet, and abandoned to the haberdasher traffic in small articles of dress. Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London, was a mercer.—Vide Morley, p. 95.

Paving the Streets.—1614. This was an important year in the annals of Smithfield. It passed from its old and normal condition of mud, into a clean and paved enclosure, such as was familiar to many of us before the new market buildings were erected in 1866. Other changes had preceded. It was not until 1608 that the City had obtained a grant of the ground of the late Priory of St. Bartholomew, which had been constituted into a parish after the dissolution. Again, while it had ceased some time before to be the scene of the morning performances of the common hangman—Tyburn (itself afterwards absorbed in May Fair) having succeeded to the distinction; it had still remained the locus of a far more savage form of persecution. The ashes of the last martyr fire had burned out in 1611—the victim being Bartholomew Leggatt, a pious Unitarian, burnt for distrust of the Athanasian and Nicene creeds, by the order of James I. at the sentence of John King, newly-made Bishop of London!

The Drama.—As if more prominently to mark the transition state last indicated, and perchance also as a memento, that in the very place had been enacted (under the patronage of and for the purposes of the Church) the first drama that England had ever seen; and which had step by step progressed from mysteries to miracle plays, thence on to moralities, and was now advancing to the state of taking an independent stand as a National Drama—as if, I say, to commemorate this circumstance with emphasis, “rare Ben Jonson” produced his celebrated comedy of “Bartholomew Fair,” one of the chief features in which is the vivid painting of the characters through whom the satirist portrays the follies of the fair. They are many and various; each one planned to bring into prominence one of the characteristics of the motley gathering. Competent authorities have declared this to be equal to any of the best works of the author. I confess not to have discovered many points for admiration. There are a few good points in it which may be reproduced! A stranger appears in the fair, a Puritan, designated Zealot-of-the-land Busy. He is ordered to be put in the stocks, and says “I do obey thee, the Lion may roar but he cannot bite. I am glad to be thus separated from the Heathen of the Land, and put apart in the Stocks for the holy cause.” Humphrey Wasp inquires who he is. He replies “One that rejoiceth in his affliction, and sitteth here to prophecy the Destruction of Fairs, and May-games, Wakes, and Whitson-ales, and doth sigh and groan for the reformation of these abuses.” Lanthorn Leatherhead recounts some of the “motions” (plays) in which he had taken part at this fair. “‘Jerusalem’ was a stately thing, and so was ‘Nineveh,’ and the ‘City of Norwich’ and ‘Sodom and Gomorrah;’ with the rising o’ the Prentices ...; but the ‘Gunpowder-plot,’ there was a get-penny! I have presented that to an eighteen or twenty-pence audience nine times in an afternoon. Your home-born projects ever prove the best, they are so easy and familiar; they put too much learning in their things now o’ days.” In this spirit John Littlewit had been adapting a too classical play to the comprehension of the frequenters of the fair, “as for the Hellespont, I imagine our Thames here; and their Leander I make a Dyer’s son about Puddle Wharf; and Hero a wench of the Bankside, who going over one morning to Old Fish Street, Leander spies her land at Trig-stairs, and falls in love with her; now do I introduce Cupid, having metamorphoz’d himself to a drawer [pot-boy] and he strikes Hero in love with a pint of sherry....”

The Plague.—1625. The Plague again appeared in the Kingdom, and Charles I. issued a Proclamation from his Court at Woodstock, wherein he recites that there is usually extraordinary resort out of all parts of the Kingdom of persons to attend this and Stourbridge Fair; hence there is prohibition against attending these fairs or any others held within fifty miles of the City of London.

1630. Another like proclamation in consequence of Plague—this time being in Cambridge. The King remembering that there were at hand “three great Fairs of special note, unto which there is extraordinary resort from all parts of the Kingdom,” attendance at Bartholomew, Stourbridge and Our Lady Fair (Southwark) was prohibited.

1637. Again the Plague, and there was issued: By the King. A Proclamation for putting off this next Bartholomew Faire in Smithfield, and our Lady Faire in Southwarke. Giuen at our Court at Oatelands, the three and twentieth day of Iuly in the thirteenth yeare of our Reigne. God save the King. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the King’s most excellent Maiestie: And by the Assigns of Iohn Bill. 1637. A sheet in Black Letter. Copy in Mr. Huth’s Library.

New Grant to the City.—1638. Charles I. this year granted a Charter to London which contained the following:

We will also, and by these presents for us our heirs and successors declare and grant that the said Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens and their successors for ever may have hold and enjoy all those fields called or known by the name of — and also all that field called West-Smithfield in the Parish of St. Sepulchre’s, St. Bartholomew the Great, St. Bartholomew the Less in the suburbs of London, or in some of them, to the uses, intents and purposes after expressed; and that the same Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens, and their successors may be able to hold in the said field called Smithfield, Fairs and Markets there to be and used to be held, and to take receive and have pickage, stallage, tolls and profits appertaining, happening, belonging or arising out of the fairs and markets there, to such uses as the same mayor and commonalty and citizens, or their predecessors had, held or enjoyed, and now have, hold and enjoy, or ought to have, hold or enjoy the said premises last mentioned, and to no other uses, intents and purposes whatsoever.

Wrestling Matches.—It had been the time-honoured custom of this fair to have contests in wrestling. And during the reign of James I. (apparently) the Corporation of the City laid down the following regulation to be observed on the attendance of the Mayor and members of the Corporation to witness the sport:

“On Bartholomew Day for Wrestling.—So many Aldermen as dine with my Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs, be apparelled in their scarlet gowns, lined, and after dinner their horses be brought to them where they dine, and those aldermen which dine with the sheriffs, ride with them to my lord’s house to accompany him to wrestling. Then when the wrestling is done, they take their horses, and ride back again thro’ the Fair, and so in at Aldersgate, and so home again to the said Lord Mayor’s house.”

Then there was a regulation for attending the “Shooting” there, as follows: “The next day, if it be not Sunday, for the Shooting as upon Bartholomews day, but if it be Sunday, the Monday following.”

Description of the Fair.—1641. There was published a Tract (a small quarto of four leaves): “Bartholomew Faire, or Variety of fancies, where you may find, a faire of wares and all to please your mind. With the severall Enormityes and misdemeanours, which are there seene and acted. London, printed for Richard Harper at the Bible and Harp in Smithfield,” wherein the author, after giving a graphic account of the art of picking pockets there, proceeds:

It is remarkable and worth your observation, to behold and hear the strange sights and confused noises in the fair. Here a knave in a Fool’s coat, with a trumpet sounding, or on a drum beating, invites you and would fain persuade you to see his puppets; there a Rogue like a Wild Woodman, or in an antick shape like an incubus, desires your company to view his motion; on the other side Hocus Pocus with three yards of tape or ribbon in ’s hand, showing the art of Legerdemain to the admiration and astonishment of a company of cockoloaches. Amongst these you shall see a gray Goose-cap (as wise as the rest) with a What de ye lack? in his mouth, standing on his booth shaking a rattle, or scraping on a fiddle, with which children are so taken, that they presently cry out for these fopperies; And all these together make such a distracted noise, that you would think Babel were not comparable to it. Here there are also your gamesters in action; some turning of a whimsey, others throwing for pewter, who can quickly dissolve a round shilling into a three halfpenny saucer.

Long Lane at this time looks very fair, and puts out her best clothes with the wrong side outwards, so turned for their better turning off; and Cloth Fair is now in great request: well fare the alehouses therein; yet better may a man fare (but at a dearer rate) in the Pig market, alias Pasty nook or Pie Corner, where pigs are all hours of the day on the stalls piping hot, and would cry (if they could speak) Come eat me; but they are ... dear and the reckonings for them are ... saucy, &c. &c.

It is clear that the glory of the fair is departing—Royal Proclamations notwithstanding.

Political Pamphlets.—1647. It seems to have become the fashion to designate some of the many political pamphlets of this period “Bartholomew Fairings.” One such work appeared this year entitled: “General Massey’s Bartholomew Fayrings to Colonel Poyntz.” This was ascribed to the famous John Lilburne. It was answered in another pamphlet: “Reformados Righted, being an Answer to a paltry piece of Poetry entitled, &c.” There is nothing in either of these throwing any light upon the fair. The same was not quite the case with a quarto pamphlet of the following year: “An Agitator Anatomised.” Here was reference to “a large and beautiful Camel from Grand Cairo in Egypt.” Mr. Morley thinks this may have been the beginning of “wild-beast shows” in the fair.

This year the Act was passed against “Stage plays.” It seemed destined to have an influence on the fair.

1648. Evelyn in his “Diary,” under date 28th August this year, notices his coming to London from Say’s Court and seeing the “the celebrated follies of Bartholomew Fair.” The date here seems to indicate some change in the date of the fair.

The Commonwealth and the Fair.—1649. This was a year of political commotion. The troubles with the King had terminated on the block. There was issued in the form of a tract, a book-play entitled: “A Bartholomew Fairing, New, New, New; Sent from the raised siege before Dublin, as a preparatory Present to the Great Thanksgiving Day. To be communicated onely to Independents.” It was published without any printer’s name. Its contents throw some light upon the political events of the period; but these have no bearing upon the fair, present or future.

It seems indeed to have been anticipated that the advent of the Puritans into power in this the first year of the Commonwealth might have led to the suppression of the fair. The speech of Zealot-of-the-land Busy, while sitting in the stocks at the fair in 1614 (“Bartholomew Fair,” by Ben Jonson) seemed prophetically to hint at this. Mr. Morley gives the following instructive picture of the period:

The Puritans did not suppress Bartholomew Fair. There were indeed no dramas performed in it by living actors, but the state did not condescend, like Rabbi Busy, to engage in controversy with the puppets. It was for the Corporation of London, if it pleased, to exercise control, and there was a Lord Mayor, who, as we shall see, did make himself eminent for an attack upon the wooden Dagons of the Show. Against the fool in his motley none made war; Cromwell himself had in his private service four buffoons, and had he visited the fair, true hero as he was, might have been well disposed to mount a hobby-horse. Therefore the clown still jested, and the toyman thrust his baubles in the face of the Roundhead, while the Cavalier’s lady, with a constellation of black stars about her nose, a moon of ink on her chin, and a coach and horses—a very fashionable patch—on her forehead, laughed at the short hair under the broad-brimmed hat of the offended gentleman. Well might she laugh at the miserable scarecrow in plain cloak and jerkin, and in boots that fitted him: for he had no love locks and no peaked beard like the gallant at her side; he wore only a little pecked band instead of a laced collar, and as for his breeches—not only did they want ornament and width; but they even showed no elegant bit of shirt protruding over them! Across the Smithfield pavement, Cavaliers in boots two inches too long, and with laced tops wide enough to contain each of them a goose, straddled about; compelled to straddle in order that the long and jingling spur of one boot, hooked into the ruffle of the other, might not bring down the whole man into the gutter. Women I say might note such things, but the men were in earnest. The dainty Cavalier in the historical shirt, embroidered with the deeds of profane heroes, might glance from the speckled face of his companion towards the clean cheeks of the Puritan maid in the religious petticoat worked over with texts and scripture scenes; all had their vanities, their froth of weakness floating loose above the storm; all had an eye for the jest of the fair, but under it lay in a heaving mass the solemn earnest of the time. The fair brought together from almost all parts of England, men who had urgent thoughts to exchange, harmonies and conflicts now of principle and now of passion to express. The destiny of fatherland was hidden from all in a future black with doubt. Men brave and honest had their souls pledged in allegiance to an earthly king, over whom and against whom others as brave and as honest set up rights given to them by the King of kings.

1650. There was published a broadside and cut, with a “Description of Bartholomew Fair:”—

Set to the tune of “Digby’s Farewell.” Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, and J. Clarke. Containing twelve stanzas of eight lines.

1656. During the Commonwealth several attempts were made by the lord mayors to put some check on the freedom of this fair.[8] One of them, Sir John Deltrich, was knighted by Cromwell soon after the fair-time (viz. 5th Sept.) in 1656; and it has been rightly assumed that he was the mayor who pressed hard against those puppet showmen and others who had commenced the business of the fair, as he conceived, twelve hours too soon, and were already at work when he arrived to proclaim the opening. This event appears to have led to a burlesque opening by a company of tailors who met at the “Hand and Shears” already noticed on the night before the official opening, elected a chairman, and as the clock struck twelve, went out into the Cloth Fair, each with a pair of shears in his hand. The chairman then proclaimed the fair to the expectant mob; and then all formed a procession to proceed in tumultuous array to announce the fair to the sleepers in Smithfield, by the ringing of bells and other discordant manifestations. The following is the form of proclamation used, and contains nothing objectionable.

An unauthorised Proclamation.—O yez! O yez! O yez! All manner of persons may take notice that in the Close of St. Bartholomew the Great and West Smithfield, London, and the streets, lanes and places adjoining, is now to be held a Fair for this day and the two days following, to which all people may freely resort and buy and sell according to the Liberties and Privileges of the said Fair, and may depart without disturbance, paying their duties. And all persons are strictly charged and commanded in His Majesty’s name, to help the peace, and to do nothing in the disturbance of the said Fair, as they will answer the contrary at their peril; and that there be no manner of arrest or arrests but by such officers as are appointed. And if any person be aggrieved, let them repair to the Court of Pie-Powder, where they will have speedy relief according to Justice and Equity. God save the King.

This irregular proclamation seems to have been accepted as a legal act by the Lord Kensington who had become owner of one-half of the tolls of the fair, and it continued down to 1839. It was but a repetition of the double jurisdiction claimed in Sturbridge Fair.

There is in the library of the British Museum a doggrel ballad, printed as a broad-sheet, called “The Dagonizing of Bartholomew Fair,” which describes, with coarse humour—the grossness of which may be attributed in part to the mingled resentment and contempt which underlies it—the measures taken by the civil authorities for the removal from the fair of the showmen who had pitched there in spite of the determination of the Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen to suppress with the utmost rigour everything which could move to laughter or minister to wonder. Among these are mentioned a fire-eating conjuror, a “Jack Pudding,” and “wonders made of wax,” being the earliest notice of a waxwork exhibition which I have been able to discover.—Frost’s Old Showman, &c., p. 31.

In “A Caveat for Cut-purses,” a ballad of the time of Charles I., there is the following:—

In another ballad, “Ragged and Torn and True,” there is this:—

The Restoration.—1661. The Restoration led to a considerable reaction from the severities of the Commonwealth, and the incidents of the fair were affected thereby, as will be seen. The first noticeable feature is that the period of the fair becomes permanently prolonged from three to fourteen days; with occasional extensions it is said to six weeks’ riot and amusement. Another that the pamphleteering continued to be associated with the fair. There was one “Strange News from Bartholomew Fair” &c. by Peter Aretine, printed for “Theodosus Microcosmus.” The contents of this publication are altogether too gross for detailed mention. There was another tract “News from Bartholomew Fair. Or the World’s Mad: being a Description of the Varieties and Fooleries of this present Age,” with Allowance (i.e. Licensed) “Printed for the general use of the Buyer, and perticular Benefit of the Seller.” It had for motto “Risum teneatis amici?” and a frontispiece representing a modified Puritan, in presence of Jacob Hall the fashionable rope-dancer, exhibiting the varieties of dress!

1663. “Pepys’s Diary,” that never-failing source of reference, throws some light upon the doings of the fair at this period. On the 25th Aug. morrow of St. Bartholomew’s Day (new style), Mr. Pepys going at noon to the Exchange, met a fine fellow with trumpets before him in Leadenhall Street, and upon inquiry found that he was “Clerk of the City Market:” three or four men attended him each carrying an arrow of a pound weight in his hand. This was a revival by the Lord Mayor of the old City custom of challenging any to shoot at the fair. The previous day his lordship had attended to witness the wrestling. On the following there was to be the civic hunting! But the feeling had so far changed (perhaps in consequence of the event of 1656) that the Lord Mayor’s presence was not desired at this. “The people of the fair cry out upon it, as a great hindrance to them.”

1664. From the correspondence of the philosopher John Locke, at this date it is clear he had elbowed his way with the rest of the world through the crowd and made a study of this fair. Thus describing the sights of the city of Cleves (from whence he writes) to John Strachy at Bristol, he says “In the principal church at Cleves was a little altar for the service of Christmas Day. The scene was a stable, wherein was an ox, an ass, a cradle, the Virgin, the Babe, Joseph, shepherds, and angels, dramatis personæ. Had they but given them motion it had been a perfect Puppet play, and might have deserved pence a piece; for they were of the same size and make that our English puppets are; and I am confident these shepherds and this Joseph are kin to that Judith and Holophernes which I had seen at Bartholomew Fair.”

Plague.—1665-6. There was no fair in these years in consequence of the Plague visitation. In the former of the two years at the usual fair-time bale fires were burning in the streets night and day to purify the air, and they continued until quenched by heavy rain. In the following year there occurred during the fair-time (as now extended) the Great Fire of London, flames two miles in extent and a mile in breadth, with smoke extending fifty miles. There would have been a scene of intense confusion if the fair had been gathered; no real danger, perhaps, as the conflagration ended at Pye Corner, on the verge of the site of the fair. The houses then spared here were in existence down to Oct. 1809.

In the following year the fair was resumed, and probably was of some service to the City in bringing people and money to it again. Pepys “the immortal” records under date 28th Aug. “went twice round Bartholomew Fair, which I was glad to see again, after two years missing of it by the plague.” It seems patent that Court people and ladies of all qualities were at home in the fair at this period. Pepys records how he took his wife in 1668 “and there did see a ridiculous obscene little stage play called ‘Marry Audrey,’ a foolish thing, but seen by everybody; and so to Jacob Hall’s dancing of the ropes—a thing worth seeing and mightily followed.”

Tolls.—1671. The Corporation of London was dissatisfied with the profits of the fair accruing from the arrangement then subsisting, and referred it to the Comptroller to let the ground for the City and report the tolls to the first court after the fair. This was done, and appears to have been satisfactory, as the Corporation continued to receive the direct proceeds down to 1685, when the tolls were leased to the Sword-bearer for three years at a clear rental of £100 per annum. At the expiration of two years it was reported that the tolls had not amounted to more than £68; they were leased to the Sword-bearer at this rental for twenty-one years.

1674. In “Poor Robin’s Almanack” for this year, in a catalogue of jests upon the purposes or features of fairs, is the following “Aug. 24 Smithfield for Jack puddings, pigs heads, and Bartholomew Babies.”

1678. The “Irregularities and Disorders” of this fair were brought under the notice of the civil authorities; and the question was referred to a Committee “to consider how the same might be prevented, and what damages would occur to the City by laying down the same.” This is the first hint of suppression by the City; “and its arising,” says Mr. Morley, “is almost simultaneous with the decay of the great annual gathering as a necessary seat of trade.” He adds, “There is no year in which it can be distinctly said that then the Cloth Fair died. Even at this hour, when the fair itself is extinct, there are in the street called Cloth Fair, on the site of the old mart, one or two considerable shops of Cloth-merchants, who seem there to have buried themselves out of sight, and to be feeding upon the traditions of the fair.”

Cloth Trade.—It is in connection with the woollen cloth trade that Bartholomew Fair most linked itself with commerce. It was not simply the great metropolitan cloth fair, but it was the greatest fair for woollen cloths held in England. For centuries wool had been the great staple of this country. Kings had taken its regulation under their own particular charge. The highest official in the land took his seat amongst the peers of the realm literally on a sack of wool. Cloth ranked first amongst the products of the nation’s industry. Among the fairs of the world English woollen cloth was an important article of commerce. The centre of this trade for several centuries was located in this particular fair. Other fairs had other specialities. But St. Bartholomew’s was the annual trade gathering of English clothiers and London drapers. The arms of the Merchant Tailors were engraved upon a silver yard—thirty-six inches in length and thirty-six ounces in weight,—with which century after century members of their body were deputed to attend at West Smithfield during the fair, and test the measures of the clothiers and drapers (See 1609). The “Hand and Shears” was a famous hostelry within the Close, where the cloth-merchants and the tailors fraternized. And here, too, the Court of Piepowder was long held when removed from the Abbey.

It remains to be stated in connection with the events of this year that there was a very grave question involved as to whether the City had any legal right to suppress the fair. The Cattle Fair was still very considerable (see 1715).

1682. There was published a new edition of “Wit and Drollery: Jovial Poems” (1682); there is contained the following epitome of the features of the fair (not contained in the edition of 1656):—

It had in fact come to this—as Sir Robert Southwell truly said in a letter to his son in 1685: “The main importance of this fair is not so much for merchandise, and the supplying what people really want; but as a sort of Bacchanalia, to gratify the multitude in their wandering and irregular thoughts.”

1688. It had become a custom for the Lord Mayor after proclaiming the fair to call upon the keeper of Newgate, whose services were usually involved during the fair, and partake of “a cool tankard of wine, nutmeg, and sugar.” This year Sir John Shorter—natural grandfather of Horace Walpole, and of his cousins the Conway Seymours—followed the usual course, but let the lid of the tankard flop down with so much force that his horse started; he was thrown to the ground, and died the next day. The practice was discontinued during the second mayoralty of Sir Matthew Wood.

In “The Lady’s New Year’s Gift; or, Advice to a Daughter,” published this year, it is observed: “Some women are for merry-meetings, as Bessus was for Duels; they are ingaged in a Circle of Idleness, where they run round for the whole year, without the interruption of a serious hour; they know all the Players names & are Intimately acquainted with all the Booths in Bartholomew Fair.”

1690. Literature still continued to be associated with the fair. Thus there was published this year: “The City Revels, or the Humours of Bartholomew Fair,” by J. G. Gent. Sold by Randal Taylor, near Stationers-Hall, and by most Booksellers. Price stitcht 6d.—not a single copy of which is now known to exist. There was also published about this date “Roger in Amaze: Or the Countrymans Ramble through Bartholomew Fair. To the tune of: The Dutch Womans Jigg. Printed by and for A. M. and sold by J. Walter,” &c. A sheet containing eight six-line stanzas. (Library of H. Huth, Esq.)

1691. There was a strong feeling setting in at this period against the fair. The Corporation ordered a return to the original term of three days, not only as a check to vice, but in order that the pleasures of the fair might not choke up the avenues of traffic. It is clear that this was not effective, for the order was repeated three years later. See 1711.

1697. The Lord Mayor issued an Ordinance “for the suppression of vicious practices in Bartholomew fair, as obscene, lascivious and scandalous plays, comedies, and farces, unlawful games and interludes, drunkenness, &c., strictly charging all constables and other officers to use the utmost diligence in prosecuting the same.” Vide “Postman” of this date.

Political allusions were very freely made in the amusements of the Fair; and sometimes these brought speedy retaliation. Thus, in the present year William Philips, a Zany or Jack Pudding, was arrested and publicly whipped for perpetrating in the fair a jest on the repressive tendencies of the Government, which the poet Prior has condensed and preserved for us. The said clown made his appearance on the exterior stage of the show with a tongue in his left hand, and a black pudding in his right. Professing to have learned an important secret, by which he hoped to profit, he communicated it to the mountebank, in words recorded by Prior thus:—

This same W. Philips is suspected to have an important history of his own—indeed, to have been something besides a clown. He is believed to have been the author of the “Revengeful Queen,” published in 1698; also of “Alcamenes and Menelippa,” and of a farce called “Britons, Strike Home,” which was acted in a booth in Bartholomew Fair. Relating to him is also supposed to have been a book published in 1688, of which nothing but the title-page is now known to exist. This is preserved in the Harleian collection, viz., “The Comical History of the famous Merry Andrew, W. Phill., Giving an account of his Pleasant Humours, Various Adventures, Cheats, Frolicks, and Cunning Designs, both in City and Country.” A copy of this would now command a large price.

Another of the great show characters of this period was Joseph Clark, the “Posturer.” He is the “whimsical fellow” mentioned by Addison in the “Guardian,” No. 102. He was the son of a distiller in Shoe Lane, and was intended for the medical profession. This did not suit his views, nor did the trade of a mercer, to which he was next put. He probably became buffoon in the Court of the Duke of Buckingham. Finally he appeared in the Fair. His performance chiefly consisted in the imitation of every kind of human deformity; and he is said to have imposed so completely upon Molins, the famous surgeon, as to be dismissed by him as an incurable cripple! There is a notice of him in the “Philosophical Transactions,” where it is related that he “had such an absolute command of all his muscles and joints that he could disjoint almost his whole body.” A portrait in Tempest’s collection represents him in the act of shouldering his leg, an antic which is imitated by a monkey. Frost’s “Old showman,” p. 59.

1698. A Frenchman, Monsieur Sorbière, visiting London, says: “I was at Bartholomew Fair. It consists of most Toy Shops, also Fiance, and Picture, Ribbon Shops, no Books; many shops of Confectioners, where any woman may commodiously be treated. Knavery is here in perfection, dexterous Cut-purses and Pickpockets. I went to see the Dancing on the Ropes, which was admirable. Coming out, I met a man that would have took off my hat, but I secured it, and was going to draw my sword, crying out ‘Begar! Damn’d Rogue! Morbleu,’ &c., when on a sudden I heard a hundred People about me, crying, ‘Here Monsieur, see “Jephthah’s Rash Vow.”’ ‘Here, Monsieur, see “The Tall Dutchwoman.”’ ‘See “The Tiger,”’ says another. ‘See “The Horse and No Horse,” whose tail stands where his head should do.’ ‘See the “German Artist,” Monsieur.’ ‘See the “Siege of Namur,” Monsieur;’ so that betwixt Rudeness and Civility I was forc’d to get into a fiacre, and with an air of haste and a full trot, got home to my lodgings.”