So early as the close of the seventeenth century, one hundred and fifty years before the fair was abolished, we find endeavours being made, in emulation of the Puritans, to banish every kind of amusement from Bartholomew Fair, and limit it to the purposes of an annual market. In 1700, the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen resolved that no booths should be permitted to be erected in Smithfield that year; but on the 6th of August it was announced that “the lessees of West Smithfield having on Friday last represented to a Court of Aldermen at Guildhall, that it would be highly injurious to them to have the erection of all booths there totally prohibited, the right honourable Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen have, on consideration of the premises, granted licence to erect some booths during the time of Bartholomew Fair now approaching; but none are permitted for music-booths, or any that may be means to promote debauchery.” And, on the 23rd, when the Lord Mayor went on horseback to proclaim the fair, he ordered two music-booths to be taken down immediately.

On the 4th of June, in the following year, the grand jury made a presentment to the following effect:—“Whereas we have seen a printed order of the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, the 25th June, 1700, to prevent the great profaneness, vice, and debauchery, so frequently used and practised in Bartholomew Fair, by strictly charging and commanding all persons concerned in the said fair, and in the sheds and booths to be erected and built therein or places adjacent, that they do not let, set, or hire, or use any booth, shed, stall, or other erection whatsoever to be used or employed for interludes, stage-plays, comedies, gaming-places, lotteries, or music meetings: and as we are informed the present Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen have passed another order to the same effect on the 3rd instant, we take this occasion to return our most hearty thanks for their religious care and great zeal in this matter; we esteeming a renewing of their former practices at the Fair a continuing one of the chiefest nurseries of vice next to the play-houses; therefore earnestly desire that the said orders may be vigorously prosecuted, and that this honourable Court would endeavour that the said fair may be employed to those good ends and purposes it was at first designed.”

This presentment deserves, and will repay, the most attentive consideration of those who would know the real character of the amusements presented at the London fairs, and the motives and aims of those who endeavoured to suppress them. The grand jury profess to be actuated by a desire to diminish profanity, vice, and debauchery; and, if this had been their real and sole object, nothing could have been more laudable. But, like those who would suppress the liquor traffic in order to prevent drunkenness, they confounded the use with the abuse of the thing which they condemned, and sought to deprive the masses of every kind of amusement, because some persons could not participate therein without indulging in vicious and debasing pleasures. It might have been supposed that Bartholomew Fair was pre-eminently a means and occasion of vice and debauchery, and that its continuance was incompatible with the maintenance of public order and the due guardianship of public morals, if the grand jury had not coupled with their condemnation an expression of their opinion that it was not so bad as the theatres. In that sentence is disclosed the real motive and aim of those who sought the suppression of the amusements of the people at the London Fairs.

That the morals and manners of that age were of a low standard is undeniable; but they would have been worse if the fairs had been abolished, and the theatres closed, as the fanatics of the day willed. Men and women cannot be made pious or virtuous by the prohibition of theatres, concerts, and balls, any more than they can be rendered temperate by suppressing the public sale of beer, wine, and spirits. Naturally, a virtuous man, without being a straight-laced opponent of “cakes and ale,” would have seen, in walking through a fair, much that he would deplore, and desire to amend; but such a man would have the same reflections inspired by a visit to a theatre or a music-hall, or any other amusement of the present day. He would not, however, if he was sensible as well as virtuous, conclude from what he saw and heard that all public amusements ought to be prohibited. To suppress places of popular entertainment because some persons abuse them would be like destroying a garden because a snail crawls over the foliage, or an earwig lurks in the flowers.

The London fairs were attended this year by a remarkable Dutch boy, about eight or nine years of age, whose eyes presented markings of the iris in which sharp-sighted persons, aided perhaps by a considerable development of the organ of wonder, read certain Latin and Hebrew words. In one eye, the observer read, or was persuaded that he could read, the words Deus meus; in the other, in Hebrew characters, the word Elohim. The boy’s parents, by whom he was exhibited, affirmed that his eyes had presented these remarkable peculiarities from his birth. Great numbers of persons, including the most eminent physiologists and physicians of the day, went to see him; and the learned, who examined his eyes with great attention, were as far from solving the mystery as the crowd of ordinary sight-seers. Some of them regarded the case as an imposture, but they were unable to suggest any means by which such a fraud could be accomplished. Others regarded it as “almost” supernatural, a qualification not very easy to understand. The supposed characters were probably natural, and only to be seen as Roman and Hebrew letters by imaginative persons, or those who viewed them with the eye of faith. Whatever their nature, the boy’s sight was not affected by them in the slightest degree.

The theatrical booths attending the London fairs began at this time to be more numerous, and to present an entertainment of a better character than had hitherto been seen. The elder Penkethman appears to have been the first actor of good position on the stage who set the example of performing in a temporary canvas theatre during the fairs, and it was soon followed by the leading actors and actresses of the royal theatres. In a dialogue on the state of the stage, published in 1702, and attributed to Gildon, Critick calls Penkethman “the flower of Bartholomew Fair, and the idol of the rabble; a fellow that overdoes everything, and spoils many a part with his own stuff.” He had then been ten years on the stage, having made his first appearance at Drury Lane in 1692, as the tailor, a small part in The Volunteers. Four years later, we find him playing, at the same theatre, such parts as Snap in Love’s Last Shift, Dr. Pulse in The Lost Lover, and Nick Froth in The Cornish Comedy.

What the author of the pamphlet just quoted says of this actor receives confirmation and illustration from an anecdote told of him, in connection with the first representation of Farquhar’s Recruiting Officer at Drury Lane in 1706. Penkethman, who played Thomas Appletree, one of the rustic recruits, when asked his name by Wilks, to whom the part of Captain Plume was assigned, replied, “Why, don’t you know my name, Bob? I thought every fool knew that.”

“Thomas Appletree,” whispered Wilks, assuming the office of prompter.

“Thomas Appletree!” exclaimed Penkethman, aloud. “Thomas Devil! My name is Will Penkethman.” Then, turning to the gallery, he addressed one of the audience thus:—“Hark you, friend; don’t you know my name?”

“Yes, Master Pinkey,” responded the occupant of a front seat in the gallery. “We know it very well.”

The theatre was soon in an uproar: the audience at first laughed at the folly of Penkethman and the evident distress of Wilks; but the joke soon grew tiresome, and they began to hiss. Penkethman saw his mistake, and speedily changed displeasure into applause by crying out, with a loud nasal twang, and a countenance as ludicrously melancholy as he could make it, “Adzooks! I fear I am wrong!”

Barnes, the rope-dancer, had at this time lost his former partner, Appleby, and taken into partnership an acrobat named Finley. They advertised their show in 1701 at Bartholomew Fair as, “Her Majesty’s Company of Rope Dancers.” They had two German girls “lately arrived from France;” and it was announced that “the famous Mr. Barnes, of whose performances this kingdom is so sensible, Dances with 2 Children at his feet, and with Boots and Spurs. Mrs. Finley, distinguished by the name of Lady Mary for her incomparable Dancing, has much improved herself since the last Fair. You will likewise be entertained with such variety of Tumbling by Mr. Finley and his Company, as was never seen in the Fair before. Note, that for the conveniency of the Gentry, there is a back-door in Smithfield Rounds.”

They were not without rivals, though the absence of names from the following advertisement renders it probable that the “famous company” calculated upon larger gains from anonymous boasting than they could hope for from the announcement of their names:—“At the Great Booth over against the Hospital Gate in Bartholomew Fair, will be seen the Famous Company of Rope Dancers, they being the Greatest Performers of Men, Women, and Children that can be found beyond the Seas, so that the world cannot parallel them for Dancing on the Low Rope, Vaulting on the High Rope, and for Walking on the Slack and Sloaping Ropes, out-doing all others to that degree, that it has highly recommended them, both in Bartholomew Fair and May Fair last, to all the best persons of Quality in England. And by all are owned to be the only amazing Wonders of the World in every thing they do: It is there you will see the Italian Scaramouch dancing on the Rope, with a Wheel-barrow before him, with two Children and a Dog in it, and with a Duck on his Head who sings to the Company, and causes much Laughter. The whole entertainment will be so extremely fine and diverting, as never was done by any but this Company alone.”

Doggett, whom Cibber calls the most natural actor of the day, and whose name is associated with the coat and badge rowed for annually, on the 1st of August, by London watermen’s apprentices, was here this year, with a theatrical booth, erected at the end of Hosier Lane, where was presented, as the advertisements tell us, “A New Droll call’d the Distressed Virgin or the Unnatural Parents. Being a True History of the Fair Maid of the West, or the Loving Sisters. With the Comical Travels of Poor Trusty, in Search of his Master’s Daughter, and his Encounter with Three Witches. Also variety of Comick Dances and Songs, with Scenes and Machines never seen before. Vivat Regina.” Doggett was at this time manager of Drury Lane.

Miller, the actor, also had a theatrical booth in the fair, and made the following announcement:—

“Never acted before. At Miller’s Booth, over against the Cross Daggers, near the Crown Tavern, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be presented an Excellent New Droll, call’d The Tempest, or the Distressed Lovers. With the English Hero and the Island Princess, and the Comical Humours of the Inchanted Scotchman; or Jockey and the Three Witches. Showing how a Nobleman of England was cast away upon the Indian Shore, and in his Travel found the Princess of the Country, with whom he fell in Love, and after many Dangers and Perils, was married to her; and his faithful Scotchman, who was saved with him, travelling through Woods, fell in among Witches, when between ’em is abundance of comical Diversions. There in the Tempest is Neptune, with his Triton in his Chariot drawn with Sea Horses and Mair Maids singing. With variety of Entertainment, performed by the best Masters; the Particulars would be too tedious to be inserted here. Vivat Regina.”

The similarity of the chief incidents in the dramas presented by Doggett and Miller is striking. In both we have the troubles of the lovers, the comical adventures of a man-servant, and the encounter with witches. We shall find these incidents reproduced again and again, with variations, and under different titles, in the plays set before Bartholomew audiences of the eighteenth century.

May Fair first assumed importance this year, when the multiplication of shows of all kinds caused it to assume dimensions which had not hitherto distinguished it. It was held on the north side of Piccadilly, in Shepherd’s Market, White Horse Street, Shepherd’s Court, Sun Court, Market Court, an open space westward, extending to Tyburn Lane (now Park Lane), Chapel Street, Shepherd Street, Market Street, Hertford Street, and Carrington Street. The ground-floor of the market-house, usually occupied by butchers’ stalls, was appropriated during the fair to the sale of toys and gingerbread; and the upper portion was converted into a theatre. The open space westward was covered with the booths of jugglers, fencers, and boxers, the stands of mountebanks, swings, round-abouts, etc., while the sides of the streets were occupied by sausage stalls and gambling tables. The first-floor windows were also, in some instances, made to serve as the proscenia of puppet shows.

I have been able to trace only two shows to this fair in 1702, namely Barnes and Finley’s and Miller’s, which stood opposite to the former, and presented “an excellent droll called Crispin and Crispianus: or, A Shoemaker a Prince; with the best machines, singing and dancing ever yet in the fair.” A great concourse of people attended from all parts of the metropolis; an injudicious attempt on the part of the local authorities to exclude persons of immoral character, which has always been found impracticable in places of public amusement, resulted in a serious riot. Some young women being arrested by the constables on the allegation that they were prostitutes, they were rescued by a party of soldiers; and a conflict was begun, which extended as other constables came up, and the “rough” element took part with the rescuers of the incriminated women. One constable was killed, and three others dangerously wounded before the fight ended. The man by whose hand the constable fell contrived to escape; but a butcher who had been active in the affray was arrested, and convicted, and suffered the capital penalty at Tyburn.In the following year, the fair was presented as a nuisance by the grand jury of Middlesex; but it continued to be held for several years afterwards. Barnes and Finley again had a show at Bartholomew Fair, to which the public were invited to “see my Lady Mary perform such steps on the dancing-rope as have never been seen before.” The young lady thus designated, and whose performance attracted crowds of spectators to Barnes and Finley’s show, was said to be the daughter of a Florentine noble, and had given up all for love by eloping with Finley. By the companion of her flight she was taught to dance upon the tight rope, and for a few years was an entertainer of considerable popularity; but, venturing to exhibit her agility and grace while enceinte, she lost her balance, fell from the rope, and died almost immediately after giving birth to a stillborn child.

Bullock and Simpson, the former an actor of some celebrity at Drury Lane, joined Penkethman this year in a show at Bartholomew Fair, in which Jephtha’s Rash Vow was performed, Penkethman playing the part of Toby, and Bullock that of Ezekiel. Bullock is described in the pamphlet attributed to Gildon as “the best comedian who has trod the stage since Nokes and Leigh, and a fellow that has a very humble opinion of himself.” So much modesty must have made him a rara avis among actors, who have, as a rule, a very exalted opinion of themselves. He had been six years on the stage at this time, having made his first appearance in 1696, at Drury Lane, as Sly in Love’s Last Shift. His ability was soon recognised; and in the same year he played Sir Morgan Blunder in The Younger Brother, and Shuffle in The Cornish Comedy. Parker and Doggett also had a booth this year at the same fair, playing Bateman; or, the Unhappy Marriage, with the latter comedian in the part of Sparrow.

Penkethman at this time, from his salary as an actor at Drury Lane, his gains from attending Bartholomew and Southwark Fairs with his show, and the profits of the Richmond Theatre, which he either owned or leased, was in the receipt of a considerable income. “He is the darling of Fortunatus,” says Downes, writing in 1708, “and has gained more in theatres and fairs in twelve years than those who have tugged at the oar of acting these fifty.” He did not retire from the stage, however, until 1724.

Some of the minor shows of this period must now be noticed. A bill of this time—the date cannot always be fixed—invites the visitors to Bartholomew Fair to witness “the wonderful performances of that most celebrated master Simpson, the famous vaulter, who being lately arrived from Italy, will show the world what vaulting is.” The chroniclers of the period have not preserved any record, save this bill, of this not too modest performer. A more famous entertainer was Clench, a native of Barnet, whose advertisements state that he “imitates horses, huntsmen, and a pack of hounds, a doctor, an old woman, a drunken man, bells, the flute, and the organ, with three voices, by his own natural voice, to the greatest perfection,” and that he was “the only man that could ever attain so great an art.” He had a rival, however, in the whistling man, mentioned in the ‘Spectator,’ who was noted for imitating the notes of all kinds of birds. Clench attended all the fairs in and around London, and at other times gave his performance at the corner of Bartholomew Lane, behind the old Exchange.

To this period also belongs the following curious announcement of “a collection of strange and wonderful creatures from most parts of the world, all alive,” to be seen over against the Mews Gate, Charing Cross, by her Majesty’s permission.

“The first being a little Black Man, being but 3 foot high, and 32 years of age, straight and proportionable every way, who is distinguished by the Name of the Black Prince, and has been shewn before most Kings and Princes in Christendom. The next being his wife, the Little Woman, NOT 3 foot high, and 30 years of Age, straight and proportionable as any woman in the Land, which is commonly called the Fairy Queen; she gives general satisfaction to all that sees her, by Diverting them with Dancing, being big with Child. Likewise their little Turkey Horse, being but 2 foot odd inches high, and above 12 years of Age, that shews several diverting and surprising Actions, at the Word of Command. The least Man, Woman, and Horse that ever was seen in the World Alive. The Horse being kept in a box. The next being a strange Monstrous Female Creature that was taken in the woods in the Deserts of Æthiopia in Prester John’s Country, in the remotest parts of Africa. The next is the noble Picary, which is very much admir’d by the Learned. The next being the noble Jack-call, the Lion’s Provider, which hunts in the Forest for the Lion’s Prey. Likewise a small Egyptian Panther, spotted like a Leopard. The next being a strange, monstrous creature, brought from the Coast of Brazil, having a Head like a Child, Legs and Arms very wonderful, with a Long Tail like a Serpent, wherewith he Feeds himself, as an Elephant doth with his Trunk. With several other Rarities too tedious to mention in this Bill.

“And as no such Collection was ever shewn in this Place before, we hope they will give you content and satisfaction, assuring you, that they are the greatest Rarities that ever was shewn alive in this Kingdom, and are to be seen from nine o’clock in the Morning, till 10 at Night, where true Attendance shall be given during our stay in this Place, which will be very short. Long live the Queen.”

The proprietors of menageries and circuses are always amusing, if not very lucid, when they set forth in type the attractions of their shows. The owner of the rarities exhibited over against the Mews Gate in the reign of Queen Anne was no exception to the rule. The picary and the jack-call may be readily identified as the peccary and the jackal, but “a strange monstrous female creature” defies recognition, even with the addition that it was brought from Prester John’s country. The Brazilian wonder may be classified with safety with the long-tailed monkeys, especially as another and shorter advertisement, in the ‘Spectator,’ describes it a little more explicitly as a satyr. It was, probably, a spider monkey, one variety of which is said, by Humboldt, to use its prehensile tail for the purpose of picking insects out of crevices.The Harleian Collection contains the following announcement of a performing horse:—

“To be seen, at the Ship, upon Great Tower Hill, the finest taught horse in the world. He fetches and carries like a spaniel dog. If you hide a glove, a handkerchief, a door-key, a pewter basin, or so small a thing as a silver two-pence, he will seek about the room till he has found it; and then he will bring it to his master. He will also tell the number of spots on a card, and leap through a hoop; with a variety of other curious performances.”

Powell, the famous puppet-showman mentioned in the ‘Spectator,’ in humorous contrast with the Italian Opera, never missed Bartholomew Fair, where, however, he had a rival in Crawley, two of whose bills have been preserved in the Harleian Collection. Pinkethman, another “motion-maker,” as the exhibitors of these shows were called, and also mentioned in the ‘Spectator,’ introduced on his stage the divinities of Olympus ascending and descending to the sound of music. Strutt, who says that he saw something of the same kind at a country fair in 1760, thinks that the scenes and figures were painted upon a flat surface and cut out, like those of a boy’s portable theatre, and that motion was imparted to them by clock-work. This he conjectures to have been the character also of the representation, with moving figures, of the camp before Lisle, which was exhibited, in the reign of Anne, in the Strand, opposite the Globe Tavern, near Hungerford Market.

One of the two bills of Crawley’s show which have been preserved was issued for Bartholomew Fair, and the other for Southwark Fair. The former is as follows:—

“At Crawley’s Booth, over against the Crown Tavern in Smithfield, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be presented a little opera, called the Old Creation of the World, yet newly revived; with the addition of Noah’s flood; also several fountains playing water during the time of the play. The last scene does present Noah and his family coming out of the ark, with all the beasts two by two, and all the fowls of the air seen in a prospect sitting upon trees; likewise over the ark is seen the sun rising in a most glorious manner: moreover, a multitude of angels will be seen in a double rank, which presents a double prospect, one for the sun, the other for a palace, where will be seen six angels ringing of bells. Likewise machines descending from above, double, with Dives rising out of hell, and Lazarus seen in Abraham’s bosom, besides several figures dancing jiggs, sarabands, and country dances, to the admiration of the spectators; with the merry conceits of Squire Punch and Sir John Spendall.” This curious medley was “completed by an entertainment of singing, and dancing with several naked swords by a child of eight years of age.” In the bill for Southwark Fair we find the addition of “the ball of little dogs,” said to have come from Louvain, and to perform “by their cunning tricks wonders in the world of dancing. You shall see one of them named Marquis of Gaillerdain, whose dexterity is not to be compared; he dances with Madame Poucette his mistress and the rest of their company at the sound of instruments, all of them observing so well the cadence that they amaze everybody;” it is added that these celebrated performers had danced before Queen Anne and most of the nobility, and amazed everybody.

James Miles, who has been mentioned in the last chapter, promised the visitors, in a bill preserved in the Harleian Collection, that they should see “a young woman dance with the swords, and upon a ladder, surpassing all her sex.” Nineteen different dances were performed in his show, among which he mentions a “wrestlers’ dance” and vaulting upon the slack rope. Respecting this dancing with swords, Strutt says that he remembered seeing “at Flockton’s, a much noted but very clumsy juggler, a girl about eighteen or twenty years of age, who came upon the stage with four naked swords, two in each hand; when the music played, she turned round with great swiftness, and formed a great variety of figures with the swords, holding them overhead, down by her sides, behind her, and occasionally she thrust them in her bosom. The dance generally continued ten or twelve minutes; and when it was finished, she stopped suddenly, without appearing to be in the least giddy from the constant reiteration of the same motion.”

The ladder-dance was performed upon a light ladder, which the performer shifted from place to place, ascended and descended, without permitting it to fall. It was practised at Sadler’s Wells at the commencement of the last century, and revived there in 1770. Strutt thought it originated in the stilt-dance, which appears, from an illumination of the reign of Henry III., to have been practised in the thirteenth century.

Mrs. Mynn appears as a Bartholomew Fair theatrical manageress in 1707, when Settle, then nearly sixty years of age, and in far from flourishing circumstances, adapted to her stage his spectacular drama of the Siege of Troy, which had been produced at Drury Lane six years previously. Settle, who was a good contriver of spectacles, though a bad dramatic poet, reduced it from five acts to three, striking out four or five of the dramatis personÆ, cutting down the serious portions of the dialogue, and giving greater breadth as well as length to the comic incidents, without which no Bartholomew audience would have been satisfied. As acted in her theatrical booth, it was printed by Mrs. Mynn, with the following introduction:—

“A Printed Publication of an Entertainment performed on a Smithfield Stage, which, how gay or richly soever set off, will hardly reach to a higher Title than the customary name of a Droll, may seem somewhat new. But as the present undertaking, the work of ten Months’ preparation, is so extraordinary a Performance, that without Boast or Vanity we may modestly say, In the whole several Scenes, Movements, and Machines, it is no ways Inferiour even to any one Opera yet seen in either of the Royal Theatres; we are therefore under some sort of Necessity to make this Publication, thereby to give ev’n the meanest of our audience a full Light into all the Object they will there meet in this Expensive Entertainment; the Proprietors of which have adventur’d to make, under some small Hopes, That as they yearly see some of their happier Brethren Undertakers in the Fair, more cheaply obtain even the Engrost Smiles of the Gentry and Quality at so much an easier Price; so on the other side their own more costly Projection (though less Favourites) might possibly attain to that good Fortune, at least to attract a little share of the good graces of the more Honourable part of the Audience, and perhaps be able to purchase some of those smiles which elsewhere have been thus long the profuser Donation of particular Affection and Favour.”

In the following year, Settle arranged for Mrs. Mynn the dramatic spectacle of Whittington, long famous at Bartholomew Fair, concluding with a mediÆval Lord Mayor’s cavalcade, in which nine different pageants were introduced.

In 1708, the first menagerie seems to have appeared at Bartholomew Fair, where it stood near the hospital gate, and attracted considerable attention. Sir Hans Sloane cannot be supposed to have missed such an opportunity of studying animals little known, as he is said to have constantly visited the fair for that purpose, and to have retained the services of a draughtsman for their representation.

The first menagerie in this country was undoubtedly that, which for several centuries, was maintained in the Tower of London, and the beginning of which may be traced to the presentation of three leopards to Henry III. by the Emperor of Germany, in allusion to the heraldic device of the former. Several royal orders are extant which show the progress made in the formation of the menagerie and furnish many interesting particulars concerning the animals. Two of these documents, addressed by Henry III. to the sheriffs of London, have reference to a white bear. The first, dated 1253, directs that fourpence a day should be allowed for the animal’s subsistence; and the second, made in the following year, commands that, “for the keeper of our white bear, lately sent us from Norway, and which is in our Tower of London, ye cause to be had one muzzle and one iron chain, to hold that bear without the water, and one long and strong cord to hold the same bear when fishing in the river of Thames.”

Other mandates, relating to an elephant, were issued in the same reign, in one of which it is directed, “that ye cause, without delay, to be built at our Tower of London, one house of forty feet long, and twenty feet deep, for our elephant; providing that it be so made and so strong that, when need be it may be fit and necessary for other uses.” We learn from Matthew Paris that this animal was presented to Henry by the King of France. It was ten years old, and ten feet in height. It lived till the forty-first year of Henry’s reign, in which year it is recorded that, for the maintenance of the elephant and its keeper, from Michaelmas to St. Valentine’s Day, immediately before it died, the charge was nearly seventeen pounds—a considerable sum for those days.

Many additions were made to the Tower menagerie in the reign of Edward III.; and notably a lion and lioness, a leopard, and two wild cats. The office of keeper of the lions was created by Henry VI., with an allowance of sixpence a day for the keeper, and a like sum “for the maintenance of every lion or leopard now being in his custody, or that shall be in his custody hereafter.” This office was continued until comparatively recent times, when it was abolished with the menagerie, a step which put an end likewise to the time-honoured hoax, said to have been practised upon country cousins, of going to the water side, below London Bridge, to see the lions washed.

The building appropriated to the keeping and exhibition of the animals was a wide semi-circular edifice, in which were constructed, at distances of a few feet apart, a number of arched “dens,” divided into two or more compartments, and secured by strong iron bars. Opposite these cages was a gallery of corresponding form, with a low stone parapet, and approached from the back by a flight of steps. This was appropriated exclusively to the accommodation of the royal family, who witnessed from it the feeding of the beasts and the combats described by Mr. Ainsworth in the romance which made the older portions of the Tower familiar ground to so many readers.

The menagerie which appeared in Smithfield in 1708, and the ownership of which I have been unable to discover, was a very small concern; but with the showman’s knowledge of the popular love of the marvellous, was announced as “a Collection of Strange and Wonderful Creatures,” which included “the Noble Casheware, brought from the Island of Java in the East Indies, one of the strangest creatures in the Universe, being half a Bird, and half a Beast, reaches 16 Hands High from the Ground, his Head is like a Bird, and so is his Feet, he hath no hinder Claw, Wings, Tongue, nor Tail; his Body is like to the Body of a Deer; instead of Feathers, his fore-part is covered with Hair like an Ox, his hinder-part with a double Feather in one Quill; he Eats Iron, Steel, or Stones; he hath 2 Spears grows by his side.”

There is now no difficulty in recognising this strange bird as the cassowary, the representative in the Indian islands of the ostrich. There was also a leopard from Lebanon, an eagle from Russia, a “posoun” (opossum ?) from Hispaniola, and, besides a “Great Mare of the Tartarian Breed,” which “had the Honour to be show’d before Queen Anne, Prince George, and most of the Nobility,” “a little black hairy Monster, bred in the Desarts of Arabia, a natural Ruff of Hair about his Face, walks upright, takes a Glass of Ale in his Hand and drinks it off; and doth several other things to admiration.” This animal was probably a specimen of the maned colobus, a native of the forests of Sierra Leone, and called by Pennant the full-bottomed monkey, in allusion to the full-bottom periwig of his day.

A pamphlet was published in 1710, with the title, The Wonders of England, purporting to contain “Doggett and Penkethman’s dialogue with Old Nick, on the suppression of Bartholomew Fair,” and accounts of many strange and wonderful things; but it was a mere “catch-penny,” as such productions of the Monmouth Street press were called, not containing a line about the suppression of the fair, and the title, as Hone observes, “like the showmen’s painted cloths in the fair, pictures monsters not visible within.”

The lesser sights of a fair in the first quarter of the eighteenth century are graphically delineated by Gay, in his character of the ballad singer, in “The Shepherd’s Week,” bringing before the mind’s eye the stalls, the lotteries, the mountebanks, the tumblers, the rope-dancers, the raree-shows, the puppets, and “all the fun of the fair.”

“How pedlers’ stalls with glittering toys are laid,
The various fairings of the country maid.
Long silken laces hang upon the twine,
And rows of pins and amber bracelets shine;
How the tight lass knives, combs, and scissors spies,
And looks on thimbles with desiring eyes.
Of lotteries next with tuneful note he told,
Where silver spoons are won, and rings of gold.
The lads and lasses trudge the street along,
And all the fair is crowded in his song.
The mountebank now treads the stage, and sells
His pills, his balsams, and his ague-spells;
Now o’er and o’er the nimble tumbler springs,
And on the rope the venturous maiden swings;
Jack Pudding, in his party-coloured jacket,
Tosses the glove, and jokes at every packet.
Of raree-shows he sung, and Punch’s feats,
Of pockets picked in crowds, and various cheats.”

The theatrical booths, of which we have only casual notices or records during the seventeenth century and the first dozen years of the eighteenth, became an important feature of the London fairs about 1714, from which time those of Bartholomew and Southwark were regularly attended by many of the leading actors and actresses of Drury Lane, Covent Garden, the Haymarket, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and Goodman’s Fields theatres, down to the middle of the century, excepting those years in which no theatrical booths were allowed to be put up in Smithfield. The theatrical companies which attended the fairs were not, however, drawn entirely from the London theatres. Three or four actors associated in the proprietorship and management, or were engaged by a popular favourite, and the rest of the company was recruited from provincial theatres, or from the strolling comedians of the country fairs.

The London fairs were not, therefore, neglected by metropolitan managers in quest of talent, who, by witnessing the performances in booths on Smithfield or Southwark Green, sometimes found and transferred to their own boards, actors and actresses who proved stars of the first magnitude. It was in Bartholomew Fair that Booth found Walker, the original representative of Captain Macheath, playing in the Siege of Troy; and in Southwark Fair, in 1714, that the same manager saw Mrs. Horton acting in Cupid and Psyche, and was so pleased with her impersonation that he immediately offered her an engagement at Drury Lane, where she appeared the following season as Melinda, in the Recruiting Officer. She made her first appearance in 1713, as Marcia in Cato, with a strolling company then performing at Windsor; and is said to have been one of the most beautiful women that ever trod the stage.

Penkethman’s company played the Constant Lovers in Southwark Fair in the year that proved so fortunate for Mrs. Horton, the comedian himself playing Buzzard, and Bullock taking the part of Sir Timothy Littlewit. In the following year, as we learn from a newspaper paragraph “a great play-house” was erected in the middle of Smithfield for “the King’s players,” being “the largest ever built.” In 1717 Bullock did not accompany Penkethman, but set up a booth of his own, in conjunction with Leigh; while Penkethman formed a partnership with Pack, and produced the new “droll,” Twice Married and a Maid Still, in which the former personated Old Merriwell; Pack, Tim; Quin, Vincent; Ryan, Peregrine; Spiller, Trusty; and Mrs. Spiller, Lucia. Penkethman’s booth received the honour of a visit from the Prince of Wales. On the evening of the 13th of September, the popular favourite and several of the company were arrested on the stage by a party of constables, in the presence of a hundred and fifty of the nobility and gentry; but, pleading that they were “the King’s servants,” they were released without being subjected to the pains and penalties of vagrancy.

In 1719, Bullock’s name appears alone as the proprietor of the theatrical booth set up in Birdcage Alley, for Southwark Fair, and in which the Jew of Venice was represented, with singing and dancing, and Harper’s representation of the freaks and humours of a drunken man, which, having been greatly admired at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where he and Bullock were both then engaged, could not fail to delight a fair audience. It was in this year that Boheme made his first appearance, as Menelaus in the Siege of Troy, in a booth at Southwark, where he was seen and immediately engaged by the manager of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where he appeared the following season as Worcester in Henry IV., and subsequently as the Ghost in Hamlet, York in Richard II., Pisanio in Cymbeline, Brabantio in Othello, etc.

The theatres at this time were closed during the continuance of Bartholomew Fair, the concourse of all classes to that popular resort preventing them from obtaining remunerative audiences at that time, while the actors could obtain larger salaries in booths than they received at the theatres, and some realised large amounts by associating in the ownership of a booth. The Haymarket company presented the Beggar’s Opera, at Bartholomew and Southwark Fairs in 1720; and Penkethman had his booth at both fairs, this year without a partner.

May Fair, which had long been falling into disrepute, now ceased to be held. It was presented by the grand jury of Middlesex four years successively as a nuisance; and the county magistrates then presented an address to the Crown, praying for its suppression by royal proclamation. Pennant, who says that he remembered the last May Fair, describes the locality as “covered with booths, temporary theatres, and every enticement to low pleasure.” A more particular description was given in 1774, in a communication from Carter, the antiquary, to the “Gentleman’s Magazine.”

“A mountebank’s stage,” he tells us, “was erected opposite the Three Jolly Butchers public-house (on the east side of the market area, now the King’s Arms). Here Woodward, the inimitable comedian and harlequin, made his first appearance as Merry Andrew; from these humble boards he soon after made his way to Covent Garden Theatre. Then there was ‘beheading of puppets.’ In a coal-shed attached to a grocer’s shop (then Mr. Frith’s, now Mr. Frampton’s), one of these mock executions was exposed to the attending crowd. A shutter was fixed horizontally, on the edge of which, after many previous ceremonies, a puppet laid its head, and another puppet instantly chopped it off with an axe. In a circular stair-case window, at the north end of Sun Court, a similar performance took place by another set of puppets. In these representations, the late punishment of the Scottish chieftain (Lord Lovat) was alluded to, in order to gratify the feelings of southern loyalty, at the expense of that further north.

“In a fore one-pair room, on the west side of Sun Court, a Frenchman submitted to the curious the astonishing strength of the ‘strong woman,’ his wife. A blacksmith’s anvil being procured from White Horse Street, with three of the men, they brought it up, and placed it on the floor. The woman was short, but most beautifully and delicately formed, and of a most lovely countenance. She first let down her hair (a light auburn), of a length descending to her knees, which she twisted round the projecting part of the anvil, and then, with seeming ease, lifted the ponderous weight some inches from the floor. After this, a bed was laid in the middle of the room; when, reclining on her back, and uncovering her bosom, the husband ordered the smiths to place thereon the anvil, and forge upon it a horse-shoe! This they obeyed, by taking from the fire a red-hot piece of iron, and with their forging hammers completing the shoe, with the same might and indifference as when in the shop at their constant labour. The prostrate fair one appeared to endure this with the utmost composure, talking and singing during the whole process; then, with an effort which to the bystanders seemed like some supernatural trial, cast the anvil from off her body, jumping up at the same moment with extreme gaiety, and without the least discomposure of her dress or person. That no trick or collusion could possibly be practised on the occasion was obvious, from the following evidence:—the audience stood promiscuously about the room, among whom were our family and friends; the smiths were utter strangers to the Frenchman, but known to us; therefore, the several efforts of strength must have proceeded from the natural and surprising power this foreign dame was possessed of. She next put her naked feet on a red-hot salamander, without receiving the least injury; but this is a feat familiar with us at this time.

“Here, too, was ‘Tiddy-dol.’ This celebrated vendor of gingerbread, from his eccentricity of character, and extensive dealings in his way, was always hailed as the king of itinerant tradesmen. In his person he was tall, well made, and his features handsome. He affected to dress like a person of rank; white gold-laced suit of clothes, laced ruffled shirt, laced hat and feather, white silk stockings, with the addition of a fine white apron. Among his harangues to gain customers, take this as a specimen:—‘Mary, Mary, where are you now, Mary? I live, when at home, at the second house in Little Ball Street, two steps underground, with a wiscum, riscum, and a why-not. Walk in, ladies and gentlemen; my shop is on the second-floor backwards, with a brass knocker at the door. Here is your nice gingerbread, your spice gingerbread; it will melt in your mouth like a red-hot brick-bat, and rumble in your inside like Punch and his wheelbarrow.’ He always finished his address by singing this fag-end of some popular ballad:—Ti-tid-dy, ti-ti, ti-tid-dy, ti-ti, ti-tid-dy, ti-ti, tid-dy, did-dy, dol-lol, ti-tid-dy, ti-tid-dy, ti-ti, tid-dy, tid-dy, dol. Hence arose his nick-name of ‘Tiddy-dol.’”

In Hogarth’s picture of the execution of the idle apprentice at Tyburn, Tiddy-dol is seen holding up a cake of gingerbread, and addressing the crowd in his peculiar style, his costume agreeing with the foregoing description. His proper name was Ford, and so well-known was he that, on his once being missed for a week from his usual stand in the Haymarket, on the unusual occasion of an excursion to a country fair, a “catch-penny” account of his alleged murder was sold in the streets by thousands. In 1721, as appears from a paragraph in the ‘London Journal’ of May 27th, “the ground on which May Fair formerly stood is marked out for a large square, and several fine streets and houses are to be built upon it.”