* An eminent dignitary of the Church of England was oncediscoursing with the author on the morality of Shakspere. Heregretted that the Bard had not spoken on that most gloriousof all subjects, Man's Redemption, beyond a few lines(exquisitely beautiful) in the first seene of Hamlet. Theauthor immediately pointed out the following terse, buttranscendant passage from “Measure for Measure.”“Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;And HE that might the 'vantage best have took,Found out the remedy.”It would pass the bounds of the most exalted eulogy torecord the prelate's answer, and how deeply affected he waswhilst making it.
Though these soul-stirring scenes were perfectly familiar to Uncle Timothy, and from youth to age had been his morning study and his nightly dream, they had never been invested with such an absorbing reality before, and he stood transfixed, a wondering spectator of the glorious vision,—for such to his aching sight it seemed to be. At this moment, the embroidered arras that hung before the oriel window of the tapestried chamber was slowly drawn aside, and thefigure of Shakspere, his eyes beaming with immortality, and his lofty brow discoursing of all things past, present, and to come, stood revealed to view! “Flowers of all hues, and without thorn the rose,” sprung up spontaneously beneath his feet.
And as he walk'd along th' enamell'd bed
Of flow'rs, disposed in many a fairy ring,
Celestial music answer d to his tread,
As if his feet had touch'd some hidden spring
Of harmony—so soft the airs did breathe
In the charmed ear—around—above—beneath?
He spoke—But his voice was of “no sound that the earth knows.”
The sensations of Uncle Timothy grew intensely painful—amounting almost to agony. He made a sudden effort to rush forward, and in making it,awoke!when he found himself seated snugly in an arm-chair before a bright “sea-coal fire,” at the Mother Red Cap, where he had fallen asleep after the exit of the Bartholomew Fair troop, in their progress to the “Rounds.” And thus ended Uncle Timothy'sVision of the Boar's Head!
Gentlemen, on this anniversary of St. Bartholomew, let us not forget that we owe his Fair to a priest and jester.”
“A priest and a jester, Mr. Merripall?—ha! ha! ho!”
“In sooth, Brother Stiflegig,” replied the comical coffin-maker to his inquiring mute, whose hollow laugh sounded like a double knock; “and the merry monk is no more to be blamed for the disorders that, fungus-like, have grown out of it, than is Sir Christopher Wren for the cobwebs and dust that deface the dome of St. Paul's. Right is not always thereverseof wrong. Brush away the cobwebs and the dust, but spare the dome. Don't cut off a man's head to cure his toothach, or lop off his leg to banish his goutin toto!”
The latter clause of this remark was much applauded by a sensitive member, who had evinced great anxiety to protect his physiognomy from the cutting draught of the door; and by another, who was equally careful to keep his ten toes from being trod upon. But the sexton and the two mutes exchanged significant glances, that plainly hinted their non-approval of this anti-professional, ultraliberality on the part of the comical coffin-maker.
“Gentlemen,” resumed Mr. Merripall, rising—
Sons of the fair, to Father Rahêre
Chant a stave in a hollow mew;
Hosier Lane shout back the strain
Through the cloisters of holy Bartholomew.
Saunders, Gyngell, merrily mingle;
Richardson join in the choir:
Two-legg'd dancers, four-legg'd prancers,
You can't cry nay (neigh?) to the Prior.
Now fire away in full chorus!—
Peace to the soul of the bald-pated droll!
Sound him a larry-cum-twang!
Toss off a toast to his good-humour'd ghost,
And let it come off with a bang!”
We were passing by those ancient houses in Duke Street, Smithfield, undecided whether or not to drop in upon the little Drysalter, when our attention was arrested by this chorus of mirth proceeding from one of the many obscure hostelries with which these ancient turnings and windings abound. We had stumbled on the Pig and Tinder-box, near Bartholomew Close. The chair was on his legs,—an exceedingly long pair, in black stockings,—leading a loud cheer. Mr. Merripall, the comical coffin-maker, was president of the Antiqueeruns. On each side of him sat his two mutes, Messrs. Hatband and Stiflegig; the sexton, Mr. Shovelton, by virtue of his office, was vice; the rest were tradesmen in the neighbourhood, to whom porter, pipes, punch, purl, pigtail, and politics were a pleasing solace after the business of the day; and a warlike character was given to the club by the infusion of some of the Honourable the Artillery Company, and the “angel visits” of a city-marshal. Its name, though implying the reverse of a jest, had its origin in a joke, arising from the mispronunciation of a member, to whom a little learning had proved a dangerous thing. This intelligent brother, at the christening of the club, moved that it be called the “Antiqueeruns,” from the antiquity of their quarter and quality, which was carried, as he triumphantly announced, “my ninny contra decency!” (nemine contradicenti?) A palpable misnomer,—for the quorum consisted of the queerest fellows imaginable, and their president, Mr. Merripall, was a host in fun.
Our entrance had not been noticed during their upstanding jollity; but now, when every member was seated, we became “the observed of all observers.”
“Spies in the camp!” growled a priggish person of punchy proportions, with a little round dumpling head, and short legs, whose pompous peculiarities had been sorely quizzed by some prying penny-a-liner. “I move, Mr. Cheer, that our fifteenth rule be read by the vice.”
“Spies in the camp, Mr. Allgag!—pooh! Yet what signifies, if there's no treason in it? The gentlemen have only mistaken a private room for a public one.”
“It's all very well, Mr. President, for you to say there was no malice aforethought to broil us on their penny gridiron, when these people popped in upon us whipsy dicksy (ipse dixit?) and un-awars. But” (rapping the table) “we live in an age of spies and spinnage!” (espionage?)
“Gammonand spinnage!” chuckled the comical coffin-maker.
“Order! order!” from several voices.
“The Cheer is out of order! A gentleman don't oughtn't to be interrupted will he nil he, vie et harness (vi et armis?). Who seconds my motion?”
“I,” winked the sexton.
“Then we'll put it to the vote. As many of you as are of this opinion hold up your hands.”
Mr. Allgag, though an oyster in intellect, was the small oracle of an insignificant, captious, factious section of the Antiqueeruns. A few hands were held up, and the fulminating fifteenth rule was read aloud, which imposed a fine of five shillings on each intruder, and a forcible ejection from the room.
“I blush for these pitiful proceedings,” exclaimed the comical coffin-maker; “and rather than become a party to them, I will vacate the chair.”
“Well and good! I'll be your locum trimmings,” (tenens?) rejoined the Holborn Hill Demosthenes; and he half strutted, half waddled from his seat, as if to take possession. The mutes looked grave; even the rebellious vice was panic-struck at the prodigious boldness of Mr. Allgag. “I'll take the cheer. As for the turning out part of the story—”
“Who talks of turning out?” cried the Lauréat of Little Britain, bursting suddenly into the room. “Is it you?” addressing the affrighted sexton, who shook his head ruefully in the negative; “or you?” advancing to the terrified mutes, who shook in their shoes. “Not you! good Master Merri-pall,” giving the comical coffin-maker a hearty shake by the hand. “Or is it you, sir?” placing himself in a provokingly pugnacious attitude before the Holborn Hill Demosthenes. “What a bluster about an unintentional intrusion! If, gentlemen, my friends must be fined, I will be their guarantee.”
So saying, he ejected us with gentle violence from the room, and in a few minutes after we found ourselves in his elegant little library, where everything was as neat and prim as himself,—not” a bust, bijou, or book out of its place.
“A heavy retribution had well nigh fallen upon you, my good friends, for passing my door without looking in. It matters not what chance medley brought me to your rescue; but I'm a merciful man, and the only fine I impose is, that you sit down, be comfortable, and stay till I turn you out.”
The fine seemed so very moderate, that we were glad to compromise.
“Everything around you,—books, plate, pictures,—ay, my old-fashioned housekeeper into the bargain,—are the selection of Uncle Tim.”
“And by this beeswing, Mr. Bosky, we guess Uncle Timothy is butler too.”
“Most profoundly opined! Yonder,” pointing to an antique painted glass door, “is his cabinet—
'There Caxton sleeps, with Wynkyn at his side,
One clasp'd in wood, and one in strong cow-hide.'
“An odd thought strikes me. What say you to a dish of conjurors, with a garnish of monsters and mountebanks, served up by mine host of St. Bartlemy, Uncle Tim?” And Mr. Bosky disappeared through the glass door, but returned in an instant, bearing in his hand a smartly-bound volume. “Shall I unclasp theMerry Mysteries of Bartlemy Fair?You may go farther and fare worse.”
“We want no whetters or provocatives, Mr. Bosky.”
“Well, seeing that, like Justice Greedy, you long to give thanks and fall to, my musical grace shall not be a tedious one.
Our host, Uncle Tim, does the banquet prepare,
An Olla Podrida of Bartlemy Fair!
Ye lovers of mirth, eccentricity, whim,
Fill a glass to the health of our host, Uncle Tim.
And when you have fill'd, O! dismiss from your
mind
Whatever is selfish, ungrateful, unkind;
Let gentle humanity rise to the brim,
And then, if you please, you may toast Uncle Tim!
You need not be told that the wine must be old,
As sparkling and bright as his wit and his whim;
Of clear rosy hue, and generous too,
Like the cheek and the heart of our friend, Uncle
Tim!
So now stir the fire, let business retire,
The door shut on Mammon, we'll have none of him!
But tell the sly fox, when he quietly knocks,
We are only at home to thy Tome, Uncle Tim!
Mr. Bosky trimmed the lamp, drew the curtains, wheeled round the sofa, opened the morocco-bound manuscript, and began. But Mr. Bosky's beginning must stand at the head of our next chapter.
Garrick never introduced a hero upon the scene without a flourish of trumpets,—nor shall we.
“Bid Harlequino decorate the stage
With all magnificence of decoration—
Giants and giantesses, dwarfs and pigmies,
Songs, dances, music, in their amplest order.
Mimes, pantomimes, and all the mimic motion
Of scene deceptiovisive and sublime!”
For St. Bartholomew makes his first bow inThe Ancient Records of the Rounds.
The learned need not be told that a fair was originally a market for the purchase and sale of all sorts of commodities; and what care the unlearned for its derivation? For them it suffices that 'tis a market for fun. Our merry Prior of St. Bartholomew knowing the truth of the old proverb, that, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” mingled pastime with business, and put Momus into partnership with Mammon. For many years they jogged on together, somewhat doggedly, to be sure, for Momus was a fellow of uproarious merriment; and while Mammon, with furred gown and gold chain, was weighing atoms and splitting straws, Momus split the sides of his customers, and so entirely won them over to his jocular way of doing business, that Mammon was drummed out of the firm and the fair. But Mammon has had his revenge, by causing Momus to be confined to such narrow bounds, that his lions and tigers lack space to roar in, and his giants are pinched for elbow room. * Moreover, he and his sly bottle-holder, Mr. Cupidity Cant (who from the time of Prynne to the present has been a bitter foe to good fellowship), threaten to drive poor Momus out of house and home. Out upon the ungracious varlets! let them sand their own sugar, ** not ours! and leave Punch alone.
* The American giant refuses to come over to England thissummer, because the twenty-first of June is not long enoughfor him to stand upright in! And the Kentucky dwarf is soshort that he has not paid his debts these five years!** “Have you sanded the sugar, good Sandy,And water'd the treacle with care?Have you smuggled the element into the brandy?”“Yes, master.”—“Then come in to prayer!”
Let them be content to rant in their rostrums, and peep over their particular timber, lest we pillory the rogues, and make them peep through it!
Father Rahére founded the Priory, Hospital, and Church of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, at the instigation ('tis said) of the saint himself, who appeared to him in Rome, whither he had repaired on a pilgrimage. We learn from the Cottonian MSS. that he “of te hawnted the Kyng's palice, and amo'ge the noysefull presse of that tumultuous courte, enforsed hymselfe with jolite and carnal suavité: ther yn spectaclis, yn metys, yn playes, and other courtely mokkys and trifyllis, intruding he lede forth the besynesse of alle the daye.” He was a “pleasant witted gentleman,” and filled the post of minstrel to King Henry the First, which comprehended musician, improvisatore, jester, &c.; and Henry the Second granted to the monastery of St. Bartholomew (of which Rahére was the first prior) the privilege of a three days' fair for the drapers and clothiers: hence Cloth Fair. His ashes rest under a magnificent tomb in the church of St. Bartholomew the Great. This beautiful shrine is still carefully preserved. How different has been the fate of the desecrated sepulchre of the “moral Gower,” which the Beetian Borough brawlers would have pounded, with their Ladye Chapel, to macadamise the road!
“It is worthy of observation,” (says Paul Hentzer, 1598,) “that every year when the Fair is held, it is usual for the Mayor to ride into Smithfield, dressed in his scarlet gown, and about his neck is a golden chain, besides that particular ornament that distinguishes the staple of the kingdom. He is followed by the Aldermen in scarlet gowns, and a mace and a cap are borne before him. Where the yearly fair is proclaimed a tent is placed, and after the ceremony is over the mob begin to wrestle before them, two at a time, and conquerors are rewarded by them by money thrown from the tent. After this, a parcel of live rabbits are turned loose among the crowd, and hunted by a number of boys, with great noise, &c. Before this time, also, there was an old custom for theScholars of Londonto meet at this festival, at thePriory of St. Bartholomew, to dispute in logic and grammar, and upon abank, under a tree, (!)the best of them were rewarded withbows and silver arrows?Bartholomew Fair, until about 1743, was held a fortnight; and the spacious area of Smithfield was filled with booths for drolls and interludes, in which many popular comedians of the time performed, from the merry reign of Mat Coppinger to the laughing days of Ned Shuter. Sir Samuel Fludyer, in 1762, and Mr. Alderman Bull, (not John Bull!) in 1774, enforced some stringent regulations that amounted almost to an abolition.”
And now, my merry masters! let us take a stroll into the ancient fair of St. Bartholomew,vulgoBartlemy, with John Littlewit, the uxorious proctor; Win-the-fight Littlewit, his fanciful wife; Dame Purecraft, a painful sister: Zeal-of-the-land Busy, the puritan Banbury man; and our illustrious cicerone, rare Ben Jonson.
In the year 1614, and long before, one of the most delicious city dainties was a Bartholomewroast pig. * A cold turkey-pie and a glass of rich malmsey were “creature comforts” not to be despised even by such devout sons of self-denial as Mr. Zeal-of-the-land Busy, who always popped in at pudding-time. ** But Bartholomew pig, “a meat that is nourishing, and may be longed for,” that may be eaten, “very exceeding well eaten,” but not in a fair, was thene plus ultraof savoury morsels: therefore Win-the-fight Little wit, with a strawberry breath, cherry lips, and apricot cheeks, the better half (not in folly!) of one of “the pretty wits of Paul's,” shams Abram, and pretends to long for it, in order to overcome the scruples and qualms of Dame Purecraft and the Banbury man, who, but for such longing, would have never consented to her visiting the fair.
* “Now London's Mayor, on saddle new,Rides to the Fair of Bartlemew;He twirls his chain, and looketh big,As if to fright the head of pig,That gaping lies on every stall.”—Davenant. Shakspere, inthe First Part of King Henry the Fourth, speaks of an oxbeing roasted at Bartholomew Fair.** “I ne'er saw a parson without a good nose,—But the devil's as welcome wherever he goes.”—Swift.
The Rabbi being called upon by the dame to legalise roast pig, proposes that it shall be eaten with a reformed mouth, and not after the profane fashion of feeding; and, that the weak may be comforted, himself will accompany them to the fair, and eat exceedingly, and prophesy!
Among the minor delicacies of Ursula's * cuisine—Ursula, “uglye of clieare,” the pig-woman and priestess of St. Bartlemy, “all fire and fat!”—are tobacco, colt's-foot, bottled-ale, and tripes; and a curious picture of Smithfield manners is given in her instructions to Mooncalf to froth the cans well, jog the bottles o' the buttock, shink out the first glass ever, and drink with all companies.
* “Her face all bowsy,Comclye crinkled,Wonderously wrinkledLike a roste pigges eare,Brystled Avith here.Her nose some dele hoked,And camouslye eroked,Her skin lose and slacke,Grained like a saekeWith a croked backe.”—Skelton.
We have an irruption of other popular characters into the fair, all in high keeping with the time and place:—a costard-monger; a gilt gingerbread woman; a mountebank; a corn-cutter; a wrestler; a cut-purse (a babe of booty, or child of the horn-thumb!); a gamester; a ballad-singer; an “ostler, trade-fallen a roarer (a swash-buckler, in later times a mohock); puppet-show keepers and watchmen; Bartholomew Cokes, a natural born fool and squire; Waspe, his shrewder serving-man; Overdo, a bacchanalian justice; a gang of gypsies, and their hedge-priest, patriarch of the cut-purses, or Patrico to the A bram men and their prickers and prancers; and lastly, Mr. Lanthorn Leatherhead, a supposed caricature of Inigo Jones, with whom Ben Jonson was associated in some of his magnificent court masques. All these characters exhibit their humours, and present a living picture of what Bartholomew Fair was in 1614. We have the exact dress of the flaunting City Madam—a huge velvet custard, or three-cornered bonnet; for these pretenders to sanctity not only adorned their outward woman with the garments of vanity, but were the principal dealers in feathers (another fashionable part of female dress in the days of Elizabeth and James I.) in the Blackfriars. All the merchandise of Babylon (i. e. the fair!) is spread out to our view; Jews-trumps, rattles, mousetraps, penny ballads, * purses, pin-cases, Tobie's dogs, “comfortable bread,” (spiced gingerbread,) hobbyhorses, drums, lions, bears, Bartholomew whistling birds, (wooden toys,) dolls, ** and Orpheus and his fiddle in gin-work! We have its cant phrases, mendacious tricks, and practical jokes; and are invited into “a sweet delicate booth,” with boughs, to eat roast pig with the fire o' juniper and rosemary branches; and “it were great obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to decline or resist the good titillation of the famelic sense,” and not enter the gates of the unclean for once, with the liquorish Rabbi.
* Gifford says, “In Jonson's time, scarcely any ballad wasprinted without a woodcut illustrative of its subject. If itwas a ballad of 'pure love,' or of 'good life/ whichafforded no scope for the graphic talents of the Grub StreetApelles, the portrait of 'good Queen Elizabeth,'magnificently adorned, with the globe and sceptre, formed nounwelcome substitute for her loving subjects.”** The following was the costume of a Bartlemy Fair doll, orbaby:—“Her petticoat of sattin,Her gown of crimson tabby,Laced up before, and spangled o'er,Just like a Barthol'mew Baby”The Comedian's Tales; or, Jests, Songs, and PleasantAdventures of several Famous Players. 1729.
The sound beating of Justice Overdo, Waspe's elevation of Cokes on pick-back, and the final confutation of Zeal-of-the-land Busy, complete the humours of, and give the last finish-ing-touches to this authentic and curious picture of ancient Bartholomew Fair.
Bravo, Ben Jonson! Not the surly, envious, malignant Ben, but the rare,chèreBartlemy Fair Ben! the prince of poets! the king of good fellows! the learned oracle of the Mermaid and the Devil; * the chosen companion of the gallant Raleigh; the poetical father of many worthy adopted sons; and, to sum up emphatically thy various excellencies, the friend, “fellow” and elegiast of Shakspere!
* In the Apollo Room in the Devil Tavern (on the site ofwhich stands the Banking-house of Messrs. Child,) Ben Jonsonoccupied the President's chair, surrounded by the “Erudit i,urbani, hilares, honesti” of that glorious age. Take hispicture as drawn by Shakerley Marmion, a contemporarydramatist of some note, and (as Anthony Wood styles him) a“goodly proper gentleman.”“The boon Delphic godDrinks sack, and keeps his Bacchanalia,And has his incense, and his altars smoking,And speaks in sparkling prophesies”His Leges Conviviales were engraved in black marble over thechimney; and over the door were inscribed the followingverses by the same master-hand.“Welcome all who lead or followTo the oracle of Apollo:Here he speaks out of his pottle,Or the tripos, his tower bottle;All his answers are divine,Truth itself doth flow in wine.Hang up all the poor hop-drinkers,Cries old Sim, the king of shinkers;He the half of life abuses,That sits watering with the Muses.Those dull girls no good ean mean us;Wine—it is the milk of Venus,And the poet's horse accounted:Ply it, and you all are mounted.'Tis the true Phobian liquor,Cheers the brains, makes wit the quieker;Pays all debts, cures all diseases,And at once three senses pleases.Welcome all who lead or followTo the oracle of Apollo!”Such an association of intellectual minds, where worldlydistinctions are unknown, where rank lays down its state,and genius forgets the inequalities of fortune, is thehighest degree of felicity that human nature can arrive at.
Yes, thou didst behold him face to face! Great and glorious privilege! Thou his detractor! What a beauteous garland hast thou thrown upon his tomb! O for the solemn spirit of thy majestic monody, (“Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother”) the imagination of thy green “Underwoods,” to sing of thee, as thou hast sung of him!
The death of James I. (for Jamie was much addicted to sports, and loved the Puritans, as the Puritans and Lucifer love holy water!) was “a heavy blow, and a great discouragement” to the nation's jollity: and the troubles and treasons of the succeeding unhappy reign indisposed men's hearts to merriment, and turned fair England into a howling wilderness. Bartholomew Fair in 1641 * exhibits a sorry shadow of its joyous predecessor—'Tis Fat Jack, mountain of mirth! dwindled into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon! Zeal-of-the-land Busy had become rampant; and Dame Ursula, if the old lady yet lived, was most probably a reformed sister, and purveyor of roast pig to the Rabbi at home!
* “Bartholomew Faire;Or,Variety of fancies, where you may find A faire of wares, andall to please your mind.With the severall enormityes and misdemeanours which arethere seene and acted. London: Printed for Richard Harper,at the Bible and Harpe, in Smithfield. 1641.”
As a picture, it wants the vivid colouring of the former great painter. It seems to have been limned by a wet, or parcel puritan, a dead wall between pantile and puppet-show! Our first move is into Christ Church cloisters, “which are hung so full of pictures, that you would take that place, or rather mistake it, for St. Peter's in Rome. And now, being arrived through the long walke, to Saint Bartholomew's hospitall,” he draws a ludicrous picture of a “handsome wench” bartering her good name for “a moiety of bone-lace; a slight silver bodkin; a hoop-ring, or the like toye.” Proceeding into the heart of the fair, it becomes necessary that while one eye is watching the motion of the puppets, the other should look sharp to the pockets. “Here's a knave in a foole's coat, with a trumpet sounding, or on a drumme beating, invites you, and would faine persuade you to see his puppets; there is a rogue like a wild woodman, or in an antick-ship, 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, shews his legerdemaine * to the admiration and astonishment of a company of cock-oloaches.
* “Legerdemain is an art whereby one may seem to workwonderful, impossible, and incredible things, by agility,nimbleness, and slight of hand.“An adept must be one of an audacious spirit, w'ith a nimbleconveyance, and a vocabulary of cabalistic phrases toastonish the beholder,—as Hey! Fortuna! Furia! Nunquamcredo I Saturnus, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, &c. &c.“He must throw himself into such odd gestures as may divertthe eyes of the spectators from a too strict observation ofhis manner of conveyance.”Then follow certain rules for concealing balls and money inthe hand, and other secrets worth knowing to students in theart and mystery of conjuration. From “The Merry Companion;or, Delights for the Ingenious. By Richard Neve” (whosejocular physiognomy, with the exhibition of one of his hocuspocus tricks, graces the title). 1721.
Amongst these you shall see a grey goose-cap (as wise as the rest) with a 'what do ye lacke?' in his mouth, stand in his boothe, 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 was not comparable to it. Here there are also your gamesters in action; some turning off 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 faire,-and puts on her best cloaths with the wrong side outward, so turn'd for their better turning off; and Cloth Faire is now in great request; well fare the ale-houses therein; yet better may a man fare (but at a dearer rate) in the Pig-market, alias Pasty-nooke, or Pye-corner, where pigges are al houres of the day on the stalls, piping hot, and would cry (if they could speak) 'come eat me.'” The chronicler calls over the coals a “fat greasie hostesse” for demanding an additional shilling for a pig's head when a lady's longing is in the case; inveighs against the unconscionable exactions, and excessive inflammations of reckonings, and concludes with a reiterated and rhyming caution:—
“Now farewell to the Faire; you who are wise,
Preserve your purses, whilst you please your eyes.” *
The restoration of King Charles II. threw England into a transport of joy. Falstaff had not more his bellyfull of Ford, than had the nation of Jack Presbyter. **
* The historian has forgot to describe the wonderfulperformances of Francis Battalia, the Stone-Eater.** “Presbyter is but Jack Priest writ large.”—Milton.In “The Lord Henry Cromwell's speech to the House, 1658,” heis made to say: 44 Methinks I hear 'em (the Players) alreadycrying, thirty years hence at Bartholomew Fair, 'Step in,and see the Life and Death of brave Cromwell. Methinks I seehim with a velvet eragg about his shoulders, and a littlepasteboard hat on his head, riding a tittup, a tittup to hisParliament House, and a man with a bay leaf in his mouth,crying in his behalf, 'By the living G— I will dissolveyou!' which makes the porters cry, 4 O, brave Englishman!'Then the devil carries him away in a tempest, which makesthe nurses squeak, and the children cry,”
Merry bells, roasted rumps, the roar of cannon, the crackling of bonfires, and the long-continued shouts of popular ecstacy proclaimed his downfall; the Maypole was crowned with the garlands of spring; in the temples devoted to Thalia and Melpomene * were again heard the divine inspirations of the dramatic muse; the light fantastic toe tripped it nimbly to the sound of the pipe and tabor, and St. Bartholomew, his—
* The Hamlet, Macbeth, 0thello, and Sir John Falstaff ofBetterton. The character of this great master of thehistrionic art is thus drawn by an eminent contemporaryauthor:—“Roscius, a sincere friend and a man of strict honor: grownold in the arms and approbation of his audience: not to becorrupted even by the way of living and manners of thosewhom he hourly conversed with.“Roscius born for everything that he thinks fit toundertake, has wit and morality, fire and judgment, soundsense and good nature. Roscius, who would have still beeneminent in any station of life he had been called to, onlyunhappy to the world, in that it is not possible for him tobid time stand still, and permit him to endure for ever, theornament of the stage, the delight of his friends, and theregret of all, who shall one day have the misfortune to losehim.”
—rope-dancers, and trumpeters, * were all alive and merry at the fair.
The austere reign of the cold and selfish William of Nassau diminished nothing of its jollity. Thomas Cotterell “from the King's Arm's Tavern, Little Lincoln's Fields,” kept the King's Arms Music Booth in Smithfield; and one Martin transferred his sign of “The Star” from Moor-fields, to the Rounds. At this time flourished a triumvirate of Bartlemy heroes too remarkable to be passed lightly over, Mat Coppinger, Joe Haynes, and Thomas Dogget.
The pranks, cheats, and conceits of Coppinger are recorded in an unique tract ** of considerable freedom and fun.
* In the Loyal Protestant, Sept. 8, 1682, is anadvertisement forbidding all keepers of shows, &e. to makeuse of drums, trumpets, &e. without license from theSerjeant and Comptroller of His Majesty's trumpets. Andthere is a notice in the London Gazette, Dee. 7, 1685,commanding all “Rope Dancers, Prize Players, Strollers, andother persons shewing motions and other sights,” to havelicenses from Charles Killigrew, Esq. Master of the Revels.** “An Account of the Life, Conversation, Birth, Education,Pranks, Projects, Exploits, and Merry Conceits of theFamously Notorious Mat. Coppinger, once a Player inBartholomew Fair, and since turned bully of the town; who,receiving sentence of death at the Old Bailey on the 23rd ofFebruary, was executed at Tyburn on the 27th, 1695. London,Printed for T. Hobs, 1695.”
His famous part was the cook-maid in “Whittington,” Bartholomew Fair droll. The last September of his life he acted a Judge there, little dreaming that in the ensuing February he should be brought before one, (for stealing a watch and seven pounds in money,) and sent on a pilgrimage to Tyburn-tree! He was a poet, and wrote a volume * of adulatory verses, calculated for the meridian of the times in which he lived. The following is the comical trick he put upon a countryman in Bartholomew Fair.
The company (i. e. strolling players) finding the country too warm for them, came with our spark to town, in expectation of recruiting their finances by the folly of such as should resort to Bartholomew Fair.
* Poems, Songs, and Love-Verses upon several subjects. ByMatthew Coppinger, Gent. 1682. Dedicated to the Duchess ofPortsmouth; of whom, amongst an hundred extravagant things,he says,“You are the darling of my King, his pleasure,His Indies of incomparable treasure!”
Upon the credit of which they took a lodging in Smithfield, and made shift to get up a small booth to shew juggling tricks in, the art of hocus pocus, and pouder-le-pimp. The score being deep on all hands, the people clamouring for money, and customers coming but slowly in, they consulted how to rub off, and give their creditors the bag to hold. To this Coppinger dissented, saying he would find out the way to mend this dulness of trading; and he soon effected it by a lucky chance. A country fellow, on his return from Newgate-market on horseback, resolving to have a gape at Jack Pudding, sat gazing, with his mouth at half-cock; and, so intent was he, that his senses seemed to be gone wool-gathering. Coppinger, whispering some of his companions, they stept to “Tom Noddies” horse, one of them ungirthing him, and taking off the bridle, the reins of which the fellow held in his hand, they bore him on the pack-saddle on each side, and led the horse sheer from under him; whilst another with counterfeit horns, and a vizard, put his head out of the head-stall, and kept nodding forwards, so that “Ninny” verily supposed, by the tugging of the reins, that he was still on “cock-horse!” The signal being given, they let him squash to the ground, pack-saddle and all; when, terrified at the sight of the supposed devil he had got in a string, and concluding Hocus Pocus had conjured his horse into that antic figure, he scrambled up, and betaking him to his heels back into the country, frightened his neighbours with dismal stories that Dr. Faustus and Friar Bacon were alive again, and transforming horses into devils in Bartholomew Fair! The tale, gathering as it spread, caused the booth to be thronged; which piece of good-luck was solely attributable to Coppinger's ingenuity.
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Plain Joe Haynes, * the learned Doctor Haynes, or the dignified Count Haynes,—for by these several titles he was honourably distinguished,—was the hero of a variety of vagabondical adventures both at home and abroad.
* Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. p. 976. “Joseph Haynes, or Heynes,matriculated as a servitor of Queen's College, 3d May, 1689.Mr. Ja. Tirrel saith he is a great actor and maker of plays;but I find him not either in Langbaine or Term Cat/' OldAnthony, like “good old Homer,” sometimes nods. Haynes hadbeen upon the stage many years before, and was tooprofligate to be admitted of the university at that period.In the memoir of Joe Haynes, in the Lives of the Gamesters,he is said to have died in the beginning of the year 1700,aged 53. This is a mistake.He was married, as appears from the following lines in thePrologue to “The Injured Lovers.”“Joe Haynes's fate is now become my share,For I'm a poet, marrÿd, and a player.”Downes says he was one of those “who came not into thecompany until after they had begun in Drury Lane.” DruryLane first opened on 8th April, 1663.He wrote and spoke a variety of prologues and epilogues,particularly the epilogue to the “Unhappy Kindness, orFruitless Revenge,” in the habit of a horse-offieer, mountedon an ass, in 1697. In after times his example was imitatedby Shuter, Liston, and Wilkinson (not Tate).His principal characters were, Syringe, in the Relapse;Roger, in Æsop; Sparkish, in the Country Wife; LordPlausible, in the Plain Dealer; Pamphlet and Rigadoon, inLove and a Bottle; Tom Errand, in the Constant Couple; MadParson, in the Pilgrim; Benito, in the Assignation; NollBluff, in the Old Bachelor; Rumour, in A Plot and No Plot,(to which, in 1697, he spoke the prologue); and Jamy, inSawney the Scot.
He is the first comedian who rode an ass upon the stage. He acted the mountebank, Waltho Van Clutterbank, High German, chemical, wonder-working doctor and dentifricator, and spoke his famous “Horse-doctor's harangue” to the mob. He challenged a celebrated quack called “The Unborn Doctor,” at the town of Hertford, on a market-day, to have a trial of skill with him. Being both mounted on the public stage, and surrounded by a numerous auditory eager to hear this learned dispute, Joe desired that each might stand upon a joint stool. “Gentlemen,” said Joe, “I thank you for your good company, and hope soon to prove how grossly you have been deceived by this arch-impostor. I come hither neither to get a name, nor an estate: the first, by many miraculous cures performed in Italy, Spain, Holland, France, and England,per totum terrarium, orbem, has long been established. As to the latter, those Emperors, Kings, and foreign potentates, whom I have snatched from the gaping jaws of death, whose image I have the honour to wear (showing several medals), have sufficiently rewarded me. Besides, I am the seventh son of a seventh son; so were my father and grandfather. To convince you, therefore, that what I affirm is truth, I prognosticate some heavy judgment will fall on the head of that impudent quack. May the charlatan tumble ingloriously, while the true doctor remains unhurt!” At which words, Haynes's Merry-Andrew, who was underneath the stage, with a cord fast to B———'s stool, just as B-was going to stutter out a reply, pulled the stool from under him, and down he came; which, passing for a miracle, Joe was borne home to his lodging in triumph, and B———hooted out of the town. *
Some of Doctor Haynes's miraculous mock cures, were the Duchess of Boromolpho of a cramp in her tongue; the Count de Rodomontado of a bilious passion, after a surfeit of buttered parsnips; and Duke Philorix of a dropsy—of which he died! He invites his patients to the “Sign of the Prancers,” in vico vulgo dicto, Rattlecliffero, something south-east of Templum Danicum in the Square of Profound-Close, not far from “Titter-Tatter Fair!” He was a good-looking fellow, of singular accomplishments, and in great request among the ladies. “With the agreeableness of my mien, ** the gaiety of my conversation, and the gallantry of my dancing, I charmed the fair sex wherever I came.