* “There is one great playhouse erected in the middle ofSmithfield for the King's Players. The booth is the largestthat was ever built.”—Dawkes's News-letter, 1715.** “Feb. 15. 1731. The Algerine Ambassadors went to seeFawkes, who showed them a prospect of Algiers, and raised upan apple-tree which bore ripe apples in less than a minute'stime, of which the company tasted.”—Gentlemans Mag. Fawkesdied May 25, 1731, worth ten thousand pounds. John White,author of “Arts Treasury, and Hocus Pocus; or a Rich Cabinetof Legerdemain Curiosities,” was a noted conjurorcontemporary with Fawkes.*** Stow, lamenting the decline of wrestling, that used tobe the pride and glory of Skinners-Well and Finsbury Fields,says, “But now of late yeeres, the wrestling is onlypractised on Bartholomew-day in the afternoone.”
—and single-stick, fought their way thither from Stokes's * amphitheatre in Islington Road, and Figg's ** academy for full-grown gentlemen in Oxford Street, then “Marybone Fields!” Powel's puppet-show still gloried in its automaton wonders; Pinchbecks musical clock struck all beholders with admiration; and Tiddy Doll *** with his gingerbread cocked hat garnished with Dutch gold, the prime oddity of the fair, made the “Rounds” ring with his buffooneries.
* “At Mr. Stokes's amphitheatre, Islington Road, on Monday,24th June, 1733, I John Seale, Citizen of London, give thisinvitation to the celebrated Hibernian Hero, Mr. RobertBarker, to exert his utmost abilities with me: And I RobertBarker accept this invitation; and if my antagonist'scourage equal his menaces, glorious will be my conquest!Attendance at two; the Masters mount at five. Vivat Rex etRegina.”“This is to give notice, that to-morrow, for a day'sdiversion (!! ) at Mr. Stokes's Amphitheatre, a mad bull,dressed up with fireworks, will be baited; also cudgel-playing for a silver cup, and wrestling for a pair ofbuckskin breeches. Sept. 3rd, 1729. Gallery seats, 2s. 6d.,2s., 1s. 6d. and 1s.”** Messrs. Figg and Sutton fought the “two first and mostprofound” fencers in the kingdom, Messrs. Holmes and Mac-quire: Holmes coming off with a cut on his metacarpus fromthe sword of Mr. Figg. On the 3rd Dec. 1731, a prize wasfought for at the French Theatre in the Haymarket, betweenFigg and Sparks, at which the Duke of Lorraine and CountKinsi were present; the Duke was much pleased, and orderedthem a liberal gratuity.*** A vendor of gingerbread cakes at Bartholomew and MayFairs. His song of “Tiddy doll loi loi!” procured him hispopular sobriquet.
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Among the galaxy of Bartholomew Fair stars that illumined this flourishing period was The Right Comical Lord Chief Joker, James Spiller, the Mat o' the Mint of the Beggar's Opera, the airs of which he sang in a “truly sweet and harmonious tone.” His convivial powers were the delight of the merry butchers of Clare-Market, the landlord of whose house of call, a quondam gaoler, but a humane man, deposed the original sign of the “Bull and Butcher,” and substituted the head of Spiller. Hisvis comica, leering at a brimming bowl, is prefixed to his Life and Jests, printed in 1729. A droll story is told of his stealing the part of theCobbler of Preston(written by Charles Johnson,) out of Pinkethman's pocket, after a hard bout over the bottle, and carrying it to Christopher Bullock, who instantly fell to work, and concocted a farce with the same title a fortnight before the rival author and theatre could produce theirs! The dissolute Duke of Wharton, one night, in a frolic, obliged each person in the company to disrobe himself of a garment at every health that was drank. Spiller parted with peruke, waistcoat, and coat, very philosophically; but when his shirt was to be relinquished, he confessed, with many blushes, that he had forgot to put it on! He was a careless, wild-witted companion, often a tenant of the Marshalsea; till his own “Head” afforded him in his latter days a safe garrison from the harpies of the law. He died Feb. 7, 1729, aged 37. A poetical butcher of Clare-Market * would not let him descend to the grave “without the meed of one melodious tear.”
Other luminaries shed a radiance on the “Rounds.” Bullock (who, in a merry epilogue, tripped up Pinkethman by the heels, and bestrode him in triumph, Pinkey returning the compliment by throwing him over his head). Mills (familiarly called “honest Billy Mills!” from his kind disposition).
* “Down with your marrow-bones and cleavers all,And on your marrow-bones ye butchers fall!For prayers from you, who never pray'd before,Perhaps poor Jemmy may to life restore.What have we done? the wretched bailiffs cry,That th' only man by whom we liv'd, should die!Enrag'd, they gnaw their wax, and tear their writs,While butchers' wives fall in hysteric fits;For sure as they're alive, poor Spiller's dead;But, thanks to Jack Legar! we've got his head.He was an inoffensive, merry fellow,When sober, hipp'd; blythe as a bird, when mellow.”For Spiller's benefit ticket, engraved by Hogarth, twelveguineas have been given! There is another, of more dramaticinterest, with portraits of himself and his wife in theCobbler of Preston.
Harper (a lusty fat man, with a countenance expressive of mirth and jollity, the rival of Quin in Falstaff, and the admirable Job-son to Kitty Clive's inimitable Nell). Hippisley (whose first appearance the audience always greeted with loud laughter and applause). Chapman (the Pistol and Touchstone of his day). Joe Miller * (whose name is become synonymous with good and bad jokes; a joke having ironically been christened a Joe Miller, to mark the wide contrast between joking and Joel).
* This reputed wit was, after all, a moderately dull fellow.His book of Jests is a joke not by him, but upon him: a jokeby Joe being considered la chose impossible. As an actor, henever rose to particular eminence. His principal parts wereSir Joseph Wittol and Teague. There are two portraits ofhim. One, in the former character, prefixed to some editionsof his Jests; and a mezzotinto, in the latter, an admirablelikeness, full of force and expression. The first and secondeditions of “Joe Miller's Jests” appeared in 1739. They areso scarce that four guineas have been given for a copy atbook auctions. From a slim pamphlet they have increased to abulky octavo! He died August 15, 1738, at the age of 54, andwas buried on the east side of the churchyard of St. ClementDanes. We learn from the inscription on his tombstone (nowillegible) that he was “a tender husband, a sincere friend,& facetious companion, and an excellent comedian.” StephenDuck, the favourite bard of “good Queen Caroline.” wrote hisepitaph.
Hallam * (whom Macklin accidentally killed in a quarrel about a stage wig).
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Woodward, Yates, Shuter, **—
* A very rare portrait of Hallam represents him standingbefore the stage-lights, holding in one hand a wig, andpointing with the other to “An infallible recipe to make awicked manager of a theatre” (a merciless satire onMacklin,) dated 'Chester, 20, 1750.” A stick is thrust intohis left eye by one behind the scenes. For this accident,which caused his death, Macklin was tried at the Old Baileyin May, 1735, and found guilty of manslaughter.** When actors intend to abridge a piece they say, “We willJohn Audley it!” It originated thus. In the year 1749,Shuter played drolls at Bartholomew Fair, and was wont tolengthen the exhibition until a sufficient number of peoplewere collected at the door to fill his booth. The event wassignified by a Merry Andrew crying out from the gallery,“John Audley!” as if in the act of inquiry after such aperson, though his intention was to inform Shuter there wasa fresh audience in high expectation below! In consequenceof this hint, the droll was cut short, and the booth clearedfor the new crop of impatient expectants! Shuteroccasionally spent his evenings at a certain “Mendicants'convivial club,” held at the Welch's Head, Dyott Street, St.Giles's; which, in 1638, kept its quarters at the ThreeCrowns in the Vintry.
—and very early in life, little Quick. * Ned had a sincere regard for Mr. Whitfield, and often attended his ministry at Tottenham Court Chapel.
* During one of Quick's provincial excursions the stage-coach was stopped by a highwayman. His only fellowtraveller, a taciturn old gentleman, had fallen fast asleep.“Your money” exclaimed Turpin's first cousin. Quick,assuming the dialect and manner of a raw country lad,replied with stupid astonishment, “Mooney, zur! uncle there(pointing to the sleeping beauty,) pays for I, twinpikes andall!” The highwayman woke the dozer with a slap on the face,and (in classical phrase) cleaned him out, leaving ourlittle comedian in quiet possession of the golden receiptsof a bumper.Upon one occasion he played Richard III. for his benefit.His original intention was to have acted it with becomingseriousness; but the public, who had anticipated atravestie, would listen to nothing else; and Quick (with thebest tragic intentions!) was reluctantly obliged to humourthem. When he came to the scene where the crook-back'dtyrant exclaims,“A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!”Quick treated his friends with a hard hit, and by way ofputting a finishing stroke to the fun, added, with a voice,look, and gesture perfectly irresistible,“And if you can't get a horse, bring a jackass?”
One Sunday morning he was seated in a pew opposite the pulpit, and while that pious, eloquent, but eccentric preacher, was earnestly exhorting sinners to return to the fold, he fixed his eyes full upon Shuter, adding to what he had previously said, “And thou, poor Ramble, (Ramble was one of Ned's popular parts,) who hast so long rambled, come you also! O! end your ramblings and return.” Shuter was panic-struck, and said to Mr. Whitfield after the sermon was over, “I thought I should have fainted! How could you use me so?”
Cow-Lane and Hosier-Lane “Ends” were great monster marts. At the first dwelt an Irish giant, Mr. Cornelius McGrath, who, if he “lives three years longer, will peep into garret windows from the pavement:” and the “Amazing” Corsican Fairy. “Hosier-Land End” contributed “a tall English youth, eight feet high;” two rattle-snakes, “one of which rattles so loud that you may hear it a quarter of a mile off;” and “a large piece of water made with white flint glass,” containing a coffee-house and a brandy-shop, running, at the word of command, hot and cold fountains of strong liquor and strong tea! The proprietor Mr. Charles Butcher's poetical invitation ran thus:—
“Come, and welcome, my friends, and taste ere you pass,
'Tis but sixpence to see it, and two-pence each glass.”
The “German Woman that danced over-against the Swan Tavern by Hosier Lane,” having “run away from her mistress,” diminished the novelties of that prolific quarter. But the White Hart, in Pye-Corner, had “A little fairy woman from Italy, two feet two inches high;” and Joe Miller, “over-against the Cross-Daggers,” enacted “A new droll called the Tempest, or the Distressed Lovers; with the Comical Humours of the Inchanted Scotchman; or Jockey and the three witches!”
Hark to yonder scarlet beefeater, who hath cracked his voice, not with “hallooing and singing of anthems,” but with attuning its dulcet notes to the deep-sounding gong! And that burly trumpeter, whose convex cheeks and distended pupils look as if, like Æolus, he had stopped his breath for a time, to be the better able to discharge a hurricane! Listen to their music, and you shall hear that Will Pinkethman hath good store of merriments for his laughing friends at “Hall and Oates's Booth next Pye-Corner,” where, Sept. 2, 1729, will be presented The Merchant's Daughter of Bristol; “a diverting” Opera, called The Country Wedding; and the Comical Humours of Roger.—The Great Turk by Mr. Giffard, and Roger by Mr. Pinkethman.
Ha! “lean Jack,” jolly-fac'd comedian, Harper, thou body of a porpoise, and heart of a tittlebat! that didst die of a round-house fever; * and Zee, ** rosy St. Anthony! thy rival trumpeter, with his rubicund physiognomy screened beneath the umbrage of a magnificent bowsprit, proclaim at the Hospital Gate “The Siege of Berthulia; with the Comical Humours, of Rustego and his man Terrible.”
* Harper, being an exceedingly timid man, was selected forprosecution by Highmore, the Patentee of Drury Lane, forjoining the revolters at the Haymarket. He was imprisoned,but though soon after released by the Court of King's Bench,he died in 1742, of a fever on his spirits.** Anthony Lee, or Leigh, (famous for his performance ofGomez, in Dryden's play of the Spanish Friar,) and CaveUnderhill, diverting themselves in Moorfields, agreed to getup a sham quarrel. They drew their swords, and with fiercecountenances advanced to attack each other. Cave (a verylean man) retreated over the rails, followed by Lee (a veryfat man); and after a slight skirmish, retired to the middleof the field. Tony puffed away after him; a second encountertook place; and, when each had paused for awhile to takebreath, a third; at the end of which, there being a saw-pit,near them, they both jumped into it! The mob, to preventmurder, scampered to the pit, when to their great surprisethey found the redoubtable heroes hand in hand in a trulycomical posture of reconciliation, which occasioned muchlaughter to some, while others (having been made fools of!)were too angry to relish the joke. The mock combatants thenretired to a neighbouring tavern to refresh themselves, andget rid of a troublesome tumult.—The Comedian's Tales,1729.
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What an odd-favoured mountebank! “a threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller, a needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch,” with a nose crooked as the walls of Troy, and a chin like a shoeing horn; those two features having become more intimately acquainted, because his teeth had fallen out! Behold him jabbering, gesticulating, and with auricular grin, distributing this Bartholomew Fair bill.
“Sept. 3, 1729. At Bullock's Great Theatrical Booth will be acted a Droll, called Dorastus and Faunia, or the Royal Shepherdess; Flora, an opera; with Toilet's Rounds; the Fingalian Dance, and a Scottish Dance, by Mrs. Bullock.”
Thine, Hallam, is a tempting bill of fare. “The Comical Humours of Squire Softhead and his man Bullcalf, and the Whimsical Distresses of Mother Catterwall!” With a harmonious concert of “violins, hautboys, bassoons, kettle-drums, trumpets, and French horns!” Thine, too, Hippisley, immortal Scapin! transferring the arch fourberies of thy hero to Smithfield Rounds. At the George Inn, where, with Chapman, thou keepest thy court, we are presented with “Harlequin Scapin, or the Old One caught in a sack; and the tricks, cheats, and shifts of Scapin's two companions, Trim the Barber, and Bounce-about the Bully.” The part of Scapin by thy comical self.
At this moment a voice, to which the neigh of Bucephalus was but a whisper, announced that the unfortunate owner had lost a leg and an arm in his country's service, winding up the catalogue with some minor dilapidations, all of which are more or less peculiar to those patriots who during life find their reward in hard blows and poverty, and in death receive a polite invitation to join a water party down the pool of oblivion! The Lauréat paused.
Mr. M'Sneeshing. “Lost his leg in battle!—ha! ha! ha!—a gude joke! He means in a man-trap! I should be glad to know what business a pauper body like this has blathering abroad? Are there not almshouses, and workhouses, and hospitals, for beggars and cripples? Though I perfectly agree wi' Sandy M'Grab, Professor * of Humanity, that sic like receptacles, and the anti-Presbyterian abomination of alms-giving are only so many premiums for roguery and vay-gabondism. Let every one put his shoulder to the wheel, his nose to the grindstone, and make hay while the sun shines.”
* At Oxford and Cambridge they write L.L.D.—in Scotland,L.S.D. viz. 35s. 3d. for the diploma!
Mr. Bosky. But are there not many on whom the sun of prosperity never shone?
Mr. M'Sneeshing. Their unthriftiness and lack of foresight alone are to blame!
Mr. Bosky. Is to want a shilling, to want every virtue? Men think highly of those who rapidly rise in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers! Would you provide no asylum for adversity, sickness, and old age?
Mr. M'Sneeshing. Hard labour and sobriety (tossing off his heeltap of toddy) will ward off the two first, and old age and idleness (yawning and stretching himself in his chair) deserve to——
Mr. Bosky. Starve?
Mr. M'Sneeshing. To have just as much—andnae mair!—as will keep body and soul together! Would you notrevile, rather thanrelieve, the lazy and the improvident?
Mr. Bosky. Not if they were hungry and poor! *
Mr. M'Sneeshing. Nor cast them a single word of reproach?
* “In the daily eating this was his custom. (ArchbishopParker's, temp. Elizabeth.) The steward, with the servantsthat were gentleman of the better rank, sat down at thetables in the hall on the right hand; and the almoner, withthe clergy, &e., sat on the other side, where there wasplenty of all sorts of provision. The daily fragmentsthereof did suffice to fill the bellies of a great number ofpoor hungry people that waited at the gate. And moreover itwas the Archbishop's command to his servants, that allstrangers should be receive and treated with all manner ofcivility and respect.”The poor and hungry fed and treated with “civility andrespect!” What a poser and pill for Geordie M'Sneeshing andProfessor M'Grab!
Mr. Bosky. I would see that they were fed first, and then, if I reproved, my reproof should be no pharisaical diatribes. The bitterest reproaches fall short of that pain which a wounded spirit suffers in reflecting on its own errors; a lash given to the soul will provoke more than the body's most cruel torture.
Mr. M'Sneeshing. Vera romantic, and in the true speerit of——
Mr. Bosky.Charity, I hope.
Mr. M'Sneeshing. Chay-ri-ty? (putting his hand into his coat-pocket.)
Mr. Bosky. Don't fumble; the word is not in M'Culloch!
Mr. M'Sneeshing. Peradventure, Mr Bosky, you would build a Union poor-house (sarcastically).
Mr. Bosky. I would not.
Mr. M'Sneeshing. An Hospital? (with a sardonic grin!)
Mr. Bosky. I would!
Mr. M'Sneeshing. Where?
Mr. Bosky. In theHuman Heart!You may not know of such a place, Mr. M'Sneeshing. Your hospital would be where some countrymen of yours build castles, in Sky and Ayr!
And the Lauréat abruptly quitted the room, leaving Mr. M'Sneeshing in that embarrassing predicament, “Between the de'il and the deep sea!”
But his mission was soon apparent. “Three cheers for the kind young gentleman!” resounded from the holiday folks, and a broadside of blessings from the veteran tar! This obfuscated concholo-gist Geordie, and he was about to launch aBrutum fulmen, a speechde omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, as the magging mouthpiece of Professor
M'Grab; when, to the great joy of Deputy Doublechin, the miserable drone-pipe of this leatherbrained, leaden-hearted, blue-nosed, frost-bitten, starved nibbler of a Scotch kail-yard, was quickly drowned in the sonorous double-bass of our saltwater Belisarius.
My foes were my country's, my messmates the brave.
My home was the deck, and my path the green wave;
My musick, loud winds, when the tempest rose high—
I sail'd with bold Nelson, and heard his last sigh!
His spirit had fled—we gaz'd on the dead—
The sternest of hearts bow'd with sorrow, and bled.
As o'er the deep waters mov'd slowly his bier,
What victory, thought we, was ever so dear?
Far Egypt's hot sands have long since quench'd my
sight—
To these rolling orbs what is sunshine or night?
But the full blaze of glory that beam'd on thy bay,
Trafalgar I still pours on their darkness the day.
An ominous tap at the window—the “White Serjeant's!” invited Geordie to a tête-à-tête with a singed sheep's head, and the additional treat of a curtain-lecture, not on political but domestic economy, illustrated with sharp etchings by Mrs. M'Sneeshing's nails, of which his physiognomy had occasionally exhibited proof impressions! To his modern Athenian (!) broad brogue, raised in defiance of the applauding populace outside, responded the polite inquiry, “Does your mother know you're out?” * and other classical interrogatories. The return of Mr. Bosky was a signal for cheerfulness, mingled with deeper feelings; during which were not forgotten, “Old England's wooden walls?” and “Peace to the souls of the heroes!”
“Hail! all hail I the warriors grave,
Valour's venerable bed,—
Hail! the memory of the Brave!
Hail! the Spirits of the Dead!
* Certain cant phrases strike by their odd sound andapposite allusion.“No mistake!”“Who are you?”“Cut my lucky!”“Does your mother know you're out I”“Hookey!” &c. &c. are terms that metaphorically implysomething comical Yet oblivion, following in the march oftime, shall cast its shadows over their mysterious meanings.On “Hookey!” the bewildered scholiast of future ages willhang every possible interpretation but the right one; with“Blow me tight!” he will give a loose to conjecture; andoft to Heaven will he roll his queer eye, the query toanswer, “Who are you?”
And hail to the living,” exclaimed Lieutenant O'Larry, the Trim of the Cloth Quarter,—“To them give we a trophy, time enough for a tomb!” And having knocked out the ashes of his pipe, he tuned it, and (beating time with his wooden leg) woke our enthusiasm with
And was it not the proudest day in Britain's annals
bright?
And was he not a gallant chief who fought the gallant
fight?
Who broke the neck of tyranny, and left no more to do?—
That chief was Arthur Wellington! that fight was
Waterloo!
O, when on bleak Corunna s heights he rear'd his ban
ner high,
Britannia wept her gallant Moore; her scatter'd armies
fly—
To raise her glory to the stars, and kindle hearts of
flame,
The mighty victor gave the word, the master-spirit
came.
Poor Soult, like Pistol with his leek! he soon compell'd
to yield;
And then a glorious wreath he gain'd on Talaveras field.
See! quick as lightning, flash by flash! another deed
is done—
And Marmont has a battle lost, and Salamanca's won.
The shout was next “Vittoria!”—all Europe join'd the
strain.
Ne'er such a fight was fought before, and ne'er will be
again!
Quoth Arthur, “With 'th' Invincibles' another bout
I'll try;
And show you when f the Captain * comes a better by
and by!”
But lest his sword should rusty grow for want of daily
use,
He gave the twice-drubb'd Soult again a settler at
Toulouse.
His Marshals having beaten all, and laid upon the shelf,
He waits to see the Captain” come, and take a turn
himself.
Now Arthur is a gentleman, and always keeps his word;
And on the eighteenth day of June the cannons loud
were heard;
The flow'r of England's chivalry their conquror rallied
round;
A sturdy staff to cudgel well “the Captain” off the
ground!
“Come on, ye fighting vagabonds!” amidst a show'r
of balls,
A shout is heard; the voice obey'd—the noble Picton
falls!
On valour's crimson bed behold the bleeding Howard
lies—
Oh! the heart beats the muffled drum when such a
hero dies!
The cuirassiers they gallop forth in polish'd coats of
mail:
“Up, Guards, and at'em!” and the shot comes rattling
on like hail!
A furious charge both man and horse soon prostrates and
repels,
And all the cuirassiers are cracked like lobsters in their
shells!
Where hottest is the fearful fight, and fire and flame
illume
The darkest cloud, the dunnest smoke, there dances
Arthur s plume!
That living wall of British hearts, that hollow square,
in vain
You mow it down—see! Frenchmen, see! the phalanx
forms again.
The meteor-plume in majesty still floats along the
plain—
Brave, bonny Scots! ye fight the field of Bannockburn
again!
The Gallic lines send forth a cheer; its feeble echoes
die—
The British squadrons rend the air—and “Victory!”
is their cry.
'T was helter-skelter, devil take the hindmost, sauve
qui peut,
With “Captain” and “ Invincibles” that day at Wa
terloo!
O how the Beiges show'd their backs! but not a Briton
stirr'd—
His warriors kept the battle-field, and Arthur kept his
word.
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!”
When the cheering had subsided,
“Good morning (bowed Mr. Bosky) to your conjuring cap, Wizard of St. Bartlemy! Namesake of Guido, in tatterdemalion dialect, 'Old Guy!' who, had he possessed your necromantic art, would have transformed his dark lantern into a magic one, and ignited his powder without lucifer or match; yourself and art being a match for Lucifer! What says that mysterious scroll adorned with 'lively sculptures' of Mr. Punch's scaramouches, (formerly Mrs. Charke's * ) and illuminated with your picture in a preternatural (pretty natural?) wig, every curl of which was woven by the fairy fingers of Queen Mab!”
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“Mr.Fawkes, at his booth over-against the King's Head, exhibits his incomparable dexterity of hand, and Pinchbeck's musical clock, that plays several fine tunes, imitates the notes of different birds, and shews ships sailing in the river. You will also be entertained with a surprising tumbler just arrived from Holland, and a Lilliputian posture-master, only five years old, who performs such wonderful turns of body, the like of which was never clone by a child of his age and bigness before.”—1730.
* The deserted daughter of Colley Cibber, of whose erraticlife some passages are recorded in her autobiography. 1750.
At the Hospital Gate, (“all the scenes and decorations entirely new,”) Joe Miller, * “honest Billy Mills” and Oates, invite us to see a new opera, called The Banished General, or the Distressed Lovers; the English Maggot, a comic dance; two harlequins; a trumpet and kettledrum concert and chorus; and the comical humours of Nicodemus Hobble-Wollop, Esq. and his Man Gudgeon! Squire Nicodemus by the facetious Joe. And at the booth of Fawkes, Pinchbeck and Terwin, “distinguished from the rest by bearing English colours,” will be performed Britons Strike Home;. ** As if to redeem the habitual dulness of Joe Miller, one solitary joke of his stands on respectable authority. Joe, sitting at the window of the Sun Tavern in Clare Street, while a fish-woman was crying, “Buy my soles! Buy my maids!” exclaimed, “Ah! you wicked old creature; you are not content to sell your own soul, but you must sell your maid's too!”
** The commander of the General Ernouf (French sloop of war)hailed the Reynard sloop, Captain Coglilan, in English, tostrike. “Strike!” replied the Briton, “that I will, and veryhard!” He struck so very hard, that in thirty-five minuteshis shot set the enemy on fire, and in ten minutes more sheblew up! Captain Coghlan now displayed equal energy inendeavouring to rescue his vanquished foe; and, by greatexertions, fifty-five out of a crew of one hundred weresaved.
“Don Superbo Hispaniola Pistole by Mr. C—b—r, and Donna Americana by Mrs. Cl—ve, the favourite of the town!” Dare Conjuror Fawkes insinuate that Cibber, if he did not actually “wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair,” still put on the livery of St. Bartholomew, in the Brummagem Don Pistole? ThatKitty Clive, the termagant of Twickenham! with whom the fastidious and finical Horace Walpole was happy “to touch a card,” bedizened in horrible old frippery, rioted it in the “Rounds?” If true, what a standing joke for David Garrick, in their “combats of the tongue!” If false, “surprising and incomparable” must have been thy “dexterity of hand,” base wizard! which shielded that bold front of thine from the cabalistic retribution of her nails!
Leverigothe Quack, and his Jack Pudding Pinkanello, have mounted their stage; and, hark! the Doctor (Leveridge, famous for his “O the Roast Beef of Old England!”) tunes his manly pipes, accompanied by that squeaking Vice! for theMountebank's song. *
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* “Here are people and sports of all sizes and sorts,Cook-maid and squire, and mob in the mire;Tarpaulins, Frugmalions, Lords, Ladies, Sows, Babies,And Loobies in scores:Some howling, some bawling, some leering, some fleering;While Punch kicks his wife out of doors!To a tavern some go, and some to a show,See poppets, for moppets; Jack-Puddings for Cuddens; Rope-dancing, mares prancing; boats flying, quacks lying; Pick-pockets, Pick-plackets, Beasts, Butchers, and Beaux; Fopsprattling, Dice rattling, Punks painted, Masks fainted, InTally-man's furbelow'd cloaths!”
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In another quarter, Jemmy Laroch * warbles his raree-show ditty; while Old Harry persuades the gaping juveniles—
* Here's de English and French to each other most civil,Shake hands and be friends, and hug like de devil!O Raree-show, &c.Here be de Great Turk, and the great King of no land,A galloping bravely for Hungary and Poland.O Raree-show, &c.Here's de brave English Beau for the Packet Boat tarries,To go his campaign vid his tailor to Paris.O Raree-shoiv, &c.Here be de English ships bringing plenty and riches,And dere de French caper a-mending his breeches!O Raree-show, &c.
—to take a peep at his gallant show. * Duncan Macdonald ** “of the Shire of Caithness, Gent.,” tells, how having taken part in the Rebellion of 1745, he fled to France, where, being a good dancer, he hoped to get a living by his heels.
* “Old Harry with his Raree-show.” A print by SuttonNicholls, with the following lines.“Reader, behold the Efigie of oneWrinkled by age, decrepit and forlorne,His tinkling bell doth you together callTo see his Raree-show, spectators all,That will be pleas'd before you by him pass,To put a farthing, and look through his glass.'Tis so long since he did himself betakeTo show the louse, the flea, and spangled snake.His Nippotate, which on raw flesh fed,He living shew'd, and does the same now's dead.The bells that he when living always wore,He wears about his neck as heretofore.Then buy Old Harry, stick him up, that heMay be remember'd to posterity.”** “With a pair of French post boots, under the soles ofwhich are fastened quart-bottles, with their necksdownwards, Mr. Macdonald exhibits several feats of activityon the slack wire; after this he poises a wheel on his righttoe, on the top of which is placed a spike, whereon isbalanced by the edge a pewter-plate; on that a board withsixteen wine-glasses; and on the summit a glass globe, witha wheaten straw erect on the same. He then fixes a sharp-pointed sword on the tip of his nose, on the pommel of whichhe balances a tobacco-pipe, and on its bowl two eggs erect!With his left forefinger he sustains a chair with a dogsitting in it, and two feathers standing erect on the nobs;and to shew the strength of his wrist, there are two weightsof l00 lbs. each fastened to the legs of the chair!” &c. &c.