Strolling Players in the Seventeenth Century--Southwark
Fair--Bartholomew Fair--Pepys and the Monkeys--Polichinello--Jacob
Hall, the Rope-Dancer--Another Bearded Woman--Richardson, the
Fire-Eater--The Cheshire Dwarf--Killigrew and the Strollers--Fair on
the Thames--The Irish Giant--A Dutch Rope-Dancer--Music Booths--Joseph
Clark, the Posturer--William Philips, the Zany--William Stokes, the
Vaulter--A Show in Threadneedle Street.
The period of the Protectorate was one of suffering and depression for the
entertaining classes, who were driven into obscure taverns and back
streets by the severity with which the anti-recreation edicts of the Long
Parliament were enforced, and even then were in constant danger of
Bridewell and the whipping-post. Performances took place occasionally at
the Red Bull theatre, in St. John Street, West Smithfield, when the
actors were able to bribe the subordinate officials at Whitehall to
connive at the infraction of the law; but sometimes the fact became known
to some higher authority who had not been bribed, or whose connivance
could not be procured, and then the performance was interrupted by a party
of soldiers, and the actors marched off to Bridewell, where they might
esteem themselves fortunate if they escaped a whipping as well as a
month's imprisonment as idle vagabonds.
Unable to exercise their vocation in London, the actors travelled into the
country, and gave dramatic performances in barns and at fairs, in places
where the rigour of the law was diminished, or the edicts rendered of no
avail, by the magistrates' want of sympathy with the pleasure-abolishing
mania, and the readiness of the majority of the inhabitants to assist at
violations of the Acts. In one of his wanderings about the country, Cox,
the comedian, shod a horse with so much dexterity, in the drama that was
being represented, that the village blacksmith offered him employment in
his forge at a rate of remuneration exceeding by a shilling a week the
ordinary wages of the craft. The story is a good illustration of the
realistic tendencies of the theatre two hundred years ago, especially as
the practice which then prevailed of apprenticeship to the stage renders
it improbable that Cox had ever learned the art of shoeing a horse with a
view to practising it as a craftsman.
The provincial perambulations of actors did not, however, owe their
beginning to the edicts of the Long Parliament, there being evidence that
companies of strolling players existed contemporaneously with the theatres
in which Burbage played Richard III. and Shakespeare the Ghost in
_Hamlet_. In a prologue which was written for some London apprentices when
they played _The Hog hath lost his Pearl_ in 1614, their want of skill in
acting and elocution is honestly admitted in the following lines--
"We are not half so skilled as strolling players,
Who could not please here as at country fairs."
In the household book of the Clifford family, quoted by Dr. Whitaker in
his 'History of Craven,' there is an entry in 1633 of the payment of one
pound to "certain itinerant players," who seem to have given a private
representation, for which they were thus munificently remunerated; and two
years later, an entry occurs of the payment of the same amount to "a
certain company of roguish players who represented _A New Way to pay Old
Debts_," the adjective being used, probably to distinguish this company,
as being unlicensed or unrecognized, from the strolling players who had
permission to call themselves by the name of some nobleman, and to wear
his livery. The Earl of Leicester maintained such a company, and several
other nobles of that period did the same, the actors being known as my
Lord Leicester's company, or as the case might be, and being allowed to
perform elsewhere when their services were not required by their patron.
The depressed condition of actors at this period is amusingly illustrated
by the story of Griffin and Goodman occupying the same chamber, and having
but one decent shirt between them, which they wore in turn,--a destitution
of linen surpassed only by that which is said to have characterised the
ragged regiment of Sir John Falstaff, who had only half a shirt among them
all. The single shirt of the two actors was the occasion of a quarrel and
a separation between them, one of the twain having worn it out of his
turn, under the temptation of an assignation with a lady. What became of
the shirt upon the separation of their respective interests in it, we are
not told.
The restoration of monarchy and the Stuarts was followed immediately by
the re-opening of the theatres and the resumption of the old popular
amusements at fairs. Actors held up their heads again; the showmen hung
out their pictured cloths in Smithfield and on the Bowling Green in
Southwark; the fiddlers and the ballad-singers re-appeared in the streets
and in houses of public entertainment. Charles II. entered London, amidst
the jubilations of the multitude, on the 29th of May, 1660; and on the
13th of September following, Evelyn wrote in his diary as follows:--
"I saw in Southwark, at St. Margaret's Fair, monkeys and apes dance, and
do other feats of activity, on the high rope; they were gallantly clad _à
la monde_, went upright, saluted the company, bowing and pulling off their
hats; they saluted one another with as good a grace as if instructed by a
dancing master; they turned heels over head with a basket having eggs in
it, without breaking any; also, with lighted candles in their hands, and
on their heads, without extinguishing them, and with vessels of water
without spilling a drop. I also saw an Italian wench dance and perform all
the tricks on the high rope to admiration; all the Court went to see her.
Likewise, here was a man who took up a piece of iron cannon of about 400
lb. weight with the hair of his head only."
Evelyn and Pepys have left no record of the presence of shows at
Bartholomew Fair in the first year of the Restoration, nor does the
collection of Bartholomew Fair _notabilia_ in the library of the British
Museum furnish any indication of them; but Pepys tells us that on the 31st
of August, in the following year, he went "to Bartholomew Fair, and there
met with my Ladies Jemima and Paulina, with Mr. Pickering and
Mademoiselle, at seeing the monkeys dance, which was much to see, when
they could be brought to do it, but it troubled me to sit among such nasty
company." Few years seem to have passed without a visit to Bartholomew
Fair on the part of the gossiping old diarist. In 1663 he writes, under
date the 7th of September, "To Bartholomew Fair, where I met Mr.
Pickering, and he and I went to see the monkeys at the Dutch house, which
is far beyond the other that my wife and I saw the other day; and thence
to see the dancing on the ropes, which was very poor and tedious."
In the following year two visits to this fair are recorded in Pepys'
diary, as follows:--
"Sept. 2. To Bartholomew Fair, and our boy with us, and there showed him
the dancing on ropes, and several others the best shows." "Sept. 7. With
Creed walked to Bartholomew Fair,--this being the last day, and there I
saw the best dancing on ropes that I think I ever saw in my life." In the
two following years the fairs and other amusements of London were
interrupted by the plague, to the serious loss and detriment of the
entertaining classes. Punch and other puppets were the only amusements of
1665 and 1666; and Pepys records that, on the 22nd of August in the latter
year--the year of the great fire,--he and his wife went in a coach to
Moorfields, "and there saw Polichinello, which pleases me mightily."
In 1667 the fear of the plague had passed away, and the public again
patronised the theatres and other places of amusement. "To Polichinello,"
writes Pepys on the 8th of April, "and there had three times more sport
than at the play, and so home." To compensate himself for having missed
Bartholomew Fair two years running on account of the plague, he now went
three times. "Went twice round Bartholomew Fair," he writes in his diary
on the 28th of August, "which I was glad to see again, after two years
missing it by the plague." "30th. To Bartholomew Fair, to walk up and
down, and there, among other things, found my Lady Castlemaine at a
puppet-play, _Patient Grizill_, and the street full of people expecting
her coming out." "Sept. 4. With my wife and Mr. Hewer to Bartholomew Fair,
and there saw Polichinello."
The fair probably offered better and more various amusements every year,
for Pepys records five visits in 1668, when we first hear of the
celebrated rope-dancer, Jacob Hall. "August 27. With my wife and W.
Batelier and Deb.; carried them to Bartholomew Fair, where we saw the
dancing of the ropes, and nothing else, it being late." "29. Met my wife
in a coach, and took her and Mercer [her maid] and Deb. to Bartholomew
Fair; and there did see a ridiculous obscene little stage-play called
_Marry Andrey_ [Merry Andrew], a foolish thing, but seen by everybody: and
so to Jacob Hall's dancing of the ropes, a thing worth seeing, and
mightily followed." "Sept. 1. To Bartholomew Fair, and there saw several
sights; among others, the mare that tells money and many things to
admiration, and among others come to me, when she was bid to go to him of
the company that most loved to kiss a pretty wench in a corner. And this
did cost me 12_d._ to the horse, which I had flung him before, and did
give me occasion to kiss a mighty _belle fille_, that was exceeding plain,
but _fort belle_." "4. At noon my wife, and Deb. and Mercer, and W. Hewer
and I, to the fair, and there at the old house, did eat a pig, and was
pretty merry, but saw no sights, my wife having a mind to see the play of
_Bartholomew Fair_ with puppets." "7. With my Lord Brouncker (who was this
day in unusual manner merry, I believe with drink,) Minnes, and W. Pen to
Bartholomew Fair; and there saw the dancing mare again, which to-day I
found to act much worse than the other day, she forgetting many things,
which her master beat her for, and was mightily vexed; and then the
dancing of the ropes, and also a little stage play, which was very
ridiculous."
Perhaps a better illustration of the difference between the manners and
amusements of the seventeenth century and those of the nineteenth could
not be found than that which is afforded by the contrast between the
picture drawn by Pepys and the fancy sketch which the reader may draw for
himself by giving the figures introduced the names of persons now living.
Let the scene be Greenwich Fair, as we all remember it, and the incidents
the Secretary to the Admiralty, accompanied by his wife and her maid,
going there in his carriage; stopping on the way to witness the vagaries
of Punch; meeting the Mistress of the Robes at a marionette performance in
a tent; and afterwards, as we shall presently find Pepys doing, drinking
in a public-house with a rope-dancer, reputed to be the paramour of a lady
of rank, whom our supposed secretary may have met the evening before at
Buckingham Palace.
Pepys relates that he went, in the same year, "to Southwark Fair, very
dirty, and there saw the puppet-show of Whittington, which was pretty to
see; and how that idle thing do work upon people that see it, and even
myself too! And thence to Jacob Hall's dancing of the ropes, where I saw
such action as I never saw before, and mightily worth seeing; and here
took acquaintance with a fellow that carried me to a tavern, whither come
the music of this booth, and bye and bye Jacob Hall himself, with whom I
had a mind to speak, to hear whether he had ever any mischief by falls in
his time. He told me, 'Yes, many, but never to the breaking of a limb;' he
seems a mighty strong man. So giving them a bottle or two of wine, I away
with Payne, the waterman. He, seeking me at the play, did get a link to
light me, and so light me to the Bear, where Bland, my waterman, waited
for me with gold and other things he kept for me, to the value of £40 and
more, which I had about me, for fear of my pockets being cut. So by
link-light through the bridge, it being mighty dark, but still weather,
and so home." Jacob Hall was as famous for his handsome face and
symmetrical form as for his skill and grace on the rope. He is said to
have shared with Harte, the actor, the favours of Nell Gwynne, and
afterwards to have been a pensioned favourite of the profligate Countess
of Castlemaine. His portrait in Grammont's 'Memoirs' was engraved from an
unnamed picture by Van Oost, first said to represent the famous
rope-dancer by Ames, in 1748.
A passage in one of Davenant's poems affords some information concerning
the character of the shows which formed the attraction of the fairs at
this period,
"Now vaulter good, and dancing lass
On rope, and man that cries, Hey, pass!
And tumbler young that needs but stoop,
Lay head to heel, to creep through hoop;
And man in chimney hid to dress
Puppet that acts our old Queen Bess,
And man that, while the puppets play,
Through nose expoundeth what they say;
And white oat-eater that does dwell
In stable small at sign of Bell,
That lifts up hoof to show the pranks
Taught by magician styled Banks;
And ape led captive still in chain
Till he renounce the Pope and Spain;
All these on hoof now trudge from town,
To cheat poor turnip-eating clown."
The preceding chapter will have rendered the allusions intelligible to the
reader of the present day.
Among the shows of this period was another bearded woman, whom Pepys saw
in Holborn, towards the end of 1668. "She is a little plain woman," he
writes, "a Dane; her name, Ursula Dyan; about forty years old; her voice
like a little girl's; with a beard as much as any man I ever saw, black
almost, and grizzly; it began to grow at about seven years old, and was
shaved not above seven months ago, and is now so big as any man's almost
that I ever saw; I say, bushy and thick. It was a strange sight to me, I
confess, and what pleased me mightily." There was a female giant, too, of
whom Evelyn says, under date the 13th of February, 1669, "I went to see a
tall gigantic woman, who measured six feet ten inches at twenty-one years
old, born in the Low Countries."
Salamandering feats are not so pleasant to witness as the performances of
the acrobat and the gymnast, but they create wonder, and, probably, were
wondered at more two hundred years ago than at the present time, when the
scientific principles on which their success depends are better
understood. The earliest performer of the feats which made Girardelli and
Chabert famous half a century ago seems to have been Richardson, of whom
the following account is given by Evelyn, who witnessed his performance in
1672:--
"I took leave of my Lady Sunderland, who was going to Paris to my lord,
now ambassador there. She made me stay dinner at Leicester House, and
afterwards sent for Richardson, the famous fire-eater. He devoured
brimstone on glowing coals before us, chewing and swallowing them; he
melted a beer-glass and eat it quite up; then, taking a live coal on his
tongue, he put on it a raw oyster, the coal was blown on with bellows till
it flamed and sparkled in his mouth, and so remained till the oyster gaped
and was quite boiled. Then he melted pitch and wax with sulphur, which he
drank down as it flamed; I saw it flaming in his mouth, a good while; he
also took up a thick piece of iron, such as laundresses use to put in
their smoothing-boxes, when it was fiery hot, held it between his teeth,
then in his hands and threw it about like a stone; but this I observed he
cared not to do very long; then he stood on a small pot, and, bending his
body, took a glowing iron with his mouth from between his feet without
touching the pot or ground with his hands; with divers other prodigious
feats."
There are few notices of the London fairs in contemporary memoirs and
journals, and as few advertisements of showmen have been preserved by
collectors of such literary curiosities, between the last visit to
Southwark Fair recorded by Pepys and the period of the Revolution. The
public mind was agitated during this time by plots and rumours of plots,
by State trials and Tower Hill executions, which alternately excited men
to rage and chilled them with horror. Giants and dwarfs, and monstrosities
of all kinds, seem to have been more run after, under the influence of
these events, than puppets and players. Take the following as an example,
an announcement which was printed in 1677:--
"At Mr. Croomes, at the signe of the Shoe and Slap neer the Hospital-gate,
in West Smithfield, is to be seen _The Wonder of Nature_, viz., A girl
about sixteen years of age, born in Cheshire, and not much above eighteen
inches long, having shed the teeth seven several times, and not a perfect
bone in any part of her, onely the head, yet she hath all her senses to
admiration, and discourses, reads very well, sings, whistles, and all very
pleasant to hear. God save the King!"
The office of Master of the Revels, which had been held by Thomas
Killigrew, the Court jester, was conferred, at his death, upon his son,
who leased the licensing of ballad-singers to a bookseller named Clarke,
as appears from the following announcement, which was inserted in the
_London Gazette_ in 1682:--
"Whereas Mr. John Clarke, of London, bookseller, did rent of Charles
Killigrew, Esq., the licensing of all ballad-singers for five years; which
time is expired at Lady Day next. These are, therefore, to give notice to
all ballad-singers, that take out licenses at the office of the revels, at
Whitehall, for singing and selling of ballads and small books, according
to an ancient custom. And all persons concerned are hereby desired to take
notice of, and to suppress, all mountebanks, rope-dancers, prize-players,
ballad-singers, and such as make show of motions and strange sights, that
have not a license in red and black letters, under the hand and seal of
the said Charles Killigrew, Esq., Master of the Revels to his Majesty."
The only entertainment of which I have found an announcement for this year
is the following:--"At Mr. Saffry's, a Dutch-woman's Booth, over against
the Greyhound Inn, in West Smithfield, during the time of the fair, will
be acted the incomparable Entertainment call'd The Irish Evidence, with
the Humours of Teige. With a Variety of Dances. By the first Newmarket
Company." Further glimpses of the fair are afforded, however, by the offer
of a reward for "the three horses stolen by James Rudderford, a
mountebank, and Jeremiah March, his clown;" and the announcement that,
"The German Woman that danc'd where the Italian Tumbler kept his Booth,
being over against the Swan Tavern, by Hosier Lane end in Bartholomew
Fair, is run away from her Mistress, the Fifth of this instant; She is of
a Brownish complexion, with Brown Hair, and between 17 and 18 years of
Age; if any person whatsoever can bring Tidings to one Mr. Hone's, at the
Duke of Albemarle's Head, at the end of Duck Lane, so that her Mistress
may have her again, they shall be rewarded to their own content."
In the winter of 1683-4, an addition was temporarily made to the London
fairs by the opportunity which the freezing of the Thames afforded for
holding a fair on the ice. The river became frozen on the 23rd of
December, and on the first day of 1684 the ice was so thick between the
bridges that long rows of booths were erected for the sale of refreshments
to the thousands of persons who congregated upon it. Evelyn, who visited
the strange scene more than once, saw "people and tents selling all sort
of wares, as in the City." The frost becoming more intense when it had
endured a month, the sports of horse-racing and bull-baiting were
presented on the ice; and sledges and skaters were seen gliding swiftly in
every direction, with, as Evelyn relates, "puppet-plays and interludes,
tippling, and other lewd places." The ice was so thick that the booths
and stalls remained even when thaw had commenced, but the water soon
rendered it disagreeable to walk upon, and long cracks warned the
purveyors of recreation and refection to retreat to the land. The fair
ended on the 5th of February.
It was during the continuance of this seventeenth century Frost Fair that
Evelyn saw a human salamander, when he dined at Sir Stephen Fox's, and
"after dinner came a fellow who eat live charcoal, glowingly ignited,
quenching them in his mouth, and then champing and swallowing them down.
There was a dog also which seemed to do many rational actions." The last
sentence is rather obscure; the writer probably intended to convey that
the animal performed many actions which seemed rational.
During the Southwark Fair of the following year, there was a giant
exhibited at the Catherine Wheel Inn, a famous hostelry down to our own
time. Printers had not yet corrected the irregular spelling of the
preceding century, as appears from the following announcement:--"The
Gyant, or the Miracle of Nature, being that so much admired young man,
aged nineteen years last June, 1684. Born in Ireland, of such a prodigious
height and bigness, and every way proportionable, the like hath not been
seen since the memory of man. He hath been several times shown at Court,
and his Majesty was pleased to walk under his arm, and he is grown very
much since; he now reaches ten foot and a half, fathomes near eight foot,
spans fifteen inches; And is believed to be as big as one of the Gyants in
Guild-Hall. He is to be seen at the Sign of the Catherine Wheel in
Southwark Fair. _Vivat Rex._"
There was probably also to be seen at this fair the Dutch woman of whom an
author quoted by Strutt says that, "when she first danced and vaulted on
the rope in London, the spectators beheld her with pleasure mixed with
pain, as she seemed every moment in danger of breaking her neck." About
this time, there was introduced at the London fairs, an entertainment
resembling that now given in the music-halls, in which vocal and
instrumental music was alternated with rope-dancing and tumbling. The
shows in which these performances were given were called music-booths,
though the musical element was far from predominating. The musical portion
of the entertainment was not of the highest order, if we may trust the
judgment of Ward, the author of the _London Spy_, who says that he "had
rather have heard an old barber ring Whittington's bells upon the cittern
than all the music these houses afforded."
Such dramatic performances as were given in the booths at this time seem
to have been, in a great measure, confined to the puppet-plays so often
mentioned in the memoirs and diaries of the period. Granger mentions one
Philips, who, in the reign of James II., "was some time fiddler to a
puppet-show; in which capacity, he held many a dialogue with Punch, in
much the same strain as he did afterwards with the mountebank doctor, his
master, upon the stage. This Zany, being regularly educated, had the
advantage of his brethren." Besides the serio-comic drama of Punch and
Judy, many popular stories were represented by the puppets of those days,
which set forth the fortunes of Dick Whittington and the sorrows of
Griselda, the vagaries of Merry Andrew and the humours of Bartholomew
Fair, as delineated by the pen of Ben Jonson. It is a noteworthy
circumstance, as showing the estimation in which the Smithfield Fair was
held by the upper and middle classes at this period, and for more than
half a century afterwards, that the summer season of the patent theatres,
which closed at that time, always concluded with a representation of
Jonson's now forgotten comedy.
A slight general view of Bartholomew Fair in 1685, with some equally
slight and curious moralising on the subject, is presented by Sir Robert
Southwell, in a letter addressed to his son, the Honourable Edward
Southwell, who was then in London with his tutor, Mr. Webster.
"I think it not now," says Sir Robert, "so proper to quote you verses out
of Persius, or to talk of Cæsar and Euclid, as to consider the great
theatre of Bartholomew Fair, where I doubt not but you often resort, and
'twere not amiss if you cou'd convert that tumult into a profitable book.
You wou'd certainly see the garboil there to more advantage if Mr. Webster
and you wou'd read, or cou'd see acted, the play of Ben Jonson, call'd
Bartholomew Fair: for then afterwards going to the spot, you wou'd note if
things and humours were the same to day, as they were fifty years ago, and
take pattern of the observations which a man of sense may raise out of
matters that seem even ridiculous. Take then with you the impressions of
that play, and in addition thereunto, I shou'd think it not amiss if you
then got up into some high window, in order to survey the whole pit at
once. I fancy then you will say, _Totus mundus agit histrionem_, and then
you wou'd note into how many various shapes human nature throws itself, in
order to buy cheap and sell dear, for all is but traffick and commerce,
some to give, some to take, and all is by exchange, to make the
entertainment complete.
"The main importance of this fair is not so much for merchandize, and the
supplying what people really want; but as a sort of Bacchanalia, to
gratifie the multitude in their wandering and irregular thoughts. Here you
see the rope-dancers gett their living meerly by hazarding of their lives,
and why men will pay money and take pleasure to see such dangers, is of
seperate and philosophical consideration. You have others who are acting
fools, drunkards, and madmen, but for the same wages which they might get
by honest labour, and live with credit besides.
"Others, if born in any monstrous shape, or have children that are such,
here they celebrate their misery, and by getting of money, forget how
odious they are made. When you see the toy-shops, and the strange variety
of things, much more impertinent than hobby-horses or gloves of
gingerbread, you must know there are customers for all these matters, and
it wou'd be a pleasing sight cou'd we see painted a true figure of all
these impertinent minds and their fantastick passions, who come trudging
hither, only for such things. 'Tis out of this credulous crowd that the
ballad-singers attrackt an assembly, who listen and admire, while their
confederate pickpockets are diving and fishing for their prey.
"'Tis from those of this number who are more refined, that the mountebank
obtains audience and credit, and it were a good bargain if such customers
had nothing for their money but words, but they are best content to pay
for druggs, and medicines, which commonly doe them hurt. There is one
corner of this Elizium field devoted to the eating of pig, and the
surfeits that attend it. The fruits of the season are everywhere scatter'd
about, and those who eat imprudently do but hasten to the physitian or the
churchyard."
In 1697, William Philips, the zany or Jack Pudding mentioned by Granger,
was arrested and publicly whipped for perpetrating, in Bartholomew Fair, a
jest on the repressive tendencies of the Government, which has been
preserved by Prior in a poem. It seems that he made his appearance on the
exterior platform of the show at which he was engaged, with a tongue in
his left hand and a black pudding in his right. Professing to have learned
an important secret, by which he hoped to profit, he communicated it to
the mountebank, as related by Prior, as follows:--
"Be of your patron's mind whate'er he says;
Sleep very much, think little, and talk less:
Mind neither good nor bad, nor right nor wrong;
But eat your pudding, slave, and hold your tongue."
Mr. Morley conjectures that this Philips was the W. Phillips who wrote the
tragedy of the _Revengeful Queen_, published in 1698, and who was supposed
to be the author of another, _Alcamenes and Menelippa_, and of a farce
called _Britons, Strike Home_, which was acted in a booth in Bartholomew
Fair. But worth more than all these plays would now be, if it could be
discovered, the book published in 1688, of which, only the title-page is
preserved in the Harleian collection, viz., 'The Comical History of the
famous Merry Andrew, W. Phill., Giving an Account of his Pleasant Humours,
Various Adventures, Cheats, Frolicks, and Cunning Designs, both in City
and Country.'
The circus was an entertainment as yet unknown. The only equestrian
performances were of the kind given by Banks, and repeated, as we learn
from Davenant and Pepys, by performers who came after him, of whom there
was a regular succession down to the time of Philip Astley. The first
entertainer who introduced horses into vaulting acts seems to have been
William Stokes, a famous vaulter of the reigns of the latter Stuarts. He
was the author of a manual of the art of vaulting, which was published at
Oxford in 1652, and contains several engravings, showing him in the act of
vaulting over a horse, over two horses, and leaping upon them, in one
alighting in the saddle, and in another upon the bare back of the horse,
_à la Bradbury_.
Another of the great show characters of this period was Joseph Clark, the
posturer, who according to a notice of him in the Transactions of the
Royal Philosophical Society, "had such an absolute command of all his
muscles and joints that he could disjoint almost his whole body." His
performance seems to have consisted chiefly in the imitation of every kind
of human deformity; and he is said to have imposed so completely upon
Molins, a famous surgeon of that period, as to be dismissed by him as an
incurable cripple. His portrait in Tempest's collection represents him in
the act of shouldering his leg, an antic which is imitated by a monkey.
Clark was the "whimsical fellow, commonly known by the name of the
Posture-master," mentioned by Addison in the 'Guardian,' No. 102. He was
the son of a distiller in Shoe Lane, who designed him for the medical
profession, but a brief experience with John Coniers, an apothecary in
Fleet Street, not pleasing him, he was apprenticed to a mercer in
Bishopsgate Street. Trade suited him no better than medicine, it would
seem, for he afterwards went to Paris, in the retinue of the Duke of
Buckingham, and there first displayed his powers as a posturer. He died
in 1690, at his house in Pall Mall, and was buried in the church of St.
Martin-in-the-Fields. Many portraits of him, in different attitudes, are
extant in the British Museum.
Monstrosities have always been profitable subjects for exhibition.
Shakespeare tells us, and may be presumed to have intended the remark to
convey his impression of the tendency of his own generation, that people
would give more to see a dead Indian than to relieve a lame beggar; and
the profits of the exhibition of Julia Pastrana and the so-called Kostroma
people show that the public interest in such monstrosities remains
unabated. But what would "City men" say to such an exhibition in
Threadneedle Street? I take the following announcement from a newspaper of
June, 1698:--
"At Moncrieff's Coffee-house, in Threadneedle Street, near the Royal
Exchange, is exposed to view, for sixpence a piece, a Monster that lately
died there, being Humane upwards and bruit downwards, wonderful to behold:
the like was never seen in England before, the skin is so exactly stuffed
that the whole lineaments and proportion of the Monster are as plain to be
seen as when it was alive. And a very fine Civet Cat, spotted like a
Leopard, and is now alive, that was brought from Africa with it. They are
exposed to view from eight in the morning to eight at night."
At the King's Head, in West Smithfield, there was this year exhibited "a
little Scotch Man, which has been admired by all that have yet seen him,
he being but two Foot and six Inches high; and is near upon 60 years of
Age. He was marry'd several years, and had Issue by his Wife, two sons
(one of which is with him now). He Sings and Dances with his son, and has
had the Honour to be shewn before several Persons of Note at their Houses,
as far as they have yet travelled. He formerly kept a Writing school; and
discourses of the Scriptures, and of many Eminent Histories, very wisely;
and gives great satisfaction to all spectators; and if need requires,
there are several Persons in this town, that will justifie that they were
his Schollars, and see him Marry'd."
In the same year, David Cornwell exhibited, at the Ram's Head, in
Fenchurch Street, a singular lad, advertised as "the Bold Grimace
Spaniard," who was said to have "liv'd 15 years among wild creatures in
the Mountains, and is reasonably suppos'd to have been taken out of his
cradle an Infant, by some savage Beast, and wonderfully preserv'd, till
some Comedians accidentally pass'd through those parts, and perceiving him
to be of Human Race, pursu'd him to his Cave, where they caught him in a
Net. They found something wonderful in his Nature, and took him with them
in their Travels through _Spain_ and _Italy_. He performs the following
surprising grimaces, viz., He lolls out his Tongue a foot long, turns his
eyes in and out at the same time; contracts his Face as small as an Apple;
extends his Mouth six inches, and turns it into the shape of a Bird's
Beak, and his eyes like to an Owl's; turns his mouth into the Form of a
Hat cock'd up three ways; and also frames it in the manner of a
four-square Buckle; licks his Nose with his Tongue, like a Cow; rolls one
Eyebrow two inches up, the other two down; changes his face to such an
astonishing Degree, as to appear like a Corpse long bury'd. Altho' bred
wild so long, yet by travelling with the aforesaid Comedians 18 years, he
can sing wonderfully fine, and accompanies his voice with a thorow Bass on
the Lute. His former natural Estrangement from human conversation oblig'd
_Mr. Cornwell_ to bring a Jackanapes over with him for his Companion, in
whom he takes great Delight and Satisfaction."
How many of these show creatures were impostors, and how many genuine
eccentricities of human nature, it is impossible to say. Barnum's
revelations have made us sceptical. But the numerous advertisements of
this kind in the newspapers of the period show that the passion for
monstrosities was as strongly developed in the latter half of the
seventeenth century as at the present day.
Barnes and Appleby's booth for tumbling and rope-dancing appears from the
following advertisement, extracted from a newspaper of 1699, to have
attended Bartholomew Fair the previous year:--
"At Mr. Barnes's and Mr. Appleby's Booth, between the Crown Tavern and the
Hospital Gate, over against the Cross Daggers, next to Miller's Droll
Booth, in West Smithfield, where the English and Dutch Flaggs, with
Barnes's and the two German Maidens' pictures, will hang out, during the
time of Bartholomew Fair, will be seen the most excellent and incomparable
performances in Dancing on the Slack Rope, Walking on the Slack Rope,
Vaulting and Tumbling on the Stage, by these five, the most famous
Companies in the Universe, viz., The English, Irish, High German, French,
and Morocco, now united. The Two German Maidens, who exceeded all mankind
in their performances, are within this twelvemonth improved to a Miracle."
In this year I find the following advertisement of a music booth, which
must have been one of the earliest established:--
"THOMAS DALE, Drawer at the Crown Tavern at Aldgate, keepeth the TURK'S
HEAD _Musick Booth_, in Smithfield Rounds, over against the _Greyhound_
Inn during the time of _Bartholomew Fair_, Where is a Glass of good Wine,
Mum, Syder, Beer, Ale, and all other Sorts of Liquors, to be Sold; and
where you will likewise be entertained with good Musick, Singing, and
Dancing. You will see a Scaramouch Dance, the Italian Punch's Dance, the
Quarter Staff, the Antick, the Countryman and Countrywoman's Dance, and
the Merry Cuckolds of Hogsden.
"Also a young Man that dances an Entry, Salabrand, and Jigg, and a Woman
that dances with Six Naked Rapiers, that we Challenge the whole Fair to do
the like. There is likewise a Young Woman that Dances with Fourteen
Glasses on the Backs and Palms of her Hands, and turns round with them
above an Hundred Times as fast as a Windmill turns; and another Young Man
that Dances a Jigg incomparably well, to the Admiration of all Spectators.
_Vivat Rex._"
James Miles, who announced himself as from Sadler's Wells, kept the Gun
music-booth in the fair, and announced nineteen dances, among which were
"a dance of three bullies and three Quakers;" a cripples' dance by six
persons with wooden legs and crutches, "in imitation of a jovial crew;" a
dance with swords, and on a ladder, by a young woman, "with that variety
that she challenges all her sex to do the like;" and a new entertainment,
"between a Scaramouch, a Harlequin, and a Punchinello, in imitation of
bilking a reckoning." We shall meet with James Miles again in the next
chapter and century.