|In the year 1776,” continued the Lauréat, “Mr. Philip Astley *
transferred his equestrian troop to the 'Rounds.' To him succeeded
Saunders, ** who brought forward into the 'circle' that 'wonderful child
of promise,' his son, accompanied by the tailor riding to Brentford! To
thee, Billy Button! and thy 'Buffo Caricatto,' Thompson, the tumbler, we
owe some of the heartiest laughs of our youthful days. Ods 'wriggling,
giggling, galloping, galloway,' we have made merry in St. Bartlemy!”
* In the early part of his career Mr. Astley paraded the
streets of London, and dealt out his hand-bills to the
servants and apprentices whom his trumpet and drum attracted
to the doors as he passed along.
** Master Saunders, only seven years old, jumps through a
hoop, and brings it over his head, and dances a hornpipe on
the saddle, his horse going three-quarters speed round the
circle! The Tailor riding to Brentford, by Mr. Belcher.--
Bartholomew Fair, 1796.”
There were grand doings at the fair in 1786, 87 and 88. Palmer, “at the
Greyhound,” placarded Harlequin Proteus, and the Tailor done over. At
the George Inn, Mr. Flockton exhibited the Italian Fantoccini, and
the Tinker in a bustle. Mr. Jobson * put his puppets in motion; Mrs.
Garmaris caravan, with the classical motto, _Hoc tempus et non
aliter_, advertised vaulting by the juvenile imp. “Walk in, ladies
and gentlemen,” cried Mr. Smith, near the Swan Livery Stables; “and be
enchanted among the rocks, fountains, and waterfalls of art!” Patrick
O'Brien (o'ertopping Henry Blacker,** the seven feet four inches giant
of 1761,) arrived in his teakettle. A goose, instructed by a poll
parrot, sang several popular songs.
* Mr. Jobson added the following* verses to his bill:
“Prithee come, my lads and lasses,
Jobson's oddities let's see;
Where there's mirth and smiling faces,
And good store of fun and glee!
Pleasant lads and pretty lasses,
All to Jobson s haste away;
Point your toes, and brim your glasses!
And enjoy a cheerful day.”
** “Mr. O'Brien measures eight feet four inches in height,
but lives in hopes of attaining nine feet,” the family
altitude!
Three turkeys danced cotillons and minuets. The military ox went through
his manual exercise; and the monkey taught the cow her horn-book. Ive's
company of comedians played “The Wife well managed,” to twenty-eight
different audiences in one day! The automaton Lady; the infant musical
phenomenon without arms, and another phenomenon, equally infantine and
musical, without legs; a three-legged heifer, with four nostrils; a
hen webfooted, and a duck with a cock's head, put forth their several
attractions. Messrs. White, at the Lock and Key, sold capital punch;
savoury sausages (out-frying every other fry in the fair,) fizzed
at “the Grunter's Ordinary or Relish-Warehouse, in Hosier Lane; and
Pie-Corner” rang with the screeching drollery of Mr. Mountebank Merry
Andrew Macphinondraughanarmonbolinbrough!
The “wonderful antipodean,” Sieur Sanches, who walked against the
ceiling with his head downwards, and a flag in his hand; Louis Porte *
* Louis Porte was an inoffensive giant. Not so our English
monsters. On the 10th of Sept. 1787, a Bartlemy Fair
Giant was brought before Sir William Plomer at Guildhall,
for knocking out two of his manager's fore-teeth, for which
the magistrate fined him two guineas per tooth! In March
1841, a giantess, six feet nine inches high, from Modern
Athens and Bartholomew Fair, killed her husband in a booth
at Glasgow; and in the same year, at Barnard-Castle Easter
Fair, a giant stole a change of linen from a hedge, for
which he was sent to prison for three months.
On the 26th May, 1555, (see Strype's Memorials,) there was a
May-game at St. Martin's in the Fields, with giants and
hobby-horses, drums, guns, morris-dancers, and minstrels.
(“_Hercule du Roi!_”) a French equilibrist; Pietro Bologna, a dancer
on the slack-wire; Signor Placida (“the Little Devil!”); “La Belle
Espagnole” (on the tight-rope); the “real wild man of the woods;” * the
dancing-dogs of Sieur Scaglioni; ** General Jacko, *** and Pidcock's
**** menagerie, (to which succeeded those of Polito and Wombwell,) one
and all drove a roaring trade at Bartholomew Fair.
* “This Ethiopian savage has a black face, with a large
white circle round it. He sits in a chair in a very pleasing
and majestic attitude; eats his food like a Christian, and
is extremely affable and polite.”
** These dogs danced an allemand, mimicked a lady spinning,
and a deserter going to execution, attended by a chaplain,
(a dressed-up puppy!) in canonicals.
*** “June 17, 1785, at Astley's, General Jacko performs the
broad-sword exercise; dances on the tight-rope; balances a i
pyramid of lights; and lights his master home with a link.”
In the following September the General opened his campaign
at Bartholomew Fair.
**** Were you to range the mighty globe all o'er,
From east to west, from north to southern shore;
Under the line of torrid zone to go,--
No deserts, woods, groves, mountains, more can shew
To you, than Pidcock in his forest small--
Here, at one view, you have a sight of all.”
We chronicle not the gods, emperors, dark bottle-green demons, and
indigo-blue nondescripts that have since strutted their hour upon the
boards of “Richardson's Grand Theatrical Booth.” * They, like every dog,
have had their day; and comical dogs were most of them!
Of the modern minstrelsy of the “Rounds,” the lyrics of Mr. Johannot,
Joe Grimaldi, and the very merry hey down derry, “Neighbour Prig” song
of Charles Mathews, ** are amusing specimens.
* In Sept. 1806, Mr. and Mrs. Carey (the reputed father and
mother of Edmund Kean, the tragedian,) played at
Richardson's Theatre, Bartholomew Fair, the Baron Montaldi
and his daughter, in a gallimaufry of love, murder,
brimstone, and blue fire, called “The Monk and Murderer, or
the Skeleton Spectre!”
** Mathews was the Hogarth of the stage; his characters are
as finely discriminated, as vigorously drawn, as highly
finished, and as true to nature, as those of the great
painter of mankind. His perception of the eccentric and
outré was intuitive;--his range of observation comprehended
human nature in all its varieties; he caught not only the
manner, but the matter of his originals; and while he hit
off with admirable exactness the peculiarities of
individuals, their very turn of thought and modes of
expression were given with equal truth. In this respect he
surpassed Foote, whose mimicry seldom went beyond personal
deformities and physical defects,--a blinking eye, a lame
leg, or a stutter. He was a satirist of the first class,
without being a caricaturist; exhibiting folly in all its
Protean shapes, and laughing it out of countenance,--a
histrionic Democritus! His gallery of faces was immense. He
had as many physiognomies as Argus had eyes. The
extraordinary and the odd, the shrewd expression of knavish
impudence, the rosy contentedness of repletion, the vulgar
stare of boorish ignorance, and the blank fatuity of idiocy,
he called up with a flexibility that had not been witnessed
since the days of Garrick. Many of his most admired
portraits were creations of his own: the old Scotchwoman,
the Idiot playing with a Fly, Major Longbow, &c. &c. The
designs for his “At Homes” were from the same source; meaner
artists filled in the back-ground, but the figures stood
forth in full relief, the handiwork of their unrivalled
impersonator. Who but remembers his narration of the story
of the Gamester, his Monsieur Mallét, and particular parts
of Monsieur Morbleu?--Nothing could be more delightful than
his representation of the “pauvre barbiere had the air, the
bienséance of the Chevalier, who had danced a minuet at the
“Cour de Versailles” His petit chanson, “C'est V Amour!” and
his accompanying capers, were exquisitely French. His
transitions from gaiety to sadness--from restlessness to
civility--his patient and impatient shrugs, were admirably
given.
In legitimate comedy, his old men and intriguing valets were
excellent; while Lingo, Quotem, Nipperkin, Midas
Sharp, Wiggins, &c. &c. in farce, have seldom met with
merrier representatives. His broken English was superb; his
country boobies were unsophisticated nature; and his Paddies
the richest distillation of whisky and praties. He was the
finest burletta singer of his day, and in his patter songs,
his rapidity of utterance and distinctness of enunciation
were truly wonderful.
His Dicky Suett in pawn for the cheesecakes and raspberry
tarts at the pastry-cook's, in St. Martin's Court, was no
less faithful than convulsing; Tate Wilkinson, Cooke, Jack
Bannister, and Bensley, were absolute resurgams; and if he
was not the identical Charles Incledon, “there's no purchase
in money.”
He was the first actor that introduced Jonathan into
England, for the entertainment of his laughter-loving
brothers and sisters. The vraisemblance was unquestionable,
and the effect prodigious.
A kindred taste for pictures, prints, and theatrical relics,
often brought the writer into his company. At his pleasant
Thatched Cottage at Kentish Town, rising in the midst of
green lawns, flower-beds, and trellis-work, fancifully
wreathed and overgrown with jasmine and honey-suckles! was
collected a more interesting museum of dramatic curiosities
than had ever been brought together by the industry of one
man. Garrick medals in copper, silver, and bronze; a lock of
his hair; the garter worn by him in Richard the Third; his
Abel Drug-ger shoes; his Lear wig; his walking-stick; the
managerial chair in which he kept his state in the green-
room of Old Drury; the far-famed Casket (now in the
possession of the writer) carved out of the mulberry-tree
planted by Shakspere; the sandals worn by John Kemble in
Coriolanus on the last night of that great actor's
performance, and presented by him to his ardent admirer on
that memorable occasion, were all regarded by Mathews as
precious relics. He was glad of his sandals, he wittily
remarked, since he never could hope to stand in his shoes!
The Penruddock stick, and Hamlet wig were also carefully
preserved. So devoted was he to his art, and so just and
liberal in his estimation of its gifted professors, that he
lost no opportunity of adding to his interesting store some
visible tokens by which he might remember them.
He was the friendliest of men. The facetious companion never
lost sight of the gentleman; he scorned to be the buffoon--
the professional lion of a party, however exalted by rank.
It was one of his boasts--a noble and a proud one too!--that
the hero of a hundred fights, the conqueror of France, the
Prince of Waterloo! received him at his table, not as Punch,
but as a private gentleman. He had none of the low vanity
that delights to attract the pointed finger. He was content
with his supremacy on the stage--an universal imitator,
himself inimitable!
In the summer of 1830, we accompanied him to pay the veteran
Quick a visit at his snug retreat at Islington. Tony Lumpkin
(then in his seventy-fifth year), with little round body,
flaring eye, fierce strut, turkey-cock gait, rosy gills,
flaxen wig, blue coat, shining buttons, white vest, black
silk stockings and smalls, bright polished shoes, silver
buckles, and (summer and winter) blooming and fragrant
bouquet! received us at the door, with his comic treble! The
meeting was cordial and welcome. No man than Quick was a
greater enthusiast in his art, or more inquisitive of what
was doing in the theatrical world. Of Ned Shuter he spoke in
terms of unqualified admiration, as an actor of the broadest
humour the stage had ever seen; and of Edwin, as a
surpassing Droll, with a vis comica of extraordinary power.
He considered Tom Weston, though in many respects a glorious
actor, too rough a transcript of nature, and Dodd (except in
Sir Andrew Ague-cheek, which he pronounced a master-piece of
fatuity,) too studied and artificial. He could never account
for Garrick's extreme partiality for Woodward, (David
delighted to act with him,) whose style was dry and hard;
his fine gentleman had none of the fire, spirit, and
fascination of Lewis; it was pert, snappish, and not a
little ill-bred; but his Bobadil and Pa-rolles were
inimitable. He declared the Sir Fretful Plagiary of his
guest equal to the best thing that Parsons ever did; yet
Parson's Old Doiley was for ever on his lips, and “Don't go
for to put me in a passion, Betty!” was his favourite tag,
when mine hostess of the King's Head, Islington, put too
much lime in his punch. He thought King the best prologue-
speaker of his time. In characters of bluff assurance and
quaint humour--Brass, Trappanti, Touchstone, &c.--he had no
superior. Garrick was his idol! His sitting-room was hung
round with engravings of him in Drugger, Richard, Sir John
Brute, Kitely, cheek-by-jowl with himself in Sancho, Tony
Lumpkin, “Cunning Isaac,” Spado, &c. The time too swiftly
passed in these joyous reminiscences. Quick promised to
return the visit, but increasing infirmities forbade the
pleasant pilgrimage; and soon after he became the Quick and
the dead!
Our last visit to Mr. Mathews at Kentish Town was in March,
1833. “'Tis agony point with me just now,” he writes. “I
have been scribbling from morning till night for three
weeks.
I am hurried with my entertainment: my fingers are cramped
with writing; and on my return, I find twenty-five letters,
at least, to answer. I shall be at home Tuesday and
Wednesday; can you come up? Do. Very sincerely yours, in a
gallop, Charles Mathews.--P.S. It will be your last chance
of seeing my gallery here” We accepted the invitation, and
spent a delightful day.
What more than a hasty glance can we afford the Wild Indian Warriors;
the Enchanted Skeleton; Comical Joe on his Piggy-Wiggy; the Canadian
Giantess; Toby, the sapient pig; the learned goose; * Doncaster Dick,
the great; Mr. Paap, ** Sieur Borawliski, Thomas Allen, and Lady Morgan
the little; the wonderful child (in spirits) with two heads, three legs,
and four arms (“no white leather, but all real flesh”); the Bonassus,
“whose fascinating powers are most wonderful.” the Chinese Swinish
Philosopher (a rival of Toby!).
* “It tells us the time of day; the day of the month; the
month of the year; takes a hand at whist; and (the
profundity of this goose's intellects!) counts the number of
ladies and gentleman in the room.”
** Mr. Simon Paap was the most diminutive of dwarfs, not
excepting Jeffery Hudson, and the “Little Welchman” who, in
1752, advertised his thirty inches at sixpence a-head. Simon
measured but twenty-eight inches, and weighed only twenty-
seven pounds. Count Borawliski was three feet three inches
high; so was Thomas Allen. Lady Morgan, the “Windsor Fairy,”
was a yard high. Her Ladyship and Allen were thus be-rhymed
by some Bartlemy Fair bard:
“The lady like a fairy queen,
The gentleman of equal stature;
O how curious these dear creatures!
Little bodies! little features!
Hands, feet, and all alike so small,
How wondrous are the works of nature!”
Mrs. Samwell's voltigeurs on the slack-wire, and Tyrolesian stilts; the
Spotted Negro Boy; Hokee Pokee; the learned dog near-sighted, and in
spectacles; the Red Barn Tragedy, and Corder's * execution “done to
the life!” the Indian Jugglers; the Reform Banquet; Mr. Haynes, the
fire-eater; ** the Chinese Conjuror, who swallows fifty needles, which,
after remaining some time in his throat, are pulled out threaded; the
chattering, locomotive, laughing, lissom, light-heeled Flying
Pieman; and the diverting humours of Richardson's clown, Rumfungus
Hook-umsnoolcumwalkrisky? This ark of oddities *** must
“Come like shadows, so depart.”
* A countryman from Hertford, being in the gallery of Covent
Garden Theatre, at the tragedy of Macbeth, and hearing
Duncan demand of Malcolm,
“Is execution done on Cawdor?” exclaimed, “Yes, your honour?
he was hanged this morning.”
** June 7, 1821 at the White Conduit House, Islington, Mons.
Chabert, after a luncheon of phosphorus, arsenic, oxalic
acid, boiling oil, and molten lead, walked into a hot oven,
preceded by a leg of lamb and a rumpsteak. On the two last,
when properly baked, the spectators dined with him. An
ordinary most extraordinary! Some wags insinuated that, if
the Salamander was not “done brown,” his gulls were!
*** The following account of Bartlemy Fair receipts, in
1828, may be relied on:--Wombwell's Menagerie, 1700L.;
Atkins' ditto, 1000L.; and Richardson's Theatre, 1200L.; the
price of admission to each being sixpence. Morgan's
Menagerie, 150L.; admission threepence. Balls, 80L.;
Ballard, 89L.; Keyes, 20L.; Frazer, 26L.; Pikey 40L.; Pig-
faced Lady, 150L.; Corder s Head, 100L.; Chinese Jugglers,
50L.; Fat
Boy and Girl, 140L.; Salamander, 30L.; Diorama Navarin,
60L.; Scotch Giant, 201. The admission to the last twelve
shows varied from twopence to one halfpenny.
Mr. Titlepage. With a little love, murder, larceny, and lunacy, Mr.
Bosky, your monsters with two heads would cut capital figures on double
crow
Mr. Crambo. If I had their drilling and dovetailing, a pretty episode
should they make to my forthcoming Historical Romance of Mother
Brown-rigg! I've always a brace of plots at work, an upper and an under
one, like two men at a saw-pit! Indeed, so horribly puzzled was I how to
get decently over the starvation part of my story, till I hit upon the
notable expedient of joining Mrs. B. in holy matrimony to a New Poor
Law Commissioner, that it was a toss-up whether I hanged myself or my
heroine! That union happily solemnised, and a few liberal drafts upon
Philosophical Necessity, by way of floating capital, my plots, like
Johnny Gilpin's wine-bottles, hung on each side of my Pegasus, and
preserved my equipoise as I galloped over the course!
By suspending the good lady's suspension till the end of vol. three (I
don't cut her down to a single one), the interest is never suffered to
drop till it reaches the New one. Or, as I'm doing the Newgate Calendar,
(I like to have two strings to my bow!) what say you, gents? if, in my
fashionable novel of Miss Blandy (the Oxford lass, who popped off in her
pumps for dosing--“poison in jest!”--her doting old dad,) St. Bartlemy
and his conjurors were made to play first fiddle! D' ye think, friend
Merripall, you could rake me up from your rarities a sketch of Mother
Brownrigg coercing her apprentices? (There I am fearfully graphic! You
may count every string in the lash, and every knot in the string!)
A print of her execution? (There I melt Jack Ketch, and dissolve the
turnkeys.) Or, an inch of the identical twine (duly attested by the
Ordinary!) that compressed the jugular of Miss Mary?
Mr. Merripall. I promise you all three, Mr. Crambo. Let the flogging and
the finishing scene be engraved in mezzotinto, and the rope in line.
Uncle Timothy. Many years since I accompanied my old friend, Charles
Lamb, to Bartholomew Fair. It was his pet notion to explore the
droll-booths; perchance to regale in the “pens:” indeed, had roast pig
(“a Chinese and a female,” dredged at the critical moment, and done till
it crackled delicately,) continued one of its tit-bits, he had bargained
for an ear! “In spirit a lion, in figure a lamb,” the game of jostling
went on merrily; and when the nimble fingers of a chevalier dindustrie
found their way into his pocket, he remarked that the poor rogue only
wanted “change.” As little heeded he the penny rattles scraped down
his back, and their frightful harmony dinned in his ears. Of a black
magician, who was marvellously adroit with his daggers and gilt balls,
he said, “That fellow is not only a Negro man, sir, but a necromancer!”
He introduced himself to Saunders, whose fiery visage and scarlet
surtout looked like Monmouth Street in a blaze! and the showman
suspended a threatened blast from his speaking-trumpet to bid him
welcome. A painted show-cloth announced in colossal capitals that a
twoheaded cow was to be seen at sixpence a head.
Elia inquired if it meant at per our heads or the cow's? On another was
chalked “Ladies and gentlemen, two-pence; servants, one penny.11 Elia
subscribed us the exhibitors “most obedient servants,” posted our
plebeian pence, and passed in. We peeped into the puppet-shows; paid our
respects to the wild animals; visited Gyngell and Richardson; patronised
(“nobly daring!”) a puff of the Flying Pieman's; and, such was his wild
humour, all but ventured into a swing! This was a perilous joke! His
fragile form canted out, and his neck broken! Then the unclassical
evidence of the Bartlemy Fair folk at the “Crowner's quest.” What a
serio-comic chapter for a posthumous edition of Elia's Last Essays!
Three little sweeps luxuriating over a dish of fried sausages caught his
eye. This time he would have his way! We entered the “parlour” and on
a dingy table-cloth, embroidered with mustard and gravy, were quickly
spread before us, “hissing hot,” some of “the best in the fair.” His
olfactory organs hinted that the “odeur des graillons” which invaded
them was not that of Monsieur Ude; still he inhaled it heroically,
observing that, not to argue dogmatically, yet categorically speaking,
it reminded him of curry. “Lunch time with us,” quoth Elia, “is past,
and dinner-time not yet come,” and he passed over the steaming dish to
our companions at the _table d'hote_, with a kind welcome, and a winning
smile. They stared, grinned, and all three fell to. We left them to
their enjoyments; but not before Elia had slipped a silver piece into
their little ebony palms. A copious libation to “rare Ben Jonson”
concluded the day's sports. I never beheld him happier, more full of
antique reminiscences, and gracious humanity.
“The peace of heaven,
The fellowship of all good souls go with him!”
Uncle Timothy rose to retire.
“One moment, sir,” said the Lauréat; “we have not yet had Mr.
Flumgarten's song.”?
“My singing days, Cousin Bosky, are over,” replied the ill-matched hubby
of the “Hollyhock;”
“but, if it please the company, I will tell them a tale.”