|Railly, Master Jackimo, I'm quite ashamed on your laziness! you only
gits up to lie down, and only lies down to git up! and, instead of
making your bow to the ladies and gentlemen, and holding out your cap to
catch the coppers, you are everlastingly a-doing o' nuffin but pulling
up your shirt-collar, and cracking o' nuts. Havn't I treated you more
like a relation than a monkey--giving you the best of advice? But if
ever I find you at your old fun ag'in, as sure as my name's Blinking
Billy, _I'll take off your goold scarlet waistcoat!_”
This was addressed by an itinerant musician, in a shocking bad hat, with
a garnish of old red cotton nightcaps, to his mendicant monkey, that
he had perched upon _Whittington's Stone_ for the purpose of taking him
more conveniently to task.
The offender was of a grave aspect, with a remarkably knowing look.
He was dressed _en militaire_, with an old-fashioned scarlet waistcoat
embroidered with tinsel, of which he seemed monstrously vain. He
listened with becoming seriousness to the musician's expostulation,
slyly reserving in the corner of his jaw a nut that he deferred to crack
till opportunity should offer. But at the threat of losing his _red
waistcoat_, he gibbered, chattered, and by every species of pantomimical
begging and bowing, promised future amendment.
Had not the mind of Uncle Timothy been too much occupied with recent
events, he would have scraped acquaintance with monkey and man, who were
evidently eccentrics, and Uncle Tim was a lover of eccentricity.
The moment that the monkey spied a customer, he began his work of
reformation, by jumping off the stone, running the full tether of
his chain, making a graceful bow, and holding out his cap for a
contribution. His politeness was rewarded with sixpence from Uncle
Timothy, and an approving word from his master; and the middle-aged
gentleman, serenaded by a passing grind from the barrel-organ, walked
slowly on.
A caravansary of exhibitors bound to Bartholomew Fair had halted at
Mother Red Cap's, * an ancient hostelrie at the foot of Highgate Hill.
Although weary and parched with thirst, Uncle Timothy might probably
have journeyed onward, had not the “beck'ning ghost” of jovial John.
* Mother Red Cap, doubtless an emanation from Elinour
Rumming, was a favourite sign during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, and the black Jack that she held in
her hand was a symbol of good ale. Two ancient hostelries
still bear her prepossessing effigy: one in the Hampstead
Road, near Kentish Town; and one at Holloway. It is said
that a remarkable shrew, Mother Damnable, of Kentish town,
(of whom the late Mr. Bindley had an unique engraving,) gave
rise to the former sign. This ill-favoured lady looks more
like a witch than an ale-wife. She would have frightened her
customers out of the house, and their horses out of the
stable! We are inclined to give the palm of priority to the
venerable red-capped mother at Holloway, who must have been
moderately notorious in the time of Drunken Barnaby, when he
halted to regale himself at her portal.
“Thence to Holloway, Mother Red-cap
In a troop of trulls I did hap;
Wh--s of Babylon me impalled,
And me their Adonis called;
With me toy'd they, buss'd me, cull'd me,
But being needy, out they pulled me.”
Backster, * flitting in the evening grey, motioned him, in imagination,
to enter.
[Illustration: 0236]
He made his way to the low-roofed side parlour, where were assembled
a troop of showmen and conjurors. One fellow was busily employed in
shaving a baboon, ** which he intended to exhibit as a fairy; and
another was rasping the rough chin of a muzzled bear, that bore the
operation with exemplary patience, sitting in an arm-chair, dressed in
a check waiscoat and trowsers, in his professional character of an
Ethiopian savage!
* John Backster kept the Mother Red Cap at Holloway in 1667.
We are in possession of his very curious and rare Token, on
the right side of which is engraved Mother Red Cap holding a
Black Jack, with his initials of “J. B. His Half Peny:* and
on the reverse, “John Backster, att-the Mother Read-Capp in
hollway, 1667.”
** The baboon and the monkey were popular drolls in ancient
times. The following lines occur in a work called “Ayres or
Phantasticke Sprites for three Voices,” published by Thomas
Weelkes, “Batchelar of Musicke,” 1608.
“The ape, the monkey, and baboon did meet,
And breaking of their fast in Friday Street;
Two of them sware together solemnly
In their three natures was a sympathy.
'Nay,' quoth Baboon, 'I do deny that strain,
I have more knavery in me than you twain.'
“'Why,' quoth the Ape,
'I have a horse at will
In Paris Garden, for to ride on still,
And there show trieks.'--
'Tush,' quoth the Monkey,
'I For better trieks in great men's houses lie.'
'Tush!' quoth Baboon; 'when men do know I come,
For sport from town and country they will run.'”
A conjuror was looking at a large dragon-fly through a magnifying glass,
to see how it would pass off for the great high German higher-flighter;
and the proprietor of an aviary was supplying a young blackbird with an
artificial comb and wattles of red velvet, to find a customer for him as
the great cocky, or olla bird of the desert. A showman was mending the
fractured bridge of Mr. Punch's nose, while his stage-manager tried a
new tail on the devil. *
* In some of the old plays the devil was dressed in a black
suit, painted with flames, and made to shine. “Let the devil
wear black for me, I'll have a suit of sables,” says Hamlet.
In the mysteries and moralities of an earlier date, he was
decorated with a hairy dress, like a wild beast.
The master of the monster tea-kettle, who had recently been “up the
spout,” was tricking out his red-haired, strapping Dulcinea with
peacocks' feathers, bits of stained glass, catskins, strips of coloured
leather, and teaching her to sing some unintelligible gibberish, for the
purpose of extracting from the Bartholomew Fair gulls a penny for the
prodigious sight of a real wild Indian. A mermaid was in process of
completion; a dog was practising a minuet, to see how his fifth leg
fitted him; a learned pig * was going through his lesson in numbers and
cards; a cat of extraordinary intelligence was feeding a kitten
with starch, to make it stand upright; and a monkey instructing an
intellectual goose how to carry a pair of miniature milkpails.
* The earliest account that we have seen of a learned pig is
in an old Bartholomew Fair hill, issued by Mr. Conjuror
Fawkes, which exhibits the portrait of the swinish pundit
holding a paper in his mouth, with the letter Y inscribed
upon it. This “most amazing pig,” which had a particularly
curly tail, was the pattern of docility and sagacity: the
“Pig of Knowledge, Being the only one ever taught in
England.” He was to be visited “at a Commodious Room, at the
George, West-Smithfield, During the time of the Fair and the
spectators were required to “See and Believe!” Three-pence
was the price of admission to behold “This astonishing
animal” perform with cards, money, and watches, &c. &c. The
bill concludes with the following apotheosis to the pig.
“A learned pig in George's reign,
To Æsop's brutes an equal boast;
Then let mankind again combine,
To render friendship still a toast.”
Stella said that Swift could write sublimely upon a
broomstick. Who ever, as the Methodists say, better
“improved” a pig? Except by roasting it! In 1732, Mr. Fawkes
exhibited a “learned goose” opposite the George Inn, West-
Smithfield.
A poetical licensed victualler had just painted on his board, which was
emblazoned with the sign of the Griffin and
Hoop, the following lines in capitals,
“I, John Stubbs lyveth hear,
Sels goode Brandy, Gin, and Bere,
I maid mi borde a leetle whyder,
To let you nowe I sels goode Syder:”
the lines, like the liquors, being composed by the said John Stubbs!
A giant, * well padded out, was adding some inches to his stature by a
pair--
* Giants have been “At Home” not at fairs only. Og, King of
Bashan, was more than twelve English feet in height. Goliah
was about nine feet nine inches high--or eleven feet,
according to some commentators. The Emperor Maximinus is
said to have been nine feet. Turner, the naturalist,
mentions having seen on the Brazil coast a race of gigantic
savages, one of whom measured twelve feet! And Monsieur
Thevet, in his description of America, published at Paris in
1575,
declares that he saw and measured the skeleton of a South
American, which was eleven feet five inches in length. Die-
merbroeek saw at Utreeht a well-proportioned living man,
measuring eight feet six inches; and Dr. Becamus was
introduced to a youth who was nearly nine feet high; a man
almost ten feet, and a woman quite ten feet. The Patagonians
have been represented as a nation of giants. The
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society contain
accounts of skeletons dug up in England, measuring eight and
nine feet in length, which probably were Roman. In the
forty-first and forty-second volumes of the same work are
two engravings taken from an os front is and an os
bregmatis, the former of which is reckoned to have belonged
to a person between eleven and twelve feet high; the latter
to a giant of thirteen feet four inches. Walter Parsons,
porter to King James the First, was seven feet seven inches
in stature. The Chinese would have us believe that they
possess giants fifteen feet high. More of these prodigies
hereafter.
--of German hogloshes, with extra high heels; a fresh water sailor, with
one eye, and one leg, had a seal that exhaled an odour “most ancient
and fish-like a ballad-singer was whitening his head with chalk, * and
several poor Italian boys, with tortoises, squirrels, monkeys, and
white mice, were jabbering away their _patois_ in a corner with great
animation.
* Powdering the hair is supposed to have taken its rise in
modern Europe from some ballad singers at the fair of St.
Germain's in 1614, whitening their heads to make themselves
ludicrous!
One lively little fellow, the lion of the party, with brilliant black
eyes, ivory teeth, and a dark brown complexion, tinged with the bright
warmth of an Italian sun, who bore on his shoulder a frolicksome
marmoset * that he had been teaching to leap through a hoop, amused his
companions with a ditty that he had picked up on his journey hither from
the pleasant valleys of his father-land.
[Illustration: 0241]
* The custom of bearing an ape on the shoulder at country
fairs, &c. is very ancient. Ben Jonson makes the following
allusion to it in his Masque of Gypsies:
“A gypsy in his shape,
More calls the beholder,
Than the fellow with the ape,
Or the ape on his shoulder”
The person of Uncle Timothy was imposing; and the superfine broad cloth
and brass buttons of Mr. Rumfit had invested it with a magisterial
character that caused a sudden movement among the exhibitors when he
entered their sanctorum. But the middle-aged gentleman soon convinced
them that he was a man of humanity, and no magistrate; which quieted
the alarms of both men and monkeys; and so gracious were his looks and
demeanour, that the shaved bear, which had viewed him with scowling
distrust, no longer kept aloof, but proffered his shaggy paw for a
shake. At this moment the lecturing musician entered the room, and
Jackimo, recognising his benefactor, jumped from the organ, ran up
to him, doffed his cap, and made his best bow! Uncle Timothy and his
company being now upon terms, he ordered in biscuits for the monkeys,
and buns for the bears; not forgetting some nuts for his friend, who
waited for the musician's nod before he cracked one of them. He then
inquired of the bear-ward what his four-footed companion would like
to drink? Upon which the keeper consulted his oracle, and received
for reply, that a jug of homebrewed, with a toast and sugar, would be
supremely acceptable! Uncle Timothy started, conceiving Bruin to have
suddenly become possessed of Balaam's miraculous quality: but the
mystery was soon explained; the keeper being a ventriloquist, and this
one of his Bartlemy Fair tricks.
“Pray gentlemen,” said Uncle Timothy, “by what means do you make these
animals so apprehensive and docile? I fear there is some cruelty in the
case.”
“No cruelty at all, good sir,” replied the lecturing musician, who was
the organ of the company.
“It is your Smithfield drovers and butchers as is cruel! We don't larn
our hanimals to dance on red-hot iron plates, as our aunt's sisters
(ancestors?) did. Now that 'ere monkey o' mine; never was sich a wain
little cove! It costes me a fortin in starch to stiffen his shirt
collars; and if any on'em is in the least limp, my wig! he chatters,
grins, and gies himself all the airs and graces of a fine lady.
Sometimes I larn him his dooty by long lessons and short commons;
sometimes I threatens--only threatens!--(but that in your honour's
ear, for he's a-listening all the while!) to tip him monkey's allowance
(shaking ferociously a very thin cane); but when I want to touch his
feelings, I says, 'Jackimo, you're a good-for-nuffin little monster, and
I'll walk off your _red waistcoat!_'”
“But the monkey and the bear, how relish they the razor?”
“Kindly, sir, kindly!” replied the Bruin shaver. “At first my old
feller was summut rough and ugly; his beard turned the hedges of three
oyster-knives afore I could trim him into a gentleman. But now he sees
the advantage on it. _Don't you, my daisy?_”
The bear, after the fashion of the Irish echo, was made to ventriloquise
in a growl, gruffly, “_I does, my tulip!_”
The several rehearsals being over, and all things put in order for
their approaching campaign, the exhibitors were about to depart, when
it occurred to Uncle Timothy that he had not paid his footing for being
admitted behind the scenes. He addressed the real wild Indian, and
begged her to call for what best pleased her palate; which call
resolved itself into a rasher on the coals, a rummer of nutbrown, and a
thimblefull of brandy to keep off the spasms. She was then escorted
to her tea-kettle, and put under cover for the night. The bear and the
monkey having been similarly disposed of, their respective shavers made
merry with the rest of the show-folk. Uncle Timothy took the little
Italian boys under his care, and feasted them plenteously. At this
moment a _rival_ tea-kettle drew up, with a caravan in the rear.
“Pray, madam,” said a tragedy queen, peeping through a bit of ragged
green curtain that depended before the entrance to the tea-kettle, to a
dwarf in the caravan, “do you put up at Mother Red Cap's?”
* This old house, fronting the fields at Hoxton, was
formerly a noted place of resort for the Finsbury archers.
Sir William D'Avenant, in his “Long Vacation in London,”
says of the proctors and attorneys,
“Each with solemn oath agree
To meet in Fields of Finsburie;
With loynes in canvas bow-case tyde,
Where arrowes stick with mickle pride;
With hats pinn'd up, and bow in hand,
All day most fiercely there they stand,
Like ghosts of Adam Bell and Clymme,
Sol sets for fear they'll shoot at him.”
A stray Toxopholite may now and then be seen at the Robin
Hood, stringing his bow, and dreaming of the 'merry days
that are past. Underneath the ancient sign is the following
inscription.
“Ye archers bold, and yeomen good,
Stop, and drink with Robin Hood;
If Robin Hood is not at home,
Stop, and drink with Little John.”
“Not I, madam,” responded the Lilliputian lady; “I stops at the Robin
Hood * at merry Hoxton; * none but the _lower orders_ stops at Mother
Red Cap's!”
[Illustration: 0246]
And the caravan moved on as fast as the wall-eyed anatomy of a Rosinante
could drag it.
* Thomas Dale, Drawer at the Crown Tavern at Aldgate, kept
the Turk's Head Musiek-Booth in Smithfield-Rounds, over-
against the Greyhound Inn, during the time of Bartholomew
Fair (temp. W. 3rd), where he exhibited Scaramouch dances
and drolls, and “the Merry Cuckolds of Hogsden!” It is
stated in the Henslowe papers, deposited in the archives of
Dulwich College, that Ben Jonson killed Gabriel Spencer, a
fellow actor, in a duel fought in Hoxton Fields.
The rival tea-kettle poured out part of its contents in the person of
a long, lean man, with all his limbs rambling; no way reduceable to
compass, unless you doubled him up like a pocket-rule. His wardrobe was
illustrative of Jew frippery and Rag-Fair tawdry. He was tricked out
in the relics of a ci-devant shirt; his coat was a patchwork quilt, his
waistcoat and pantaloons were the sign of the chequers, an escutcheon
quartering all the colours of the rainbow.
“In his hand
A box he bore, wherein the pungent dust
Of Dutch rapee, in gaudy state reclin'd.
Oft would he ope the lid, and oft immerge
His fingers,”
for the purpose of exciting an agreeable titillation in a very sharp
nose, that blushed like a corn-poppy.
“A glass of cold water, warm without sugar, Lady Teazle? or a strip of
white satin and bitters, my Belvidera? A pint of half-and-half in the
pewter, my Calista? or a tumbler of cold without, Mrs. Longbow?”
“D'ye think, Mr. Bigstick, I'm a rhinoscheros, a river-oss, or a
crocodile? Order me a pot of hot coffee and buttered toast; and mind,
Mr. Bigstick, let it be buttered on _both_ sides.”
This dialogue was carried on between the long lean man and an invisible
sharp-voiced personage in the tea-kettle.
“Coffee and toast for the tea-kettle,” shouted the waiter.
“How many?” demanded mine host.
“Four. Lady Teaser, Belvideary, Miss Cannister, and Mrs. Longbow.”
“_Mort de ma vie!_” ejaculated the long lean man. “For one!--In the
Tumbletuzzy all these characters are combined. And, _garçon_, bring me a
basin of tea and a--biscuit.”
The frugal refection was laid before the lean man. “Cat-lap base!”
he muttered, swallowing the scalding hot bohea, that was strongly
impregnated with Sir Hugh Middleton, and champing the dry biscuit.
“Another round of toast for Lady Teaser!”
“Buttered on _both_ sides,” growled the lean man, sarcastically; and he
began to number with his skinny fingers, as if counting the cost.
Uncle Timothy was the last person in the world to flout a threadbare
coat, because it is threadbare, or take a man for a sharper because he
happens to be sharp-witted or sharp-set. Your full-fed fool he thought
quite as likely to have nefarious designs on his purse, as the hungry
humorist who at once lets you into the secret of his starvation. If he
be deserving as well as poor, it was gratifying to Uncle Tim that he had
made honest poverty forget its privations for a season; and should he
prove a shirking idler on the _pavé_--, he had not been taken in at any
vast expense. Reflections like these crossed his mind--and he left the
room.
On his return, he found the lean man still counting with his fingers.
Presently the waiter spread the table with a snow-white cloth; the
clattering of knives and forks, plates and spoons, roused the lean man
from his reverie; he gazed wistfully at the preparations, and looked
thrice famished.
There is a story of a tyrant, who, to add to the natural torments of
starvation, caused a roast chicken to be suspended every day before
the prison bars of his victim, until he expired. Just such a tormentor,
unwittingly, was Uncle Timothy. For the _garçon_ again appeared, bearing
a dish of broiled ham and poached eggs, the sight and aroma of which
seared the eye-balls and tantalised the pinched nostrils of the lean
man. At the same moment, “Another round for Lady Teaser!” tolled a
twopenny knell in his ears.
“My friend not arrived yet?” said Uncle Timothy.
“No, sir,” replied the _garçon_ slyly, but respectfully.
“Let him pay, then, for his want of punctuality. I wait for nobody. Will
_you_, sir,” politely addressing the lean man, “do me the favour to
be my guest? Though I have ordered supper for two, I cannot command
appetite for two.”
The lean man stared irresolutely at Uncle Timothy. Hunger and Pride were
at fisticuffs; but Hunger hit pride such a blow in the stomach, that
Pride gave up the contest.
And how gracefully did the middle-aged gentleman play the host! inviting
his guest (though little invitation was needed) with the kindest words,
and helping him to the daintiest morsels. And it was not until
this supper-out of the first lustre had fully indulged his eating
propensities, and cleared the board, that he found leisure to look up
from his plate, and contemplate the execution he had done. But when a
cauliflower-wigged tankard of stout crowned the repast, he pressed it
with ecstasy to his lips, and sang joyously--
Porter! drink for noble souls!
Raise the foaming tankard high I
Water drink, you water think--
So said Johnson--so say I!
Let me take a Dutchman's draught--
Ha I--I breathe!--a glorious pull!
Malt and hops are British drops--
_Froth for Frenchmen! Stout for Bull!_
If you ask why Britons fight
Till they conquer or they die?--
Their stout is strong, their draughts are long--
Now you know the reason why.
“Lady Teaser is quite ready, sir,” said the _garçon_, hurriedly.
“Give my respectful compliments to Lady Teazle, and tell her ladyship
that I'll kiss her superlative 'pickers and stealers' in 'the twinkling
of a bed-post.'”
The _garçon_ made another precipitate entry, with “The tea-kettle can't
wait, sir!”
“A fico for the tea-kettle! It must!--it shall! With three rounds of
toast buttered on _both_ sides, and coffee _à discretion_, hath the
Tumbletuzzy been magnificently regaled--['Marriage is chargeable!')--and
shall I not take mine ease in mine inn? Your banquet, sir, hath warmed
the cockles of my heart, and made my hair curl!--
When a gentleman's stomach lacks dainty fare, (Singing)
And “Cupboard I Cupboard!” it croaks in his ear,
He rejoices, i'feggs! when bacon and eggs
' Smoke on the board, with a tankard of beer.
Without much ado, his teeth fall to,
The delicate viands vanish from view;
O'er a glass of good liquor
His heart beats the quicker,
And he drinks to his kind host, as I drink to you.
There's my card--(presenting a bill of the performances)--'Bonassus
Bigstick, Esq. Bartholomew Fair.' I'll put you on our free list,
which to all the world, but yourself and the public press, shall be
unavoidably suspended! Ha!”--(scenting a rummer of hot punch that the
_garçon_ placed before him)--“'brandy for heroes!' Welcome, old friend!
for a' langsyne. Yet what is punch without a song? A clerk without
a Cocker; a door without a knocker; a ship without a sailor; a goose
without a tailor; a rhyme without a riddle; a bow without a fiddle; a
priest without a pulpit; a stage without a full pit!--As you, sir,
have been instrumental to my entertainment, let me be vocal for yours!
_Omnibus tulip punctum_, as we say in the classics!--I'll give you
an undress rehearsal of one of my crack songs for _tomorrow_ at Saint
Bartlemy.
All the world's a stage, the men and women actor folks,
Very, very tragical, or very full of fun.
Nature, in a merry mood, on some has, quizzing, crack'd
her jokes;
And Mr. Dicky Dunderhead of Dunstable is one.
Ranting, tearing, stamping, staring; Whiskerandos, Do mine;
Now he courts the comic muse, then ogles at Melpo mene;
His funny eyes, funny mouth, funny chin, and funny
nose,
So queerly tool'd, are good as goold--and Dick the worth
of money knows!
Punch's scions, see the lions! Bartlemy, come startle
me!
Ladies and gentlemen, walk in, walk in!
Shyloçk the Jew, the Brigand, and the Blackymoor,
Nigger parlous! killing Carlos on his wedding-day;
As Mother Cole, the canting soul, he drinks a drop of
Jacky more;
As Hamlet proud, he bellows loud, and scares the
ghost away!
The pit and box to sticks and stocks his acting surely
turn'em would,
When by the train to Dunsinane comes in a gallop
Birnam Wood.
“Avaunt i you fright, and quit my sight I a stool there's
not, my trump, any;
I'll thank'e, Banky, for your room! Old Nick may have
your company!”
Punch's scions, see the lions! Bartlemy, come startle
me!
Ladies and gentlemen, walk in, walk in!
With Pantaloon and Columbine he skips, trips, and frisks
along;
Round his head spins like a top as fast as it can go:
Now he twirls his magic sword, whacks the clown, and
whisks along,
Dances on his head and hands, and jumps Jim Crow.
In his jazey, crack'd and crazy, very queer in Lear he is;
And quite as queer telling Pierre how dear his Belvi-
deary is!
“A horse! my kingdom for a horse!” if legs he can but
go on two--
Another bring--twice two is four--and, like Ducrow,
I'll crow on two.
Punch's scions, see the lions! Bartlemy, come startle
me!
Ladies and gentlemen, walk in, walk in!
O, Mr. Dunderhead; is it to be wonder-ed,
Old chap, you let Miss Capulet make love to you till
dawn?
'For when you play'd at Dunstable, and overrun the
constable,
The ladies would have pledged their hearts to take you
out of pawn.
Among the stars of Smithfield bars you'll stick so fiery
off indeed,
The deuce a bit of goose you'll get, or “Nosey! off!” *
or cough, indeed;
And if in fun for number one folks think to spend a
penny fit,
They'll come and see you off a tree the bark grin, at
your benefit.
Punch's scions, see the lions! Bartlemy, come startle
me!
Ladies and gentlemen, walk in, walk in!
* About the year 1775, there was a performer on the violin-
cello in the orchestra of Drury Lane Theatre, named
Cervetti, to whom the gods had given the appropriate
nickname of Nosey, from his enormous staysail, that helped
to carry him before the wind. “Nosey!” shouted from the
galleries, was the signal, or word of command for the
fiddlers to strike up. This man was originally an Italian
merchant of good repute; but failing in business, he came
over to England, and adopted music for a profession. He had
a notable knack of loud yawning, with which he sometimes
unluckily filled up Garrick's expressive pauses, to the
infinite annoyance of little Davy, and the laughter of the
audience. In the summer of 1777 he played at Vauxhall, at
the age of ninety-eight.
The Lauréat of Little Britain must have had just such
another Nose in his eye when he wrote the following.
That Roman Nose! that Roman Nose!
Has robb'd my bosom of repose;
For when in sleep my eyelids close,
It haunts me still, that Roman Nose!
Between two eyes as black as sloes
The bright and flaming ruby glows;
That Roman Nose! that Roman Nose!
And beats the blush of damask rose.
I walk the streets, the alleys, rows;
I look at all the Jems and Joes;
And old and young, and friends and foes,
But cannot find a Roman Nose!
Then blessed be the day I chose
That nasal beauty of my beau's;
And when at last to heaven I goes,
I hope to spy his Roman Nose!
The tea-kettle boiled over with rage, and demanded imperiously the
immediate presence of the lean man.
“Who calls on Bigstick? As the Tumbletuzzy will brook no longer delay,
'I hold it fit that we shake hands and part.'
'To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,' you will find me at the Fair.
I shall expect your promised visit.
'Adieu, adieu, adieu, remember me!'”
At this moment old blind Sally, who for more than half a century has
played her way through Highgate, Holloway, and merry Islington, *
tuned her hurdy-gurdy, and ground the lean man triumphantly into his
tea-kettle.
* “Islington, March 2O, 1698. This day here were lamentable
doings. O! in what a sad fright and consternation were the
Lick-spickets of this plaee; upon the suddain and unexpected
appearance of the ferreters of Fuddling-schools all were put
into a hurry and confusion, the men were forced to throw
down their beloved pipes of sotweed, and rudely leave their
pots without a parting kiss; the women and children too,
alas! with tears and sighs, parted with their hot cakes and
custards, before they had half stuffed their stomachs. And
the streets were filled with the mourning mob. Amongst the
rest was a fat red-faced hostess, who, with a loud and
doleful voice, said, 4 Ah! my friends, if this business
holds, I shall certainly be undone. Ah! poor Islington, thou
hast been, time out of mind, the plaee of general rendezvous
for Sunday sots. Thou hast constantly supplied the citizens'
wives and children with cakes, pies, and custards, and art
the chief plaee near the city, for breeding calves and
nursing children. Thou, I say, that hast been a place so
famous, and in such esteem, now to have the richest of thy
inhabitants utterly ruined only for profaning the Sabbath-
day. Alas! the only day we have to get money in. Who will
advise me?'--'Advise you,' said one of her sottish
customers, 'you have kept an ale-house almost thirty years,
to my knowledge, and if you have not got enough by nicking,
frothing, double-scoreing, selling coarse cakes, empty pies,
and nasty custards, to keep you now you are old, e'en go to
your old master, the devil, and let him keep you!”--“The
English Lueian, or Weekly Discoveries of the Witty
Intrigues, Comical Passages, and Remarkable Transactions in
Town and Country, &c. &c.”
The above is a curious picture of an Islington ale-wife in
the olden time. The following account describes a “strange
monster” exhibited at Miles's Music-house at Islington a few
years after, with the comical interlude of the Stuffed
Alligator.
“Some time since there was brought to Miles's Music-house at
Islington, a strange sort of a monster, that does everything
like a monkey, but is not a monkey; mimics man, like a
jackanapes, but is not a jackanapes; jumps upon tables, and
into windows upon all-fours, like a cat, but is not a cat;
does all things like a beast, but is not a beast; does
nothing like a man, but is a man! He has given such
wonderful content to the Butchers of Clare Market, that the
house is every day as full as the Bear Gardens; and draws
the city wives and prentices out of London, much more than a
man hanged in chains. It happened lately upon a holiday,
when honest men walked abroad with their wives and
daughters, to the great consumption of hot buns and bottled
ale, that the fame of this mimick had drawn into the Music-
house as great a crowd of spectators as the notable
performances of Clinch of Barnet ever drew to the theatre.
The Frape being thus assembled in the lower room, and the
better sort being climbed into the gallery, a little
creature, who before walked erect, and bore the image of a
man, transformed himself into a monkey, and began to
entertain the company with such a parcel of pretty pug's
tricks, and mimical actions, that they were all as intent
upon the baboon's vagaries as if a mandrake had been
tumbling through a hoop, or a hobgoblin dancing an antick!
Whilst the eyes and ears of the assembly were thus deeply
engaged, the skin of a large alligator, stuff'd with hay,
hanging within the top of the house, and the rats having
burrowed through the ceiling, could come down at pleasure
and sport upon the back of the monster; one of the
revengeful vermin, to put a trick upon his fellows, who were
enticed by the smell of the hay to creep down the serpent's
throat, his jaws being extended, gnawed the cord in two, and
down comes the alligator with his belly full of rats, upon
the head of the monkey, and laid him sprawling; giving some
of the spectators a wipe with his tail; the rats running out
of his mouth in a wonderful hurry, like so many sailors from
between decks when a ship at midnight has struck upon a
rock!”--“A Pacquet from Will's, 1701.”