|Garrick never introduced a hero upon the scene without a flourish of
trumpets,--nor shall we.
“Bid Harlequino decorate the stage
With all magnificence of decoration--
Giants and giantesses, dwarfs and pigmies,
Songs, dances, music, in their amplest order.
Mimes, pantomimes, and all the mimic motion
Of scene deceptiovisive and sublime!”
For St. Bartholomew makes his first bow in _The Ancient Records of the
Rounds_.
The learned need not be told that a fair was originally a market for
the purchase and sale of all sorts of commodities; and what care the
unlearned for its derivation? For them it suffices that 'tis a market
for fun. Our merry Prior of St. Bartholomew knowing the truth of the
old proverb, that, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” mingled
pastime with business, and put Momus into partnership with Mammon. For
many years they jogged on together, somewhat doggedly, to be sure,
for Momus was a fellow of uproarious merriment; and while Mammon, with
furred gown and gold chain, was weighing atoms and splitting straws,
Momus split the sides of his customers, and so entirely won them over
to his jocular way of doing business, that Mammon was drummed out of the
firm and the fair. But Mammon has had his revenge, by causing Momus to
be confined to such narrow bounds, that his lions and tigers lack space
to roar in, and his giants are pinched for elbow room. * Moreover,
he and his sly bottle-holder, Mr. Cupidity Cant (who from the time
of Prynne to the present has been a bitter foe to good fellowship),
threaten to drive poor Momus out of house and home. Out upon the
ungracious varlets! let them sand their own sugar, ** not ours! and
leave Punch alone.
* The American giant refuses to come over to England this
summer, because the twenty-first of June is not long enough
for him to stand upright in! And the Kentucky dwarf is so
short that he has not paid his debts these five years!
** “Have you sanded the sugar, good Sandy,
And water'd the treacle with care?
Have you smuggled the element into the brandy?”
“Yes, master.”--“Then come in to prayer!”
Let them be content to rant in their rostrums, and peep over their
particular timber, lest we pillory the rogues, and make them peep
through it!
Father Rahére founded the Priory, Hospital, and Church of St.
Bartholomew in Smithfield, at the instigation ['tis said) of the saint
himself, who appeared to him in Rome, whither he had repaired on a
pilgrimage. We learn from the Cottonian MSS. that he “of te hawnted
the Kyng's palice, and amo'ge the noysefull presse of that tumultuous
courte, enforsed hymselfe with jolite and carnal suavité: ther
yn spectaclis, yn metys, yn playes, and other courtely mokkys and
trifyllis, intruding he lede forth the besynesse of alle the daye.” He
was a “pleasant witted gentleman,” and filled the post of minstrel
to King Henry the First, which comprehended musician, improvisatore,
jester, &c.; and Henry the Second granted to the monastery of St.
Bartholomew (of which Rahére was the first prior) the privilege of a
three days' fair for the drapers and clothiers: hence Cloth Fair. His
ashes rest under a magnificent tomb in the church of St. Bartholomew the
Great. This beautiful shrine is still carefully preserved. How different
has been the fate of the desecrated sepulchre of the “moral Gower,”
which the Beetian Borough brawlers would have pounded, with their Ladye
Chapel, to macadamise the road!
“It is worthy of observation,” (says Paul Hentzer, 1598,) “that every
year when the Fair is held, it is usual for the Mayor to ride into
Smithfield, dressed in his scarlet gown, and about his neck is a golden
chain, besides that particular ornament that distinguishes the staple of
the kingdom. He is followed by the Aldermen in scarlet gowns, and a mace
and a cap are borne before him. Where the yearly fair is proclaimed a
tent is placed, and after the ceremony is over the mob begin to wrestle
before them, two at a time, and conquerors are rewarded by them by money
thrown from the tent. After this, a parcel of live rabbits are turned
loose among the crowd, and hunted by a number of boys, with great noise,
&c. Before this time, also, there was an old custom for the _Scholars of
London_ to meet at this festival, at the _Priory of St. Bartholomew_, to
dispute in logic and grammar, and upon a _bank, under a tree, (!)_ the
best of them were rewarded with _bows and silver arrows?_ Bartholomew
Fair, until about 1743, was held a fortnight; and the spacious area of
Smithfield was filled with booths for drolls and interludes, in which
many popular comedians of the time performed, from the merry reign of
Mat Coppinger to the laughing days of Ned Shuter. Sir Samuel Fludyer, in
1762, and Mr. Alderman Bull, (_not John Bull!_) in 1774, enforced some
stringent regulations that amounted almost to an abolition.”
And now, my merry masters! let us take a stroll into the ancient fair
of St. Bartholomew, _vulgo_ Bartlemy, with John Littlewit, the uxorious
proctor; Win-the-fight Littlewit, his fanciful wife; Dame Purecraft, a
painful sister: Zeal-of-the-land Busy, the puritan Banbury man; and our
illustrious cicerone, rare Ben Jonson.
In the year 1614, and long before, one of the most delicious city
dainties was a Bartholomew _roast pig_. * A cold turkey-pie and a glass
of rich malmsey were “creature comforts” not to be despised even by such
devout sons of self-denial as Mr. Zeal-of-the-land Busy, who always
popped in at pudding-time. ** But Bartholomew pig, “a meat that is
nourishing, and may be longed for,” that may be eaten, “very exceeding
well eaten,” but not in a fair, was the _ne plus ultra_ of savoury
morsels: therefore Win-the-fight Little wit, with a strawberry breath,
cherry lips, and apricot cheeks, the better half (not in folly!) of one
of “the pretty wits of Paul's,” shams Abram, and pretends to long for
it, in order to overcome the scruples and qualms of Dame Purecraft and
the Banbury man, who, but for such longing, would have never consented
to her visiting the fair.
* “Now London's Mayor, on saddle new,
Rides to the Fair of Bartlemew;
He twirls his chain, and looketh big,
As if to fright the head of pig,
That gaping lies on every stall.”--Davenant. Shakspere, in
the First Part of King Henry the Fourth, speaks of an ox
being roasted at Bartholomew Fair.
** “I ne'er saw a parson without a good nose,--
But the devil's as welcome wherever he goes.”--Swift.
The Rabbi being called upon by the dame to legalise roast pig, proposes
that it shall be eaten with a reformed mouth, and not after the profane
fashion of feeding; and, that the weak may be comforted, himself will
accompany them to the fair, and eat exceedingly, and prophesy!
Among the minor delicacies of Ursula's * cuisine--Ursula, “uglye of
clieare,” the pig-woman and priestess of St. Bartlemy, “all fire and
fat!”--are tobacco, colt's-foot, bottled-ale, and tripes; and a curious
picture of Smithfield manners is given in her instructions to Mooncalf
to froth the cans well, jog the bottles o' the buttock, shink out the
first glass ever, and drink with all companies.
* “Her face all bowsy,
Comclye crinkled,
Wonderously wrinkled
Like a roste pigges eare,
Brystled Avith here.
Her nose some dele hoked,
And camouslye eroked,
Her skin lose and slacke,
Grained like a saeke
With a croked backe.”--Skelton.
We have an irruption of other popular characters into the fair, all
in high keeping with the time and place:--a costard-monger; a gilt
gingerbread woman; a mountebank; a corn-cutter; a wrestler; a
cut-purse (a babe of booty, or child of the horn-thumb!); a gamester;
a ballad-singer; an “ostler, trade-fallen a roarer (a swash-buckler,
in later times a mohock); puppet-show keepers and watchmen; Bartholomew
Cokes, a natural born fool and squire; Waspe, his shrewder serving-man;
Overdo, a bacchanalian justice; a gang of gypsies, and their
hedge-priest, patriarch of the cut-purses, or Patrico to the A bram men
and their prickers and prancers; and lastly, Mr. Lanthorn Leatherhead, a
supposed caricature of Inigo Jones, with whom Ben Jonson was associated
in some of his magnificent court masques. All these characters exhibit
their humours, and present a living picture of what Bartholomew Fair
was in 1614. We have the exact dress of the flaunting City Madam--a
huge velvet custard, or three-cornered bonnet; for these pretenders
to sanctity not only adorned their outward woman with the garments of
vanity, but were the principal dealers in feathers (another fashionable
part of female dress in the days of Elizabeth and James I.) in the
Blackfriars. All the merchandise of Babylon (i. e. the fair!) is spread
out to our view; Jews-trumps, rattles, mousetraps, penny ballads,
* purses, pin-cases, Tobie's dogs, “comfortable bread,” (spiced
gingerbread,) hobbyhorses, drums, lions, bears, Bartholomew whistling
birds, (wooden toys,) dolls, ** and Orpheus and his fiddle in gin-work!
We have its cant phrases, mendacious tricks, and practical jokes; and
are invited into “a sweet delicate booth,” with boughs, to eat roast
pig with the fire o' juniper and rosemary branches; and “it were great
obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to decline or resist the good
titillation of the famelic sense,” and not enter the gates of the
unclean for once, with the liquorish Rabbi.
* Gifford says, “In Jonson's time, scarcely any ballad was
printed without a woodcut illustrative of its subject. If it
was a ballad of 'pure love,' or of 'good life/ which
afforded no scope for the graphic talents of the Grub Street
Apelles, the portrait of 'good Queen Elizabeth,'
magnificently adorned, with the globe and sceptre, formed no
unwelcome substitute for her loving subjects.”
** The following was the costume of a Bartlemy Fair doll, or
baby:--
“Her petticoat of sattin,
Her gown of crimson tabby,
Laced up before, and spangled o'er,
Just like a Barthol'mew Baby”
The Comedian's Tales; or, Jests, Songs, and Pleasant
Adventures of several Famous Players. 1729.
The sound beating of Justice Overdo, Waspe's elevation of Cokes on
pick-back, and the final confutation of Zeal-of-the-land Busy, complete
the humours of, and give the last finish-ing-touches to this authentic
and curious picture of ancient Bartholomew Fair.
Bravo, Ben Jonson! Not the surly, envious, malignant Ben, but the
rare, _chère_ Bartlemy Fair Ben! the prince of poets! the king of good
fellows! the learned oracle of the Mermaid and the Devil; * the chosen
companion of the gallant Raleigh; the poetical father of many worthy
adopted sons; and, to sum up emphatically thy various excellencies, the
friend, “fellow” and elegiast of Shakspere!
* In the Apollo Room in the Devil Tavern (on the site of
which stands the Banking-house of Messrs. Child,) Ben Jonson
occupied the President's chair, surrounded by the “Erudit i,
urbani, hilares, honesti” of that glorious age. Take his
picture as drawn by Shakerley Marmion, a contemporary
dramatist of some note, and (as Anthony Wood styles him) a
“goodly proper gentleman.”
“The boon Delphic god
Drinks sack, and keeps his Bacchanalia,
And has his incense, and his altars smoking,
And speaks in sparkling prophesies”
His Leges Conviviales were engraved in black marble over the
chimney; and over the door were inscribed the following
verses by the same master-hand.
“Welcome all who lead or follow
To the oracle of Apollo:
Here he speaks out of his pottle,
Or the tripos, his tower bottle;
All his answers are divine,
Truth itself doth flow in wine.
Hang up all the poor hop-drinkers,
Cries old Sim, the king of shinkers;
He the half of life abuses,
That sits watering with the Muses.
Those dull girls no good ean mean us;
Wine--it is the milk of Venus,
And the poet's horse accounted:
Ply it, and you all are mounted.
'Tis the true Phobian liquor,
Cheers the brains, makes wit the quieker;
Pays all debts, cures all diseases,
And at once three senses pleases.
Welcome all who lead or follow
To the oracle of Apollo!”
Such an association of intellectual minds, where worldly
distinctions are unknown, where rank lays down its state,
and genius forgets the inequalities of fortune, is the
highest degree of felicity that human nature can arrive at.
Yes, thou didst behold him face to face! Great and glorious privilege!
Thou his detractor! What a beauteous garland hast thou thrown upon his
tomb! O for the solemn spirit of thy majestic monody, (“Sidney's sister,
Pembroke's mother”) the imagination of thy green “Underwoods,” to sing
of thee, as thou hast sung of him!
The death of James I. (for Jamie was much addicted to sports, and loved
the Puritans, as the Puritans and Lucifer love holy water!) was “a
heavy blow, and a great discouragement” to the nation's jollity: and the
troubles and treasons of the succeeding unhappy reign indisposed men's
hearts to merriment, and turned fair England into a howling wilderness.
Bartholomew Fair in 1641 * exhibits a sorry shadow of its joyous
predecessor--'Tis Fat Jack, mountain of mirth! dwindled into the lean
and slipper'd pantaloon! Zeal-of-the-land Busy had become rampant; and
Dame Ursula, if the old lady yet lived, was most probably a reformed
sister, and purveyor of roast pig to the Rabbi at home!
* “Bartholomew Faire;
Or,
Variety of fancies, where you may find A faire of wares, and
all to please your mind.
With the severall enormityes and misdemeanours which are
there seene and acted. London: Printed for Richard Harper,
at the Bible and Harpe, in Smithfield. 1641.”
As a picture, it wants the vivid colouring of the former great painter.
It seems to have been limned by a wet, or parcel puritan, a dead wall
between pantile and puppet-show! Our first move is into Christ Church
cloisters, “which are hung so full of pictures, that you would take that
place, or rather mistake it, for St. Peter's in Rome. And now, being
arrived through the long walke, to Saint Bartholomew's hospitall,” he
draws a ludicrous picture of a “handsome wench” bartering her good name
for “a moiety of bone-lace; a slight silver bodkin; a hoop-ring, or the
like toye.” Proceeding into the heart of the fair, it becomes necessary
that while one eye is watching the motion of the puppets, the other
should look sharp to the pockets. “Here's a knave in a foole's coat,
with a trumpet sounding, or on a drumme beating, invites you, and would
faine persuade you to see his puppets; there is a rogue like a wild
woodman, or in an antick-ship, like an incubus, desires your company
to view his motion. On the other side, Hocus Pocus, with three yards of
tape, or ribbon in's hand, shews his legerdemaine * to the admiration
and astonishment of a company of cock-oloaches.
* “Legerdemain is an art whereby one may seem to work
wonderful, impossible, and incredible things, by agility,
nimbleness, and slight of hand.
“An adept must be one of an audacious spirit, w'ith a nimble
conveyance, and a vocabulary of cabalistic phrases to
astonish the beholder,--as Hey! Fortuna! Furia! Nunquam
credo I Saturnus, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, &c. &c.
“He must throw himself into such odd gestures as may divert
the eyes of the spectators from a too strict observation of
his manner of conveyance.”
Then follow certain rules for concealing balls and money in
the hand, and other secrets worth knowing to students in the
art and mystery of conjuration. From “The Merry Companion;
or, Delights for the Ingenious. By Richard Neve” (whose
jocular physiognomy, with the exhibition of one of his hocus
pocus tricks, graces the title). 1721.
Amongst these you shall see a grey goose-cap (as wise as the rest)
with a 'what do ye lacke?' in his mouth, stand in his boothe, shaking a
rattle, or scraping on a fiddle, with which children are so taken that
they presently cry out for these fopperies. And all these together make
such a distracted noise that you would think Babel was not comparable
to it. Here there are also your gamesters in action; some turning off
a whimsey, others throwing for pewter, who can quickly dissolve a round
shilling into a three-halfpenny saucer. Long Lane at this time looks
very faire,-and puts on her best cloaths with the wrong side outward,
so turn'd for their better turning off; and Cloth Faire is now in great
request; well fare the ale-houses therein; yet better may a man
fare (but at a dearer rate) in the Pig-market, alias Pasty-nooke, or
Pye-corner, where pigges are al houres of the day on the stalls, piping
hot, and would cry (if they could speak) 'come eat me.'” The chronicler
calls over the coals a “fat greasie hostesse” for demanding an
additional shilling for a pig's head when a lady's longing is in the
case; inveighs against the unconscionable exactions, and excessive
inflammations of reckonings, and concludes with a reiterated and rhyming
caution:--
“Now farewell to the Faire; you who are wise,
Preserve your purses, whilst you please your eyes.” *
The restoration of King Charles II. threw England into a transport of
joy. Falstaff had not more his bellyfull of Ford, than had the nation of
Jack Presbyter. **
* The historian has forgot to describe the wonderful
performances of Francis Battalia, the Stone-Eater.
** “Presbyter is but Jack Priest writ large.”--Milton.
In “The Lord Henry Cromwell's speech to the House, 1658,” he
is made to say: 44 Methinks I hear 'em (the Players) already
crying, thirty years hence at Bartholomew Fair, 'Step in,
and see the Life and Death of brave Cromwell. Methinks I see
him with a velvet eragg about his shoulders, and a little
pasteboard hat on his head, riding a tittup, a tittup to his
Parliament House, and a man with a bay leaf in his mouth,
crying in his behalf, 'By the living G-- I will dissolve
you!' which makes the porters cry, 4 O, brave Englishman!'
Then the devil carries him away in a tempest, which makes
the nurses squeak, and the children cry,”
Merry bells, roasted rumps, the roar of cannon, the crackling of
bonfires, and the long-continued shouts of popular ecstacy proclaimed
his downfall; the Maypole was crowned with the garlands of spring;
in the temples devoted to Thalia and Melpomene * were again heard
the divine inspirations of the dramatic muse; the light fantastic
toe tripped it nimbly to the sound of the pipe and tabor, and St.
Bartholomew, his--
* The Hamlet, Macbeth, 0thello, and Sir John Falstaff of
Betterton. The character of this great master of the
histrionic art is thus drawn by an eminent contemporary
author:--
“Roscius, a sincere friend and a man of strict honor: grown
old in the arms and approbation of his audience: not to be
corrupted even by the way of living and manners of those
whom he hourly conversed with.
“Roscius born for everything that he thinks fit to
undertake, has wit and morality, fire and judgment, sound
sense and good nature. Roscius, who would have still been
eminent in any station of life he had been called to, only
unhappy to the world, in that it is not possible for him to
bid time stand still, and permit him to endure for ever, the
ornament of the stage, the delight of his friends, and the
regret of all, who shall one day have the misfortune to lose
him.”
--rope-dancers, and trumpeters, * were all alive and merry at the fair.
The austere reign of the cold and selfish William of Nassau diminished
nothing of its jollity. Thomas Cotterell “from the King's Arm's
Tavern, Little Lincoln's Fields,” kept the King's Arms Music Booth
in Smithfield; and one Martin transferred his sign of “The Star” from
Moor-fields, to the Rounds. At this time flourished a triumvirate of
Bartlemy heroes too remarkable to be passed lightly over, Mat Coppinger,
Joe Haynes, and Thomas Dogget.
The pranks, cheats, and conceits of Coppinger are recorded in an unique
tract ** of considerable freedom and fun.
* In the Loyal Protestant, Sept. 8, 1682, is an
advertisement forbidding all keepers of shows, &e. to make
use of drums, trumpets, &e. without license from the
Serjeant and Comptroller of His Majesty's trumpets. And
there is a notice in the London Gazette, Dee. 7, 1685,
commanding all “Rope Dancers, Prize Players, Strollers, and
other persons shewing motions and other sights,” to have
licenses from Charles Killigrew, Esq. Master of the Revels.
** “An Account of the Life, Conversation, Birth, Education,
Pranks, Projects, Exploits, and Merry Conceits of the
Famously Notorious Mat. Coppinger, once a Player in
Bartholomew Fair, and since turned bully of the town; who,
receiving sentence of death at the Old Bailey on the 23rd of
February, was executed at Tyburn on the 27th, 1695. London,
Printed for T. Hobs, 1695.”
His famous part was the cook-maid in “_Whittington_,” Bartholomew Fair
droll. The last September of his life he acted a Judge there, little
dreaming that in the ensuing February he should be brought before
one, (for stealing a watch and seven pounds in money,) and sent on
a pilgrimage to Tyburn-tree! He was a poet, and wrote a volume * of
adulatory verses, calculated for the meridian of the times in which he
lived. The following is the comical trick he put upon a countryman in
Bartholomew Fair.
The company (i. e. strolling players) finding the country too warm for
them, came with our spark to town, in expectation of recruiting their
finances by the folly of such as should resort to Bartholomew Fair.
* Poems, Songs, and Love-Verses upon several subjects. By
Matthew Coppinger, Gent. 1682. Dedicated to the Duchess of
Portsmouth; of whom, amongst an hundred extravagant things,
he says,
“You are the darling of my King, his pleasure,
His Indies of incomparable treasure!”
Upon the credit of which they took a lodging in Smithfield, and made
shift to get up a small booth to shew juggling tricks in, the art of
hocus pocus, and pouder-le-pimp. The score being deep on all hands, the
people clamouring for money, and customers coming but slowly in, they
consulted how to rub off, and give their creditors the bag to hold. To
this Coppinger dissented, saying he would find out the way to mend this
dulness of trading; and he soon effected it by a lucky chance. A country
fellow, on his return from Newgate-market on horseback, resolving to
have a gape at Jack Pudding, sat gazing, with his mouth at half-cock;
and, so intent was he, that his senses seemed to be gone wool-gathering.
Coppinger, whispering some of his companions, they stept to “Tom
Noddies” horse, one of them ungirthing him, and taking off the bridle,
the reins of which the fellow held in his hand, they bore him on the
pack-saddle on each side, and led the horse sheer from under him; whilst
another with counterfeit horns, and a vizard, put his head out of the
head-stall, and kept nodding forwards, so that “Ninny” verily supposed,
by the tugging of the reins, that he was still on “cock-horse!” The
signal being given, they let him squash to the ground, pack-saddle and
all; when, terrified at the sight of the supposed devil he had got in
a string, and concluding Hocus Pocus had conjured his horse into that
antic figure, he scrambled up, and betaking him to his heels back into
the country, frightened his neighbours with dismal stories that Dr.
Faustus and Friar Bacon were alive again, and transforming horses into
devils in Bartholomew Fair! The tale, gathering as it spread, caused the
booth to be thronged; which piece of good-luck was solely attributable
to Coppinger's ingenuity.
[Illustration: 0302]
Plain Joe Haynes, * the learned Doctor Haynes, or the dignified
Count Haynes,--for by these several titles he was honourably
distinguished,--was the hero of a variety of vagabondical adventures
both at home and abroad.
* Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. p. 976. “Joseph Haynes, or Heynes,
matriculated as a servitor of Queen's College, 3d May, 1689.
Mr. Ja. Tirrel saith he is a great actor and maker of plays;
but I find him not either in Langbaine or Term Cat/' Old
Anthony, like “good old Homer,” sometimes nods. Haynes had
been upon the stage many years before, and was too
profligate to be admitted of the university at that period.
In the memoir of Joe Haynes, in the Lives of the Gamesters,
he is said to have died in the beginning of the year 1700,
aged 53. This is a mistake.
He was married, as appears from the following lines in the
Prologue to “The Injured Lovers.”
“Joe Haynes's fate is now become my share,
For I'm a poet, marrÿd, and a player.”
Downes says he was one of those “who came not into the
company until after they had begun in Drury Lane.” Drury
Lane first opened on 8th April, 1663.
He wrote and spoke a variety of prologues and epilogues,
particularly the epilogue to the “Unhappy Kindness, or
Fruitless Revenge,” in the habit of a horse-offieer, mounted
on an ass, in 1697. In after times his example was imitated
by Shuter, Liston, and Wilkinson (not Tate).
His principal characters were, Syringe, in the Relapse;
Roger, in Æsop; Sparkish, in the Country Wife; Lord
Plausible, in the Plain Dealer; Pamphlet and Rigadoon, in
Love and a Bottle; Tom Errand, in the Constant Couple; Mad
Parson, in the Pilgrim; Benito, in the Assignation; Noll
Bluff, in the Old Bachelor; Rumour, in A Plot and No Plot,
(to which, in 1697, he spoke the prologue); and Jamy, in
Sawney the Scot.
He is the first comedian who rode an ass upon the stage. He acted
the mountebank, Waltho Van Clutterbank, High German, chemical,
wonder-working doctor and dentifricator, and spoke his famous
“Horse-doctor's harangue” to the mob. He challenged a celebrated quack
called “The Unborn Doctor,” at the town of Hertford, on a market-day, to
have a trial of skill with him. Being both mounted on the public
stage, and surrounded by a numerous auditory eager to hear this
learned dispute, Joe desired that each might stand upon a joint stool.
“Gentlemen,” said Joe, “I thank you for your good company, and hope soon
to prove how grossly you have been deceived by this arch-impostor. I
come hither neither to get a name, nor an estate: the first, by
many miraculous cures performed in Italy, Spain, Holland, France, and
England, _per totum terrarium, orbem_, has long been established. As to
the latter, those Emperors, Kings, and foreign potentates, whom I have
snatched from the gaping jaws of death, whose image I have the honour to
wear (showing several medals), have sufficiently rewarded me. Besides, I
am the seventh son of a seventh son; so were my father and grandfather.
To convince you, therefore, that what I affirm is truth, I prognosticate
some heavy judgment will fall on the head of that impudent quack.
May the charlatan tumble ingloriously, while the true doctor remains
unhurt!” At which words, Haynes's Merry-Andrew, who was underneath
the stage, with a cord fast to B------'s stool, just as B-was going to
stutter out a reply, pulled the stool from under him, and down he came;
which, passing for a miracle, Joe was borne home to his lodging in
triumph, and B------hooted out of the town. *
Some of Doctor Haynes's miraculous mock cures, were the Duchess of
Boromolpho of a cramp in her tongue; the Count de Rodomontado of a
bilious passion, after a surfeit of buttered parsnips; and Duke Philorix
of a dropsy--of which he died! He invites his patients to the “Sign of
the Prancers,” in vico vulgo dicto, Rattlecliffero, something south-east
of Templum Danicum in the Square of Profound-Close, not far from
“Titter-Tatter Fair!” He was a good-looking fellow, of singular
accomplishments, and in great request among the ladies. “With the
agreeableness of my mien, ** the gaiety of my conversation, and the
gallantry of my dancing, I charmed the fair sex wherever I came.
* “The Life of the late Famous Comedian, Jo. Hayns.
Containing his comical exploits and adventures, both at home
and abroad. London. Printed for J. Nutt, near Stationer's-
Hall, 1701.”
** “The Reasons of Mr. Joseph Hains, the Player's,
Conversion and Reconversion. Being the Third and Last Part to
the Dialogue of Mr. Bays. London: Printed for Richard
Baldwin, near the Black Bull in the Old Baily, 1690.” This
tract is intended as a skit upon Dryden, whose easy
“conversion and reconversion” are satirised in a very
laughable manner. In 1689, Haynes spoke his “Recantation
Prologue upon his first appearance on the stage after his
return from Rome,” in the character of a theatrical
penitent!
John Davies ridicules the coxcombs of his day, that it
engrossed the whole of their meal-times in talk of plays,
and censuring of players.
“As good play as work for nought, some say,
But players get much good by nought but play.”
'Signor Giusippe,'” (he was now Count Haynes!) “says one, 'when will you
help me to string my lute? Signor Giusippe,' says another,
'shall we see you at night in the grotto behind the Duke's palace?'
'Signor Giusippe,' says a third, 'when will you teach me the last
new song you made for the Prince of Tuscany?' and so, i' faith they
Giusipped me, till I had sworn at least to a dozen assignations.”
His waggery was amusing to all who were not the butts of it. He once
kept a merchant that had a laced-band which reached from shoulder to
shoulder, two good hours in a coffee-house near the Exchange, while he
explained the meaning of chevaux de frize; telling him there were horses
in Frize-land that were bullet-proof! At another time he parleyed with a
grocer a full quarter of an hour in the street, inquiring which was the
near est way from Fleet Street to the Sun Tavern in Piccadilly; whether
down the Strand, and so by Charing Cross; or through Lincoln's Inn
Fields and Covent-Garden? though the simpleton declared his spouse sent
him post-haste for a doctor, and--for all that Joe knew--made him
lose an heir-apparent to “some dozen pounds of raisins, as many silver
apostle spoons, Stow's London, and Speed's Chronicle.”
His astonished father-confessor, while listening to his sham catalogue
of frightful enormities, looked as death-like as a frolicsome party
of indigo porters in a dark cellar, by the melancholy light of burnt
brandy! “For,” said the penitent wag, “last Wednesday I stole a
consecrated bell from one of St. Anthony's holy pigs, and coined it into
copper farthings! Such a day I pinned a fox's tail on a monk's cowl; and
passing by an old gentlewoman sitting in her elbow-chair by the door,
reading '_The Spiritual Carduus-posset for a Sinner's Belly-Ache_,”
(this, saving our noble comedian's presence, is more after the fashion
of Rabbi Busy, than Friar Peter!) “I abstracted her spectacles from
off her venerable purple nose, and converted them to the profane use of
lighting my tobacco by the sunshine.”
“Hark!” said Mr. Bosky, as a voice of cock-crowing cacchination sounded
under his window, “there is my St. Bartlemy-tide chorister. For twenty
years has Nestor Nightingale proclaimed the joyous anniversary with a
new song.” And having thrown up the sash, he threw down his accustomed
gratuity, and was rewarded with
THE INQUISITIVE FARMER, OR HARLEQUIN HANGMAN.
Harlequin, taking a journey to Bath,
Put up at an inn with his dagger of lath.
He supp'd like a lord,--on a pillow of down
He slept like a king, and he snored like a clown.
Boniface said, as he popp'd in his head,
“In that little crib by the side of your bed,
As honest a farmer as e'er stood in shoes,
(My chambers are full) would be glad of a snooze.”
The farmer began, as in clover he lay,
To talk of his clover, his corn-rigs, and hay,
His bullocks, his heifers, his pigs, and his wife;
Not a wink could our Harlequin get for his life.
He reckon'd his herds, and his flocks, and his fleece,
And drove twice to market his ducks and his geese;
He babbled of training, and draining, and scythes,
And hoeing, and sowing, and taxes, and tithes.
“To the fair do you carry a pack, or a hunch?
Are you mountebank doctor, or pedlar, or Punch?
What is your calling? and what is your name?
Are you single, or married,--or coward, or game?”
Poor Harlequin, fretting, lay silent and still,
While the farmer's glib tongue went as fast as a mill.
“Where are you going? and whence do you come?
How long do you tarry?--the deuce! are you dumb?”
“I'm the hangman” said Harlequin, sir, of the town;
I cut in the morning a highwayman down;
And fix in the market-place up, for a flag,
To-morrow his head, which I bear in my bag!”
The talkative farmer jump'd up in a fright--
(“If you look for the bag, friend, it lies on your right!”)
Ran out of the chamber, and roar'd for the host,
Shrieking, and shaking, and pale as a ghost!
Boniface listen'd, bolt upright in bed,
To the cock-and-bull story of hangman and head;
And then caught the mountebank, snug on his back,
Holding his sides, which were ready to crack!
Loud laugh'd the landlord at Harlequin's trick.
“As soon,” cry'd the farmer, “I'd sup with Old Nick,
As sleep in this room with that gibbetting wag,
With a head on his shoulders, and one in his bag!”
“Bravo, Nestor!” said the Lauréat of Little Britain; “Norah Noclack (as
the taciturn old lady has grown musical) will draw thee a cup of ale for
thy ditty, and make thee free of the buttery.”
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.