The inscription outside was,
_Ball’s Theatre._
Here I saw a man who balanced chairs on his chin, and holding a knife in
his mouth, balanced a sword on the edge of the knife; he then put a
pewter plate on the hilt of the sword horizontally, and so balanced the
sword with the plate on the edge of the knife as before, the plate
having previously received a rotary motion, which it communicated to the
sword and was preserved during the balancing. He then balanced the sword
and plate in like manner, with a crown-piece placed edgewise between the
point of the sword and the knife, and afterwards with two crown-pieces,
and then with a key. These feats were accompanied by the grimaces of a
clown, and succeeded by children tumbling, and a female who danced a
hornpipe. A learned horse found out a lady in the company who wished to
be married; a gentleman who preferred a quart of beer to going to church
to hear a good sermon; a lady who liked to lie abed in the morning; and
made other discoveries which he was requested to undertake by his master
in language not only “offensive to ears polite,” but to common decency.
The admission to this show was a penny.