The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs Part 2

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 amba.s.sador 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-gla.s.s 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts 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 Ches.h.i.+re, 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. G.o.d 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 d.i.c.k 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 circ.u.mstance, as showing the estimation in which the Smithfield Fair was held by the upper and middle cla.s.ses 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 Caesar 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 Baccha.n.a.lia, to gratifie the mult.i.tude 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 pa.s.sions, who come trudging hither, only for such things. 'Tis out of this credulous crowd that the ballad-singers attrackt an a.s.sembly, who listen and admire, while their confederate pickpockets are diving and fis.h.i.+ng 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 t.i.tle-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, _a 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 att.i.tudes, 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 pa.s.s'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 c.o.c.k'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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 Ba.s.s 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts of this kind in the newspapers of the period show that the pa.s.sion 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt, 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 Gla.s.s 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 Gla.s.ses 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 s.e.x 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.

CHAPTER IV.

Attempts to Suppress the Shows at Bartholomew Fair--A remarkable Dutch Boy--Theatrical Booths at the London Fairs--Penkethman, the Comedian--May Fair--Barnes and Finley--Lady Mary--Doggett, the Comedian--Simpson, the Vaulter--Clench, the Whistler--A Show at Charing Cross--Another Performing Horse--Powell and Crawley, the Puppet-Showmen--Miles's Music-Booth--Settle and Mrs. Mynn--Southwark Fair--Mrs. Horton, the Actress--Bullock and Leigh--Penkethman and Pack--Boheme, the Actor--Suppression of May Fair--Woodward, the Comedian--A Female Hercules--Tiddy-dol, the Gingerbread Vendor.

So early as the close of the seventeenth century, one hundred and fifty years before the fair was abolished, we find endeavours being made, in emulation of the Puritans, to banish every kind of amus.e.m.e.nt from Bartholomew Fair, and limit it to the purposes of an annual market. In 1700, the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen resolved that no booths should be permitted to be erected in Smithfield that year; but on the 6th of August it was announced that "the lessees of West Smithfield having on Friday last represented to a Court of Aldermen at Guildhall, that it would be highly injurious to them to have the erection of all booths there totally prohibited, the right honourable Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen have, on consideration of the premises, granted licence to erect some booths during the time of Bartholomew Fair now approaching; but none are permitted for music-booths, or any that may be means to promote debauchery." And, on the 23rd, when the Lord Mayor went on horseback to proclaim the fair, he ordered two music-booths to be taken down immediately.

On the 4th of June, in the following year, the grand jury made a presentment to the following effect:--"Whereas we have seen a printed order of the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, the 25th June, 1700, to prevent the great profaneness, vice, and debauchery, so frequently used and practised in Bartholomew Fair, by strictly charging and commanding all persons concerned in the said fair, and in the sheds and booths to be erected and built therein or places adjacent, that they do not let, set, or hire, or use any booth, shed, stall, or other erection whatsoever to be used or employed for interludes, stage-plays, comedies, gaming-places, lotteries, or music meetings: and as we are informed the present Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen have pa.s.sed another order to the same effect on the 3rd instant, we take this occasion to return our most hearty thanks for their religious care and great zeal in this matter; we esteeming a renewing of their former practices at the Fair a continuing one of the chiefest nurseries of vice next to the play-houses; therefore earnestly desire that the said orders may be vigorously prosecuted, and that this honourable Court would endeavour that the said fair may be employed to those good ends and purposes it was at first designed."

This presentment deserves, and will repay, the most attentive consideration of those who would know the real character of the amus.e.m.e.nts presented at the London fairs, and the motives and aims of those who endeavoured to suppress them. The grand jury profess to be actuated by a desire to diminish profanity, vice, and debauchery; and, if this had been their real and sole object, nothing could have been more laudable. But, like those who would suppress the liquor traffic in order to prevent drunkenness, they confounded the use with the abuse of the thing which they condemned, and sought to deprive the ma.s.ses of every kind of amus.e.m.e.nt, because some persons could not partic.i.p.ate therein without indulging in vicious and debasing pleasures. It might have been supposed that Bartholomew Fair was pre-eminently a means and occasion of vice and debauchery, and that its continuance was incompatible with the maintenance of public order and the due guardians.h.i.+p of public morals, if the grand jury had not coupled with their condemnation an expression of their opinion that it was not so bad as the theatres. In that sentence is disclosed the real motive and aim of those who sought the suppression of the amus.e.m.e.nts of the people at the London Fairs.

That the morals and manners of that age were of a low standard is undeniable; but they would have been worse if the fairs had been abolished, and the theatres closed, as the fanatics of the day willed. Men and women cannot be made pious or virtuous by the prohibition of theatres, concerts, and b.a.l.l.s, any more than they can be rendered temperate by suppressing the public sale of beer, wine, and spirits. Naturally, a virtuous man, without being a straight-laced opponent of "cakes and ale,"

would have seen, in walking through a fair, much that he would deplore, and desire to amend; but such a man would have the same reflections inspired by a visit to a theatre or a music-hall, or any other amus.e.m.e.nt of the present day. He would not, however, if he was sensible as well as virtuous, conclude from what he saw and heard that all public amus.e.m.e.nts ought to be prohibited. To suppress places of popular entertainment because some persons abuse them would be like destroying a garden because a snail crawls over the foliage, or an earwig lurks in the flowers.

The London fairs were attended this year by a remarkable Dutch boy, about eight or nine years of age, whose eyes presented markings of the iris in which sharp-sighted persons, aided perhaps by a considerable development of the organ of wonder, read certain Latin and Hebrew words. In one eye, the observer read, or was persuaded that he could read, the words _Deus meus_; in the other, in Hebrew characters, the word _Elohim_. The boy's parents, by whom he was exhibited, affirmed that his eyes had presented these remarkable peculiarities from his birth. Great numbers of persons, including the most eminent physiologists and physicians of the day, went to see him; and the learned, who examined his eyes with great attention, were as far from solving the mystery as the crowd of ordinary sight-seers.

Some of them regarded the case as an imposture, but they were unable to suggest any means by which such a fraud could be accomplished. Others regarded it as "almost" supernatural, a qualification not very easy to understand. The supposed characters were probably natural, and only to be seen as Roman and Hebrew letters by imaginative persons, or those who viewed them with the eye of faith. Whatever their nature, the boy's sight was not affected by them in the slightest degree.

The theatrical booths attending the London fairs began at this time to be more numerous, and to present an entertainment of a better character than had hitherto been seen. The elder Penkethman appears to have been the first actor of good position on the stage who set the example of performing in a temporary canvas theatre during the fairs, and it was soon followed by the leading actors and actresses of the royal theatres. In a dialogue on the state of the stage, published in 1702, and attributed to Gildon, Critick calls Penkethman "the flower of Bartholomew Fair, and the idol of the rabble; a fellow that overdoes everything, and spoils many a part with his own stuff." He had then been ten years on the stage, having made his first appearance at Drury Lane in 1692, as the tailor, a small part in _The Volunteers_. Four years later, we find him playing, at the same theatre, such parts as Snap in _Love's Last s.h.i.+ft_, Dr. Pulse in _The Lost Lover_, and Nick Froth in _The Cornish Comedy_.

What the author of the pamphlet just quoted says of this actor receives confirmation and ill.u.s.tration from an anecdote told of him, in connection with the first representation of Farquhar's _Recruiting Officer_ at Drury Lane in 1706. Penkethman, who played Thomas Appletree, one of the rustic recruits, when asked his name by Wilks, to whom the part of Captain Plume was a.s.signed, replied, "Why, don't you know my name, Bob? I thought every fool knew that."

"Thomas Appletree," whispered Wilks, a.s.suming the office of prompter.