It is to be hoped that this industrious man has saved some little to support him when his sinews are unable to do their duty; for it would be extremely hard, that a man who has conducted himself with such honesty, punctuality, and rigid perseverance, should be dependent on the parish, particularly as he declares, and Conway may be believed, that he never got drunk in his life. The present writer was much obliged to this man for a deliverance from a mob. He had when at Bow commenced a drawing of a Lascar, and before he had completed it, he found himself surrounded by several of their leaders, who were much enraged, conceiving that he was taking a description of the man's person in order to complain of him. Conway happened to come up at the moment, and immediately exclaimed, "Dear heart, no, this gentleman took my picture off the other day, he only does it for his amusement; I know where he lives; he don't want to hurt the man;" on hearing which speech, a publican kindly took upon him to appease the Lascars.
By all the aged persons with whom the author has conversed, it is agreed that from the time of Hogarth to the present day the street strollers with their Dancing Dolls on a board have not appeared.
The above artist, whose eye glanced at every description of nature, and whose mind was perpetually alive to those scenes which would in any way illustrate his various subjects, has introduced, in his inimitable print of Southwark Fair, the figure of a little man, at that time extremely well known in London, who performed various tricks with two dancing dolls strung to a flat board; his music was the bagpipes, on which he played quick or slow tunes, according to the expression he wished to give his puppets. These dolls were fastened to a board, and moved by a string attached to his knee, as appears in the figure of the boy represented in the present Plate. Since the late Peace, London has been infested with ten or twelve of these lads, natives of Lucca, whose importunities were at first made with all their native impudence and effrontery, for they attempted to thrash the English boys that stood between their puppets and the spectators, but in this they so frequently were mistaken that they behave now with a little more propriety.