[19] The London district of Mayfair includes the site of this fair, and was named after it.
_Advertisement in a collection at the British Museum._
_At the Great_ THEATRICAL BOOTH ON the Bowling-Green behind the Marshalsea, down Mermaid-Court next the Queens Arms Tavern, during the Time of Southwark Fair (which began the 8th instant and ends the 21st), will be presented that diverting droll, call'd
MAUDLIN, _the Merchants Daughter of_ BRISTOL,
who she followed into Italy, disguising herself in Man's Habit; shewing the Hardships she underwent by being Shipwrecked on the Coast of Algier, where she met her Lover, who was doom'd to be burnt at a Stake by the King of that Country, who fell in Love with her and proffered her his Crown, which she dispised, and chose rather to share the fate of her Antonio than renounce the Christian Religion to embrace that of their Imposter Prophet Mahomet.
And Variety of Singing and Dancing between the Acts, by Mr. Sandham Mrs. Woodward and Miss Sandham.
Particularly, A new Dialogue to be sung by Mr. Excell and Mrs. Fitzgerald. Written by the Author of _Bacchus one Day gaily striding_, etc., and a Hornpipe by Mr. Taylor. To which will be added a new Entertainment (never performed before) called
With Scenes, Machines, and other Decorations proper to the Entertainment.
_Advertisement in a collection at the British Museum._
... Imagine yourself in an extremely dense crowd which swings you to and fro and in and out, and every way but the right one; add to this the screams of women, the shouts of boys, the clanging of gongs, the firing of pistols, the ringing of bells, the bellowing of speaking-trumpets, the squeaking of penny dittoes, the noise of a dozen bands with three drums in each, all playing different tunes at the same time, the hallooing of showmen, and an occasional roar from the wild beast shows; and you are in the very centre and heart of the fair.
This immense booth, with the large stage in front, so brightly illuminated with variegated lamps and pots of burning fat, is "Richardson's," where you have a melodrama (with three murders and a ghost), a pantomime, a comic song, an overture, and some incidental music, all done in five-and-twenty minutes. The company are now promenading outside in all the dignity of wigs, spangles, red ochre, and whitening.... The exhibitions next in popularity to these itinerant theatres are the travelling menageries, or, to speak more intelligibly, the "Wild beast shows," where a military band in beef-eater's costume, with leopardskin caps, play incessantly, and where large highly coloured representations of tigers tearing men's heads open, and a lion being burnt with red hot irons to induce him to drop his victim, are hung up outside, by way of attracting visitors.