Ha! "lean Jack," jolly-fac'd comedian, Harper, thou body of a porpoise, and heart of a tittlebat! that didst die of a round-house fever; * and Zee, ** rosy St. Anthony! thy rival trumpeter, with his rubicund physiognomy screened beneath the umbrage of a magnificent bowsprit, proclaim at the Hospital Gate "The Siege of Berthulia; with the Comical Humours, of Rustego and his man Terrible."
* Harper, being an exceedingly timid man, was selected for prosecution by Highmore, the Patentee of Drury Lane, for joining the revolters at the Haymarket. He was imprisoned, but though soon after released by the Court of King's Bench, he died in 1742, of a fever on his spirits.
** Anthony Lee, or Leigh, (famous for his performance of Gomez, in Dryden's play of the Spanish Friar,) and Cave Underhill, diverting themselves in Moorfields, agreed to get up a sham quarrel. They drew their swords, and with fierce countenances advanced to attack each other. Cave (a very lean man) retreated over the rails, followed by Lee (a very fat man); and after a slight skirmish, retired to the middle of the field. Tony puffed away after him; a second encounter took place; and, when each had paused for awhile to take breath, a third; at the end of which, there being a saw-pit, near them, they both jumped into it! The mob, to prevent murder, scampered to the pit, when to their great surprise they found the redoubtable heroes hand in hand in a truly comical posture of reconciliation, which occasioned much laughter to some, while others (having been made fools of!) were too angry to relish the joke. The mock combatants then retired to a neighbouring tavern to refresh themselves, and get rid of a troublesome tumult.--The Comedian's Tales, 1729.
What an odd-favoured mountebank! "a threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller, a needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch," with a nose crooked as the walls of Troy, and a chin like a shoeing horn; those two features having become more intimately acquainted, because his teeth had fallen out! Behold him jabbering, gesticulating, and with auricular grin, distributing this Bartholomew Fair bill.
"Sept. 3, 1729. At Bullock's Great Theatrical Booth will be acted a Droll, called Dorastus and Faunia, or the Royal Shepherdess; Flora, an opera; with Toilet's Rounds; the Fingalian Dance, and a Scottish Dance, by Mrs. Bullock."