"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!"
Quick treated his friends with a hard hit, and by way of putting a finishing stroke to the fun, added, with a voice, look, and gesture perfectly irresistible,
"And if you can't get a horse, bring a jackass?"
One Sunday morning he was seated in a pew opposite the pulpit, and while that pious, eloquent, but eccentric preacher, was earnestly exhorting sinners to return to the fold, he fixed his eyes full upon Shuter, adding to what he had previously said, "And thou, poor Ramble, (Ramble was one of Ned's popular parts,) who hast so long rambled, come you also! O! end your ramblings and return." Shuter was panic-struck, and said to Mr. Whitfield after the sermon was over, "I thought I should have fainted! How could you use me so?"
Cow-Lane and Hosier-Lane "Ends" were great monster marts. At the first dwelt an Irish giant, Mr. Cornelius McGrath, who, if he "lives three years longer, will peep into garret windows from the pavement:" and the "Amazing" Corsican Fairy. "Hosier-Land End" contributed "a tall English youth, eight feet high;" two rattle-snakes, "one of which rattles so loud that you may hear it a quarter of a mile off;" and "a large piece of water made with white flint glass," containing a coffee-house and a brandy-shop, running, at the word of command, hot and cold fountains of strong liquor and strong tea! The proprietor Mr. Charles Butcher's poetical invitation ran thus:--
"Come, and welcome, my friends, and taste ere you pass,
'Tis but sixpence to see it, and two-pence each glass."
The "German Woman that danced over-against the Swan Tavern by Hosier Lane," having "run away from her mistress," diminished the novelties of that prolific quarter. But the White Hart, in Pye-Corner, had "A little fairy woman from Italy, two feet two inches high;" and Joe Miller, "over-against the Cross-Daggers," enacted "A new droll called the Tempest, or the Distressed Lovers; with the Comical Humours of the Inchanted Scotchman; or Jockey and the three witches!"
Hark to yonder scarlet beefeater, who hath cracked his voice, not with "hallooing and singing of anthems," but with attuning its dulcet notes to the deep-sounding gong! And that burly trumpeter, whose convex cheeks and distended pupils look as if, like Æolus, he had stopped his breath for a time, to be the better able to discharge a hurricane! Listen to their music, and you shall hear that Will Pinkethman hath good store of merriments for his laughing friends at "Hall and Oates's Booth next Pye-Corner," where, Sept. 2, 1729, will be presented The Merchant's Daughter of Bristol; "a diverting" Opera, called The Country Wedding; and the Comical Humours of Roger.--The Great Turk by Mr. Giffard, and Roger by Mr. Pinkethman.