Excellent well, somniferous John! worthy disciple of St. Bartlemy.
Green, at the "Nag's Head and Pide Bull," advertises eight "comical and diverting" exhibitions; hinting that he hath "that within which passeth shew but declines publishing his "other ingenious pastimes in so small a bill." Yet he contrives to get into this "small bill" as much puff as his contemporaries. His pretensions are as superlative as his Scaramouches, and quite as diverting. "A young man dances with twelve naked swords," and "a young woman with six naked rapiers, after a more pleasant and far inge-niuser fashion than had been danced before."
These Bartholomew Fair showmen are sadly deficient in gallantry. With them the "gentlemen" always take precedence of the "ladies." The Smithfield muses should have taught them better manners.
Manager Crosse * "at the Signe of the George," advertises a genuine Jim Crow, "a black lately from the Indies, who dances antic dances after the Indian manner." In those days the grinning and sprawling of an ebony buffoon were confined to the congenial timbers of Bartlemy fair!
* Managers Crosse, Powell, Luffingham, &c. Temp. Queen Anne and George I.
Was the "young gentlewoman with six naked rapiers" ubiquitous, or had she rivals in the Rounds? But another lady, no less attractive, "invites our steps, and points to yonder" booth--where, "By His Majesty's permission, next door to the King's Head in Smithfield, is to be seen a woman-dwarf, * but three foot and one inch ** high, born in Somersetshire, and in the fortieth year of her age."
* "One seeing a Dwarfe at Bartholomew Fair, which was sixteen inches high, with a great head, a body, and no thighs, said he looked like a block upon a barber's stall:-- * 'No!' says another, 'when he speaks, he is like the Brazen Head of Fryer Bacon's.'"--The Comedian's Tales, 1729.
** A few seasons after appeared "The wonderful and surprising English dwarf, two feet eight inches high, born at Salisbury in 1709; who has been shewn to the Royal Family, and most of the Nobility and Gentry of Great Britain."
And, as if we had not seen enough of "strange creatures alive? mark the following "advertisement":--
"Next door to the Golden Hart, in Smithfield, is to be seen a live Turkey ram. Part of him is covered with black hair, and part with white wool. He hath horns as big as a bull's; and his tail weighs sixty pounds! Here is also to be seen alive the famous civet cat, and one of the holy lambs curiously spotted all over like a leopard, that us'd to be offered by the Jews for a sacrifice. Vivat Rex."