They had pitched upon an ill-looking surly butcher for _King Herod_, upon whose chuckle-head a gilt pasteboard crown glittered gloriously by the candlelight; and, as soon as he had seated himself in a rickety old wicker chair, radiant with faded finery, that served him for a throne, the orchestra (three fifes and a fiddle) struck up a merry tune, and a young damsel began so to shake, her heels, that with the help of a little imagination, our noble comedian might have fancied himself in his old quarters at St. Bartholomew, or Sturbridge Fair. *
* Stourbridge, or Sturbridge Fair, originated in a grant from King John to the hospital of lepers at that place. By a charter in the thirtieth year of Henry the Eighth, the fair was granted to the magistrates and corporation of Cambridge. In 1613 it became so popular, that hackney coaches attended it from London; and in after times not less than sixty coaches plied there. In 1766 and 1767, the "Lord of the Tap," dressed in a red livery, with a string over his shoulders, from whence depended spigots and fossetts, entered all the booths where ale was sold, to determine whether it was fit beverage for the visitors. In 1788, Flockton exhibited at Sturbridge Fair. The following lines were printed on his bills:--
"To raise the soul by means of wood and wire, To screw the fancy up a few pegs higher; In miniature to show the world at large, As folks conceive a ship who 've seen a barge. This is the scope of all our actors' play, Who hope their wooden aims will not be thrown away!"
The dance over, King Herod, with a vast profusion of barn-door majesty, marched towards the damsel, and in "very choice Italian" (which the parson of the parish composed for the occasion, and we have translated) thus complimented her:
The _danseuse_, after whispering to a saffron-complexioned crone, who played _Herodias_, fell down upon both knees, and pointing to the _Baptist_, a grave old farmer! exclaimed,
The bluff butcher looked about him as sternly as one of Elkanah's * blustering heroes, and, after taking a fierce stride or two across the stage to vent his royal choler, vouchsafed this reply,
* Elkanah Settle, the City Lauréat, after the Revolution, kept a booth at Bartholomew Fair, where, in a droll, called St. George for England, he acted in a dragon of green leather of his own invention. In reference to the sweet singer of "annual trophies" and "monthly wars" hissing in his own dragon, Pope utters this charitable wish regarding Colley,