DANCING DOLLS.
Plate XXI.
By all the aged persons with whom the author has conversed, it is agreed that from the time of Hogarth to the present day the street strollers with their Dancing Dolls on a board have not appeared.
The above artist, whose eye glanced at every description of nature, and whose mind was perpetually alive to those scenes which would in any way illustrate his various subjects, has introduced, in his inimitable print of Southwark Fair, the figure of a little man, at that time extremely well known in London, who performed various tricks with two dancing dolls strung to a flat board; his music was the bagpipes, on which he played quick or slow tunes, according to the expression he wished to give his puppets. These dolls were fastened to a board, and moved by a string attached to his knee, as appears in the figure of the boy represented in the present Plate. Since the late Peace, London has been infested with ten or twelve of these lads, natives of Lucca, whose importunities were at first made with all their native impudence and effrontery, for they attempted to thrash the English boys that stood between their puppets and the spectators, but in this they so frequently were mistaken that they behave now with a little more propriety.
The sounds they produce from their drums during the action of their dolls are full of noise and discord, nor are they masters of three notes of their flute. Lucca is also the birth place of most of those people who visit England to play the street organ, carry images, or attend dancing bears or dolls. In Italy there are many places which retain their peculiar trades and occupations; as for example, one village is inhabited by none but shoemakers, whose ancestors resided in the same place and followed a similar employment.
