1688. It had become a custom for the Lord Mayor after proclaiming the fair to call upon the keeper of Newgate, whose services were usually involved during the fair, and partake of “a cool tankard of wine, nutmeg, and sugar.” This year Sir John Shorter—natural grandfather of Horace Walpole, and of his cousins the Conway Seymours—followed the usual course, but let the lid of the tankard flop down with so much force that his horse started; he was thrown to the ground, and died the next day. The practice was discontinued during the second mayoralty of Sir Matthew Wood.
In “The Lady’s New Year’s Gift; or, Advice to a Daughter,” published this year, it is observed: “Some women are for merry-meetings, as Bessus was for Duels; they are ingaged in a Circle of Idleness, where they run round for the whole year, without the interruption of a serious hour; they know all the Players names & are Intimately acquainted with all the Booths in Bartholomew Fair.”
1690. Literature still continued to be associated with the fair. Thus there was published this year: “The City Revels, or the Humours of Bartholomew Fair,” by J. G. Gent. Sold by Randal Taylor, near Stationers-Hall, and by most Booksellers. Price stitcht 6d.—not a single copy of which is now known to exist. There was also published about this date “Roger in Amaze: Or the Countrymans Ramble through Bartholomew Fair. To the tune of: The Dutch Womans Jigg. Printed by and for A. M. and sold by J. Walter,” &c. A sheet containing eight six-line stanzas. (Library of H. Huth, Esq.)
1691. There was a strong feeling setting in at this period against the fair. The Corporation ordered a return to the original term of three days, not only as a check to vice, but in order that the pleasures of the fair might not choke up the avenues of traffic. It is clear that this was not effective, for the order was repeated three years later. See 1711.
1697. The Lord Mayor issued an Ordinance “for the suppression of vicious practices in Bartholomew fair, as obscene, lascivious and scandalous plays, comedies, and farces, unlawful games and interludes, drunkenness, &c., strictly charging all constables and other officers to use the utmost diligence in prosecuting the same.” Vide “Postman” of this date.
Political allusions were very freely made in the amusements of the Fair; and sometimes these brought speedy retaliation. Thus, in the present year William Philips, a Zany or Jack Pudding, was arrested and publicly whipped for perpetrating in the fair a jest on the repressive tendencies of the Government, which the poet Prior has condensed and preserved for us. The said clown made his appearance on the exterior stage of the show with a tongue in his left hand, and a black pudding in his right. Professing to have learned an important secret, by which he hoped to profit, he communicated it to the mountebank, in words recorded by Prior thus:—
Be of your patron’s mind whate’er he says;
Sleep very much, think little, and talk less:
Mind neither good nor bad, nor right nor wrong;
But eat your pudding, slave, and hold your tongue.