“The chaise without horses,” and “Queen of Hungary;”
Here’s the Merry-go-Rounds, “Come who rides, come who rides, sir?”
Wine, beer, ale, and cakes, fire eating besides, sir;
The fam’d “learn’d Dog” that can tell all his letters
And some men, as scholars, are not much his betters!
1798. There was a serious proposal made to restrict the fair to one day. This was only abandoned from the fear of riot.
1804. There was an action brought in the fair before the Court of Piepowder on 5th September—showing that the court had sat beyond the prescribed three days, which at one time it did not, even though the fair continued longer—by a fire-eater against one of the spectators of his tricks, who had half suffocated him by suddenly clapping a bundle of lighted matches under his nose. The defendant was fined a guinea by the homage, and the steward gave charge to the constables to turn him out of the fair if he appeared in it again.
1808. There appeared: “The History and Origin of Bartholomew Fair,” published by Arliss and Huntsman, 37, Bartholomew Close (8vo. pp. 26).
1810. A circumstance occurred likely to have been attended with very serious consequences. Two bands of roughs, who were racing through the fair after their manner, met. In the scuffle that ensued two stalls were knocked down, and the falling of a lamp on to a stove caused the canvas to ignite, and a serious disaster was only averted by the presence of mind of a gentleman who was on the spot at the moment. In a similar rush in 1812 a child was killed.
In the “Morning Chronicle” appeared the following “Elegy, written in Bartlemy Fair at Five o’clock in the morning,” from which I take the principal stanzas:—