* John Backster kept the Mother Red Cap at Holloway in 1667.
We are in possession of his very curious and rare Token, on
the right side of which is engraved Mother Red Cap holding a
Black Jack, with his initials of “J. B. His Half Peny:* and
on the reverse, “John Backster, att-the Mother Read-Capp in
hollway, 1667.”
** The baboon and the monkey were popular drolls in ancient
times. The following lines occur in a work called “Ayres or
Phantasticke Sprites for three Voices,” published by Thomas
Weelkes, “Batchelar of Musicke,” 1608.
“The ape, the monkey, and baboon did meet,
And breaking of their fast in Friday Street;
Two of them sware together solemnly
In their three natures was a sympathy.
'Nay,' quoth Baboon, 'I do deny that strain,
I have more knavery in me than you twain.'
“'Why,' quoth the Ape,
'I have a horse at will
In Paris Garden, for to ride on still,
And there show trieks.'—
'Tush,' quoth the Monkey,
'I For better trieks in great men's houses lie.'
'Tush!' quoth Baboon; 'when men do know I come,
For sport from town and country they will run.'”
A conjuror was looking at a large dragon-fly through a magnifying glass, to see how it would pass off for the great high German higher-flighter; and the proprietor of an aviary was supplying a young blackbird with an artificial comb and wattles of red velvet, to find a customer for him as the great cocky, or olla bird of the desert. A showman was mending the fractured bridge of Mr. Punch's nose, while his stage-manager tried a new tail on the devil. *
* In some of the old plays the devil was dressed in a black
suit, painted with flames, and made to shine. “Let the devil
wear black for me, I'll have a suit of sables,” says Hamlet.
In the mysteries and moralities of an earlier date, he was
decorated with a hairy dress, like a wild beast.
The master of the monster tea-kettle, who had recently been “up the spout,” was tricking out his red-haired, strapping Dulcinea with peacocks' feathers, bits of stained glass, catskins, strips of coloured leather, and teaching her to sing some unintelligible gibberish, for the purpose of extracting from the Bartholomew Fair gulls a penny for the prodigious sight of a real wild Indian. A mermaid was in process of completion; a dog was practising a minuet, to see how his fifth leg fitted him; a learned pig * was going through his lesson in numbers and cards; a cat of extraordinary intelligence was feeding a kitten with starch, to make it stand upright; and a monkey instructing an intellectual goose how to carry a pair of miniature milkpails.
* The earliest account that we have seen of a learned pig is
in an old Bartholomew Fair hill, issued by Mr. Conjuror
Fawkes, which exhibits the portrait of the swinish pundit
holding a paper in his mouth, with the letter Y inscribed
upon it. This “most amazing pig,” which had a particularly
curly tail, was the pattern of docility and sagacity: the
“Pig of Knowledge, Being the only one ever taught in
England.” He was to be visited “at a Commodious Room, at the
George, West-Smithfield, During the time of the Fair and the
spectators were required to “See and Believe!” Three-pence
was the price of admission to behold “This astonishing
animal” perform with cards, money, and watches, &c. &c. The
bill concludes with the following apotheosis to the pig.
“A learned pig in George's reign,
To Æsop's brutes an equal boast;
Then let mankind again combine,
To render friendship still a toast.”
Stella said that Swift could write sublimely upon a
broomstick. Who ever, as the Methodists say, better
“improved” a pig? Except by roasting it! In 1732, Mr. Fawkes
exhibited a “learned goose” opposite the George Inn, West-
Smithfield.
A poetical licensed victualler had just painted on his board, which was emblazoned with the sign of the Griffin and
Hoop, the following lines in capitals,
“I, John Stubbs lyveth hear,
Sels goode Brandy, Gin, and Bere,
I maid mi borde a leetle whyder,