Amongst these you shall see a grey goose-cap (as wise as the rest) with a 'what do ye lacke?' in his mouth, stand in his boothe, shaking a rattle, or scraping on a fiddle, with which children are so taken that they presently cry out for these fopperies. And all these together make such a distracted noise that you would think Babel was not comparable to it. Here there are also your gamesters in action; some turning off a whimsey, others throwing for pewter, who can quickly dissolve a round shilling into a three-halfpenny saucer. Long Lane at this time looks very faire,-and puts on her best cloaths with the wrong side outward, so turn'd for their better turning off; and Cloth Faire is now in great request; well fare the ale-houses therein; yet better may a man fare (but at a dearer rate) in the Pig-market, alias Pasty-nooke, or Pye-corner, where pigges are al houres of the day on the stalls, piping hot, and would cry (if they could speak) 'come eat me.'” The chronicler calls over the coals a “fat greasie hostesse” for demanding an additional shilling for a pig's head when a lady's longing is in the case; inveighs against the unconscionable exactions, and excessive inflammations of reckonings, and concludes with a reiterated and rhyming caution:—
“Now farewell to the Faire; you who are wise,
Preserve your purses, whilst you please your eyes.” *
The restoration of King Charles II. threw England into a transport of joy. Falstaff had not more his bellyfull of Ford, than had the nation of Jack Presbyter. **
* The historian has forgot to describe the wonderful
performances of Francis Battalia, the Stone-Eater.
** “Presbyter is but Jack Priest writ large.”—Milton.
In “The Lord Henry Cromwell's speech to the House, 1658,” he
is made to say: 44 Methinks I hear 'em (the Players) already
crying, thirty years hence at Bartholomew Fair, 'Step in,
and see the Life and Death of brave Cromwell. Methinks I see
him with a velvet eragg about his shoulders, and a little
pasteboard hat on his head, riding a tittup, a tittup to his
Parliament House, and a man with a bay leaf in his mouth,
crying in his behalf, 'By the living G— I will dissolve
you!' which makes the porters cry, 4 O, brave Englishman!'
Then the devil carries him away in a tempest, which makes
the nurses squeak, and the children cry,”
Merry bells, roasted rumps, the roar of cannon, the crackling of bonfires, and the long-continued shouts of popular ecstacy proclaimed his downfall; the Maypole was crowned with the garlands of spring; in the temples devoted to Thalia and Melpomene * were again heard the divine inspirations of the dramatic muse; the light fantastic toe tripped it nimbly to the sound of the pipe and tabor, and St. Bartholomew, his—
* The Hamlet, Macbeth, 0thello, and Sir John Falstaff of
Betterton. The character of this great master of the
histrionic art is thus drawn by an eminent contemporary
author:—
“Roscius, a sincere friend and a man of strict honor: grown
old in the arms and approbation of his audience: not to be
corrupted even by the way of living and manners of those
whom he hourly conversed with.
“Roscius born for everything that he thinks fit to
undertake, has wit and morality, fire and judgment, sound
sense and good nature. Roscius, who would have still been
eminent in any station of life he had been called to, only
unhappy to the world, in that it is not possible for him to
bid time stand still, and permit him to endure for ever, the
ornament of the stage, the delight of his friends, and the
regret of all, who shall one day have the misfortune to lose
him.”
—rope-dancers, and trumpeters, * were all alive and merry at the fair.
The austere reign of the cold and selfish William of Nassau diminished nothing of its jollity. Thomas Cotterell “from the King's Arm's Tavern, Little Lincoln's Fields,” kept the King's Arms Music Booth in Smithfield; and one Martin transferred his sign of “The Star” from Moor-fields, to the Rounds. At this time flourished a triumvirate of Bartlemy heroes too remarkable to be passed lightly over, Mat Coppinger, Joe Haynes, and Thomas Dogget.
The pranks, cheats, and conceits of Coppinger are recorded in an unique tract ** of considerable freedom and fun.