“To the lovers of living curiosities. To be seen during the time of Peckham Fair, a Grand Collection of Living Wild Beasts and Birds, lately arrived from the remotest parts of the World.
“1. The Pellican that suckles her young with her heart's, blood, from Egypt.
“2. The Noble Vultur Cock, brought from Archangell, having the finest talions of any bird that seeks his prey; the fore part of his head is covered with hair, the second part resembles the wool of a Black; below that is a white ring, having a Ruff, that he cloaks his head with at night.
“3. An Eagle of the Sun, that takes the loftiest flight of any bird that flies. There is no bird but this that can fly to the face of the Sun with a naked eye.
“4. A curious Beast, bred from a Lioness, like a foreign Wild Cat.
“5. The He-Panther, from Turkey, allowed by the curious to be one of the greatest rarities ever seen in England, on which are thousands of spots, and not two of a likeness.
“6 & 7. The two fierce and surprising Hyaenas, Male and female, from the River Gambia. These Creatures imitate the human voice, and so decoy the Negroes out of their huts and plantations to devour them. They have a mane like a horse, and two joints in their hinder leg more than any other creature. It is remarkable that all other beasts are to be tamed, but Hyaenas they are not.
“8. An Ethiopian Toho Savage, having all the actions of the human species, which (when at its full growth) will be upwards of five feet high.
“Also several other surprising Creatures of different sorts. To be seen from 9 in the morning till 9 at night, till they are sold. Also, all manner of curiosities of different sorts, are bought and sold at the above place by John Bennett.”
The grand focus of attraction was in the immediate vicinity of the “Kentish Drovers.” This-once merry hostelrie was a favourite suburban retreat of Dicky Suett. Cherub Dicky! who when (to use his own peculiar phrase) his “copper required cooling,” mounted the steady, old-fashioned, three mile an hour Peckham stage, and journeyed hither to allay his thirst, and qualify his alcohol with a refreshing draught of Derbyshire ale. The landlord (who was quite a character) and he were old cronies; and, in the snug little parlour behind the bar, of which Dicky had the entrée, their hob-and-nobbings struck out sparks of humour that, had they exhaled before the lamps, would have set the theatre in a roar. Suett was a great frequenter of fairs. He stood treat to the conjurors, feasted the tragedy kings and queens, and many a mountebank did he make muzzy. Once in a frolic he changed clothes with a Jack Pudding, and played Barker and Mr. Merriman to a precocious giantess; when he threw her lord and master into such an ecstacy of mirth, that the fellow vowed hysterically that it was either the devil, or (for his fame had travelled before him) Dicky Suett. He was a piscator, *