* “The Three Lordes and Three Ladies of London,” 1590.
** “On Wednesday the 13th, at Windsor, a piece of plate is
to be fought for at cudgels by ten men on a side, from,
Berkshire and Middlesex. The next day a hat and feather to
be fought for by ten men on a side, from the counties
aforesaid. Ten Bargemen are to eat ten quarts of hasty-
pudding, well buttered, but d——d hot! He that has done
first to have a silver spoon of ten shillings value; and the
second five shillings. And as they have anciently had the
title of The Merry Wives of Windsor, six old women belonging
to Windsor town challenge any six old women in the universe,
(we need not, however, go farther than our own country) to
out-scold them. The best in three heats to have a suit of
head-cloths, and, (what old women generally want!) a pair of
nut-crackers.”—Read's Journal, September 9, 1721.
“According to Law. September 22, 1749.—On Wednesday next,
the 27th inst., will be run for by Asses (I!) in Tothill
Fields, a purse of gold, not exceeding the value of Fifty
Pounds. The first will be entitled to the gold; the second
to two pads; the third to thirteen pence halfpenny; the last
to a halter fit for the neck of any ass in Europe. Each ass
must be subject to the following articles
“No person will be allowed to ride but Taylors and Chimney-
sweepers; the former to have a cabbage-leaf fixed in his
hat, the latter a plumage of white feathers; the one to use
nothing but his yard-wand, and the other a brush.
“No jockey-tricks will be allowed upon any consideration.
“No one to strike an ass but the rider, lest he thereby
cause a retrograde motion, under a penalty of being ducked
three times in the river.
“No ass will be allowed to start above thirty years old, or
under ten months, nor any that has won above the value of
fifty pounds.
“No ass to run that has been six months in training,
particularly above stairs, lest the same accident happen to
it that did to one nigh a town ten miles from London, and
that for reasons well known to that place.
“Each ass to pay sixpence entrance, three farthings of which
are to be given to the old clerk of the race, for his due
care and attendance.
“Every ass to carry weight for inches, if thought proper.”
Then follow a variety of sports, with “an ordinary of proper
victuals, particularly for the riders, if desired.”
“Run, lads, run! there is rare sport in Tothill Fields!”
CHAPTER V.
Southwark Fair ranked next to St. Bartholomew, and comprehended all the attractions for which its rival on the other side of the water was so famous. On the 13th day of September 1660, John Evelyn visited it. “I saw,” said this entertaining sight-seer, “in Southwark, at St. Margaret's Faire, monkies and apes daunce, and do other feates of activity on ye high rope: they were gallantly clad à la mode, went upright, saluted the company, bowing and pulling off their hats; they saluted one another with as good a grace as if instructed by a dauncing-master; they turned heels over head with a basket having eggs in it, without breaking any; also with lighted candles in their hands, and on their heads, without extinguishing them, and with vessels of water, without spilling a drop. I also saw an Italian wench daunce and performe all the tricks of ye tight rope to admiration. All the Court went to see her. Likewise here was a man who tooke up a piece of iron cannon, of about 400 lbs weight, with the haire of his head onely.” September 15, 1698, the curious old narrator paid it another visit. “The dreadful earthquake in Jamaica this summer” (says he) “was prophanely and ludicrously represented in a puppet-play, or some such lewd pastime in the fair of Southwark, wch caused the Queane to put downe that idle and vicious mock shew.” The fair, however, revived, and outlived her Majesty many merry years. How slept the authorities some seasons ago, when Messrs. Mathews and Yates dramatised an “Earthquake” at the Adelphi!
The Bowling Green in Southwark was the high 'Change of the Fair. Mr. Fawkes, the conjuror, exhibited at his booth, over against the Crown Tavern, near St. George's Church. Dramatic representations, music and dancing, the humours of Punch and Harlequin, a glass of “good wine, and other liquors,” were to be had at the several booths held at the “Golden Horse-shoe,” * the “Half-Moon Inn,” ** and other well-known houses of entertainment. Thither resorted Lee and Harper to delight the denizens of Kent Street, Guy's Hospital, and St. Thomas's, with Guy of Warwick, Robin Hood, the comical adventures of Little John and the Pindar's wife, and the Fall of Phaëton! In July 1753, the Tennis Court and booths that were on the Bowling Green, with some other buildings where the fair used to be held, were pulled down; and shortly after, that pleasant Bowling Green was converted into a potato and cabbage market!
* “Joseph Parnes's Musiek Rooms, at the sign of the Whelp
and Bacon, during Southwark Fair, are at the Golden Horse-
Shoe, next to the King's Bench, where you may be entertained
with a variety of musick and dancing after the Scotch,
Italian, and English ways. A Girl dances with sharp swords,
the like not in England.”—Temp. W. 3.
“There is to be seen at Mr. Hocknes, at the Maremaid, near
the King's Bench, in Southwark, during the time of the Fair,
A Changeling Child, being A Living Skeleton, Taken by a
Venetian Galley from a Turkish Vessel in the Archipelago.
This was a fairy child, supposed to be born of Hungarian
parents, but changed in the nursery; aged 9 years and more,
not exceeding a foot and a half high. The legs and arms so
very small, that they scarcely exceed the bigness of a man's
thumb; and the face no bigger than the palm of one's hand.
She is likewise a mere anatomy.”—Temp. W. 3.
** “Sept. 12, 1729.—At Reynold's Great Theatrical Booth, in
the Half-Moon Inn, near the Bowling-Green, Southwark, during
the Fair will be presented the Beggar's Wedding,—Southwark
Fair, or the Sheep-Shearing,—an opera called Flora,—and
The Humours of Harlequin.”
Southwark, or Lady Fair, has long since been suppressed. Thanks, however, to the “great painter of mankind,” that we can hold it as often as we please in our own breakfast-parlours and drawing-rooms! The works of Hogarth are medicines for melancholy. If the mood be of Jacques's quality, “a most humorous sadness,” it will revel in the master's whim; if of a deeper tinge, there is the dark side of the picture for mournful reflection. Though an unsparing satirist, probing vice and folly to the quick, he has compassion for human frailty and sorrow. He is no vulgar caricaturist, making merry with personal deformity; he paints wickedness in its true colours, and if the semblance be hideous, the original, not the copy, is to blame. His scenes are faithful transcripts of life, high and low. He conducts us into the splendid saloons of fashion;—we pass with him into the direst cells of want and misery. He reads a lesson to idleness, extravagance, and debauchery, such as never was read before. He is equally master of the pathetic and the ludicrous. He exhibits the terrible passions, and their consequences, with almost superhuman power. Every stroke of his pencil points a moral; every object, however insignificant, has its meaning. His detail is marvellous, and bespeaks a mind pregnant with illustration, an eye that nothing could escape. Bysshe's Art of Poetry, the well-chalked tally, the map of the gold mines, and the starved cur making off with the day's lean provision, are in perfect keeping with the distressed poet's ragged finery, his half-mended breeches, and all the exquisite minutiae of his garret. His very wig, most picturesquely awry, is a happy symbol of poetical and pecuniary perplexity. Of the same marking character are the cow's horns, rising just above the little citizen's head, in the print of “Evening,” telling a sly tale; while the dramatis personae of the Strollers' Barn, the flags, paint-pots, pageants, clouds, waves, puppets, dark-lanterns, thunder, lightning, daggers, periwigs, crowns, sceptres, salt-boxes, ghosts, devils, and tragedy queens exhibit such an unique miscellany of wonders, that none but an Hogarth ever thought of bringing together. Turn, by way of contrast, to “Gin Lane,” and its frightful accompaniments!
Hogarth went quite as much to see Southwark Fair and its fun (for which he had a high relish) as to transfer them to his canvass. 'Tis a holiday with the mountebanks, and he has caught them in all their grimacerie and glory. A troop of strollers, belonging to Messrs. Cibber and Bullock, attitudinising and making mouths, as a prologue to the “Fall of Bajazet,” are suddenly surprised into the centre of gravity by the breaking down of their scaffold, and Kings, Queens, Turks, tumblers, monkeys, and Merry Andrews descend topsy-turvy into a china-shop below! At Lee and Harper's grand booth are the celebrated Wooden Horse of Troy, the Temptation of Adam and Eve, and Punch's Opera. A fire-eater is devouring his red-hot element, and his periwigged Jack-Pud-ding is distributing his quack nostrums. A tragedy hero has a brace of bailiffs in his train; and a prize-fighter, with his hare sconce dotted with sable patches, and a nose that might successfully bob for black-beetles against a brick wall, mounted on a blind bone-setter, perambulates the fair, challenging the wide world to mortal combat!
These, with a pretty female drummer of amazonian proportions; an equilibrist swinging on the slack rope; a juggler with his cups and balls; a pickpocket and a couple of country boobies; a bag-piper; a dancing dog; a dwarf drummer, and a music-grinder, make up a dramatis jiersono only to be equalled by the Strolling Players * and the March to Finchley.