—taught to dance; and the monkey, * at all times a trump-card, forswore spades and diamonds. There was a mortality among the old dwarfs and Merry Andrews and the glory of Bar-tlemy Fair, Roast Pig, had departed!
[Original]
* Spinacuta's monkey amused the French King and Court by
dancing and tumbling on the slack and tight rope; balancing
a chandelier, a hoop, and a tobacco-pipe, on the tip of his
nose and chin, and making a melodramatic exit in a shower of
fireworks. He afterwards exhibited at Sadler's Wells and
Bartholomew Fair.
** “August 31, 1768. Died Jonathan Gray, aged nearly one
hundred years, the famous Merry Andrew, who formerly
exhibited at the fairs about London, and gained great
applause by his acting at Covent Garden Theatre, in the
entertainment called Bartholomew Fair”
“October 3, 1777. Yesterday, died in St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, Thomas Carter, the dwarf who was exhibited at last
Bartholomew Fair. He was about 25 years of age, measuring
only three feet four inches high. It is supposed that over
drinking at the fair caused his death.”
That crackling dainty, which would make a man manger son propre père! gave place to horrible fried sausages, from which even the mongrels and tabbies of Smithfield instinctively turned aside with anti-cannibal misgivings! Unsavoury links! fizzing, fuming, bubbling, and squeaking in their own abominable black broth! “An ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten mine imagination!” Your Bartlemy Fair kitchen is not the spice islands.
In 1661, one of Dame Ursula's particular orders to Mooncalf was to froth the cans well. In 1655,
“For a penny you may see a fine puppet play,
And for two-pence a rare piece of art;
And a penny a can, I dare swear a man