William Stokes, a vaulting master of the seventeenth century, boasted, in a publication called The Vaulting Master, &c. printed at Oxford in 1652, that he had reduced "vaulting to a method." In his book are several plates containing different specimens of his practice, which consisted chiefly in leaping over one or more horses, or upon them, sometimes seating himself in the saddle and sometimes standing upon the same. All these feats are now [745] performed at Astley's, and at the circus in St. George's Fields, with many additional acquirements; and the horses gallop round the ride while the actor is going through his manœuvres: on the contrary, the horses belonging to our vaulter remained at rest during the whole time of his exhibition.
A show-bill for Bartholomew Fair, during the reign of queen Anne [746] announces "the wonderful performances of that most celebrated master Simpson, the famous vaulter, who, being lately arrived from Italy, will show the world what vaulting is!" The bill speaks pompously: how far his abilities coincided with the promise, I cannot determine, for none of his exertions are specified. But the most extraordinary vaulter that has appeared within my memory was brought forward in 1799, at the Circus. He was a native of Yorkshire, named Ireland, then about eighteen years of age, exceedingly well made, and upwards of six feet high. He leaped over nine horses standing side by side and a man seated upon the mid-horse; he jumped over a garter held fourteen feet high; and at another jump kicked a bladder hanging sixteen feet at least from the ground; and, for his own benefit, he leaped over a temporary machine representing a broad-wheeled waggon with the tilt. These astonishing specimens of strength and agility were performed, without any trick or deception, by a fair jump, and not with the somersault, which is usually practised on such occasions. After a run of ten or twelve yards, he ascended an inclined plane, constructed with thick boards, and about three feet in height at one end; from the upper part of this plane he made his spring, and having performed the leap, was received into a carpet held by six or eight men. I examined this apparatus very minutely, and am well persuaded that he received no assistance from any elasticity in the boards, they being too thick to afford him any, and especially at the top, where they were made fast to the frame that supported them; nor from any other kind of artificial spring. It may readily be supposed that exertions of such an extraordinary nature could not be long continued without some disastrous accident; and accordingly, in the first season of his engagement, he sprained the tendon of his heel so violently, that he could not perform for nearly two years afterwards.
XXV.—BALANCING.
Under this head perhaps may be included several of the performances mentioned in the preceding pages, and especially the throwing of three balls and three knives alternately into the air, and catching them as they fall, as represented by the engraving No 50, from a MS. of the eighth century. This trick, in my memory, commonly constituted a part of the puppet-showman's exhibition; but I do not recollect to have seen it extended beyond four articles; for instance, two oranges and two forks; and the performer, by way of conclusion, caught the oranges upon the forks.
In the Romance of the Rose, we read of tymbesteres, or balance-mistresses, who, according to the description there given, played upon the tymbres, or timbrels, and occasionally tossing them into the air, caught them again upon one finger. The passage translated by Chaucer, stands thus:
There was manye a tymbestere—
—Couthe her crafte full parfytly:
The tymbres up full subtelly
They cast, and hent full ofte
Upon a fynger fayre and softe,