81. Dog.—XIV. Century.
Neither do I recollect that dogs are included in the list of animals formerly belonging to the juggler's exhibitions, though, no doubt, they ought to have been; for, in Ben Jonson's play of Bartholmew Fayre, first acted in 1614, there is mention made of "dogges that dance the morrice," without any indication of the performance being a novelty. Dancing dogs, in the present day, make their appearance in the public streets of the metropolis; but their masters meet with very little encouragement, except from the lower classes of the people, and from children; and of course the performance is rarely worthy of notice. At the commencement of the last century, a company of dancing dogs was introduced at Southwark fair by a puppet-showman named Crawley. He called this exhibition "The Ball of Little Dogs;" and states in his bill, that they came from Lovain: he then tells us, that "they performed by their cunning tricks wonders in the world of dancing;" and adds, "you shall see one of them, named marquis of Gaillerdain, whose dexterity is not to be compared; [773] he dances with madame Poncette his mistress and the rest of their company at the sound of instruments, all of them observing so well the cadence, that they amaze every body." At the close of the bill, he declares that the dogs had danced before the queen [Anne] and most of the nobility of England. But many other "cunning tricks," and greatly superior to those practised by Crawley's company, have been performed by dogs some few years ago, at Sadler's Wells, and afterwards at Astley's, to the great amusement and disport of the polite spectators. One of the dogs at Sadler's Wells acted the part of a lady, and was carried by two other dogs; some of them were seated at a table, and waited on by others; and the whole concluded with the attack and storming of a fort, entirely performed by dogs.
VIII.—THE HARE AND TABOR, AND LEARNED PIG.
It is astonishing what may be effected by constant exertion and continually tormenting even the most timid and untractable animals; for no one would readily believe that a hare could have been sufficiently emboldened to face a large concourse of spectators without expressing its alarm, and beat upon a tambourine in their presence; yet such a performance was put in practice not many years back, and exhibited at Sadler's Wells; and, if I mistake not, in several other places in and about the metropolis. Neither is this whimsical spectacle a recent invention. A hare that beat the tabor is mentioned by Jonson, in his comedy of Bartholmew Fayre, acted at the commencement of the seventeenth century; and a representation of the feat itself, taken from a drawing on a manuscript upwards of four hundred years old, in the Harleian Collection, [774] is given below.
82. Hare and Tabor.