The newspapers of the time inform us that they had “crowded audiences,” and that “a great number of the nobility intend to honour them with their presence,” which they probably did. All classes then went to Bartholomew Fair, as in Pepys’ time; the gentleman with the star on his coat in Setchel’s print was said to be Sir Robert Walpole.
Cibber, Griffin, Bullock, and Hallam again appeared in partnership, and repeated the performances which they had found attractive in the preceding year. Cibber played Bajazet in the tragedy, and Mrs. Charke, his youngest daughter, Haly. This lady appeared subsequently on the scene as the proprietress of a puppet-show, and finally as the keeper of a sausage-stall. Griffin played Lovegold in the Miser, as he had done the preceding winter at Drury Lane; but none of the Drury actresses performed this year in the fairs, and Miss Raftor’s part of Lappet was transferred to Mrs. Roberts.
Lee and Harper presented Jephtha’s Rash Vow, in which Hulett appeared; and Miller, Mills, and Oates, the tragedy of Jane Shore, in which Miss Oates personated the heroine; her father, Tim Hampwell; and Chapman, Captain Blunderbuss. After the tragedy came a new mythological entertainment, called the Garden of Venus; and the advertisements state that, “To entertain the Company before the Opera begins, there will be a variety of Rope-Dancing and Tumbling by the best Performers; particularly the famous Italian Woman, Mademoiselle De Reverant and her Daughter, who gave such universal satisfaction at the Publick Act at Oxford; the celebrated Signor Morosini, who never performed in the Fair before; Mons. Jano and others, and Tumbling by young River and Miss Derrum, a child of nine years old.” De Reverant is not an Italian name, and it is to be hoped, for the sake of the lady’s good name and the management’s sense of decorum, that the prefix of Mademoiselle was an error of the printer. Jano was a performer at Sadler’s Wells, and other places of amusement in the vicinity of the metropolis, where tea-gardens and music-rooms were now becoming numerous.
Tottenham Court fair, the origin of which I have been unable to trace, emerged from its obscurity this year, when Lee and Harper, in conjunction with a third partner named Petit, set up a show there, behind the King’s Head, near the Hampstead Road. The entertainments were Bateman and the Ridotto al fresco. The fair began on the 4th of August.
Petit’s name is not in the advertisements for Southwark Fair, where Lee and Harper gave the same performance as at Tottenham Court. A new aspirant to popular favour appeared this year on Southwark Green, namely, Yeates’s theatrical booth, in which a ballad opera called The Harlot’s Progress was performed, with “Yeates, junior’s, incomparable dexterity of hand: also a new and glorious prospect, or a lively view of the installation of His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange.
“Note.—At a large room near his booth are to be seen, without any loss of time, two large ostriches, lately arrived from the Deserts of Arabia, being male and female.”
Fawkes, the conjuror, was now dead, but Pinchbeck carried on the show, in conjunction with his late partner’s son, and issued the following announcement:—
“This is to give notice, that Mr. Pinchbeck and Fawkes, who have had the honour to perform before the Royal Family, and most of the Nobility and Gentry in the Kingdom with great applause, during the time of Southwark Fair, will divert the Publick with the following surprising Entertainments, at their great Theatrical Room, at the Queen’s Arms, joining to the Marshalsea Gate. First, the surprising Tumbler from Frankfort in Germany, who shows several astonishing things by the Art of Tumbling; the like never seen before since the memory of man. Secondly, the diverting and incomparable dexterity of hand, performed by Mr. Pinchbeck, who causes a tree to grow out of a flower-pot on the table, which blossoms and bears ripe fruit in a minute; also a man in a maze, or a perpetual motion, where he makes a little ball to run continually, which would last was it for seven years together only by the word of command. He has several tricks entirely new, which were never done by any other person than himself. Third, the famous little posture-master of nine years old, who shows several astonishing postures by activity of body, different from any other posture-master in Europe.”
The fourth and fifth items of the programme were Pinchbeck’s musical clock and the Venetian machine. The advertisement concludes with the announcement that “while the booth is filling, the little posture-master will divert the company with several wonders on the slack rope. Beginning every day at ten o’clock in the morning, and ending at ten at night.” As Pinchbeck now performed the conjuring tricks for which his former partner had been famous, and the latter’s son does not appear as a performer, it is probable that young Fawkes was merely a sleeping partner in the concern, his father having accumulated by the exercise of his profession, a capital of ten thousand pounds.
It was in this year that Highmore, actuated by the spirit which in recent times has prompted the prosecution of music-hall proprietors by theatrical managers, swore an information against Harper as an offender under the Vagrancy Act, which condemned strolling players to the same penalties as wandering ballad-singers and sturdy beggars. Why, it may be asked, was Harper selected as the scape-goat of all the comedians who performed in the London fairs, and among whom were Cibber, Bullock, Hippisley, Hallam, Ryan, Laguerre, Chapman, Hall, and other leading actors of the theatres royal? There is no evidence of personal animosity against Harper on Highmore’s part, but it is not much to the latter’s credit that he was supposed to have selected for a victim a man who was thought to be timid enough to be frightened into submission.