“Bow-wow-wow!”
“Coachman! coachman! Let me out!—let me out, I say!”
“Now, your honour, what’s the matter?”
“A mad dog is the matter!—hydrophobia is the matter! open the door!”
“Bow-wow-wow!”
“Open the door! Never mind the steps. Thank God, I am safe out! Let those who like ride inside; I’ll mount the roof.”
So he rode to Brighton outside the coach, much to the satisfaction of Shuter and his fair companions who were very merry at his expense, the former repeating at intervals his sonorous bow-wow-wow!
Theatrical booths and puppet-shows were again prohibited in 1762, and, as the jugglers, the acrobats, and the rope-dancers who attended the fairs did not advertise their performances, only casual notices are to be found in the newspapers of the period of the amusements which that generation flocked into Smithfield in the first week of September to witness, and which lead them somewhat earlier to the greens of Camberwell and Stepney. Some of the entertainers of the period are mentioned in an anonymous poem on Bartholomew Fair, which appeared in 1763. The names are probably fictitious.
“On slender cord Volante treads;
The earth seems paved with human heads:
And as she springs aloft in air,
Trembling they crouch below for fear.
A well-made form Querpero shows,
Well-skilled that form to discompose;
The arms forget their wonted state;
Standing on earth, they bear his weight;
The head falls downward ’twixt the thighs,
The legs mount upward to the skies;
And thus this topsy-turvy creature
Stalks, and derides the human nature.
Agyrta, famed for cup and ball,
Plays sleight of hand, and pleases all:
The certainty of sense in vain
Philosophers in schools maintain;
This man your sharpest wit defies,
He cheats your watchful ears and eyes.
Ah, ’prentice, well your pockets fence,
And yet he steals your master’s pence.”
In 1765, “the celebrated lecture on heads” was advertised to be given, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, “in a large and commodious room near the end of Hosier Lane.” The name of the lecturer was not announced, but the form of the advertisement implies that the lecture was Steevens’s. The lecturer may, however, have been only an imitator of that famous humorist; for the newspapers of the preceding week inform us that a similar announcement was made at Alnwick, where the audience, finding that the lecturer was not Steevens, regarded him as an impostor, and demanded the return of their money, with a threat of tossing him in a blanket. The lecturer attempted to vindicate himself, but the production of a blanket completed his discomfiture, and he surrendered, returning to the disappointed audience the money which they had paid for admission.