MERRIE ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME.
By George Daniel
“Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?” Shakspere.
In Two Volumes. Vol. II.
1841
The reader will find many words, grammar, spelling, punctuation and sentence structure which does not conform with modern English usage. Many of the poems were written in the 17th century and before and have been transcribed as found. DW
[Original]
[Original]
MERRIE ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
My friends,”—continued Mr. Bosky, after an approving smack of the lips, and “Thanks, my kind mistress! many happy returns of St. Bartlemy!” had testified the ballad-singer's hearty relish and gratitude for the refreshing draught over which he had just suspended his well-seasoned nose, *—“never may the mouths be stopped—
* “Thom: Brewer, my Mus: Servant, through his proneness to
good fellowshippe, having attained to a very rich and
rubicund nose, being reproved by a friend for his too
frequent use of strong drinkes and sacke, as very pernicious
to that distemper and inflammation in his nose. 'Nay,
faith,' says he, 'if it will not endure sacke, it is no
nose for me.'”—L' Estrange, No. 578. Mr. Jenkins.
—(except with a cup of good liquor) of these musical itinerants, from whose doggrel a curious history of men and manners might be gleaned, to humour the anti-social disciples of those pious publicans who substituted their nasal twang for the solemn harmony of cathedral music; who altered St. Peter's phrase, 'the Bishop of your souls,' into 'the Elder (!!) of your souls;' for 'thy kingdom come,' brayed 'thy Commonwealth come!' and smuggled the water into their rum-puncheons, which they called wrestling with the spirit, and making the enemy weaker! 'Show me the popular ballads of the time, and I will show you the temper and taste of the people.' *
* “Robin Consciencean ancient ballad, (suggested by
Lydgate's “London Lackpenny,”) first printed at Edinburgh in
1683, gives a curious picture of London tradesmen, &c. Robin
goes to Court, but receives cold welcome; thence to
Westminster Hall. “It were no great matter,” quoth the
lawyers, “if Conscience quite were knock'd on the head.” He
visits Smithfield, and discovers how the “horse-cowrsers'
artfully coerce their “lame jades” to “run and kick.” Then
Long Lane, where the brokers hold conscience to be “but
nonsense.” The butter-women of Newgate-market claw him, and
the bakers brawl at him. At Pye Corner, a cook, glancing at
him “as the Devil did look o'er Lincoln,” threatens to spit
him.
The salesmen of Snow Hill would have stoned him; the
“fishwives” of Turn-again Lane rail at him; the London
Prentices of Fleet Street, with their “What lack you,
countryman?” seamper away from him. The “haberdashers, that
sell hats I the mercers and silk-men, that live in
Paternoster Row,” all set upon him. He receives no better
treatment in Cheapside—A cheesemonger in Bread Street; “the
lads that wish Lent were all the year,” in Fish Street; a
merchant on the Exchange; the “gallant girls,” whose “brave
shops of ware” were “up stairs and the drapers and
poulterers of Graccchurch Street, to whom conscience was
“Dutch or Spanish,” flout and jeer him. A trip to Southwark,
the King's Bench, and to the Blackman Street demireps,
proves that “conscience is nothing.” In St. George's Fields,
“rooking rascals,” playing at “nine pins,” tell him to prate
on till he is hoarse.” Espying a windmill hard by, he hies
to the miller, whose excuse for not dealing with him was,
that he must steal out of every bushel “a peek, if not three
gallons.” Conscience then trudges on “to try what would
befall i' the country,” whither we will not follow him.
I delight in a Fiddler's Fling, and revel in the exhilarating perfume of those odoriferous garlands * gathered on sunshiny holidays and star-twinkling nights, bewailing how disappointed lovers go to sea, and how romantic young lasses follow them in blue jackets and trousers!
* “When I travelled,” said the Spectator, “I took a
particular delight in hearing the songs and fables that are
come from father to son, and are most in vogue among the
common people of the countries through which I passed; for
it is impossible that anything should be universally tasted
and approved by a multitude (though they are only the rabble
of a nation), which hath not in it some peculiar aptness to
please and gratify the mind of man.”
Old tales, old songs, and an old jest,
Our stomachs easiliest digest.
“Listen to me, my lovly shepherd's joye,
And thou shalt heare, with mirth and muckle glee,
Some pretie tales, which, when I was a boye,
My toothless grandame oft hath told to mee.
Nay, rather than the tuneful race should be extinct, expect to see me some night, with my paper lantern and cracked spectacles, singing you woeful tragedies to love-lorn maids and cobblers' apprentices.” *
* Love in a Tub, a comedy, by Sir George Etherege.
And, carried away by his enthusiasm to the days of jolly Queen Bess, the Lauréat of Little Britain, with a countenance bubbling with hilarity, warbled con spirito, as a probationary ballad for the Itinerant ship, (!)
THE KNIGHTING OF THE SIRLOIN.
Elizabeth Tudor her breakfast would make
On a pot of strong beer and a pound of beefsteak,
Ere six in the morning was toll'd by the chimes—
O the days of Queen Bess they were merry old times!
From hawking and hunting she rode back to town,
In time just to knock an ambassador down;
Toy'd, trifled, coquetted, then lopp'd off a head;
And at threescore and ten danced a hornpipe to bed.
With Nicholas Bacon,1 her councillor chief,
One day she was dining on English roast beef;
That very same day when her Majesty's Grace *
Had given Lord Essex a slap on the face.
* When Queen Elizabeth came to visit Sir Nicholas Bacon,
Lord Keeper, at his new house at Redgrave, she observed,
alluding to his corpulency, that he had built his house too
little for him. “Not so, madam,” answered he; “but your
Highness has made me too big for my house!”
The term “your Grace' was addressed to the English Sovereign
during the earlier Tudor reigns. In her latter years
Elizabeth assumed the appellation of “Majesty” The following
anecdote comprehends both titles. “As Queen Elizabeth passed
the streets in state, one in the crowde cried first, 'God
blesse your Royall Majestie!' and then, 'God blesse your
Noble Grace!' 'Why, how now,' sayes the Queene, 'am I tenne
groates worse than I was e'en now?'” The value of the old
“Ryal,” or “Royall,” was 10s., that of the “Noble” 6s. Sd.
The Emperor Charles the Fifth was the first crowned head
that assumed the title of “Majesty.”
My Lord Keeper stared, as the wine-cup she kiss'd,
At his sovereign lady's superlative twist,
And thought, thinking truly his larder would squeak,
He'd much rather keep her a day than a week.
“What call you this dainty, my very good lord?”—
“The Loin,”—bowing low till his nose touch'd the
board—
“And—breath of our nostrils, and light of our eyes! *
Saving your presence., the ox was a prize.”
* Queen Elizabeth issued an edict commanding every artist
who should paint the royal portrait to place her “in a
garden with a full light upon her, and the painter to put
any shadow in her face at his peril!” Oliver Cromwell's
injunctions to Sir Peter Lely were somewhat different. The
knight was desired to transfer to his canvass all the
blotches and carbuncles that blossomed in the Protector's
rocky physiognomy. Sir Joshua Reynolds, ( ———— with
fingers so lissom, Girls start from his canvass, and ask us
to kiss 'em!) having taken the liberty of mitigating the
utter stupidity of one of his “Pot-boilers,” i. e. stupid
faces, and receiving from the sitter's family the reverse of
approbation, exclaimed, “I have thrown a glimpse of meaning
into this fool's phiz, and now none of his friends know
him!” At another time, having painted too true a likeness,
it was threatened to be thrown upon his hands, when a polite
note from the artist, stating that, with the additional
appendage of a tail, it would do admirably for a monkey, for
which he had a commission, and requesting to know if the
portrait was to be sent home or not, produced the desired
effect. The picture was paid for, and put into the fire!
“Unsheath me, mine host, thy Toledo so bright.
Delicious Sir Loin! I do dub thee a knight.
Be thine at our banquets of honour the post;
While the Queen rules the realm, let Sir Loin rule the
roast!
And'tis, my Lord Keeper, our royal belief,
The Spaniard had beat, had it not been for beef!
Let him come if he dare! he shall sink! he shall quake!
With a duck-ing, Sir Francis shall give him a Drake.
Thus, Don Whiskerandos, I throw thee my glove!
And now, merry minstrel, strike up 'highly Love,'
Come, pursey Sir Nicholas, caper thy best—
Dick Tarlton shall finish our sports with a jest.”
The virginals sounded, Sir Nicholas puff'd,
And led forth her Highness, high-heel'd and be-ruff'd—
Automaton dancers to musical chimes!
O the days of Queen Bess, they were merry old times!
“And now, leaving Nestor Nightingale to propitiate Uncle Timothy for this interpolation to his Merrie Mysteries, let us return and pay our respects, not to the dignified Count Haynes, the learned Doctor Haynes, but to plain Joe Haynes, the practical-joking Droll-Player of Bartholomew Fair: *
* Antony, vulgo Tony Aston, a famous player, and one of
Joe's contemporaries. The only portrait (a sorry one) of
Tony extant, is a small oval in the frontispiece to the
Fool's Opera, to which his comical harum-scarum
autobiography is prefixed.
In the first year of King James the Second, * our hero set up a booth in Smithfield Rounds, where he acted a new droll, called the Whore of Babylon, or the Devil and the Pope. Joe being sent for by Judge Pollixfen, and soundly rated for presuming to put the pontiff into such bad company, replied, that he did it out of respect to his Holiness; for whereas many ignorant people believed the Pope to be a blatant beast, with seven heads, ten horns, and a long tail, like the Dragon of Wantley's, according to the description of the Scotch Parsons! he proved him to be a comely old gentleman, in snow-white canonicals, and a cork-screw wig. The next morning two bailiffs arrested him for twenty pounds, just as the Bishop of Ely was riding by in his coach. Quoth Joe to the bailiffs, “Gentlemen, here is my cousin, the Bishop of Ely; let me but speak a word to him, and he will pay the debt and charges.”
* Catholicism, though it enjoined penance and mortification,
was no enemy, at appointed seasons, to mirth. Hers were
merry saints, for they always brought with them a holiday. A
right jovial prelate was the Pope who first invented the
Carnival! On that joyful festival racks and thumbscrews,
fire and faggots, were put by; whips and hair-shirts
exchanged for lutes and dominos; and music inspired equally
their diversions and devotions.
The Bishop ordered his carriage to stop, whilst Joe (close to his ear) whispered, “My Lord, here are a couple of poor waverers who have such terrible scruples of conscience, that I fear they'll hang themselves.”—“Very well,” said the Bishop. So calling to the bailiffs, he said, “You two men, come to me to-morrow, and I'll satisfy you.” The bailiffs bowed, and went their way; Joe (tickled in the midriff, and hugging himself with his device) went his way too. In the morning the bailiffs repaired to the Bishop's house. “Well, my good men,” said his reverence, “what are your scruples of conscience?”—“Scruples!” replied the bailiffs, “we have no scruples, We are bailiffs, my Lord, who yesterday arrested your cousin Joe Haynes for twenty pounds. Your Lordship promised to satisfy us to-day, and we hope you will be as good as your word.” The Bishop, to prevent any further scandal to his name, immediately paid the debt and charges.
The following theatrical adventure occurred during his pilgrimage to the well-known shrine,
“Which at Loretto dwelt in wax, stone, wood.
And in a fair white wig look'd wondrous fine.”
It was St. John's day, and the people of the parish had built a stage in the body of the church, for the representation of a tragedy called the Decollation of the Baptist. * Joe had the good luck to enter just as the actors were leaving off their “damnable faces,” and going to begin.
* The Chester Mysteries, written by Randle or Ralph Hig-den,
a Benedictine of St. Werburg's Abbey in that city, were
first performed during the mayoralty of John Arneway, who
filled that office from 1268 to 1276, at the cost and
charges of the different trading companies therein. They
were acted in English (“made into partes and pagiantes”)
instead of in Latin, and played on Monday, Tuesday, and
Wednesday in Whitsun week. The companies began at the abbey
gates, and when the first pageant was concluded, the
moveable stage (“a high scaffolde with two rowmes; a higher
and a lower, upon four wheeles”) was wheeled to the High
Cross before the Mayor, and then onward to every street, so
that each street had its pageant. “The Harrowing of Hell” is
one of the most ancient Miracle Plays in our language. It is
as old as the reign of Edward the Third, if not older. The
Prologue and Epilogue were delivered in his own person by
the actor who had the part of the Saviour. In 1378, the
Scholars of St. Paul's presented a petition to Richard the
Second, praying him to prohibit some “inexpert people” from
representing the History of the Old Testament, to the
serious prejudice of their clergy, who had been at great
expense in order to represent it at Christmas. On the 18th
July, 1390, the Parish Clerks of London played Religious
Interludes at the Skinners' Well, in Clerkenwell, which
lasted three days. In 1409, they performed The Creation of
the World, which continued eight days. On one side of the
lowest platform of these primitive stages was a dark pitchy
cavern, whence issued fire and flames, and the howlings of
souls tormented by demons. The latter occasionally showed
their grinning faces through the mouth of the cavern, to the
terrible delight of the spectators! The Passion of Our
Saviour was the first dramatic spectacle acted in Sweden, in
the reign of King John the Second. The actor's name was
Lengis who was to pierce the side of the person on the
cross. Heated by the enthusiasm of the scene, he plunged his
lance into that person's body, and killed him. The King,
shocked at the brutality of Lengis, slew him with his
scimetar; when the audience, enraged at the death of their
favourite actor, wound up this true tragedy by cutting off
his Majesty's head!
They had pitched upon an ill-looking surly butcher for King Herod, upon whose chuckle-head a gilt pasteboard crown glittered gloriously by the candlelight; and, as soon as he had seated himself in a rickety old wicker chair, radiant with faded finery, that served him for a throne, the orchestra (three fifes and a fiddle) struck up a merry tune, and a young damsel began so to shake, her heels, that with the help of a little imagination, our noble comedian might have fancied himself in his old quarters at St. Bartholomew, or Sturbridge Fair. *
* Stourbridge, or Sturbridge Fair, originated in a grant
from King John to the hospital of lepers at that place. By a
charter in the thirtieth year of Henry the Eighth, the fair
was granted to the magistrates and corporation of Cambridge.
In 1613 it became so popular, that hackney coaches attended
it from London; and in after times not less than sixty
coaches plied there. In 1766 and 1767, the “Lord of the Tap,”
dressed in a red livery, with a string over his shoulders,
from whence depended spigots and fossetts, entered all the
booths where ale was sold, to determine whether it was fit
beverage for the visitors. In 1788, Flockton exhibited at
Sturbridge Fair. The following lines were printed on his
bills:—
“To raise the soul by means of wood and wire,
To screw the fancy up a few pegs higher;
In miniature to show the world at large,
As folks conceive a ship who 've seen a barge.
This is the scope of all our actors' play,
Who hope their wooden aims will not be thrown away!”
The dance over, King Herod, with a vast profusion of barn-door majesty, marched towards the damsel, and in “very choice Italian” (which the parson of the parish composed for the occasion, and we have translated) thus complimented her:
“Bewitching maiden I dancing sprite!
I like thy graceful motion:
Ask any boon, and, honour bright!
It is at thy devotion.”
The danseuse, after whispering to a saffron-complexioned crone, who played Herodias, fell down upon both knees, and pointing to the Baptist, a grave old farmer! exclaimed,
“If, sir, intending what you say,
Your Majesty don't flatter,——
I would the Baptist's head to-day
Were brought me in a platter.”
The bluff butcher looked about him as sternly as one of Elkanah's * blustering heroes, and, after taking a fierce stride or two across the stage to vent his royal choler, vouchsafed this reply,
* Elkanah Settle, the City Lauréat, after the Revolution,
kept a booth at Bartholomew Fair, where, in a droll, called
St. George for England, he acted in a dragon of green
leather of his own invention. In reference to the sweet
singer of “annual trophies” and “monthly wars” hissing in
his own dragon, Pope utters this charitable wish regarding
Colley,
“Avert it, heaven, that thou, my Cibber, e'er Shouldst wag a
serpent-tail in Smithfield Fair!”
“Fair cruel maid, recall thy wish,
O pray think better of it!
I'd rather abdicate, than dish
The cranium of my prophet.”
Miss still continued pertinacious and positive.
“Your royal word's not worth a fig,
If thus in flams you glory;
I claim your promise for my jig,
The Baptist's upper story.”
This satirical sally put the imperial butcher upon his mettle; he bit his thumbs, scratched his carrotty poll, paused; and, thinking he had lighted on a loop-hole, grumbled out with stiff-necked profundity,
“ A wicked oath, like sixpence crack'd,
Or pie-crust, may be broken.”
The damsel, however, was “down upon him” before he could articulate “Jack Robinson,” with
“But not the promise of a King,
Which is a royal token.”
This polished off the rough edges of his Majesty's misgivings, and the decollation of John the Baptist followed; but the good people, resolving to make their martyr some small amends, permitted his representative to receive absolution from a portly priest who stood as a spectator at one corner of the stage; while the two soldiers who had decapitated him in effigy, with looks full of contrition, threw themselves into the confessional, and implored the ghostly father to assign them a stiff penance to expiate their guilt. Thus ended this tragedy of tragedies, which, with all due deference to Joe's veracity, we suspect to have had its origin in Bartholomew Fair.
Joe Haynes shuffled off his comical coil on Friday, the 4th of April 1701. The Smithfield muses mourned his death in an elegy, * a rare broadside, with a black border, “printed for J. B. near the Strand, 1701.”
* “An Elegy on the Death of Mr. Joseph Haines, the late
Famous Actor in the King's Play-House,” &c. &c.
“Lament, you beaus and players every one,
The only champion of your cause is gone:
The stars are surly, and the fates unkind,
Joe Haines is dead, and left his Ass behind!
Ah, cruel fate! our patience thus to try,
Must Haines depart, while asses multiply?
If nothing but a player down would go,
There's choice enough besides great Haines the beau!
In potent glasses, when the wine was clear,
Thy very looks declared thy mind was there.
Awful, majestic, on the stage at sight,
To play (not work) was all thy chief delight:
Instead of danger and of hateful bullets,
Roast beef and goose, with harmless legs of pullets!
Here lies the Famous Actor, Joseph Haines,
Who, while alive, in playing took great pains,
Performing all his acts with curious art,
Till Death appear'd, and smote him with his dart.”
Thomas Dogget, the last of our triumvirate, was “a little lively sprat man.” He dressed neat, and something fine, in a plain cloth coat and a brocaded waistcoat. He sang in company very agreeably, and in public very comically. He was the Will Kempe of his day. He danced the Cheshire Round full as well as the famous Captain George, but with more nature and nimbleness. *
* Dogget had a sable rival. “In Bartholomew Fair, at the
Coach-House on the Pav'd Stones at Hosier-Lane-End, you
shall see a Black that dances the Cheshire Rounds, to the
admiration of all spectators.” Temp. William Third.
Here, too, is Dogget's own bill! “At Parker's and Dogget's
Booth, near Hosier-Lane-End, during the time of Bartholomew
Fair, will be presented a New Droll, called Fryar Bacon, or
the Country Justice; with the Humours of Tollfree the
Miller, and his son Ralph, Acted by Mr. Dogget. With variety
of Scenes, Machines, Songs, and Dances. Vivat Rex, 1691.”
A writer in the Secret Mercury of September 9, 1702, says, “At last, all the childish parade shrunk off the stage by matter and motion, and enter a hobbledehoy of a dance, and Dogget, in old woman's petticoats and red waistcoat, as like Progue Cock as ever man saw. It would have made a stoic split his lungs if he had seen the temporary harlot sing and weep both at once; a true emblem of a woman's tears!” He was a faithful, pleasant actor. He never deceived his audience; because, while they gazed at him, he was working up the joke, which broke out suddenly into involuntary acclamations and laughter. He was a capital face-player and gesticulator, and a thorough master of the several dialects, except the Scotch; but was, for all that, an excellent Sawney.
[Original]
His great parts were Fondlewife, in the Old Bachelor; Ben, in Love for Love; Hob, in the Country Wake, &c. Colley Cibber's account of him is one glowing panegyric. Colley played Fondle wife so completely after the manner of Dogget, copying his voice, person, and dress with such scrupulous exactness, that the audience, mistaking him for the original, applauded vociferously. Of this Dogget himself was a witness, for he sat in the pit..
“Whoever would see him pictured, * may view him in the character of Sawney, at the Duke's Head in Lynn-Regis, Norfolk.” Will the jovial spirit of Tony Aston point out where this interesting memento hides its head? “Go on, I'll follow thee.” He died at Eltham in Kent, 22nd September 1721.
* The only portrait of Dogget known is a small print,
representing him dancing the Cheshire Round, with the motto
“Ne sut or ultra crepidam
** Baddeley, the comedian, bequeathed a yearly sum for ever,
to be laid out in the purchase of a Twelfth-cake and wine,
for the entertainment of the ladies and gentlemen of Drury
Lane Theatre.
How small an act of kindness will embalm a man's memory! Baddeley's Twelfth Cake ** shall be eaten, and Dogget's coat and badge * rowed for,
While Christmas frolics, and while Thames shall flow.
“And shall not,” said Mr. Bosky, “a bumper flow, in spite of the 'Sin of drinking healths?” ** to
Three merry men, three merry men,
Three merry men they be!
Two went dead, like sluggards, in bed;
One in his shoes died of a noose
That he got at Tyburn-Tree!
Three merry men, three merry men,
Three merry men are we!
Push round the rummer in winter and summer,
By a sea-coal fire, or when birds make a choir
Under the green-wood tree!
The sea-coal burns, and the spring returns,
And the flowers are fair to see;
But man fades fast when his summer is past,
Winter snows on his cheeks blanch the rose—
No second spring has he!
Let the world still wag as it will,
Three merry wags are we!
A bumper shall flow to Mat, Thomas, and Joe
A sad pity that they had not for poor Mat
Hang'd dear at Tyburn-Tree.
* “This day the Coat and Badge given by Mr. Dogget, will
be rowed for by six young watermen, out of their
apprenticeship this year, from the Old Swan at Chelsea.”—
Daily Advertiser, July 31, 1753.
** The companion books to the “Sin of Drinking healths,”
were the “Loathsomness of Long Haire,” and the “Unlove-
liness of Love Locks,” by Messrs. Praise-God-Barebones and
Fear-the-Lord Barbottle.
CHAPTER II.
It would require a poetical imagination to paint the times when a gallant train of England's chivalry rode from the Tower Royal through Knight-rider Street and Giltspur Street (how significant are the names of these interesting localities, bearing record of their former glory!) to their splendid tournaments in Smithfield,—or proceeding down Long Lane, crossing the Barbican (the Specula or Watch-tower of Romanum Londinium), and skirting that far-famed street * where, in ancient times, dwelt the Fletchers and Bowyers, but which has since become synonymous with poetry—
* In Grub Street resided John Fox, the Martyrologist, and
Henry Welby, the English hermit, who, instigated by the
ingratitude of a younger brother, shut himself up in his
house for forty-four years, without being seen by any human
being. Though an unsociable recluse, he was a man of the
most exemplary charity.
—and poverty,—ambled gaily through daisy-dappled meads to Finsbury Fields, * to enjoy a more extended space for their martial exercises.
* In the days of Fitzstephen, Finsbury or Fensbury was one
vast lake, and the citizens practised every variety of
amusement on the ice. “Some will make a large cake of ice,
and, seating one of their companions upon it, they take hold
of one's hand, and draw him along. Others place the leg-
bones of animals under the soles of their feet, by tying
them round their ancles, and then, taking a pole shod with
iron into their hands, they push themselves forward with a
velocity equal to a bolt discharged from a crossbow.”
We learn from an old ballad called “The Life and Death of
the Two Ladies of Finsbury that gave Moorfields to the city,
for the maidens of London to dry their cloaths,” that Sir
John Fines, “a noble gallant knight,” went to Jerusalem to
“hunt the Saracen through fire and flood,” but before his
departure, he charged his two daughters “unmarried to
remain,” till he returned from “blessed Palestine.” The
eldest of the two built a “holy cross at 'Bedlam-gate,
adjoining to Moorfield and the younger “framed a pleasant
well,” where wives and maidens daily came to wash. Old Sir
John Fines was slain; but his heart was brought over to
England from the Holy Land, and, after “a lamentation of
three hundred days,” solemnly buried in the place to which
they gave the name of Finesbury. When the maidens died “they
gave those pleasant fields unto the London citizens,
“Where lovingly both man and wife May take the evening air;
And London dames to dry their cloaths May hither still
repair!”
Then was Osier Lane (the Smithfield end of which is immortalised in Bartholomew Fair annals) a long narrow slip of greensward, watered on both sides by a tributary streamlet from the river Fleet, on the margin of which grew a line of osiers, that hung gracefully over its banks. Smithfield, once “a place for honourable justs and triumphs,” became, in after times, a rendezvous for bravoes, and obtained the title of “Ruffians' Hall” Centuries have brought no improvement to it. The modern jockeys and chaunters are not a whit less rogues than the ancient “horse-coursers,” and the many odd traits of character that marked its former heroes, the swash-bucklers, * are deplorably wanting in the present race of irregulars, who are monotonous bullies, without one redeeming dash of eccentricity or humour. The stream of time, that is continually washing away the impurities of other murky neighbourhoods, passes, without irrigating, Smithfield's blind alleys and the squalid faces of their inhabitants.
* In ancient times a serving-man carried a buckler, or
shield, at his back, which hung by the hilt or pommel of his
sword hanging before him. A “swash-buckler” was so called
from the noise he made with his sword and buckler to
frighten an antagonist.
Yet was it Merryland in the olden time,—and, forgetting the days, when an unpaved and miry slough, the scene of autos da fê for both Catholics and Protestants, as the fury of the dominant party rode religiously rampant, as such let us consider it. Pleasant is the remembrance of the sports that are past, which
To all are delightful, except to the spiteful!
To none offensive, except to the pensive;
yet if the pensiveness be allied to, “a most humorous sadness,” the offence will be but small.
At the “Old Elephant Ground over against Osier Lane, in Smithfield, during the time of the fair,” in 1682, were to be seen “the Famous Indian Water-works, with masquerades, songs, and dances,”—and at the Plough-Musick Booth (a red flag being hung out as a sign) the fair folks were entertained with antic-dances, jigs, and sarabands; an Indian dance by four blacks; a quarter-staff dance; the merry shoemakers; a chair-dance; a dance by three milkmaids, with the comical capers of Kit the Cowherd; the Irish trot; the humours of Jack Tars and Scaramouches; together with good wine, cider, mead, music, and mum.
Cross we over from “Osier Lane-end” (the modern H is an interpolation,) to the King's Head and Mitre Music Booth, “over against Long Lane-end.” Beshrew me, Michael Root, thou hast an enticing bill of fare—a dish of all sorts—and how gravely looketh that apathetic Magnifico William, by any grace, but his own, “Sovereign Lord” at the head and front of thy Scaramouches and Tumblers! To thy merry memory, honest Michael! and may St. Bartlemy, root and branch, flourish for ever!
“Michael Root, from the King's-head at Ratcliff-cross, and Elnathan Root, from the Mitre in Wapping, now keep the King's-head and Mitre Musick-Booth in Smithfield Rounds, where will be exhibited A dance between four Tinkers in their proper working habits, with a song in character; Four Satyrs in their Savage Habits present you with a dance; Two Tumblers tumble to admiration; A new Song, called A hearty Welcome to Bartholomew Fair; Four Indians dance with Castinets; A Girl dances with naked rapiers at her throat, eyes, and mouth; a Spaniard dances a saraband incomparably well; a country-man and a country-woman dance Billy and Joan; & young lad dances the Cheshire rounds to admiration; a dance between two Scaramouches and two Irishmen; a woman dances with sixteen glasses on the backs and palms of her hands, turning round several thousand times; an entry, saraband, jig, and hornpipe; an Italian posture-dance; two Tartarians dance in their furious habits; three antick dances and a Roman dance; with another excellent new song, never before performed at any musical entertainment.”
John Sleep, or Sleepe, was a wide-awake man in “mirth and pastime famous for his mummeries and mum; of a locomotive turn, and emulated the zodiac in the number of his signs. He kept the Gun, in Salisbury Court, and the King William and Queen Mary in Bartholomew Fair; the Rose, in Turnmill Street (the scene, under the rose! of Falstaff's early gallantries ); and the Whelp and Bacon in Smithfield Rounds. That he was a formidable rival to the Messrs. Root; a “positive” fellow, and a polite one; teaching his Scaramouches civility, (one, it seems, had made a hole in his manners!) and selling “good wines, &C.” let his comically descriptive advertisement to “all gentlemen and ladies” pleasantly testify.
“John Sleepe keepeth the sign of the King William and Queen Mary, in Smithfield Rounds, where all gentlemen and ladies will be accommodated with good wines, &c. and a variety of musick, vocal and instrumental; besides all other mirth and pastime that wit and ingenuity can produce.
“A little boy dances the Cheshire rounds; a young gentlewoman dances the saraband and jigg extraordinary fine, with French dances, that are now in fashion; a Scotch dance, composed by four Italian dancing-masters, for three men and a woman; a young gentlewoman dances with six naked rapiers, so fast, that it would amaze all beholders; a young lad dances an antick dance extraordinary finely; another Scotch dance by two men and one woman, with a Scotch song by the woman, so very droll and diverting, that I am positive did people know the comick humour of it, they would forsake all other booths for the sight of them.”
In the following bill Mr. Sleep becomes still more “wonderful and extraordinary—
“John Sleep now keeps the Whelp and Bacon in Smithfield Rounds, where are to be seen, a young lad that dances a Cheshire round to the admiration of all people, The Silent Comedy, a dance representing the love and jealousy of rural swains, after the manner of the Great Turk's mimick dances performed by his mutes; a lad that tumbles to the admiration of all beholders; a young woman that dances with six naked rapiers, to the wonderful divertisement of all spectators; & young man that dances after the Morocco fashion, to the wonderful applause of all beholders; a nurse-dance, by a woman and two drunkards, wonderful diverting to all people; a young man that dances a hornpipe the Lancaster way, extraordinary finely; a lad that dances a Punch, extraordinary pleasant and diverting; a grotesque dance, called the Speak-ing Movement, shewing in words and gestures the humours of a musick booth, after the manner of the Venetian Carnival; and a new Scaramouch, more civil than the former, and after a far more ingenious and divertinger way!”
Excellent well, somniferous John! worthy disciple of St. Bartlemy.
Green, at the “Nag's Head and Pide Bull,” advertises eight “comical and diverting” exhibitions; hinting that he hath “that within which passeth shew but declines publishing his “other ingenious pastimes in so small a bill.” Yet he contrives to get into this “small bill” as much puff as his contemporaries. His pretensions are as superlative as his Scaramouches, and quite as diverting. “A young man dances with twelve naked swords,” and “a young woman with six naked rapiers, after a more pleasant and far inge-niuser fashion than had been danced before.”
These Bartholomew Fair showmen are sadly deficient in gallantry. With them the “gentlemen” always take precedence of the “ladies.” The Smithfield muses should have taught them better manners.
Manager Crosse * “at the Signe of the George,” advertises a genuine Jim Crow, “a black lately from the Indies, who dances antic dances after the Indian manner.” In those days the grinning and sprawling of an ebony buffoon were confined to the congenial timbers of Bartlemy fair!
* Managers Crosse, Powell, Luffingham, &c. Temp. Queen Anne
and George I.
Was the “young gentlewoman with six naked rapiers” ubiquitous, or had she rivals in the Rounds? But another lady, no less attractive, “invites our steps, and points to yonder” booth—where, “By His Majesty's permission, next door to the King's Head in Smithfield, is to be seen a woman-dwarf, * but three foot and one inch ** high, born in Somersetshire, and in the fortieth year of her age.”
* “One seeing a Dwarfe at Bartholomew Fair, which was
sixteen inches high, with a great head, a body, and no
thighs, said he looked like a block upon a barber's stall:—
* 'No!' says another, 'when he speaks, he is like the Brazen
Head of Fryer Bacon's.'”—The Comedian's Tales, 1729.
** A few seasons after appeared “The wonderful and
surprising English dwarf, two feet eight inches high, born
at Salisbury in 1709; who has been shewn to the Royal
Family, and most of the Nobility and Gentry of Great
Britain.”
And, as if we had not seen enough of “strange creatures alive? mark the following “advertisement”:—
“Next door to the Golden Hart, in Smithfield, is to be seen a live Turkey ram. Part of him is covered with black hair, and part with white wool. He hath horns as big as a bull's; and his tail weighs sixty pounds! Here is also to be seen alive the famous civet cat, and one of the holy lambs curiously spotted all over like a leopard, that us'd to be offered by the Jews for a sacrifice. Vivat Rex.”
This Turkey ram's tail is a tough tale, * even for the ad libitum of Smithfield Rounds. Such a tail wagged before such a master must have exhibited the two greatest wags in the fair.
* “A certain officer of the Guards being at the New Theatre,
behind the scenes, was telling some of the comedians of the
rarities he had seen abroad. Amongst other things, he had
seen a pike caught six foot long. 'That 's a trifle,' says
the late Mr. Spiller, the celebrated actor, 'I have seen
half a pike in England longer by a foot, and yet not worth
twopence!'”
The Roots were under ground, or planted in a cool arbour, quaffing—not Bartlemy “good wines,” (doctors never take their own physic!)—but genuine nutbrown. Their dancing-days were over; for “Root's booth” (temp. Geo.I.) was now tenanted by Powell, the puppet-showman, and one Luf-fingham, who, fired with the laudable ambition of maintaining the laughing honours of their predecessors, issued a bill, at which we cry “What next?” as the sailor did when the conjuror blew his own head off.
“At Root's booth, Powell from Russell Court, and Luffingham from the Cyder Cellar, in Covent-Garden, now keep the King Charles's Head, and Man and Woman fighting for the Breeches, in Bartholomew Fair, near Long Lane: where two figures dance a Scaramouch after a new grotesque fashion; a little boy, five years old, vaults from a table twelve foot high on his head, and drinks the King's health standing on his head, with two swords at his throat; a Scotch dance by three men and a woman; an Irishwoman dances the Irish trot; Roger of Coventry is danced by one in a countryman's habit; a cradle dance, being a comical fancy between a woman and her drunken husband fighting for the breeches; a woman dances with fourteen glasses on the back of her hands full of wine. Also several entries, as Almands Pavans, Galliads, Gavots, English Jiggs, and the Sabbotiers dance, so mightily admired at the King's Playhouse. The company will be entertained with vocal and instrumental musick, as performed at the late happy Congress at Reswick, in the presence of several princes and ambassadors.”
Here will I pause. For the present, we have supped full with Scaramouches. “Six naked rapiers” at my throat all night would be a sorry substitute for the knife and fork I hope to play anon, after a “more pleasant and far ingeniuser” fashion, with some plump roast partridges. A select coterie of Uncle Timothy's brother antiquaries have requested to be enlightened on Bartlemy fair lore. Will you, my friend Eugenio, during the Saint's saturnalia, join us in the ancient “Cloth quarter”? On, brave spirit! on. Rope-dancers invite thee; conjurors conjure thee; Punch squeaks thee a screeching welcome; mountebanks and posture-masters, * with every variety of physiognomical and physical contortion, lure thee to their dislocations.
* “From the Duke of Marlborough's Head in Fleet Street,
during the fair, is to be seen the famous posture-master,
who far exceeds Clarke and Higgins. He twists his body into
all deformed shapes, makes his hip and shoulder-bones meet
together, lays his head upon the ground, and turns his body
round twice or thrice without stirring his face from the
place.”—1711.
[Original]
Fawkes's dexterity of hand; the moving pictures; Pinchbeck's musical clock; Solomon's Temple; the waxwork, all alive! the Corsican fairy; * the dwarf that jumps down his—
* “The Corsican Fairy, only thirty-four inches high, and
weighing but twenty-six pounds, well-proportioned and a
perfect beauty. She is to be seen at the corner of Cow-Lane,
during Bartholomew Fair.”—1743.
—own throat! * the High German Artist, born without hands or feet; ** the cow with Jive legs; the—
* “Lately arrived from Italy Signor Capitello Jumpedo, a
surprising dwarf, not taller than a common tobacco-pipe. He
will twist his body into ten thousand shapes, and then open
wide his mouth, and jump down his own throat! He is to be
spoke with at the Black Tavern, Golden Lane.” January 18,
1749. This is the renowned “Bottle Conjuror.” Some such
deception was practised either by himself, or an imitator,
at Bartholomew Fair.
** “Mr. Mathew Buchinger, twenty-nine inches high, born
without hands or feet, June 2, 1674, in Germany, near Nu-
remburgh. He has been married four times, and has eleven
children. He plays on the hautboy and flute; and is no less
eminent for writing and drawing coats of arms and pictures,
to the life, with a pen. He plays at cards, dice, and nine-
pins, and performs tricks with cups, balls, and live birds.”
Every Jack has his Jill; and as a partner, not in a
connubial sense, my little Plenipo! we couple thee with
“The High German Woman, born without hands or feet, that
threads her needle, sews, cuts out gloves, writes, spins
fine thread, and charges and discharges a pistol. She is now
to be seen at the corner of Hosier Lane, during the time of
the fair.”—Temp. Geo. II.
Apropos of dwarfs—William Evans, porter to King Charles the
First, who was two yards and a half in height, “dancing in
an antimask at court, drew little Jeffrey the dwarf out of
his pocket, first to the wonder, then to the laughter of the
beholders.” Little Jeffrey's height was only three feet nine
inches. But even the gigantic William Evans, and George the
Fourth's tall porter whom we remember to have seen peep over
the gates of Carlton House, were nothing to the modern
American, who is so tall as to be obliged to go up a ladder
to shave himself!
—hare that beats a drum; * the Savoyard's puppet-shew; the mummeries of Moorfields, ** urge thee forward on thy ramble of two centuries through Bartholomew Fair, which, like
'Th' adventure of the Bear and Fiddle
Is sung—but breaks off in the middle.'”
* Ben Jonson, in his play of Bartholomew Fair, mentions this
singular exhibition having taken place in his time; and
Strutt gives a pictorial description of it, copied from a
drawing in the Harleian collection (6563) said to be upwards
of four centuries old.
** Moorfields, spite of its “melancholy Moor Ditch” was
formerly famous for,
“Hills and holes, and shops for brokers,
Open sinners, canting soakers;
Preachers, doctors, raving, puffing,
Praying, swearing, solving, huffing,
Singing hymns, and sausage frying,
Apple roasting, orange shying;
Blind men begging, fiddlers drawling,
Raree-shows and children bawling—
Gingerbread! and see Gibraltar!
Humstrums grinding tunes that falter;
Maim'd and halt aloft are staging,
Bills and speeches mobs engaging;
'Good people, sure de ground you tread on,
Me did put dis voman's head on!'”
“The Flying Horse, a noted victualling house in Moor-fields,
next to that of the late Astrologer Trotter, has been
molested for several nights past, stones, and glass bottles
being thrown into the house, to the great annoyment and
terror of the family and guests.”—News Letter of Feb. 25,
1716.
As the Lauréat closed his manuscript, the door opened, and who should enter but Uncle Timothy.
“Ha! my good friends, what happy chance has brought you to the business abode and town Tusculum of the Boskys for half-a-dozen generations of Drysalters?”
“Something short of assault and battery, fine and imprisonment.”
And Mr. Bosky, after helping Uncle Timothy off with his great coat, warming his slippers, wheeling round his arm-chair to the chimney-corner, and seeing him comfortably seated, gave a detail of our late encounter at the Pig and Tinder-Box.
The old-fashioned housekeeper delivered a note to Mr. Bosky, sealed with a large black seal.
“An ominous looking affair!” remarked the middle-aged gentleman.
“A death's head and cross-bones!” replied the Lauréat of Little Britain. “'Ods, rifles and triggers! if it should be a challenge from the Holborn Hill Demosthenes.”
“A challenge! a fiddlestick!” retorted Uncle
Tim, “he's only a tame cheater!' Every bullet that he fires I 'll swallow for a forced-meat ball.” Mr. Bosky having broken the black seal, read out as follows:—
“Mr. Merripall presents his respectful services to Benjamin Bosky, Esq. and begs the favour of his company to dine with the High Cockolorum Club * of associated Undertakers at the Death's Door, Battersea Rise, to-morrow, at four. If Mr. Bosky can prevail upon his two friends, who received such scurvy treatment from a fraction of the Antiqueeruns, to accompany him, it will afford Mr. M. additional pleasure.”
* It may be curious to note down some of the odd clubs that
existed in 1745, viz. The Virtuoso's Club; the Knights of
the Golden Fleece; the Surly Club; the Ugly Club; the Split-
Farthing Club; the Mock Heroes Club; the Beau's Club; the
Quack's Club; the Weekly Dancing Club; the Bird-Fancier's
Club; the Chatter-wit Club; the Small-coal Man's Music Club;
the Kit-cat Club; the Beefsteak Club; all of which and many
more, are broadly enough described in “A Humorous Account of
all the Remarkable Clubs in London and Westminster.” In
1790, among the most remarkable clubs were, The Odd Fellows;
the Humbugs, (held at the Blue Posts, Russell Street, Covent
Garden,) the Samsonic Society; the Society of Bucks; the
Purl-Drinkers; the Society of Pilgrims (held at the
Woolpack, Kingsland Road); the Thespian Club; the Great
Bottle Club; the Je ne sçai quoi Club (held at the Star and
Garter, Pall Mall, and of which the Prince of Wales, and the
Dukes of York, Clarence, Orleans (Philip Egalité), Norfolk,
Bedford, &c. &c. were members); the Sons of the Thames
Society (meeting to celebrate the annual contest for
Dogget's Coat and Badge); the Blue Stocking Club; and the No
pay, no liquor Club, held at the Queen and Artichoke,
Hampstead Road, where the newly-admitted member, having paid
his fee of one shilling, was invested with the inaugural
honours, viz. a hat fashioned in the form of a quart pot,
and a gilt goblet of humming ale, out of which he drank the
healths of the brethren. In the present day, the Author of
Virginius has conferred classical celebrity on a club called
“The Social Villagers” held at the Bedford Arms, a merry
hostelrie at Camden Town.
It was at one of these festivous meetings that Uncle Timothy
produced the following Lyric of his own.
Fill, fill a bumper! no twilight, no, no!
Let hearts, now or never, and goblets o'erflow!
Apollo commands that we drink, and the Nine,
A generous spirit in generous wine.
The bard, in a bumper; behold, to the brim
They rise, the gay spirits of poesy—whim!
Around ev'ry glass they a garland entwine
Of sprigs from the laurel, and leaves from the vine.
A bumper! the bard who, in eloquence bold,
Of two noble fathers the story has told;
What pangs heave the bosom, what tears dim the eyes,
When the dagger is sped, and the arrow it flies.
The bard, in a bumper! Is fancy his theme?
'Tis sportive and light as a fairy-land dream;
Does love tune his harp? 'tis devoted and pure;
Or friendship? 'tis that which shall always endure.
Ye tramplers on liberty, tremble at him;
His song is your knell, and the slave's morning hymn!
His frolicksome humour is buxom and bland,
And bright as the goblet I hold in my hand.
The bard! brim your glasses; a bumper! a cheer!
Long may he live in good fellowship here.
Shame to thee, Britain, if ever he roam,
To seek with the stranger a friend and a home!
Fate in his cup ev'ry blessing infuse,
Cherish his fortune, and smile on his muse;
Warm be his hearth, and prosperity cheer
Those he is dear to, and those he holds dear.
Blythe be his autumn as summer hath been;—
Frosty, but kindly, and sweetly serene
Green be his winter, with snow on his brow;
Green as the wreath that encircles it now!
To dear Paddy Knowles, then, a bumper we fill,
And toast his good health as he trots down the hill;
In genius he 5s left all behind him by goles!
But he won't leave behind him another Pat Knowles!
“An unique invitation!” quoth Uncle Tim. “Gentlemen, you must indulge the High Coclcoorums, and go by all means.”
Mr. Bosky promised to rise with the lark, and be ready for one on the morrow; and, anticipating a good day's sport, we consented to accompany him.
Supper was announced, and we sat down to that social meal. In a day-dream of fancy, Uncle Timothy re-peopled the once convivial chambers of the Falcon and the Mermaid, with those glorious intelligences that made the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. the Augustan age of England. We listened to the wisdom, and the wit, and the loud laugh, as Shakspere and “rare Ben,” * in the full confidence of friendship, exchanged “thoughts that breathe, and words that burn,” so beautifully described by Beaumont in his letter to Jonson.
* “Shakespeare was god-father to one of Ben Jonson's
children, and after the christening, being in a deepe study,
Jonson came to cheere him up, and ask't him why he was so
melancholy? 'No, faith, Ben, (says he,) not I, but I have
been considering a great while what should be the fittest
gift for me to bestow upon my god-child, and I have resolv'd
at last.'—'I pr'y thee, what' says he,—'F faith, Ben, I'le
e'en give him a douzen good Lattin spoones, and thou shalt
translate them.'”—L'Estrange, No. 11. Mr. Dun.—Latten was
a name formerly used to signify a mixed metal resembling
brass. Hence Shakspere's appropriate pun, with reference to
the learning of Ben Jonson.
Many good jests are told of “rare Ben.” When he went to
Basingstoke, he used to put up his horse at the “Angel,”
which was kept by Mrs. Hope, and her daughter, Prudence.
Journeying there one day, and finding strange people in the
house, and the sign changed, he wrote as follows:—
“When Hope and Prudence kept this house, the Angel kept the
door;
Now Hope is dead, the Angel fled, and Prudence turn'd a w——!”
At another time he designed to pass through the Half Moon in
Aldersgate Street, but the door being shut, he was denied
entrance; so he went to the Sun Tavern at the Long Lane end,
and made these verses:—
“Since the Half Moon is so unkind,
To make me go about;
The Sun my money now shall have,
And the Moon shall go without.”
That he was often in pecuniary difficulties the following
extracts from Henslowe's papers painfully demonstrate. “Lent
un to Bengemen Johnson, player, the 28 of July, 1597, in
Redy money, the some of fower powndes, to be payed agayne
when so ever ether I, or any for me, shall demande yt,—
Witness E. Alleyn and John Synger.”—“Lent Bengemyne
Johnson, the 5 of Janewary, 1597-8, in redy money, the some
of Vs.”
“What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whom they came,
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest!”
Travelling by the swift power of imagination, we looked in at Wills and Buttons; beheld the honoured chair that was set apart for the use of Dryden; and watched Pope, then a boy, lisping in numbers, regarding his great master with filial reverence, as he delivered his critical aphorisms to the assembled wits. Nor did we miss the Birch-Rod that “the bard whom pilfer'd pastoral renown” hung up at Buttons to chastise “tuneful Alexis of the Thames' fair side,” his own back smarting from some satirical twigs that little Alexis had liberally laid on! We saw St. Patrick's Dean “steal” to his pint of wine with the accomplished Addison; and heard Gay, Arbuthnot, and Boling-broke, in witty conclave, compare lyrical notes for the Beggar's Opera—not forgetting the joyous cheer that welcomed “King Colley” to his midnight troop of titled revellers, after the curtain had dropped on Fondle wife and Foppington. And, hey presto! snugly seated at the Mitre, we found Doctor Johnson, lemon in hand, demanding of Goldsmith, *—
* If ever an author, whether considered as a poet, a critic,
an historian, or a dramatist, deserved the name of a
classic, it was Oliver Goldsmith. His two great ethic poems,
“The Traveller,” and “The Deserted Village,” for sublimity
of thought, truth of reasoning, and poetical beauty, fairly
place him by the side of Pope. The simile of the bird
teaching its young to fly, and that beginning with “As some
tall cliffy” have rarely been equalled, and never surpassed.
For exquisite humour and enchanting simplicity of style, his
essays may compare with the happiest effusions of Addison;
and his “Vicar of Wakefield,” though a novel, has advanced
the cause of religion and virtue, and may be read with as
much profit as the most orthodox sermon that was ever
penned. As a dramatist, he excelled all his contemporaries
in originality, character, and humour. As long as a true
taste for literature shall prevail, Goldsmith will rank as
one of its brightest ornaments: for while he delighted the
imagination, and alternately moved the heart to joy or
sorrow, he “gave ardour to virtue and confidence to truth.”
A tale of woe was a certain passport to his compassion; and
he has given his last guinea to an indigent suppliant.
To Goldsmith has been imputed a vain ambition to shine in
company; it is also said that he regarded with envy all
literary fame but his own. Of the first charge he is
certainly guilty; the second is entirely false; unless a
transient feeling of bitterness at seeing preferred merit
inferior to his own, may be construed into envy. A great
genius seldom keeps up his character in conversation: his
best thoughts, clothed in the choicest terms, he commits to
paper; and with these his colloquial powers are unjustly
compared. Goldsmith well knew his station in the literary
world; and his desire to maintain it hi every society, often
involved him in ridiculous perplexities. He would fain have
been an admirable Crichton. His ambition to rival a
celebrated posture-master had once very nearly cost him his
shins. These eccentricities, attached to so great a man,
were magnified into importance; and he amply paid the tax to
which genius is subject, by being envied and abused by the
dunces of his day. Yet he wanted not spirit to resent an
insult; and a recreant bookseller who had published an
impudent libel upon him, he chastised in his own shop. How
delightful to contemplate such a character! If ever there
was a heart that beat with more than ordinary affection for
mankind, it was Goldsmith's.
—Garrick, * Boswell, and Reynolds, “Who's for poonch?”——
* Garrick was born to illustrate what Shakspere wrote;—to
him Nature had unlocked all her springs, and opened all her
stores. His success was instantaneous, brilliant, and
complete. Colley Cibber was constrained to yield him
unwilling praise; and Quin, the pupil of Betterton and
Booth, openly declared, “That if the young fellow was right,
he, and the rest of the players, had been all wrong.” The
unaffected and familiar style of Garrick presented a
singular contrast to the stately air, the solemn march, the
monotonous and measured declamation of his predecessors. To
the lofty grandeur of tragedy, he was unequal; but its
pathos, truth, and tenderness were all his own. In comedy,
he might be said to act too much; he played no less to the
eye than to the ear,—he indeed acted every word. Macklin
blames him for his greediness of praise; for his ambition to
engross all attention to himself, and disconcerting his
brother actors by “pawing and pulling them about.” This
censure is levelled at his later efforts, when he adopted
the vice of stage-trick; but nothing could exceed the ease
and gaiety of his early performances. He was the delight of
every eye, the theme of every tongue, the admiration and
wonder of foreign nations; and Baron, Le Kain, and Clairon,
the ornaments of the French Stage, bowed to the superior
genius of their illustrious friend and contemporary. In
private life he was hospitable and splendid: he entertained
princes, prelates, and peers—all that were eminent in art
and science. If his wit set the table in a roar, his
urbanity and good-breeding forbade any thing like offence.
Dr. Johnson, who would suffer no one to abuse Davy but
himself! bears ample testimony to the peculiar charm of his
manners; and, what is infinitely better, to his liberality,
pity, and melting charity. By him was the Drury Lane
Theatrical Fund for decayed actors founded, endowed, and
incorporated. He cherished its infancy by his munificence
and zeal; strengthened its maturer growth by appropriating
to it a yearly benefit, on which he acted himself; and his
last will proves that its prosperity lay near his heart,
when contemplating his final exit from the scene of life. In
the bright sun of his reputation there were, doubtless,
spots: transient feelings of jealousy at merit that
interfered with his own; arts that it might be almost
necessary to practise in his daily commerce with dull
importunate playwrights, and in the government of that most
discordant of all bodies, a company of actors. His grand
mistakes were his rejection of Douglass and The Good Na-
tured Man; and his patronage of the Stay-maker, and the
school of sentiment. As an author, he is entitled to
favourable mention: his dramas abound in wit and character;
his prologues and epilogues display endless variety and
whim; and his epigrams, for which he had a peculiar turn,
are pointed and bitter. Some things he wrote that do not add
to his fame; and among them are The Fribbleriad, and The
Sick Monkey. One of the most favourite amusements of his
leisure was in collecting every thing rare and curious that
related to the early drama; hence his matchless collection
of old plays, which, with Roubilliac's statue of Shakspere,
he bequeathed to the British Museum: a noble gift! worthy of
himself and of his country!
The 10th of June, 1776, was marked by Garrick's retirement
from the stage. With his powers unimpaired, he wisely
resolved (theatrically speaking) to die as he had lived,
with all his glory and with all his fame. He might have,
indeed, been influenced by a more solemn feeling—
“Higher duties crave
Some space between the theatre and grave;
That, like the Roman in the Capitol,
I may adjust my mantle, ere I fall,”
The part he selected upon this memorable occasion was Don
Felix, in the Wonder. We could have wished that, like
Kemble, he had retired with Shakspere upon his lips; that
the glories of the Immortal had hallowed his closing scene.
His address was simple and appropriate—he felt that he was
no longer an actor; and when he spoke of the kindness and
favours that he had received, his voice faltered, and he
burst into a flood of tears. The most profound silence, the
most intense anxiety prevailed, to catch every word, look,
and action, knowing they were to be his last; and the public
parted from their idol with tears for his love, joy for his
fortune, admiration for his vast and unconfined powers, and
regret that that night had closed upon them for ever.
Garrick had long been afflicted with a painful disorder. In
the Christmas of 1778, being on a visit with Mrs. Garrick at
the country seat of Earl Spencer, he had a recurrence of it,
which, after his return to London, increased with such
violence, that Dr. Cadogan, conceiving him to be in imminent
danger, advised him, if he had any worldly affairs to
settle, to lose no time in dispatching them. Mr. Garrick
replied, “that nothing of that sort lay on his mind, and
that he was not afraid to die.” And why should he fear? His
authority had ever been directed to the reformation, the
good order, and propriety of the Stage; his example had
incontestibly proved that the profession of a player is not
incompatible with the exercise of every Christian and moral
duty, and his well-earned riches had been rendered the mean
of extensive public and private benevolence. He therefore
beheld the approach of death, not with that reckless
indifference which some men call philosophy, but with
resignation and hope. He died on Wednesday, January 20th,
1779, in the sixty-second year of his age.
“Sure his last end was peace, how calm his exit!
Night dews fall not more gently to the ground,
Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft.”
On Monday, February 1st, his body was interred with great
funeral pomp in Westminster Abbey, under the monument of the
divine Shakspere.
——“And Sir John Hawkins,” exclaimed Uncle Timothy, with unwonted asperity, “whose ideas of virtue never rose above a decent exterior and regular hours! calling the author of the Traveller an Idiot' It shakes the sides of splenetic disdain to hear this Grub Street chronicler * of fiddling and fly-fishing libelling the beautiful intellect of Oliver Goldsmith! Gentle spirit! thou wert beloved, admired, and mourned by that illustrious cornerstone of religion and morality, Samuel Johnson, who delighted to sound forth thy praises while living, and when the voice of fame could no longer soothe 'thy dull cold ear,' inscribed thy tomb with an imperishable record! Deserted is the village; the hermit and the traveller have laid them down to rest; the vicar has performed his last sad office; the good-natured man is no more—He stoops but to conquer!”
* The negative qualities of this sober Knight long puzzled
his acquaintances (friends we never heard that he had any! )
to devise an epitaph for him. At last they succeeded—
“Here lies Sir John Hawkins,
Without his shoes and stockings!”
The Lauréat, well comprehending an expressive look from his Mentor, rose to the pianoforte, and accompanied him slowly and mournfully in
THE POET'S REQUIEM.
Ah! yes, to the poet a hope there is given
In poverty, sorrow, unkindness, neglect,
That though his frail bark on the rocks may be driven,
And founder—not all shall entirely be wreck'd;
But the bright, noble thoughts, that made solitude sweet,
His world! while he linger'd unwillingly here,
Shall bid future bosoms with sympathy beat,
And call forth the smile and awaken the tear.
If, man, thy pursuit is but riches and fame;
If pleasure alluring entice to her bower;
The Muse waits to kindle a holier flame,
And woos thee aside for a classical hour.
And then, by the margin of Helicon's stream,
Th' enchantress shall lead thee, and thou from afar
Shalt see, what was once in life's feverish dream,
A poor broken spirit, * a bright shining star!——
Hail and farewell! to the Spirits of Light,
Whose minds shot a ray through this darkness of ours—
The world, but for them, had been chaos and night,
A desert of thorns, not a garden of flowers!
* Plautus turned a mill; Terenee was a slave; Boethius died
in a jail; Tasso was often distressed for a shilling; Benti-
voglio was refused admission into an hospital he had himself
founded; Cervantes died (almost) of hunger; Camoens ended
his days in an almshouse; Vaugelas sold his body to the
surgeons to support life; Burns died penniless,
disappointed, and heart-broken; and Massinger, Lee, and
Otway, were “steeped in poverty to the very lips.” Yet how
consoling are John Taylor the Water Poet's lines! Addressing
his friend, Wm. Fennor, he exclaims,
“Thou say'st that poetry descended is From poverty: thou
tak'st thy mark amiss—
In spite of weal or woe, or want of pelf,
It is a kingdom of content itself,!”
To the above unhappy list may be added Thomas Dekker the
Dramatist. “Lent unto the Company the 'of February, 1598, to
discharge Mr. Dicker out of the Counter in the Poultry, the
some of Fortie Shillinges.” In another place Mr. Henslowe
redeems Dekker out of the Clinke.
This was a subject that awakened all Uncle Timothy's enthusiasm!
“Age could not wither it, nor custom stale
Its infinite variety.”
But it produced fits of abstraction and melancholy; and Mr. Bosky knowing this, would interpose a merry tale or song. Upon the present occasion he made a bold dash from the sublime to the ridiculous, and striking up a comical voluntary, played us out of Little Britain.—
When I behold the setting sun,
And shop is shut, and work is done,
I strike my flag, and mount my tile,
And through the city strut in style;
While pensively I muse along,
Listening to some minstrel's song,
With tuneful wife, and children three—
O then, my love! I think on thee.
In Sunday suit, to see my fair
I take a round to Russell Square;
She slyly beckons while I peep.
And whispers, “down the area creep!”
What ecstacies my soul await;
It sinks with rapture—on my plate!
When cutlets smoke at half-past three—
And then, my love! I think on thee.
But, see the hour-glass, moments fly—
The sand runs out—and so must I!
Parting is so sweet a sorrow,
I could manger till to-morrow!
One embrace, ere I again
Homeward hie to Huggin Lane;
And sure as goose begins with G,
I then, my love! shall think on thee.
Mr. William Shakspere says
In one of his old-fashion'd plays,
That true love runs not smooth as oil—
Last Friday week we had a broil.
Genteel apartments I have got,
The first floor down the chimney-pot;
Mount Pleasant! for my love and me—
And soon one pair shall walk up three!
“Gentlemen,” said Uncle Timothy, as he bade us good night, “the rogue, I fear, will be the spoil of you, as he hath been of me!”
CHAPTER III.
With the fullest intention to rise early the next morning, without deliberating for a mortal half-hour whether or not to turn round and take t' other nap, we retired to a tranquil pillow.
But what are all our good intentions?
Vexations, vanities, inventions!
Macadamizing what?—a certain spot,
To ears polite” politeness never mentions—
Tattoos, t' amuse, from empty drums.
Ah! who time's spectacles shall borrow?