[238] Elizabeth Canning (1734-73), a domestic servant in Aldermanbury, startled London in 1753 by the circumstantial story she told of her capture in Moorfields, and her subsequent imprisonment and ill-treatment at Enfield by “Mother Wells” and a gipsy woman, Mary Squires. After Squires had been condemned to death, and Wells had been burned in the hand, the case was revised, with the result that Squires was pardoned and her accuser transported for perjury. The affair, which had originally come before Henry Fielding, the novelist, at Bow Street, aroused an incredible amount of feeling in London. [239] _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_ was for long carelessly attributed to Shakespeare. Mr. Sidney Lee, in his _Shakespeare’s Life and Work_, says: “It is a delightful comedy … but no sign of Shakespeare’s workmanship is apparent.” [240] Thomas King (1730-1805) was a clever comedian. His stage career in London lasted fifty-four years. In November 1789 he played the part of Sir John Trotley in Garrick’s _Bon Ton, or High Life above Stairs_. “His acting,” says Charles Lamb, “left a taste on the palate sharp and sweet as a quince; with an old, hard, rough, withered face, like a john-apple, puckered up into a thousand wrinkles; with shrewd hints and tart replies.” The prologue of _Bon Ton_ has these lines:-- “Ah! I loves life, and all the joys it yields-- Says Madam Fussock, warm from Spital-fields. Bone Tone’s the space ’twixt Saturday and Monday, And riding in a one-horse chair o’ Sunday! ’Tis drinking tea on summer afternoons At Bagnigge-Wells, with China and gilt spoons! ’Tis laying by our stuffs, red cloaks, and pattens, To dance _Cow-tillions_, all in silks and sattins!” [241] Skelton says of Eleanor Rumming-- “She breweth noppy ale, And maketh thereof fast sale To travellers, to tinkers. To sweaters, to swinkers, And all good ale-drinkers.” The woman kept an alehouse at Leatherhead, which, it is thought, Skelton may have visited when staying with his royal master at Nonsuch Palace. It has been claimed, however, on interesting evidence, that her alehouse was “Two-pot House,” between Cambridge and Hardwicke. (See _Gentleman’s Magazine_, Nov. 1794, and _Chambers’ Book of Days_ under June 21.) [242] This passage in St. Martin’s Lane was built by a Mr. May, who lived in a house of his own design in St. Martin’s Lane. Here Smith himself lived at his father’s house, the Rembrandt Head, No. 18, for some years; the house is now absorbed in Messrs. Harrison’s printing establishment. I have found no trace of Hartry, the valiant cupper, but only of a dentist of that name, who may have been his son.