In the circle a constant variety of attractive, and often novel, feats of horsemanship and gymnastics continued to be presented. All through the season of 1821 the great attraction in the circle was the graceful riding of a young lady named Bannister—probably the daughter of the circus proprietor of that name, whose name we shall presently meet with, and who had, shortly before that time, fallen into difficulties. During the following season the public were attracted by the novel and sensational performance of Jean Bellinck on the flying rope, stretched across the pit at an altitude of nearly a hundred feet, according to the bills, in which a little exaggeration was probably indulged. The great attraction of 1823 was Longuemare’s ascent of a rope from the stage to the gallery, amidst fireworks, which had been the sensation of the preceding season at Vauxhall Gardens, where, at the same time, Ramo Samee, the renowned Indian juggler, made his first appearance in this country. CHAPTER III. Ducrow at Covent Garden—Engagement at Astley’s—Double Acts in the circle—Ducrow at Manchester—Rapid Act on Six Horses—‘Raphael’s Dream’—Miss Woolford—Cross’s performing Elephant—O’Donnel’s Antipodean Feats—First year of Ducrow and West—Henry Adams—Ducrow at Hull—The Wild Horse of the Ukraine—Ducrow at Sheffield—Travelling Circuses—An Entrée at Holloway’s—Wild’s Show—Constantine, the Posturer—Circus Horses—Tenting at Fairs—The Mountebanks. When Elliston produced the spectacle of the _Cataract of the Ganges_ at Drury Lane Theatre, in 1823, Bunn, who was then lessee of Covent Garden Theatre, was induced by its success to engage Ducrow, who made his first appearance at that theatre on Easter Monday, 1824, in the lyrical and spectacular drama of _Cortez_. Davis, fearing a rival in the famous equestrian, offered him an engagement at Astley’s, where he soon became the chief attraction. The double act of Cupid and Zephyr, now represented by himself and his wife, was received with as much applause as it had elicited at Franconi’s; and a perfect _furore_ was created when he appeared on two bare-back horses, as an Indian hunter. Cline’s rope-walking feats varied the programme of the circle in 1826, and in the following year Ducrow, having first given the performance with immense success at Manchester, introduced his great feat, then unparalleled, of riding six horses at the same time, in his rapid act as a Russian courier.