Fitzball made them repeat the chorus, but without obtaining any improvement. They would play, and they would not sing in unison. Fitzball glanced at his watch; it indicated ten minutes to the dinner hour of the fellows. He thereupon desired the call-boy to give his compliments to Mr Batty, and request that the dinner-bell might not be rung until he gave the word for the tintinnabulic summons. The choristers heard the message, and, as they wanted their dinners, and knew that Batty was a strict disciplinarian, it had the desired effect. There was no more ‘chaffing,’ no more practical jokes; they repeated the invocation in a chastened and subdued manner, and before the ten minutes had expired their practice was as good as that of the chorus at Covent Garden. _Mazeppa_ was revived at Astley’s during the season of 1851–2, and the acts in the arena comprised the fox-hunting scene of Anthony Bridges with a real fox; the great leaping act of John Bridges; the _cachuca_ and the _Cracovienne_ on the back of a horse, danced by Amelia Bridges; the graceful equestrian exercises of Mademoiselles Soullier and Masotta; the gymnastic feats of the Italian Brothers; and the humours and witticisms of Barry and Wheal, the clowns. The Hippodrome re-opened in the summer of 1852, under the management of Henri Franconi, the most striking features of the entertainment being Mr Barr’s exhibition of the sport of hawking, with living hawks and falcons; the acrobatic and rope-dancing feats of the clever Brothers Elliot; and Mademoiselle Elsler’s ascent of a rope over the roof of the circus. Batty, who was reputed to have died worth half a million sterling, was succeeded in the lesseeship of Astley’s by William Cooke, who, with his talented family, for several years well maintained the traditional renown of that popular place of amusement. Like the Ducrows, the Henglers, the Powells, and others, the Cookes are a family of equestrians; and not the least elements of the success achieved by the new lessee of Astley’s were the wonderful feats of equestrianism performed by John Henry Cooke, Henry Welby Cooke, and Emily Cooke (now Mrs George Belmore). Welby Cooke’s juggling acts on horseback were greatly admired, and John H. Cooke’s feat of springing from the back of a horse at full speed to a platform, under which the horse passed, and alighting on its back again, was quite unique.