That Banks travelled with his learned horse from Paris to Orleans, and thence to Frankfort, is shown by this extract; but his further wanderings are unrecorded. It has been inferred, from the following lines of a burlesque poem by Jonson, that he suffered at last the fate he escaped at Orleans; but the grounds which the poet had for supposing such a dreadful end for the poor horse-charmer are unknown. ‘But ’mongst these Tiberts, who do you think there was? Old Banks, the juggler, our Pythagoras, Grave tutor to the learned horse; both which, Being, beyond sea, burned for one witch, Their spirits transmigrated to a cat.’ These itinerant performers seem to have divided their time between town and country, as many of them do at the present day. Sir William Davenant, describing the street sights of the metropolis in his curious poem entitled _The Long Vacation in London_, says— ‘Now, vaulter good, and dancing lass On rope, and man that cries, Hey, pass! And tumbler young that needs but stoop, Lay head to heel to creep through hoop; And man in chimney hid to dress Puppet that acts our old Queen Bess; And man, that while the puppets play, Through nose expoundeth what they say; And white oat-eater that does dwell In stable small at sign of Bell, That lifts up hoof to show the pranks Taught by magician styled Banks; And ape led captive still in chain Till he renounce the Pope and Spain; All these on hoof now trudge from town To cheat poor turnip-eating clown.’ About the middle of the seventeenth century, some of these wandering performers began to locate themselves permanently in the metropolis. Jacob Hall, the rope-dancer, was scarcely less famous as an acrobat, being clever and alert in somersaults and flip-flaps, performing the former over naked rapiers and men’s heads, and through hoops. He is mentioned by contemporary memoir writers as the first lover of Nell Gwynne, who appears, however, in a short time to have transferred her favours to Harte, the actor. In 1683, one Sadler opened the music-house at Islington which, from the circumstance of a mineral spring being discovered on the spot, became known by the name of Sadler’s Wells, which it has retained to this day. It was not until after Sadler’s death, however, that rope-dancing and acrobats’ performances were added to the musical entertainments which, with the water, were the sole attraction of the place in its earliest days. The change was made by Francis Forcer, whose son was for several years the principal performer there. Forcer sold the establishment to Rosamond, the builder of Rosamond’s Row, Clerkenwell, who contrived, by judicious management, to amass a considerable fortune.