Extracts Relating to Mediaeval Markets and Fairs in EnglandDouglas-Irvine, Helen
History
Extracts Relating to Mediaeval Markets and Fairs in England
Douglas-Irvine, Helen
Fairs; Great Britain -- History -- Sources; Markets -- England
who she followed into Italy, disguising herself in Man's Habit; shewing
the Hardships she underwent by being Shipwrecked on the Coast of
Algier, where she met her Lover, who was doom'd to be burnt at a Stake
by the King of that Country, who fell in Love with her and proffered
her his Crown, which she dispised, and chose rather to share the fate
of her Antonio than renounce the Christian Religion to embrace that of
their Imposter Prophet Mahomet.
With the comical Humours of
ROGER, ANTONIO'S MAN.
And Variety of Singing and Dancing between the Acts, by Mr. Sandham
Mrs. Woodward and Miss Sandham.
Particularly, A new Dialogue to be sung by Mr. Excell and Mrs.
Fitzgerald. Written by the Author of _Bacchus one Day gaily striding_,
etc., and a Hornpipe by Mr. Taylor. To which will be added a new
Entertainment (never performed before) called
The INTRIGUING HARLEQUIN,
Or
Any Wife better than none.
With Scenes, Machines, and other Decorations proper to the
Entertainment.
_Advertisement in a collection at the British Museum._
GREENWICH FAIR (in 1835-6).
... Imagine yourself in an extremely dense crowd which swings you to
and fro and in and out, and every way but the right one; add to this
the screams of women, the shouts of boys, the clanging of gongs, the
firing of pistols, the ringing of bells, the bellowing of
speaking-trumpets, the squeaking of penny dittoes, the noise of a dozen
bands with three drums in each, all playing different tunes at the same
time, the hallooing of showmen, and an occasional roar from the wild
beast shows; and you are in the very centre and heart of the fair.
This immense booth, with the large stage in front, so brightly
illuminated with variegated lamps and pots of burning fat, is
"Richardson's," where you have a melodrama (with three murders and a
ghost), a pantomime, a comic song, an overture, and some incidental
music, all done in five-and-twenty minutes. The company are now
promenading outside in all the dignity of wigs, spangles, red ochre,
and whitening.... The exhibitions next in popularity to these itinerant
theatres are the travelling menageries, or, to speak more intelligibly,
the "Wild beast shows," where a military band in beef-eater's costume,
with leopardskin caps, play incessantly, and where large highly
coloured representations of tigers tearing men's heads open, and a lion
being burnt with red hot irons to induce him to drop his victim, are
hung up outside, by way of attracting visitors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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