This Fair, the humours of which an ingenious author truly observes, "will never be forgotten while Hogarth's inimitable print of it exists," was anciently called "Our Lady Fair," and lasted fourteen days. Like most others in the kingdom, it was originally established for the purposes of trade; but having become in process of time a mere scene of low riot and debauchery, its duration was shortened to three days; and it was at length totally abolished as a nuisance to the neighbourhood, and an encouragement to vice and dissipation. It was held at the top of Blackman Street, on the open space opposite the walls of the King's Bench prison, and began yearly a fortnight after Bartholomew Tide. The following characters in this print have been identified, in addition to others before noticed: Middle group.--The person whom the bailiffs are arresting, and who is supposed to have been playing (not Alexander the Great, but the part of Paris) in the _Siege of Troy_ (announced for representation on one of the neighbouring show-cloths), was intended for Walker, afterwards the famous Macheath in the _Beggars' Opera_, whose portrait it exactly resembles. It is introduced in this place with strict propriety, as we learn that Walker kept a great theatrical booth in Southwark Fair, as did Penkethman. "He also acted," says one of his biographers, "in the same way at Bartholomew Fair, where Booth saw him playing the part of Paris in the _Siege of Troy_."[121] The painter probably placed him in the ridiculous situation we see him, on account of his known extravagancy and consequent embarrassments, which often procured him a visit from the bailiffs.