[2] Henry Angelo, in his _Reminiscences_, gives a different version of this story. "The father of Grimaldi, for many years the favourite clown, was my dancing-master when I was a boy, and encouraged my harlequin and monkey tricks; he related the anecdote to me, himself, and I am therefore justified in repeating it. At the time of the riots, in June, 1780, he resided in a front room, on the second floor in Holborn, on the same side of the way near to Red Lion Square, when the mob passing by the house, and Grimaldi being a foreigner, they thought he must be a papist. On hearing he lived there, they all stopped, and there was a general shouting; a cry of 'No Popery!' was raised, and they were about to assail the house, when Grimaldi, who had been listening all the time, and knew their motives, put his head out of the window from the second floor, and making comical grimaces, called out, 'Genteelmen, in dis hose dere be no religion at all.' Laughing at their mistake, the mob proceeded on, first giving him three huzzas, though his house, unlike all the others, had not written on the door--'No Popery!'" [3] Joe, from some erroneous information he had received, always stated he was born in Stanhope-street, Clare-market, December 18, 1779; he mentioned this in his farewell address at Sadler's Wells, and again subscribed that date at the end of his autobiographical notes. He was in error: a reference to the baptismal register of St. Clement's Danes, proved he was born on December 18, 1778, and that he was baptized as the son of Joseph and Rebecca, on the 28th of the same month and year. From this entry, it might be inferred that Joe was legitimate; but we are sorry to be compelled to record that he was not so. Rebecca was Mrs. Brooker, who had been from her infancy a dancer at Drury Lane, and subsequently, at Sadler's Wells, played old women, or anything to render herself generally useful. Mr. Hughes and others who well remember her, describe her as having been a short, stout, very dark woman. The same baptismal register from 1773 to 1788, has been carefully inspected, but no mention occurs of Joe's only brother, John Baptist, or of any other of the Grimaldi family. [4] Joe's first appearance was at Sadler's Wells, not at Drury Lane; the announcement bill for the opening on April 16, Easter Monday, 1781, of the former theatre, tells us of Dancing by Mr. Le Mercier, Mr. Languish, Master and Miss Grimaldi, and Mrs. Sutton. Here we see Joe, and his sister Mary, afterwards Mrs. Williamson, thrust forward sufficiently early to earn their bread. Grimaldi, in his farewell address, on his last appearance at Sadler's Wells, pathetically alluded to this fact--"at a very early age, before that of three years, I was introduced to the public, by my father, at this theatre."