your old master, the devil, and let him keep you!”--“The English Lueian, or Weekly Discoveries of the Witty Intrigues, Comical Passages, and Remarkable Transactions in Town and Country, &c. &c.” The above is a curious picture of an Islington ale-wife in the olden time. The following account describes a “strange monster” exhibited at Miles's Music-house at Islington a few years after, with the comical interlude of the Stuffed Alligator. “Some time since there was brought to Miles's Music-house at Islington, a strange sort of a monster, that does everything like a monkey, but is not a monkey; mimics man, like a jackanapes, but is not a jackanapes; jumps upon tables, and into windows upon all-fours, like a cat, but is not a cat; does all things like a beast, but is not a beast; does nothing like a man, but is a man! He has given such wonderful content to the Butchers of Clare Market, that the house is every day as full as the Bear Gardens; and draws the city wives and prentices out of London, much more than a man hanged in chains. It happened lately upon a holiday, when honest men walked abroad with their wives and daughters, to the great consumption of hot buns and bottled ale, that the fame of this mimick had drawn into the Music- house as great a crowd of spectators as the notable performances of Clinch of Barnet ever drew to the theatre. The Frape being thus assembled in the lower room, and the better sort being climbed into the gallery, a little creature, who before walked erect, and bore the image of a man, transformed himself into a monkey, and began to entertain the company with such a parcel of pretty pug's tricks, and mimical actions, that they were all as intent upon the baboon's vagaries as if a mandrake had been tumbling through a hoop, or a hobgoblin dancing an antick! Whilst the eyes and ears of the assembly were thus deeply engaged, the skin of a large alligator, stuff'd with hay, hanging within the top of the house, and the rats having burrowed through the ceiling, could come down at pleasure and sport upon the back of the monster; one of the revengeful vermin, to put a trick upon his fellows, who were enticed by the smell of the hay to creep down the serpent's throat, his jaws being extended, gnawed the cord in two, and down comes the alligator with his belly full of rats, upon the head of the monkey, and laid him sprawling; giving some of the spectators a wipe with his tail; the rats running out of his mouth in a wonderful hurry, like so many sailors from between decks when a ship at midnight has struck upon a rock!”--“A Pacquet from Will's, 1701.” CHAPTER XII.