His famous part was the cook-maid in “_Whittington_,” Bartholomew Fair droll. The last September of his life he acted a Judge there, little dreaming that in the ensuing February he should be brought before one, (for stealing a watch and seven pounds in money,) and sent on a pilgrimage to Tyburn-tree! He was a poet, and wrote a volume * of adulatory verses, calculated for the meridian of the times in which he lived. The following is the comical trick he put upon a countryman in Bartholomew Fair. The company (i. e. strolling players) finding the country too warm for them, came with our spark to town, in expectation of recruiting their finances by the folly of such as should resort to Bartholomew Fair. * Poems, Songs, and Love-Verses upon several subjects. By Matthew Coppinger, Gent. 1682. Dedicated to the Duchess of Portsmouth; of whom, amongst an hundred extravagant things, he says, “You are the darling of my King, his pleasure, His Indies of incomparable treasure!” Upon the credit of which they took a lodging in Smithfield, and made shift to get up a small booth to shew juggling tricks in, the art of hocus pocus, and pouder-le-pimp. The score being deep on all hands, the people clamouring for money, and customers coming but slowly in, they consulted how to rub off, and give their creditors the bag to hold. To this Coppinger dissented, saying he would find out the way to mend this dulness of trading; and he soon effected it by a lucky chance. A country fellow, on his return from Newgate-market on horseback, resolving to have a gape at Jack Pudding, sat gazing, with his mouth at half-cock; and, so intent was he, that his senses seemed to be gone wool-gathering. Coppinger, whispering some of his companions, they stept to “Tom Noddies” horse, one of them ungirthing him, and taking off the bridle, the reins of which the fellow held in his hand, they bore him on the pack-saddle on each side, and led the horse sheer from under him; whilst another with counterfeit horns, and a vizard, put his head out of the head-stall, and kept nodding forwards, so that “Ninny” verily supposed, by the tugging of the reins, that he was still on “cock-horse!” The signal being given, they let him squash to the ground, pack-saddle and all; when, terrified at the sight of the supposed devil he had got in a string, and concluding Hocus Pocus had conjured his horse into that antic figure, he scrambled up, and betaking him to his heels back into the country, frightened his neighbours with dismal stories that Dr. Faustus and Friar Bacon were alive again, and transforming horses into devils in Bartholomew Fair! The tale, gathering as it spread, caused the booth to be thronged; which piece of good-luck was solely attributable to Coppinger's ingenuity. [Illustration: 0302]