* Elkanah Settle, the City Lauréat, after the Revolution, kept a booth at Bartholomew Fair, where, in a droll, called St. George for England, he acted in a dragon of green leather of his own invention. In reference to the sweet singer of “annual trophies” and “monthly wars” hissing in his own dragon, Pope utters this charitable wish regarding Colley, “Avert it, heaven, that thou, my Cibber, e'er Shouldst wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield Fair!” “Fair cruel maid, recall thy wish, O pray think better of it! I'd rather abdicate, than dish The cranium of my _prophet_.” Miss still continued pertinacious and positive. “Your royal word's not worth a fig, If thus in flams you glory; I claim your promise for my jig, The _Baptist's_ upper story.” This satirical sally put the imperial butcher upon his mettle; he bit his thumbs, scratched his carrotty poll, paused; and, thinking he had lighted on a loop-hole, grumbled out with stiff-necked profundity, “ A wicked oath, like sixpence crack'd, Or pie-crust, may be broken.” The _damsel_, however, was “down upon him” before he could articulate “Jack Robinson,” with “But not the promise of a King, Which is a _royal token_.” This polished off the rough edges of his Majesty's misgivings, and the decollation of John the Baptist followed; but the good people, resolving to make their martyr some small amends, permitted his representative to receive absolution from a _portly priest_ who stood as a spectator at one corner of the stage; while the two soldiers who had decapitated him in effigy, with looks full of contrition, threw themselves into the confessional, and implored the ghostly father to assign them a stiff penance to expiate their guilt. Thus ended this tragedy of tragedies, which, with all due deference to Joe's veracity, we suspect to have had its origin in _Bartholomew Fair._ Joe Haynes shuffled off his comical coil on Friday, the 4th of April 1701. The Smithfield muses mourned his death in an elegy, * a rare broadside, with a black border, “printed for J. B. near the Strand, 1701.” * “An Elegy on the Death of Mr. Joseph Haines, the late Famous Actor in the King's Play-House,” &c. &c.