On the 26th May, 1555, (see Strype's Memorials,) there was a May-game at St. Martin's in the Fields, with giants and hobby-horses, drums, guns, morris-dancers, and minstrels. (“_Hercule du Roi!_”) a French equilibrist; Pietro Bologna, a dancer on the slack-wire; Signor Placida (“the Little Devil!”); “La Belle Espagnole” (on the tight-rope); the “real wild man of the woods;” * the dancing-dogs of Sieur Scaglioni; ** General Jacko, *** and Pidcock's **** menagerie, (to which succeeded those of Polito and Wombwell,) one and all drove a roaring trade at Bartholomew Fair. * “This Ethiopian savage has a black face, with a large white circle round it. He sits in a chair in a very pleasing and majestic attitude; eats his food like a Christian, and is extremely affable and polite.” ** These dogs danced an allemand, mimicked a lady spinning, and a deserter going to execution, attended by a chaplain, (a dressed-up puppy!) in canonicals. *** “June 17, 1785, at Astley's, General Jacko performs the broad-sword exercise; dances on the tight-rope; balances a i pyramid of lights; and lights his master home with a link.” In the following September the General opened his campaign at Bartholomew Fair. **** Were you to range the mighty globe all o'er, From east to west, from north to southern shore; Under the line of torrid zone to go,-- No deserts, woods, groves, mountains, more can shew To you, than Pidcock in his forest small-- Here, at one view, you have a sight of all.” We chronicle not the gods, emperors, dark bottle-green demons, and indigo-blue nondescripts that have since strutted their hour upon the boards of “Richardson's Grand Theatrical Booth.” * They, like every dog, have had their day; and comical dogs were most of them! Of the modern minstrelsy of the “Rounds,” the lyrics of Mr. Johannot, Joe Grimaldi, and the very merry hey down derry, “Neighbour Prig” song of Charles Mathews, ** are amusing specimens. * In Sept. 1806, Mr. and Mrs. Carey (the reputed father and mother of Edmund Kean, the tragedian,) played at Richardson's Theatre, Bartholomew Fair, the Baron Montaldi and his daughter, in a gallimaufry of love, murder, brimstone, and blue fire, called “The Monk and Murderer, or the Skeleton Spectre!”