The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs — John Shaqi
The Old Showmen and the Old London FairsFrost, Thomas
History
The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs
Frost, Thomas
Fairs -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social life and customs
"'Tis from those of this number who are more refined, that the mountebank
obtains audience and credit, and it were a good bargain if such customers
had nothing for their money but words, but they are best content to pay
for druggs, and medicines, which commonly doe them hurt. There is one
corner of this Elizium field devoted to the eating of pig, and the
surfeits that attend it. The fruits of the season are everywhere scatter'd
about, and those who eat imprudently do but hasten to the physitian or the
churchyard."
In 1697, William Philips, the zany or Jack Pudding mentioned by Granger,
was arrested and publicly whipped for perpetrating, in Bartholomew Fair, a
jest on the repressive tendencies of the Government, which has been
preserved by Prior in a poem. It seems that he made his appearance on the
exterior platform of the show at which he was engaged, with a tongue in
his left hand and a black pudding in his right. Professing to have learned
an important secret, by which he hoped to profit, he communicated it to
the mountebank, as related by Prior, as follows:--
"Be of your patron's mind whate'er he says;
Sleep very much, think little, and talk less:
Mind neither good nor bad, nor right nor wrong;
But eat your pudding, slave, and hold your tongue."
Mr. Morley conjectures that this Philips was the W. Phillips who wrote the
tragedy of the _Revengeful Queen_, published in 1698, and who was supposed
to be the author of another, _Alcamenes and Menelippa_, and of a farce
called _Britons, Strike Home_, which was acted in a booth in Bartholomew
Fair. But worth more than all these plays would now be, if it could be
discovered, the book published in 1688, of which, only the title-page is
preserved in the Harleian collection, viz., 'The Comical History of the
famous Merry Andrew, W. Phill., Giving an Account of his Pleasant Humours,
Various Adventures, Cheats, Frolicks, and Cunning Designs, both in City
and Country.'
The circus was an entertainment as yet unknown. The only equestrian
performances were of the kind given by Banks, and repeated, as we learn
from Davenant and Pepys, by performers who came after him, of whom there
was a regular succession down to the time of Philip Astley. The first
entertainer who introduced horses into vaulting acts seems to have been
William Stokes, a famous vaulter of the reigns of the latter Stuarts. He
was the author of a manual of the art of vaulting, which was published at
Oxford in 1652, and contains several engravings, showing him in the act of
vaulting over a horse, over two horses, and leaping upon them, in one
alighting in the saddle, and in another upon the bare back of the horse,
_à la Bradbury_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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