At the King's Head, in West Smithfield, there was this year exhibited "a little Scotch Man, which has been admired by all that have yet seen him, he being but two Foot and six Inches high; and is near upon 60 years of Age. He was marry'd several years, and had Issue by his Wife, two sons (one of which is with him now). He Sings and Dances with his son, and has had the Honour to be shewn before several Persons of Note at their Houses, as far as they have yet travelled. He formerly kept a Writing school; and discourses of the Scriptures, and of many Eminent Histories, very wisely; and gives great satisfaction to all spectators; and if need requires, there are several Persons in this town, that will justifie that they were his Schollars, and see him Marry'd." In the same year, David Cornwell exhibited, at the Ram's Head, in Fenchurch Street, a singular lad, advertised as "the Bold Grimace Spaniard," who was said to have "liv'd 15 years among wild creatures in the Mountains, and is reasonably suppos'd to have been taken out of his cradle an Infant, by some savage Beast, and wonderfully preserv'd, till some Comedians accidentally pass'd through those parts, and perceiving him to be of Human Race, pursu'd him to his Cave, where they caught him in a Net. They found something wonderful in his Nature, and took him with them in their Travels through _Spain_ and _Italy_. He performs the following surprising grimaces, viz., He lolls out his Tongue a foot long, turns his eyes in and out at the same time; contracts his Face as small as an Apple; extends his Mouth six inches, and turns it into the shape of a Bird's Beak, and his eyes like to an Owl's; turns his mouth into the Form of a Hat cock'd up three ways; and also frames it in the manner of a four-square Buckle; licks his Nose with his Tongue, like a Cow; rolls one Eyebrow two inches up, the other two down; changes his face to such an astonishing Degree, as to appear like a Corpse long bury'd. Altho' bred wild so long, yet by travelling with the aforesaid Comedians 18 years, he can sing wonderfully fine, and accompanies his voice with a thorow Bass on the Lute. His former natural Estrangement from human conversation oblig'd _Mr. Cornwell_ to bring a Jackanapes over with him for his Companion, in whom he takes great Delight and Satisfaction." How many of these show creatures were impostors, and how many genuine eccentricities of human nature, it is impossible to say. Barnum's revelations have made us sceptical. But the numerous advertisements of this kind in the newspapers of the period show that the passion for monstrosities was as strongly developed in the latter half of the seventeenth century as at the present day. Barnes and Appleby's booth for tumbling and rope-dancing appears from the following advertisement, extracted from a newspaper of 1699, to have attended Bartholomew Fair the previous year:--