"At Mr. Barnes's and Mr. Appleby's Booth, between the Crown Tavern and the Hospital Gate, over against the Cross Daggers, next to Miller's Droll Booth, in West Smithfield, where the English and Dutch Flaggs, with Barnes's and the two German Maidens' pictures, will hang out, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be seen the most excellent and incomparable performances in Dancing on the Slack Rope, Walking on the Slack Rope, Vaulting and Tumbling on the Stage, by these five, the most famous Companies in the Universe, viz., The English, Irish, High German, French, and Morocco, now united. The Two German Maidens, who exceeded all mankind in their performances, are within this twelvemonth improved to a Miracle." In this year I find the following advertisement of a music booth, which must have been one of the earliest established:-- "THOMAS DALE, Drawer at the Crown Tavern at Aldgate, keepeth the TURK'S HEAD _Musick Booth_, in Smithfield Rounds, over against the _Greyhound_ Inn during the time of _Bartholomew Fair_, Where is a Glass of good Wine, Mum, Syder, Beer, Ale, and all other Sorts of Liquors, to be Sold; and where you will likewise be entertained with good Musick, Singing, and Dancing. You will see a Scaramouch Dance, the Italian Punch's Dance, the Quarter Staff, the Antick, the Countryman and Countrywoman's Dance, and the Merry Cuckolds of Hogsden. "Also a young Man that dances an Entry, Salabrand, and Jigg, and a Woman that dances with Six Naked Rapiers, that we Challenge the whole Fair to do the like. There is likewise a Young Woman that Dances with Fourteen Glasses on the Backs and Palms of her Hands, and turns round with them above an Hundred Times as fast as a Windmill turns; and another Young Man that Dances a Jigg incomparably well, to the Admiration of all Spectators. _Vivat Rex._" James Miles, who announced himself as from Sadler's Wells, kept the Gun music-booth in the fair, and announced nineteen dances, among which were "a dance of three bullies and three Quakers;" a cripples' dance by six persons with wooden legs and crutches, "in imitation of a jovial crew;" a dance with swords, and on a ladder, by a young woman, "with that variety that she challenges all her sex to do the like;" and a new entertainment, "between a Scaramouch, a Harlequin, and a Punchinello, in imitation of bilking a reckoning." We shall meet with James Miles again in the next chapter and century. CHAPTER IV.