The ladder-dance was performed upon a light ladder, which the performer shifted from place to place, ascended and descended, without permitting it to fall. It was practised at Sadler's Wells at the commencement of the last century, and revived there in 1770. Strutt thought it originated in the stilt-dance, which appears, from an illumination of the reign of Henry III., to have been practised in the thirteenth century. Mrs. Mynn appears as a Bartholomew Fair theatrical manageress in 1707, when Settle, then nearly sixty years of age, and in far from flourishing circumstances, adapted to her stage his spectacular drama of the _Siege of Troy_, which had been produced at Drury Lane six years previously. Settle, who was a good contriver of spectacles, though a bad dramatic poet, reduced it from five acts to three, striking out four or five of the _dramatis personæ_, cutting down the serious portions of the dialogue, and giving greater breadth as well as length to the comic incidents, without which no Bartholomew audience would have been satisfied. As acted in her theatrical booth, it was printed by Mrs. Mynn, with the following introduction:-- "_A Printed Publication of an_ Entertainment _performed on a_ Smithfield Stage, _which, how gay or richly soever set off, will hardly reach to a higher Title than the customary name of a_ DROLL, _may seem somewhat new. But as the present undertaking, the work of ten Months' preparation, is so extraordinary a Performance, that without Boast or Vanity we may modestly say, In the whole_ several Scenes, Movements, _and_ Machines, _it is no ways Inferiour even to any one_ Opera _yet seen in either of_ the Royal Theatres; _we are therefore under some sort of Necessity to make this Publication, thereby to give ev'n the meanest of our audience a full Light into all the Object they will there meet in this_ Expensive Entertainment; _the_ Proprietors _of which have adventur'd to make, under some small Hopes, That as they yearly see some of their happier Brethren Undertakers in the_ FAIR, _more cheaply obtain even the Engrost Smiles of the_ Gentry _and_ Quality _at so much an easier Price; so on the other side their own more costly Projection (though less Favourites) might possibly attain to that good Fortune, at least to attract a little share of the good graces of the more Honourable part of the Audience, and perhaps be able to purchase some of those smiles which elsewhere have been thus long the profuser Donation of particular Affection and Favour._" In the following year, Settle arranged for Mrs. Mynn the dramatic spectacle of _Whittington_, long famous at Bartholomew Fair, concluding with a mediæval Lord Mayor's cavalcade, in which nine different pageants were introduced.