The success of the theatrical booths at the London fairs induced Lee, a theatrical printer in Blue Maid Alley, Southwark, and son-in-law of Mrs. Mynn, to set up one, which we first hear of at Bartholomew Fair in 1725, when the popular drama of the _Unnatural Parents_ was represented in it. Lee subsequently took into partnership in his managerial speculation the popular comedian, Harper, in conjunction with whom he produced, in 1728, a musical drama with the strange title of the _Quakers' Opera_, which, as well as the subject, was suggested by the extraordinary popularity of Gay's _Beggars' Opera_, the plot being derived from the adventures of the notorious burglar made famous in our time by Mr. Ainsworth's romance of 'Jack Sheppard.' It was adapted for the fairs from a drama published in 1725 as _The Prison-breaker_, "as intended to be acted at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln's Inn Fields." Fielding, the future novelist, appeared this year, and in several successive years, as a Bartholomew Fair showman, setting up a theatrical booth in George Yard. He was then in his twenty-third year, aristocratically connected and liberally educated, but almost destitute of pecuniary resources, though the son of a general and a judge's daughter, and the great grandson of an earl, while he was as gay as Sheridan and as careless as Goldsmith. On leaving Eton he had studied law two years at Leyden, but was obliged to return to England through the failure of the allowance which his father had promised, but was too improvident to supply. Finding himself without resources, and becoming acquainted with some of the company at the Haymarket, he found the means, in conjunction with Reynolds, the actor, to set up a theatrical booth in the locality mentioned, and afterwards, during Southwark Fair, at the lower end of Blue Maid Alley, on the green. Fielding and Reynolds drew their company from the Haymarket, and produced the _Beggars' Opera_, with "all the songs and dances, set to music, as performed at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields." Their advertisements for Southwark Fair inform the public that "there is a commodious passage for the quality and coaches through the Half Moon Inn, and care will be taken that there shall be lights, and people to conduct them to their places." In the following year Fielding and Reynolds had separate shows, the former retaining the eligible site of George Yard for Bartholomew Fair, and producing Colley's _Beggars' Wedding_, an opera in imitation of Gay's, which had been originally acted in Dublin, and afterwards at the Haymarket.