The narrator then proceeds to describe the duties of the leading actor in a Bartholomew Fair theatre, from which account there is some deduction to be made for the errors and exaggerations of a person writing long after the times which he undertakes to describe, and who was not very careful in his researches, as the statement that the fair then lasted three weeks or a month sufficiently attests. The picture which he gives was evidently drawn from his knowledge of the Richardsonian era, which he endeavoured to make fit into the Bartholomew Fair experiences of the very different showmen of the reign of George II. "I will," he says, assuming the character of an actor of the period he describes, "as we say, take you behind the scenes. First, then, an actor must sleep in the pit, and wake early to throw fresh sawdust into the boxes; he must shake out the dresses, and wind up the motion-jacks; he must teach the dull ones how to act, rout up the idlers from the straw, and redeem those that happen to get into the watch-house. Then, sir, when the fair begins, he should sometimes walk about the stage grandly, and show his dress; sometimes he should dance with his fellows; sometimes he should sing; sometimes he should blow the trumpet; sometimes he should laugh and joke with the crowd, and give them a kind of a touch-and-go speech, which keeps them merry, and makes them come in. Then, sir, he should sometimes cover his state robe with a great coat, and go into the crowd, and shout opposite his own booth, like a stranger who is struck with its magnificence: by the way, sir, that's a good trick,--I never knew it fail to make an audience; and then he has only to steal away, mount his stage, and strut, and dance, and sing, and trumpet, and roar over again." Griffin and Harper drop out of the list of showmen at the London fairs in this year. Griffin appeared at Drury Lane for the last time on the 12th of February, and died soon afterwards, with the character of a worthy man and an excellent actor. He made his first appearance at Lincoln's Inn Fields, as Sterling in _The Perplexed Lovers_, in 1714. Harper, the jolly, facetious low comedian, suffered an attack of paralysis towards the close of 1739, and, though he survived till 1742, he never appeared again on the stage.