It was in 1744 that the famous Turkish wire-walker appeared at Bartholomew Fair, where he performed without a balancing-pole, at the height of thirty-five feet. He juggled while on the wire with what were supposed to be oranges; but this feat lost much of its marvellousness on his dropping one of them, which revealed by the sound that it was a painted ball of lead. He had formidable rivals in the celebrated Violantes, man and wife, the latter of whom far exceeded in skill and daring the famous Dutch woman of the latter years of the seventeenth century. These Italian _artistes_, like the Turk, performed at a considerable height, which, while it does not require greater skill, gives the performance a much more sensational character. Violante is the slack-rope performer introduced by Hogarth in his picture of Southwark Fair. The following feat is recorded of the _artiste_ by Malcolm, in his 'Londinium Redivivus,' in connection with the building of the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields:--"Soon after the completion of the steeple, an adventurous Italian, named Violante, descended from the arches, head foremost, on a rope stretched across St. Martin's Lane to the Royal Mews; the princesses being present, and many eminent persons." Hogarth has introduced, in the background of his picture, another performer of this feat, namely, Cadman, who lost his life in 1740 in an attempt to descend from a church steeple in Shrewsbury. The epitaph on his gravestone sets forth the circumstances of the catastrophe as follows:-- "Let this small monument record the name Of Cadman, and to future times proclaim Here, by an attempt to fly from this high spire, Across the Sabrine stream, he did acquire His fatal end. 'Twas not for want of skill, Or courage to perform the task, he fell: No, no--a faulty cord, being drawn too tight, Hurried his soul on high to take her flight, Which bid the body here beneath good night." The fairs of London were in the zenith of their fame during the period embraced in this chapter. During the second quarter of the eighteenth century, they were resorted to by all classes of the people, even by royalty; and the theatrical booths by which they were attended boasted the best talent in the profession. They were not only regarded as the nurseries of histrionic ability, as the provincial theatres afterwards came to be regarded, but witnessed the efforts to please of the best actors of the London theatres, when in the noon of their success and popularity. Cibber, Quin, Macklin, Woodward, Shuter, did not disdain to appear before a Bartholomew Fair audience, nor Fielding to furnish them with the early gushings of his humour. The inimitable Hogarth made the light of his peculiar genius shine upon them, and the memories of the old showmen are preserved in more than one of his pictures. CHAPTER VI.