[Illustration: Clipping from the London _Post_, August 16th, 1736, when
young Fawkes was playing alone. From the Harry Houdini Collection.]
At their request he showed them "a prospect of Algiers, and raised up an
apple-tree which bore ripe fruit in less than a minute's time, which
several of the company tasted of."
Fawkes, too, had a son, and thus the partnership and the friendship
which had existed between the elder Fawkes and the elder Pinchbeck were
carried on by the second generation. All of the marvellous apparatus
made by Pinchbeck the elder, for Fawkes, may have been bequeathed by the
latter to his son, but, in 1732, Pinchbeck the elder and Fawkes the
younger were in a booth together, and Pinchbeck was advertised as doing
"the dexterity of hand" performances. After Christopher Pinchbeck, Sr.,
died, young Fawkes started out on his own account. In 1746, according to
an advertisement in my collection, a Fawkes and a Pinchbeck were
together again, so the son of Pinchbeck must have joined the younger
Fawkes for exhibition purposes. The accompanying clippings from
contemporary publications trace the history of young Fawkes, and prove
that the tree which bore fruit in a minute's time was still on his
programme.
[Illustration: Reproduction of page 1226 of Hone's "Every-Day Book" in
the Harry Houdini Collection. This is a portrait of Fawkes, engraved on
a fan by Setchels in 1721 or 1728. Fans like these were distributed at
the Bartholomew Fair.]
For many years it was supposed that only one portrait of Fawkes was in
existence, but it now seems that three were made. I publish them all,
something which no one has ever before been able to do. One was taken
from a Setchels fan published about 1728, although some authorities say
1721. It appeared in Hone's "Every-Day Book," page 1226. Another, I
believe, was engraved by Sutton Nicols, as Hone mentions it in his
description of Fawkes. In the fan engraving, it will be noticed that
there appears a man wearing a star on his left breast. It is said that
this is Sir Robert Walpole, who was Prime Minister while Fawkes was at
the height of his success, and who was one of the conjurer's great
admirers. Hogarth also placed Fawkes in one of his engravings as the
frontispiece of a most diverting brochure on "Taste," in which he
belittles Burlington Gate. This makes the third portrait from my
collection herewith reproduced.
According to an article contributed by Mons. E. Raynaly in the
_Illusionniste_ of June, 1903, the orange tree next appeared in the
répertoire of a remarkable peasant conjurer, whose billing Mons. Raynaly
found among "Affiches de Paris." This performer was billed as the
Peasant of North Holland, and gave hourly performances at the yearly
fairs at Saint-Germain.
It is more than possible that he purchased this trick from Fawkes or
Pinchbeck, having seen it at the Bartholomew Fair in England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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