Bartholomew Fair

“ So early as the close of the seventeenth century, one hundred and fifty years before the fair was abolished, we find endeavours being made, in emulation of the Puritans, to banish every kind of amusement from Bartholomew Fair, and limit it to the purposes of an annual market. ”

“ There was published this year for R. Hine near the Royal Exchange, “A Walk to Smithfield, or a True Description of the Humours of Bartholomew Fair, with the very comical Intrigues and Frolics that are acted in every particular Booth in the Fair, by persons of all ages and sexes, from the Court Gallant to the Country Clown. With the Old Droll-Players’ Lamentation for the loss of their Yearly Revenues: being very Pleasing and Diverting.” ”

“ To make poor Pinkey eat with vast applause!”
He was celebrated for speaking prologues and epilogues. * He realised a good fortune by his Puppet-show, and kept a booth at Bartholomew Fair. Two volumes of “Jests” * bear his name. Many of them are as broad as they are long. His love-letter to Tabitha, the fair Quakeress, signed “Yea and Nay, from thy brother in the light,” is wickedly jocose.
Thus Bartholomew Fair, in 1701, boasted its full complement of mimes, mountebanks, vaulters, costermongers, *** gingerbread women, (“ladies of the basket!”) ”

“ In his play of “Bartholomew Fair,” we have John Littlewit, a proctor “o’ the Archdeacon’s-court,” and “one of the pretty wits o’ Paul’s” persuading his wife, Win-the-fight, to go to the Fair. He says “I have an affair i’ the Fair, Win, a puppet-play of mine own making.—I writ for the motion-man.” She tells him that her mother, dame Purecraft, will never consent; whereupon he says, “Tut, we’ll have a device, a dainty one: long to eat of a pig, sweet Win, i’ the Fair; do you see? i’ the heart o’ the Fair; not at Pye-corner. Your mother will do any thing to satisfie your longing.” ”

“ Lee had taken care to obtain a copy of the charter, and on the superintendent of police going to the theatre with the magistrate’s order for its immediate removal, he positively refused obedience to the mandate, and produced the charter. The superintendent thereupon apologised, and returned to the magistrate with the news of his discomfiture.
At Bartholomew Fair, Wombwell’s was the only show of any consequence. His collection had at [Pg 343] this time grown to be, not only the largest and best travelling, but equal, and in some respects superior, to any in the world. ”

“ Ben Jonson’s mention, in his “Bartholomew Fair,” of “the western man who is come to wrestle before the lord mayor anon,” is clearly of one who came up to the annual wrestling on Bartholomew’s-day. Concerning this “annual wrastling,” it is further noticed by Stow in another place, that about the feast of St. Bartholomew, wrestling was exhibited before the lord mayor and aldermen, at Skinnerswell near Clerkenwell, where they had a large tent for their accommodation. ”

“ When the Plague visited London in 1641 the theatres were closed and the players were thrown out of employment. This state of things is discussed in a dialogue between ‘Cane of the Fortune and Reed of the Friars,’ in a tract illustrated with a woodcut which was frequently used afterwards in broadsides. Bartholomew Fair, which was proclaimed for the last time in 1855, was in all its glory in the days of Charles I. A contemporary tract gives a graphic description of the fair, and is illustrated with a woodcut representing a man swallowing a serpent. ”

“ And some men, as scholars, are not much his betters.
Before the commencement of the last century, Bartholomew Fair had become an intolerable nuisance, and the lord mayor and aldermen, to abate its depravity, issued a prohibition on the 25th of June, 1700, against its lotteries and interludes. ”

“ In the same year he made at Bartholomew fair his first experiment as a showman, exhibiting a rude dramatic performance on a platform built out of a first-floor window, which was approached by a flight of stairs from the street; stalls for the sale of gingerbread stood beneath the structure. Twenty-one performances a day are said to have been given. ”

“ In the summer of 1750, a numerously signed petition of graziers, cattle salesmen, and inhabitants of Smithfield was presented to the Court of Aldermen, praying for the suppression of Bartholomew Fair, on the ground that it annoyed them in their occupations, and afforded opportunities for debauchery and riot. ”

“ I am an ass! I! and yet I kept the stage in master Tarleton’s time, I thank my stars. Ho! an that man had lived to have played in Bartholomew Fair, you should have seen him have come in, and have been cozen’d in the cloth-quarter, so finely! and Adams, the rogue, have leaped and capered upon him, and have dealt his vermin about, as though they had cost him nothing! and then a substantial watch to have stolen in upon them, and taken them away, with mistaking words, as the fashion is in the stage-practice.
Enter the Bookholder with a Scrivener. ”

“ Therefore, say the old writers, that Bartholomew Fair was frequented by “the clothiers of England and the drapers of London.” Mercers especially frequented fairs and markets, where their standings were gay with haberdashery, toys, and even drugs and spices, the small articles of traffic on which they throve. Mercers attending the French fairs towards the close of the thirteenth century paid only half-toll when they were not stall keepers, but exposed their wares on the ground. They, and the class of pedlers to which they were allied, may have enjoyed a like privilege in England. ”

“ The theatre and the corporation proved only occasional resources, and very soon after the revolution Settle fulfilled various predictions by letting himself out to write drolls for Bartholomew Fair, love-letters for maid servants, ballads for Pye Corner, and epithalamiums for half a crown. In Bartholomew Fair he served under the show-woman, Mrs. ”

“ In which time the author promiseth to present them by us, with a new sufficient play, called Bartholomew Fair, merry, and as full of noise, as sport: made to delight all, and to offend none; provided they have either the wit or the honesty to think well of themselves.
It is further agreed, that every person here have his or their free-will of censure, to like or dislike at their own charge, the author having now departed with his right: it shall be lawful for any man to judge his sixpen’worth, his twelvepen’worth, so to his eighteen-pence, two shillings, half a crown, to the value of his place ”

“ Any transcription of a 1910 edition of a Jacobean text will run into some minor problems, and “Bartholomew Fair” poses its own special set of challenges. The goal of the Everyman’s Library edition was to create a readable text, but editorial standards have changed since it was first published. Certain words from the Folio were censored. For example, “t—” is substituted for “turd”. The Everyman’s Library edition frequently spells out words that are contractions in the Folio, for example, substituting in for i’ and have for ha’. ”

“ They include the tragedy of Catiline (1611) , which achieved only a doubtful success, and the comedies of Volpone or The Fox (acted 1605) , Epiccene or The Silent Woman (1609) , the Alchemist (1610) , Bartholomew Fair (1614) , and The Devil is an Ass (1616) . During the same period he produced several masks, usually in connexion with Inigo Jones, with whom, however, he seems to have quarrelled already in this reign, though it is very doubtful whether the architect is really intended to be ridiculed in Bartholomew Fair under the character of Lanthorn Leatherhead. ”

“ Bring him a sixpenny bottle of ale: they say, a fool’s handsel is lucky.
Over. Bring both, child. [Sits down in the booth.] Ale for Arthur, and Beer for Bradley. Ale for thine aunt, boy. [Exit Mooncalf.] —My disguise takes to the very wish and reach of it. I shall, by the benefit of this, discover enough, and more: and yet get off with the reputation of what I would be: a certain middling thing, between a fool and a madman. [Aside.
[Pg 200]
Enter KNOCKEM.
Knock. What! my little lean Ursula! my she-bear! art thou alive yet, with thy litter of pigs to grunt out another Bartholomew Fair? ha! ”

“ Then the fair became frankly a place of amusement and pleasure with booths. These are the several stages of a fair: first, the exhibition and sale of its staple as wool; next, or in addition, its ordinary trade; thirdly, a catering for children and the lower class. All this time its shows and amusements are growing of more and more importance, until at length they become the principal object of the fair. Paul Hentzner, writing in 1598, describes St. Bartholomew’s Fair as follows:—
Habit of the Lord Mayor of London in 1640. ”

“ William Penkethman,” Old Gripe. There was dancing between the acts, and the Ridotto al fresco afterwards; and the advertisements add that, “to divert the audience during the filling of the booth, the famous Mr. Phillips will perform his surprising postures on the stage.”
[Pg 114] The newspapers of the time inform us that they had “crowded audiences,” and that “a great number of the nobility intend to honour them with their presence,” which they probably did. All classes then went to Bartholomew Fair, as in Pepys’ time ”

“ That side, in his view, is thoroughly black; the other side is thoroughly white. Fair-minded men are bound to take into consideration both cause and effect, and men incapable of doing this are not fitted to lead. I am sorry that Mr. Bartholomew has resigned the presidency of the Wilberforce; in addition to being a man of sound, advanced opinions, he was a restraining force. Do you think Kingsley Manners fit for the position?"
"I do not," replied Mr. Loveday, firmly, "and I have done all I could to dissuade him from standing for office. ”

“ Bartholomew, the first day of the fair in the year 1305, the traders and pleasure-seekers, the friars and the jesters, clothiers, tumblers, walkers upon stilts, hurried across the grass of Smithfield from the side on which the fair was being held, to the Gallows under the Elms, where officers of state and a great concourse of men awaited a most welcome spectacle. ”

“ Bartholomew shortly after delivered him from the presence of his adversaries in Paris.
Nevertheless, although suspicion might be strong, and the man's character as infamous as such suspicions could render it, yet the shop of Armandi was not less the resort of the beautiful and the fair, and even of the gentle and good: for it is most extraordinary how far female charity will extend towards those who contribute to the gratification of vanity and satisfy the thirst for novelty. ”

“ Bartholomew the Great and West Smithfield, London, and the streets, lanes and places adjoining, is now to be held a Fair for this day and the two days following, to which all people may freely resort and buy and sell according to the Liberties and Privileges of the said Fair, and may depart without disturbance, paying their duties. And all persons are strictly charged and commanded in His Majesty’s name, to help the peace, and to do nothing in the disturbance of the said Fair, as they will answer the contrary at their peril ”

“ Dominus Rex &c.—The Lord the King hath commanded the Custos and Sheriffs in these words: Edward by the Grace of God, to the Custos and Sheriffs of London, greeting. Whereas the Prior of St. Bartholomew, of Smithfield in the suburbs of London, by the Charters of our progenitors, Kings of England, claimeth to have a certain Fair there every year, during three days viz. on the Eve, the Day, and on the morrow of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, with all Liberties and Free Customs belonging to the Fair ”

“ The Fair’s pestilence dead methinks; people come not abroad to-day, whatever the matter is. Do you hear, sister Trash, lady of the basket? sit farther with your gingerbread progeny there, and hinder not the prospect of my shop, or I’ll have it proclaimed in the Fair, what stuff they are made on. ”

“ What pity ’tis yonder wench should marry such a Cokes!
Winw. ’Tis true.
Quar. She seems to be discreet, and as sober as she is handsome.
Winw. Ay, and if you mark her, what a restrained scorn she casts upon all his behaviour and speeches!
Cokes. Well, Numps, I am now for another piece of business more, the Fair, Numps, and then—
Waspe. Bless me! deliver me! help, hold me! the Fair!
Cokes. Nay, never fidge up and down, Numps, and vex itself. I am resolute Bartholomew in this; I’ll make no suit on’t to you; ’twas all the end of my journey indeed, to shew mistress Grace my Fair. ”

“ Market, that our Patrician Squire made his money. The estate at Hampstead was a very fair one, lying on the North side, Highgate way. Mr. Pinchin's Mamma, a Rare City Dame, had a Life Interest in the property, and, under the old Gentleman's will, had a Right to a Whole Sum of Ten Thousand Pounds if she married again. Thus it was that young Bartholomew was always in an agony of Terror to learn that his mamma had been seen walking on a Sunday afternoon in Gray's-Inn Gardens, or taking Powdered Beef and Ratafia at the tavern in Flask Walk, or drinking of Syllabubs at Bellasise ”

“ Enter ZEAL-OF-THE-LAND BUSY.
Pure. O brother Busy! your help here, to edify and raise us up in a scruple: my daughter Win-the-fight is visited with a natural disease of women, called a longing to eat pig.
Lit. Ay, sir, a Bartholomew pig; and in the Fair.
Pure. And I would be satisfied from you, religiously-wise, whether a widow of the sanctified assembly, or a widow’s daughter, may commit the act without offence to the weaker sisters.
Busy. Verily, for the disease of longing, it is a disease, a carnal disease, or appetite, incident to women ”