its gew-gaws, bad beer, cheap shows, and riotous visitors. Ned Ward,
to whose descriptions modern readers are indebted, partly through the
aid of John Ashton,[A] for many a glimpse of old-time London life,
has left us a vivid picture of the fair as it appeared to him. The
entrance to it, he says, was like unto a "Belfegor's concert," with
its "rumbling of drums, mixed with the intolerable squalling of
catcalls and penny trumpets." Nor could the sense of smell have been
much better catered to than that of hearing, owing to the "singeing
of pigs and burnt crackling of over-roasted pork." Once within the
enclosure he saw all sorts of remarkable things, including the actors,
"strutting round their balconies in their tinsey robes and golden
leather buskins;" the rope-dancers, and the dirty eating-places, where
"cooks stood dripping at their doors, like their roasted swine's
flesh." Ward also looked on at several comedies, or "droles," being
enacted in the grounds, and, after coming to the conclusion that they
were like "State fireworks," and "never do anybody good but those that
are concerned in the show," he repaired to a dancing booth. Here he
had the privilege of watching a woman "dance with glasses full of
liquor upon the backs of her hands, to which she gave variety of
motions, without spilling."

[Footnote A: See Ashton's "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."]

All this may have a curious interest, but it looks a trifle
inconsistent, does it not, to lament the unjustness of connecting
puppet entertainments and the like with the stage, and then
deliberately devote space to the mysteries of Bartholomew Fair? It is
more to the purpose to speak of the two theatres which claimed the
attention of London playgoers in the year 1703--the Theatre Royal,
Drury Lane, and the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields.