THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY:

OR, ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF OUR GRANDFATHERS.

BY ALEXANDER ANDREWS.

STREET FAIRS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

STREET FAIRS have passed away, but not without leaving a record behind; and here in our museum, beside the defunct public sports and amusements, will we devote a chapter to their memory-for May, Southwark, and Bartholomew Fairs must not be forgotten among the curiosities of the eighteenth century. They were right royally favoured in their time, and we must show them no disrespect. We find Sir Robert Walpole, when prime minister, visiting Bartholomew Fair; but, in 1740, Frederick, Prince of Wales, attended it with a troop of yeomen of the guard with lighted flambeaux. An anecdote is told of Garrick's visit to the fair, when we should opine that David's vanity must have sustained a little mortification. On tendering his money at the booth where "drolls" were exhibited, the cashier, recognising his features, rejected the proffered fee, saying, with admirable taste, "Sir, we never take money of one another."

The countenance of royalty encouraged exhibitions and entertainments of a superior order at these fairs. The performers from the Theatres Royal were not above appearing at Smithfield, Southwark, and May Fairs. In 1715, Dawks's News Letter, in announcing the preparations for Bartholomew Fair, says: "There is one great booth erected for the king's players in the middle of Smithfield. The booth is the longest that was ever built."

Lee and Harper attended Bartholomew and Southwark Fairs; and we find Pinkethman's company both at Southwark and May Fairs:

"Several constables visited Pinkethman's booth in Southwark Fair, and apprehended Pinkethman, with others of his company, just as they had concluded a play in the presence of near a hundred and fifty nob emen and gentlemen seated on the stage. They were soon liberated on making it appear that they were the king's servants."-September 13, 1717.

"Advices from the upper end of Piccadilly say that May Fair is utterly abolished; and we hear Mr. Pinkethman has removed his ingenious company of strollers to Greenwich."-Tatler, April 18, 1709. At a still later period we glean from the following hand-bills that the leading actors still had booths at these fairs:

"Bartholomew and Southwark Fairs, 1733:

"At Cibber, Griffin, Bullock, and Hallam's booths- Tamerlane,' intermixed with 'The Miser.'

"At Lee and Harper's booth-The True and Ancient History of Bateman; or, The Unhappy Marriage,' with the comical humours of Sparrow, Pumpkin, and Slicer; and the diverting scene of The Midwife and Gossips at a Labour.'

"At Lee and Harper's booth-Jephthah's Rash Vow; or, The Virgin Sacrifice,' with the comical humours of Captain Bluster and his man Diddimo. Jephthah, Hulett; Captain Bluster, Harper.

"At Fielding and Hippisley's, booth-Love and Jealousy; or, The Downfal of Alexander the Great;' with A Cure for Covetousness.' Lovell, Mrs. Pritchard.

"At Miller, Mills, and Oates's booth-Jane Shore,' with the comical humours of Sir Anthony Noodle and his man Weazle;" &c., &c.

May Fair, in 1701, lasted sixteen days, and seems to have struggled on against a presentment of the grand jury of Westminster in 1708, and the sharp surveillance of the grand jury of Middlesex in 1744, until the year 1756; but it is now only a memory and a name, the ground being occupied by the mansions of the nobility instead of the booths of mountebanks.

Bartholomew's fourteen-days fair continued, however, to a much later period, and, in its decline, was familiar to the present generation.

Hogarth has left us a representation of Southwark Fair, whence we may learn what were the general amusements at these fairs. There are the theatres, conjurers, jugglers, rope-dancers, raree-shows, dancing-dolls, and gingerbread-stalls of modern fairs; but there were other sports. which have long been unknown to us. Of these "ducking" was very attractive. Here is a hand-bill announcing a ducking-match, which will render a description of the sport unnecessary:

"At May Fair Ducking-Pond, on Monday next, the 27th June (1748), Mr. Hootton's dog, Nero (with hardly a tooth in his head to hold a duck, but well known by his goodness to all that have seen him hunt), hunts six ducks for a guinea against the bitch called the Flying Spaniel, from the ducking-pond on the other side of the water, who has beaten all she has hunted against excepting Mr. Hootton's Goodblood. To begin at two o'clock. Mr. Hootton begs his customers won't take it amiss to pay twopence admittance at the gate, and take a ticket which will be allowed as cash in their reckoning. None are admitted without a ticket, that such as are not liked may be kept out. Note-Right Lincoln Ale."

These ducking-matches were not confined to fairs, for we find the fol lowing advertisement in the Postman of August the 7th, 1707:

"A new ducking-pond, to be opened on Monday next, at Limehouse, being the 11th August; when four dogs are to play for four pounds, and a lamb to be roasted whole, to be given away to all gentlemen sportsmen. To begin at ten o'clock in the morning."

Another exhibition at these fairs was posturising. No distortion of the body was too grotesque or too unnatural-no deformity of the body too difficult to imitate. The posture-masters might be suspected of having neither bones nor muscles, so lissom was their whole frame. Now the toe was in the mouth-now at the back of the head; the legs were turned contrary ways, or the back of the head where the face should be. One of these worthies is thus announced by a hand-bill in 1711:

"From the Duke of Marlborough's Head, in Fleet-street, during the fair, is to be seen the famous posture-master, who far exceeds Clarke and Higgins. He twists his body into all deformed shapes, makes his hip and shoulder bones meet together, lays his head upon the ground, and

turns his body round twice or thrice without stirring his head from the place."

In 1736, we find by the papers that "an ass-race attracted vast crowds to May Fair;" but, at an earlier period, there appears to have been some business transacted there, as well as sports and pastimes. The following advertisement appeared in the London newspapers of April the 27th, 1700:

"In Brookfield Market-place, at the east corner of Hyde Park, is a fair to be kept for the space of sixteen days, beginning with the 1st of May; the first three days for live cattle and leather, with the same entertainments as at Bartholomew Fair; where there are shops to be let, ready built, for all manner of tradesmen that usually keep fairs. And so to continue yearly at the same place."

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"Merrie Islington" presented all the appearance of a fair throughout year; it might, in fact, be said to be a complete "fair-y land." There were booths for the exhibition of horsemanship, jugglers, &c.; shows for the performances of drolls, interludes, and pantomines; caravans of wild beasts; arenas for fighting, wrestling, and cudgelling. Of these, the most celebrated were the booths at the "Three Hats," Dobney's Jubilee Gardens, the Pantheon in Spa-fields, and Stokes's Amphitheatre. The following is a hand-bill issued from the latter:

"At Mr. Stokes's Amphitheatre, Islington-road, on Monday, 24th June, 1733, I, John Seale, citizen of London, give this invitation to the celebrated Hibernian hero, Mr. Robert Barker, to exert his utmost abilities with me, and I, Robert Barker, accept this invitation; and, if my antagonist's courage equal his menaces, glorious will be my conquest. Attendance at two. The masters mount at five. Vivant Rex et Regina."

But the glories of Islington are faded-its waste ground is covered. Spa-fields are fields no longer; and, instead of having Moorfields, we have fewer fields, and not a spare acre for a booth to be pitched upon. The street fairs of London are things that are gone.

TRADE AND COMMERCE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

ALTHOUGH we have given the general text of "Trade and Commerce" to the present chapter, it must not be supposed that we are going to enter into an elaborate history or essay on finance, the currency or the circulating medium, but only to introduce one or two curiosities which were features connected with the mercantile and commercial world of the last century.

The merchants congregated on 'Change as at present; and Addison's description of "full "Change" in 1709 might serve for an account of it in 1849; they also resorted to coffee-houses, as they do now, but they were, as well as the present, Garraway's, frequented by the better class of merchants and citizens-Robins's, for foreign bankers and ambassadors and Jonathan's, for stockbrokers; but these will be spoken of, among the tribe of coffee-houses, in another chapter.

These "merchant princes" (and well were they worthy of the title), at that time, lived in the centre of their business-they had not thought of the West-end-and their mansions were close to their counting-houses,

in Spital-square, Leadenhall-street, Fenchurch-street, Broad-street, and Austin-friars, Throgmorton-street, Bishopsgate-street, with Crosbysquare, and Great Saint Helen's, Billiter-street, Coleman-street, Basinghall-street, and (especially the rich Jew merchants) the streets forming the district of Goodman's-fields; and, in many of these old palaces of trade, now let out in chambers and counting-houses, the wide and sweeping staircase, carved oaken balustrades, massive panelling, richly-corniced ceilings, costly sculptured mantelpieces, large and thick window-sashes, and heavy doors, tell us of their former splendour. Many a fair, small foot has pressed the now ink-stained floor in the stately minuet or lively cotillon-many a sumptuous entertainment has been spread where the desks and stools now stand-many an emblazoned carriage has set down its passengers at the portals on which a string of names is now paintedand many a time and oft have the running footmen and linkbearers who accompanied it thrust their links into the giant extinguishers which, perchance, yet linger, rusty and battered, upon the columns of the gate.

The safe arrival of a convoy from the East or West Indies-the capture of a fleet of merchantmen by the enemy-the rise or fall of South-Sea Stock or India Bonds were added to the subjects which form the conversation on 'Change now-a-days, but, in other respects, the merchant of the eighteenth century and his pursuits were almost the same as they

are now.

Not so, however, the tradesman. He was an inveterate politician and frequenter of the coffee-house. A publication called the Dutch Prophet, issued early in the century, gives us the following notion of a tradesman's life in London at that time, in a kind of prospective diary of a day :"Wednesday: Several shopkeepers near St. Paul's will rise before six, be upon their knees at chapel a little after, promise God Almighty to live righteously and soberly before seven, tell fifty lies behind their counters by nine, and spend the rest of the morning over tea and tobacco at Child's Coffee-house."

Almost every tradesman's shop was distinguished by a particular sign, which swung creaking dismally over the footpath as the wind came down the street. Even the bankers exhibited their signs over their doors: Childs's was the "Marygold;" Hoare's, the "Leather Bottle" (still represented on their cheques); Snow's, the "Golden Anchor;" Gosling's, the "Three Squirrels ;" and Stone and Martin's, the "Grasshopper.' booksellers favourite signs were the "Bible and Crown" (still distinguishing Messrs. Rivington's establishment); the "Homer's Head," the "Shakspeare's Head," the "Three Bibles," the "Angel and Trumpet," the King's Arms," &c. A mercer's, in New Bond-street, was the "Coventry Cross ;" a baker's, in Clare-market, the "Seven Stars ;" and a quack medicine-vendor's, in Bride-lane, the "Golden Head.' Spectator has given us a disquisition on the rise and abuse of signs, and the anomalies they presented, and almost every one of Hogarth's works show us that they were generally adopted. In 1764 they had increased to such extravagant dimensions, each shopkeeper endeavouring, by enlarging his sign, to make it conspicuous behind his neighbour's, that they not only prevented the free circulation of air in the streets, but, being very heavy, and some of them weighing as much as four or five hundred pounds, they threatened the most fatal accidents to the passengers below.

In fact, in 1718, during an unusually high wind, one of these massive iron signs, opposite Bride-lane, in Fleet-street, was blown down, bringing with it the entire front of the house to which it was attached, and killing four persons and wounding several others. At length, in 1764, the Court of Common Council, taking into consideration the inconvenience and danger to which these huge signs subjected the citizens, ordered that all signs should be fastened against the houses with their faces to front the street, and not left to swing as formerly, so that the streets lost that singular appearance which a long line of swinging sign-boards gave them, and the signs themselves, no longer answering their intended purposes, were gradually discontinued.

The "circulating media" of this period were very different to the currency of the present time. There were, in addition to shillings, sixpences, halfpence, and farthings,-golden guineas, half-guineas, sevenshilling pieces, and quarter-guineas, dollars taken from the Spanish prizes and allowed to circulate, in a scarcity of specie, till re-coined at the Mint, and silver threepences and pence-copper pence not coming into existence till 1797.

Fines and penalties were often computed in marks, and, among similar cases, we find Henry and William Woodfall, the printers, were, on the 25th November, 1774, sentenced by the King's Bench to pay a fine of two hundred marks," for the publication of a seditious libel.

There were also one-pound notes issued by the Bank of England, and, for a time, copper twopenny-pieces coined at the Soho (Birmingham) Mint. But the most numerous class of coins taken by the shopkeepers in exchange for their wares, especially in the mining districts and manufacturing towns, were the tradesmen's tokens, or promissory counters, answering for pence, halfpence, and farthings (mostly of copper); and some few twopences and threepences of copper. These were issued from private mints, during a scarcity of copper, and were allowed to pass current (being, like the brass and other tokens of the previous century, a legal tender), each piece bearing the name and address of the issuer, who was compelled to give a one-pound note for two hundred and forty penny tokens, and always to honour them when presented. Some of them were of elegant design and execution, and of elaborate finish. The legends and inscriptions were various, according to the tastes or trades of their respective proprietors; and it is believed that upwards of two thousand varieties were coined between the years 1787 and 1798. Mr. Conder, of Ipswich, published what was considered a complete list of them; but several have been discovered and made known through the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine, which he has not included in his arrangement. They were principally issued by ironmasters and large manufacturers, employing a number of hands, who found that they at the same time facilitated their payments, and became a useful means of advertising. Such a system of course gave rise to much confusion, and not a little fraud in the forgery or slight variation of the several designs; but it was merely intended to answer a temporary purpose, and was suppressed when there was no longer any need for it.

While on the subject of the coinage, we may mention another fact or two connected with it. The offences of counterfeiting, and of clipping and defacing the coin of the realm, were very frequent in the last century;