end.

In spite of the changes of ownership the fair went on increasing with
the increase of the city. But the scene has changed. In the time of
James I the last elm tree had gone, and rows of houses, fair and
comely buildings, had sprung up. The old muddy plain had been drained
and paved, and the traders and pleasure-seekers could no longer dread
the wading through a sea of mud. We should like to follow the fair
through the centuries, and see the sights and shows. The puppet shows
were always attractive, and the wild beasts, the first animal ever
exhibited being "a large and beautiful young camel from Grand Cairo
in Egypt. This creature is twenty-three years old, his head and neck
like those of a deer." One Flockton during the last half of the
eighteenth century was the prince of puppet showmen, and he called his
puppets the Italian Fantocinni. He made his figures work in a most
lifelike style. He was a conjurer too, and the inventor of a wonderful
clock which showed nine hundred figures at work upon a variety of
trades. "Punch and Judy" always attracted crowds, and we notice the
handbills of Mr. Robinson, conjurer to the Queen, and of Mr. Lane, who
sings:

It will make you to laugh, it will drive away gloom,
To see how the eggs will dance round the room;
And from another egg a bird there will fly,
Which makes all the company all for to cry, etc.

The booths for actors were a notable feature of the fair. We read of
Fielding's booth at the George Inn, of the performance of the
_Beggar's Opera_ in 1728, of Penkethman's theatrical booth when _Wat
Taylor and Jack Straw_ was acted, of the new opera called _The
Generous Free Mason or the Constant Lady_, of _Jephthah's Rash Vow_,
and countless other plays that saw the light at Bartholomew Fair. The
audience included not only the usual frequenters of fairs, but even
royal visitors, noblemen, and great ladies flocked to the booths for
amusement, and during its continuance the playhouses of London were
closed.

I must not omit to mention the other attractions, the fireproof lady,
Madam Giradelli, who put melted lead in her mouth, passed red-hot iron
over her body, thrust her arm into fire, and washed her hands in
boiling oil; Mr. Simon Paap, the Dutch dwarf, twenty-eight inches
high; bear-dancing, the learned pig, the "beautiful spotted negro
boy," peep-shows, Wombell's royal menagerie, the learned cats, and a
female child with two perfect h