Merrie England in the Olden Time. George Daniel

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      rhyme.”

      Peckham and Blackheath fairs were celebrated places of resort in former times, and had their modicum of strange monsters.

      “Geo. I. R.

      “To the lovers of living curiosities. To be seen during the time of Peckham Fair, a Grand Collection of Living Wild Beasts and Birds, lately arrived from the remotest parts of the World.

      “1. The Pellican that suckles her young with her heart's, blood, from Egypt.

      “2. The Noble Vultur Cock, brought from Archangell, having the finest talions of any bird that seeks his prey; the fore part of his head is covered with hair, the second part resembles the wool of a Black; below that is a white ring, having a Ruff, that he cloaks his head with at night.

      “3. An Eagle of the Sun, that takes the loftiest flight of any bird that flies. There is no bird but this that can fly to the face of the Sun with a naked eye.

      “4. A curious Beast, bred from a Lioness, like a foreign Wild Cat.

      “5. The He-Panther, from Turkey, allowed by the curious to be one of the greatest rarities ever seen in England, on which are thousands of spots, and not two of a likeness.

      “6 & 7. The two fierce and surprising Hyaenas, Male and female, from the River Gambia. These Creatures imitate the human voice, and so decoy the Negroes out of their huts and plantations to devour them. They have a mane like a horse, and two joints in their hinder leg more than any other creature. It is remarkable that all other beasts are to be tamed, but Hyaenas they are not.

      “8. An Ethiopian Toho Savage, having all the actions of the human species, which (when at its full growth) will be upwards of five feet high.

      “Also several other surprising Creatures of different sorts. To be seen from 9 in the morning till 9 at night, till they are sold. Also, all manner of curiosities of different sorts, are bought and sold at the above place by John Bennett.”

      The grand focus of attraction was in the immediate vicinity of the “Kentish Drovers.” This-once merry hostelrie was a favourite suburban retreat of Dicky Suett. Cherub Dicky! who when (to use his own peculiar phrase) his “copper required cooling,” mounted the steady, old-fashioned, three mile an hour Peckham stage, and journeyed hither to allay his thirst, and qualify his alcohol with a refreshing draught of Derbyshire ale. The landlord (who was quite a character) and he were old cronies; and, in the snug little parlour behind the bar, of which Dicky had the entrée, their hob-and-nobbings struck out sparks of humour that, had they exhaled before the lamps, would have set the theatre in a roar. Suett was a great frequenter of fairs. He stood treat to the conjurors, feasted the tragedy kings and queens, and many a mountebank did he make muzzy. Once in a frolic he changed clothes with a Jack Pudding, and played Barker and Mr. Merriman to a precocious giantess; when he threw her lord and master into such an ecstacy of mirth, that the fellow vowed hysterically that it was either the devil, or (for his fame had travelled before him) Dicky Suett. He was a piscator, *

      * All sports that inflict pain on any living thing, without

       attaining some useful end, are wanton and cowardly. Wild

       boars, wolves, foxes, &c. may be hunted to extermination,

       for they are public robbers; but to hunt the noble deer, for

       the cruel pleasure of hunting him, is base.

       With all our love of honest Izaak Walton, we feel a

       shuddering when the “sentimental old savage” gives his

       minute instructions to the tyro in angling how most

       skilfully to transfix the writhing worm, (as though you

       “loved him!”) and torture a poor fish. Piscator is a

       cowardly rogue to sit upon a fair bank, the sun shining

       above, and the pure stream rippling beneath, with his

       instruments of death, playing pang against pang, and life

       against life, for his contemplative recreation. What would

       he say to a hook through his own gullet? Would it mitigate

       his dying agonies to hear his dirge (even the milkmaid's

       song!) chanted in harmonious concert with a brother of the

       angle, who had played the like sinister trick on his

       companion in the waters?

      and would make a huge parade of his rod, line, and green-painted tin-can, sallying forth on a fine morning with malice prepense against the gudgeons and perch: but Dicky was a merciful angler: he was the gudgeon, for the too cunning fishes, spying his comical figure, stole his bait, and he hooked nothing but tin pots and old shoes. Here he sat in his accustomed chair and corner, dreaming of future quarterns, and dealing out odd sayings that would make the man in the moon hold his sides, and convulse the whole planet with laughter. His hypocrene was the cream of the valley; *

      * Suett had at one time a landlady who exhibited an

       inordinate love for that vulgar fluid ycleped geneva; a

       beverage which Dicky himself by no means held in abhorrence.

       She would order her servant to procure supplies after the

       following fashion:—“Betty, go and get a quartern loaf and

       half a quartern of gin.” Off bolted Betty—she was speedily

       recalled: “Betty, make it half a quartern loaf and a

       quartern of gin.” But Betty had never got fairly across the

       threshold, ere the voice was again heard:—“Betty, on second

       thoughts, you may as well make it all gin!”

      he dug his grave with his bottle, and gave up the ghost amidst a troop of spirits. Peace to his manes! Cold is the cheerful hearth, where he familiarly stirred the embers and silent the walls that echoed to “Old Wigs!” chanted by Jeffery Dunstan when he danced hop-scotch on a table spread out with tumblers and tobacco-pipes! Hushed is the voice of song. At this moment, as if to give our last assertion what Touchstone calls “the lie direct,” some Corydon from Petty France, the Apollo of a select singing party in the first floor front room, thus musically apostrophised his Blouzellinda of Bloomsbury.

      She's all that fancy painted her, she's rosy without rouge,

      Her gingham gown a modest brown turned up with

      bright gamboge;

      She learns to jar the light guitar, and plays the harpsi-

      chols,

      Her fortune's five-and-twenty pounds in Three per Cent

      Consols.

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