Bartholomew Fair

2Gentlemen, have a little patience, they are e’en upon coming instantly. He that should begin the play, Master Littlewit, the proctor, has a stitch new fall’n in his black silk stocking: ’twill be drawn up ere you can tell twenty. He plays one o’the Arches, that dwells about the Hospital, andhe has a very pretty part. But for the whole play, will you ha’ the truth on’t? — I am looking lest the poet hear me, or his man, Master Brome, behind the arras — it is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English. When’t comes to the Fair once, you were e’en as good go to Virginia, for anything there is of Smithfield. He has not hit the humours: he does not know ’em; he has not conversed with the Barthol’mew-birds, as they say; he has ne’er a sword-and-buckler man in his Fair, nor a Little Davy to take toll o’the bawds there, as in my time; nor a Kindheart, if anybody’s teeth should chance to ache in his play. Nor a juggler with a well-educated ape to come over the chain for the King of England and back again for the Prince, and sit still on his arse for the Pope and the King of Spain! None o’these fine sights! Nor has he the canvas-cut i’the night for a hobby-horse-man to creep in to his she-neighbour and take his leap there! Nothing! No, an some writer that I know had had but the penning o’this matter, he would ha’ made you such a jig-a-jog i’the booths, you should ha’ thought an earthquake had been i’the Fair! But these master-poets, they will ha’ their own absurd courses; they will be informed of nothing! He has, sir-reverence, kicked me three or four times about the tiring house, I thank him, for but offering to put in with my experience. I’ll be judged by you, gentlemen, now, but for one conceit of mine! Would not a fine pump upon the stage ha’ done well for a property now? and a punk set under upon her head with her stern upward, and ha’ been soused by my witty young masters o’the Inns o’ Court? What think you o’this for a show now? He will not hear o’this! I am an ass! I! and yet I kept the stage in Master Tarlton’s time, I thank my stars. Ho! An that man had lived to have played in Barthol’mew Fair, you should ha’ seen him ha’ come in and ha’ been cozened i’the cloth-quarter so finely! And Adams, the rogue, ha’ leapt and capered upon him, and ha’ dealt his vermin about as though they had cost him nothing. And then a substantial watch to ha’ stol’n in upon ’em and taken ’em away, with mistaking words, as the fashion is in the stage-practice.

3How now? What rare discourse are you fall’n upon, ha? Ha’ you found any familiars here, that you are so free? What’s the business?

4Nothing, but the understanding gentlemen o’the ground here asked my judgement.

5Your judgement, rascal? For what? Sweeping the stage, or gathering up the broken apples for the bears within? Away, rogue, it’s come to a fine degree in these spectacles when such a youth as you pretend to a judgement. [Exit Stage-keeper.] And yet he may, i’the most o’this matter, i’faith, for the author hath writ it just to his meridian and the scale of the grounded judgements here, his play-fellows in wit. — Gentlemen, not for want of a prologue but by way of a new one, I am sent out to you here, with a scrivener and certain articles drawn out in haste between our author and you; which if you please to hear, and as they appear reasonable to approve of, the play will follow presently. Read, scribe, gi’ me the counterpane.

6Articles of Agreement indented between the spectators or hearers at the Hope on the Bankside in the County of Surrey on the one party, and the author of Barthol’mew Fair in the said place and county on the other party: the one and thirtieth day of October, 1614, and in the twelfth year of the reign of our sovereign lord, James, by the grace of God King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith. And of Scotland the seven and fortieth. IMPRIMIS, It is covenanted and agreed by and between the parties abovesaid that the said spectators and hearers — as well the curious and envious as the favouring and judicious, as also the grounded judgements and understandings — do for themselves severally covenant and agree to remain in the places their money or friends have put them in, with patience, for the space of two hours and an half and somewhat more. In which time the author promiseth to present them by us with a new sufficient play called Barthol’mew 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 sixpenn’orth, his twelvepenn’orth, so to his eighteen pence, two shillings, half a crown, to the value of his place — provided always his place get not above his wit. And if he pay for half a dozen, he may censure for all them, too, so that he will undertake that they shall be silent. He shall put in for censures here as they do for lots at the lottery: marry, if he drop but sixpence at the door and will censure a crown’s worth, it is thought there is no conscience or justice in that. It is also agreed that every man here exercise his own judgement, and not censure by contagion or upon trust from another’s voice or face that sits by him, be he never so first in the Commission of Wit; as also that he be fixed and settled in his censure, that what he approves or not approves today he will do the same tomorrow, and if tomorrow the next day, and so the next week (if need be), and not to be brought about by any that sits on the Bench with him, though they indict and arraign plays daily. He that will swear Jeronimo or Andronicus are the best plays yet shall pass unexcepted at here, as a man whose judgement shows it is constant and hath stood still these five and twenty or thirty years. Though it be an ignorance, it is a virtuous and stayed ignorance, and, next to truth, a confirmed error does well: such a one, the author knows where to find him. It is further covenanted, concluded, and agreed, that how great soever the expectation be, no person here is to expect more than he knows, or better ware than a fair will afford: neither to look back to the sword-and-buckler age of Smithfield, but content himself with the present. Instead of a Little Davy to take toll o’the bawds, the author doth promise a strutting horse-corser, with a leer drunkard — two or three to attend him in as good equipage as you would wish. And then for Kindheart the tooth-drawer, a fine oily pig-woman with her tapster to bid you welcome, and a consort of roarers for music. A wise justice of peace meditant, instead of a juggler with an ape. A civil cutpurse searchant. A sweet singer of new ballads allurant, and as fresh an hypocrite as ever was broached, rampant. If there be never a servant-monster i’the Fair, who can help it? he says — nor a nest of antics? He is loath to make nature afraid in his plays, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such-like drolleries, to mix his head with other men’s heels — let the concupiscence of jigs and dances reign as strong as it will amongst you. Yet if the puppets will please anybody, they shall be entreated to come in. In consideration of which, it is finally agreed by the foresaid hearers and spectators that they neither in themselves conceal, nor suffer by them to be concealed, any state-decipherer or politic picklock of the scene so solemnly ridiculous as to search out who was meant by the gingerbread-woman, who by the hobby-horse-man, who by the costermonger, nay, who by their wares. Or that will pretend to affirm (on his own inspired ignorance) what ‘ Mirror of Magistrates’ is meant by the Justice, what great lady by the pig-woman, what concealed statesman by the seller of mousetraps, and so of the rest. But that such person or persons so found, be left discovered to the mercy of the author, as a forfeiture to the stage and your laughter aforesaid. As also such as shall so desperately, or ambitiously, play the fool by his place aforesaid to challenge the author of scurrility because the language somewhere savours of Smithfield, the booth, and the pig-broth, or of profaneness because a madman cries ‘God quit you’ or ‘bless you’. In witness whereof, as you have preposterously put to your seals already — which is your money — you will now add the other part of suffrage, your hands. The play shall presently begin. And though the Fair be not kept in the same region that some here perhaps would have it, yet think that therein the author hath observed a special decorum, the place being as dirty as Smithfield, and as stinking every whit. Howsoever, he prays you to believe his ware is still the same, else you will make him justly suspect that he that is so loath to look on a baby or an hobby-horse here would be glad to take up a commodity of them at any laughter or loss in another place.