Bentley's Miscellany (Volume 9 (1841))

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1841. Excerpt: ... which he intended to exhibit as a fairy; and another was rasping the rough chin of a muzzled bear, that bore the operation with exemplary patience, sitting in an arm-chair, dressed in a check waistcoat and trowsers, in his professional character of an Ethiopian savage! A conjuror was looking at a large dragon-fly through a magnifying glass, to see how it would pass off for the great high German highter-flighter; and the proprietor of an aviary was supplying a young blackbird with an artificial comb and wattles of red velvet, to find a customer for him as the great cocky, or olla bird of the desert. A showman was mending the fractured bridge of Mr. Punch's red nose, while his stage-manager tried a new tail on the devil.1 The master of the monster tea-kettle, who had recently been up the spout, was tricking out his red-haired, strapping Dulcinea with peacock's feathers, bits of stained glass, catskins, strips of coloured leather, and teaching her to sing some unintelligible gibberish for the purpose of extracting from the Bartholomew Fair gulls a penny for the prodigious sight of a real wild Indian. A mermaid was in process of completion; a dog was practising a minuet with a monkey, to see how his fifth leg fitted him; a learned pig1 was going through his lesson in numbers and cards; a cat of extraordinary intelligence was feeding a kitten with starch, to make it stand upright; a monkey instructed an intellectual goose how to carry a pair of miniature milkpails; a poetical licensed victualler had just painted on his board, which Was emblazoned with the sign of the Griffin and Hoop, the following lines in capitals, I, John Stubbs lyveth hear, Sels goode Brandy, Gin, and Bere, I maid mi bonle a leetle whyder, To let you nowe I sels goode Syder: ' Why, ' q...