Opening of the Holborn Amphitheatre—Friend’s season at Astley’s—Adah Isaacs Menken—Sanger’s Company at the Agricultural Hall—The Carré troupe at the Holborn Amphitheatre—Wandering Stars of the Arena—Albert Smith and the Clown—Guillaume’s Circus—The Circo Price—Hengler’s Company at the Palais Royal—Re-opening of Astley’s by the Sangers—Franconi’s Circus—Newsome’s Circus—Miss Newsome and the Cheshire Hunt—Rivalry between the Sangers and Howes and Cushing.
After the lapse of several years, during which no equestrian performances were given in the metropolis, though gymnastic and acrobatic feats were exhibited nightly at a score of music-halls, a new amphitheatre was, in 1868, erected on the north side of Holborn. There, under the excellent management of Messrs Charman and Maccollum, have been exhibited some of the finest acts of horsemanship, and the most striking gymnastic feats, ever witnessed by this or any other generation. Alfred Bradbury’s wonderful jockey act; James Robinson’s great feat of hurdle-leaping on the bare back of a horse with a boy standing upon his shoulders; the marvellous leap through a series of hoops of George Delavanti; the astounding gymnastic performances of the Hanlons and the Rizarelis; the extraordinary somersaulting and rocket-like bound of the young lady known as Lulu; and the graceful riding of Beatrice Chiarini, without saddle or bridle, will not soon be forgotten by those who had the gratification of witnessing them.
In the same year that the Holborn Amphitheatre was opened, Astley’s was re-opened as a circus by Mr Friend. The chief attraction upon which Mr Friend relied was the impersonation of Mazeppa by Adah Isaacs Menken, a young lady of Jewish extraction, who came from America with the reputation of a female Crichton of the nineteenth century. According to a biographical sketch prefixed to a Paris version of the drama, _The Pirate of the Savannah_, in which she appeared in that city, she had written verses and essays at an age at which other girls are occupied with dolls, and translated the _Iliad_ in her thirteenth year. In Latin and Hebrew, Spanish and German, she was as proficient as in Greek; French, her enthusiastic Gallic biographer does not seem to consider it necessary to mention. Her mother being left in reduced circumstances at her second widowhood, Adah resolved to devote her natural talents and acquired accomplishments to the stage, and made her appearance as a dancer at the opera-house at New Orleans, of which city she was a native.