Our last visit to Mr. Mathews at Kentish Town was in March, 1833. "'Tis agony point with me just now," he writes. "I have been scribbling from morning till night for three weeks.
I am hurried with my entertainment: my fingers are cramped with writing; and on my return, I find twenty-five letters, at least, to answer. I shall be at home Tuesday and Wednesday; can you come up? Do. Very sincerely yours, in a gallop, Charles Mathews.--P.S. It will be your last chance of seeing my gallery here" We accepted the invitation, and spent a delightful day.
What more than a hasty glance can we afford the Wild Indian Warriors; the Enchanted Skeleton; Comical Joe on his Piggy-Wiggy; the Canadian Giantess; Toby, the sapient pig; the learned goose; * Doncaster Dick, the great; Mr. Paap, ** Sieur Borawliski, Thomas Allen, and Lady Morgan the little; the wonderful child (in spirits) with two heads, three legs, and four arms ("no white leather, but all real flesh"); the Bonassus, "whose fascinating powers are most wonderful." the Chinese Swinish Philosopher (a rival of Toby!).
* "It tells us the time of day; the day of the month; the month of the year; takes a hand at whist; and (the profundity of this goose's intellects!) counts the number of ladies and gentleman in the room."
** Mr. Simon Paap was the most diminutive of dwarfs, not excepting Jeffery Hudson, and the "Little Welchman" who, in 1752, advertised his thirty inches at sixpence a-head. Simon measured but twenty-eight inches, and weighed only twenty- seven pounds. Count Borawliski was three feet three inches high; so was Thomas Allen. Lady Morgan, the "Windsor Fairy," was a yard high. Her Ladyship and Allen were thus be-rhymed by some Bartlemy Fair bard:
"The lady like a fairy queen, The gentleman of equal stature; O how curious these dear creatures! Little bodies! little features! Hands, feet, and all alike so small, How wondrous are the works of nature!"
Mrs. Samwell's voltigeurs on the slack-wire, and Tyrolesian stilts; the Spotted Negro Boy; Hokee Pokee; the learned dog near-sighted, and in spectacles; the Red Barn Tragedy, and Corder's * execution "done to the life!" the Indian Jugglers; the Reform Banquet; Mr. Haynes, the fire-eater; ** the Chinese Conjuror, who swallows fifty needles, which, after remaining some time in his throat, are pulled out threaded; the chattering, locomotive, laughing, lissom, light-heeled Flying Pieman; and the diverting humours of Richardson's clown, Rumfungus Hook-umsnoolcumwalkrisky? This ark of oddities *** must