John Sleep, or Sleepe, was a wide-awake man in "mirth and pastime famous for his mummeries and mum; of a locomotive turn, and emulated the zodiac in the number of his signs. He kept the Gun, in Salisbury Court, and the King William and Queen Mary in Bartholomew Fair; the Rose, in Turnmill Street (the scene, under the rose! of Falstaff's early gallantries ); and the Whelp and Bacon in Smithfield Rounds. That he was a formidable rival to the Messrs. Root; a "positive" fellow, and a polite one; teaching his Scaramouches civility, (one, it seems, had made a hole in his manners!) and selling "good wines, &C." let his comically descriptive advertisement to "all gentlemen and ladies" pleasantly testify.
"John Sleepe keepeth the sign of the King William and Queen Mary, in Smithfield Rounds, where all gentlemen and ladies will be accommodated with good wines, &c. and a variety of musick, vocal and instrumental; besides all other mirth and pastime that wit and ingenuity can produce.
"A little boy dances the Cheshire rounds; a young gentlewoman dances the saraband and jigg extraordinary fine, with French dances, that are now in fashion; a Scotch dance, composed by four Italian dancing-masters, for three men and a woman; a young gentlewoman dances with six naked rapiers, so fast, that it would amaze all beholders; a young lad dances an antick dance extraordinary finely; another Scotch dance by two men and one woman, with a Scotch song by the woman, so very droll and diverting, that I am positive did people know the comick humour of it, they would forsake all other booths for the sight of them."
In the following bill Mr. Sleep becomes still more "_wonderful and extraordinary_--
"John Sleep now keeps the Whelp and Bacon in Smithfield Rounds, where are to be seen, a young lad that dances a Cheshire round to the admiration of all people, The Silent Comedy, a dance representing the love and jealousy of rural swains, after the manner of the Great Turk's mimick dances performed by his mutes; a lad that tumbles to the admiration of all beholders; a young woman that dances with six naked rapiers, to the wonderful divertisement of all spectators; & young man that dances after the Morocco fashion, to the wonderful applause of all beholders; a nurse-dance, by a woman and two drunkards, wonderful diverting to all people; a young man that dances a hornpipe the Lancaster way, extraordinary finely; a lad that dances a Punch, extraordinary pleasant and diverting; a grotesque dance, called the Speak-ing Movement, shewing in words and gestures the humours of a musick booth, after the manner of the Venetian Carnival; and a new Scaramouch, more civil than the former, and after a far more ingenious and divertinger way!"