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Updated: May 23, 2025
Pell's friend in Pickwick; we, having employed the gentlemen from Astley's Antitheatre, had some decent sport for our money. Nabb, the bailiff, and Mr. Stubbs, his man, who came to lay hands upon him.
So the offer of the play tickets, and other pleasantries, put all parties into perfect good-humor, except for one brief moment, when one of the younger children, hearing the name of "Astley's" pronounced, came forward and stated that she should like very much to go, too; on which Fanny said, "Don't bother!" rather sharply; and mamma said, "Git-long, Betsy Jane, do now, and play in the court:" so that the two little ones, namely, Betsy Jane and Ameliar Ann, went away in their little innocent pinafores, and disported in the court-yard on the smooth gravel, round about the statue of Shepherd the Great.
A particular instance of this appears in Astley's collection, vol. 2. p. 73, where the author, speaking of the Mandingos settled at Galem, which is situated 900 miles up the Senegal, after saying that they carry on a commerce to all the neighbouring kingdoms, and amass riches, adds, "That excepting the vices peculiar to the Blacks, they are a good sort of people, honest, hospitable, just to their word, laborious, industrious, and very ready to learn arts and sciences."
You are only one witness you are a good fellow, but poor, and with very shaky nerves, Will. You does not know what them big wigs are when a roan's caged in a witness-box they flank one up, and they flank one down, and they bully and bother, till one's like a horse at Astley's dancing on hot iron. If your testimony broke down, why it would be all up with the case, and what then would become of us?
Then came the soldiery, a motley crew, with Monsieur Dorn at their head, drawn sword in hand, and next to him a personage who might have been translated clean from Astley's a gentleman in long hose, with a flower on each shoe, and a hat of red velvet shaped like a bread tray, decorated with prodigious coloured feathers, and a slashed doublet gay with many knots of bright ribbon.
If he contemplated writing "Hard Times," he arranged with the master of Astley's circus to spend many hours behind the scenes with the riders and among the horses; and if the composition of the "Tale of Two Cities" were occupying his thoughts, he could banish himself to France for two years to prepare for that great work.
In spite of the notoriety given him in the newspapers by his visit to Nurse Sarah, at his native place, he still remained in high favour with Sir Brian Newcome's family, where he paid almost daily visits, and was received with affection at least by the ladies and children of the house. Who was it that took the children to Astley's but Uncle Newcome?
At the same time, a small circular table that had been placed in the space opposite the guests suddenly, and as by magic, seemed to open in the centre, and cast up a fragrant shower, sprinkling the table and the guests; while as it ceased the awning above them was drawn aside, and the guests perceived that a rope had been stretched across the ceiling, and that one of those nimble dancers for which Pompeii was so celebrated, and whose descendants add so charming a grace to the festivities of Astley's or Vauxhall, was now treading his airy measures right over their heads.
Into it, although the scene is laid in Greece, Chaucer has, with a fine scorn of anachronism, poured all the splendour, colour, pomp, and circumstance of the fourteenth century. It is brilliant as a banner displayed to the sunlight. It is real cloth of gold. Compared with it, "Ivanhoe" is a spectacle at Astley's.
We stopped the cab at a boot shop a little past Astley's Theatre that looked the sort of place we wanted. It was one of those overfed shops that the moment their shutters are taken down in the morning disgorge their goods all round them. Boxes of boots stood piled on the pavement or in the gutter opposite. Boots hung in festoons about its doors and windows.
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