But this was far from being the sole amusement.  There were theatrical booths, in front of which were pictorial representations of the scenes to be enacted within; and anon a drummer emerged from one of them, thumping on a terribly lax drum, and followed by the entire dramatis personae, who ranged themselves on a wooden platform in front of the theatre.  They were dressed in character, but woefully shabby, with very dingy and wrinkled white tights, threadbare cotton-velvets, crumpled silks, and crushed muslin, and all the gloss and glory gone out of their aspect and attire, seen thus in the broad daylight and after a long series of performances.  They sang a song together, and withdrew into the theatre, whither the public were invited to follow them at the inconsiderable cost of a penny a ticket.  Before another booth stood a pair of brawny fighting-men, displaying their muscle, and soliciting patronage for an exhibition of the noble British art of pugilism.  There were pictures of giants, monsters, and outlandish beasts, most prodigious, to be sure, and worthy of all admiration, unless the artist had gone incomparably beyond his subject.  Jugglers proclaimed aloud the miracles which they were prepared to work; and posture-makers dislocated every joint of their bodies and tied their limbs into inextricable knots, wherever they could find space to spread a little square of carpet on the ground.  In the midst of the confusion, while everybody was treading on his neighbor’s toes, some little boys were very solicitous to brush your boots.  These lads, I believe, are a product of modern society,—­at least, no older than the time of Gay, who celebrates their origin in his “Trivia”; but in most other respects the scene reminded me of Bunyan’s description of Vanity Fair,—­nor is it at all improbable that the Pilgrim may have been a merry-maker here, in his wild youth.

It seemed very singular—­though, of course, I immediately classified it as an English characteristic—­to see a great many portable weighing-machines, the owners of which cried out continually and amain,—­“Come, know your weight!  Come, come, know your weight to-day!  Come, know your weight!”—­and a multitude of people, mostly large in the girth, were moved by this vociferation to sit down in the machines.  I know not whether they valued themselves on their beef, and estimated their standing as members of society at so much a pound; but I shall set it down as a national peculiarity, and a symbol of the prevalence of the earthly over the spiritual element, that Englishmen are wonderfully bent on knowing how solid and physically ponderous they are.