From this mass of evidence I am producing various clippings. By a peculiar coincidence one of these I believe offers the most authentic and earliest record of “two a night” performances in England.
In my collection are a number of other clippings from the press of the same year, in April and May, 1728, but none of them says “twice a night,” therefore I judge that the custom of giving two performances in a night was tried previously to April, 1728, and then abandoned, or after the first of May.
In the London Post of February 7th, 1724, Fawkes announced an exhibition “in the Long Room over the piazza at the Opera House in the Haymarket.” At this time he also advertised the fact that he was about to retire and was exposing all his tricks. The clipping of that date from my collection has the following foot-note: “Likewise he designs to follow this business no longer than this season; so he promises to learn any lady or gentleman his fancies in dexterity of hand for their own diversion.”
When Fawkes was not in partnership with some puppet showman, he always advertised his own puppets as “A court of the richest and largest figures ever shown in England, being as big as men and women!” His admission charges varied, but 12 pence seemed his favorite figure. About six years before his death he had his own theatre in James Street, near the Haymarket, in which he exhibited for months at a time before and after fairs.
I reproduce a clipping from my collection showing Fawkes’ last program. Here it will be seen that his first trick was causing a tree to grow up in a flower-pot on the table, and bear fruit in a minute’s time. In The Gentlemen’s Magazine, that oft-quoted and most reliable periodical, of February 15th, 1731, readers were informed that the Algerian Ambassadors witnessed Fawkes’ performance.
At their request he showed them “a prospect of Algiers, and raised up an apple-tree which bore ripe fruit in less than a minute’s time, which several of the company tasted of.”
Fawkes, too, had a son, and thus the partnership and the friendship which had existed between the elder Fawkes and the elder Pinchbeck were carried on by the second generation. All of the marvellous apparatus made by Pinchbeck the elder, for Fawkes, may have been bequeathed by the latter to his son, but, in 1732, Pinchbeck the elder and Fawkes the younger were in a booth together, and Pinchbeck was advertised as doing “the dexterity of hand” performances. After Christopher Pinchbeck, Sr., died, young Fawkes started out on his own account. In 1746, according to an advertisement in my collection, a Fawkes and a Pinchbeck were together again, so the son of Pinchbeck must have joined the younger Fawkes for exhibition purposes. The accompanying clippings from contemporary publications trace the history of young Fawkes, and prove that the tree which bore fruit in a minute’s time was still on his programme.
For many years it was supposed that only one portrait of Fawkes was in existence, but it now seems that three were made. I publish them all, something which no one has ever before been able to do. One was taken from a Setchels fan published about 1728, although some authorities say 1721. It appeared in Hone’s “Every-Day Book,” page 1226. Another, I believe, was engraved by Sutton Nicols, as Hone mentions it in his description of Fawkes. In the fan engraving, it will be noticed that there appears a man wearing a star on his left breast. It is said that this is Sir Robert Walpole, who was Prime Minister while Fawkes was at the height of his success, and who was one of the conjurer’s great admirers. Hogarth also placed Fawkes in one of his engravings as the frontispiece of a most diverting brochure on “Taste,” in which he belittles Burlington Gate. This makes the third portrait from my collection herewith reproduced.
According to an article contributed by Mons. E. Raynaly in the Illusionniste of June, 1903, the orange tree next appeared in the répertoire of a remarkable peasant conjurer, whose billing Mons. Raynaly found among “Affiches de Paris.” This performer was billed as the Peasant of North Holland, and gave hourly performances at the yearly fairs at Saint-Germain.
It is more than possible that he purchased this trick from Fawkes or Pinchbeck, having seen it at the Bartholomew Fair in England.
He featured the orange tree as follows: “He has a Philosophical Flower Pot, in which he causes to grow on a table in the presence of the spectators trees which flower, and then the flowers fall, and fruit appears absolutely ripe and ready to be eaten.”
His posters are dated 1746–47 and 1751.
The next programme on which the mysterious tree appears is a Pinetti handbill, dated in London, 1784, when the following announcement was made:
“Signore Pinetti will afterwards present the assembly with a Tree called Le Bouquet-philosophique composed of small branches of an orange-tree, the leaves appearing green and natural. He will put it under a bottle, and at some distance, by throwing some drops of water of his own composition, the leaves will begin to change and the bouquet will produce natural flowers and various fruits.”