Note 312 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 3)
Reading edition
Flockton was for nearly half a century a showman at St. Bartholomew’s and Sturbridge Fairs. These lines appeared on some of his bills:—
“To raise the soul by means of wood and wire, To Screw the fancy up a few pegs higher; In miniature to show the world at large, As folks conceive a ship who’ve seen a barge, This is the scope of all our actors’ play, Who hope their wooden aims will not be thrown away!”
He died at Camberwell, April 12, 1794, leaving £5000, most of which he bequeathed to his company. An engraving of his show bears the almost Yankee inscription, “The Only Booth in the Fair;” and on the balustrade of the stairs to its entrance is inscribed the curiously modern injunction, “Tumble up! tumble up!”