Memoirs Of Joseph Grimaldi

MEMOIRS OP JOSEPH GKRIMAXDI.

31

called the Camber-well Beauty (which he adds was very ugly),
and another, the Dartford Blue, by which Dartford Blue he
seems to have set great store; and which were pursued and
caught in the manner following, in June, 1794, when they regu-
larly make their first appearance for the season.

Being engaged nightly at Sadler's Wells, he was obliged to
wait till he had finished his business upon the stage : then he
returned home, had supper, and shortly after midnight started
off to walk to Dartford, fifteen miles from town. Here he
arrived about five o'clock in the morning, and calling upon a
friend of the name of Brooks, who lived in the neighbourhood,
and who was already stirring, he rested, breakfasted, and sallied
forth into the fields. His search was not very profitable, however,
for after some hours he only succeeded in bagging, or bottling, one
" Dartford Blue," with which he returned to his friend perfectly
satisfied. At one o'clock he bade his friend good by, walked
back to town, reached London by five, washed, took tea, and
hurried to Sadler's "Wells. No time was to be lost—the fact of
the appearance of the " Dartford Blues" having been thoroughly
established—in securing more specimens; so on the same night,
directly the pantomime was over, and supper over, too, off he
walked down to Dartford again, found the friend up again,
took a hasty breakfast again, and resumed his search again.
Meeting with better sport, and capturing no fewer than four
dozen Dartford Blues, he hurried back to the friend's; set them
—an important process, which consists in placing the insects in
the position in which their natural beauty can be best displayed
.—started off with the Dartford Blues in his pocket for London
once more, reached home by four o'clock in the afternoon,
washed, and took a hasty meal, and then went to the theatre for
the evening's performance.

As not half the necessary number of Blues had been taken,
he had decided upon another visit to Dartford that same night,
and was consequently much pleased to find that, from some un-amous fly; one of these wasappearance on two slack wires, passing through a hoop, with a